"Sugar and spice and everything nice...that's what little girls are made of." -Nursery Rhyme
I haven't posted since January, so I wanted to give everyone an update on what's been going on with our little family for the past couple of months, both with David/me/Jojo and with our pregnancy!
Pregnancy wise...I'll be 21 weeks pregnant tomorrow (Friday)! It is so hard to believe we are over halfway through! I have NOT been good about taking a lot of "bump" pictures this time, but I'll just say I'm very obviously pregnant to all who see me, haha. Although I am NOT as big as I was with Jojo at this point (seriously, I was HUGE with him my whole pregnancy). And by 21 weeks with him I think I had already gained close to 10 pounds. As of this morning, I've gained 3.5 pounds this time. My OB did tell me, at my last appointment, that he'd like to see me putting on more weight (not something I ever had to be told with Joseph!). My nausea finally went away around 16 weeks, but my appetite has still been odd...I don't feel sick at all, but some days I don't feel super hungry (on the flip side, on some days I feel CRAZY hungry and I try to capitalize on that). I've been trying my best to eat healthy snacks - fruit, cucumber slices, olives, nuts - things like that. I'm feeling pretty decent this second trimester...still very tried sometimes, but I can't tell how much of that is being pregnant and how much of that is having a 3 year old to chase around. :-) I've also already started having Braxton-Hicks contractions. I learned, in my pregnancy with Joseph, that my body is very very VERY prone to Braxton-Hicks. People always call them "practice contractions" and I guess my body really does believe in practicing for labor! I started having them with Joseph at 21 weeks, and had a LOT of them. 5-6 an hour, all day, every day, for the rest of my pregnancy with him (lovely!). I had been warned that they would likely start a couple of weeks earlier this time and, sure enough, about 19.5 weeks I had my first one. They aren't "painful" but they are very uncomfortable and annoying. I'm only probably having about one an hour at this point, which is totally tolerable, although last Saturday I had a spell where I had about 5 in an hour and it got very uncomfortable, so I ended up taking a hot shower and drinking a lot of water (dehydration tends to cause them to occur more frequently) and that got things under control. I expect that I'll have them the rest of my pregnancy, like I did with Jojo. I wish they actually "counted" as labor, because then I could brag to people that "I was in labor for 21 WEEKS" and people would think I was a superhero! LOL Oh, the random aches and pains and discomforts of pregnancy. A sweet baby is totally worth it, though! And I'm getting to feel lots and lots of kicks these days...so amazing!
Also, we found out we are having a baby GIRL!!! So exciting!!! I really had no gender preference at all...I have LOVED being a boy mom so, while a girl is fine with me, another boy would have been great, too! We had the Panorama blood screening test done around 13 weeks (I spoke of this on my previous blog post) and results came back around 14 weeks showing that baby is a girl. We also got visual confirmation of this fact at our anatomy scan at 18.5 weeks. I knew that Panorama results are greater than 99.9% accurate, meaning there was less than a 1 in 1000 chance that Panorama would say "girl" when it was actually a boy. But, still, I wanted double confirmation before I ran out and bought girl clothes. So the ultrasound tech checked things out for us on our anatomy scan and sure enough, a girl it is! Panorama and ultrasound have also confirmed that, as far as we can tell, she is perfectly healthy. The blood results showed her to be at low risk for all major genetic syndromes - Down Syndrome, Trisomy 13, Trisomy 18, etc etc. Her spina bifida testing came back negative, her nuchal translucency was normal, and all of her organs looked perfect on the anatomy scan. My next major test will be the testing for gestational diabetes. So far everything looks good and she has been measuring just as she should. We have both always said that we would absolutely welcome a special needs child if God chose to bless us with such, and, to be honest, after all we've been through I tend not to worry about the special needs issue...I really just want a baby that survives...we can deal with meeting any special needs! But I was so thankful to know that the big "incompatible with life" issues, such as Trisomy 13/18, likely were not a concern.
Oh, and I should tell the story about revealing her gender. The day that the nurse called me with our Panorama results, she called me at about 4:45pm. She told me that our baby was "low risk" for everything they tested for, then she asked me if I was sure I wanted to know the gender. I said "Yes, definitely!" and she said "You're having a little girl!" I said "Oh my goodness, my husband is going to FLIP!" because, although I knew that David would be thrilled with either gender, I also knew that deep down he was hoping for a sweet baby girl this time. The nurse laughed and we hung up. I called David, who was about to leave work, and said "I hope you're up for a little gender reveal tonight!" He said "YOU FOUND OUT?" and I said yes. We had known I would find out before him, but were not expecting them to call with results so soon. He was so excited and said he would be home as fast as he could.
I had plain cupcakes ready to be filled with pink or blue icing in which to reveal the gender to David and Jojo. I quickly set to work filling them with pink and icing over the top with chocolate so you couldn't see the inside (of course, the whole time, Joseph is just asking me "When can I have a cupcake, mommy?" LOL). When David got home he couldn't wait to bite into it to see what it was. He put his stuff down and I got he and Joseph settled at the kitchen table and placed their cupcakes in front of them. David picked his up, took a big bite, and I'll NEVER forget the look on his face when he saw that pink icing. It was the sweetest reaction I've ever seen.
We piled into the car for a celebratory dinner at Sticks and Stones, our favorite pizza place. After eating, we went to my parents house to reveal the gender to our families. I had made the same type of cupcakes for my parents, and had mailed David's parents and sister's family two boxes of cookies - one pink and one blue - and was going to tell them over the phone which box to open. We had his family on speaker phone and they opened their cookie box at the same time my parents bit into their cupcakes. So everyone found out a girl was on the way at the same moment. Everyone was so happy. :-) I then told a few close friends via text before posting the news on Facebook. Such a fun memory.
We are going to do her nursery in light pink and white, and using the light green paint that that room is already painted. We've also been so blessed to get some girl hand-me-down clothes from friends and am in the process of starting to buy her some other stuff. There is no such thing as an outfit too girly for me to put her in, so I'm loving lots of pink and lace and ruffles. :-)
As to names - we had a boy and a girl name picked out for this baby, and our girl name is Elisabeth Ann Stubblefield. Honestly, as a little girl, I ALWAYS wanted to name a daughter Elizabeth...it's always been my favorite girl's name and I'm fortunate that David likes it, too. Some time back my mom had suggested that if we were to spell it EliSabeth (with a s instead of a z), that would make it include "Lisa" in it. Having a child that shares/includes my name has never really been a priority to me, but David also thought it was a cool idea. AND, on top of that, Elisabeth Elliot has not only always been my favorite author, but probably my favorite Christian female figure in history. So I feel like, in part, we are naming our sweet girl after her, and I feel honored that she will share a first name with such an AMAZING individual. Ann is my mom's middle name, and my middle name, so we felt good about continuing that middle name tradition, too. Despite the fact that we are spelling her name non-traditionally, we still plan to call her a mix of "Elisabeth," "Lizzie," and maybe "Liz" when she gets a bit older. Most of the time right now I refer to her as Lizzie, but occasionally I still say Elisabeth. I'm so so happy with the name we have for her! And I'm thrilled that we still have a boy's name that we love left if we are blessed with a boy in the future (given our history of fertility struggles I expect this will be our last pregnancy as it's a miracle I was able to get pregnant this time, but we are still hopeful that God will build our family in other ways down the road).
Oh, and one more thing on the pregnancy front...right now, we are still planning to pursue a VBAC (vaginal delivery after ceasarean) with Elisabeth in July. We have talked extensively to our doctor and done copious research on both VBACs and repeat c-sections, and the benefits and risks involved with each. My OB has also reminded me that I can change my mind right up until delivery, so we have time to continually pray over this and make sure it is the right decision for us. Right now we are feeling very good about our chances of a successful VBAC...studies show that 60-80% of women that attempt a VBAC are successful! I'm so very excited about this possibility, and there is a great network in our area for supporting VBAC moms. I'm already taking some preparations for a successful labor and delivery - I'm drinking red raspberry leaf tea daily (a long-used preparation for delivery) and trying to get plenty of sleep (studies show that sleep-deprived women average an extra 9 hours in labor). And I've done some pretty extensive research on "Spinning Babies" techniques used to position baby in the optimal position for delivery, and I plan to incorporate a lot of these throughout the rest of pregnancy. My goal is also to have a natural, unmedicated birth if possible, so David and I will be taking our natural childbirth classes again in May to prepare for that (we took the same classes when pregnant with Joseph, but there is a lot we've forgotten in 3 years). Regardless of what ends up happening - VBAC or c-section, drug-free or epidural, etc, I'm confident this delivery will be much less traumatic than Joseph's scary birth experience.
Obviously pregnancy is not the only thing that's been going on in our life! Joseph and I only have 7 more weeks left in his homeschooling year! YAY! We plan to do a little enrichment work over the summer, but in terms of "formal" schooling he will be basically school-free over the summer months ( I remind myself, though, that all things are a learning opportunity in homeschooling, it's just about making things INTO that learning opportunity :-) ). I'm so proud of all he has learned in preschool this year! When we start his preschool year in August I'll have a one month old baby, so I'm sure things will be challenging. But I'm so looking forward to continuing our homeschooling journey...as much as he's learned, I feel like homeschooling has been an even bigger blessing to me. David also finishes up his MBA program this week that he's worked hard on for 2.5 years! And it looks like he will graduate with honors! I'm so proud of my husband, not only for his grades, but for how he has balanced working full time, getting an MBA, and still being plenty available to Joseph and myself. AMAZING.
As to everything else, I thought I'd just post some pictures from our crazy little life the past couple of months :-)
 |
| We had some snow back in January which meant, of course, sledding. |
 |
| Also thankful for 4-Wheel drive so we can get out and about even when it snows, day and night :-) |
 |
| For naps these days, Joseph wonders why one would nap in his crib when he could nap on Mommy's lap... |
 |
| Or on Daddy during a football game... |
 |
| Or back on Mommy's lap. |
 |
| I got beautiful roses from my sweet husband for Valentine's Day... |
 |
| Along with a delicious date night meal at Imperial Koi (thanks to my parents for keeping Jojo!) |
 |
| Joseph refuses to stop wearing football jerseys, despite the fact that football season is over. |
 |
| He is also heavily into playing at the park these days. |
 |
| One night, in the parking lot of the Guilford College CVS, we saw a fire truck pull in and Joseph wanted to walk over to see it. So the firemen got out and let Jojo get in! A huge thrill for him. :-) |
 |
| I'm the secretary of our neighborhood association and had to go to our meeting to take minutes the other night. I took Jojo with me so that David could finish up some MBA work. Joseph enjoyed himself...playing with cars and trucks, reading his Paw Patrol book, and rolling on the floor. |
 |
| And it appears that spring is finally arriving in Greensboro...I took these pictures yesterday afternoon around 5:30pm in our front yard. We had a high of 79 yesterday, and Joseph loved running around while we waited for Daddy to get home from work. :-) |
 |
| Please excuse the dirty face. This is pretty much standard here...such is life with a little boy. :-) |
Thanks for reading!!! Hoping to get back to more regular blog posts soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment