Did she really say that?

We have accomplished quite a bit since my last update! The baby's room is painted and all of her furniture is built! We have everything that we have for her put away, well it is at least in drawers or about where I think I want it, but we all know I will move things about 20 times before I decide where I want everything!

I am really looking forward to the 'family' shower on Saturday. Brittany has done an amazing job planning it and I can't wait to see how it all turns out! It is going to be great to catch up with everyone. Oh, and very excited about the food, but bummed I can't eat it all, stupid gestational diabetes! Oh well, I will eat what I can!

Speaking of gestational diabetes, I am doing awesome with it. I admit that I cheated once, but my results still came out okay. When we were in St. Louis for the Cardinal game with the family, it was an all you can eat buffet with amazing food and I stuck to my eating plan, except that I stole a little bite of Jason's brownie. It was seriously the best brownie ever, and I'm sure that anyone that was there with us would agree, or maybe it was just the fact that I hadn't had one in a long time! Anyways I have to test my blood sugar four times a day and I started on a medicine a week ago because my body was still producing too much insulin and my hormones were going crazy. Since I've started the medicine, my numbers have been great, and maybe even a little on the low side! My average is supposed to be around 110 and its now at 104. I have an appointment up there Wednesday afternoon for a sono, but I have to talk to the diabetes educator twice a week so I'm getting to know her pretty well!

Speaking of getting to know people pretty well, it looks like by the end of this pregnancy I will know everyone at my regular doctor's office pretty well. I had a routine checkup on Tuesday and everything went well. Gained the appropriate amount of wait, good blood pressure, no sugar in my urine, and her heartbeat was 150 beats per minute. However, Dr. Brinkman told me that starting on May 10th I will be seeing them twice a week for non-stress tests which take at least an hour. Needless to say, I'm not too thrilled about this, but this is routine for women with gestational diabetes and I would rather be safe than sorry. On my way home from the doctors appointment I called my mom and Brittany to tell them what she said and they were both shocked as I will only be just over 32 weeks on the 10th and 'normal' women with 'normal' pregnancies start seeing the doctor weekly at 36 weeks. When I got home, I asked Devin as soon as I got out of the car, "So, did she really say twice a week or was I just hearing things?" he said she definitely said that. I'm still hoping that we both heard wrong, but I'm pretty sure thats not the case! I guess I will just have to find some good books to read during these tests. The tests themselves aren't bad. They have a room with some nice recliners and they put a monitor on your belly to monitor the babies heartbeat and if you are having any contractions. The tests take at least an hour and that is if the baby cooperates! Then after the tests I will probably have to see the doctor to get the results. So, I'm just planning on reading during the tests or I may start a crocheting project or something. My favorite author just released a new book so that is the first thing I plan on doing during the tests!

I hope to be able to take some pictures at the baby shower, or have someone take some for me and I will try and update again this weekend with both pictures of the shower and pictures of the nursery!

Thanks for checking in!

Picture time...

I've been slacking on uploading pictures so I hope this post makes up for it! I had another doctors appointment this past Tuesday, April 13th. Nothing new, it was just a regular, boring appointment at my regular doctors office. Her heartbeat was 156 beats per minute. I start seeing my regular doctor now every two weeks since I am high risk, and the every week visits will start before I know it. I think I was told 32 weeks at some point. Oh joy! So now I go back to my regular doctor April 27th and the specialist for another sono on May 5th if not before. My blood sugars are a smidge higher than they should be so I called today. I may have to go in next week. They are thinking of starting me on a medicine to help regulate. I am eating everything I should and avoiding things that I should, but after the first week my body apparently has gotten used to this and is smarter than I am, so therefore my placenta is making extra insulin, resulting in the higher tests. As I understand it they are concerned about both the baby and the placenta getting to big, so the medicine is suppossed to tell the placenta to not make insulin. We shall see! The diabetes lady is calling me again Monday.

The first few pictures are from my most recent sono on April 6th. I was 27 weeks and 4 days along. Not really sure what body parts are in some of the pictures sorry!

This is the face.

I think this may also be the face, but am not really sure!

I have absolutely no clue on this one!

Finally a good profile picture! She is sucking on her hand/thumb it looks like.

This is the outfit I bought after I found out we are having a little girl!

On Sunday, Mike and Stacy came over and helped Devin tape and prime the room, to prepare for painting it. The bedding was supposed to arrive on Tuesday, but didn't show up until Thursday. So, they came over tonight along with Patrick and my mom to help paint!

This is the bedding set as shown at babiesrus.com.

And the painting begins...I was worried that it looked blue at this point.

Then I looked at the can, and it is definitely teal!

Half the wall is done!

The big wall and angled wall are done! Looks so awesome with the dark furniture. The cirb is going to be centered on the big wall and we hope to do a stencil with her name, or wooden letters in either lime or yellow after she is here.

Closet is painted! We had to paint it because the old closet organizer left some big holes!

Close up of the paisley on the bedding! Even though I work at a quilt shop I would have never thought to put teal and lime together, but it works!

Bedding next to the painted wall.

I supervised Romeo (Patrick's dog) and Mocha while everyone was busy painting.

Swarley was on bug duty! He had fun chasing a little moth around! I couldn't leave him out of the pictures!

Tomorrow we are heading down to St. Louis for a Cardinals game. I can't wait to get back and get the tape off and start putting things where they should be! We still have to get the closet organizer up and build the dresser. I've been waiting weeks to put baby stuff away and the time is getting closer!

Thanks for checking in and sorry again it took me so long to post all these pictures!

Drum Roll Please.....

As many of you probably already know, yesterday we were told that we are having a little girl! We couldn't be more excited, although we had a sneaking suspicion that it was a girl from the first sono! It is great to finally know, so that we can start planning. Since, I am two days shy of 28 weeks all of the planning and preparing is going to happen in a short time!

Yesterday was my third appointment up at the specialists office and my fourth sono. The sono was great, despite having the tech that we had last time and didn't like. She seemed a little more lively yesterday which was good. She told us she was unable to see what the baby was and she looked a few different times and had me lay on my side and everything. At the end of the sono up there the tech leaves the room, confers with the doctor, nurse, and whoever else you are seeing up there and then they all come in for the last minutes of your sono where the doctor is looking around. So yesterday at the end, we had the nurse, the tech, the doctor, and the gestational diabetes educator all in the room. The doctor started up the sono machine again and said "I vote for girl" and the other three were asking where and she started pointed stuff out. None of them were convinced, so I finally asked the doctor how sure she was that it was a girl and she responded with "I'm 97.9% sure its a girl!". These are good odds, but with the others not being convinced it made me a little uneasy. By the time we left the room I think everyone was convinced. We learned that she weighs 2 pounds 11 oz, had a heartbeat rate of 155, and is measuring about a week ahead. This was a relief to me because with gestational diabetes it becomes a concern that the baby will get too big. I wasn't any further ahead than I was last month so that was awesome! She gave us four pictures and when she gave them to me, I couldn't even tell what they are. I will try to scan them in later tonight. I also will post a picture of the cute outfit I bought our little girl yesterday!

After the sono we met with the gestational diabetes educator. For those of you who don't know, yes I have it, but its a mild case, that should be able to be monitored just with dieting. The educator Lesley, sat down with us and explained what all gestatational diabetes is, what it means, etc. I admit I wasn't paying too much attention. I don't care to know exactly what my body does and why, just tell me how to fix it. Towards the end of the hour with her she gave me my meter and explained how to use it. Thats all I wanted to know! Then, she had me use it and I had totally psyched myself out thinking it was going to hurt way more than it did! After I stuck myself I was like really thats it and she laughed. Then we were done with the educator and were on to Jeri, the dietican.

Jeri explained to us that I need to eat more frequently to keep my levels from spiking and then told us exactly what I should eat. So now I have to eat breakfast, a morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack, dinner, and a bedtime snack. It seems like alot to me. Yesterday, was my first day on it and I picked up at lunch and went with it. Out of the three blood sugars I've tested here at home, the first one was high and the last two have been right on target! Only about 12 more weeks to go! The diet is a consistent carb diet, which is hard, even though I love carbs. I have to have 18 servings of carbs a day. She broke it down into what time to eat a serving of what and then I get to choose what to eat from that list. It's really not to bad because I can pretty much have whatever I want, except fried foods. It's just all about making a spot for the food in my plan. I know that I will get used to it, but for the time being it seems like I'm constantly eating! The snacks are going to be the hardest thing to get used to!

I go back to the specialist on May 5th for another sono and they will download my meter to make sure that I'm not lying about my blood sugar readings. In the meantime, once a week I have to call them with my readings and for this first week I have to send in exactly what I ate, how much, and when.

On Tuesday, April 13th I go back to my regular doctors office just for a routine visit. It shouldn't be anything major.

Now on to the fun stuff! Last night, Mike and Stacy came over and Mike helped Devin hang the brackets for the closet organizer. This weekend they are coming over again to paint, finish up the closet organizer, and build the dresser. From there I will finally be able to put away the baby items that I received at the surprise shower almost two weeks ago! It's been driving me crazy! I also plan on finalizing the baby registeries so Britt can send out the invites to the family baby shower. Its all becoming real now!

Alright, time for me to get busy! Gotta start organizing the registery and getting rid of the boy stuff on it! Britt and I and maybe Stacy are going to go this afternoon to both Babiesrus and Baby Depot and sort through it all!

Have a great day and thanks for checking in! Sorry it took so long to post, but I was a busy girl yesterday trying to get all the food organized and ready for this diet!