I wanted to follow through and show off the mini peaches n' cream cheesecakes that I made for Easter. They were simple to make and pretty tasty. 
And I wanted to show off my beautiful nieces, Lain and Katie. They're too cute for words, hence the picture.
And here's a picture of Dave and I that isn't as cute as above, but it's from Easter so I'll post it. Dave and I have very few pictures together and I have been wanting a good picture before I grow exponentially, so I don't have long.
This past Sunday marked 12 weeks, so I just have 28 more weeks to go. Woohoo! I think I have felt better since Sunday, although it could just be a mind over matter thing. Or it could be that I am done with my finals and so close to being finished with this semester. I haven't felt nearly as tired, but last night i couldn't sleep. Sleepytime tea didn't even help. I ended up finally going to bed around 4:30, but I did get my fix of middle of the night infomercials.
I am really hoping for a pleasant 2nd trimester, it sure would be a nice relief. But more than that I hope that we have a healthy happy baby. The past week I have really been worrying about the bean sprout. After my initial doctor's visit I felt fine about the health of the baby and had planned on being extra careful during the crucial 1st trimester. Then came the surgery. At first I felt good about having the surgery, since we were removing something that shouldn't have been inside of me, and especially next to the baby. But all the medication is what is worrying me. The anastetics during the surgery, the strong pain meds in recovery, the take home pain meds, and the hormones that I am taking for 2 weeks. I trust my doctor, but I know that there are risks involved with everything and that worries me.
I am going to celebrate this Cinco de Mayo with an ultrasound. I get so antsy to go back to the doctor (at least for my scheduled appointments), and I really can't wait for this one. Dr. Brody had mentioned the possibility of determining the gender of bean sprout. I also can't wait to hear his or her heart beat again. Speaking of gender, I believe we have chosen the girl name. At first I wasn't going to tell the names that we picked out and surprise our family and friends at the birth, and then I remembered that I can't keep exciting info in for very long. Drum roll, please.......Harper Magnolia. There is a rather long story as to why I chose Magnolia that I may blog about one day, but basically it is after my Nana. My Nana is very very important to me as she taught me and influenced me more so than anyone ever has. Okay, so for the life of me and Dave we cannot pick out a little boy name for bean sprout. I have came across names that I like but not that I love, hmm....maybe I'll think of something soon.
Yesterday I was searching through the names on the babycenter.com and was blown away by some of the names that I found on there. Now I have looked at several unique names lists, but have yet to see what I saw on baby center. I want to warn you that I will not be naming my child any of these, and felt like these were so outrageous that they deserved mention on my blog. I was looking for mainly boy names but saw a couple of crazy girl names to.
So here goes:
Crazy boy names
fu (really?? Fu Jeffers)
firstborn (this is fitting for us, but no)
fish
froggy
fuzzy (this also could be fitting)
faggot (Seriously, why would someone do this to their child??)
food (I do love food)
Crazy girl names
fakhr (I am not sure if I am saying this one correctly)
hypothetical
haha (this is scrapping the bottom of the barrel)
These were just a few of crazy ones that I saw, and now I want to know where the babycenter.com gets these names from.
Time to get cracking on finishing my papers for my Scientific Writing class, as of this Thursday I will be completely finished with school for a little while. And, I'll have more time to concentrate on getting ready to meet the bean sprout and more time for blogging.
Friday morning around 1 AM I woke up and had to pee, as usual. I was also having horrendous cramps, which was not usual. By 7 AM I was still having cramps and they had not gotten any better. Dave called the doctor's office and told the answering service what my symptoms were. In less than 10 minutes, Dr. Brody called me and told me from what I had said, it sounded like appendicitis. He asked if I could come to his office at 9. For about an hour I was thinking that I was about to lose an organ, and was wondering how the bean sprout was doing in there.
Once we got to the office, Dr. Brody started with an ultrasound. We saw the baby and heard the heartbeat, but also saw a large bubble. Dr. Brody said that it looked like my bladder was full, and I responded by telling him that it sure didn't feel like it was full. Then, for the first time, I saw a look of concern on his face. He made me pee and then drained the rest of what was in there (ouch!), and then still saw the same bubble in the next ultrasound. He determined that this had to be a very large cyst on my ovary, which needed to be removed immediately. If we didn't remove it, there was a possibility of losing the ovary. He told me that we would be going into surgery at 12. This was not how I expected my day would go.
Everything seemed to move so quickly, we went over to the hospital and registered and then we were put into a room where I was given this uber uncomfortable gown to wear made of paper, soon after all this I was in the "holding area" prepping to go into surgery. Everyone that I encountered acted too surprised that I was pregnant, which didn't ease my nerves any. I later found that that pregnant women are few and far between in the OR. I wasn't too nervous about any of this until I got back into the "holding area," and this is where I was hooked to the heart monitors and the repetitive beeping was driving me crazy, that and all the doctors and nurses were yelling back and forth at each other: "I need a CT scan STAT!" "IV in room 4." The room was very nerve wrecking. I was told by the anesthesiologist that I couldn't have the anxiety medicine medicine that normally calms you down before surgery since it was harmful to the baby. So I just laid there watching the clock count down to 12 and praying that Dr. Brody would show up sooner than later. There was this exceptionally sweet nurse who came in and asked if I wanted to bring Dave back to sit with me, she told me that they were making an exception for me since they couldn't sedate me. Oh, I was thankful for her!
Dr. Brody arrived a little after 12, and we quickly went back to the OR. My nerves were more calm after talking to him, and I was more than ready to get this all over with. I remember getting something shot into my IV and then breathing oxygen, and then waking up in the recovery room with a scratchy throat. I had another ultrasound in the recovery room and during it, the my nurse called all the other nurses in the room over to see the baby. It was kind of funny that I had around 7 nurses all packed into this little room closed off by sheet walls all to see my baby. I guess they weren't joking about not seeing pregnant women. I heard one of the nurses ask the heart rate, and the ultrasound tech said that it was 140 and then I hear "It's a boy!" (hehe...I hope she was right)
Around 4 PM I am headed out of recovery and back into my own room to see my family. Boy, was I happy to see them again. Dave told me that Dr. Brody showed him a couple of pictures of my cyst, that looked really neat (I can't wait to see them at my next appointment). He said that the cyst was around the size of a softball. I still can't fathom that, but I am happy that it's gone. I have 3 little incisions that are tender now, but should heal pretty quickly; and I can't even feel my ovary that has been cut on. After the surgery yesterday I was incredibly tired and slept most of the day, but today I feel quite a bit better and have more of an appetite, and tomorrow I should feel back to normal.
So over all, my first surgery wasn't too bad. And the baby and me are doing just fine, so there's not much more we could ask for.
I'll post a picture later to show the incisions. I know you're all dying to see them. ;)
Today was an interesting and educational experience. This morning, Dave and I went to Target and Babies R Us and tried to teach ourselves about strollers. (I should have filmed this.) First off, it was Dave's idea to look at strollers and it seems as though he's really been thinking about pushing our kid around (I'm laughing and I shouldn't be). I would consider us to be rather practical people; I think that we take function over most other options, even when it comes to strollers. Ideally we would both like something that is lightweight, will have longevity through infancy and toddler years, and is easy to push around. There is a lot of stuff out there that doesn't fit into our criteria.
Let me point out that I do not like, no--make that hate using buggies/carts when I'm out shopping. I am usually found with stuff piled up in my arms, a la Gus, the cheese-carrying mouse from Cinderella. I enjoy being able to weave in and out of "traffic" without worrying that I am going to injure someone else (or myself) with my cart. I find that this not only helps cut down on my shopping time, but also helps distract my shopping ADD by not being able to fit anything else in my arms and needing to race to the register before everything falls.
I realize that I am going to have to sacrifice a bit of convenience when the little one arrives, but I don't see why I need the largest SUV of strollers to carry an itty bitty baby. We played around with several models, and I laughed as Dave attempted to fold them up and then unfold them--who knew this could be so entertaining? I was afraid that we were going to break a couple...which means that we have already ruled those out. If we aren't able to figure them out in less than a minute, then out the door with practicality and off our list. The only reason that I would want a large stroller is so that I could fit in it, I don't want to be tempted to be jealous of the babies luxuries. Just kidding, just kidding (Or am I?)
By the way, I think that this was my first time ever in Babies R Us. I was impressed with seeing a larger selection of stuff, but why do they have to be so MUCH more expensive than Target? (Actually I do understand this concept of Retail Science) But goodness! While we were at BRU I tried on a sling and found out that I do, in fact, want one. The one wasn't a ring sling but it let me see the approximate size relative to my body. It fit comfortably on my (without a baby in tow), and I think I like the idea of using one for grocery shopping or dancing or whatever else.
I am getting more and more anxious every day to get to meet the bean sprout. The pregnancy does not excite me as much as having a little baby around. Today I was thinking how beautiful and miraculous life is, and how amazing the idea of growing a baby inside MY womb is. So why can't pregnancy be as well? Why can't I feel warm and cozy instead of nauseous and cold? Why can't my clothes fit better than they did before the pregnancy? Why can't I have less headaches and be less hungry? I know I am being selfish, but I think it would fit into this theme of beauty and amazement much better than what is actually going on now. I hope you don't mind my honesty here.
Since I should be doing Spanish, I will instead post my latest obsession: Ugly Dolls! I can't get over how much I love them. Maybe I'll get one for myself and then pass it on to bean sprout, like an heirloom, an ugly little heirloom.
Oh...how they make me smile :)
Now I should really get to my homework so later I can make some miniature Peaches 'N Cream Cheesecakes for tomorrow. Click here for the recipe.
Happy Easter!
I have fallen in love! Yesterday was much more exciting than I had expected. Our appointment with Dr. Brody was at 3:15; I woke up nervous and the nerves increased through the day. I was close to being a wreck while waiting for the doctor to come in my room. If Dave hadn't of been with me, I may have fainted. I can't tell you why I was so nervous, just that I was. I am so happy with Dr. Brody (thanks, Diana). I appreciated his professional approach with just the right amount of humor thrown in. I didn't think that we would be able to see as much as we did during the ultrasound, but I am very pleased that we did. We heard a very strong heartbeat and saw that our little baby is a little over an inch long and already has little arms and legs. All of a sudden the baby turned toward us and waved its little arms and legs, almost like it was showing off with a little dance :) I could have watched that all day long. My guess was that we were either 7 or 8 weeks along, and I was pretty close. Yesterday we were 9 weeks, 2 days and this makes our due date November 8. It's crazy to think that by the holidays we'll have a little baby at our side. It also pleased me that Dr. Brody encouraged me to ask every question that I could. I found out that I shouldn't start showing my bump until 26 weeks, which means the one that I thought I was already developing is just bloat and extra weight I've put on. I go back in 4 weeks and he said that there is a possibility that we'll see the sex then (woohoo!), the sooner we find out the better.
I am rather excited about this week, because my 1st doctor's visit is Tuesday. I don't believe that I have ever been so excited about a doctor's appointment before. It will be nice to finally know how far along we are and when to expect to meet the little one. Right now I am guessing that I am about 8 weeks along.
I haven't had much of any morning sickness since the first two weeks (after I found out), but I wish I could get over the constant tiredness. I know that I am asking too much here, but if I could get a 3 week spurt of energy to last me till the end of this semester, that would be fabulous. I have so much to write (for my scientific writing class), but my brain doesn't want to function after 5 PM. At least the end is only 3 weeks away. Other than being tired I am not experiencing any symptoms yet. I haven't noticed a change in what I like to eat or had any cravings yet. Expect wanting to eat all the time, but I always have liked to eat anyway. I wonder when the changes will hit me, like swollen feet or pickle and ice cream cravings or (what I really want to know) when is this baby bump going to make it's debut? By no means am I trying to rush into these, I am just not a big fan of surprises.
This week Dave got a crib on Craigslist, and it was the exact one that I was wanting [woohoo!]. That's one thing checked off the list. Our plan is to clean the "nursery" out and paint the walls as soon as possible. There are a few people at work that have laughed that I just found out that I was pregnant but yet already have the nursery planned. I guess I am still able to plan some things. This past summer we had a painting spree and choose the wrong shade of green for the dining room, but ironically it should work perfect for a gender neutral nursery. For months we have been trying to figure out what we could paint that shade of green and I am happy that it's not going to be a wasted can of paint.
Speaking of the nursery, I was talking to my dad today about the plans for the room and he was saying that it wouldn't be appropriate for a little girl. However, I think otherwise. My color scheme is brown, green (like a muted grass green), and white. The walls will be green, the crib is white, and have I found brown and white bedding that I liked. I like the idea of a woodland theme, but not going overboard with the theme. I have found and fallen in love with tons of owl, squirrel, fox, hedgehog, rabbit, etc things.
For example I saw this swing at Target the other day and got excited that it fit in my plan. I don't see this being too masculine at all. Dad's point was if the room ended up being for a little girl, that it would be all sorts of things that were out in the "dirty outdoors." He also offered some of his deer heads for decoration. Am I right by thinking that this nursery is more for the parents than it is for the baby? I am getting a little giddy about decorating the nursery, I can't wait to prove him wrong.
