Random thoughts...

Today I have a lot of random thoughts and things to share, most of which are unrelated to each other. Hopefully this will be an interesting, somewhat entertaining post instead of confusing.

1) The other day I ran a few errands after work and stopped to get food on my way home. I went out to the (dark) parking lot and pressed the button to unlock my car, heard the beeping noise it always makes, opened the door and got into my car. Except it wasn't my car. It was an entirely different silver Camry parked right next to mine, except this one looked like it had been detailed recently and they had a moon roof (jealous!). I started freaking out--what if these people think I'm trying to steal their car? I got out of the car and ran over to mine and got into it, hopefully before anyone saw me. Too weird. I guess this means I also need to look for the flash of my lights whenever I unlock my car to make sure I'm getting into my car.

2) I cannot think of anything more annoying than the sound of ACDC -- except maybe Manheim Steamroller Christmas Carols. They grate my nerves. It's probably my least favorite part of the holidays--I'm not kidding.

3) I'm ridiculously paranoid that people just think I'm fat, and don't realize I'm pregnant.

4) I'm helping with interviewing people at my office this week, and I really think I want to work in Human Resources. I like the idea of helping people understand their benefits and helping with the hiring process, etc. I think that might be a good field for me to look into in the future.

5) Speaking of work, I'm so excited by the fact that I will be off for 11 days in a row at Christmas. I cannot wait! I look forward to doing really super-Christmasy things and baking, watching movies, sitting by the fire, etc. It will be a restful, fun time of year and probably the last time for awhile in my life that I will have a real chance to sleep in, as long as I'm not too uncomfortable while I'm sleeping. I plan to take full advantage of that as long as my body cooperates.

6) Switching topics - Corey exchanged the paint again for what we think is the right color this time and painted most of one whole wall.

7) People keep asking me what I want for my birthday, which is coming up. I have a hard time coming up with things. Because I want is for people to do stuff for me or help me with stuff. Is that terrible? Like coming over to my house and telling me what you think of the paint color in the nursery. Or help with getting rid of our old couch, which is now on the side of our house in our backyard, and is worrying me. I want it out. I don't want some family of vermin to move in on it and build a little home in what used to be our man room couch. All I want for my birthday is a house not in disarray. And preferably decorated for Christmas. I need people's time and elbow grease but it is hard to ask for at such a busy time. Unfortunately, we have also been so busy lately that we are having a hard time getting everything done and a lot of the heavy lifting falls on Corey. There is only so much I can expect him to handle. I feel like a bad wife.

8) I haven't really talked about it on the blog, in part because I was a little bit nervous about it, but my OB asked me to go see a perinatologist to check on the baby's heart and make sure everything look okay. The baby has some risk factors for heart issues, and she just wanted to ensure that everything was fine. They can do a fetal echocardiogram and she said that if they found anything, most times nowadays they could do something to fix it in-utero. Which is amazing to me.

9) Anyway, I went to my appointment today by myself, not realizing that by fetal echo, they would also be doing a regular ultrasound as part of it. Everything looked great with baby's heart--Yay!--and they said that she did in fact look like a she (which is good, because if not, I have a lot of dresses and pink things to return) and I got a great chance to see our baby girl again. First I saw the ultrasound tech, who was really nice and reassuring and printed out a picture of our baby's profile because she said that she was "really cute". She kept saying how everything about the heart looked normal, which was such a relief. Then the doctor came in, who was this sweet, quiet older man, and he agreed that everything looked normal, no need for me to return, the heart looks "excellent" and he said I had "a nice looking baby". I feel very grateful that she is very healthy! I wish Corey could have been with me to see her, I think he would have enjoyed the appointment as much as I did :(

10) So a few funny things related to my appointment this morning. Baby girl had all of her limbs up by her head. At one point, the ultrasound tech was laughing because she was able to get an image with both feet and hands in the picture. She likes to put her hands up next to her face and kick her legs up. There was one time that they were looking at her profile and you could just see this perfect image of her leg extended in a high kick, toe pointing above her head. Could she be a possible future Rockette? Or a soccer player? Or a gymnast? Do we have karate in our future? I'm in full support of anything she wants to do, but she seems to like kicking.

11) They said she is 1 lb 6 ounces, the placenta is posterior and they baby is breech. It is fairly common for baby to be breech at this point, I'm not concerned about it--they usually move around and get in position over the next 15 weeks or so.

12) Other interesting observations: in the waiting room, I saw a 14 year old girl who was 7 months pregnant. She was there with her entire extended family and her little punk/gangster boyfriend. I also saw his underwear because his butt was hanging out of his jeans. Lovely. Anyway, they all seemed thrilled that she was having a baby and I heard her mom going on and on about being a grandma. Of course I think it's good that they aren't abandoning her because she's pregnant, but I was somewhat surprised by the whole scene. I can't help but feel bad for the baby. I need to work on being more empathetic towards the pregnant girl.

13) Also, after filling out my paperwork in the waiting room, I got up to hand in my clipboard and some weird pregnant lady saw me get up and stole the chair that I'd been sitting in. I gave her my evil pregnant lady look when I went to return my seat and found that it had been taken. Why take a chair that you already saw me sitting in?

14) I also parked in the doctor parking area. Oops. Luckily, I wasn't towed. But I guess how do they know I'm not a doctor?

15) This will be my last embarassing story for the day, I promise. During the ultrasound, I had to pull down my panel of my maternity pants and when I got up to leave I half-hazardly pulled my shirt down and forgot to pull up my panel. When I got to work today I walked in, sat down at my desk, and about an hour later I realized that my panel was still down and my shirt was halfway tucked into it. Oh, well. Hopefully not too many people saw me.

If you made it to the end of all of those random thoughts, you are awesome. And you are probably wondering if I need my head examined.

Thanks for reading!

24 weeks down, 16 to go!

Total Weight Loss/Gain: When I went to the doctor on Wednesday last week, it said I was up 8.5 pounds! I was wearing my Converse, which are pretty heavy, but I'm still pretty amazed at how quickly things are moving along. And that was before stuffing my face at Thanksgiving. According to my scale this morning, I'm up 7.5 pounds, but that is without the Converse. I'm guessing I've gained at least a pound since last Wednesday. I'm actually pretty on track with what they recommend gaining, but all bets are off once Christmas Cookies enter the equation!
Size of Baby: She is apparently the size of an ear of corn. I'm not sure I understand these food comparisons, but that's what they tell me.
Maternity Clothes: Yes. I actually have to dress like a professional 4 out of 5 days this week, so my mom and I braved the crowds this weekend and she helped me pick out a couple of very cute pairs of dress pants at Motherhood Maternity. It's nice--I wore some nice pants a couple of weeks ago with my belly band and I felt very uncomfortable. This is better.
Sleep: Is great right now. She does like to move around a lot right before I go to sleep, which always puts me in a good mood. Not as many crazy dreams.
Movement: Is good. I have a hard time distinguishing what people can feel from the outside and what I can feel on the inside. Everytime baby kicks, I try to get somebody to feel it (if I'm at home or amongst family) and then they feel...nothing. I think our baby is playing possum once someone else comes around!
Cravings/Aversions: Cravings: A lot of my cravings were satiated over Thanksgiving. I got to have yummy turkey, dressing, scalloped potatoes, rolls, etc. My mom also had a Thanksgiving Eve dinner which seemed centered around meeting my cravings for things like hot dogs and onion dip. It was a very food-filled holiday, and I loved it!Also, I'm loving Blue Bell Ice Cream right now. I don't know why, but every year, I get hungry for Ice Cream when it's cold outside. I'm a weirdo. I'm on the search for the Blue Bell Tiramisu flavor which I've heard rumors of. Does this really exist? If so, can someone please get it for me for my birthday? Thanks!
Aversions: I'm dealing with more and more heartburn, so I'm trying to avoid foods that aggravate it over the last couple of days. Although, yesterday, I stopped at the store to get some necessities (toilet paper, milk, potato chips and ice cream) and came across one of my favorite things..a loaf of warm french bread. I bought it, thinking we could use it for dinner that night and I ate about 1/3 of the loaf on the way home (I'm all about honesty on this blog). That bread, which is about the least acidic thing I can think of, caused me heartburn most of the night. Really?
Anyway, I'm sticking with light and bland for the next few days in the hopes that I will get the heartburn under control.
What I miss: Feeling comfortable. I have a hard time getting comfortable when I'm just hanging around these days. I can only imagine how I'm going to be feeling 10 weeks down the road.Gender: A sweet baby girl!
Moods: I've been dealing with some anxiety un-related to the pregnancy. I cried my eyes out on Thanksgiving about something not very important. I'm feeling very protective of Corey and our baby girl. Most of the time I'm in a great mood, but when it turns, I can be difficult to deal with. I'm not sure that all of that can be blamed on pregnancy or just the insensitivity of other people and the mega-sensitivity of moi.
Milestones: We've now hit 24 weeks, which is considered viability by most doctors. That means if, God forbid, baby came tomorrow, she has a decent chance of living. I'm happy for her to stay in for quite a while longer so that she can come out fully cooked!
Medical concerns: None to speak of. I'm a little nervous about the Glucose test, which will be done at my next Dr's appt on 12/21. I'm not too worried about the drink that everyone complains about, as I've had to drink my fair share on contrast over the years with multiple CT scans, so I doubt it can be worse than that crap and I know it's not as much volume. I'm just worried about the results. Everything has been so perfect so far with this pregnancy, I feel kind of spoiled and I keep waiting for some kind of complication. Knock on wood, hopefully it won't ever come. If I have gestational diabetes, I have it, and it's better to know and deal with it. I have no reason to think that I will, though.Anything else you'd like to share or vent about? More information from my doctor's appointment- Dr. O said that they have found that babies born after 41 weeks have a higher risk of being stillborn, so they would be encouraging me to induce if I go over 40 weeks by the time I reach 41 weeks. She said the latest they would want me to have this baby would be March 27th. This makes me happy, although I don't like the idea of having to be induced and I'm hoping it will come naturally. But whatever happens, happens, and I'm going to go with whatever is best with my baby. I 100% trust my doctor and what she recommends.
I have to share a really cute story-last night, I asked Corey to read to Lil Buns. He picked out the Poky Little Puppy, one of the books he bought for her, and read it with his hand on my bump. She loved it! She kicked and kicked! We were both laughing at her response. I think storytime is going to become a nightly routine. Our little girl is so lucky to have such a great Daddy!
What I look forward to: I'm getting really excited about the baby's room. We found the perfect glider chair and ottoman this weekend for 20% off. My wonderful parents are giving us the chair as a Christmas gift. I'm thrilled! It is so beautiful and it will be custom made for the nursery! We got to sit in the model we are getting and see the fabric that we want on another chair. The fabric is gorgeous and durable and the chair is so super comfortable, which will be nice during those all night parties with our baby girl! It will be ready in about 6-8 weeks. I'm pinching myself - I feel so lucky that we get to have that beautiful chair!
We think we have found the perfect color for the walls in the nursery, but the paint that we ended up with does not look the same on the wall as the sample did, so we are going back to ACE hardware again to get that fixed--they must have just mixed it wrong. It will be repainted before too long, but I've asked Corey to make sure and paint half a wall, then let me see it. I'm crossing my fingers this will work.
Here is a not so great picture taken of me last night in our currently blue-gray nursery. Bump is growing!

Have a great week!

Elizabeth

23 weeks

I totally missed blogging last week! Somehow, the blog fell through the cracks--it was pretty busy at work and in life but somehow I don't have much to report--here is my picture from last week, though! In general, I need to start updating more often with interesting things--I'm afraid this blog has gotten a little bit boring, to say the least. I'm hoping I will find some time this weekend to blog about our trip to Fredericksburg or the millions of articles of clothing this child already has or perhaps the great saga that has been our journey through decorating the nursery.
Total Weight Loss/Gain: According to my scale at home, I'm up 6 or 7 pounds total. I'm interested to see what the scale says when I go to the doctor tomorrow.

Size of Baby: Baby girl is now the size of a large mango according to the interwebs. The average baby is a little over 1 lb at this point! Pretty amazing!

Maternity Clothes: I haven't attempted to put on my regular jeans in over a week. They might still fit, but I'm pretty sure they would be rather uncomfortable to wear throughout the whole day. I do wear lots of my regular pajama/sweat pants at home. Does that count? Oh, okay...probably not. On shirts, I can definitely go either way, but I usually prefer maternity tops because I think they make it more clear that there is a baby in there and not just a few too many big lunches in a row.

Sleep: Is much better. Part of my inability to get anything done for the last few weeks is that I felt so terrible. Allergies were hitting me pretty hard for about 2 1/2 weeks there, but (knock on wood) both Corey and I have felt better for about 3 or 4 days now, so I'm hoping the worst of that is over for the timebeing. So I've been able to sleep pretty soundly, minus a few interruptions for trips to the bathroom over the last few days. It's wonderful!

Movement: Is so lovely. A little distracting at times, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. She definitely has a pattern of when she moves - usually early in the morning for about 30 minutes (usually between 6 and 8--talk about a great wake up call!), then again in the afternoon at work for about 20-30 minutes. Yesterday it made it a little bit difficult to finish up a call when she was doing the salsa on my organs, but like I said, I love it. She also likes to move a lot in the hours from 6-7 and at night when I'm going to bed. I don't see a direct connection to my eating patterns or anything, I think that is just when she isn't sleeping. Corey feels it more and more from the outside, and it's pretty cute to see his face!

Cravings/Aversions: Cravings: Powdered sugar is still the loveliest thing ever according to my pregnant stomach. I'm hungry for a lot of other very unhealthy things, and I'm looking forward to dressing and the pies that come with Thanksgiving which is now just two days away!

Aversions: I can think of any right now. Food is my friend.
Symptoms: I've had some pretty bad round ligament pain over the last week. I'm not surprised, as I feel like my stomach is expanding rapidly. I'm also experiencing some nasty heartburn, which is putting a damper on my love of eating. Tums help, though!

What I miss: I'm trying to think of the best way to word this, but I'm not sure I know how. I've always been pretty emotional. I'm a little annoyed that people are now blaming my pregnancy hormones for my getting annoyed/mad at them when they do insensitive things. Newsflash --don't be rude or do stupid things and I won't get annoyed with you.

Exception to this rule - Corey and my immediate family. Sometimes I get upset with them over stupid stuff that isn't there fault. This is mainly referring to some really annoying people that I work with that have always been pains to deal with for everyone else in the work place.

Gender: Baby Girl Granstrand

Anything else you'd like to share or vent about? Corey and my Dad got the guest room and the nursery painted over the last week. I love the color in the guest room! It turned out a beautiful pale blue. The nursery, which was supposed to be a beautiful shade of light gray? Turned out to be a beautiful different shade of light blue. I feel a little bit guilty, but some more work is needed it to get it looking right. Corey is going to see if adding another coat in one area makes a difference, and if so, they will just add another coat. Otherwise, we will go back to the store and see what we need to buy to get it looking gray. We just want it to look perfect when Baby Girl gets here!

We got the furniture for the nursery and it looks beautiful! Uncle Cam was awesome and helped Corey with picking it up at the store and carrying the heavy boxes into the garage where they are going to stay for now. Once we get the paint color figured out and on the walls, the other furniture in the nursery moved into the guest room, and the carpet cleaned in all of our bedrooms, we will move the furniture inside and get the crib put together. I'm looking forward to that!
We also got the bedding for her, and it is beautiful! It includes some personalized pieces, and I just can't wait to see how everything looks once it's put together!
I find myself worrying that I will never find the right paint color, that I will pick the wrong glider and it will look bad in our nursery, etc. I'm second guessing myself on those things, but I'm glad I like all of the big things we have purchased so far. Paint is a pretty easy fix (even though I feel bad because I'm not allowed to help with fixing it).

What I look forward to: I'm looking forward to my appt w/ Dr. O tomorrow. My mom is coming with me! I'm also looking forward to getting off of work tomorrow at Noon and then plan to enjoy Thanksgiving with my family and all of the wonderful food!

I'm hoping to get some shopping done this weekend. We've got a good start on Christmas shopping, but still have a lot more to do. I really hope to get all of my shopping done by December 5, so I can really just enjoy the Christmas season and not feel the need to run around like a chicken with my head cut off right before Christmas.

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Elizabeth

21 Weeks - It's Bananas!

Total Weight Loss/Gain: I'm still somewhere around 5 pounds up.

Size of Baby: A Banana. Really? Cantaloupe to Banana? I'm not sure how that works. The average baby at 21 weeks is 10.5 inches long and 12.7 ounces. So big!

Maternity Clothes: I can still go either way. I'm currently in regular jeans and a maternity top. I got some new maternity shirts from my parents (thank you!) that are really pretty! Love them!

Sleep: Is pretty good, other than my allergies which are getting in the way of very restful sleep. However, I'm absolutely positive that I fall into REM sleep even when I'm asleep for a 30 minute nap. This is DEEP sleep.

Movement: More and more. It's still difficult for Corey to feel, but I have a feeling pretty soon we will be able to feel it from the outside.

Cravings/Aversions: Cravings: Powdered sugar. Chips and salsa.

Aversions: Tomato soup. Gross.

Symptoms: I've noticed some pain in my hips as baby girl moves up and out.
What I miss: Not worrying all the time about everything. I think the worry is here to stay, though. I've never met a Mom that didn't worry LOL.

Moods: Are pretty up and down. Bless Corey's heart. I'm trying to mellow out, but I tend to get pretty upset about little things. I also cried the other day at the end of Mrs. Doubtfire.

Gender: Baby Girl Granstrand!

a picture of me at 21 weeks pregnant.

Anything else you'd like to share or vent about? Basically, I want to talk about all of the reasons why my husband Corey is already the best Daddy ever.

We've made a lot of progress on the nursery. Corey has taken care of getting rid of lots of our furniture and other stuff that we are no longer needed--some of it is being sold at a consignment shop, some of it has been donated to Goodwill, and our old couch is going to a dump :(
This couch is the one Corey was sitting on the first time I met him. It has been through a lot, and since we were literally unable to get it out of the room without doing it, a circular saw was taken to it. I'm trying to focus on the fact that we are making room for baby, but it does make me sad.
But, because of all of Corey's hard work, we are now able to pick out paint colors for the new guestroom and the nursery. After buying about 5 samples, we finally found our paint colors! Woohoo! There will be more updates to come on all of that.
I had a little mini-meltdown on Sunday night, in part because a) I didn't want to go back to work, b) I had to figure out and commit to my insurance plan once and for all and c) I noticed that the crib we had picked out was no longer available to order online and said you couldn't pick it up at any of the stores in the area. Corey, realizing that I would be useless if I tried to go in and talk to someone in the store about it, went in on Monday morning and got ALL of our nursery furniture ordered. It should be ready for us to pick it up at the store in the next 1-2 weeks. I am SO excited about the furniture and grateful for an awesome husband.
Finally, I've had this beautiful nursery bedding/decor that I've looked to as inspiration. I felt like it was just out of our reach financially, so I didn't want to buy it. Until a lady who works at that store (Restoration Hardware) came into Corey's store yesterday with coupons that we could use online (their baby department is only available there) and get a substantial discount. Isn't it funny when stuff like that happens?
The coupon made it a possibility for us to get the bedding --if we bought it there, it would be the same price as the bedding we had picked out elsewhere (Pottery Barn Kids). We have already fallen in love with a bedskirt that I bought last weekend there at Pottery Barn, so we are probably going to stick with that, but we have ordered the rest of the beautiful bedding item from Restoration Hardware. We also bought a little something special for our baby girl to play with, but we are keeping that under our hat for now :)
What I look forward to: So many things! I can't wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas! I'm so excited for our Babymoon--which is THIS weekend! Woohoo!
And I'm so excited to get our rooms painted and all of our orders delivered over the next few weeks and see her nursery come together. It's a wonderful feeling to get to carefully pick out all of the things that will be there and part of her life and her room. I know we will like them, and I hope she will, too!
Elizabeth

20 weeks - halfway there!

Total Weight Loss/Gain: I'm going to stop differentiating between the weight I lost at the beginning and then gained back and all of that. All I end up doing is confusing myself and possibly others. From now on, all I'm going talk about is how many pounds I've gained net in pregnancy--it's not important how much I lost at the beginning and gained back. (at least I don't think). Going by that rule of thumb, I'm up 5 pounds.

Size of Baby: a Canteloupe (I'm guessing a small one). An average baby at this point is 10.6 ounces and 6.5 inches. Last week our little baby girl measured at 9 ounces and 8 inches, but that number is including her legs, while these measurements only account for head to rump length. When we get to next week, they start using the measurement that includes the legs as well. It's pretty funny, because it looks like your baby grows 4 inches in one week.

Maternity Clothes: Are great! I'm still happily wearing my normal clothes, too. But I got to admit, by the end of the day wearing my regular jeans, I'm feeling ready for my pajamas.

Sleep: Is good. And my dreams are still torturing me. I had a dream a couple of nights ago that I went into labor in the next few weeks. Ever since I've been running around in a panic trying to get everything in order.

Movement: Baby is a dancing machine! She was moving around like crazy yesterday--I think the amount of sugar I consumed got us both pretty hyper. I think she likes sugar as much as her Mama.

Cravings/Aversions: Cravings: Um, I think I've finally satiated my hunger for sugar for the time being LOL. Right now, I'm feeling hungry for steak and salad. Aversions: None that I can think of right now.

Symptoms: I'm a cleaning and organizing machine! My nesting instinct is going crazy. I'm really obsessed with getting the nursery and guest room in order, getting all of our stuff arranged in the closets that we are keeping, etc. I'm also obsessed with picking out the right bedding and paint color for the nursery. I've rearranged and cleaned my whole desk at work. I also have made about 6 calls today related to scheduling doctor's appointments I've been putting off (not related to baby) and my insurance changing. That's right, it's changing next year just in time for me to have tons of questions and worries related to having a baby with a new plan. This after 4 1/2 years on the same plan. Sigh. Anyway, I think it's clear that I'm hitting that point where I'm really into getting things ready for baby.

What I miss: Nothing! I'm loving pregnancy right now. It really is a sweet spot. Several times over the last week I've told Corey that this is the happiest I've ever been. I feel so lucky to have our little girl on the way!

What I look forward to: There are so many things to look forward to. Right now I'm looking forward to our hospital tour which is probably something we will do a few weeks down the line. I'm also really excited about decorating the nursery. We are having a lot of fun with it!

Moods: Pretty good. I'm in a honeymoon period of pregnancy.

Although...there are definitely moments of hormone-induced rage/bluntness. And for that I apologize to all the people who have been on the receiving end. Especially you, extremely slow and distracted driver who cut me off and pretended not to see me yesterday while we were in traffic. I apologize for honking at you twice. And those hand gestures? I promise it was nothing personal. I was trying to use traffic hand signals, I swear. All of this while driving a car at 65 miles an hour in my kitty-cat get up for work.

Milestones: Corey felt little feather-like movement when baby was kicking me really hard the other day. Or at least he says so. I'm looking forward to when he can really feel her move.

Medical Concerns: I've noticed a few dizzy spells, which the books all say are compeletely normal.

Anything else you'd like to share or vent about? I've added a few pictures to the last couple of posts I've made.

And here is another picture of my beautiful daughter. I love her so much already!