26 week appointment and Update

I had my 26 week check-up today - got to meet another wonderful midwife.  These appointment seem pretty non-eventful lately.  We didn't even listen to heartbeat at this most recent one, just worked on "safe" techniques for sitting up and lifting and measured the fundal height (which is right where it should be).  OF COURSE my blood pressure did not cooperate - which worried the nurse but the midwife came in, took one look at my blood pressure log I've been keeping at home, and said I was just fine.  I wish I could bypass the nurse interactions all together - they always get me worked up and worried and the midwives do just the opposite.  I can't figure out why this is - probably because the nurses rush me to get on the scale, then sit down, and take my blood pressure right away and the midwife interactions are at a much more laid-back pace.  Oh well, I'm glad I'm keeping the log now.  The midwife I saw was excellent, and I've now met 4 of the 7 midwives on staff.  She said everything looked great and they don't need to see me again until 30 weeks.  I can't believe this is going by so quickly!

Update on baby Allred: he is still nameless.  We call him "baby."  He is always on the move and definitely has developed some routines - 4 a.m. is his favorite time of day which is ironic because I don't enjoy being awakened at this time at all.  His room is completely painted, his crib and dresser are set up, and boxes and boxes of baby clothes cover every inch of his floor.  There is a lot of nesting to be done.  We watched Discovery Channel's Documentary "In the Womb" and it is amazing - everyone pregnant should watch it just to see the incredible graphics of how the baby is developing at every stage as they follow a real pregnancy. I especially love that "baby" can hear outside noises now - he was the most active I've ever felt him when we were at a very loud restaurant the other night and a man was performing a TERRIBLE karaoke rendition of "Living on a Prayer."  It was really loud - the walls of the restaurant were shaking, the man was sharp on every note, and the entire room was singing along.  "Baby" loved or hated it - I don't know how to tell which.    "Baby" also kicks when Brent makes crazy noises up against my belly - it probably startles him!  The past couple of weeks of this pregnancy have been excellent - with the exception of one week where I was suspecting I was anemic by how incredibly exhausted I was, I have been feeling great. We've been busy with Christmas parties and I was so happy to be able to stay out late 2 nights in a row (close to 1 am!), just like old times.  A couple of months ago I would have been begging Brent to take me home by 9 pm.  I'm sure the exhaustion is on the brink of returning and this "easy" stage of pregnancy is nearing an end - but I am thankful to be feeling so great and able to keep doing my active job. 
 

Updates

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We spent it in Ephrata with both of our families and catching up with our high school friends.  Spending Thanksgiving in Ephrata means 2 dinners on Thursday of course... but we handled that just fine :)  

On Friday, Brent's mom threw us a family baby shower - it was so much fun opening all the cute baby gear!  I have 2 more scheduled - an Ephrata friends/neighbors one during Christmas break and 1 with my coworkers in January.  I can't wait! 

Saturday was our nephew Isaac's baptism, and as soon as that was over we headed back to Seattle.  It was definitely a busy weekend.

In other news, I have been taking my own blood pressure at home now and keeping a log.  My most recent reading at home?  117/66 - a beautiful number, right?  At my midwives' office?  152/70.  That's a pretty big jump!!!  The good news is it is most definitely a white coat hypertension - hopefully my home log can prove it to my midwife and if nothing else, taking my bp a few times a day might help my relieve my anxiety some.

Baby is getting big - I can see him moving in my belly sometimes and it is the weirdest thing. What else is getting big?  My face and butt.  Awesome. 

This has to be the most random post ever - but I also wanted to brag about how well taken care of I am.  Brent made enchiladas this afternoon for dinner even though he has class from 5:30-9.  When I got home from work at 6, all I had to do was stick them in the oven for 10 minutes.  I guess he knows that if I have to make myself dinner it usually ends up being oatmeal (hey, it's easy and I'm STARVING by then).  Thanks Brent!  One day I'll figure out how to cook and clean and all those normal wifely duties to pay you back. 

And I leave you with this:  our Christmas tree is up.  We picked it up from a local tree farm - I haven't had a real tree since I was in middle school.   Now if only it would snow here...

Week 23

Once again, I need to remember to take these pictures before 10 pm.  Is my face really going to get even bigger than it is now?

visit from brent's family

Brent's dad had a conference in Seattle this weekend so we got to spend some time with his parents.  While his dad was busy in class, we kept his mom busy painting the nursery.  I chose the color "pear" - it's a super light yellowy-green.  The lighting in that room is too bad for me to take a picture of it right now - but here's the color from the online sample:

Brent's parents were super generous and totally spoiled us.  They bought the baby a crib with a dresser/changing table that I am really excited about.  It won't be here for another week or so, but this is what we ended up buying:

I can't wait to get it all set up.  I just have to finish the art work I started for it and purchase some "ugly dolls."  Am I weird for thinking monsters are a perfect theme for a baby's room??  You have to admit they're cute... in an ugly way.

I'm also using some artwork from Maurice Sendak's illustrations in Where the Wild Things Are - so it's an ecclectic mix of monsters.  

Brent's family also threw me an early birthday party complete with Trophy Cupcakes, bought a beautiful new rug for our living room, and bought us "UP" - which will make any person with a heart cry.... a lot.

So we got spoiled, and it was fun.

22 weeks

Please excuse the picture... we didn't remember to take this until I was climbing into bed.  Yuck.

Update on tests

Last Wednesday I stayed home from work to collect all my pee in a huge jug for 24 hours.  I couldn't find a sanitary way to store this jug, walk to and from the bathroom with it, and not to mention get everything where it's supposed to go while at work... so I took a day off. 

I really love Group Health - within 4 hours of having my blood drawn all my tests results were emailed to me.  They were perfect.  My midwife followed up with me that night. Within 8 hours of turning in my urine sample, my protein analysis test was emailed to me. Also perfect.  Another midwife checked-in with me twice that night.  Within this two day period of my prenatal appointment and all lab tests, I had all my results and I received 3 personal emails from my midwives checking in on me - they are all so sweet.  I'm so happy to have good insurance right now - even if it does cost an arm and a leg every month I'm pretty sure it's worth it at this point in my life.  

So basically - everything is FINE.  I'm sure it's not the last time I'll be doing all these tests.  However, to get to the bottom of my blood pressure mystery, I've purchased this little guy:

So now I can keep a log of my blood pressure at home and we can't find out if this is actually white-coat syndrome like everyone is suspecting.  

My hope is using this little guy regularly will also desensitize me to having my bp taken in the office.  So while this may or may not be the end of the blood pressure craziness,  me and the baby are healthy and that's all I need to know right now.

paint advice

I'm not sure how many people even read this blog - as I never sent out an official link... but if you do - I need help choosing a paint color for baby's room!  Here's his bedding (well, I haven't gotten it yet but it is on our registry and we REALLY love it):

 

and here's our paint choices:

we didn't want to paint the room green because our room is already green, blue seems boring but a safe bet and I like the yellowy-greens.  Any input?

Baby update and Happy Birthday Chase

I can't believe my baby brother is 14 today.  Happy Birthday, Chase!

In other news - I had another prenatal appointment today.  I can't believe it's already been 6 weeks since my last one - how is this going by so quickly??  The good news from today:  we went over the results from my ultrasound from 3 weeks ago.  Our baby boy is perfectly healthy - everything in it's right place, he's measuring to be exactly where he should be (not too big or too small), his heartbeat is strong, my weight gain is great (only up 5 pounds!  Maybe I won't be HUGE at the end of this!), and all my blood tests up to this point have been perfect.  The kind of bad news: this pesky blood pressure is still out of the roof and my midwife used the word "baffled."  Great.  It might not necessarily be bad if I can prove it's "white coat syndrome."  The first step - pee into a giant jug for the next 24 hours to do yet another protein analysis (I've already had 2 smaller versions of this test that have come back negative).  If I pass that - I get to keep my very own home blood pressure log - yippee.  I'm hoping for blood pressure log and not the other route - BUT I'll do whatever I need to do. 

I am glad they are keeping such a close eye on me - but am so embarrassed about the thought of lugging around this giant pee jug with me at work tomorrow.  I'm trying to work from home - we'll see if it works out. 

I'm behind on my baby journal - no time for fun photo-editing these days.  The pictures are taken, I just have to get everything into photoshop.

Babymoon

Our Boat - Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas

We're back from the most relaxing vacation I've ever taken.  It was exactly what we needed.  We left from San Diego last Monday and enjoyed 5 nights sailing down to Cabo San Lucas and back.  A cruise is a pregnant woman's DREAM vacation: everything is close by and doesn't require any traveling to get to activities, you never feel guilty taking a nap because there not THAT much to do anyway, there's free delicious food 24 hours per day, and in addition to that free room service is fantastic and I ordered a plate of cookies and milk from them everyday.  We had a great time.  Here's some highlights from the trip:

on our balcony (our room neighbors were actually friends of ours who were taking the same cruise - they were laughing at Brent's baby belly)

accidental picture by the pool - but it captures my belly and our favorite activity of the week: laying in the sun.

Brent with our friends Michael and Lani - they competed in a miniature gold tournament on the boat (Brent took 3rd)

us on formal night

Not a good picture of me - swimming around in salt water doesn't agree with my hair.  But the beach in Cabo was beautiful. 

the water taxi dropped us off a short walk from Lover's Beach so our friends could do some snorkeling before we went out there.  Unfortunately - the man driving the boat didn't tell me it was a treacherous walk from the place we were dropped off to Lover's Beach!  However, Brent and I found this gem of a spot on our way and I didn't have to scale any rock walls.  We told our friends to go on without us and we had our own private beach.  

Leaving Cabo

Sunset over Cabo

Seattle is cold and rainy - we miss the beach.

week 19 - halloween

We had a great time at Halloween.  I think I did a pretty awesome job on Brent bacon costume.  A coworker of mine rented a place downtown for a Halloween party.  So yes, we walked around the streets of downown Seattle in THOSE costumes.  I'm no good past 10 pm these days but I stuck it out until 11:30 at the party - then we got our free tacos at Taco Bell which I was looking forward to all day.   Early that morning we registered for baby stuff as it looks like we may be having our family shower sometime this month.  We registered at Target and the Land of Nod (which has the cutest stuff but it's NOT cheap - hence why we also registered at Target!)  So all in all, it was a great day.   We left for our cruise on the Monday aftwe halloween, but I'll have to update about that tomorrow.  I'm exhausted.

It's a Boy!

We were guessing girl - even though we would both have dreams where the baby was a boy.  95% of people guessing said girl, all the old wive's tales pointed to girl, and boys are RARE in my family.  But it is most definitely a HE - We saw the goods REALLY clearly; I said "that's a BOY!" and the sonographer laughed and said "most definitely a boy."  My sister, Auti, was supposed to be a boy.  However, I'm feeling very confident that there's no way we got his gender wrong!!

Mike Birbiglia

Brent and I went to one of our favorite comedian's shows on Friday - Mike Birbiglia.  He is hilarious and we bought these tickets about 6 months ago.  My favorite stories of his talks about his real sleepwalking condition, REM behavior disorder.  Here's a link to one of his stories http://odeo.com/episodes/23866626-Mike-Birbiglia-Sleepwalk-with-Me  - Skip to minute 6:25 if you want to hear the BEST part about his experience in Walla Walla, Washington.   He's got funny stuff on youtube too :)

Callie's Senior pictures

I took Callie's senior pictures while we were in Ephrata.  I haven't edited them all yet but here are some of my favorites: 

 

 

 

Her boyfriend, David, jumped in some of the pictures too.

Auti's first Homecoming

.  Auti and her date, Kieran

 

her boyfriend, Chuky (no, she didn't go to the dance with him!)

with dad

getting help with the boutonniere

  I spent most of Saturday getting her hair and makeup ready - but she cleans up nicely, right?

Where is the time going? Week 17?!

I cannot believe it's almost the end of October.  Yikes.  I have been working so much lately, it makes the time fly by twice as fast as normal.  Since I've picked up an extra private client, I now work 2-3 12 hour days a week.  So now it's 8 pm and I just walked in the door... I left my house at 7 am.  It's hitting me I'm NOT going to be able to keep doing this until I am 39 weeks pregnant like I was hoping (yeah, right!!)
At least I have Tuesdays when I get off at noon :)  Yesterday I got off work, went straight to the doctor to figure out my blood pressure issue, and then straight to my hairstylist to fix these roots that have been driving me crazy.  The doctor went well - she really wasn't concerned that my blood pressure is a serious issue.  However, she did keep me there for nearly an hour and a half!  It was a REALLY thorough appointment.  She seems pretty sure my blood pressure rises at my appointments because of anxiety and is not a chronic problem.  She did take a lot of blood tests to rule out thyroid disease, etc.  We talked about relaxation techniques for most of the appointment.  Of course it was high when they took it about 10 minutes after I arrived to my appointment - before I left, I let them re-take my blood pressure and I gave them a beautiful NORMAL number. Her bottom line:  "looks like you're healthy, but you'll get a lot of hassling about your blood pressure at your appointments for the next few months!"  So no magic cure for my doctor office anxiety - not that I expected that.
I'm feeling great - sadly Shelby is not.  She had her anal glands expressed (don't gag, I know it's gross) yesterday and has been in so much pain since then.  She was up all night panting and whining - so we were up practically all night as well.  She is a drama queen - we called the vet this morning and they said there were no complications with the procedure (which she's had 4 times before without a problem!) and she is probably just sore.  Anyway, it makes me feel so bad when she's miserable. 

I began our halloween costumes this weekend.  We'll be the best looking bacon and egg you've ever seen.

OK, now for embarrassing journal entry of the week:

Ignore the typo in that journal entry!  I just noticed it and am fixing it as we speak on photoshop.

Conversation while doing this photo shoot:
Me:  I don't want to look the same in all pictures - tell me to do something interesting
Brent: Pretend your running
Me: (see above)
Brent:  (looks at pictures and laughs hysterically)

So I'm not model material, and he's not professional photographer... but we have fun.

16 weeks

We made it to 16 weeks!  Brent and I went in for our 16 week prenatal checkup with our midwife today.  I love the midwife we had last month, who unfortunately went on maternity leave until February (but that means she'll be back in time for our baby's arrival).  So today I met with a different midwife - who was great, but more concerned about my blood pressure than the previous one.  I get REALLY worked up before appointments, my systolic blood pressure is always high right when I walk in the office (which is when they seem to take the blood pressure unfortunately).  They usually retake it 5 minutes later after I've had some time to calm down and it is always in a normal range.    New midwife is concerned that the range gets so high - so now I am worried that I have some chronic high blood pressure condition.  I'm seeing a doctor about it soon just in case there is a problem, and the midwife said not too worry - it's mild if anything.  I'm sure my blood pressure is through the roof right now because I'm worrying about my blood pressure - this is a vicious cycle.  YIKES - so much to worry about these days.

Other than that - the appointment was great.  Baby's heartbeat is healthy strong and comes in at 158 bpm.  Last time we went the heart rate was 170 bpm.  Makes me wonder about the old wives' tale that girls have higher heart rates (higher than 140).  I was hoping we'd get an ultrasound today (other midwife said we would, new midwife said she doesn't do them unless there's a problem) - so we'll wait until the 27th to find out the gender at our BIG ultrasound.

We are counting down the days until our cruise, trying to get our halloween costumes together, and working way too much!

 

Loving Tuesdays & a wiggly baby

Tuesdays are my sanity days - I only work till noon.  It makes the 12 hour days on Mondays and Thursdays seem worth it. On the agenda for today: nap!
Today I decided that I really AM feeling the baby wiggle around inside me.  I've been feeling little movements for the past week and couldn't decide if it was baby or maybe just gas. Today the movements have been pretty noticeable, consistent, and feels like something is tickling me from the inside.  I never thought I would be able to feel the baby this early!

15 weeks & Auti's Birthday

I cannot believe it's already October!  Happy birthday to my little sister, Auti.  How did you get to be 15 already????

Babymoon!

November 2-7, we'll be sailing to and from Cabo San Lucas.  Our last vacation without a baby!!!  Thanks for the surprise, Brent!

14 weeks

13 weeks DONE!

Can't believe the time is going so fast.  I woke up Saturday morning with a very different belly.  I've felt huge the past 7 weeks because of all the bloating I've been experiencing - but that made me look like I just ate Thanksgiving dinner.  Now I have a belly that has a firm bump on it.  It feels different too - when I lay on it or bend over to pick something up.  I can actually feel that there is a baby in there!  What a weird feeling...  I figured I would get my bump earlier than most people do since I'm so short.  It's exciting to actually be showing, but now I realize I have to tell everyone that I'm pregnant now!  One of my clients' parents gave me a funny look tonight and asked me if I had any children (I just started working with this family last week.)  He was looking at my belly as he asked so I told him "just the one on the way."  I'm not used to discussing anything about my self with my clients' families when I go in for the weekly meetings.  I figure if I'm charging them, I need to make all the conversation about their child!  Looks like I'll have to work it into the conversation at my other meetings this week.  As for my full-time job at the school, everyone has been awesome to me lately.  I haven't had to deal with any tantrums, poopy pants, or stubborn children that need to be physically moved from an area. 

In other non-baby related news... there's not much going on.  Brent and I went to our 2nd Sounders game of the season on Saturday (tied 0-0 with Chivas)- we have yet to go to a game where they win!  The rest of the weekend was spent to cleaning out our spare bedroom which will take the next 6 months to finish, for sure. 

12 weeks have gone by...

Whoohoo - we're past the 12 week mark.  I can only assume everything with baby is fine - how do people not go crazy in between ultrasounds??  We don't have another for 4 more weeks.  I was sick this past week - 4 of my coworkers have come down with swine flu and I had definitely had something viral - though not as bad as I thought swine flu would be.  So who knows.  I was sick for 3 days, had a fever (which freaked me out, but apparently never got high enough to hurt the baby), upset stomach, and the usual cold symptoms on top of that.  Maybe I had a mild case of the flu?  Anyway, I'm fine, I am assuming the baby is fine.  I never got dehydrated and my fever didn't reach over 100 degrees.  This did convince me to get my flu shot soon though!

Week 11 - letters to our baby

We wanted a creative way to keep a pregnancy journal as well as photos along the way.  We came up with doing a weekly photoshoot and journaling all in one, and printing a book of all the pages when our baby finally comes.  This one may or may not make it in the book - brent played photographer and I really didn't have the light set up right.  Also, I'm not really showing anything but bloatedness and I don't know that I want to have the memory of THAT!  But I think it's cute with the journal entry and I'm excited to add more pages to this book!

B&B Summer Adventure #7 - the BIGGEST one of ALL!

It's true!  Much to our surprise, a tiny baby Allred is on its way.  

Our first reaction?  SHOCK.  Followed closely by a calming "this will be OK" feeling.  Now we're excited.  We found out on July 31st - the day we were supposed to leave for a 3 day music festival on a farm outside Portland.  Needless to say, I did not feel like packing up and leaving right after I got the news.  4 home pregnancy tests later and a quick trip to the Group Health laboratory confirmed that YES, WE ARE PREGNANT!  Today was our first appointment with a midwife.  The appointment was great and I love our midwives.  I am super happy with our choice of having a midwife catch our baby and can't wait until we can take a tour of our birthing center (Family Beginnings on Capitol Hill).  At our appointment, our midwife spent a lot of time discussing how we're feeling emotionally, how we'll feel in the next couple of months, how our relationship is doing.  I really love the personal relationships we're building there.  And the finale to the appointment - getting to here our little baby's heartbeat for the first time and seeing him/her with an ultrasound.  The heartbeat was loud and clear - a solid 170 bpm. Unfortunately, the new ultrasound machine was not turning on for us (just my luck!) and we got the dinosaur-aged one.  Which means no printed-out picture.  But we could clearly see our little one's cute little body (HUGE head) and a fluttering heart and it helped me to relax about this some.  So far everything looks perfect and we're hoping it stays that way.  

I am halfway through my 10th week and our due date is March 27, 2010.    I am super nervous to tell work - as they do require us to commit to teaching for a full year when signing our contract which I already signed.  I know I can't lose my job because I'm pregnant and I'm sure people will be excited for us.  It's just a little stressful deciding when and how to tell.

Overall, we are incredibly happy and getting used to this idea of being parents.  I am feeling pretty good - the morning sickness seamed to hit its peak in the beginning of last week and I've felt a little better everyday.  My waist size has already changed drastically however, and Im not sure how long I'll be able to keep this from work.  My pants are barely fitting today.  It's all bloat, I'm sure, but it looks like I'm about 5 months along sometimes.  There is a clear little bump even when I suck in lately and that I'll attribute to all my insides shifting around making room for a growing baby.
Here is a belly pic I took last week:

I feel much much bigger than that today.

B&B Summer Adventure 6- camping at Deception Pass

We've had a crazy summer and haven't had a chance to go camping until now - the very last weekend of August. We were lucky to find an open spot at Deception Pass State Park on Whidbey Island. It's an awesome campground because you are nestled between Cranberry lake and the ocean. Katie and Rob stayed a night with us up there. The best part of the trip? Finding this awesome natural sea-saw!!