Do I Look Pregnant Yet?

I am certainly feeling pregnant these days! 34 weeks down and only a few more to go. I can't believe I'm due NEXT month already! Other than being really tired and rather uncomfortable I have been feeling great! I'm still working my three 12 hour shifts at the hospital which has been getting much harder, but luckily I haven't had much to do on my days off so I can get some much needed R&R. As long as my Dr will let me I am planning on working until the end so I can spend my full maternity leave with our sweet baby girl but we'll have to see how things continue to go. As of my last Dr appointment, my blood pressure was great, and I have lost a total of 7 lbs during my pregnancy. You read that right ladies, and yes, its ok to hate me! I have not gained one pound over my pre-pregnancy weight in fact I have LOST weight. I actually lost 9 lbs and gained 2 so I'm still down 7 lbs. Maybe I should go on the pregnancy diet more often!

In preparation for the big day we have been working very hard getting the nursery ready. Her bedroom has basically been a really big storage space for us since we moved into our place in August so its been a feat to get it cleaned out. We still have a few things to get but we are just about ready. I will post pictures when the nursery is all finished! I have definitely been feeling the nesting bug lately. Her clothes are washed and some are hung up in her closet and now thanks to Nick's awesome assembling skills, she also has clothes in her dresser!

Not bad for a $180 Wal Mart special if you ask me!

I have been making a list of things that we still need for the nursery and I would love some in-put from all of my lovely readers. I want to know what are things that you;

1. Didn't think about or forgot to get before baby came?

2. You could NOT live without?

3. You could live without?

4. Any luxuries you recommend?

5. Any other advise for us first timers?

Can't wait to read your answers! Thanks for all of your help!

Better Late Than Never

I know it is past thanksgiving but I really wanted to share the things that I have been thankful for this past year.

December (2008):

• Christmas! To me there is no better time of the year. I love giving gifts, listening to music and spending tons of time with our families.
• The anticipation of the end of 2008 and the many possibilities that 2009 could bring.

January:

• A referral from my wonderful Dr to a fertility specialist.
• Gym memberships and a healthy diet!
• Having Nick back home full time after his internship.

February:

• Our first visit to the infertility clinic and the encouragement of Dr. J and his team.
• Nick's dirt bike. I know that it may sound silly for me to be thankful for him getting a dirt bike but the joy that this bike brought to him was priceless and definitely something to be thankful for!

March:

• Testing, testing, testing and more testing with Dr. J's team.
• Great insurance that paid for almost all of the $15,000+ of diagnostic testing we had done.
• Birthday's! During the month of March 5 of our family members have their special day. So fun to celebrate literally every weekend!

April:

• Answers. All of the testing came back with answers of why we had difficulties conceiving and maintaining pregnancy's. It was such a blessing to have names to our problems.
• Clomid.
• My husband. Annually April 13th is a monumental day, it's his day of birth. :o) I am so thankful to have him in my life and to have one day each year to celebrate him. I love you Nick!
• Jobs lost and new opportunities, and for the speedy rebound we were able to have after both losing our jobs on the same day.

May:

• On May 17th we saw with our very own eyes a beautiful pink plus sign!
• The emotions of excitement, joy, and being completely terrified all at the same time when you find out you are going to a parent!
• The power of prayer and the feeling Nick and I got after we prayed that everything was going to be ok with this pregnancy.

June:

• Even better than the little pink plus sign, a HEARTBEAT! There's really someone in there!
• Raglan. (Anti-nausea medicine)
• The reaction of our parents and siblings as they found out we're having a baby!
• Meeting my weight loss goal. 40 lbs down! And yes, morning sickness helped with the last few pounds.

July:

• Getting to take a trek to Utah for Kristl and Aaron's wedding and getting to visit Nick's extended family.
• Finally feeling comfortable enough to tell my friends the we're expecting and sharing my fertility journey here.
• Saying goodbye to the first trimester!

August:

• Our new apartment. Yes I complain about it a little, ok maybe a lot but I REALLY do love saving so much money each month on rent.
• My new job at the hospital. I love the women and the patients I get to work with and all of the wonderful things I have learned.
• Wedding Anniversary's. We didn't do much this year but it is so nice to remember to vows we made to each other 4 years ago.

September:

• Finding out that the little baby I had been carrying for 20+ weeks is a healthy baby GIRL!
• Fall weather. I was so happy to have cooler days and nights.

October:

• Football season. The activity of our weekends from Sept-November.
• Shopping for our little girl and the excitement and anticipation we get every time we buy things to fill up the nursery.

November:

• Getting to see our baby girl in 4D. What a cool experience that was! We can't wait to meet her!
• Thanksgiving. I love the food, the family, and the football. Makes for a great day!

Over the past year we have had our share of struggles and triumphs and I am so thankful for all that we have been given. We can't wait to see what Heavenly Father has in store for us as we continue our journey through life.

4D Ultrasound

On Friday Nick and I made a little trip to Bellevue to get a 4D ultrasound done. It was also a good excuse to go shopping and eat lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. We had so much fun! It is considered an elective procedure unless your Dr does it for medical reasons so we had to pay out of pocket for the ultrasound, but it was worth it. The ultrasound tech spent over a half hour with us to make sure we got some great pictures and she wasn't going to stop until we had plenty! We got 33 pictures printed out in black and white, as well as colored pictures on a CD, and a DVD of the whole thing. They also gave us a diaper bag full of coupons and other goodies. We were happy to find out that we will 100% for sure be having a little girl. She let us get a good shot of her girl parts, in 2D and 4D. To uphold her modesty I won't be posting pictures of that though. We had a great time seeing her, the best part about the 4D ultrasound is we got to get a taste of what her personality will be like. She REALLY likes to suck on her hands and will probably be a big binky baby. She is definitely a very active little girl, and will make very expressive faces. She also liked playing with her hands and grabbing her feet. It was very cute. Here are some of our favorite pictures of our little girl!

This is a great profile view of her, her little arms are up over her forehead. My mom thinks they looks like a bow tied on her head.

I think this one is really cute. It looks like she is resting into her arms. I love that she's making a fist.

This one is probably my favorite. It is almost a straight on shot of her and she's rubbing her right eye. I love her little nose and lips and her chubby cheeks. I think she's going to be a beautiful little baby but I might be a little biased.

This one shows how snug life is for her in my belly. That is her foot that is literally in her face. If you look closely you can see that she has super long toes! She definitely gets that from my side.

This one is really funny because she is sticking out her tongue. Yum, Amniotic fluid!

She is taking a nice little stretch with her arms in this picture.

She's sucking her thumb!

I hope you enjoyed this pictures of her! This makes us Nick and I so much more excited to meet her! Only 11 weeks to go!

Long time, No blog

Sorry it has been over a month since my last blog but we have been a little busy! Here is what we have been up to the last month or so.

We went to watch Garrett and his friends, Kevin (left) and Carl (middle) in battle of the bands during the high school's homecoming week. Garrett wrote the song they performed. It was very impressive.

We went to visit Nick's family one weekend and got to see Nick's little brother Taylor (#87) play in his junior league football game. He did a great job!

Jared and I made "pumpin" shaped sugar cookies, and we had a great time doing so.

As you can see, they were finger lickin good!

Nick had a guys weekend with this crazy guy, Brian. They spent the weekend goofing off in Seattle and going to football games. Nick said they had a great time!

My family had our annual pumpkin carving contest and here are the winners, 1st place was Nick's wildcat on the right. 2nd, my baby girl on the left, and 3rd Garrett's guitar hero crazy demon cat dude.

Our beautiful niece Allyson turned 1!

She had a good time scootin' around in her wagon.

Of course you have to show off the cake pictures!

Her new stuffed Panda we got her was a big hit!

Some of the crazy party go-ers!

A very handsome police officer came trick or treating,

So did the worlds cutest lady bug!

Nick and I were the baker and the bun in oven. :o)

And my Belly has been growing, (24 weeks)

And GROWING!!! (28 weeks)

Speaking of that little girl growing in my belly things are going great! The last few Dr's appointments she has measured about 2 weeks larger than actual dates, I'm hoping that doesn't mean I have giant baby growing in my belly. Yikes! My gestational diabetes test came back negative, woohoo! Other than the occasional heartburn and hot flashes, I have been feeling great! I'm noticing its harder to breathe when I do simple things like tie my shoes. It's quite the reach when you have a basketball sitting out in front of you and squishing your insides. Other than those minor things I don't have a thing to complain about! We have another busy week ahead. I hope I have time to write another blog next Sunday about our fun events!

I love freebies!

Thank you to my dear friend Angela's post I found out about this awesome $32.00 freebie and now I'm passing it on to all of you! Click HERE to order your nursing cover. Pick out the cover you want and enter the promotion "backorder" and only pay $8.95 for shipping. :o)

Happy Friday!

Drum roll please....

We're having a baby girl! We are so happy we don't have to call our baby IT anymore and we now get to call our baby HER/SHE! One of these days she'll have a name too! We didn't get see very clear girl parts but we saw between the legs and a flat legged profile and there are no boy parts to be found. But because our Doc didn't see super clear girl parts he couldn't guarantee 100% that it is a girl but he said I would buy girl stuff and maybe one boy thing just in case and well, that's good enough for me!

She is growing right on target, and as you can see in the photo below, she has a very cute profile. Looks like she has her Mama's chubby cheeks too. :o) Our little girl was moving her little hands around, and wiggling all over the place. It was so fun to see her. My due date hasn't changed but she did measure a couple days larger. Thank you all for participating in the gender poll and congrats to the 25 of you who guessed right! It was so fun to check everyday to see what the count was up to. Not only were the 25 of you who guessed girl right but so were Nick and I! We were both pretty proud of ourselves!

A lot of you have been asking if we have picked a name yet and well, we have like five. One of these day's we will narrow it down to maybe two names, but I think I want to see her before we give her a definite name but who knows, maybe I'll change my mind. Here she is, our sweet baby girl!

Half Way There!

20 weeks today! I can't believe we're half way there already! I hope that this pregnancy continues to fly by this fast. Thursday is our big ultrasound. We are hoping the baby doesn't decide to be modest, we REALLY want to know what we're having. If you haven't voted in the poll on our side bar please do so! So far girl is winning but we'll have to wait until Thursday to see which gender wins.

I have been feeling pretty dang good lately. I am still tired a lot of the the time but that's to be expected. Growing a baby is hard work, dang it! The baby moves around a lot more now and I can tell the difference between kicks, rolls and nudges. It is so fun! I absolutely love being pregnant!

It's Labor day weekend and in Ellensburg that means the fair and rodeo come to town. Nick and I did our usual festivities this year. We went to the rodeo parade on Saturday, in the rain and all. Even though it seems to be the same parade every year we go anyway. Its a tradition! Nick isn't a huge fan of the whole rodeo but he likes the bull riding, so we like to go to the Xtreme Bull riding event where it is just bull riding all night. We had a lot of fun! I forgot to check the battery on my camera before we got there and went to take a picture and you guessed it, it was dead! So I apologize for not having any pictures.

I survived my first week at my new job and I am LOVING it!!! The Nurses, Dr's and aids that I get to work with have all been so welcoming and patient with me as I am learning. I have learned so many new things this week but I know that it will take me a while to get everything down. I got to witness an epidural being done, an episiotomy, and a delivery all for the first time. Not to mention I got to hang out with lots of cute babies this week. :o) I loved getting to view the delivery, it was such a miraculous thing to witness. It's a miracle in its self to even get pregnant but than to have that pregnancy progress to full term is a miracle! Especially since statistics show that 1 out of 3 pregnancies end in miscarriage. To see the things a woman's body can do get that baby out is also amazing! It was really a testament to me that the body is designed by Heavenly Father. I don't know how anyone can witness a birth and see that beautiful new baby and still not believe in God or at least a higher power. Life is a miraculous thing!