Holy Schmoley!

I just looked at our blog and saw the ticker and realized we are now under 100 days until Baby Girl is here! Holy Schmoley! I just had a bit of a freak out! Time seems to be going to quickly now!

San Diego Baby Shower

Friday night, I headed down to San Diego for my first baby shower! I was super excited. My mom’s girlfriends plus my sister-in-law, Lauren hosted it for me. Friday night I got into town and my mom and my Aunt Shelley picked me up from the airport. My Aunt flew in from Florida for the weekend so she could attend the shower. The spoiling began Friday night – not me being spoiled but the baby (as it should be)! My parents went to the Baby Gap Outlet a few weekends ago and went a little crazy with super cute outfits. My Aunt also brought her a cute outfit. This is going to be one well dressed baby girl, that’s for sure!

Saturday morning I went for a quick pedicure before my shower, I needed a bit of a clean up even though it’s getting harder and harder to see my toes! The pedi felt great and after it was over we headed to my shower. The girls held it at Gordon Biersch, one of my favorites. Kind of ironic since it was a baby shower and Gordon Biersch is known for beer but I just love that place. They decorated the room so cute. They did it in pink and green (also the baby’s room colors) and the centerpieces were books, which I had never seen. It was so cute! I was very happy to get so many books because I want our daughter to have a ton of books and read rather than watch a lot of TV. The party favors were M&Ms (my favorite) in different shades of pink. Baby Girl got tons of great presents. She made out with a ton of Sleep Sacks, so she will be super cozy at bed time, and they will be perfect over her casts and braces. We also got a lot of gear and fun toys. Her Nana bought her some of her bedding and Homer even got her a little gift – a basket full of goodies. He’s such a thoughtful dog and big brother! We got some cute outfits and some blankets. There were about 32 women there, including my friend Shannon who had her daughter, Sophie, about 2 weeks ago. Sophie was 6 weeks early so I was very touched that Shannon came to my shower when she could have been at the hospital spending time with her new daughter. Marc, Baby Girl and I are so very lucky to have such generous, loving people in our life. It was a great day! Here are some pictures from the day!

Her loot:

Her bedding - a gift from her Nana! This was the first time I saw it in real life (I picked it out online) and I was more than pleased!

The cake - it was super yum!

One of the outfits Homer got for his sister, it was wrapped up with some onesies, books, and toys in his basket of goodies to her!

It says "Grandma Spoils Me" - Very appropriate! I still can't believe a person fits in that, and that's a 6-12 month onesie!

The beautiful quilt my parent's neighbor, Sharon, made for our daughter. It rivals anything you would see in a boutique.

The gift from the Hostesses - our Exersaucer!

My Aunt and I:

2 of the pregnant ladies (Lori wasn't feeling well so she left earlier) - Dayna's son is due 10 weeks before our daughter and Lori's baby is due 8 weeks before our daughter. Lots of friends for her!

After the shower we went to dinner with my brother and Lauren - here's a picture of Ed, Lauren and I:

It was a great weekend. Sunday I headed home with two big suitcases full of stuff. And that was just blankets, clothes and soft stuff. My parents have to bring the rest of the larger stuff up to our house when they drive up for Thanksgiving. As fun as a weekend as it was, Baby Girl and I were very happy to get home to our boys - Daddy and Homer. We spent part of the afternoon putting stuff away in Baby Girl's room and then we got to meet Ryan. Our neighbors, Alex and Shari's new son. He was born last Wednesday and he is quite the cutie. Before we know it he and our daughter will be outside playing!

My Humps, My Humps, My Baby Bump

Ok, as promised here is the latest snapshot of my baby bump. As you can see from the ticker I am about 25 1/2 weeks along. Today she's a kungfu fighter!






More on my shower later, which was a great time!

You Know You're Pregnant When...

You know you are pregnant when at 2:00 you take out your left over Chinese food that you had for lunch and start eating out of the take-out container! And you don't really care who sees you doing it or the heartburn you're going to get.

Mission Accomplished

My goal for the week was to not step into a Doctor's office, human or canine. And I am pleased to announce that other than picking up medicine for Homer today, I did not frequent a Doctor's office all week. It was glorious! I absolutely had to go get Homer his meds since he only had a few doses left on his heart medicine so I couldn't put it off any longer, don't want to go to the emergency vet at 11PM again! I feel like my whole life right now is revolving around Doctors (and will continue to do so for quite some time) so it was nice not to be poked, prodded, and weighed this week!

Things have been good here, we bought the baby her furniture and her car seat last weekend. We still need to get a glider but her crib and dresser/changer are on order and should arrive in 4-8 weeks. I can't wait until the furniture comes in and I can start putting together her nursery. Marc and Edwin moved furniture around and her room is now completely empty, just waiting for her furniture and for her! We also splurged on a few newborn outfits for her, we couldn't resist, pink and brown are so darn cute. Marc picked out a super cute one that says "I'll Always Be Daddy's Little Girl" with cute little pink and brown flowered pants. I can't wait to put her in it! It's hard to believe that in about 3 1/2 months she'll be here.

I've been feeling good, I'm starting to get tired again (which my Doctor warned me would happen as I got closer to my 3rd trimester) and my back hurts slightly (nothing a good massage from the husband can't fix - Doctor's orders) but other than that I am feeling good. I have a very active little girl, which I absolutely love. I am completely fascinated by her moving and am still trying to pinpoint how to describe her movements to Marc. She moves quite frequently which I love (except at 3AM when she uses my bladder as a trampoline)! Marc finally felt her move last week and I can spend hours on the couch staring at my stomach (it's getting easier as it grows by the minute) waiting to see her move. I still think it's not fair that Marc gets to kiss her and I can't reach (yet - again, the rate I'm growing my belly should reach my face soon) but I guess I get to be with her 24 hours a day.

Homer is doing absolutely great - knock on wood - (well other than last night when he decided he was over his crate in the middle of the night and cried for 3 hours until I finally let him out and let him sleep on the bed - he was snoring within minutes). We went back to the cardiologist last week because his coughing seemed to pick up again so rather than sporting for the emergency clinic and the oxygen tank we decided to go the cheaper route and see the cardiologist. He listened to Homer's heart and said it sounded stable and then took him back for an ultrasound because he suspected that his cough was lung disease and not related to his heart disease at this point based on the sound and the fact that one day he was great and the next day his cough was really bad. He did some x-rays (of course because what would a visit be if it was under $100) and was happy to report that Homer's heart has shrunk, like it was supposed to, and also that he looked like he had some lung disease (which he told us he probably had at our initial appointment so it was no big surprise). Fortunately the lung disease isn't life threatening just annoying, think incessant hacking cough. So another prescription later (he now has 8 medications) and we were on our way. A week later his cough is so much better and he is up to most of his old antics. My little old man! He's a sweet boy though!

So that's it, next weekend I head to San Diego for a baby shower my mom's friends are throwing for us. October 31 is our next routine appointment and on November 7 we have another ultrasound. And stay tuned for another belly photo, I think I will post it next weekend because it will be 4 weeks from the last picture, there should be some good growth there. ;)

Whew!

Our final amnio results came back yesterday morning and everything came back normal. A big WHEW! We are very excited that now we get to focus on the fun stuff like buying the baby's furniture, decorating her nursery, and my baby showers knowing that she's a perfectly normal baby whose feet will be good as new in no time.

The last 10 days have been super rough on Marc and I, it's been hard for us to go out and see babies with "normal" feet or to see cute little outfits and not know if they will fit over her casts or braces but these are all minor things and now knowing our baby girl will be healthy makes it all seem trivial. We still wonder why this has happened to us and I often let my mind wander to what I have done wrong for this to happen to our baby but other than chromosomal abnormalities Doctors really don't know what causes clubfeet so I'm just driving myself crazy. But at least we are fortunate that it's treatable. But still the last 10 days have taken a toll on us, I haven't been sleeping well and am home sick with a cold which my poor girl probably has. So we're laying on the couch watching soaps and cuddling with Homer! I can't wait until she's here and I actually get to cuddle with her on the couch.

Our friends and family have been so supportive and we are so grateful for all the kind words and worrying everyone has done for us. Our baby girl is so lucky to have you all in her life.

Doctor Day

Today was Doctor day, we started the day out by going to a Children's Hospital satellite office to see the pediatric cardiologist. I must say I think we both felt a little ridiculous with the minature table, chairs and picture books with very limited magzines with sentences longer than 5 words. Most of the people there were parents with kids with broken arms and legs. But we saw the cardiologist who did an ultrasound and examined the baby's heart. Fortunately he didn't see anything alarming and said it looked very normal and didn't detect and murmur and any red flags. Finally some good news at an ultrasound! Our daughter waved to us as well and she was very active throughout the ultrasound but also cooperated so that the Doctor got some good views of her heart.

Then we had an hour break, feeding time of course, before my monthly OB appointment. That went well, we went over everything that's been going on, listened to her ticker, which we knew was good since we had just seen it and of course the weigh in, which I gained another 3 pounds, not too bad. We talked about everything that was going on but unfortunately the rest of my amnio results haven't come back yet, probably Tuesday at the earliest. I did ask her if I can still deliver normally or if I have to have C-Section now and she said I can most likely have a normal delivery, thank goodness, I want to try to avoid a C-Section. As for my concerns about being so small compared to other women at my point in their pregnancies she said I was normal so I feel a little better. Now all I need is the rest of my amnio results and I think I will feel much better! I've been on pins and needles since last Friday. Oh and because my vericose veins are so gross (they don't hurt) I get to wear support stockings. AWESOME!