Could it be true?!

YES, it is true! A little girl!! I was praying for another little girl. It goes without saying that I would have loved a little boy, too, but this was a very emotional ride for me. It also goes without saying that we wanted a healthy baby, that is just a given. But when you get something taken away from you, don't you usually want it back? If you plan your life with having a little girl, bought all her furniture, clothes, etc...and had thoughts of your family with this little being....and then she was taken away in a blink of an eye, does that feeling ever leave? I can tell you that it doesn't. When I found out I was pregnant with Dex, I wanted a little boy because I was so scared I would have another girl taken away. I wanted a totally different experience/pregnancy. When I found out he was a boy I was relieved. Derrick was very upset. He still had those thoughts of having a daddys little girl. In a day he was just ecstatic at having a little boy, but it takes time for your mind to be ok. For this pregnancy , I was really hoping for a girl. I now knew that I could successfully give birth, and that things could be ok. I wanted that future we once thought about and planned for. I wanted to get the outfit out I bought for Cora, the only outfit I bought for her....and be able to use it. (It is a pink western theme, cuz I knew my buddy Renee in Texas would approve ;-) I just wanted to get my chance again. I was very naive my first pregnancy and could have listened to my body better, but I now know what signs to look for.

Today I had my cousin Erin come with me to the ultrasound. Derrick had to get back to work since we were in FL for a week, and Erin came to my ultrasound when I found out I was having a girl the first time. They were only supposed to check my cervical length at this appointment, but I tried to be real nice and quiet and let the tech do her job, and pray she would look at the baby as well. The tech knew from last time how much I wanted to see the baby, and Erin and I saw her looking at the bottom parts of the baby. Erin and I both were holding our breath to see if she would say anything. We both didn't see a penis between the legs....and out of the blue the tech randomly goes "it's a girl, you can clean up now" :-) She said it so fast and matter of fact, Erin and I both were kinda stunned for a minute, and then we both pretty much laughed/teared up. Completely in awe, and shock. It was awesome.

Sooo, here we are freakin out that it is a girl, and I gotta tell Derrick. First, my phone I thought was charged, was not. Second, the office got zero reception, so even Erins phone wasn't working. We still had to wait to talk to the doc, cuz that is protocol, and here we are in the room trying to look for a signal. Luckily one text went through to Derrick, so he knew right away! I couldn't tell anyone else till we left the building, but we were so excited to share it was just funny since we were stuck waiting. That is why it took so long friends!! LOL. I had to get ultrasound, then wait for the doc, then talk to the doc, then get out of the building, and out of the dang parking garage....then I had to charge my phone once I got home! Now you understand! LOL.

Onto baby Wren. We are not sure what will be on the birth certificate yet, but it might be Wrenly. Derrick was iffy on it, but he may still come around. Derricks mom told me the name Wren awhile ago, and I fell in love with it. I think she said it was from Footloose. Thanks Mom! Derrick is still pondering over a middle name, so we will wait and see.

Her room, as if you hadn't guessed already...BIRDS! Get it? Wren? Birds? hehe. Awesome.

Ok, now I am going to look for more stuff online...I prob won't purchase anything more yet for a month...safety zone. (who am i kidding? maybe a few things)

Thank you for all your love and support, and kind words!
XOXO

ONE MORE DAY!

I can't wait another minute to find out what this baby is! I already have names, and bedroom plans for both sexes. I need to get the baby room ready asap since the nesting is about to kick in to full affect. Hopefully we will know in the morning what this kid is! It better cooperate! I am actually going in for just a cervical check length, but they will look at the baby too, so I will force them to do a potty shot. Fingers crossed!!!

As for our Disney trip. From the pictures on facebook, you can tell, it was amazing. To sum it up, my brothers wedding was unreal. Dexter was so cute in his tux walking down the isle holding my hand. Hanging with Steve and Mallory was top notch. Having Erin and Chelsea crash the vacation, was awesome. Dancing with my cousins, was a blast. Dex meeting his idol, Eyore, for the first time... indescribable.

Gaining a new sister is awesome. I love that I have 3 now. How cool is that? I couldn't ask for a better wife for my brother. Mal, I love you! I love your mom too! So exciting extending our families!!

MUCH LOVE ALL!

I love my little guy

Taking care of Business

Paying the Bills

Looking like a big boy

My little guy is growing up! He has been so sweet lately! He loves his momma again! Even though he likes his space, he has been cuddling, giving kisses, and just being cute. He will grab me by the finger and take me where he wants me to go. He is now starting to do more pretending when we play. We will go in his room and he does his night time ritual on me, and puts me to bed! I really like this game because I can lay down for a few minutes! He puts the covers on me, gives me a paci, and turns his music on. (i don't put the paci in my mouth, fyi) then he turns off the light, and closes the door! He peeks in on me to make sure I don't get up, so I just close my eyes, and relax! If I get up and open the door, he says, "no no momma, night night"...so off I go back to bed. Hehe.

Tonight we were making funny faces in the mirror after his bath, and he would copy whatever face I would make. Then I told him to make up some of his own, and it was pretty cool to see him take the lead and think up things on his own.

Dex also is learning to take off his clothes by himself, and he feels pretty good when he does, but doesn't mind asking for help either! Shirts are pretty hard to get off, but he can do pants, socks, and diaper. He has been going on the potty for quite awhile now, and it's at his own accord.  No pressure over here. I just want to be more on it after Disney World. We leave Friday, so when we get home, I just might mention it more. He just pees on the toilet.

As for bedtime, I am so dang lucky. This kid has been so EASY!! I don't know if it was my adamant scheduling, or if it was just pure luck, but I feel as though I am in for trouble with this next baby. I just FEEL it. I am screwed. Dex just will walk into his room when it's nap time, and grab his stuffies and loveys, and just lay down. At bedtime when I say it's time for bed, he gathers up his pacis(we will work on taking those away after trip as well) and I carry him to bed! He says "love u momma" and I close the door. It's so sweet! I have to remind myself his first six months of sleeping sucked, since he was a "snacker"...he needed to eat every two to three hours...then when I started feeding him solids, he slept  awesome. (K, I just stuck my foot in my mouth, guess who just walked into the living room at 10:37pm? He came out to tell me that he peed in his diaper. haha. It was so cute tho! He was rubbing his eyes, saying "wet, wet". I changed him, then bribed him with an M&M to go back to bed. I wasn't sure if he was going to want to stay up after her came out. Since he never does this, I was unprepared, lol. I figure candy is always the quickest solution, don't judge.)

As for the baby and I. Still going strong. We will find out the sex of the baby hopefully on the 12th. This anterior placenta thing is very different for me. I am used to feeling my babies all the time, and this dang placenta is in front of the baby blocking lots of movement. I can feel her/him on the sides of it, and pretty low, but it is for sure very different. I don't feel very pregnant with this one. It's weird. I feel like I'm not as huge as last time, but I didn't really lose all Dexters baby weight either...so I dunno, it's all different. Since I'm not taking the shots, I feel pretty great. I just still have that one hip that bothers me at night, and after standing a bit at work today my stomach hurt a little, probably the round ligament stuff. All the norm. I will be 18 weeks on Monday. It's so funny to me! I swear I do not look like I did at 18 weeks with either Dex or Cora...it just sorta makes me laugh..I had a huge round firm belly...and my current belly is still squishy...just seems strange to me! I hope it will round out soon so I feel more pregnant.

Well, I will post after we get back from Disney World. It will be so fun going to my brothers wedding! Wish us luck with traveling with a toddler! This will be the first flight for him, and first time being in another state for a whole week! This should get interesting!

Dexter the Destroyer...gotta love him.

Since the terrible twos have struck, I shall give you a list of our most common phrases:

1.) We do NOT throw
2.) Timeout
3.) Don't throw food
4.) Down
5.) Stop
6.) Hot
7.) You will get a boo boo
8.) Ouch, don't touch
9.) Wipe that up
10.) We don't pour milk on the floor
11.) No No
12.) No more
13.) One more time, and timeout
14.) Oonnnneeee, Twooooooo, THREE
15.) That's Yucky
16.) What did you do?
17.) You being good over there?
18.) All gone
19.) Nigh nigh time
20.) DEXTER!

Those are just to name a few. He isn't really that bad, but he is tiring! Dex is always into something. Every minute of the day. While cooking tonight, I forgot to push the lock button on the fridge door, and he had already made a tiny lake....and I was turned around for like a minute. Same room even! At least he gets a towel from the drawer and cleans it up himself. The other day he found a tube of petroleum jelly on top of his dresser where his powder, etc is. He squirted it everywhere in his room. That was easier to clean than the powder incident. I never got a chance to take a picture of that because I couldn't breathe in his room...and I didn't want to hurt my inner baby.
Sooo, Dexter is talking up a storm now. It's funny to watch him mimic us. He tells the cats to get off the couch when they start scratching it...or if they jump on the counter top. He tells me "turn on lights", "turn off lights", "sit down mama", "no no go away mama", "Dada sit, play play", "Dada go sit table", "Up sky!"(that is when daddy throws him in the air) , "Up sky car!"(when daddy picks up the car with him in it), "mama fly!"(me flying him around room), "mama tickle neck!"( he loooooves being tickled), "dada boo boo eyes!"(this is when dex takes derricks contact lenses out of the drawer and he thinks Dada has to put them in his eyes because he has a boo boo),"lets go downstairs, play play!", he says "it's broken", "i see u!", "mamma chase me!", "i color on wall!" the list goes on! He's pretty funny.

As for my pregnancy. I CAN'T STOP EATING DING DONGS! I NEED SWEETS! I get to the store and I freak out in the cereal aisle. I want all the sugary ones! I have to contain it though, I don't wanna overdue it! I just settle for Honey Bunches of Oats. BORING! I have been pretty tired the past few days as well. Maybe little baby is having a growth spurt. He/She was moving around a bunch last night which was cool. I'm still waiting to be able to feel the baby all day. I only sometimes get a chance to feel it kicking around in there.

My hips still sorta suck, mainly at night. It is my left hip that hurts, and I am supposed to sleep on that side. I put a pillow under it last night and it helped a little, but since my hip is sucky, the rest of my bones are outta whack, so I end up getting really bad back/neck pain...so Tylenol has been my friend. Once I am up and about walking around helps. Bending sucks. I was organizing and doing laundry today, and just picking things up off the ground really bothers my back a lot. Oh well!

I will post belly pics when I look less pudgy and more round. I will not hurt anyones eyes by showing off my flab. Ok? Cool.

Psycho womb baby at 15 weeks

I am not sure if because this time around I am always eating sweets...but this baby is ACTIVE! When Dex was in my belly, he always was hanging out at the bottom of my uterus....sleeping. He was never being difficult for the ultrasound techs. This baby is ALL OVER the place. It's funny that two different people have done ultrasounds and both say the same thing, "I'm trying to get a read on the heart, but it won't stop flipping around!" (heartbeat was 147 today, eventually)

Today the baby kept crossing it's legs, and we couldn't get a great view of the genital area. Soooo...I gotta be patient and wait four more weeks. BUMMER!
Little baby did wave a lot though!
The pregnancy is going well, and I like to eat a lot...I don't get full very easily. I wake up in the middle of the night pretty thirsty, but now I keep a cup near the bed.
My hips hurt on and off. Picking Dex up makes them burn. Just an ouchy pinching burn feel. I have been trying to let him walk everywhere...but sometimes he just wants, "up!".
Every time I ask Dex if he wants a baby boy or baby girl, he always says, "baby girl". When I asked him what was in my belly yesterday, he said, "yucky"...(whatever.)
I saw Dr. Sheikh today, and he was so nice. (If ever there was a doctor I love..this is him!) He was at the hospital when I had Cora. He was wonderful, and had great bedside manner. I remember he was testing me for the fetal fibronectin(sp?) test...and it wasn't good, and he was really kinda about telling me. Anyway, he was around for Dexters appointments too, and now this ones. He told me today that everything about the baby looked normal, cervical length normal, fluids normal...He decided that we wouldn't do the progesterone shots unless he saw anything weird in the next visit. I am off the hook!! He said since everything was going as should be, there should be no cause for concern. I can't wait to see what my OB thinks. She thought for sure they were gonna be on me like a hawk with those shots. I bet she will be happy at least that they aren't too worried now.
This technician said I had: An Anterior Placenta/It means your baby is taking a backseat to the placenta. The term "anterior placenta" refers to the location of the placenta within your uterus. Most of the time, a fertilized egg will situate itself in the posterior uterus — the part closest to your spine, which is where the placenta eventually develops, too. Sometimes, though, the egg implants on the opposite side of the uterus, closest to your abdomen. When the placenta develops, it grows on the front (or anterior) side of your uterus, with the baby behind it. 
  
Does the location of your placenta make any difference? Not to your baby, who doesn't care which side of the uterus he or she is lying on, and it certainly makes no difference to him or her where the placenta lies. And what about to you —  or your practitioner? You might be less able to feel your baby's early kicks and punches because the placenta will serve as a cushion between your baby and your tummy. For the same reason, your doctor or midwife may find it a bit harder to hear fetal heart sounds (and it could make amniocentesis slightly more challenging). These situations will resolve if the placenta moves into a more posterior position later on (as anterior placentas commonly do). But the good news here is that, despite those slight inconveniencies, an anterior placenta in and of itself poses no risk to your health. 

The tech said that I am super in tuned with my body since I could already feel the kicks with having the anterior location. I will agree with that.

Well that is the news from today!

Womb Baby

We had our 13 week ultrasound today, and the little baby has stuck around! This time it looked like a little human, so that was awesome. To get to this point means a lot. I can feel calm that things are growing/going well. It's finally starting to be more real, and I felt that connection beginning. SOooo that was really great :-)

In two weeks I start going to the Maternal Fetal Clinic. This is where I went while pregnant with Dexter. Here is where I get more in depth ultrasounds and have the specialist take a peek at them. This is still all precautionary stuff. They check the length of your cervix, amniotic fluid levels, the baby...etc...They will tell me to start getting my weekly booty shots of progesterone to help keep the baby from wanting to leave my tummy early. (No one knows why Cora wanted out so bad, but if your normal progesterone levels drop that will tell your baby it is time to exit, sooooo if they shoot me with extra progesterone, it is good, because I will have so much of it, if my levels did drop, it would help keep the baby inside me) Like I said before, they are not sure if that had occurred, but it's better to be safe than sorry, and it doesn't hurt anything, besides my butt.

I was thrilled to see my booty shot nurse at the office today! Ruth was my little gem at the office who would give me my weekly shots when I was pregnant with Dex. I hadn't seen her since I was 36 weeks pregnant with Dex, and didn't know if she still worked there or not, and she surprised me today while I was waiting for the doctor to come into my room! It's quite a bond you get when someone sticks the largest needle they have into your most sensitive area....Needless to say, I was extremely happy because she makes a sucky thing not so sucky anymore. She did tell me she was moving to FL in August, and I said "perfect timing, because I am due in August, and you will be shooting me up for my whole pregnancy!" You make think this is silly, but this was the second highlight to my day. I told her I needed her for this, and it makes things so much calmer for me. Hurray for Ruth!

Soooo, my womb baby could hardly stay still today during the ultrasound, and it could be because I ate a sugar cookie from my mom before the ultrasound....but I knew I had a little tumbler in there! I had been feeling the "quickening" movements the last two days....It happens! I felt Cora and Dex move around 14 weeks, and I never expected to feel anything before then, but I did a few times already. It is very subtle, and would be barely noticeable, but I am freaky in touch with my body, and I know a few tricks. The main one is ice water, and being really quiet and still..and kinda scrunch yourself, or squish the baby pretty much....I sorta curl up, and take a swig, and babies seem to move around...I dunno why, but it works...So I went into the ultrasound feeling okay because I felt a few little movements already!

So that is the scoop!

Toddler Mayhem

Well, my awesome toddler is a crazy person. I turn my head for two seconds, and he is into trouble. Whether it be from finding powder and pouring it all over his room, pouring my red gatorade onto my cream carpet, or grabbing all the clothes out of his closet and making the carpet unable to be seen. Mommy has a short fuse these days, so I think I have to put the gate back up again and corral him. Now that he isn't in a crib, I don't have a spot to keep him safely if I need to get things done. A toddler is an interesting little person. They are too young too know something might be dangerous, but old enough to get into everything dangerous...For instance...my dishwasher. I have to make sure to have it unloaded while he is running about because he can open it, and their are sharp knives that could be easily taken out to play with...We have to remember to push the lock button on our water/ice dispenser or we will have a river in our kitchen, we can't leave anything out because his toys are not as fun as our technology, wallets, purses, keys, cups, food, etc.....(He kinda reminds me of our ferrets from back in the day...they stole everything too) I forget that he can open almost anything now, like bottle tops...hence why the gatorade was dumped...I forgot he could open that! The most important thing to remember, is NEVER EVER leave crayons anywhere he can reach...Or he will color on the house.

Being the laid back parents that we are, we foolishly let our child draw on the walls in Derricks man cave, because I have started a mural down there, that I have not yet finished....but we let him color on those walls...yet, how do you explain that THOSE are the only walls you may draw on? We didn't think that far ahead...oh well.

Little guy still sucks at eating. Talking to other parents makes me feel better at least. Recently a friend told me their kids live off corn dogs and pancakes. I was like, "sweet, dex lives off waffles(aka wabbies) " Actually, here is the list we feed him that he will eat( it's not too bad, but veggies are a no go)He eats: waffles, oatmeal(although lately he is bored with it), yogurt, cheese, all flavors of applesauce, goldfish, nutragrain bars, peanut butter and jelly, melon, grapes, bananas,oranges..(he's a fruit guy),french toast, sliced ham or turkey when in the mood...pizza(always)...dry cereal, grilled cheese,cream cheese and jelly toast,  ham and cheese sandwich when in the mood, chicken patty(when in the mood)...That is pretty much it off the top of my head. The thing is, with the whole "in the mood stuff" i usually end up having to throw food out, or it ends up going to waste in the fridge. One day he will like something, and then the next turn his nose up to it. I barely introduce new foods anymore because of how much food is wasted. It sucks to make something you think he is gonna like, and then tell you "it's yucky".

Dex has a huge sweet tooth. It all started with the potty training. M&Ms, were the start of it. He loves CANDY. The potty training came to a halt when he got bored with it. He is starting back up again only going on it once or twice a day. He will go on command. For instance, if he has a dry diaper, one of us will say, "go on the potty" and he will go. Or before he gets in the tub I make him pee in the potty. I try to tell him it's gross to pee in the tub so he will go on the potty before hand. He usually goes right before bed too. I don't push it, but I wanna keep him a little consistent....He should be outta diapers when this baby comes. Scratch that, He WILL be outta diapers by then.

Big boy bed was a success, that was one easy hurdle at least. The next hurdle is getting through this pregnancy. It's been a fairly boring pregnancy which is completely amazing. I haven't had any of the aches and pains yet, though I know that will come soon enough. Aside from the normal morning sickness, and fatigue....all has been well. I barely feel pregnant. I'm not freaking out as much as I did with Dexter. I think it helps that I have had zero bleeding, and I am  too occupied with Dex.

I'm not getting an at home doppler this time, so I think that means I am handling it ok. With Dex I checked for a heartbeat every other day pretty much. I had the goo and everything to rub on my belly. My next ultrasound is Friday, and that will put me at ease more if everything looks ok. I will be almost 13 weeks by then. My weeks change on Mondays. So I am 11 weeks and 6 days today. Tomorrow is the big 12. Ta ta for now!