Where did my baby girl go?

Happy Halloween!

17/18 weeks

17 weeks October 21

18 weeks October 27

(please excuse the pajama pants. It turns into pajama time any time I'm at home!)

I'm feeling pretty good this week. I've definitely noticed that I'm hungry a lot more often and I want to eat ALL the time! It's such a nice change over being so nauseous constantly for the first 15/16 weeks. My stomach is poking out (a whole lot) enough now that people are noticing it. Twice now I've had strangers to ask if it was my first, or how far along I was. It's been strange because I because I haven't advertised this pregnancy a whole lot (especially to my customers at work) so when people that I haven't told notice, it catches me off guard. It's fun and makes me smile! I feel like I'm looking huge right now considering that I'm only 18 weeks! I've been feeling little baby girl moving around a lot! I feel her most when there is pressure on my stomach (she just kicked as I'm typing this...the lap top is pressing into her a bit!) and I love, love, love it!! I think I've gained about 7 or 8 pounds now. I'm trying to eat healthy but it doesn't always happen, especially after dinner when my ice cream/sweets craving kicks in! I've also been wanting super spicy stuff (hot salsa, hot wings, red pepper flakes added to lots of things) which makes for lots of heart burn. It apparently isn't bad enough for me to stop eating spicy things though. I can't think of other recurring cravings, other than maybe spaghetti...I've wanted that quite often, but not to the point of a real craving. I think I'm carrying exactly like I was with Addison...very high. I have an appointment for my anatomy scan next week on Nov 2, and I'm so excited about it!! It would have been when we find out boy or girl, but we got to find out early, so now it will be a fun show and tell! I have a few names that I like but I'll wait until we have decided to tell.

Addison's Autumn Adventures

Addison was all dressed for Aunt Viv's Halloween Party! Cutest little lady bug! Her favorite part of the costume was the sparkly red shoes.

Addison and Grandee

 Addison loves to hang out with her friend, Salem! They have lots of fun together!

 Salem's Mommy, LeeAnn, got the girls some baby pumpkins and Addison LOVED it! She wanted to take it to bed with her that night!

Both girls are going to be big sisters! LeeAnn is due about 4 weeks after me and we are so thrilled to be pregnant together again. Can't wait to find out if Salem will have a brother or a sister...

Addison's model face. Showing off her toy tower and train.  

We went to the Dixie Classic Fair for lunch one day and Addison had such a fun time! She got to ride on the pony. His name was Oscar but she kept (and still does) calling him Soccer. Silly Girl!

She also loved the Merry-a-go-a-round (as she calls it)!

15 and 16 weeks

15 weeks October 7, 2011

At 15 weeks, I felt much better than before. I was still having a lot of nausea and even some vomiting, but it wasn't constant like it had been. I definitely had more energy. The most exciting thing was that at 15w 1d (10/8)I felt the baby move for the first time! It felt like someone thumped my stomach from the inside. From then I was able to feel the baby once every few days. Very comforting!

On October 12, I went to the doctor for an in-between-visits visit. I was 15 w 5d. I had gained about 6 pounds and all of my stats looked good. I made the appointment basically to ease my worry and to let me know that things were okay. Here's the skinny:

We got back into the room and the Nurse Practitioner tried to find the heart beat for several minutes and just wasn’t getting anything. I was about to freak out, thinking, “I cannot believe this is happening again!” She finally got it for just a second or two but couldn’t get a good reading from it. So she sent us over to the ultrasound tech. I wasn’t too nervous at this point because I could feel the baby pushing up against the her as she was pushing down on my stomach! We got to hear the heart beat and got to see lots of our little baby!

Everything looked great and we even got to find out what we’re having!! Looks like Addison was right, she’s going to get a SISTER!! We are so excited and thrilled that we got to find out so early! So even though it started out a bit nerve wracking it turned out to be a great appointment.

Oh, and I don't think that I posted it, but we got the 1st trimester screening results back and they are negative!! so everything looks wonderful to date and there are no indicators that anything is wrong. Praying!!

12 Week Appointment

I went to the doctor this morning and had an ultrasound and regular doctor's appointment. The ultrasound was part of the first trimester screening that we opted to have. It measures the nuchal translucency, which is the thickening at the back of the baby's neck. If it's very thick it is a big indicator of a chromosomal issue (such as down's syndrome, trisomy 18 or trisomy 13). They use the measurements along with the blood work and place your results in the positive or negative range. We won't find out the results for about a week but the measurements were in the normal range so we are hoping that means good news! Our super sweet ultrasound tech (Barbara - the same one I had when we lost the baby) and she sounded optimistic.
The baby was moving all around and kept waving at us. It was so amazing to see! We both keep calling the baby a "he" which happened when we saw him/her on the screen. I can't wait to find out!! The heart beat was nice and strong at 165 beats per minute. The baby did measure one week ahead of what it sound have, so they moved my due date up a week to March 30th. I've gained 3.5 pounds now and seem to have been feeling a bit better over the past few days. I;m now 13.5 weeks which means I'm in my second trimester, which will hopefully mean I'll feel a lot better soon! I'm going back to the doctor in 2 weeks just to hear the heart beat, just for my peace of mind. Then I'll go back on the 24th for the anatomy scan where we will hopefully find out the sex of the baby! So I'm just trusting that God will give us a healthy pregnancy and baby.

A lot of Words

The last year has been one of the most difficult I've experienced. It wasn't a year full of bad experiences and happenings per say but a very difficult one as far as my emotional state goes. I wanted to get pregnant again almost immediately after having lost the baby but I went on one month of birth control before deciding that definitely was not what I wanted. I had thoughts of immediately getting pregnant without any effort. Well, month after month, I wasn't pregnant, even with lots of effort. I had no idea that I wouldn't be able to get pregnant very quickly. I'd never been in the position of "trying" to get pregnant; in the past it just happened. I had always made the statement that we weren't trying, we were just letting God work and if he allowed me to become pregnant I would be happy and if not, it would come later. Well, over the past year that is definitely NOT how I was viewing it. I was just devastated every month when I wasn't pregnant. I know that we didn't have fertility issues but I was getting impatient and just didn't understand why it was proving to be so difficult. I wasn't the only one being let down either. Jordan was disappointed each month, even though at first he only went along with it because he knew I wanted it so much. Other than not getting pregnant I was doing pretty good with the grieving and getting over it.


And then February 7th came. What was to supposed to have been my due date. I still wasn't pregnant and it was a rough time. I just broke down that morning in the shower and had to take off work. I allowed myself to wallow in my self-pity for the day and just be sad for the loss that we had experienced. I know that sounds crazy but I think I just needed to acknowledge the day that should have represented such a wonderful time and a new phase of our lives and let myself grieve all of the plans that we had made and then lost. I was fine after that and went on with my life, being thankful for all of the blessing we've been given. But still somewhat bitter that I still wasn't able to pull out Addison's Big Sister shirt again.

In April, after about 7 months of not getting pregnant, I decided that I was spending too much time and effort trying to make things happen (things that I can't control) and that I really needed to focus on other things. I'd been putting off making plans in the future because I was planning out pregnancies that weren't happening (ex. I wouldn't commit to trips because I might be too big if I got pregnant). So I decided to take some online classes to finally finish my Associates Degree and to start running. I ran for about 2 months and really enjoyed it. I stopped because I was too busy with my classes (they started mid may) and because it just got WAY too hot to be outside, much less running! I felt more at peace with not being pregnant and decided that, although I wasn't completely abandoning my efforts, I wasn't going to stress and obsess over it anymore.

Finally on July 24, after 10 months of waiting and stressing, crying and frustration, and 11 months to the day after losing the baby, I saw two little purple lines on the pregnancy test!! I was so excited and so scared all at the same time. Jordan and I just stood and looked at the test and hugged and cried. We told our parents, family and close friends the next week. I've been super nauseous, which started around 5 weeks and has only intensified. I am not complaining at all since I'm taking the morning sickness as a good sign. I was, after all, really sick with Addison and not so much with pregnancy #2.

It's different this time. Of course I'm thrilled beyond words to finally be pregnant again but I'm having a harder time actually planning things out with this baby. Not that I'm waiting for something bad to happen, but the possibility is present in my mind. We went to the doctor the day after my birthday (great timing, I know. I refused to go on my birthday, August 24, the day we couldn't find a heart beat last year. I'm not superstitious but I just wasn't putting myself through that emotional ride). We were able to get a lot of information at my appointment. I'm due April 6th, although I think it might actually be a bit sooner than that. That puts me at 8 weeks. The doctor discussed our last pregnancy and the complications in more detail than we had been told before. She said that the thickening at the back of the baby's neck meant that there was most definitely a chromosomal problem with the baby (i.e. down's syndrome). When chromosomal issues are present in a pregnancy, there is a greater chance of second trimester miscarriage. We had been told back when it happened that there was an obtrusion on the back of the baby's neck and that there was a possibility that it could've been chromosomal, but we weren't really told with any amount of certainty. I actually felt that the doctors were just trying to console me and tell me that it happened due to nothing that I did.

Back to my appointment, the doctor let us know that the chances of us having another child with chromosomal issues is very slim and that 95% of the time it's just a fluke that it happens. She discussed the option of doing the first trimester screening, which screens for Down's Syndrome, trisomy 18 and trisomy 13. The screening is non-invasive and is done using a combination of ultrasound measurements of the nuchal translucency (the back of the baby's neck) and my blood work. It is done between 11 and 13 weeks. The bad thing is that it is not a definitive test and there is a somewhat high percentage that you can be in the positive range without having anything wrong with the baby. The only way to find out for sure (if you were in the positive range) if there were chromosomal issues would be to do an amniocentesis. So Jordan and I decided that we did want to do the screening, although even if we were in the positive range, we still wouldn't do an amnio. We just thought that we were going to worry over this pregnancy weather we did the screening or not so we are just hoping to get a negative result to give us a bit of peace of mind.

So, my next appointment is on September 26th and we will have an ultrasound and do the screening. We are praying for a healthy baby and that I will be able to calm down and not worry so much...

Oh, and Addison is super excited to be a big sister! And she is totally convinced that she is going to have a sister. I guess she'll be in for a wake-up call if its a boy!

Addison Memories!

I was putting Addison to bed last night and the conversation that we had was so cute that I just wanted to record it while I still (mostly) remembered it.

I was rocking Addison in her room as I do every night for about five minutes before I put her in her crib. She sips on her milk and talks to me about whatever she's thinking about or asks me to sing her favorite songs or if she's really sleepy I sing soft sweet bedtime songs to her as she's drinking. Well last night she was running out of milk and I hadn't poured her very much so...

Me: "Do you want Mommy to go get some more milk for you?"
Addison: looks at her sippy cup then, "No, I still got plenty."
Me: amazed at what she just said and trying not to laugh. "Oh, Ok Baby."
We rock for a few more minutes
Addison: "Conner and Ellett play with my toe-ries (toys) in the living room."
Me: "Yes, Conner and Ellett came to your house and you did so good to share your toys with them!"
Addison: "How Sweet!"
Me: laughing, "Yes, Baby, You are such a sweet girl!"
Addison: grinning, "Say it again!!"
(that went on about five times before I went ahead and put her in her crib. I normally stand there with her for another few minutes and talk to her a bit then leave her to go to sleep. She is a great sleeper and super easy to put down.)
Addison: looking at her sippy cup and noting the amount of milk she had left "I still got a few plenty."
Me: laughing "Oh, you do?"
Addison: "Yeah." then hands me the cup "Here go, Mommy. Put it in the Fridge."
Me: "You want me to put it in the Fridge for you?"
Addison: "Yeah it's cold in there, huh?"
Me: still laughing "Yes baby. You go to sleep now okay? I love you."
Addison: chattering away as I walk out the door.

She is so silly and she talks non-stop. She'll look at you while you're having a conversation and ask, "Mommy, are you talkin'?" or ask, "whatare you doin'?" She just has the most adorable little voice and most the time she is super sweet.

A few nights ago she told me she wanted to sing the "tiny tiny baby song." I have no clue what that is or where she got it but it was cute and she was persistent that I sing it to her. So I started singing, "I have a tiny little baby...(making up lots of silly lyrics cradling my two year old as if she were still a tiny little baby)" She looked at me, pointed at her chest and said, "My name's Addison!" So I started singing, "I've got a tiny little Baaaaby, Her name is Addison Kaaaaa-te, And I love my tiny little baaaaby, I just think she is so great!!" She then asked me to sing it about 10 times and as I was getting ready to leave she asked one last time but as I was singing, interrupted and said "I'm not a tiny baby, I'm BIG!" That girl cracks me up!!

Addison

We were riding to dinner last night and Jordan told Addison to tell me what happened during the day. She responded with "I hit Ellett." Greaaat! She then told me that she got a "pop pop" from her Nana after she hit Ellett in the face. She was very matter-of-fact about it. I asked her if she was going to hit Ellett again and she's like "Yeah!" I told her that it made Mommy very sad that she hit Ellett and she laughed and then fake cried. I hope that she was able to learn a lesson...

She's pretty bossy with Ellett although she loves him to death and can't wait to see him most of the time. We're working on learning to share-both toys and people! Addison has a mini-hissyfit if I hold Ellett or talk to him or hug on him. You could say that Addison is slightly jealous.

The other night we were watching the Backyardigans (because if Addison is awake and we are at home, chances are she's wanting to watch the Backyardigans) and Jordan had to leave to go to his friend Joel's house to help with a car. About 30 minutes later I was putting Addison to bed and she asked for her Daddy. Before I would even answer her to tell that Jordan wasn't home she said, "Daddy's not here. He's at Joel's house..." then "Daddy can't sing right now." My girl is just so smart. She picks up on everything and can talk so well! She just amazes me! (and no I'm not biased at all...)

Zoo Trip!

On Saturday we went to the zoo with my Mom and Dad and had such a good time! We had beautiful weather with a nice breeze blowing most of the day.

Addison did so good! She walked for a little bit but rode in her stroller for most of the day. She only wore the sunglasses for a few minutes when we first got there. I guess she decided that their spiderman theme didn't go with her chic zoo outfit!

As we were riding to Asheboro we were asking Addison what animals she wanted to see and I named a few. She listened and then said the she wanted to see the elephants. And then she begged to see them until we found them (thankfully the were one of the first animals we came to). And then close to the end of the visit we asked her what her favorite animal was and she immediately said the elephants! So we had to stop back by to see the elephants before we left. She kept calling them, saying "Come here elephants!! come here!"

She even got to ride on one!

I thought the zebras and giraffes were really beautiful but Addison wasn't very interested in them. They just weren't close enough for her to really get into it.

Our attempt at getting her to smile. It obviously didn't work If you look really closely you might can see a few of the giraffes in the background.

This is one of the ghost alligators. They are albinos. They weren't very big and it was kind of hard to see them. Jordan had to hold the camera way out over the rock to get a picture of this one. And the camera focused on the rock instead of the alligator but I like the way the picture turned out.

This is one of the other ones. They weren't very big and the just floated serenely around in the water.

The flamingos were fun to look at but super stinky!

Addison and Grandee (and the giant face sunscreen. This is in almost every picture of Addison. She held it all day! She likes to take the lid off and on. I looked over a few times and she was riding in the stroller with her foot propped up on the tray and the lid on her big toe. Silly girl!)

Looking at the fish.

And she's still looking at the fish.

Now she just looks scared (notice the sunscreen...still in her hand). Something in the avirary made my eyes start itching (which didn't stop for the rest of the day. I wanted to rip my contacts out) and my nose started running. I must have a had a reaction to something in there.

Silly girl!

Loved this picture of my Mom!

I think this was probably Addison's very favorite part of the day!!

It was really hard to catch her in a picture but Jordan was able to snap these two. They're blurry but too cute not to post!

The only reason she's not happy here is because the ride ended and we were making her get off. She kept saying "one more time-yes!" I think she thinks if she says yes to something then she'll be able to do it. Funny!

This turtle made me laugh. He was balanced on the top of the log with his back right leg and front left leg sticking up in the air. It kind of reminded me of the old turtle guy in "Kong Fu Panda".

Addison was pretty excited about the turtles swimming in the water. They were right up on the glass and she loved it!

She really enjoyed chasing them.

Sweetheart!

She loves her Papaw!!

On the tram at the end of the day. We look exhausted!

This picture cracks me up! She was so sleepy and she kept poking her bottom lip out. Anytime she didn't get what she wanted that bottom lip poked right out. She's got her sunscreen of course and the blue and yellow "blanket"...there's a story to it. We accidentally left her night night at home and she noticed about 20 minutes in to the trip. I knew it was going to be a long day and that there would probably be some meltdowns. We stopped for breakfast and Mom found this little knitted shopping bag and we gave it to Addison. She was just kind of like "what is this?" and then she looked up at me and asked "Another night night?" translated to: I've never seen this one before and it's a different color and smaller but it feels the same and it might work if you tell me it's another night night. :) It ended up doing the trick and she held onto it all day. Silly thing!

I'm so glad we went before it got super hot. Addison did great and we all had a good time!