What I do at night...

What do I do at night? (or during my lunch when I am bored as in the video below)

I watch my belly

It is hard to catch this stuff on tape- but if you watch you can see baby M rolling around.

I have the camera and am looking down towards my belly- so the view is from above (what I see when I look down). The camera is not moving and nor am I- I am sitting on a chair and you can see my desk in the background is stationary- so any movement you see is just the rumble and tumble of Little Lester :)
Enjoy!

TOTAL AW! Maternity Pics sneak peak

SQUEAL! I am so excited to see the rest :)

http://www.buphotography.com/blog/?p=796

Best Shower Ever!

This is part 1 of 2 shower updates. I am awaiting pictures that are being sent to me- and I cannot rave enough about the shower so will do it again when I have pics to post.

Thank you thank you thank you to my mother and sister for throwing the shower. The two of them went above and beyond. I love you two so much!
Mom- you were way too generous. Between booking the restaurant, the carseat, the bassinet, the high chair, the pottery barn bag and baskets, the crib mobile, the magazine subscriptions, and all the work that went into it- you did too much!
Ali- the pack and play, centerpieces, baby pool, stuffed animals, clothesline of outfits, diaper cake and all the hard work you put into it- it was above and beyond.
I am probably forgetting a lot, but there is so much the two of you did that it is hard to remember.

I could not possibly have asked for a better shower- so I want to be sure I declare that in internet world- it was THE BEST. My family and friends were so generous. Lester is a lucky little baby already. It amazes me that we received all of our major items. I listed out some gifts above, my MIL bought us the gorgeous Dutailier glider/ottoman, friends pitched in and were so generous with group gifts including the bouncer, activity mat, ergo carrier, and more. Plus we got adorable other stuff like a rocking dragon and fun bath towels.

Some pictures I took at home to hold you over until I get shower pics

the adorable centerpieces my sister designed, and mom and sis put together- SOOOO CUTE




The diaper cake made by Ali- it had a lot of fun stuff. The bottom is rolled up outfits, washcloths, and prefold colorful diapers to use as burp cloths. There are all sorts of goodies tucked all around it...



Have you ever seen cuter stuffed animals? You should feel them- you would die. We saw them in NYC over xmas and my sis remembered i fell in love with them.

I could not resist putting a pic of the baby pool up- it even has graphics on it from the thank you notes I ordered




One of many piles of goodies we received- this is not even close to all we got! (we are so fortunate)

The most adorable towel/washcloth set ever (thanks mom). The washcloth is actually a hand puppet too!


and the favors- so cute, yummy chocolate on top of a notepad, on top of cute printed tissue. The little carriages were set up on the tables and filled with mints


The weekend was exhausting for all- this is what Sunday looked like at our house :)

Non-stress test my a-s-s

non-stress??? I think not- I think highly stressful.

Maybe if my baby had passed with flying colors I would feel differently, but right now I am just worried.

Went for the first of my weekly NSTs (due to my high blood pressure). They hooked me up to the machine for 20 minutes or so- there was another girl in the room hooked up to a machine as well and while I understand and don't begrudge the need for room sharing- here monitor was so loud, and my baby must have been far away, but I couldn't hear anything but her babies heartbeat. The one cool thing was once they hooked me up I could hear Lester's hiccups (which I could not feel).

So I am on the machine- doctor comes in, says she sees accelerations of heartbeat, but not as much as she would like, so she puts this buzzer thing on my belly to 'shock' the baby into moving (sound only, no electrical buzz or anything). So another 10 minutes go by, she does not like what she sees- although she says she doesn't dislike it, so I am going to have to get a biophysical ultrasound.

I asked her to just tell me what they look for and they like to see patterns of heartbeat acceleration that raise the heartbeat 15 bpm for 15 seconds. Lester's baseline heartbeat was about 130- it only got up to almost 145 once, although there were several accelerations to 140 or so.

So I get to sit in the waiting room to wait, and I had forgot my cell phone so was just worried and couldn't call Eric or anyone to pass time or feel better. I go in for the ultrasound finally and saw the baby. I could see the heart beating, but the baby was pretty still. It made my heart stop for a minute, she did push on my ute a bit and the baby did move a little, still not too much, but it was neat to see and feel movement at the same time.
Apparently fluid levels and the like all looked good.

So I asked her if I should be worried- and she said no, but to call if I don't feel movement (ie: kick counts not reaching 10 in 2 hours). It freaked me out because I just wanted to feel like everything was ok, and then she threw in that but, which I don't know if it was a 'but' every patient hears or it was specific to me.

The only thing making me not lose my mind is that for as cautious as they are, if she felt there was any reason I needed further monitoring, I don't think that I would be at my house right now, but in the hospital getting monitored.

Good news of the day besides this- Lester is for the moment heads down. Also, she took my blood pressure at the office and it was 130/70 Yes 130 is higher than I would like, but it was not as high as my last dr. appt, it is not going up, and my bottom number is great. Hopefully that means all is well.

The 100th Episode... (or post I should say)

WOW- 100 posts :)

HAPPY EASTER!! (Eric and I on easter- 31 wk, 1 day)


Sayonara Spring Break- it has been real.
I sit here at 6 am typing this because I am ready for work, just don't want to leave yet. I wish spring break lasted longer. Having it end the day after Easter takes all the relaxation out of it since Easter is a traveling holiday for us. However- I get a spring break so I really can't complain. It was extremely productive- I am super excited about our nursery and seeing the baby.
Baby update- I was diagnosed as 'high-risk' because of my blood pressure. Since I have been pregnant it has been higher (130's/80-85). Because I am 'high-risk" I now get to begin going for weekly non-stress-tests (NSTs) JOY and I had a growth ultrasound since high BP can cause small babies. Lesty looked great- estimated weight was 3 lb 12 oz, 42nd percentile. The doctor at that office came in and basically said he doesn't need to see me again- the baby is growing as expected and my BP isn't that bad and I am not even medicated. My regular dr. still has me scheduled for this stuff, but hearing the other doctor say this made me feel soooo much better. I will tell you - googling high BP and pregnancy is super scary. But this guy made it seem like no big deal, and my dr is watching me closely- so I am feeling much better about things.

Shower- my shower is Saturday!!! I can't wait. I HATE MY OUTFIT I tried it on, and even Eric couldn't disguise his face of ewww. I look like I am in a trashbag. I may wear the black and white polka dot shirt I have with some nice black pants- I am going to try shopping this week, but I really like that outfit. I just need to get over the fact that a few (and I mean one in person and a few through online belly pics) have seen me in it. I am one of those people who likes to have an 'occasion' outfit, that no one has seen before. But I will take feeling cute over being in a new oufit anyday.

I am also SICK of being told how small I am. I am not small, I started out big- and sooo many people are telling me how little I am. My mom especially with the killer 'you're losing a lot of weight'. I am 7 MONTHS PREGNANT! I AM NOT!!!. So I emailed the photographer last night and am trying to delay our maternity pictures from this weekend (32 weeks) for 2 weeks (34 weeks). Maybe it will make a difference, maybe not- but I don't want to regret not putting it off if I am not happy with the pics and feel like I just look fat and not pregnant.

Now I must stop procrastinating and go to work- I will catch up on my blog reading this afternoon and leave you all wonderful comments.

Nursery Furniture- CHECK

our furniture is here!!!

I am so excited- I am going to show you before and after pictures of the nursery. In it's prior life, this room was officially called "the office", yet it served the purpose of office/library/my walk in closet. A year ago we had the house painted and the room was painted a cheerful blue called cloudless. I still stand by that decision- i LOVE blue whether we have a boy or a girl. It may seem 'boy' now, but once it is decorated, the blue will look great with whichever bedding we go with and I am not at all worried about having a girl in a blue room. (can you tell I am getting some slack from people about this).

So- the before (and this is pre painting even, so the room did look better than this for a bit, but really it was never decorated as an official room)

view from hall into doorway



Step through doorway, and turned right to face closet


Standing in front of closet, facing opposite wall (door would be directly across from windows)


and for kicks- the smaller one of the two bookshelves in the room (no joke that I had a lot of books to get rid of)



Nursery AFTER
- it will basically stay this way until we get bedding. The only thing not delivered yet is the glider. My thoughts are once the glider arrives, I may switch the locations of the changing table and bookshelf. Then the bookshelf will be right when you walk into the room- and we can put the glider/ottoman in that corner in front of the big windows. I don't think there is enough room to have the glider to the right of the crib- then the ottoman would be blocking the closet, and it would be kind of nice to have the glider in front of the windows.
I have to see how it looks once everything is there though. What do you think??

View from doorway (first pic standing in hall, second stepped just inside the door and angled)





View from standing by closet (envision in this picture having the glider in that corner on the right, with the bookshelf next to it in liu of the changing table)




View from corner by windows (there is a good 2 feet or so to the right of the hutch/dresser so imagine sliding that over, and putting the changing table to the left where the bookshelf is)

3d Ultrasound!!!

First- here is our kid looking straight at us in 2D- kind of looks like an alien!



And now for the fun pictures. The baby is basically folded in half. The limbs you see right in front of his or her face are actually its legs- the feet are about level with the forehead, and in some shots you can even make out toes.




toes below :)




A couple of yawns- so cute :)






And a few more shots- looks like the kid's got chubby cheeks and Eric's nose !