Good So Far!!

We are having another beautiful baby girl :) Her name is Emery Brielle, and I think she already looks like Mischa. They both have the bedroom eyes and button nose. The picture is from almost 20 weeks, I am almost 23 weeks now, and I will be scheduling our 3D ultrasound for when I'm 28 weeks because I have an anterior placenta, so the farther along I am the harder it is for them to see past it. I can't wait to see better pictures of her!

So far, she is a very active, opinionated little girl. She doesn't like to be squished (like when I hold Mischa), and she definitely lets both of us know! So far her sleep pattern, should it continue after birth, is not too terrible. She has play time when Mischa gets me up around 8 or 9, then again in the early afternoon, like now. Then she may have another playtime around dinner time, but then she's definitely up and having a blast around 10 pm and 1-2 am!

I only know about that last one because I've been up late every night for the past week or so working on my sister-in-law Stacey's wedding pictures. She got married on July 10, and was wonderful enough to let me be her photographer. But now that I'm finally done with everything, I'm raising my rates for the next one! Five hundred + pictures, seven cds, a DVD slideshow, and two DVD videos later, I'm EXHAUSTED. And being almost 6 months pregnant doesn't help either. I've been burning the candle at both ends, so to speak. But it's been so worth it! I loved the entire experience (except for waddling everywhere lol), and the pictures really have turned out beautifully, if I do say so myself! Here are a few of them:

And I'm not done. Tomorrow I have another photo shoot. A friend of mine has asked me to do her maternity photos. Since I've never done this before, I'm giving her a great deal. But I know already that my rates will be going up on that one as well. I'm excited to be getting the experience though! I've also offered her a deal on newborn pictures, so hopefully I'll get a chance at that one too!

Just 5 more days!

We have our anatomy ultrasound Friday morning, and I'm pretty sure this is going to be the longest week of my life so far. Then, even after we find out, we can't tell anyone! We'll be telling Dusty's family that night, then we have to wait until Sunday to tell my family, so Saturday will be torture as well! Maybe I'll spend it washing baby clothes...

Good news on my SIL, she got to go home from the hospital Thursday. Her cervix evidently is better now than it was before she was even on bedrest. She's still on bedrest, but just being home is always more comfortable. And hopefully she gets to stay there until she has her baby!

Last night, we went to a Project Revolution concert, and it pretty much sucked. I think we were spoiled on the awesomeness of the X-Fest a few years ago when we saw Fireflight. Seventh Day Slumber played last night, and we just got the vibe that they were just doing it because they were getting paid, and we couldn't enjoy it. It was too much of a "show", and they didn't even seem to be enjoying themselves. So after flirting with heat exhaustion, we hit Wendy's and went home. I'm still not feeling so great, and my lower back is still killing me. And Mischa has a slight fever, and we're not sure if it's from last night's festivities (the kid never sat still!), or if she picked something up. We missed church this morning because we slept through the alarm, and now it's looking like we'll miss tonight since she has a fever and is cranky and clingy. At least I'll miss it. Dusty will probably go anyway. And that's fine. It sounds horrible, but I'm not up to it. There isn't any child care for the evening service, so I'd be fighting Mischa trying to keep her entertained and in our aisle.

Things are never easy.

A week ago yesterday, our dear friend Bryan passed away. His cancer had come back for the third time, and the doctors just couldn't do anything more for him. They gave him 4-6 weeks, and he made it to almost 4 weeks. He died at home with his family, which is good. He was only 21 years old. His viewing was Sunday, and his funeral was Monday. It's been a rough weekend. Thankfully, my parents were able to take Mischa, so I could just focus on what was going on. Not that I was particularly needed, Dusty tended to push me away and lean more on his friends (our friends), so I was left to my own grieving devices. I finally got him to spend time with me Monday night instead of going to be with his friends again. I'm not trying to keep him from being with friends, but Bryan was my friend too and it was like everyone had forgotten that. Dusty was gone from about 7pm Friday evening until 3 am, then left again Sunday evening and didn't get home until sometime after 1am. Then left almost first thing in the morning to meet his friends before the funeral. I had to hitch a ride with his mom, and didn't get much attention from him until after the funeral was over. I understand that he was a pallbearer, and they had been friends for quite a few years, but since Dusty and I have been married he's really been pushing that his friends are my friends, and they really have become my friends, then once one of them goes through something traumatic or dies, they're his friends again and what I'm feeling doesn't matter until he's gone through his dealing process.

Anyway, that's my verbal spew for the day. It's going to be a hard time for a while. We're all going to miss him. His birthday is August 3rd, and I'm pretty sure there's going to be something going on, which is going to be hard because then my Uncle Ronnie's birthday is August 6th and I'm sure there's going to be some sort of get-together for that too. So we're going to have to choose, and I'm sure it's going to be Bryan's. Which is fine, but I just realized Sunday how much I'm still missing my uncle.

One of our friends updated his status Monday, and what he said was so true: "Sometimes the greatest memories cause us the deepest pain." So very true.

Wow, I suck at this...

It's been three weeks, wow. But things have been busy, crazy, exhausting.

I am now 16 weeks, 3 days. Earlier this week I had some pains and slight cramping, followed by some spotting, so I've been taking it easy. Of course, I called my doctor's office, but (go figure) my doctor wasn't in the office that day, and his nurse wouldn't answer her page. So the nurse I talked to had no idea of my medical history. I was told to drink two glasses of water and lay on my left side for 15 minutes. It worked for a while. Then yesterday I started having the pains again, so I have been taking it super easy to avoid bleeding again. I have my monthly appointment with my doctor tomorrow at 1, and I'll be asking him about it. I've really been trying to stay hydrated, but water gives me heartburn and makes me nauseous, and milk really makes me feel sick. I don't want to drink lots of juice or pop because of the sugar, so I'm kind of at a loss of what to do. But I'm doing my best. I also have an orange in the fridge that's been calling my name... but that requires cutting it up lol.

I was going to try to put myself on bedrest until my appointment tomorrow, but I have a two-year-old, so that's impossible. So I've vowed to take it super easy today, not do any house work, just sit and relax. I even had Dusty go get some groceries early so I wouldn't have much to do today as far as preparing lunch (yay Lunchables!). But now my dining room is glaring at me, and I'm disgusted at my living space. Maybe we'll get to that this weekend. We'll see. I'm just glad that some of the laundry on the loveseat has been folded and put away, so half of it is usable again! Slowly but surely, we'll reclaiming the house from my first trimester nausea catastrophe.

Three weeks from tomorrow we have our anatomy ultrasound and find out what we're having. We're hoping for a boy, and it's really felt like a boy this whole time, but we still have a 50% chance of it being a girl as well. I'll be thrilled either way :)

Lots of prayers go up for my SIL. She's on hospital bedrest for cervical insufficiency. She's 24 weeks, 4 days with baby Evelyn Mae. You can read her blog about her high-risk pregnancy at babybrewer-evie-mae.blogspot.com .

Mischa is so obsessed with the babies, and she's so worried about them not having binkies (blankets), that she's demanded I make them blankets! And since Evie is coming first, she says I need to make hers first. She wanted it to be green, like hers, but I grabbed pink to go with it. The blanket looks like lime and strawberry sherbet lol. But it's pretty cute and Mischa says it's so soft and will keep her warm and dry :). Our baby's blanket will be yellow she says. I'm using different stitches for the blankets, so that works. I'm using the Larkspur stitch for Evie's, so it's easier to switch colors, but I'll be using the puff stitch for ours, so I'll probably just stick with the one color.

I have been feeling the baby move around more, and definitely getting more kicks lately. But then there are some days where I don't feel him/her moving much at all through the day, and it honestly freaks me out. I know it's too early to be feeling regular movement, but I guess I'm in the mentality that since I've felt it, I need to feel it all the time. It's funny how the baby already recognizes things and has his/her own schedule already. Once Dusty gets home from work, it's guaranteed that I'll feel lots of squirming (Daddy's boy/girl already!), and once I crawl in bed and get comfortable and night, then the goober does its acrobats. But thankfully that only lasts for a little while, then we can both go to sleep.

Tomorrow they'll just be checking the heartbeat (which is always amazing to me :), checking on me (I'll be asking about the pains!), and I get to do bloodwork. Yay. I don't quite remember everything they're testing for tomorrow, but I know one thing is Down Syndrome, which I've never been worried about. It'll be nice to have a heads up, but we'll love our baby no matter what.

Will I Last??

I am so exhausted, but I never seem to have the brain power to get on here so exhaustion won't really make a difference. I wake up exhausted, so I probably wouldn't be more clear if I waited until tomorrow (which is what I keep doing.. just waiting until tomorrow).

I am 13 weeks and 2 days pregnant. And exhausted alllllll the time. My lively friend Nausea is still sticking around for the time being, but I'm praying that quits soon. I've lost 8 pounds since I got pregnant. I really need to ask my doctor what his weight recommendations are for me. I never had that with Mischa, and I keep seeing all the other women on my board talking about how they've been told to only gain 15-20 pounds over the course of the pregnancy (how cruel is that).

We went in for my 12 week check up last Friday, and everything is going great. The heartbeat was in the 150s range, and the baby wouldn't hold still! Kept moving away from the doppler. I was a little disappointed that the nurse was able to pick up the heartbeat. If they couldn't, we would have gotten another ultrasound. Does that make me bad? I go back in 4 weeks for another checkup and bloodwork to check for Down's Syndrome. Then on July 2nd we'll be having the anatomy ultrasound and find out who's wiggling around in there! I'm already feeling the baby move at times. Last night I was rocking Mischa to sleep (remember this) and the baby was kicking her! I know she couldn't feel it, but evidently the baby was squished lol.

Ok, so a few quick things. I'm not going to go into huge detail on my list because I'm tired, and they are emotionally draining subjects and I need to sleep without nightmares tonight.

1. My Uncle Ronnie is the youngest of 6 kids. My grandma's baby. His wife has two kids already, but they just had their first baby together (his only child) a year ago. He killed himself January 6th. He was found two days later. I got the phone call while I was in the middle of Walmart.. I've never cleared out of there any faster in my life. Thank God, Dusty was with me because I didn't make it to the door before I broke down and about had a melt down in the middle of the HBA section. I knew I was getting looks, but who cares about anything at that point. At that moment, my world shattered, and nothing made sense. We had just seen him at the Christmas get-together, and everything seemed fine. We made an emergency trip up to the family (they live 5 hours away), and spent the weekend throwing the funeral together, trying to keep ourselves from wandering too far. Me trying to quit smoking went straight out the window. I think I could have gotten up to half a pack a day if it weren't for Mischa. [Side note, I have quit since then.]

My grandma has deteriorated so much since then, it's scary to see her. Since my grandpa died several years ago, she has become a bitter woman. Never towards us, but it does come out when certain subjects are brought up. Ronnie dying has definitely made it worse, and her broken heart is showing itself in her face and features. I swear she's aged 10 years in the past 4 months. The circumstances around his suicide, which I probably can't divulge much so I won't say anything other than he was basically bullied into it because of a horrible situation, I'm sure doesn't help at all. Because honestly, if it weren't for a lie that put his integrity under scrutiny, he would still be here. And everyone knows it. And it's the hardest thing to realize that if one person hadn't sold the validity of a lie, he would be here.

Mother's Day. The first holiday since he died that involved Grandma. I guess her bad days are worse now, and a few family members were worried about her for Mother's Day, so my dad (it's his mom) and two of my sisters made the trip on Mother's Day to meet with family and spend the day together, and they drove home the same day.

I had a decent Mother's Day. We spent most of it with Dusty's family. Not everyone came because most had to work, but at least I got a seat on the couch! Dusty didn't get me anything, not even a card, but he claims he didn't have a chance to. But whatever. It doesn't matter. All he's getting for Father's Day is a card since he'll be getting a tattoo for his birthday!

Relay. Our friend has cancer in his tongue, and it has spread down his throat. He has had surgery twice already, and we found out today that it is back for the third time. The doctors can't do surgery or radiation, and I guess they're going to try chemotherapy and hope it works. Please pray for him and his family! And Dusty, because I don't know how he's going to hold it together if he loses another friend. Five months before Mischa was born, he got a phone call at work saying a friend of his was in a head-on collision with a semi. He was life-lined to Indy and brought back several times before they pronounced him at the hospital. Since then, we've had another friend diagnosed with cancer, but thankfully he beat it. (PTL!)

Ok, rocking Mischa. Lol. (I'm trying to remember everything in my mental list!) It's so hard to have that pressure on my belly now (she's 26 pounds now!), so we're working on getting her to lay in bed and put herself to sleep while I sit next to her. And it's worked a few times. But last night she just wasn't having it! So I ended up having to rock her, and yeah, the baby was squirming and kicking that side of my stomach! I'm really looking forward to when Mischa can feel the baby move. She already talks to my stomach and kisses it and is just such a sweetheart!

I swear my pets are going to kill me. The cat has been under my feet all day, and the dog is always jumping on me when I go to let him out or bring him in. It's such a hassle. We're supposed to get a fence put up around part of the back yard so I don't have to go out and fight with him and his cable, but it's not up yet! I am so ready for that to be done! Something I am worried about is, I just found out last week that my neighbor (Dusty's aunt), has been in my yard visiting the dog. She says she tries to go pet him at least once a day. She texted me to say that she noticed that he was out of food and water. First off, his dishes are in his dog house and you practically have to bend in half to check them, while you're fighting him off. Another thing, he's right outside our bedroom window. And she doesn't work, and has crazy hours that she's awake, so who knows when she's out there. The dog is in at night though, so thankfully I don't have to worry about her getting any audio show, but that's still really weird. I'm worried that when we put the fence up that she'll still let herself into the yard to "visit the dog", and that's just not right. And creepy. And what if the dog gets out? I don't want to move, but could we move a few neighbors? So not getting into why I hate all my neighbors.... I don't have the time or energy right now!

On a kinda good note, I was so sick last night. I think it's from exhaustion (imagine that), but Dusty stayed home from work to take care of me. That's the kinda good right there. That's it. He hates going to work and is always asking if I need him to stay home. It's pretty stressful, to be honest. I know he absolutely hates his job, and I totally understand that. But he has such wonderful pay and benefits, and with this economy, that's great! I just get worried that he really will just walk out and quit one of these days like he keeps saying he wants to.

Well, he just has two more nights (tonight and tomorrow). Oh, tomorrow I get to go talk to my pastor's wife about why we're switching church. I'm nervous as crap. It's nothing against them, we love them, but it's something we feel God is telling us to do. And it's kind of scary. We weren't even looking for a new church, just visiting a friend's church. And Dusty is already friends with the pastor, who is also friends with our pastor. Or is it now former pastor? It's so confusing! I hope I don't have nightmares about being sent to hell because we switched churches.. Dang pregnancy hormones!

Pregnancy Brain Strikes Again!

So, I faded quickly last night and forgot many things I planned on sharing. And I'm sure it will happen again halfway through this post, so here's a little list to remind myself why I'm here again today:

1. Pregnancy dreams.
2. Pregnancy nightmares.
3. Mischa's inability to share toys.

Ok, we should be good now :). I'm going to start by mentioning that tonight my cat goes out in the garage for the night, because even though I let Mischa stay up a little later than normal in hopes that she would sleep in today, the furry booger shoved her door open, slamming it into her closet door, waking her at 8 this morning. And I didn't get to bed until midnight last night. I know that's partially my own fault, I was ordering pictures of Mischa on Walmart's website, but they also just need to speed up their site (pass the blame :D).

Ok, so on to my list! Pregnancy dreams and nightmares I'll tackle together. For about a week straight I was waking up around 2 to go pee (go figure), and it never failed that once I went back to bed, I had horrible nightmares until Mischa woke me up around 8:30. They started off being kind of stupid. I remember one was that my husband decided he was going to openly have a girlfriend on the side, they'd be hanging out in our house or making out in the garage, and he thought it was funny that I was getting so upset. I won't lie, I woke up totally pissed and upset still! But I know that's something my husband will never do. So after a couple nights of him cheating on me (in my dreams), then my nightmares turned more sinister. For those 6 hours, I was fighting for my life. Sometimes battling demonic figures, sometimes people I knew. I don't remember all of them, but I remember that every day after a nightmare, it would eat at me all day. I would wake up feeling like I had been running all night long, and I needed a nap. It was horrible. They haven't been bad at all lately, just weird. Last night I had two different dreams, one about an odd field trip on a train and suddenly there were people that I hadn't heard from or thought of in years wishing me a good trip. And I had a horse given to me by a friend, and she had named it after an ex-boyfriend of hers. That part was really weird. The other dream was that my uncle had a new huge house that we were all visiting, and he was chasing me and my cousin around the house and we were trying to hide from him (all in fun), so while he ran around the house looking for us, we snuck outside and started cleaning up after the family BBQ, cracking up the entire time. I woke up almost laughing too.

And Mischa, she just can't seem to wrap her mind around the fact that the baby in Mommy's belly is another person. We went through her toys and sorted out the baby toys, and she decided which ones to give away or keep. But now that the baby toys are in another toy box, she's bringing me some of them and saying "This is MINE!" I've been trying to explain to her that some toys are for babies, and some toys are for big girls, but that she and baby can share all of them when the baby gets bigger. I think she's worried I'm going to start taking all her things away and giving them to the new intruder. She always goes through her room and asks "Is this mine?" And I have to keep telling her that everything in her room is hers, but the toys in the elephant toy box are baby toys. I think she'll get it. We've got time to work on it. Whether or not she'll be potty trained before the baby comes is a totally different story...

We were doing really good for a few weeks, sometimes she could go half a day with the same pull-up because she was always going pee in the toilet. But the past few days, she just can't be bothered with going to the toilet or even getting her pull-up changed when she pees in it. And we're back to her realizing she has to go pee as she's peeing, so then she's frustrated with herself when she does try to sit on the toilet because nothing will come out (she's already peed her pull-up).

Well, it is about time for lunch. It's Friday, so we meet Dusty's grandma and mom at Dairy Queen at noon (his mom's lunch break), and we get some nice time with them. Mischa adores them :). So I need to go wake him up so we can take our turns showering (dear Lord, do we both need it!).

Next blog will include:

1. Uncle Ronnie info. It's been a long 4 months.
2. Mother's Day, how it pertains to Uncle Ronnie, and what I expect to get out of it.
3. Relay For Life tonight and our wonderful friend this is for.

Blog.... about my pets?!

So the hubby is on nights again, so computer freedom :)

Thankfully tonight is his last night, so no more sleeping alone for another week and a half.

I hate my dog. I'm not a dog person, but we just always seem to pick the stupid ones. He always tries to run to the house before I let him off the chain. My cat is being a jerk. He keeps trying to trip me whenever I walk. He won't stay off my stomach when I'm laying down. And he won't stay out of my daughter's room when she's sleeping. I'm always up several times a night to pull her door closed again, and shut my door again. I would close her door completely if I thought she wouldn't freak out, but I know she would. Since Dusty is off work starting tomorrow, we'll be putting the cat out in the garage at night until he goes back on nights. Our cat is just so annoying. He seems to think he always needs attention. He's such a sissy cat. He even tries to sleep on my pillow at night, or right inbetween my legs or my husband and I. Oh it's really interesting when I'm sleeping on my stomach (well, that doesn't happen anymore) and he decides to lay on my back. And he isn't a small kitty anymore! He's about 8-10 pounds (4 years old), and I swear half his weight is in fur, but that's besides the point. Maybe it's just my hormones making me irritable, but then again my pets were annoying before!

I totally didn't mean to blog about my pets. So random.

My daughter busted her eye AGAIN! I swear people are going to think I'm abusing her, and that freaks me out. The first time was before her 2nd birthday. She tripped over her toys in the bathroom and hit the edge of the tub, and so she has a black eye in her birthday pictures. A few days ago, she laid a pillow across from the couch to the coffee table, then tried to lean on it to grab something from the table, and of course it didn't hold her up. So now she has another black eye! This one is worse than the last one was. But she always seems proud of her battle wounds after the pain subsides, so when I took a picture of it she's got her dimply grin!

Well, I'm catching up on a few shows before heading to bed. Just finished an episode of CSI NY from April 14. I'm so behind on everything! Thank God for DVR!