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!

Surprise!

I am at quilt retreat down in Barry, Illinois (yes, the town is as exciting as it sounds!) and don't feel like working on the projects that I brought so I thought I would do a quick update!

On Tuesday I had a checkup at the regular doctors office. Since it was my hour blood sugar test Devin decided he didn't want to go, so he asked his mom to accompany me. I think Stacy enjoyed hearing the heartbeat. That was the most exciting thing that happened at the appointment. Sorry that it was so boring Stacy! The heartbeat was 160 beats per minute and I am still measuring a week ahead. Stacy waited the hour with me and then left when they drew my blood because we figured that they would just draw the blood and then I'd go. Well, they called me back, took my blood, and there was no one in the office so the doctors were talking about me. Dr. Brinkman is who I saw this appointment and Dr. Reinerston is my main doctor. She was telling him that I was measuring a week ahead and he said that I didn't look like it so he wanted to do it again and use me as an example for his student that was with him. So he measured and said yep over a week ahead and said that if I get more than 10 days ahead they will change my due date. So, we shall see after my next sono on April 6th.

When my mom and I were on our way down to quilting retreat the doctors office called and told me I failed my blood sugar test. The nurse said I barely failed so she thinks I will pass the next one. So on Wednesday, March 31st at 8:30 am I go in for the three hour blood sugar test. I have to sit in the waiting room for three hours, thank goodness I have my nook and some magazines to read! If I don't pass that one, I will be referred to a specialist which is the person that I am already seeing so it should be easy enough! I am optimistic that I will pass.

Now that I have bored you with medical details, on to the fun stuff! Tonight after dinner, my mom and the other two shop owners threw me a surprise baby shower! I was completely shocked! We all know that I hate surprises and being the center of attention and this definitely put me out of my comfort zone, but I LOVED it! We all went over to the house for dinner and then came back over to the retreat center and after everyone got back in the room the three owners went back into a bedroom and emerged with a cake, while everyone else yelled surprise. I know my face was bright red and people looking at me didn't help the redness go away! After it calmed down everyone went and got presents. When I saw the cake I definitely was not expecting anything besides that! I was truly shocked and can't believe everyone was able to keep a secret! They went to a great deal of effort for me and I really appreciate it! I received alot of nice presents and appreciate them all! The baby got its first Longaberger basket and its first Easter basket! I also got a lot of necessities which we will really need such as onsies, towels, burp cloths, little toys and rattles, bibs, diaper, and wipes among other things. I hope to post pictures of some of it when I get home! I am really touched at all the gifts! We have 23 people here total and some of them I just met this weekend, but they still participated! Who can resist a good baby shower!

My mom and Linda, my second mom, had turning their little wheels in their head for a while to make this happen. A few weeks ago they came up with the idea and mailed out invitations to all of the people attending retreat. Then, they called down to Andy, the owner of the retreat center, and told him the plan and asked if they could get a cake for the shower. Well, he decided that he didn't want his mom who normally makes all the food to make it, nor did he want it coming from a grocery store, so he got an awesome cake from a bakery in Quincy. They also got a stuffed rubber ducky for everyone to write a message on and told everyone that if they wanted to make a quilt square my mom would compile them all into a quilt. I will take pictures of those too! We also passed around a piece of paper asking them to guess the gender, date, time, and weight of the baby. The winner will receive a bundle of fat quarters, which is what quilters like! I just peaked a look at the list and so far there are 7 girl votes and 6 boy votes. The earliest date someone guessed is June 17 and the latest is July 6. It will be interesting to see who is closest! The smallest baby weight guess was 5 lbs and 11 oz which was guessed by the person that wrote down the earliest date and the biggest baby weight guess was 9 lbs 2 oz. The majority of people wrote down early morning times for the baby to be born, hopefully that is not the case! One can only wish!

Okay I have procrastinated enough so I should get back to work now! I have alot to accomplish!

Thank you to everyone involved in throwing and participating in this baby shower!

Thanks for checking in!

The good news from today is that the baby is still healthy and growing like crazy. The bad news is that we STILL don't know the sex! I know, I know I was the one that said I didn't want to know, but now that I can't know I want too! I guess it is true that you always want what you can't have.

So, we were in and out in less than an hour which was good. Our sono tech was older and didn't really have too much of a sense of humor. (Sidenote: I just told Devin what I wrote about the tech and asked if it was fair. He replied I would said shes a doucher.) She did the sono and the baby was facing us, but with its legs together. She tried looking a handful of times and couldn't see anything. Then, the doctor (the same awesome one as last time) came in and had a look. She couldn't tell and was moving my stomach around trying to get a peek and couldn't. She said the spine and everything on the baby looked great, but that she was a little concerned about my cervix. On the sono it measured at a 2, which apparently isn't good, so they did an internal sono and everything was great after that. I guess my cervix curves or something or the baby was laying on it. All I know is that she was really concerned and then after she got the better picture from the internal she said everything was great and acted like it too. Better safe than sorry!

Here are the pictures from the sono still not the best, but this is all they gave us!

This is the face, at least thats what the picture says...

Face, yes again.

Profile (I think).
Profile again. This is my favorite one so far you can see the little nose sticking up!

The heartbeat was 140 beats per minute and the baby weighs 1 pound 7 ounces. Last time it weighed 9 ounces so it has gained 14 ounces in a month! Seems crazy, and yes I know it will only get bigger! They also said I was measuring one week ahead which isn't unusual.

At the end of the appointment she said she wanted to see me again in 6 weeks and I said that won't give me enough time to prepare the nursery so I asked to go in 4 and she agreed. So, another sono on April 6th which seems so far away, but will be here before we know it!

Now we are trying to decide what to do. The way I see it we have 4 options...
1 - Decide to not find out and decorate gender neutral with Dr. Suess
2 - Get a private sono and pray the baby cooperates
3 - Wait til April 6th and pray the baby cooperates and then decorate
4 - Decorate gend neurtal with Dr. Suess and still find out if we can on April 6th

We both like the Dr. Suess bedding and theme although I think Devin just likes it because they show an awesome chair in the pictures!

We are goin to hopefully decide soon! Thanks for checking in and I will keep everyone updated!

Tomorrow is the day....hopefully

Tomorrow morning we have another sono and we are hoping that they will be able to tell us if we are having a boy or a girl. Yes, we have decided to find out. I didn't want to know in the beginning, but now I do. When we had our first two sonos I just wanted to make sure the baby was okay, now that they are pretty sure that it is, I want to know! They haven't been able to tell before and they looked hard both times. The baby was just in the wrong position. Hoping the baby cooperates tomorrow. It has been moving all over the place now so I think that eventually they should be able to get the right view at one point or another. The doctor was determined to find out last time and I think she was a little dissapointed that she couldn't so we are hoping she pulls through for us this time!

As many of you know I am a HUGE planner. We have had boys bedding picked out since the beginning of January and have not been able to find any girls bedding that we agree on. Devin is so sick of looking at bedding online! I finally have it narrowed down to three different firl sets and can't decide. I need to decide so we can get it ordered ASAP so we can paint and decorate before softball season starts in about five weeks. So here are the ones that I have it narrowed down to. When you are looking at them don't pay attention to the paint color or how much crap they have shoved into the picture. It took me a while to figure out thats why I wasn't liking things. All of these bedding sets are for girls.

Above is Paisley Splash from JCPenneys. I am not sure what color we would paint with this one, so if you vote for it include what you would paint!

This is Sophia from BabiesRus. We would probably paint the green.

This is Lime & Brown Paisley Splash from BabiesRus. Again, not sure what we would paint. I loooooooove the rug!

So please let us know which one you like the best! We are wanting something that is not baby-ish and doesn't have butterflies, dragonflies, ladybugs, etc. You can either leave a comment or facebook or text us! Thank you!

Check back in tomorrow for sono results and pictures!

Uneventful...Just The Way We Like It

I had a checkup at my regular doctors office today and it was very uneventul which is good! The baby's heartbeat was 152. It was great not having any extra tests or bloodwork done! I know it won't last long, but it was nice this time! I was scheduled to see one doctor, but for some reason I got given the other doctor that I like more so that was awesome!

When the nurse was trying to get the heartbeat the baby was being so active it was hillarous. It probably took her about five or so minutes to get the baby to be still enough so she could get a reading. So our baby just doesn't want to cooperate with anyone!

My next appointment is March 8th at the high-risk place for another sono and I go back to the regular doctor on March 23rd.

I hope to post some bedding sets when I get some time in the next week or so for everyone to give their opinions. We have a boy set picked out, but can't seem to decide on a girl set! So check back for that!

Thanks for checking in and sorry its such a boring post, but no news is good news!