December favorites

So, this is the last day of December (and of 2012!), so I figured that I would do some Mommy and Baby favorites! I've planned on doing these for a long time (mostly in video form, but my system is too outdated, so I can't upload until I update), but just never have. But now I finally am! Considering I have a sleeping baby on me right now, I'm not going to get up and take pictures of every single thing that's my favorite. SO, instead I'll just include stock images (aka, I don't own any of the product images, and I would like to thank Google for leading me to them). In the future I plan to take photos of the objects myself, but we'll see how that goes. :) Anyway, let's go ahead and jump in. By the way, these are in no particular order.

Factual Friday

I'm starting a new trend, where every Friday I plan to do one of these surveys, just to keep me on top of blogging more often (one of my resolutions!). So here is number one of many to come!

Picture day :)

Just a quick post showing off her pictures from today. :) Every Thursday I'm taking pictures for her future book featuring photos of her once a week. She already looks different from her week one pictures! And I was lucky enough to catch her in a happy, alert state. Love my sweet girl!

Happy day after Christmas!

Six days old.

Can I just first start out by saying that time is absolutely flying by? Sophia will be two weeks day after tomorrow, and it feels like I just had her yesterday.

Well, anyway, she's doing great. Breast feeding is going pretty awesome I would say. I'm having to use a nipple shield with her for now, but with it she's doing great. With Blake, not even the shield would really get him to breast feed all that well. And let me tell you, she is all about that nursing thing. She eats so much! Which is great, because I want to make sure she's getting enough. It's so funny when she's done, because she will usually have a little bit of left over milk trailing out of her mouth. :) Got to love when babies are milk drunk! It feels so great knowing that I'm able to provide for her in such a way. Makes me realize even more what I missed out on with Blake (can't say I didn't try though), but it also makes me appreciate even more what I CAN do for her. This time around just feels like it's going so much more smoothly. I guess that's part of being a second time mom though, too.

Sophia has arrived!

Sophia is here! And what a story I have to tell about how she came. :)

So where to start. Well, my due date came and went on Wednesday (12/12/12 for those who forget). I had an appointment the next day, and my midwife agreed to perform a membrane sweep the next day after clinicals (so that way, if it worked, I would have the weekend off). So after clinicals I go in, and she checks me first. At this point I was about 80% effaced and 3-4 cm dilated, although she said she could stretch it to a 5. She also told me that Sophia was very low, which I knew already, and that she's ready and was probably just waiting on me. So, she did the sweep and there was a decent amount of blood after. She said she thinks that it would probably work, and the contractions usually start to pick up in 3-5 hours.

39 weeks

And still pregnant! I think I am definitely making progress though. Right before I turned 38 weeks I lost my mucus plug, but no bloody show. Not that it really means anything other than I'm dilating, which I kinda figured anyway. I'm still getting whole lots of Braxton Hicks contractions, many of which are uncomfortable, some even painful. Nothing regular though, and nothing that progresses. And she is very low in the birth canal. From my own checking, I would say somewhere between a 0 and +1 station. That, again, is just my guesstimation, but yeah, VERY low and engaged.

Room tour!

I feel like this is probabaly the most prompt I have EVER been for a blog post. :) I'm so proud of myself! But I really wanted to get this up BEFORE she is born, so might as well do it right away! And just as a warning, this will be a very picture heavy post. Missing from her room that I added tonight after a target run is her diaper pail (aka a step lid trash can that I put a drawstring laundry bag in), and her laundry hamper (just boring and white, but it's pretty much hidden from sight anyway). Other than that, everything is done!

37 weeks

So much has happened in only three weeks! For starters...I'm married! Me and Nate have officially tied the knot, and I love it. :) He's such a wonderful husband, now we just need our wonderful daughter to come into the picture finally! It was a little ceremony, with only me, him, our moms, Cheyne, and her man, Koti. One of Nate's coworkers actually married us. It was nice though. I'm not really one to be the center of attention, so I think I would be too nervous during a big ceremony. Nate still decided to surprise me though and arranged to have the song I've always wanted played at my wedding (Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles) played at the end, just after being officially married. :) Isn't he sweet? Yes, yes he is, and he's all mine for forever. My mom made my wedding dress, since I couldn't really find any reasonably priced dresses that fit and that I liked, and it worked out very nicely. Nate looks so handsome in his suit, and I thought it was sweet that he insisted on dressing up with me, despite the small size of the event. Our bands still haven't come in yet, since we're having the girl who made my engagement ring make both of our bands, and it takes up to 3 weeks to make. It'll be so worth it when they're finally here, but it feels like it's taking forever! For the ceremony, we literally tied the knot with embroidery thread. You know, whatever works! :D

34 weeks

Well, technically 34 anyway...I'll be 35 weeks tomorrow. I've been slacking with the posts, I know, and I'm sorry! I'll try to catch you up.

So, Sophia has dropped a lot! She's is still head down, and every once in a while I'll feel some intense pressure. She is still head down, just like she has been the whole pregnancy, and still active. However, I can tell she's getting cramped in there, since her once really strong kicks are turning more and more into intense stretches! She's still growing, so YAY! This was the point last time that all the issues started coming up, and so far, so good. She is on the small side of normal, which I'm okay with. My midwife's guess is that she will probably be around 6 lbs or so. Better than 4 1/2 lbs! Plus this way we can get a little more use out of her newborn things. Honestly, I'm glad mother nature doesn't have a 10 lb baby in store for me lol.

27 weeks

I can't believe that the day after tomorrow, I'll be in my third and FINAL trimester. Holy cow! Where has all this time gone? This pregnancy is just flying by, and I'm not gunna lie, I'm halfway scared that she will come before everything is all set up. But in all reality, there isn't a whole lot left to do, mostly just decoration that I've been working on during the weekends since I have officially been laid off (and it feels GREAT might I add).

25 weeks

And once again, I've let far too much time elapse before updating this blog. What else is new?

Lets see. What has happened? Well, we're all moved into our house now, with NO roommates. Oh, life is good. Pretty much everything is set up, we've got pretty much all pictures hung, and for the most part everything has a place. Exciting! So I've pretty much have just been working on Ms. Sophia's room. Did I mention I'm nesting like crazy? Oh, and school is officially back in. Yay. :( At least it's my last semester, but still. I just want to take this time and prepare for baby some more. Without having lots of studying to do in the mean time. Oh well, hopefully it will be worth it when I'm graduated.

20 weeks!

Sooo, this is embarrassing. I didn't realize that it had been SO long since I had done a blog post. 11 weeks? Really Sheila? My bad. And I can't even fully blame school! I mean, from I think 17 weeks on I've been on summer break, so that month and a half school consumed me, but dang. So much has been going on though! And I've been working a good amount to make up for the time I can't work as much from homework. Gotta love nursing school.

So let's see, where to start? I guess I'll start out by talking about baby. :) At 16 weeks we got to find out the gender and got a couple of good pictures, but I'll save all that for the end (suspense!). At my last appointment I weighed 109.2, so I've gained 4lbs total this pregnancy, after losing 7 lbs in the beginning due to morning sickness. BTW, I haven't had any of that since 15 weeks so WOO! But anyway, I'm still negative 4 lbs, but at least I have been gaining and not at an ungodly rate. Besides, baby is bigger this second half, so I'm about to start gaining MUCH faster. Yay?

11 weeks

Wow what a day! So I had my first prenatal appointment today and was so excited going in. Well, when it got to be the good stuff, you know listening to the baby and such, we couldn't find the heartbeat. I've heard that's normal, so I tried not to freak out. The nurse practitioner (the midwife didn't see me today) said that many times the doppler won't pick up babies until at least 12 weeks. But then, when the she checked my uterus, she told me it felt like I was only measuring 8 weeks. She commented that maybe I wasn't as far along as I thought. There was NO way that I was only 8 weeks; I've known about the pregnancy longer than that and I know exactly when I became pregnant, no doubt in my mind. The only reasonable thought for me at that point was maybe I had miscarried. I knew last week I had spotted a tiny bit, but it stopped and never came back. I also hadn't been cramping, and I threw up the past two mornings. I hadn't today, but I was nauseous slightly. Regardless, I was so close to breaking down in tears right there on the table. She said that she would set me up for an ultrasound so we could make sure everything was fine and date the pregnancy.

10 weeks!

So far my bracelet has started working again, so thank goodness for that. I've been feeling pretty okay lately. Today I actually felt a bit like I was going to throw up. I was in the OR for my rotation, and I never imagined how HORRIBLE bone being cauterized smelled. Luckily I was able to not do that. How embarrassing would that have been? I was okay with the gore, but just that smell. Ick.

I may be crazy, but I SWEAR I can feel little movements every once in a while. Like flutters. Maybe I'm just wanting to feel them, since I know 10 weeks is early, but I started feeling Blake at 14 weeks. I guess I won't really know, but I really can feel something, and I don't believe it's just gas bubbles.

9 weeks and dying!

Well, I'll be 10 weeks officially tomorrow, so figured I should probably hurry up and put in a blog post for week 9, since week 8 totally got skipped. Hmm, where to start.

Well, during week 8, I found out about the seaband. It's pretty amazing, when it works. It works for about a week, and then I guess it just gets stretched out and just stops. SUPER COOL. But, at least it does give me some relief without any medication, so I would say still worth it. :) And they're relatively inexpensive; $12 for a two pack at Walgreens. So, if you're battling morning sickness (or any nausea/vomiting), I do recommend this! But when it decides to not work, everything is back full force. I do mean FULL force. Yesterday was a lucky day where it decided not to work, and I threw up five times during the course of the day. It was really lots of fun, especially having to go wait tables like that from 3:30 until we closed. I really wish I could quit serving, I hate it so much, especially now. But it's a lot better money than retail, so I guess I'll just suck it up while I still can. I know I was sick with Blake, but not like this. I threw up a handful of times, but not like this.

7 weeks

Can I just start by saying how MISERABLE I've been feeling? I've been throwing up about once a day, and I'm so over it. And even after I throw up, I only feel better for about 10 minutes, and then I'm nauseous again. Today I was worthless. Literally got up for class and went, came home, slept for three hours, finally attempted to eat something, and still have only laid in bed. I just don't have energy to do much of anything and it sucks. :( I honestly just want to go back to sleep, but guess I should study or something first. I can't wait for this trimester to be over! Or at least this phase where I'm feeling sick 24/7.

A classmate of mine told me yesterday that I look like I'm losing weight. Maybe I am, but my pants sure don't feel like it. Pretty snug, gotta say. Not much of a bump yet, but maybe you can see a little bit of difference. :)

Like I said, not much to see here. And then, here's also a picture of me and Nate. :) Not a great picture, but it's not horrible.

Hoping things get more normal soon!

6 weeks

Well, any hopes I had of possibly not having morning sickness are throughly out the window. It started before six weeks (last time I started getting sick the day I turned six weeks), but once I hit this week it's been way worse. Every morning I'm dry heaving, and it's definitely not left to just the morning. No, no, it lasts ALL day. Even when I get to a stage that I can stand to eat, I'm still slightly queasy. I'm so ready for this stage to pass! Unfortunately, it just started not long ago, meaning I probably have about another month and a half of this to go. :( The only thing that makes me happy about this is that it means my levels are still up, hormones are still raging, and baby is hopefully still doing fine.

It's weird. I know for a fact it's just a phantom symptom (for now), since it's much too early, but every once in a while it feels as if I feel fetal movement. Obviously that's not it, and maybe it's just reminiscent from my last pregnancy, but still it's odd! Maybe it's just stuff inside shifting around and I'm more sensitive to it or something. I don't know! I can't wait until I can for real feel this little one moving though. With Blake, I could feel movement at 14 weeks. I hope I can with this one too! I could have other people feel it from the outside until it was closer to 20 weeks, but still, there are people who haven't even felt any movement at 20 weeks.

Nate says he's having sympathy symptoms, such as pregnancy brain, and maybe the appetite. I'm not really hungry now, but at first I was so hungry all the time! It was like that with Blake too, starving at first, not interested during the "sick times," the starving again towards the end. I did enjoy the appetite I had with Blake. I've never been able to eat a ton at one sitting, which is a shame when the food is good! So I'm excited about that for this time, I just hope I don't gain a TON of weight. Speaking of gaining, my boobs are so huge and swollen. Very uncomfortable! I'm busting out of my bras that I have, and it's difficult to find the next size up, unfortunately. I wasn't this size until more like half way through last time. Eek. Please stop growing!

One good thing about this time is that my skin has been pretty clear. With Blake I was broken out a good part of my pregnancy. So at least there's one benefit!

Fun News :)

Drum roll please! Nate and I have recently found out we're expecting! Totally an accident, but so excited nonetheless. According to my LMP, I'm due December 10, 2012. I actually announced it on facebook April 1st, so a lot of people were asking if this was an April fool's joke. Here to clarify further, it's definitely not! See for yourself:




This girl at work swears by the trick of predicting the gender by holding the cross necklace above my belly. Back and forth for a boy, circles for a girl, and supposedly it tells you all the kids you're having ever. It was so weird! I'll still take it with a grain of salt, but wow. It was completely still, and then by itself it started going back and forth (boy, for Blake). Then it started going in circles. So according to this test, this little one is going to be a GIRL! That would be so fun! I guess we'll see. Nate still says it's a boy, but only time will tell. Then, it stopped again for a few seconds (did in between the first two also) and started to go back and forth again. So apparently next I will have a boy. :)

So what I'm hoping will happen is that I have the baby over Christmas break and then I'll go back in January for maybe like two weeks? And then I graduate and I'll be done. :) And I'll probably work at Fud's up until I give birth and then just quit...and just save up enough to get me through until then. Then take my license test and then nurse! :D Hopefully everything will fall into place just like that.

Delays delays delays

I think those are about three words that really sum up my blog lately. :) And you all can thank nursing school for that! In fact, right now I should be studying for a test, but instead I felt that blogging was more important. I just miss it so much. :( I would say that I'm gunna try to update more often, but I don't want to lie to everyone because I don't really see it happening until AFTER school is over, or maybe even spring/summer break. I can't believe it's already February! Time is just flying, and I feel like I've spent these two months with my nose stuck in medical books. Then I realize it's because I have. :P

Speaking of school, it's going well. It's intense, and a ton of work, but it will be so worth it. :) I like it so far. I think next week or at least sometime this month we start our clinicals in the hospital. Eek! Nervous, but they want us to pass. Just got to tell myself that I can do this. I THINK I'm carrying A's in all my classes, so hopefully I can keep it that way.

I feel like I've been in a bit of a funk lately. Like, everything else is being neglected that's not school related. I haven't been doing too many chores, that's for sure. Nate's been great though. He's such a help, he's been doing laundry, dishes, cooking, and being the absolute best cheerleader for me. I'm so glad I found him, because this journey would be so much harder without him.

Lucie is actually Lucifer, I'm pretty sure. I just wanna know where my sweet kitten that I brought home went? Because she rarely resides here now. She's such a brat, and into everything that we don't want her in. Sometimes I find myself wondering what I got myself into, but at the same time I know that I would miss her if she was gone.

So it's almost the "in" season at work, thank God. I'm so tired of being broke 24/7! I want to be able to pay my bills AND have some money to buy myself something sometimes. For example, a new pair of eye glasses. I'm going to be serving only starting March 1, so almost there. I make so much more money doing that verses retail. I'm really hoping to save a whole lot this summer so that I can work much less during my last semester of nursing school.

After school is over, me and Nate will stay here for around a year, and then HOPEFULLY we're moving. :) We're thinking Oregon, but we're going to have to visit first. Everytime I tell people that I get these weird looks, but I'm so tired of living in Florida. I know for a fact I don't want to get stuck here like everyone in this town seems to, and this can finally be a way out. I'm excited, even if I seem crazy. This is what we want together. Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.