30 weeks...

and, NESTING!!! It has kicked in early this time! I spent ALL day on Saturday cleaning out every closet in this house, getting boxes together for Goodwill, and getting a ton of stuff out that needs to go to storage to make room for the baby! The next move will be to move our bed out of our room and the guest bed into our room. Yes, I said we are moving our bed out of our room. Honestly, we haven't really liked our mattress since we bought it and we have always LOVED the mattress in the guest room. We tried to purchase the same mattress in a King for our room, but it isn't made anymore, so that isn't an option. At any rate, Randy has had some major back problems in recent weeks and has been sleeping in the guest room. I am starting to get slightly uncomfortable as well and from time to time, I wake up with lower back pain. So, we made the decision that we are going to switch the beds...mainly so that we can sleep in the same bed again, but also because we know we both love that mattress. On top of that, our footboard for our bed is broken and needs to go to a furniture repair shop. But, that isn't possible while we are using it. Eventually (probably whenever we are in a different house, which will most likely be at least 5 years from now!!), we will use the king bed again, but for now, we are switching to the comfy queen. I even bought new bedding for that bed in hopes that it will motivate us to get going on taking the wallpaper down and painting in our bedroom. It is the only room we haven't done work on in this house and to be honest, I am just over wallpaper and really haven't cared to touch that room since we finished the guest room. But, I know that if we don't do it before the baby comes, it will be awhile before we attempt to tackle it. So, perhaps there will be an update about that in the coming weeks!! But, I am not promising anything!

I had an OB appointment this morning and everything is great! Also, all of the restrictions that I had because of the placenta previa have been lifted. So, I am going to attempt to start exercising again. The doctor said it is fine, but that I really need to use common sense and listen to my body since I haven't worked out (with the exception of walking and doing the eliptical machine) in 12 weeks. Who knows how it will go, but I am excited to give it a shot!

30 weeks-Baby #2

30 weeks-Owen

29 weeks

I had my follow up ultrasound this morning. GREAT NEWS...IT MOVED!!! My placenta, that is...away from my cervix, no more placenta previa! And, the baby is now head down, which is also great news! There was a part of me that had a crazy feeling the placenta was going to have moved, but that the baby would still be breach, which would have still meant repeat c-section for me. I even had a dream two nights ago that this was the case. But, as of right now, the baby is in position and the placenta is no longer in the way!! This means that a VBAC is now a real possibility for us and I am thrilled! Now, don't get me wrong, I still understand that anything can happen and I may still end up with another c-section, but I am so grateful to at least have a chance now! So, the plan at this point will be to schedule a c-section for 41 weeks and pray that I go into labor on my own before that date. They will not allow me to be induced because of my previous c-section due to the possibility of uterine rupture caused by stronger contractions with induction. But, if I go into labor on my own and I am progressing as I should, the VBAC is possible! Hallelujah! Thank you Lord for the dangers of placenta previa being a worry of the past! Now we can just focus on keeping this baby in for at least 8 more weeks :)

And, can I just say that my belly is definitely different with this baby! I swear I didn't think so until I started comparing the pictures with those of my belly with Owen. I mean, it certainly "feels" the same to me! Crazy! Just another reason to "think pink". Although I don't put much merit in all of the wives tales about gender prediction...belly shape/size, heartrate, cravings, etc. I just don't believe that any of that really proves to be true very often. Other than the way that my belly looks, this pregnancy has been almost identical to with Owen (the way I feel, my weight gain, the baby's heartrate, the types of food I crave), so that would make me lean more towards boy. But, I just have a feeling now that this is a girl! According to the Chinese calendar, this is a girl. However, it was dead wrong with Owen because it predicted girl with him as well. I guess no one will really know until he/she arrives. Until then, we can have fun guessing ;)

29 weeks-Baby #2

29 weeks-Owen

Baby profile at 29 weeks

Sweet baby face (with smushed nose!)

Nose and lips

Owen's ice skating adventures

Daddy took Owen skating on Saturday and again, they both had a blast! Owen seems to be getting better and more comfortable out there on the ice now. It probably helps that his skates are now sharpened. We assumed that his skates were sharp right out of the box (they even seemed pretty sharp, even to Randy's "trained" eyes). But, it wasn't until Randy had to get a new pair of skates that we realized they probably were not sharp. The first time Randy tried to play hockey after getting his new skates, he said he stepped on the ice and almost busted his tail because he "had no edge" with the unsharpened skates. So, that is when he realized that maybe this was the reason Owen wasn't gliding when we had taken him in the past and instead was "walking" on the ice. So, Randy took both pair of their skates to be sharpened and voila!, Owen is gliding on the ice more! Good job, Daddy! We hope that we will be able to get Owen into skating lessons soon...there is a session starting in March that he actually isn't old enough for, but one of Randy's old hockey buddies is going to try to get him in. I personally think that Owen's Daddy is doing a good job of teaching him all on his own ;)

As a scary funny side note...when the boys returned from their skating adventure, I took one look at Owen and said, "Wow, you must have had a really good time, you are all sweaty!" To which, Randy replied, "No, I am not really sure what that is in his hair!" I immediately rubbed my hand through his hair and realized it was definitely not water or sweat, but more of a greasy-like substance. So, like any mother would do, I smelled it to try to figure out what in the world it could be. I said, "Oh my goodness, this smells like gasoline!!" Randy looked puzzled, but then it came to him and he had an "ah-ha" moment. Apparently, Owen's helmet had been hanging in the garage under the gas can for the lawn mower and the gas can was leaking...right into the helmet!! Well, Daddy had no idea and proceeded to let Owen wear the helmet while they skated. It wasn't until we realized this that Randy figured out that must have been what was all over his shirt and jeans, too! So, Randy immediately stripped and tried to damage control on his clothes while I ran Owen upstairs for a bath. It took about 5 hair washings for me to get the smell out of his hair, but it did go away! And, with FIVE doses of stain remover and cycles in the washing machine, the gasoline came out of Randy's clothes, too. Phew, that was certainly an unexpected outcome of ice skating!!

28 weeks

Well, we had a little excitement to start off the 28th week. This morning, we went to breakfast with Randy's Mom and Aunt Karen before Aunt Karen had to return to Boston this afternoon. We went to the Kountry Kitchen and as always, it was delicious, but it may have been just a little too much for my body to take right now. We went to visit Randy's Poppy after breakfast and while we were there, I got this very familiar, but very strange feeling in my upper abdomen. It felt just like I remember in the weeks after Owen was born, as my liver was returning to normal and I was dealing with a failing gall bladder. I can't quite explain the feeling, but it was very distinct and very uncomfortable. It isn't a pain, per se, and it isn't that I feel bad, but almost an empty/hollow feeling in my upper abdomen, right where my liver is/gall bladder was. And, I am not nauseous, but feel like it could turn to that at any moment. When I mentioned this to Randy as we were leaving, he immediately got really concerned and wanted me to call the doctor. I hesitated for a while because, honestly, it wasn't a feeling I would normally (had I not had the liver issues with Owen) have even thought twice about and certainly nothing I would have called the doctor about. But, after some urging from him, I finally called. I was told that I had 2 options given my history when Owen was born...I could go to triage at L&D or I could wait until tomorrow and see the OB at the office. Either way, she told me to go home and relax first and see if it would go away. So, that is what I did. We came home, Randy wouldn't let me do a thing, got Owen down for his nap, relaxed and then took a nap myself. After all of that, the feeling hadn't gone away. So, we decided to call again and let the doctor know I was going to be heading to L&D. We really just wanted the peace of mind that my liver isn't starting to fail again. The doctor agreed that she thought it would be a good idea to check my liver enzymes given my history. She even mentioned that she almost called me back after I called earlier to have me go to a nearby lab to have my blood drawn, but she did some searching and none were open on Sundays. So, she held off and waited for me to call her back. She called triage to let them know I was coming and to go ahead and order the bloodwork. Anyhow, we headed to the hospital and after monitoring the baby's heartrate, my contractions (only Braxton Hicks at this point, nothing regular or concerning), my blood pressure, and doing bloodwork to check my liver, kidneys, and platelets, everything checked out perfect. In fact, at this point, my liver enzymes are right where they were when we did the baseline draw at the beginning of the pregnancy. That is awesome news! We were so scared that my liver enzymes were starting to elevate, even if they weren't at a dangerous level like when I had Owen. So, to hear that everything was perfect was so wonderful! As I sit here, I am still having that feeling, but since everything checked out fine, I am not concerned. I guess it is just from something I ate at breakfast not settling right. I am just so thankful to God that everything is OK and that we can sleep tonight knowing that my liver is fine. This is by far our biggest fear with the pregnancy, so knowing that the levels haven't changed a bit is very comforting at this point.

28 weeks-Baby #2

28 weeks-Owen

27 weeks

Hello, 3rd trimester! WOW! I cannot believe we are only 3 months away from welcoming Baby #2! This just keeps getting faster and faster. I could use just a little bit of a slow down...just a little bit!

I had an OB appointment on Friday and everything seems to be just fine. I will have my follow-up ultrasound before my next appointment to see if my placenta has moved. If it hasn't, they will check again closer to my due date. But, I am really hoping it has moved at this point because the likelihood of it moving after 30 weeks is not as good. If it hasn't, though, I am OK with that. But in the meantime, I will keep praying that it has. I would really love to try for a VBAC, but if the previa is still present, that isn't even an option. As Randy keeps telling me, I am not getting my hopes up, as that will just set me up for disappointment. It is all in God's hands and I will be OK with whatever happens. There are definitely pros to a repeat C-section, so I will just have to focus on those if I have to have one ;)

After posting my 27 week picture on Facebook today, there was some interest in the comparison between my belly this pregnancy and my belly with Owen. So, from now on, instead of posting the front shot, I am going to post my belly picture from the same week with Owen. I thought that my belly was looking exactly the same until I saw the pictures together today. There really is a difference. Based off of that, on Facebook today, the consensus is that this baby is a girl. I don't know how much merit I put in the way the belly looks making a difference in gender, but we shall see in about 13 weeks or less!!

27 weeks-Baby #2

27 weeks-Owen