Final Hurdle!

What I would like to consider being the final hurdle to get over for this mommy occurred yesterday with flying colors! We had our mid-pregnancy ultrasound yesterday, which is when we found out there was something wrong with Angel and our last pregnancy. Needless to say the anxiety levels were through the roof! Including indigestion, lack of sleep, bad dreams, and high emotion levels (bitchy and crying!) Well all of the worry was for “nothing” (although it was far beyond my control!) because everything was perfect with B2K!! Her heartbeat was at 151 bpm. Her brain, eyes, heart, and facial features were all developed perfectly. She even gave us a little wave after she finally uncovered her face for the tech to take her picture. She is measuring a week ahead of what our due date was showing; she measured at 19w1d; 6 days ahead of the 8/21 due date given. Grandma said that she was certainly going to be her mother’s daughter, start causing havoc the day she is born because as most know, if she comes 6 days early, that will land at the same time as her mommy’s finals for her final class. So to say that it is cutting it close is an understatement but it is all worth it regardless of how it happens!
The high that we were on after our appointment was amazing and I haven’t thought of anything else to worry about (pregnancy wise) to replace all of the fear and trepidation that I have felt for the last 18 weeks. I am determined to enjoy the rest of the pregnancy, work on bonding with our little girl and taking as good of care of her as I possibly can. Her daddy is on high-heaven as well and I think it’s sinking in that “this is it” for him as well. We did a lot of work on the house last weekend and it was nice to have a productive weekend together and be able to get some things done to prepare but not really admit that we were preparing. While I am sure that only makes sense to me it is time to buckle down and actually admit and act on the preparation for B2K because in 21 ½ short weeks (or less!!) she is going to be here and we are going to have get ready for it…ready or not!!
So here is to letting the preparations begin! Getting ready for our little girl to join our family and continuing to be grateful to our little Angel that has watched over us and I know will continue to watch over us!

17 weeks already?!! Rambling post...

It's hard to believe that we are approaching the 17th week already! Then at other times I ask myself, it's only been 17 weeks?? You mean it's not August tomorrow! I say this not because I have everything done, I am planned and ready for the baby to come right now and don't have anything else to do to prepare; because it is the complete opposite! I get anxiety thinking about starting our registry, talking about names, talking about the nursery; anything that suggests that I might have "accepted" that this is going to be just fine! After all, we have gotten more information than most people with "normal" pregnancies have gotten that have suggested everything but that this going to be all but perfect!

So with that, I have "forced" myself to at least get started a little bit. So I started our registry online and while even that stresses me out because there is so much to think about! But I have added some things to it and find myself enjoying finding the cute little girlie things to add to it : ) Jay even comments to me "does everything have to be pink" so I accommodated him and put our travel system on there...black and yellow...his first comments was "Hawkeye colors??!" Told him it wasn't pink! : )
Secondly, we got carpet in our basement to finish off the renovating from our flood last year, so we can move furniture downstairs as well as "junk" from the nursery to clean it out once again to begin the preparation for painting and prepping for the nursery to be completed.
My mom and I went through all of Ashleigh's baby clothes that Amber has kept over the years and sorted them for the first 18 months. Some of them are off seasons but it will be cool to use the same clothes that my niece wore! There are plenty there!! Sheesh!
Jay and I visited a daycare this morning. I know many people say "already" and that is exactly what I said when the director said "as soon as possible" but the good day cares are always going to have a wait on their infant rooms. So luckily, there was a location that my friend Sabrina's friend took her son to and it is close to mid way for me to drop her off on my way to work and very close for Jay to pick her up after he gets off work. The tour went well and Jay and I both loved the structure the place had. We might go look at a couple other's but usually when Jay is that adamant about something it is pretty pointless to keep looking : ) While this was not something that I had on my near future list of things to do I am glad that we went, and glad that we very well could get that off the list really early!

Okay, those are my "forced" actions that I have taken thus far. As far as B2K, well I HATE that I haven't seen her for so long! However, according to "How Big is Your Baby", she is about the size of an onion and that must be one big onion because this gal has certainly gained more than an onion's worth of weight! ; ) I am not completely positive but pretty certain that I have felt some of the "quickening" in the last week or so. While I have read that it's normal I hate that one day I can feel it quite a bit and other days I can't feel anything at all. But I have heard more times than one to "enjoy it" because eventually I will be feeling her even when I don't want to feel her (when I'm sleeping and she kicks me). This is a new feeling for me as I didn't feel these movements with Angel.

Outside of the movements and the "milestones" on my actions, I don't have a lot to update on B2K because we don't get to see her again for another week and a half, and it can't come soon enough!! I just want to get that appointment done and over with! Other than that, we prepare for the busiest time to ramp up as the weather gets warmer and racing and golf league starts in (yes, I am golfing in league!!) :)
This weekend is a weekend with our god-daughter. I am thinking lots and lots of thoughts and prayers to my friends that have gone over to the Czech! I am looking very forward to a weekend with Mia and lots and lots of snuggles. Tomorrow is Aunt Nita and Mia day while Jay is out to a swap meet. We are going to go over and play with Katie and Kale then out to dinner. She is so much fun! : ) With that, I am going to close the post and get ready to go pick her up for our weekend!

Until next time, after our 18 week scan...we know we have lots of thoughts and prayers to get us over the next hurdle!

Venting.....

So there was an article in the Sunday paper today that Jay has asked me to read. I should pre-empt this post with saying that a "hot topic" right now is abortion rights. With that, the paper had an article with a Nebraska lady that had to face the same sort of terrible, heart wrenching news that we received only she didn't receive the news until 21 weeks that a problem was there. Her water broke prematurely, she entered the hospital where they told her there was a chance that her body could reproduce the amniotic fluid that she lost but that the baby would have less than a 10% chance of making it and in the slim chance that she did that she would probably be severely disabled. They wanted the doctor to help them and help prevent their child from suffering but the doctor's hands were tied because they were after the 20 week "deadline", for the lack of a better term. Nebraska passed the anti-abortion law 2 months before indicating that no action can be taken after 20 weeks. They had to return home and wait for labor to start, their daughter was born 8 days later and she had to hurt and struggle to breathe for 15 very long minutes while her parents sat there and watched her suffer.
The other side of the story was a young lady who's mother decided to have an abortion while she was pregnant with her as a freshman in college. She lied about how far along she was telling the doctor's she was 18 weeks when in fact she was 31 weeks along and got an injection to terminate the pregnancy; the daughter survived to tell the story about it.
The point of me typing this all over, allowing my blood pressure to go through the roof all over again, and to allow myself to angry all over again is that there seems to be very, very different perspectives on what the definition of abortion is!!!! There is a huge difference between abortion and helping your child! There is a difference between ending a baby's life because you are too young, irresponsible, and even if it was completely against your will and trying to prevent your child from the pain and suffering that they would experience without the choice. I am very PRO-LIFE, the doctor that performed our procedure with Angel is PRO-LIFE; I am not for a women going into a clinic because they forgot to use a condom and she can't or doesn't want to take care of the baby; but it is a totally different story when you know that your child is going to suffer for every single breathe they take, hurt and suffer every minute that goes by and you want to prevent them from having to go through that; all so you can spend 1, 3, 15 minutes with him or her. I continue to say that I don't judge or think badly of anyone that decides to take that route either! I commend them for their strength and courage and being able to experience that as well.
I know this is a very, very touchy subject and one that I would never in a million years had thought would affect me as much as it does not but everytime I hear or read comments like the one I read in the paper about "someone can try to tell my daugther that her life isn't worth fighting for" that infuriate me and make me want to scream at anyone that wants to tell me that if I had any chance in the world to fight for my daughter, to know that my daughter wouldn't suffer or that I could suffer instead of my daughter and know that she would live (disabled or not!) and still be with us that I would do anything but everything in the world...well, I am not really sure how I would react rationally but I can assure anyone that wants to think poorly of our decision to essentially save our daughter from the pain and suffering that she would have experienced as anything other than doing the best thing that I could do as a mother for her little girl, they have no idea what the process was like to have to do anything like it. And I would continue to tell them that, god forbid, they ever had to go through something like that, when they had to make that decision then they could judge me; until then, to shut the hell up!
I have always refused to use the "A" word, I don't consider that what we did, I don't consider it something that we did wrong and have never regretted the decision because I know that my little girl didn't hurt or suffer. I have only discussed the decision that we had to make with very few people because there is so much unsurity on who you can trust and who won't judge you; but I have come to terms that is what it was considered. However, there is a big difference between definitions and anyone that has ever had to face a situation like that would understand. Anyone that never has, well, I really hope some of them start to think before they judge and decide what others have had to painstakingly go through wasn't because they wanted to!!

I am not really sure that this has made me feel a whole lot better or if it's made me feel even worst....: ( I am going to have to lean towards worst. I will wait for a better time to update on B2K!