What do we need?!?!

Ok, we could use some help! On Sunday Kevin and I went to Babies R Us and began our registry (we also plan on registering at Target). It was fun and also quite overwhelming. I had no idea that they could fill an entire wall with bottles!! We got a good start but I know there is more to be done so I want to throw out a few questions to all you parents out there....What are your top (lets say 10-15) must have items, especially for first time parents? And, what are the items that you would NOT recommend (are there things you registered for or bought that you didn't use or turned out to not be as great as you thought they might be)?

This is your chance to provide some helpful information and advice! :)

Oh, and for the ladies....where did you buy your maternity clothes? My friend Laura suggested Motherhood, where I have been several times and really like. Are there other suggestions...cheap suggestions? I feel like every time I turn around I'm getting bigger (which is exciting and overwhelming since I really don't want to spend lots of money on clothes).

Thanks for all the suggestions!!!

So Much Has Happened!

Wow! It has been quite a while since my last post, but so much has happened. We have been extremely busy over the last several weeks. Since my last post we have closed on our house, moved into our house (many things still in boxes), done some painting, bought a refrigerator, we began our baby registry, I am closing in on the end of grad school (two weeks till the last class and three weeks till graduation), the baby kicked hard enough for Kevin to feel him, and I got a job!

It would take a long time for me to talk about all of the above happenings so I will highlight a few. First our house. We closed on our house on April 8th. I made Kevin camp out there with me that night because I had to sleep in our first house together the first night it was officially ours. We bought an air mattress (which is now available for guest use), brought over a few things from the apartment that we needed for the night and spent our first night in our house! I absolutely love it!!! It is so great to have our own space where we can do whatever we want. Then last weekend I went up to Goshen to spend Easter weekend with the family and Kevin's dad came down to spend the weekend watching the Masters (golf I guess) with Kevin. Well that's what I thought was taking place. When I got back on Sunday afternoon (after a wonderful weekend with mom, jules, and jeff) I came to the house to discover that Kevin along with the help of many friends and his family (including his mom and sister Libby who came down for the day on Saturday) had moved us....and had begun the painting of our master bedroom. How AWESOME!! Thank you once again to all of you who helped. We have now finished the painting in our master bedroom and Kevin has started painting in the kitchen. We still have many things in boxes but it feels great being in our home!



Second highlight...I HAVE A JOB!!! I had begun to worry that I wasn't going to be able to find a social work job before the baby came. I had been finding out that many of the hospital jobs and specifically hospice jobs require a LSW. I will be eligible to take the LSW test after graduation, however finding a job before then had become quite frustrating. Then one day at my practicum I was approach by the Primary Care Center Director who told me about a grant position that she wanted me to interview for. We had several conversations and an informal interview and I was then offered the job. The position is a one year grant position as the Program Director for the Fresh Steps to Life program. It is a prenatal and follow-up program that concentrates on providing education and other services to women and their families during and following pregnancy. The program is going into its second year, however they decided after the first year that they needed a program director to help coordinate services provided by the program. I will be responsible for the budget, coordinating the classes, providing additional one on one education to women, collaborating with other programs, doing home visits, and other jobs yet to be discovered. I am extremely excited about this opportunity. I feel relieved that I have found a job that I feel excited about, where I can use the skills I have as well as develop new skills, and where I am already familiar with the setting and culture of the agency.



Lastly, the baby!!! I continue to grow and am wondering how big I will get over the next 4 months. People say that I look small for 5 months, however I feel HUGE!! haha I am enjoying pregnancy and am continuously amazed at the fact that i have life that Kevin and I created growing inside me. Kevin felt him move for the first time last night and he has been quite active today. So far I continue to enjoy feeling him move especially since it's not keeping me up at night or causing me discomfort. My next doctor's visit is a week from tomorrow. This continues to be an amazing experience!



As I said at the beginning I could write for quite some time but I think I will close this post. Here is the latest picture of me at 20 weeks. Kevin took this picture last Friday in our backyard.

We are having a................

BOY! Yesterday was quite a long and exciting day. On the information sheet that I received from my doctor it said to empty my bladder and then drink 18oz of water thirty minutes before my appointment...and so I did. I probably even drank more than 18oz because I was quite thirsty. When we got to the place of the appointment we waited...and waited...and waited...and then learned that one of the doctors had been called away for an emergency c-section and so they were running a bit behind. As we were waiting I started feeling like I would soon need to go to the bathroom and wasn't sure how much longer I could wait. The idea of having them pushing on my midsection at that time didn't sound like a comfortable time. We were finally called back and as soon as they started the ultrasound the tech commented on the size of my bladder and soon let me empty it!! What a relief! I was then able to focus on seeing our baby and not seeing our baby and trying not to pee my pants!

I can hardly find the words for what I felt looking at the screen and seeing our little guy moving around. At times he was looking straight at us, however he is a litter mover and didn't stay in one position very long. When we first tried to take a look for the sex of the baby he had his hands and feet towards his bottom and the cord was running straight between his legs. We had to go and look at other parts of him (hands, feet, heart, kidneys, brain, nose, mouth....) before coming back for another look. He quickly agreed to stop being shy and show us that he is a boy! :) WE ARE HAVING A BOY!!!! Kevin and I have been looking forward to finding out what we are having and it feels so surreal now that we know. We kept saying it over and over yesterday and giggling with excitement.

After looking at the baby's different measurements and making a few other adjustments we have a new due date of September 1st. We left the appointment with report of a healthy baby boy, some pictures they printed for us, a cd with several of the photos, and a vhs tape of the ultrasound for us to watch later! :)

We are grateful for the good report we received yesterday and continue to feel truly blessed.

Quick baby update

I had my monthly doctors appointment today. It was short and sweet. Heard the baby's heartbeat and got the info I needed for our ultrasound tomorrow. It is always amazing to hear the heartbeat and I can't wait to see our little blessing tomorrow!!! Kevin and I are both extremely excited to find out what we are having and are crossing our fingers that he/she will want to show us.

In other exciting baby news.....I'm pretty sure that I have begun to feel the baby moving. At first I wasn't sure if what I was feeling was the baby or not, but over the last few days I realize that these are definitely feelings I've never felt before. It's so amazing. I will enjoy these little movements as I hear that they can become quite painful in the months to come.

That's it for now. More updates to come tomorrow!!!!!

HOUSE!

We bought a house!!! Well, we are still going through all the fun (ha) steps of the inspection (which we had done last week and are now waiting for the seller to respond to what we asked him to fix before closing) and waiting for closing in April. It has definitely been a learning experience and one that I am ready to have done.

Kevin and I had always said that we would probably start looking for a house when I was done with school and working. However, once we found out that we were expecting our baby we knew that we would not be able to stay in our apartment, and so the search began. We spent several weekends going out looking at houses. We decided to concentrate our search over on the Northwest side of Indianapolis close to St. Vincent. This was not an easy decision because we would have loved to stay in the broadripple area, however we quickly learned that we could get much more house for our money outside of broadripple. It was on one of our first house hunting trips that we saw the house that we have now buying. As soon as we walked in it felt right. It has three bedrooms and two bathrooms (exactly what we were looking for), a large living area with a fireplace (which I was looking for), a kitchen with plenty of cabinets and a pantry (which Kevin needed for all of his kitchen toys...we are currently storing some of our kitchen things in our dishwasher because we have run out of places to put them in our small apartment kitchen), a formal dinning room, a sun room, a wood patio (which we both wanted), and a nice sized and already fenced-in yard (with a storage shed where Kevin talks about storing all of his new lawn toys!). While it has not been the easiest process we are super excited and can't wait to be in our new home. There are only some minor things such as painting that we want to do otherwise the house is pretty much move-in ready!! So who wants to help us move?!?!?

Here are some pictures of the house....

Picture no snow, the sun, a grill, and patio furniture!!!

Baby's room (will be painted once we know girl or boy)

We can't wait to be all moved in! We definitely have a lot happening this year and are thankful each and every day for all the many blessings in our life.

Baby Update

Today I had my second official prenatal appointment. I had been looking forward to this appointment but also a bit nervous at the same time. I wasn't nervous about the baby but nervous about how much weight I may have gained since my last appointment. I know that I'm pregnant and will and am supposed to gain weight, however i felt like in a matter of weeks that I had packed on the pounds! My clothes definitely aren't fitting as they used to and I've found this to be an awkward stage of pregnancy as far as clothes go. Most of my clothes don't feel quite comfortable but maternity clothes are still a little big. I definitely can tell that I'm starting to pooch out, but at times it feels like I'm just gaining weight and not pregnant. I was presently surprised when I was told that I have gained about 5 pounds and everything is looking good!

We were again able to listen to the heartbeat, which she found right away. Kevin was quite relieved saying that while he didn't want to tell me he was a bit nervous after they weren't able to find the heartbeat after my fainting episode. I think our doctor has the magic touch as she had no problem finding it the first time or this time. She asked if I had felt any "fluttering" yet and said that over the next several weeks I will probably be able to begin to feel the baby moving around. For those of you who have had a baby or are pregnant, when did you first feel your baby move and what did it feel like? I know it won't feel like a big kick or anything but just curious about what it might be like.

We were able to schedule our appointment for the ultrasound which will be at the end of next month. We are planning on finding out the sex of the baby at that time. While we went back and forth at first about finding out we decided that for planning and everything it will be fun to know. Plus, if you know Kevin you know that he has a hard time waiting for things (he had my engagement ring for a total of like 3 days before he proposed...just too excited he couldn't keep it to himself! :)) We will go to St. Vincent Women's Hospital for the ultrasound and also have our monthly dr's appointment that same week.

So far everything is going smoothly. I haven't had any nausea this week, however the headaches continue. We appreciate all the love and support everyone has shown. Our prayer is that everything continues to go well. This is definitely a very exciting time!

Over 12 weeks!

I am quickly approaching the end of my first trimester. How crazy and exciting. While I have not been sick to the point of vomiting I have been experiencing quite a bit of nausea and nightly headaches (apparently mom experienced these headaches as well...). The nausea and headaches have been making completing school work in the evenings quite challenging, but lucky for me this semester has not been too challenging...yet.

About a week ago I had an interesting experience while shadowing a social worker in the ER. I have learned that I should not pursue a career as an ER social worker and should probably stay away from other areas of the hospital as well. Long story short, I fainted while in a patient's room who has advanced breast cancer that has not who has not received any treatment. Needless to say I was not prepared for what I would see or smell when I entered the room. I remember starting to feel faint and overheated, however did not find my way out of the room quick enough. I am told that I was caught by the doctor that was also in the room and was completely out, however I do not know for how long. I was checked into the ER (I guess if I was going to faint it might as well be in an ER where there are plenty of doctors and nurses to care for me...) and evaluated. I called Kevin who was still at work and so he came over to the ER to be with me. Everything was fine. I hadn't eaten anything for several hours and my blood sugar was a bit low. I was provided a snack of orange juice, crackers, and cheese and sent home. Since then I have been the the doctor and again was told that baby and I are fine.

I do look forward to my doctor's appointment in two weeks. It's so exciting to get updates on how things are going. Kevin and I have been doing our reading on what to expect when you're expecting and follow a website that talks about pregnancy week by week including what mom can expect as far as changes with her body, what is going on with baby, and suggestions for dad for how to support mom! :)

I'm finding that pregnancy while very exciting can also be quite stressful. I just want to make sure that I am doing everything right. It can be overwhelming reading all the books about what you should and shouldn't be doing. I have been doing some walking on the treadmill at our apartment's fitness center and have started doing prenatal yoga (using a dvd). I've really been enjoying the yoga.

Well, I think I'm going to call it a night. Hope you enjoyed the update! :)