First a virtual house tour!
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| Our new house! |
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| A great view of Dinger charging, he loves the yard. We plan on putting up a fence this summer. |
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| The arctic entryway. This is immediately through the main front door, the garage is off to the right and the main house is through the door to the left. We even have a coat closet in here, small victory. The garage will be fantastic for the winter. |
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| We got to hang our wedding wreath on the door to the house. |
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| When you enter from the arctic entry way, you come out onto the main stairwell and can go to either floor. The stairwell has a nice tall wall where we hung wedding pictures. We have baby gates up to contain the dogs and the future baby. |
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| The dogs currently have their own room in the main basement area with a door to the front yard. Roxi ruins the panoramic shot with her darn waggy tail. That wood stove is just a secondary source, we use heating oil mainly. |
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| Another basement shot, don't mind the tools and closet doors sitting out, we're still getting set up. The far right door is under the stair storage space, to the left of that is the bathroom, and to the left of that is the guest room/office. The nursery is on the far left. The dogs ruin my pictures again. |
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| Our downstairs science themed bathroom. I'm hoping to find some beakers or something for a soap holder and toothbrush holder and so forth. Our washer and dryer hide behind the door in here. |
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| Our under the stair storage is so handy. As is the garage, it is great to have usable space. |
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| The nursery was the first room to get a paint job, we will start working on the rest of the house soon. And also working on getting some baby furniture. This room will be space themed! |
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| Now for upstairs! The floor plan is very open. We have a living area, dining area, and kitchen all in one room. I LOVE this. It makes it easy to chat with Travis while cooking, track the dogs at all times, and will be great for watching a toddler. We plan on changing the flooring to a consistent non carpet of some sort before we have a solid's eating child. The windows are huge and let in pretty much all the light, which will be great come winter. Also this room is pretty nerdy, Sasquatch and a drill bit are both in the picture. Also the entertainment system shelves are full of nerdy board/card games. |
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| Another view of the upstairs. The old fashioned radio is actually a liquor cabinet. The door to the left is the master, next to it is the bathroom and there's also a closet hidden back to the right that we use as a pantry. |
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| Our kitchen, we added the butcher block island, best purchase ever! Just ignore the dirty dishes, we were having a lazy day and cleaning out leftovers for lunch. |
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| The master bedroom. We finally got nighstands and dressers, it is awesome. I get to put all the seashells from the honeymoon out and our lab beaker decor made it all the way up without getting broken. |
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| I also love our color coordinated and tree/leaf themed bathroom. It is great to have upgraded past the eclectic decor a bit. |
And that's the house! It is located above the inversion so we get warmer fresher air. Travis saw a moose just down the road a week or so ago, and I saw two this evening in the same area. I'm pretty much in love with the immediate area and the house. It is so nice to finally have a home without a future move date already planned.
So about the pregnancy and baby...
So about the pregnancy and baby...
It is no secret I've been having a rough time this pregnancy with morning sickness. Mine did not let up after the first trimester as is often typical. I tried everything, small frequent meals, ginger candy and tea, lemonade and potato chips, prescription nausea meds, unisom and B-6, papaya enzymes, peppermint, preggo candies I bought off Amazon, I even considered sacrificing the dogs to appease the pregnancy gods. I don't think there was a fix I didn't try. Every day was all day nausea. I did have a few spare good days or hours but also had far too many days that included vomit.
Meanwhile, Travis and I debated whether or not we would be finding out if the baby was a boy or girl or would leave it a surprise until delivery. Travis wanted to keep it a surprise and I did not. It became clear neither of us would have a change of heart. But at some point, after being confined to a small hotel room and plagued by hormones, a dog that temporarily forgot his manners and potty training skill, morning sickness, sadness that I hadn't felt our baby kick yet, heartburn, and insomnia fueled by a constant need to pee, Travis finally caved. He agreed to find out what kind of baby we were having if I was still seriously battling morning sickness by our 20 week ultrasound. We got a whole set of pictures from this ultrasound. And if was so amazing to see a baby that looked unmistakable baby like, you can see so much intricate detail for being only halfway gestated. I'm talking individual finger and toe bones detail. The pictures I posted are a little fuzzy, but in person everything was crystal clear. Little one checked out 100% healthy, which was great news.
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| Baby girl measured perfect, just one day ahead! |
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| Our girl at 20 weeks! |
She was also not shy about showing us she was a girl!! I won't plaster the picture of her girl parts on the internet though. I have some discretion and dignity left yet. Nearly everyone in our immediate families guessed this baby was a boy. I can't claim any mother's intuition because I've had 3 vivid dreams about having a son this pregnancy. Even now I haven't had a dream about a daughter. Travis refused to guess what kind of baby we were having. I personally think this was just so he could never be wrong but he claims it is simply impossible to have a guess because science and blah blah blah. He was gleeful afterwards that he could tell his mother she was wrong with her guess though. When we visited Michigan right after finding out, she did the wedding ring on a string trick as a gender prediction. Travis refers to it as "mumbo jumbo." She will never live it down. I'm glad we are having a girl because if we were having a boy, I don't think Travis would have agreed to tell anyone just so he wouldn't have to tell his mother she was right.
We told some of our family and friends (who all thought we weren't finding out the baby's sex) the news with these pictures....
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| This Easter you already know we are eggspecting... |
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| But you didn't know we took a sneak peep at our little one... |
My favorite reaction to the news was my brother's. You can't be subtle with him. I should have learned this lesson when I called to tell him I was pregnant in the first place. He was coming to visit in a few weeks so I decided to hint at it until he realized I was pregnant. I said something like "Sorry Martin, I won't be able to drink with you or get a tattoo when you come to visit...." I was answered with silence and then panic when he thought I meant I had just been diagnosed with some serious disease. I had to spell it out for him. So I shouldn't have been surprised when he saw these pictures and honestly thought I was trying to tell him I was having sextuplets.
My father's reaction was my other favorite. He was guessing boy but my mom was one of the very few who guessed girl. I just called him to tell him the news as, frankly, he is not the most technologically advanced and I was not sure he'd get a picture message on his cell phone. The conversation went like this:
Me: So what is your final guess about the baby, still think it is a boy?
Dad: Yes, it is a boy.
Me: Well you're wrong!
Dad: No, I'm not yet!
Me: No...you're definitely wrong...
Dad: No, you're wrong, I'm right!
Me: No, Dad, really, she's a girl...
Dad: No, you're wrong, I'm right!
Me: No, Dad, really, she's a girl...
Dad: What? Really? Well shoot!
To clarify, he was not disappointed that he's having a granddaughter, he is only disappointed that he was wrong and my mom was right and also that he would have no more chances to try and convince me I needed to name my son a made up name combination of Jose and Travis. But still, one of my favorite reactions.
Currently, (25 weeks and some change or 5.5 months) baby's movements are getting pretty strong and consistent. Travis was able to start feeling them from the outside pretty quickly after I started initially feeling her move. We can even see some of them nowadays. I can also feel her kick on one side and her head bump my other side. Her favorite position seems to be laying with her butt sticking out in a goofy looking lump on my right, it is kind of amusing.
My morning sickness finally does seem to be getting better. Since a little after 20 weeks, I generally had a good day every other day or so. The past week or two I've had no bad days, just a few, "I feel kind of awful," portions of days. I contribute this to less stress now that we finally moved out of the hotel, and eating good food now that we have someplace to cook. It is really hard for me not to be suspicious that this is just a fluke week and my morning sickness won't be back full force at any time.
With the second trimester, I've picked up some new pregnancy symptoms. Heartburn. So much heartburn. It feels worse than my infamous first Thanksgiving stuffing that took down everyone who met it. I get heartburn some days just from drinking water. And forget about spicy foods, truly a tragedy in my book. I live on tums and milk. At one point we had three gallons of milk in our fridge because I was going through it so fast.
I've started to experience another fun pregnancy symptom; Braxton hicks contractions. Basically my whole stomach turns into a rock. It happens if I'm dehydrated or have a full bladder (makes for a super fun juggling act), if I'm physically exerting myself for too long (and I mean too long on my feet or carrying too many groceries, not even real exertion at this point), or if I'm especially stressed or emotional. I also get them every time I drive down the dirt road to our house. Since all the snow is melting around here, the dirt road is basically just a series of potholes, and all that jostling is not comfortable. We have to drive slower than I could walk down that road to survive the drive. Plus the Braxton hicks contractions are often accompanied by the feeling that I need to pee. So every ride to the house becomes a serious test of whether or not I will pee my pants. I have so far succeeded in not wetting myself. Sadly, I consider it a great accomplishment.
I also already can't bend over without crushing my bladder, apparently my soccer ball sized uterus is very unyielding. I haven't started waddling yet, but I'm sure that's coming. I'm even starting to grow out of the first maternity clothes I got so I guess it is time to start sizing up even more.
Surprisingly, I've have had fairly rare episodes of hormonal mood upheaval. The most notable and distinctly pregnancy hormone related episode was during a game of Munchkin that I played with Travis. If you didn't know, it is a rather nerdy card game where you battle monsters and whoever reaches a certain level first wins the game. But you can also make deals to help each other out in exchange for rewards or you can help the monster and harm your opponent. During this particular game, Travis and I were both doing pretty badly and he guilt tripped me into playing a card for free to help him out. My traitorous pregnancy hormones have made me excessively fond of the father of my child and prone to being a push over. So I gave in and played a card to help him out, thinking he'd be nice because he kind of would owe me. But then, the unthinkable occured. He turned on me and used that nice free card I'd played for him to stab me in the back and utterly destroy my character. So naturally, I started to cry. At first Travis tried to reason with me, "Babe....it is just a game! That's what we do in this game! It was a totally fair move." This tactic lasted about 2 seconds before it became clear that it just wasn't going to work. All I could do was rant and sob about how he had stabbed me and the back and how he was so mean even though I was carrying his child. Who cares if it was technically a fair move. I couldn't stop crying for over an hour. I cried over a move in a card game for OVER AN HOUR. Even after we finished our game and I'd somewhat forgiven past the traitorous move, I just kept going, I simply could not turn off the waterworks no matter how I tried. I used up half a mini box of tissues. I felt like I was a toddler as Travis had to hold me and comfort me while I carried on about how I just wanted to stop crying and how I felt so dumb and crazy. I was in such emotional turmoil I had a Braxton Hicks contraction or two. Absolutely ridiculous. Travis just found it all highly entertaining and reminded me of a video we watched where a pregnant lady cried over cutting vegetables. He assured me he didn't find this behavior alarming, it was just a pregnancy thing I couldn't be held accountable for. He did not, however, ever apologize for his treachery, a fact I will not be forgetting.
And unless I'm forgetting something (which is highly likely since pregnancy brain is real and has turned my brains to mush) that's all that's been going on in our lives the past few weeks. We're headed out in a few weeks for a Hawaiian "babymoon" soon I should be able to muster up something to write about then. Until my bump grows more, here's a fun recap!
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| 5 weeks, we took this one at the Perry when visiting Travis' family. Right where we took some of our very first wedding photos :-) |
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| Another shot around 6 weeks, basically a before picture. This blue shirt barely reaches my bellybutton now. o_O |
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| Clearly, I've made some progress with the baby growing! 24 weeks here. |
