A Full Week of School.....

....and no swollen ankles!!!  AND no hospital trips!  Yahoo for success.  Granted, I spend the majority of the day sitting down, and have given more than one powerpoint guided talk to the kids from a chair in the back of the classroom with my feet propped up on another chair.  Peppy, engaging teacher?  Perhaps not.  But, my kids this year are REALLY sweet (to the point that I'm wondering when something crazy is going to happen) and are being really helpful.  I haven't even needed to yell once.  Maybe slightly raise my voice (which, I'll be honest, I kind of like it when the kids say I'm scary when I'm mad...it means they're getting the point), but that's it. 

I had a follow up with my doctor on Tuesday....Baby G's HR sounded great and her kicks keep getting stronger and stronger.  All of last week my abs felt like they were trying to detach from my body with stretching so much, and then on Friday...poof, I think they gave up, because I was suddenly much more comfortable.  James thinks even though I'm not as heavy (yet) as I was with Bailey, my stomach is already almost as big, hence why I'm feeling so much stretching.  Hopefully the six pack I had before I was pregnant will return (haha).  In two weeks we have a growth scan ultrasound, and I'm glad I'll get to actually see the pictures, because I couldn't see the screen when they had to do an ultrasound at the hospital last week.

We've been putting stuff together too, and have almost everything ready for her to actually arrive.  I wanted to get this done WAY ahead of time in case a) I deliver early again (hopefully not) and b) because I'm insane and trying to work on a thesis and finish grad school.  I'll be defending my thesis about a week and a half before my due date.  Hahahahahaha.  That'll be interesting.

Since college football has started again we decided to be festive and take a photo in front of our AU sign.  If every game this season is like our first one, Auburn football might be enough stress for me to go into labor early.  Here's me and Baby G at 27 weeks....

I didn't want James to feel left out so I took a picture of him too.  I think he might be mocking me.....

Enjoy college football, everyone!  Thanks for continued prayers for us and for Baby G (who actually does have a name now by the way.....stay tuned). :)

Yikes!

We had an eventful day with Baby G today.  I am right at 26 weeks, and went to the third day of school excited about the fun little lab I was doing with my students (who seem REALLY great this year).  Everything seemed normal.  Then, after hearing a couple times "class was so fun today!", I was walking down the hallway and  - bam -  felt like my water broke.  Ummmm.....that's not supposed to happen yet.  So I pulled my co-workers into the workroom and explained the situation, and within about 10 minutes I had called my doctor's office and was off to St. Luke's labor and delivery per the nurse's instructions.  And, oh yeah, I was freaking out.  This is the second time I have been surprised by the phrase "you need to go to labor and delivery now."  When I am 37-40 weeks pregnant and someone says this to me, I will be fine with it, but right now it's not what I want to hear. 

They quickly got me checked in over at St. Luke's and immediately got me strapped in with a HR monitor for Baby G.  I was SO happy to hear that little heart beat (since I had no idea what was going on).  After a few more checks, they said my amniotic fluid levels were fine, my cervix is all closed up as it should be and everything was good.  My water didn't break (I won't get graphic), this can just happen sometimes (chalk it up to some of the really strange things that happen during pregnancy).  While checking my fluid levels, Baby G was checked out too via ultrasound and she's right on track for 26 weeks and doing great.   We also got further confirmation that she is, in fact, a little girl (since she was moving so much at the 20 week ultrasound I wondered).  So, things were looking up, we were happy that our little girl was doing so well and not in any danger.  After the ultrasound they strapped me back up to the HR monitor and contraction belt to monitor for a bit, and the nurse curiously asked me if I felt any cramping.  Hmm....nope.  She left and I looked over at the monitor and noticed this rather frequent rise and fall on the monitor.  Well, then I felt it.  I watched the little line rise on the monitor and felt a little squeeze right in time with it.  Contractions??  What???  The nurse came back after about ten minutes and told me I was having contractions (yes, we know), but luckily a quick little shot of medicine can calm those down at this stage.  After the shot (which apparently makes you jittery), everything stabilized as it should and we were able to be discharged with instructions for rest and water and when to call if all this madness happens again.  I laughed to James that the shot didn't make me jittery and then laughed at myself when I tried to sign my name on my discharge instruction forms.  My signature looked like a sixth grader's because I couldn't hold the pen still! 

After all this fun (read:  me near tears with James repeating that everything was going to be fine), James and I were able to grab some lunch and I have been resting all afternoon (with time to write the blog). 

I will be in my rolling chair for the majority of the day tomorrow.  

Cute little foot at 26 weeks:

Here We Go....

The madness begins Tuesday.  Kids come back to school and it will be a daily grind straight through until Thanksgiving (we have Labor Day and a teacher workday before then...yikes!).  I have my comfy maternity clothes, compression hose (oh my goodness I'm going to be so HOT), and my new shoes ready to go.  Two good things about starting back (and no, neither is going to be a noble statement about how wonderful students are or influencing America's youth):  the time will go quickly because it will be very busy and college football starts.  We are within two weeks of Auburn's first game, and while I don't think the season is going to be quite as exciting as last season, it always makes for a fun Saturday.  War Eagle!

Large and In Charge

This week was pretty darn fun.  Which is good, because Monday starts a full week of work.  It truly started on Friday with inservice, but anyone can go to work for a day, right?  

Earlier in the week, my friend Hillary and I had an End-of-Summer layout day which caused some red shoulders, but was a wonderful way to spend a day before work started.  Friday started work, but we got a free Chick-Fil-A breakfast, a two and a half hour lunch break, and an ice cream party.  For a pregnant girl, there really isn't a much better way to go back to work.  Then Friday night, I saw The Help with my friend Lindsay (phenomenal, go read the book [because the book is always best] and then go see the movie, after you finish reading the blog, of course) and it lived up to every expectation I had for it.  THEN (oh yes, there's more fun) Saturday morning, I woke up early to go see my MTB (meant to be) friend Becky who happened to be a mere 3 hours away in Dallas (as opposed to 12 in Memphis).  She happens to be seven months pregnant to my six and we had a blast eating, sighing over how out of breath we get telling stories, eating, picking out matching outfits for our girls, eating cookies with frosting, watching movies, eating, taking pictures, shaking up our babies from laughing so hard, and taking pictures of us eating.  The pictures are only a sampling of our shenanigans.  Becky's husband Tucker was VERY patient as our photographer (thanks, Tucker).  Now to go to bed early to recover....typing has made me out of breath.

This is where the title of the blog came from.....(for me anyway, I don't speak for Becky).

Hmmm....is there something behind that tree?

Just us and our bumps (the inspiration for this came from an amazing pregnancy photo link)!

Matching outfits for the future friends!!!!

 

We're forcing them to meet already. :)  At least they didn't kick each other.

It should be noted that when I showed James ALL the pictures we took he said "Y'all aren't putting these on the internet where people can see them are you?"  Hence, the small selection.  :)

A Stomach Virus and a Beach Trip...All in One Week

I'm writing the blog because it's more fun than writing a paper.  Procrastination is an art.

Week 23 was a little crazy.  It started off with a lovely 24 hour stomach bug, which is not fun in the best of circumstances, but especially when you're already tired at six months pregnant.  It came at a bad time too because it hit Thursday, and Friday I was supposed to head down to Galveston for our cousin Jacqueline's bachelorette party.  I ended up giving myself an extra day to recover and midday Saturday was headed south to the coast.  I had a blast getting to celebrate Jacqueline and can't wait for her wedding!!

I start back to work on Friday, which will start the long haul until Thanksgiving break.  Usually I'm ready for the school year to get started by this time of the summer, but knowing now that teaching gets (a lot) more difficult the larger my bump gets makes me not quite as excited. 

Aunt Joy sent a cute little bathing suit this week, so I had to put it on here....hopefully Baby G will enjoy the pool and she'll look super cute while she's swimming around!

We also have the nursery pretty much finished up, and I'm so glad that I won't have to worry about it once school starts!  Here are some pics... 

It's a Girl (pretty sure everyone already knows this, though.....)!!!

Last week was a busy one, so we didn't have a chance to update the blog after informing my family that little Baby G is a girl.  If you haven't heard the news by now, you need to get on Facebook.  ;)  We had a wonderful, event-free 20 week ultrasound which we are SO (so, so, so) thankful for.  I badgered the ultrasound tech with questions while she showed us different organs and body parts (she was new to us, and didn't know our history), but she was very patient with me (maybe thought I was crazy, but patient).  James kept grinning at me because he thought the umbilical cord was something else, and thought he had the sex figured out before the tech told us, but it was in fact just the umbilical cord.  I think the tech was surprised that we took the whole "it's a girl" news without a ton of emotion, but I was so relieved at everything looking good that it did not matter to me in the slightest if she said boy or girl.  Of course, we're so excited to have another little girl, and can't wait to meet her and see her little personality start to show.  I haven't been allowing myself to go crazy buying new clothes, because we have so many outfits from my nieces and Bailey, but it's been fun to get a couple cute things here and there.  Now we have the huge task of picking a name....I'm not sure five months is enough time.  It's a slow process for us. 

The reason last week was so busy is because my entire family was in town visiting (see below).  It was fun to host Jack, Megan, Ella, and Hallie at our house and take them around The Woodlands to play, shop, and eat at all the great places we have so close to home!  I had to slightly modify my cake plan because I didn't have time to frost said cake prior to everyone getting to my house (procrastinator).  So, instead, I took Ella back into our room and gave her a little sign that said "It's a GIRL!" sent her out into the living room to share.  Then, we had pink frosted cake later that didn't have to be kept a surprise.

It's been a great couple weeks, and I'm still feeling good (although slightly dreading the return to school and thus standing on my feet all day), with the exception of just starting to feel heavy.  Ah well, it was going to happen at some point.

I'll add some pics from the week as soon as I have a chance to get them uploaded!!  Thanks for all the prayers! 

Back to the Blog

And we're back!  A lot of people have been asking me when we're going to start the blog back up, and I guess it's about time.  I'm nineteen weeks pregnant (yahoo!) and so far I have had a relatively easy time of things.  I did have a lot of morning sickness during the first trimester (and by morning sickness I mean all-day sickness), but that subsided earlier than it did with Bailey, which I was super pumped about.  Now I'm off work for the summer (favorite time of the year, other than when I'm off work for Christmas), and that's coincided nicely with the second trimester energy boost.  I spend my day laying out by the pool, reading (not always for fun....I'm in my 2nd year of grad school), and going to the gym for a "workout".  Awesome.

We have our big mid-point ultrasound on Wednesday of this coming week, so hopefully we'll get to find out if we're having a boy or a girl, but more than that, we'll get to find out if the baby is looking healthy.  I definitely went into this ultrasound with Bailey with a very breezy, yahoo for getting to see the baby again sort of attitude, only to have everything turned upside down (to put in mildly).  So, needless to say, I do NOT have a breezy attitude about this ultrasound.  I'm a little bit nervous (again, to put it mildly), but, lucky for me, James is pretty calm, which helps me stay calm (ish).  Everything so far has looked good, and we are hoping for some great results on Wednesday.  As always, prayers are appreciated!  :)

In the meantime, my mom has been suggesting baby names that are fit for a character on Days of Our Lives (sorry, Mom, it's true), and there is some slight disagreement going on with me forcing my family to wait five extra days to know if the baby is a boy or a girl.  I'm actually going to get to tell my parents, my aunt, my brother, my sister-in-law, and my nieces TOGETHER, IN PERSON what we're having.  This is usually done over the phone, so it's kind of a big deal to have everyone in Houston at the same time.  The disagreement comes from the fact that everyone else just wants to know and they're not too concerned with my big plans for the cake with the pink or blue icing.  Well, too bad.  I'm making a cake.  (And, Becks, it's going to be Funfetti!).