24 weeks

Well I'm 24 weeks along now and constantly growing. I always feel hungry and want to eat. But I'm feeling pretty darn good. I'm not sick, I'm not tired, I'm not having too many aches or pains. So I'm thinking things are going pretty well.
We went to our doctors appointment a little more than a week ago and he said everything is going just like it should. We talked to him a little bit about the big day. I said I really would like to go as natual as possible, he said that is his philosophy too. So I'm glad we agree on that. Then he said if I want to do it that way then we should start thinking about taking some Lamaze classes. He said we could wait until the next visit to really start looking into that. I'll be 28 weeks by then so it will be perfect timing.
It's been pretty fun feeling her get more active. It's strange though too because it really does tickle! She still likes to hang out as low as she can possibly get, which sometimes hurts a little bit. It makes it awkward to sit sometimes. I just feel like I'm squishing her head or soemthing haha. My pants are getting tighter too. I'm still wearing my normal jeans and just doing the rubber band thing. I'm hoping I can make it all the way with my normal jeans and just not do them up. But since they are starting to get harder to sit in, we'll see how that goes.
OH!!! I found my old stethescope from forever ago when I was taking vet tech classes. I brought it home, and we tried listening to her with it. It was so fun! We could hear all sorts of movement. It mostly sounded like gurgling. But we can listen to her heartbeat with it too!!! Oh I love it! It is so cool. We've been listening almost every night for almost a week now. We are having a ton of fun with it.
Other than all that, there really isn't too much stuff that's new. Just that she's growing like crazy!

Funny stories

Alright, so everyone has those embarrasing moments, pregnant or not. I think in some ways being pregnant makes some of those embarrasing moments easier to come by. For one, the gas and/or constipation issues or extreme opposite of. For two, you tend to lose your mind easier. For three, the constant pressure on your bladder. There's so many more that you could find something embarrasing to laugh about, but I now have a story about the last one...
Just yesterday the Young Men group came by to help clean up and trim up my mom's backyard. We were so grateful for them coming by because my dad usually did all of the yard work and we just didn't even know where to start. Well, this little girl really likes to hang out as low as she can, so needless to say my bladder gets squished A LOT. So in all the fun of watching the boys cut branches and trim bushes there was a lot of irritants that came out of that and into the air. I almost felt like I was getting allergies. The stuffy/runny nose, my eyes were itching a bit. Then, it happened... I felt a sneeze coming on. I'll just say I have always loved sneezing. I think it feels so good. Lately with a stretching stomach it feels a little better to bend over ever so slightly to sneeze or cough. So I did that, I sneezed... and peed my pants!!!! LOL!! I couldn't believe it! It really wasn't that bad because I didn't have much to lose haha. But oh my heck! I was so shocked, embarrased, and upset. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. No one noticed anything, thank goodness. Except that since I'm sharing this anyway I don't think I'd really care if any one did.
So I told my mom after everyone had gone, and of course she laughed out loud. Then immediately said you need to work on Kegals! You should be able to stop midstream. I said, I DO and I CAN!!! That's why I was so surprised it happened! lol. I'm thinking from now on, I'll be more careful where I sneeze. Except today I did and I was just fine. It must have been a fluke moment for me or something.

Alright, so now that that one is over, here's a not so embarrasing story...
Daniel and I were up really late last night talking. Or at least late for us. It was around 12:30 that we finally fell asleep. She was moving around a little bit, about as much as I'm used to so far. Just a little bump here and there for a few minutes at a time, then she stops. Well around 11:00 she started moving a little bit more than what I'm used to. I knew she is a little bit of a night owl to begin with, but this was a little more than I've felt before. That may be just because I am usually asleep through it. So 11:30 rolls around and I lay down on one side and we're still talking. She starts kicking my side. I wasn't even leaning on my stomach in any way, it was seriously my side, like between my rib and hip. I've never felt her there before! It was the weirdest thing. So it actually got really distracting so I moved over to my other side so she would stop and we could still talk and not get interrupted. Well, she decided to kick the other side instead! I was like, seriously?? Usually if I move or switch like that she stops. She must have wanted in on the conversations too. So then she starts hitting this one spot, over and over. It felt like a nerve or something because it was making me twitch lol. It almost tickled. She was moving a lot, it's like she's trying to tickle me from the inside... the funny part is that it works sometimes! So that was getting distracting too, so I sit up again. And she still wouldn't stop! She was going crazy for at least 45 minutes. I've never felt her move so much, or so strong! It was so fun. Daniel was watching and feeling her move too and was just loving it. It's a lot of fun, unless I'm trying to fall asleep. I can't fall asleep if she's moving so much. It's just not a normal thing to fall asleep to haha. Finally I decided I was starving, so we came down to get a snack. After I ate, she stoped moiving and I was able to fall asleep. It was pretty funny.

Pics from second ultrasound

GIRL!!



Her feet together. Toes pointing to the left.



A hand. It's really blurry.



Profile picture. I like this one. She has gotten so big!

Second ultrasound to double check...

So like I said a few posts back, when I went to the doctor and we talked about the first ultrasound, they found something wrong with her heart. So he sent me in to have a second ultrasound to double check things. Well I just went a few days ago and I guess I'm not worried. The doctor there said she wasn't, so I'm trying not to be.
So we get there and the tech takes us back to the room and makes sure the notes she has are correct and that there is something on the heat. I say that's why we're here, so tell me something good, please! She told us she will basically do the same thing as the first ultrasound just a little more in depth and focus mostly on the heart.
She starts with the heart and is looking at it at every angle possible. I really like how much time she put into looking at the issue. It made me feel like I was with someone who really cared and knew what she was doing and looking for. It was really awesome too because we had our own big screen to watch what she was doing so we didn't have to try to look at her monitor. She would slow it down, and zoom in, then zoom out, and zoom in again at a different angle. We saw the heartbeat in a graph (whatever that's called haha). Then she zoomed in and started explaining to us what she was seeing. So she slowed down the video and told us to watch a specific part. She showed us that is the spot where they found the hypoechogenic spot and said that it was connecting all the way so it's nothing to really worry about. Then she moved on to all of the other things to look at, like the gender shot, profile, feet, organs etc... She said that everything looks great. It was really fun to watch her try to get a shot of the legs/feet. The little girl wouldn't stop moving. She would move just a little bit then pause just long enough to make us think she was done then spaz and move again lol. We were cracking up. Finally she did stop long enough to get a cute shot of her feet both together. Then she finished everything and said the doctor would be in to do her own ultrasound and check out the heart again.
The doctor came in and said that all of the images the tech got were great and that everything looks good so far. There were a few blurry images she wanted to check out herself and then make it to the heart. So she took her time also and looked at everything in as many angles as she could. Then she made it to the heart and zoomed in and zoomed out and then back in and looked at all different angles again. I loved that they were really paying attention and trying to figure this out! So finally she started to explain everything to us. She said that when there is a spot on the heart like that usually it points to Down Syndrome. I freak out immediately of course and I ask if my baby is ok. She said that if there were more abnormalities in any other organ, particularly the heart, she would be a little concerned. But she said that everything else looked just fine. The shape of the heart, the beat, the other organs, the face... everything was perfect except that one little spot. So then she comes to her conclusion and says that it is a calcium deposite between the muscle. She zooms in on it for us again to let us look while she is explaining everything. She said that the muscle to open and close the valve is functioning fine even though that is there. Once a calcium deposit is somewhere it's there forever. I freaked out about that too. I asked if it would affect her heart in any way, or her activities. She said not at all. Thank goodness! She said that they find something like this in about 5%-6% of perfectly normal healthy pregnancies and babies. I'm still thinking that a small amount, but she thinks I'm in that small percentage. She said that it is kind of like a scar. The heart somehow was injured in some way when she was developing and the calcium is what comes to fix it, then it just stays ther like a scar. But it won't affect anything in any way. The doctor said that she isn't worried in any way and doesn't see anything else abnormal or alarming that worries her, and tried to reassure us that we don't need to be worried anymore either. Then she left to make her notes to send to my doctor and we were good to go.
But of course I'm still a little worried. I keep trying to tell myself that they found nothing wrong. But I'm still worried. Maybe it's just the maternal instincts coming out, who knows. But that's the most up to date I have on my baby... beside that she was really active today. It's so fun to feel her move. OH!!! I almost forgot, it was the coolest, strangest thing to watch the ultrasound and see her move and feel it at the same time!!! Oh it was crazy. It's like, hey I'm not just watching a movie, this is actually happening!

22 weeks!

So I swear she has doubled in size in just two weeks. I feel SO big lol! It may also be because I had just eaten, so I might be a little bigger from that, or because I swear she gets bigger at night. But really, she is growing so much. We had the second ultrasound done to double check her heart and everything. Comparing the pictures from the first to the second, she definitely has gotten thicker. It's crazy! So, it's strange how looking at my stomach and realizing that it's grown, but somehow not even thinking about it. I like watching the bump grow. And I never thought I'd say it but I like watching the weight on the scale grow too! haha! Because I know it's healthy for the baby, and she's gaining most of the weight, not me. I feel really great now. My appetite is great, I eat plenty. But I have to be more and more careful how much I eat. I seriously can feel my stomach being squished the more she grows. I have been sleeping great too! I have one extra pillow that I usually keep between my legs and it has helped a lot. Also the extra pad we put on the bed helps my hips from hurting. I was having issues with that. I don't even know how to explain it, but I would wake up with this odd pain in my hip that I was laying on. Then I couldn't fall back asleep because it would hurt so bad. Then I couldn't even walk on it. So we put on a nice comfy memory foam type pad on the bed and I haven't had much problem since. Besides that, I think everything is as normal as it's ever been. I just have a growing stomach and a little something moving around inside.

First baby thing from mom and dad!

This is the first thing I have bought for my little girl! My dad would be so proud haha! It will be a long time before she will actually fit into it. But I'm so excited, I think it's so cute.


I can just see it now with little leggings underneath and Baxter in his little U of U sweater and she will be walking him with a little red leash! haha! I love it.

20 week pic!

So I realize it's been a long time since I've posted anything, I just didn't really know what to say. But a lot has happened since my last post. I went to the doctor two weeks after my ultrasound and was excited to see what he had to say about the pictures. When I got there he was a lot nicer to me and actually the first thing he said was "so I understand you've had a rough few weeks?" I realized that this was because of the last appointment when my mom called in and yelled at them haha. So I was kind of surprised that he said anything at all. So I just told him that ya, it's been a hard few months since my dad passed away, but I didn't want to start crying so I left it at that. I also came more prepared than usual, I came with questions written down. That was a good move because it saved annoyance and time for him, and annoyance and time for me too. We listened to the baby's heart as usual and he said it sounded great. It was so loud this time! I was surprised. Then he measured my stomach for the first time. I talked to him about all my questions and he was really good about answering them. Basically he said that everything is going just like it should. Then he said it was time to talk about the pictures! I was way excited. He said that everything they saw was great. I'm measuring right where I should be. He asked me if I found out the gender so he didn't spoil any surprise and I told him it is a girl. Then he said... "there is one thing that they found that they left a note about that they weren't sure about." And I freaked out. "WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY BABY?!?!" I about screamed it. But instead, I somehow calmly asked him what they found. He said something in jibberish of course. You know, doctor lingo. So I asked him again what it was and he said they found a hypoechogenic spot on the heart. It's kind of hard to explain what it is or means, but basically it's the way the tissues and cartilage reflect the ultrasound waves. So he said that he was going to send me in to get another ultrasound done to double check everything. I was ready for like the next day, but he said two weeks. I was a little nervous about waiting if there was something wrong with her heart, but he said it's most likely nothing to worry about. I'm thinking of course he's going to say that. He said that he was going to send me to the place where they do high risk pregnancy ultrasounds because they are so well trained specifically for looking at fetal ultrasounds. So that kind of freaked me out too. Oh, great, there's something wrong with her heart and now I have to go in to the high risk place. Great. He tried to reassure me that it really probably is nothing to worry about, but he wanted a second oppinion just to be sure. So they got the appointment set up for me and of course I went and googled what hypoechogenic meant. It didn't really pull anything up. Now all I had left to do was wait.