21 week pictures

Here are those 21 week pictures I was trying to upload. They're not that great because I was wearing all black for work, but they do the trick I suppose.

Now off to celebrate baby Roblet today at Sharon's baby shower :) Yay!!!!

Did I really just SEE that!!!?!!?

So today, which happens to be my sister's 23rd birthday (Happy Birthday Krista), I was laying on the bed and decided to take a listen just to see what Jax is doing in there!

I found his little heartbeat and listened for a few minutes and then moved the doppler around a bit, trying to get him to wiggle. Well, I must have put it by his feet and disturbed the little guy, because all of a sudden I felt my hand holding the doppler push away from my belly. I thought that I was just imagining it, so i propped my head up a bit, and there with my very own eyes i SAW the doppler push away from my belly. It is probably the coolest thing I've EVER seen!!!!! I must remind you that I still can't feel the little guy much. I can only feel him well enough to know it's him when I have the doppler pressed against my belly. So, actually seeing (and feeling) his little kick was beyond amazing. I of course called justin out of excitement and shared the news. I'm hoping this is just the beginning of what I'll be seeing and feeling from our little one.

Anyhow, I promise I will upload those 21 week pictures soon, but my computer is being tooo slow to do it now!

Victory. 21

Today (yes, today) is victory 21! There wasn't too much excitement this week. We kind of just did the work/school thing for the most part. BUT we did go duck pin bowling this past friday for my friend Julie's birthday. It was fun, especially because I've never gone duck pin bowling (only done 10 pin before) but after just 1 game, my back started hurting. So I sat the rest of the night out and when we got home my back hurt terribly. I was getting kind of worried, but I was finally able to fall asleep (thankfully). When I woke up I felt better, but then, when I was trying to pick up dog poo from the back yard, my back started hurting again! Argh!!!! So I quit the poo. haha. It will have to wait until we get a longer pooper scooper.

Beyond that, not too much excitingness has gone on. I did just sort through all the baby clothes Jared and Kris gave us from baby Joey arranging them by size and type of clothing. We came up with 1 full bin of up to 3 months clothes and 1 1/2 full bins of up to 6 months clothes (and a few random greater than 6 months pieces). This does not include the handful of clothes we've bought as well.

I also stopped by walmmart today to pick up some paint samples and I think we've decided. My sister-in-law is stopping by later to check them out since she and my brother are doing the painting over our spring break (they both go to Towson as well).

Besides all this, I've really just been very very tired. It's mainly from school stress, but I definitely have to start getting more sleep, because school stress usually gets me sick eventually!
Oh, and Jackson decided to move this past week. My 20 week appt was this past Thursday and he was on the right side, as usual, as this is where I told the tech she'd find the heart beat. Well I get home either friday or saturday and bring out my doppler, and I can't find his heartbeat. I'm searching all over before I finally find it on the lower left side of my belly. Then it disappeared again because he must have been moving all around. If only I could feel him moving!!! Hopefully you'll be reading "I finally felt a real kick" post soon. Keep your fingers crossed.

That's all for tonight. I would normally post my 21 week pic at this point in the post.. BUT I haven't had a chance to take one yet, so I'll do that later and post it either later tonight or tomorrow. Stay tuned!

P.S. I have to mention that Justin is not home right now because he's out making me extremely happy. I've wanted arby's all day... so he decided he'd go get me arby's and him Qdoba. :D What a great daddy he'll be!

Incredibly over-joyed!!!

So Mandy, from MandySrokaPhotography, finished editing our bare bellies pictures. And I couldn't be happier. They turned out sooo sooo good. I am extremely impressed and overall very very happy. And I can't wait to order them.

Check them out on Mandy's website using the link posted here:
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=52359209867&h=CJY8X&u=LhXty

Let me know what you think!!!!!

20 week check up, Placentas and Spray Tans, Oh My!!!

So I've been kind of bummed because lately I've been feeling little flutters ON OCCASION, and have yet to really feel a kick. And I'm 20 weeks 3 days already. Lots of mom-to-be's on baby centers are on their first babies and have felt good kicks by now! I've been waiting and waiting and waiting patiently. So this past thursday was my 20 week check up (and two days of course). Well I went and they checked my weight and blood pressure like usual (142 and 118/74) and I peed in the cup like always. Well then they checked the heart beat which they found right where I told them I would (and it was nice and strong). The tech was training a new girl so she also wanted her to hear my heart beat from the doppler and they found that where I told them they would also, ha ha. So then the doc came in and checked my fundal height and the top of my uterus is right above my belly button, which is just a tad above where a 20 week baby would be ( I think mine's a little higher because Jackson is going to be tall, but that's just my opinion). So then the doc saw my list of questions I had with me and we sat down to discuss them:

My first question was about the circumcision: who does it, can I be there to watch, and what method does he use. The answers were all good. My OB will do it, I can be there, and he said he'd use whatever method I want (the one I want is the Gamko method [spelling may be off] where they put a metal bell shaped thing under the foreskin and over the head. Then they put a clamp on the outside to cut off circulation to the part of foreskin that will be cut off. Because the metal bell thing is there, the rest of his wee wee is protected and no circulatin is cut off. They leave the clamp there for a minute or so to kind of numb the area and because the longer they leave the clamp, the less it will bleed. Then the doc just cuts the foreskin around the clamp and baby is good to go. This method rarely bleeds and is most comfortable for the baby... and allows the doc to make a good looking cut!!!). So needless to say I was pleased.

Then I asked how many people can be there, and he said one to three is usually standard.

Then I told him I want to go natural, no interventions. He said that's awesome, he'll do what I want, but made me promise to think about compromise if I really can't handle it. I agreed because I can't say now how much pain I'll be in, but I'd like to think I can make it through without drugs.

So then I asked about pediatricians. I had recently asked one of my OB clinical instructors to reccommend some, and she did. She said two of the three she listed were great and she highly reccommends them and the other she's never had a problem with. Well, without even telling him names, he named one of the ones she listed. Needless to say we will definitely be checking him out.

I also asked about all my blood work and tests and he said everything, including the baby, looks great.

Then I asked about my placenta (this is THAT part of the post). I told him they measured it and they said I was okay but that I just wanted to check. He said the measurements are fine, it's anterior, looks good. Okay.. I'm fine with that.

THEN I get home and realize he said my placenta was anterior. DUH SAM!!!! That means my placenta is in the front and the reason they measured it is because it's kind of low and they wanted to make sure it wasn't too close to my cervix. SOOOO... long story short (well not really lol) jackson is breech which means his feet are down low and his head is up high. Because my placenta is right by his feet, it's extra cushion meaning .. .I can't feel a damn thing!!! So i looked on babycenter and read posts from moms who had this in the past and they said they finally started feeling things around 22 weeks. So (sigh) a couple more weeks to go.

Finally, I've been feeling really white and pasty... and I miss my tanning like crazy. I had such good color for the wedding and it was downhill from there. So I gave in and got a spray tan today. It was a little freaky but it turned out well. So I may do that everynow and again just to get some much needed color.

Anyhow. That's the blog for today. Have a great weekend... And happy birthday Julie!!!

VICTORY. 20: Half-Way There

(Once again, I'm blogging one day late because Tuesday's classes don't end til 6 and i'm pooped after that)

Anyhow. The one song that comes to mind when I think of this weeks victory post is "Whoa, we're half-way there. O-oh, livin' on a prayer. Take my hand, we'll make it I swear. Whoa, livin' on a prayer." Because it's true. We are now officially half-way through this pregnancy. I'd like to say that 20 weeks marks the day/week we can stop counting up and start counting down BUT I don't think I'll start counting down until 24 weeks (the "legal" gestational age of viability at which they will "attempt" to save your baby if you go in pre-term labor). But regardless, 20 weeks is a great feat for us! Leading up to Tuesday was actually a great, fun-filled exciting week.

Not much went on early last week but on friday my sister came home from school to celebrate Valentine's day with her boyfriend. So Krista, Matt, Justin and I went to see the Friday the 13th remake in theaters. Justin and I decided to head out a little early because I horribly wanted a rootbear float. Well apparantly at some point which I was unaware of, the ice cream shop on the Avenue in White Marsh changed to a ColdStone which does NOT sell rootbear floats :( So Justin and I indulged in ice cream instead. We then waited in line for about a half hour before the doors opened for the movie. Although scary movies aren't really my thing and although I prefer Micheal Myers over Jason Vorheez, it was still a good movie.

On Saturday, Valentine's day, I started the day off at Guiseppe's Hair Salon with my sister and Matt. We decided to both cut and dye our hair with my favorite hair stylist. Part of my sister's rendevouz was mine and Justin's birthday gift to her. For me it was a much needed freshen up for my hair and I'm so glad I did it. I can't wait to go back in a few months, mainly to get my hair washed again, ha ha. I just love how that feels. Anyhow, this is the final product of both mine and my sister's hair and a belly pic from that night.

Justin and i decided not to do anything extravagant this year for Valentine's day, but being the wonderful husband he is, he still bought me a card and a cute soft teddy bear. :) The rest of the night we sat around, did some laundry, gave the doggies a MUCH needed bath (which was quite amusing) and ordered pizza and hot dogs from Dominick's. It was a romantic day, ha ha. And while we didn't buy each other gifts this year, Jackson got a gift, but not from us. On thursday, I believe, Justin came home to find a box in the door. It was Jackson's Valentine's day gift from his Smith grandparents. He got some very cute items: a doggie blanket, two sesame street t-shirts, some cute socks, a boo boo bear (a bear that holds plastic ice cubes for when he has boo boos), and a bib that says "drink more milk". Even the box was decorated for Valtentine's day. The gifts were very sweet and I'm sure Jackson will LOVE them. Here are some pics... and some other pics of his loot so far!

Jackson also received another gift On Thursday at work from one of the bartenders, Krysta. She gave him a very nice and very soft blue and white blanket that I know he will love. Thanks Krysta! And Finally, I can't go without mentioning that this year's Valentine's day was the one year anniversary of when Justin asked me to marry him. Although we didn't go all out and celebrate it is definitely a day we will always remember and will always mean a lot to us.

On Sunday Justin and I made our way to church. It was a great church day, except for my breathing. I was told early in high school by my doctor that I have exercise enduced asthma. It never really gave me too much of a problem, but I did have an inhaler mainly for swimming and when I knew I'd be running a lot. Since high school I've had no problems and have not needed my inhaler. Well because pregnancy makes asthma like ten times worse, I've began noticing that it also seems to make exercise induced asthma worse. In church, it was hard for me to sing an entire song standing up without stopping. It really wasn't very fun and now I know that i may have to talk to my OB about getting an inhaler.

After church, Justin and I made our way to walmart and then met our friends Bert, Laura, their daughter Mackenzie, Rob, and Sharon at Rob and Sharon's house for a "Bare bellies" photo shoot with Laura's family photographer Mandy Sroka. I thought it would be fun to do, but I was a little worried that my pics wouldn't be as great because I'm not as big as the other girls. We took lots of fun pictures, inside and outside, and had a great time. Mandy was awesome and she made it a lot of fun. All of the pictures aren't loaded yet, but here's a sneak peek!

I love this one, but I'm not really that big :) I was sticking my tummy out for emphasis!!

This one below is my favorite so far. Mandy did a great job with this one!!

After Bare Bellies, Justin and I went to old navy because they were having a pretty good sale. We each got a few items and even picked up a few on-sale clothing items for Jackson. We then enjoyed the rest of the evening at home.

On Monday I had clinical of course, but Justin had off work because it was President's day. When I came home, we just enjoyed our night together. BUT when it came time for dinner, I realized that I HAD TO HAVE lasagna. ha ha. So off to the grocery store we went. As soon as we walked in, Justin saw the Rotisseri chickens and a sign that said "Free tossed salad for two with the purchase of a Rotisseri". Hmmmm. So, we ended up getting a single serving lasagna AND the chicken and salad. I had all three with some mashed potatos and toasted italian bread. It was a great meal. We finished the night watching Erin Brokovich and heading to bed early, and trust me 10:30 IS a record for us!!!

This Tuesday I had class all day but after class we had plans to have dinner with our good friends Jared and Kris and their three adorable kids, Madison, Haley, and Joey. We had a great dinner (spaghetti.. which is great because Jackson LOVES italian food) and after dinner Jared and Kris passed down all of Joey's baby things that he's grown out of. They gave us a portable swing, a small bouncer, a baby tub, a basinet, lots of blankets and three BIG bundles of clothes. We are very grateful for it all and the clothes are extremely cute. They said to expect more as Joey keeps growing like a weed and they even plan to pass down their infant carseat and bases, which will be great since we'll have our travel system and two bases for our cars, and now we'll have an extra carseat/base system for daycare and/or going to grandma's!!! The spare bedroom which will become the baby's room is getting quite full, so pretty soon it will be time to think about painting.

All in all it has been a fantastic week. Making it to 20 weeks is a blessing in itself and we are extremely excited for the next 20 weeks, and for the next 20 years as a family. I'll leave you with my 20 week pictures taken yesterday exactly at 20 weeks, and so far I think they've been my best pictures yet (besides the one's Mandy took of course). Enjoy!!!

Victory. 19

So yesterday was officially victory 19 but I once again was too tired to post, so here it is today.

I'm finally 19 weeks (and one day) and I have just 6 short days until I'm half way there. And I'm beyond excited. It makes the reality of being 24 weeks or 28 weeks or 30 something weeks all the more possible.

Week 18 was indeed an exciting one, as I'm sure you've read. We got to find out that our sweet little one is indeed a HE and will be our little Jackson Scott Smith. I have already said how extremely thrilled Justin was :) And I am too of course. But I was a little sad for a few minutes. I definitely wanted to give my family a girl (seeing as in two years we've had 7 or 8 boys on my mom's side alone) and I wanted to give Justin's family a girl also since they haven't really had one in 17 years. I also wanted to give Justin's dad a granddaughter becuase he seemed so excited about the possibility of it. My dad wanted a boy but I was less worried about that because he has 5 kids, at least one of which I'm sure will give him his grandson! I also got a little sad seeing all the cute spring dresses in babies r us. But then I remembered how MUCH my boy doggies LOVE their mommy (they are SUCH momma's boys) so I know this one will be too!

Well, since the ultrasound, we've had a couple of exciting things happen. For one, we're selling our pool table so we have an open dining room for baby things and baby toys! And we possibly have a buyer. I'm just now waiting on a check to see if it is legitimate or not. Also, at some point this weekend Justin and I were getting ready for bed and I pulled out the doppler. I just wanted to hear the little one before I went to sleep. So I'm laying there listening and then I realize, he is moving around like crazy (his movements make a weird noise on the doppler). Well I started focusing and noticed that when the doppler was pressed to my stomach I could feel little movements as I was hearing them. This was beyond cool. (In fact I just kept smiling and saying how cool it was). Unfortunately I can't feel much unless there's pressure being put on my stomach, like me jeans, the seatbelt or the doppler, but I'm starting to notice them more and more. It's nothing too obvious yet, just the little flutters that everyone talks about. So I'm still waiting on my first kick.

Beyond that not much else exciting has happend. I actually had a pretty crappy 19 week victory day ( I ended up missing my ENTIRE morning class because, despite being there 20 minutes early, I drove around for an hour and a half literally, trying to find parking and I didn't find it so I left. It irritates me beyond belief especially because I pay 230 some odd dollars a year to park in the campus garages.) And speaking of a "crappy" 19 week day, I woke up around 3 am to pee last night, which has become more common. Well Carlin woke up too! And when I went back to bed he kept coming over and putting his paws on the bed and just bothering me. So I kept pushing him away. The last time he did this our room was REALLY hot and he was panting. Well I was getting hot, so I figured he might be getting hot too, so around 3:30 I decided to just get up and let him out to cool off and maybe turn the thermostat down. Well when I look up, Carlin is stooping in the corner and crapping on the carpet. The whole time I thought he was over-heated he was really trying to tell me he had to go out. So I did let him out, as I think he had more business to do, and I had to clean it up. GROSS!!!! It smelled so bad that I had to put some alcohol rub under my nose and wrapped a scarf AND a bandana around my face. It was horrid... and Justin slept through the WHOLE THING!!! ugh.

Anyways. I'll leave you with my 19 week pics. Here's to hoping I didn't just ruin your dinner, lol.

Baby Widget

I've decided that my widget baby on the right side of the blog kind of freaks me out. He just floats around in there and the umbilical cord looks REALLY weird. Ha Ha. But he at least looks more human now. I have a feeling that our Jackson will be JUST LIKE baby widget.... long and skinny. YIKES. There's only so much vertical room for Jax to grow in me so if he ends up being long, the only place for my belly to go is straight out. That should be interesting!!!

J- -C-K-S-O-N

So after we found out Thursday that we were having a boy, we stopped by walmart for some things we needed and picked up two cute boy onesies. We then went to babies r us to look at letters to hang on the wall spelling his name. They were out of A LOT of the letters we needed and they're letters were really big and kind of expensive. So I opted for buying a few clothing items instead.

After babies r us we went to the mall to grab a few things and then to the avenue to grab dinner at Della Rose's. After dinner we stopped at A.C. Moore to look at the letters there. They didn't have the white ones I wanted but they had smaller plain wood one's, and they had every letter EXCEPT the A, hence the title for this post: J- -C-K-S-O-N! I bought them anyway because they were cheaper and because 6 out of 7 isn't bad. Well we went to babies r us to get some gifts today and stopped at Micheal's just to see if maybe they had the A. Turns out they did!!!! So now we have J-A-C-K-S-O-N!!! We're definitely going to paint them, but I want to wait to see how we paint the room first so I can match the color of the letters to the room. I can't wait :)

On another note. I'm pretty sure I felt Little Jax kicking around today. It was kind of low and to the right but since he's breech right now, I'm pretty sure it was him. I felt it for a few minutes and can't wait til I can feel it again!!! :)

More pics

I finally found my adapter to my phone mini sd card so I just uploaded the rest of the pics we have. So here's our boy, Jackson Scott Smith!!

This shows his big ol' feet :)

This is Jax using his hand to point to his... wee wee! As if to say "Hey! I'm a BOY!!"

In this pic, Jax has his left hand up to his mouth and his mouth is open. It looks to me like he's yelling at the sonogram tech, ha ha!

This is one of our 3D pics she gave us. It's not great but you can kind of see his face a bit and his little arm with his left fist against his cheek :)

And here is our other 3D pic from the left side of him. You can see hus face a bit again, and his mouth and little button nose. In this pic he has his hand up to his left cheek again. It almost looks like he's shy in this picture, but we know better than that don't we?!

And just because, here is the first picture we got of him before we knew we knew he was our Jackson!!! This sonogram was done at 7 weeks and two days and you can just barely see his little embryo body up in the right hand corner of the uterus. Seems like so long ago already :)

IT'S A....

Beautiful, healthy, dancing, 8 0z (so far), Baby BOY!!!

His name will be Jackson Scott Smith. The sonogram tech was amazing, very nice and especially funny. And today Jax was not shy AT ALL. One of the first images we saw was his "goods" and before the tech even got a chance to say anything, I said "It's definitely a boy." Justin is superrrrr excited. I think he's more excited that he gets to tell everyone "I told ya so." Anyhow, the tech looked over everything of course and said everything looks perfectly normal. Normal spaced eyes, a nicely beating 4-chamber heart, some kidneys, a stomach, all parts of the brain, ten fingers/ten toes and a very OBVIOUS... wee wee! We also noticed that so far.. the baby has my nose and DEFINITELY Justin's feet. ha ha. As soon as she showed the feet I said "Oh my God, look at how big those feet are." Apparantly when Justin was born, the doc said the same thing to his mom. haha. How fitting that I said those words today then. The doc came in after the tech was done and checked it all over and gave us the "normal" news which is the best news we could have hoped for. The only thing that worried me a bit was the placenta which they say they measure the distance if it's looking kind of low (close to the cervix) which could mean placenta previa. They like to see it 2 inches or 2 centimeters away (whatever scale they might be measuring on) and mine was 2.3 something or 2.6 something. So she said it was ok.

Little Jax also seems to be getting quite squished in there so he's waiting for me to grow some more so he can stretch out.

The tech gave us 10 pics (which she isn't supposed to give us that many heh). We also got to see the baby wave, dance, cross his legs, blow kisses, and give my belly kisses (that's what it looked like at least).

Anyhow, here's some of MY pics for our BIG day and here are a few of the sonogram pics we got. I'll post more when I upload them. Enjoy!!!!

Jackson Scott Smith

Giving my belly kisses :)

And, the oh so obvious "IT'S A BOY" shot!!

TGI-Thursday

I just got home from work maybe a half hour ago and even though it's ONLY 1:22 am, I must say, Thank God it's Thursday!!!

For one, I don't have class on Thursdays and I don't have to work tonight!!!! Double bonus right there.

And for two and all the money in the world, we get our BIG anatomy scan in 12 hours and 38 minutes and then we'll FINALLY know if we're having a baby boy or a baby girl (hopefully). But don't get me wrong, I'm not counting down or anything ;)

I'm super excited and super nervous for some reason. I think knowing the sex will make it all more real. But I can't wait :] Wish us luck!!!!

Victory. 18

Today marks victory 18. I'm officially 18 weeks pregnant now and only 2 weeks away from being half way there. This also means that in two short (or long) days, we'll have our BIG anatomy scan which is extremely exciting.

Here is what Babycenter says about week 18:

"Head to rump, your baby is about 5 1/2 inches long (about the length of a bell pepper) and he weighs almost 7 ounces. He's busy flexing his arms and legs — movements that you'll start noticing more and more in the weeks ahead. His blood vessels are visible through his thin skin, and his ears are now in their final position, although they're still standing out from his head a bit. A protective covering of myelin is beginning to form around his nerves, a process that will continue for a year after he's born. If you're having a girl, her uterus and fallopian tubes are formed and in place. If you're having a boy, his genitals are noticeable now, but he may hide them from you during an ultrasound."

Beyond that, there's not much excitement today. Actually I feel quite crappy today. Not only is Justin in Ohio for work and will be there until tomorrow night, but just looking at and realizing how much work this semester will be and in how little time it has to be done in is quite depressing. I'm also not looking forward to my Psyc. clinical. I'll be a Sheppard Pratt and working with patients with dual diagnoses. So many of the patients will have maybe schizophrenia and some kind of addiction like drugs or alcohol. I'm interested to experience the group therapies and to see ECT (Electro-shock therapy) but beyond that, the idea of psyc nursing creeps me out beyond belief. I would be okay with dimentia, eating disorders, drug addictions and things like that, but mind disorders are not my thing. They're incredibly interesting, but I'm freaked out to deal with patients with these disorders. sigh.

Anyway, Here is the picture I said I'd upload from mideivel times of me, Justin, my brother Wayne and my sister-in-law Wenke.

And here are my 18 week pictures.

Dear Mother Nature,

Please don't let it snow so much that Justin's flight plans get delayed. I would like to have him home for our appointment on Thursday.

Thanks!!!

P.S. If you could do something about this six more weeks of winter thing, like maybe make it shorter, that'd be great too. :)

YUCK!!!

So I just wanted to say that I STILL hate the steelers and that I say YUCK to them winning. Ben R (I can't spell his name) is a great quarterback but he makes me SOOOO MAD when he pulls those last minute amazing plays. ARGHHHH!!!

AND I also wanted to say YUCK to phil, the groundhog. I'm completely dissatisfied with this 6 more weeks of winter crap!!!

ANDDDD!!! I want olive garden, NOW!! It's almost an urgent matter. :)

So. I'm getting Olive garden and coming home to read for school (yuck to that too).

P.S. 1 more day til victory 18. and just 3 more days until the BIG day!!! Baby boy or baby girl, we WILL find out this Thursday. I'm determined. Caffeine, exercise, OJ, candy. Whatever you want you can have it baby, just let me see the goods. Please and Thank you :)