18 week anatomy scan & stuff! *pics*

 

Oh my gosh, I feel like I have SO much to write about!!  I’m sorry I’ve been so absent but I have had a million things going on it feels like.  Hopefully I catch up and can start noting more soon.

 

Our anatomy scan was this morning =) but I will write about our Great Wolf Lodge trip first!  It was great.  Emily is so funny to watch sometimes.  She had a complete blast.  She wanted to be in the water park constantly, but every time we were in there she would cling to me and just look really serious and just taking in all of her surroundings.  She is such an observer.  It wore me out though.  We would go in the wave pool and she would just cling to me and watch everything, but I didn’t want to go deep enough that the water could ever go over our heads so I squatted down so we were in the water.  Every time there was a wave I would go up and down, essentially doing squats.  My legs were SO sore, lol.

 

Any time we are in a new and kind of scary environment she is a complete mama’s girl.  No one else could hold her, not even Bryan or my mom.  Only I would do.  It was still so much fun and we had a blast.  One thing that didn’t go so well…we brought all of her allergy friendly food since it’s highly unlikely we could find a meal for her every day there, but we had French fries for lunch one day and she’s not allergic (even though she’d never had them before) and we let her have some.  She also drank a LOT of apple juice, which is a very rare treat at home and usually extremely diluted.  Can anyone guess what happened?  =)  So Sunday night she was absolutely exhausted but could not go to sleep.  We tried everything and she would just cry and say “mama” over and over and over.  I felt so bad for her.  So I was laying in bed and it was like 11 o’clock at night and I was just rubbing her back and she sudden lets out a huge fart and starts pushing.  Yeah, so big tummy ache and constipation.  She pushed for about 10 minutes and then literally passed out in my arms.  We changed her poopy diaper while she was faasst asleep. No more apple juice or crap food and she’s back to normal now.  

 

I’m slightly conflicted over it because I know how bad certain foods are for you, but I can’t honestly expect her to eat perfectly her entire life.  I get enjoyment out of food and I’ve never had a serious weight problem or ill health from it and I am hoping she will have the same or similar experience and be able to have a treat every now and then in her life.  I mean, she’s allergic to ice cream and cheese and most chocolate and all the other stuff most people consider “desert”, so I thought French fries was a great compromise and a vacation treat.  Next time maybe she’ll have to have a prune pouch chaser afterwards..lol.  

 

So the doctor’s office called me Tuesday (yesterday) and said the doctor has booked my c-section for October 30th!  It’s so exciting to see an actual date, but I realized that it’s the day before Halloween and I’m going to miss taking my baby (Emily) trick-or-treating this year!  I know she can come to the hospital in her costume and everything..but it’s not the same.  In all reality she won’t remember the Halloween mommy missed when she was 2, but I can foresee me crying in the hospital over it.  So, that will be a bittersweet day I think.  I know my mom and Bryan can take her trick-or-treating and she’ll have fun, but I also know she will want me to be with her.  

 

According to the ultrasound today, October 30th will be the exact day I turn 40 weeks.  Even if I go a little early I won’t be able to recover from a c-section fast enough to be able to walk around and trick-or-treat..so I’m going to have to get over it.

 

So now to the anatomy scan!  It was perfect and the baby looked great!  I had an awful dream last night that we found out something awful at the scan, so I was relieved to see the baby was healthy.  There’s a person in my BBC group whose first ultrasound was their anatomy scan and she found out the baby didn’t have arms and legs.  I think that’s the source of the dream. =(  So sad.

 

<span class="b

umpedFont15″>The baby didn’t even have those cysts in its brain that Emily had!  For some reason I had prepared myself that they would be there and told myself they would disappear, just like Emily’s did.  But we don’t even have to worry about it!  Not looking at the gender was excruciating, lol.  We told him ahead of time so he had us look away any time he was in that area.  He wrote the gender down on the card we gave him and we immediately sealed it up and it’s already in the mail to the baker, heh.  He ALSO printed an ultrasound picture that said the gender and we were going to just not look at it, but neither Bryan or I trusted that the other person wouldn’t look, so when we were at the post office after the appointment we put the envelope with the ultrasound picture in the mail to my mom and I told her she can’t open it. =)  I have to say it’s a huge relief not to have any way to peek.  I wanted to look SO badly and there’s no way we would have not looked for a week and a half, so now that we don’t have the ability it’s like a weight is off our shoulders, haha.  

 

I honestly have ZERO clue what it’s going to be.  I was telling the doctor at my last appointment that the ultrasound tech for the NT scan mentioned the nub looked bigger than a girl nub and the nurse said they told her that with her second baby and it ended up being a girl at the anatomy scan!  LOL!  So I really have no idea what it’s going to be!  I am so incredibly excited either way.  I feel right now like I will be shocked to hell if it’s a boy and shocked to hell if it’s a girl…so needless to say, I am going to be shocked and VERY happy! =)  Ahhh, the 8th can’t get here fast enough!!

 

We are all set with presents for Emily’s birthday on the 9th, but I still have to figure out how to make her cake. =/  I found a recipe online for dairy free, soy free, egg free, nut free cake and icing, so that’s going to be my best bet.  It’s going to look horrendous, but as long as she gets cake on her birthday I will be happy. =)  I can’t believe my little girl will be 2 in less than 2 weeks!  Time flies.  She is doing so well and I am so proud of her though.  She is a toddler of course and has her moments, but she is overall a very happy and sweet little girl.  She can be hilarious and she talks more and more every week.  I’m afraid the next one will be a terror to make up for how sweet Emily is, lol!  Then again, we went through colic and food allergies and horrible sleep with her, which is still a struggle sometimes, so if the kid is a pill but can eat regular food and sleep normally, I might take that as a fair trade, lol.

 

Anyways, work is crazy busy and my little girl is growing and my belly is getting bigger and bigger.  I’m a happy girl.  This weekend we are just going to relax and catch up on housework and mowing the lawn and stuff that we couldn’t do last weekend.  We have to go to Party City and get some decorations for Emily’s birthday party too, and then a few short days and we will be headed up to my mom’s for the gender reveal and Emily’s birthday!  

 

*I wrote that yesterday and didn’t get a chance to post, and then I realized I forgot to write some things!  I was wondering why, at 18 weeks (that’s what I’m going with now since I’ve measured ahead consistently), I haven’t really felt any distinct kicks but a lot of rolling.  I definitely feel the baby rolling a lot.  It turns out I have an anterior placenta!  Makes sense, I suppose.  I don’t really care either way as long as I can feel the kicks eventually.

 

Also they did a cervix measurement yesterday and they said it was below the average they would usually see, but still good.  It was above 3.0, so I was happy with it.  At this point in my pregnancy with Emily it was 2.9 and I did the bed rest for a week because I started to panic.  I remember being so pissed off back then that no one was taking it seriously and this time, even though it’s not bad, he was telling me all these warning signs and he seemed very concerned about my uterine anomaly (a different MFM doc than I had with Emily).  I thought it was funny that this time I wasn’t worried and he was!  I have been incredibly more active this pregnancy than with Emily though.  I didn’t take stairs and I came home and sat on the couch every day after work.  It was awful.  The amount of movement I did at Great Wolf alone last week was probably more than I moved the entire pregnancy with Emily, lol!  So if I can be so active and still have a “good” cervix measurement, I think I’ll be okay.  I have another check in four weeks to see and then I should be out of the woods for issues with that.  The best indicator of cervix issues is how you did in your previous pregnancy and I held her in until 39 weeks 5 days with no dilation or contractions.  I think we’ll be good.</sp

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On another good note, my skin seems to finally be clearing up a little bit.  I remember it wasn’t good when I was pregnant with Emily, but it never got as bad as it did this time.  Yikes.  I’m really doing well with body changes this time around though.  Like I get more peach fuzz on my stomach when I’m pregnant, not dark or anything, but I can tell it’s more, but it fell out after I had Emily and I know it will this time too.  I thought the line going down my stomach would never disappear, and of course it did (haven’t started one yet this time!) and just things like that that I know will go away when it’s over.  So none of it’s really bothering me.  I honestly feel great.  I even crossed another dreaded number on the scale yesterday, which I knew was imminent as I was only like a pound or two away from it with a lot of months left to go.  I was disappointed for a second and then realized that it’s silly.  I don’t think my weight will get as high as it did with Emily, and once again, even if it does, I was pretty satisfied with how I ended up afterwards anyways.  I think it’s funny now looking at pictures of myself right after she was born.  We have these buttons from the fair with Bryan, Emily and I, and the first one where she’s a month or two old (TINY) I am HUGE, lol!  I didn’t even notice or care back then because I was so happy!  And then the next button she’s a year older and I look like the normal me.  It feels like a long time when you’re living it, but in reality we only give up our bodies for a short time.

 

I think it’s weird that I haven’t had a lot of cravings or gone through a “starving” period yet where I’m constantly hungry.  I’m actually really proud of my diet in this pregnancy so far and I don’t see it changing any time soon!  I craved cookies and sweets so much with Emily and I don’t have that at all this time.  I had this deliciouschocolate bar from Whole Foods (milk chocolate with toffee and sea salt, mmmm) and it took me like a month to eat the whole thing!  A MONTH!  Even my non-pregnant self would have scarfed it quicker, lol.  Being busier effects it too I think.  Mornings are crazy trying to get to work on time that I usually only manage toast with almond butter and eat grapes in the car.  Salad for lunch usually and then like last night I had salmon and asparagus for dinner.  I think I did feel hungry earlier for dinner, but I was busy playing with Emily and didn’t have time to snack.  She’s a good deterrent, lol.  Sometimes I’ll eat a mandarin orange or something to tide me over though.  Not too bad!   I hope it doesn’t hit me at the end of the pregnancy and I put on a ton of weight right at the end.  That would suck!

 

OH, I completely forgot.  So yesterday at our appointment Bryan mentions he has a three-week school break coming up.  I asked when.  He said the 10th to the 28th!  It was very embarrassing having to tell the nanny yesterday that, oh, by the way, after next week you’ll have three weeks off.  UGH.  I wish he would give me/us more warning.  She seemed okay with it, but I felt bad.  I mean, this is her livelihood.  Not getting paid for three weeks is a big deal and we sprung it on her.  =/  And after I told her she said she had been talking with her parents about what she’s going to do when I go on maternity leave (I was waiting to have that conversation with her..) and she told me that if we want her back, she will have to get a job for that time but she would quit it to come back to us.  She is so sweet.  I told her we absolutely will want her back, but that we understand if her life goes in another direction and that we will keep touch during that time.  

 

She’s just so sweet about it and I feel like we’ll never find someone as flexible as she is with our schedule.  I mean, we pay a lot of money for childcare with her, but in all reality it’s not that much money a year for her and we are her only job.  Not to mention Bryan’s school breaks.  He’ll have three weeks off next month, practically all of August off and then all of December off.  And she always comes back and we resume right where we left off.  She could make more money a year working at McDonald’s.  But she loves Emily and Emily really loves her and I think she likes working for us otherwise.  I don’t even know what I’m going to do now about increasing (or not) her hourly rate for two children after my maternity leave.  I wasn’t planning on increasing it because I know what we pay her now is a going rate for watching multiple children, not just one.  But now I feel bad…we are increasing her work but not expecting to pay her anything more. =/  I imagine me mentioning we aren’t planning on increasing her pay might change her mind about quitting whatever job she finds and coming back.  Then again, if she wants to continue being a nanny I don’t think she’s going to find some

one who will pay her as much as we do in this area.  I’ll just have to wait and see what comes of it all.

 

It looks like I’ll be home early today, woohoo!  I feel like I have a ton more I could write about (like my mom making the call to Bryan’s parents and inviting them to her house for Emily’s birthday) but I will write about that and all my apprehensions another time.  

Now for lunch!

~Sheralyn

 

 

The two seconds she allowed someone else to hold her hand! =)

 

Kicked back and relaxed!

 

My mom holding a very tired girl. =)

~Sheralyn