Feeling more cheery this week

I am back to normal health, have my appetite back, am sleeping well, and went for a walk with Maggie for the first time in over a week. I owe much of my improved attitude to the quality 10 minutes I spent with our boy today. I saw what looked like a recognizable human face coming from inside my womb for the first time. Here he is. Such a sweet mug.

This is the "cheery" trimester?

A few weeks ago it took 2 weeks to get over one of the nastiest colds I've ever had. Coupled with the fact that I couldn't take much for relief due to the pregnancy I was pretty miserable. Then I had a great week, was feeling good until...

I woke up on Sunday night at 2:00am with slight abdominal pain and nausea, and what felt like UTI symptoms. It took until 5:15 to get comfortable enough to fall asleep, only to wake up at 5:45 and head to work on Monday. My pain worsened so I left school at lunch time and went to the OBGYN who thought I had a bladder infection, but possible kidney stones, and prescribed an antibiotic. I went home to sleep the rest of the afternoon, but threw up twice, and then slept pretty well that night. Back to work on Tuesday but was unable to eat or keep anything down. Alex took good care of me and drove all over town to offer me a choice of 4 chicken noodle soups I asked for. I threw up 5 times that day and because of the vommit reflex I had abdominal pain and blown blood vessels in my eyes. Slept ok Tuesday night, went to school on Wednesday, scared the kids with my bloody eyes either because I looked scary or because the sweet ones are worried about me and the baby. Tutored after school on Wednesday and started having some pain in my lower back. By the time I got home a few hours later my back pain intensified to the point of almost unbearable. Worried about appendicitis or kidney stones, I called the OB on call and he told me to go the ER if I wasn't getting better in a few hours. Alex took me within a half hour and it's a good thing because the pain got far worse. They did an ultrasound on my kidneys, gave my IV antibiotics, anti-nausea meds, pain killers, a liter of fluids, and let me sleep a bit. After follow up today at the OB they are telling me they are pretty sure I was passing stones last night when that pain was the most intense. Feeling much better today (Thursday), have had 3 meals, each one getting progressively more substantial. I took Thursday and Friday off work to rest which is good because I need this to not drag out.

Now I'll just look like a bloody-eyed freak for a while, wearing sunglasses in buildings and even at night. I was just starting to enjoy everyone tell me how cute I was getting now in my 6th month! I guess since I never had a day of morning sickness, nausea, or food aversion in my first trimester I'm making up for it now so I can wear the badge of pregnancy.

Baby boy is still kicking, heard a heartbeat again today, and saw him on sonogram at the ER. Thanks for the prayers everyone, and a huge thank you to everyone who has taken care of me, run errands for me, brought me food, and squared things away with school and the kids.

Baby kicks

I have started feeling my little bub kick quite a bit. It is the sweetest feeling knowing he is alive and well inside of me. Alex and I saw my belly bounce a few times and he can feel the littlest kicks when he puts his hands on my belly. When I lie still I can feel him the best, and the books say to talk to him and he might react but every time I do my sweetest mama voice, Maggie comes running begging for her head to be patted. She seems to be the only one responding to my voice these days.

When we went to the OB last week for my 20 week checkup we had a great sonogram experience. We got some really cute pictures and she gave us a DVD of the whole experience so I can see him move all around as much as I want. I am loving this part of being pregnant and am trying so hard to imagine his cute face and what his cries will be like. I'm at the crossroads of wanting these sweet feelings in my belly to continue and wanting to meet him so badly.

On another note... Lori is expecting a baby in August. Mom will retire and twice become a Granna by the end of the summer. Can't wait! It is a great time around here.

Early nesting

We have started some home remodeling and home rearranging projects this week. We will be putting in new floors, baseboards, and blinds and window treatments throughout the house. The idea being to have a clean house suitable for a baby, one without carpet that dogs have destroyed and window treatments that collect and spread dust throughout the house. We also need to convert our spare bedroom, now used as a den and computer room into the nursery. But in order to move things from the nursery we need to convert the former 'dining room', which we have dined at about 5 times in 5 years into the new den and computer room.

So we donated the dining room table, chairs, and baker's rack to Salvation Army and now have space to start moving things out of the soon-to-be nursery. In this process Alex and I got rid of a lot of clutter, some trash and some for donation. We are looking forward to the changes. We have had people come out to give us estimates on flooring, which will hopefully be installed by next week. Then we will buy some new furniture for the downstairs and have an empty nursery until we start thinking about baby furniture.

Here are the 3 industrial-sized bags of trash and the 3 industrial sized bags for donation along with lots of other junk that is on it's way out.

One more thing we got rid of this week... Alex's stolen, then found but now mostly worthless truck. The fools who stole it ripped out the ignition component but were wise enough to put it up on 22" rims. Alex was glad to finally be done with it and sold it to a scrap yard for $351.

December 22nd

Today was Alex's 29th birthday and my best friend Jennifer's 30th birthday. It is always fun for me to have two of my most special people celebrate on the same day. Since this was a milestone birthday for Jenn we let tonight be more about her.

We celebrated Alex's birthday at mom's house last night. She cooked lasagna and Lori and Dave baked a cake. Alex opened a few presents, including an XBox he has been dreaming about since he sold his early this year.

Tonight we had a surprise party for Jennifer. It was a joint effort to coordinate the surprise and it was a perfect mix of close friends, who all showed up with yummies to contribute to the pot-luck dinner... and plenty of desserts.

Happy birthday to both these special people, whom I am grateful to have for yet another year!

That's Mr. Paramedic to you

We went to Alex's Paramedic School Graduation ceremony tonight. It was nice to see Alex recognized for his hard work and dedication to a very demanding program. All the speakers talked about thanking the support systems the paramedics have at home, but in all honesty, I've been a bit of a wreck this year, and Alex did a great job supporting me and taking care of his school and career this year. I couldn't be prouder to be Mrs. Alexander Moran!

Here is Alex with his best friend from school, Sardenga

Today was a very, very good day

Well Alex and I went to the doctor today for my 13 week appointment. We have made many trips to the doctor in the past two months, at 4, 6, 9 and now 13 weeks. Every time I was apprehensive and hoping that what the doctors were telling me was there was still in fact there. I knew that if I got to this end-of-trimester appointment and everything was as it should be that I would ease in my cautiousness and would fully embrace this pregnancy without fear that something would go wrong at each turn.

Well that happened today... We went in and spent about 30 minutes with our sweet baby boy! We saw him kick and jump, and move his arms all over the place. We heard his heart beat, saw the heart beating in his chest, saw movement in his internal organs, saw the lobes in his brain, saw his adorable foot with all his perfect toes, and even saw his wiener, which he enjoyed touching.

We praise God for this day. After all we have been through this year we sometimes, er, very often, questioned where was God and wondered why we felt alone. Then this week at church Pastor Matthew's final thought was that God often separates from you when you need him most so that when he finally reveals himself to you when you need it most it 1) builds your faith and 2) demonstrates God's glory. I definitely got that today.

Here are some pictures of our beautiful baby boy.