Sorry its been a while since I’ve posted here, but I have photo goodies to share! We LOVE our maternity photos and I plan on making it a quest to take ONE belly photo per day in my 9th month just cuz hehe 
Here are a few self pics i took weeks back but never posted.
33wk4d for the next 5 pics
and my self portrait at 34wk5d
big sister Princess and big brother Smokey can’t wait for him to arrive
of course, I”m totally biased but I am just LOVING how its coming together. Yes, can you believe we still have more plans in the works for this room. For one, we’ll have a clear spot once we clear out the closet to move some of the boxes of unopened gifts in there and the car seat will be in the car instead of the stroller. Well, this post won’t be fun without lots of pics so here we go! Our jungle safari nursery!
look at these cheetah chairs! the toddlers who’ve come by to visit his room LOVE them so I know they’re going to be a hit for him!
My best friend hosted this shower for me and the attendees included some of my closest longtime friends in my life, some whom I’ve known since I moved here in 95. I was exceptionally happy that my mom was able to make this shower since she takes care of my grandma by herself and hardly gets time away. Thank God for that special blessing – it made us both so happy. I can’t help but just cry happy tears when I see how many people are happily anticipating his arrival and showering him with things. He is already soooo loved by so many! That warms mama’s heart!
My best friend and hostess
Proud grandma
my partner in crime – jen
was GORGEOUS! I had such a wonderful time and I can’t thank everyone enough who hosted and put so much love and thought into everything. We are truly blessed. Many of the attendees are from Ray’s family and the church he attended when he was growing up. It was truly a different emotion to be the one opening gifts for OUR baby. Of course, I cried.
cousin Sarah who put together all the amazing decorations!
I thought the weather had cooled off enough to tolerate a mini photo session. Eh maybe not! We walked around Mayfield Park and enjoyed the scenery all while stopping to take a few portraits of us together w/ my bump. I’m happy that we aren’t attempting our official maternity session on our own because it just wouldn’t be possible to pull off. Anyhow, here are a few shots we did manage to capture before I ran back to the car for the AC!
I also learned during this “shoot” that I need to pick really tight maternity tops in order to showcase the bump better. Maybe that won’t be an issue next month when we do the actual session
Ray was pretty proud that he put the crib together in just under an hour. Afterall, everything we’ve read and been told had us worried it would take NASA to set it up. Its perfect. Exactly what I wanted for my baby even before baby came to be. This nursery has honestly been the first room in the house where the planning of it couldn’t be going smoother (knock on wood). I normally am so indecisive on colors, layouts , etc. but one day I walked in that room and said “this will go here, crib there, armoire there” and in my mind it all fell into place.
I love how this looks now and it’s not even dressed up with the bedding yet. The armoire goes in with the help of a neighbor who can assist Ray in moving it in. Solid wood furniture isn’t lightweight and I”m definitely worthless right now in the moving department. But I can make up for it with shopping and decorating :p
The furniture is from the Babi Italia Pinehurst Collection in espresso.
Because I”m using this journal to also document my journey towards motherhood, I’m going to write up the events of last night.
Around 7pm I started feeling symptoms of a UTI, but thought perhaps the time had come where he weighs enough that he’s constantly pushing on my bladder thus giving me the signal that I have to tinkle. But then I started feeling dull aches similar to a menstrual cycle and after a 3 hour nap woke up to a horrible radiating pain/cramp that only affected the 1/2 half of my torso. Literally from my spine , across the right and stopped at my navel. Baby boy wasn’t moving and I felt my uterus tense up. Naturally, I became worried after moving about 30 minutes and he wasn’t. My next door neighbor came over, who’s a nurse and checked my BP for me while I took a few minutes on the phone talking to my best friend who went thru a checklist with me of symptoms. Ray was trying to get ahold of the on-call Dr. and that is a whole story in itself but ultimately after 1 hour of constant pain we opted to go to the ER. It was midnight by then.
So there we go, in the car taking the drive into Austin. I thought to myself “this is what the drive will be like when I”m in labor, but 10x worse.” Thankfully we got there in under 30 minutes. I’m rolled up to the L&D and they strap me up to get the baby monitored. There is that sweet sound. 155 bpm. Normal. And now he hears the sounds of his own heartbeat and starts to kick and kick. The nurse tells me she must give me an exam to see if my cervix is dilated to determine pre-term labor. Oh and a catheter to see if I have a UTI. Someone shoot me. I HATE catheters. I’d rather be stung by bees.
Well after many attempts and failures nurse #1 is unable to reach my cervix and calls in another who after much searching determines that its way back and very closed. No pre-term labor. Thank God. Catheter is done in a matter of 15 seconds, but again give me bee stings anyway. UGH. Ray held my hand thru the entire ordeal talking to me and distracting me from the immense pain I was under. If I had any second thoughts of having an epidural they’re now officially squashed. I WILL have one. If they’d let me have two I”d take both.
They kept me in the L&D for 2 hours for monitoring all the while baby boy can’t sleep because of the monitor loudly echoing his heartbeat. I nap here and there and Ray’s trying to catch some z’s too , but everytime baby boy kicks the sound is so loud it wakes us both. So , the results. No UTI, no preterm labor, no infections. They don’t know what it was. Great. They advise me to call the on-call Dr. tomorrow (today) after 9am because “she’s probably asleep tonight and that’s why she’s not answering.” Don’t EVEN get me started on how I felt about that. Must be nice. We get home around 4am, woke up today at noon and all I want is bbq and a backrup.
I”m grateful that he’s ok, that it may have been a ligament stretching or just some crazy cramp or pinched nerve. but what a scary night it was there for a while. Just writing it out has made me tired again.
Just wanted to share some pics of the painted nursery. I love the colors and can only begin to imagine all the fun he’s going to have here! Isn’t it so perfect?!
This changing table has been in this room when it was an office to hold supplies, but we haven’t decided whether to refinish it or not.
it was hard work but worth it…two days later here are the fine results of being on my feet so long that day
ah yes..the sexy swollen ankles and toes that come along with pregnancy.
Ok, I know what you’re thinking. Painting caused migraine. Not quite. I had a migraine , an ocular migraine to be exact on Tuesday morning while I was at work and I certainly freaked out my employer. Praise God though that all is well with myself and the baby. In fact, he was very very active while the OB was measuring him and detecting his strong little heartbeat at 155bpm. I’ve also gained another 3.5 lbs so I’m now at 136.5lbs at 26wks. woo hoo!
Better news to report is that we’ve painted the nursery on Wednesday evening. Ray couldn’t have chosen more perfect colors for him and I’m so happy that I handed over the swatch and said “pick two colors” because as my friend Chelle can testify – it takes me EONS to settle on a color. I was surprised to learn that Walmart now does color matching and also offers Kilz with low VOC which meant that I could take part in doing something I completely love doing – PAINTING! So with swatches in hand on Tuesday night we took a late nite trip to Walmart and had our two gallons made (one of each) and came home. Of course, no painting project goes without some quirks right? Well, although the Kilz paint is low VOC we still opted to open the window in the nursery and turn all the fans on in the house to make sure I didn’t get , ahem, high on paint. After a few minutes we started noticing knats on the walls…sticking to our new pretty walls! ARGH. Where in the heck are they coming from? After a while we realized they were so tiny they fit thru the screen on the window and were happily attaching themselves to the new sky and grassy hills we were painting! DANGIT! There we are, with tweezers picking out bugs from the wall. Tinybugs,but bugs nonetheless. I joked “we should leave them here, afterall it IS going to be a jungle theme.” Note to self though – unless I want the baby to enjoy a knat sandwich we can’t be leaving that window open when the lights are turned on to attract the bugs at night!
Well, we were so exhausted after our creative painting job that I didn’t want to go grab the 20D to take really good shots so I got these from my lil Sony camera. I’ll take more tonight after he shampoos the carpet and we assemble the furniture in the room. I can’t believe it’s all coming together now!!!!
This second image came out kinda funky and is not true to the colors. The one above is though.
Doesn’t it rock?!
For those who want to know, the blue is Sky High Blue and Leapfrog from ICC Paints, but again you CAN do a color match with Walmart. Use base 1 Enamel interior for the Sky High Blue and Base 2 Enamel Interior for the Leapfrog.
Sorry the video is so dark..it doesn’t help that I’m really tanned right now either hehe
I also remember attending this concert w/ my brother Steven and crying through this song. This was almost 6 yrs ago, many years before I ever knew whether I would have a family, specifically now a son. I adored this song and read that she wrote it for her son.
Now I plan to sing this to my own.
Godspeed little man.
What a crazy two weeks! At 18wks I started feeling a pattern of kicks, usually after eating chocolate pudding and between 11-11:30pm religiously. It’s comforting that now I can play with the baby and get a response and get that affirmation that everything is ok. While we were in Cabo, I decided to test out the theory that a baby will respond to music. I chose Bendita la Luz by Mana for obvious reasons and got this clip. Sorry its so short, but Youtube wouldn’t let me upload anything longer than this.
Here’s a photo of us at 19wks and I feel like I”m in good competitions with the mountains in the back
I know you’re probably wondering : BOY OR GIRL?
Today was the big ultrasound. The one that would either confirm Ray’s prediction that it was a girl or mine that it’s a boy. For the record, I’ve dreamt 4x of the baby gender and its always a girl with pigtails and teeth.
Ray recorded the video and we had to get creative by playing it on our home TV and using my little digital camera to make a digital video of it. yes, I know, we need to catch up to video technology here! haha hey, but it works right? Again, we had to really shorten the video because of Youtube limits so here we share with you the most important part of the scan…..boy or girl? I’ve gained 4lbs since my last Dr visit.
*note…for whatever reason I can’t get this to play for me, but others have confirmed it’s working all 40 something seconds of it…so if you can’t see it either, please post a comment and let me know*
and the photos which show more detail of news!
