Baby Update: 14 Weeks!

{exasperated sigh!}

I promise .... I'm REALLY trying to get back into this blogging thing, but .... I just can't seem to remember how!?!

HELP.

Please?

Well, it doesn't help that ..... you're never going to believe this ..... but I've been sick AGAIN.  No strep throat this time, thank goodness -- just a regular ol' cold.  But a NASTY cold.

I even got to spend my entire three-day weekend in BED!

Aaaaaah!  My bedroom.  How I've missed you.

NOT.

But, another week brings another exciting update from babycenter.com, reminding me that my babe is another week older!  Yahoo!!!
Apparently 14 weeks means I'm "officially" in my second trimester now.

I promised you a picture last time .... and I do have a bit of a bump now, so at least there's something to show you this time!

(pathetic excuse for a picture ... I hate taking my own picture!)

I'd rather it looked a little more like "pregnant" and a little less like "fat" .... but we'll get there, I suppose! :-)

BABY STATS: 
Baby is approximately the size of a lemon this week.  3 1/2 inches, and 1 1/2 ounces.
This week's major developments:  baby can squint, frown, grimace, pee, and suck his/her thumb!

MAMA STATS:
Having officially entered the second trimester, I'm supposed to be getting some energy back .... which I WAS doing before I got sick again.  I sure wish my appetite would disappear for a while instead of my energy!  I don't think there are enough raspberries on the planet to satisfy my craving right now.  Or cherries.  Or watermelon (my favorite food while pregnant with Lucy ... I may or may not have eaten half of a watermelon a day ... by myself!).
So, basically ... fruit.  Give me fruit, and I'm happy.
And cheese.
But that's nothing new.
My face is also breaking out BAD this past week (just as it did with Lucy) .... my entire face is covered in tiny little bumps.  It is awful.  Can't even stand to touch my own skin!  UGH!
Hmmm..... I'm thinking GIRL this week!?!
Well, whatever IT is, I started feeling IT kickin' around in there last week!  SO COOL!!!  And about a month earlier this time than I felt with Lucy -- (they say that's normal).

LUCY STATS:
Lucy continues to seem unaffected by the baby news.  She randomly brings it up once or twice a week, talks about it for a few seconds, then moves on.  She has been VERY clingy with me though.  I'm sure this is JUST the beginning .... :-)

Little Bit of Life: Lucy's Birth Story

I decided since I will be experiencing ANOTHER birth before I know it, maybe it's time to share LUCY'S birth story with you!
(Honestly, I've thought about it several times before, but somehow -- thinking about that day while struggling with infertility was just too tough for me.)

But now .... well, we have a different situation, don't we? :-)

So.
Now I'm totally ready to tell you this (rather entertaining?) story!

Lucy's due date was October 27th (a Monday).
The week prior, I had parent-teacher conferences on Monday and Tuesday (the 20th and 21st) -- mostly just to say my goodbyes and pass my kinders off to their new teacher -- and then I had the three remaining days that week to get last-minute shopping and baby preparations done.

By Friday (the 24th), I was DONE with preparing and READY to hold a baby!!!
I began doing everything I could think of (and everything I could find on Google) to put myself into labor.
I was bound and determined to have that baby by the end of the weekend.
(Not to mention, I knew if she was born over the weekend, I wouldn't have to worry about getting ahold of Scott on some far-away job site  in the middle of nowhere, having to drive myself to the hospital, etc.)

By bedtime on Sunday ..... still no baby.  Still no contractions.
Darn.
So much for my plan.

I went to bed around 11:00 on Sunday night, and woke up around 2:00 a.m. with some interesting new "pains".
Not cramps - like they tell you contractions feel like .... so, after the pain stopped, I drifted back to sleep .... and WHAM!  Woke up to the same pain a half-hour later.

Repeat.  

Repeat.

Finally, at 4:00 a.m., I decided I should probably get up and take a shower "just in case."
By 5:00, I had showered, blow-dried my hair, and even put on some makeup.  (pathetic?  maybe.  but that's just me!)

I think I had one "contraction" in the shower .... one while drying my hair .... and one while putting my makeup on.

Because they drill into your brain that you should NOT come to the hospital before the contractions are 5 minutes apart ... and mine were anywhere from 10-15 minutes apart ... and not even "contractions", if you asked me!, I woke Scott up and told him I was probably in labor and he should probably not go to work that day .... but that we probably wouldn't be going for a while.  

45 minutes later, at Scott's insistence (and by insistence, I mean whining and begging me to just go -- because he was so excited!), I decided we should just go to the hospital.
What's the worst thing that could happen ....?  They send me home, right?

We arrived at the hospital at exactly 6:00 a.m.

Upon checking in, we learned that all of the delivery rooms were full.

Another darn.  

So, they put me in a triage room to check me and see if this was, in fact, "the real thing."

I changed into my hospital gown, sat down on the bed, and began preparing for a long morning of watching talk shows (since I fully planned on getting an epidural as soon as I possibly could!).

The second I sat down on that bed, it was like something snapped.  I was suddenly in EXTREME pain and told the nurse so.
She checked my cervix and reported that I was dilated 5 cm .... and that I probably had at least a few hours to go.
She stepped out of the room for a moment, and in another split second, I was back in the same INSANE pain I had felt just a couple of minutes earlier.

Another nurse walked in with some random equipment (for my iv, etc.), and I started screaming that something was wrong.
By this point I was curled on my side in the fetal position with my upper body wrapped around the underside of my bed.
(Yes, I'm sure I looked like a total freak, and I have no idea why this particular position made me feel better .... not that it actually made me feel better.  There was no "better" by this point.)

Nurse #2 was asking questions that I could hardly even hear, let alone answer, when Nurse #1 came back in.
Nurse #2 tried telling Nurse #1 that I was suddenly in a lot more pain and she wasn't sure what was going on .... and Nurse #1 assured Nurse #2 that she had JUST checked me a few minutes ago and that I was "only" at 5 cm.

As my contractions were now literally coming on top of each other, I promptly grabbed my iv pole and practically wrapped myself around it in an effort to KEEP myself from pushing.  When the nurses urged me not to do that - and attempted to take it away from me - and I screamed at them (like a crazy psycho) that I had to push ..... I think then they realized I might not be joking.

As nurses #3, 4, 5, and 6 hurried into the room (presumably due to the fact that it was approximately 6:15 a.m. and they had a crazy woman screaming bloody-murder in the triage room), Nurse #1 decided she should maybe check me again.

It took two nurses per side to pry my legs apart in order for this to happen.

No sooner had my legs been pried apart than the nurse was frantically letting the other 7 of us in the room that we were going to have a baby RIGHT. NOW.

Two minutes later, a young doctor from the emergency room walked in, introduced himself, and told me that he had never delivered a baby before.
(Gee, that was comforting.)

He broke my water with something that looked like a crochet hook, and then the nurses told me I would push with the next contraction (though I couldn't really tell where one stopped and the next started by this point).

I closed my eyes and prepared to push -- and heard my doctor walk into the room.  (Thank the good Lord she was coming through to make her rounds early in the morning and was able to make it in time -- because I love her .... and the second I heard her voice, I knew everything would be OK.)

I gritted my teeth, pushed as hard as I could ..... and there was my Little Lucy Lu!

At 6:20 a.m.

Yep, you read that right, folks.
One push.
20 minutes after arriving in the parking lot.
10 minutes after being dilated to 5 cm.

WHOA!

The doctors and nurses agreed that perhaps I should consider birthing babies professionally.
I didn't agree .... particularly since I was more-or-less in shock and so scared out of my mind, I couldn't stop shaking!

Then again, by noon, I was asking if I could go home.
(They wouldn't let me.)


Looking back, it still amazes me ... how my life changed so completely in that instant.
The best day of my life, without a doubt.
God gave me the ULTIMATE blessing that day.
The best little person on the planet.

And now ... to think I will have ANOTHER one of those days!?!
I honestly can't wrap my mind around it.
It is kind of starting to terrify me .... how will I ever love another person like I love her?
Is that even possible?

Of course, I know the answer to that.  And I know every mom (of more than one) felt the exact same way.
But it's still hard to believe that it's possible.

.... and don't even get me started on how afraid I am for THIS delivery!
I mean .... how much faster can it get, really!?
And don't they say the second one is usually faster!?

My current plan is to set up camp in the hospital parking lot two weeks before my due date .....

Baby Update: 12 Weeks!

The big 12 WEEK milestone is HERE!

I got to have another (the 3rd) ultrasound yesterday, and it was AWESOME!

There is seriously nothing better than seeing your baby in there .... and WOWZERS, was this little one active!  Punching, kicking, stretching, twisting, and turning the whole time!!!  I don't think Lucy moved that much in all of my (seven!) ultrasounds combined!

I was planning to show you a "bump" picture, but to be honest, there isn't really a bump to show you!
My plan is to post a baby update every two weeks, so next time - at 14 weeks - I'll be sure to include a picture of the bump (which will hopefully be noticeable by then!).

BABY STATS:
Baby is approximately the size of a lime this week, and the most dramatic development right now is reflexes such as grasping, sucking, and even hiccups!
He/she weighs approximately half of an ounce!  (Hard to believe, looking at that ultrasound picture!)

MAMA STATS:
While the baby is only the size of a lime, my uterus is the size of a small melon!  Yikes!
But like I said, still not really "showing" -- unless you count looking a little extra chubby as "showing"...?  (*You have to remember, I'm just a hair under 6 feet tall, so there is a LOT of room to grow in there without having to POP!:-)
I am feeling SO much better this week.  (I'm sure part of this is due to my strep throat being gone!)  But I am actually getting some energy back, and it is WONDERFUL!
My bladder is also starting to get a handle on itself again ... so I'm only getting up ONCE a night to go to the bathroom instead of 4 or 5 times!  (And my ultrasound today was much less traumatic, too! ... There's nothing worse than being SURE you're going to wet your pants in public!)

LUCY STATS:
Lucy officially knows about the baby now.  She is just SO funny about it though!  She talks about it so matter-of-factly .... like, what's the big deal???  She is most excited about changing baby's diapers BY HERSELF.  (She is ADAMANT about that!)
When you ask her, she says she wants a little sister "just like her" ... yet, she refers to the baby as a he/him all the time .... and she told me the other day that I should name my baby "Hampster".  Hmmmmm.... that one was definitely NOT on the list .....???
For the most part, she seems relatively un-phased by the news, and when she does bring it up, she is done talking about it 20 seconds later.
(So, pretty much like everything else!)

Meanwhile .... I miss you all!  I miss reading your blogs .... and I miss having something for YOU to read HERE!
I hope to gradually pick up the pace again, though with the end of the school year fast-approaching, life continues to get a little crazier every week!
Summer is in sight though, folks!  And then it's 14 months OFF for me!  Hip-hip-hooray!!!

I'm Alive ... and Working on Well

I know.
It's been awhile.

Where have I been .... ?
Well, first of all, there's the whole pregnant thing.
People, this baby has completely zapped every speck of energy (and creative juice) I may have ever dreamed of having.

I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I have spent more time in my bed over the last 7 weeks than I'd spent in here the previous 7 months.
(Notice I say "in here" .... that would be because I am currently IN. BED.)

Wish I was kidding.

Honestly, the trip from here to my office to unplug my laptop and lug it back to bed with me was a little rough.
(About the only place I've traveled to in the last 48 hours is my bathroom .... approximately 732 times, by the way.)

Which brings me to my latest "excuse" for absence:  strep throat.

If you follow along on Facebook, you probably already knew this.

But yes, I now have strep throat.
I can't tell you the last time I felt so awful.
In fact, I don't know if I ever have .... although I know it seems that way every time you're sick.
(Am I right?)


A fever, chills, the equivalent of a marching band pounding through the inside of my head, and a throat full of shredded glass.
That's what it feels like.

So .... here I lay, in my bed, with nothing to share with you.
Not even a picture.

I thought about showing you a picture of my bedroom, since that's really the only room in my house I ever see anymore .... but considering I haven't left my bed (aside from the aforementioned bathroom trips), the laundry piles have almost surpassed the height of the bed.
(Have I ever told you how much I loathe folding laundry...?)  
Loathe.
Yes, that's a strong word.  

Anyway.  I really didn't want to embarrass myself right now ... I'm a little too emotionally unstable for that in my condition! :)~  So, no picture of my "view" to share.  Sorry.  

I could show you a picture of Lucy .... but I haven't even seen the sweet girl for a couple of days.
Thankfully, Nana took her for the weekend ... REALLY praying this evil bacteria will skip right over her.

And husband, too, for that matter because, let's face it ..... a sick husband is the equivalent of 13 sick kids.
At least.

I do not care to follow up THIS with THAT.
NO, thank you.

So he's been sleeping in the spare bedroom.

Fingers crossed.

I'd love to promise you some new and exciting posts later in the week .... but I'm not gonna bother to pretend that will happen.

If you don't mind, I'm gonna take another week off.

I will be through this life-sucking first trimester by then .... and hopefully, I will be HEALTHY by then, too.

This sick stuff is for the birds.

Thanks to all who have sent messages of care and concern!  I've been reading them from my phone (in my bed, of course), and they are so encouraging. :-)

You guys are the best!