Rollovers and names.

Well, I learned something about my baby. He doesn't like being squished.

We have a tempurpedic bed at home. With that kind of bed, I can lie down on my stomach and not squish the baby. The bed forms around my belly, and he still has plenty of room.

Our first night away from home during our Thanksgiving vacation, I rolled over onto my stomach and Baby started kicking the shit out of me. I was mostly asleep when this happened and immediately woke up laughing. I could just picture him in there, banging on my belly, yelling, "MOOOOM! You're squishing me!!" Poor kidlet.

During our trip, we also discussed baby names with our families. At the top of Bob's list, is his name. Bob isn't his real name. Really, his name is not quite that easy. He's a junior. And Bob is pushing for a third. I am not. I do not want a third. Plus, our baby girl name is a play on Bob's middle name. I don't want a third, because then we wouldn't be able to use our girl name (should we ever have a girl).

At the top of my list is Charles David. And we'd call him Charlie. In fact, I already do. I refer to him as Charlie when I talk to people. When I talk to him, I call him Charlie. It's kinda stuck in my mind.

When Bob was born, his mother was against having a junior. In fact, his original birth certificate had an entirely different name on it. But then his dad begged, his mom relented, and so Bob ended up a junior (as the story goes). As I've told his mom (and the rest of the family), I'll be way more of a bitch than she was. I will not have a third. I will not give in during the 11th hour. I will not change my child's birth certificate once it's signed.

So. Charles David. Charlie. My Charlie Bear. It's what I'm pulling for. Let's hope it happens. Because we all know, when Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

22 weeks!

I had a doctors appointment today. I was a little disappointed, because I wanted to see my little boogie. But it was an appointment only. Insurance will only pay for "medically necessary" ultrasounds. Next time I go in, my doc is going to "need" to measure the baby to make sure its not overweight or underweight. So I'll get to see him three weeks! Once I get through 28 weeks, I'll be going in every two weeks for appointments. It's getting closer!!

I was able to get an audio recording of his heartbeat. It's so strong and perfect!!

Bump watch. 21 weeks!

So this was the bump last week. I'm not taking weekly pictures yet. I figured I'd wait until later on in my pregnancy before I started with weeklies. Truthfully, I'll probably forget to take them anyway...

This is 21 ish weeks. As my Mom pointed out when I sent her the pic- My boobs finally stick out further than my belly. I hope that was a compliment...

From the seated position, I'm definitely large and in charge!!

How to raise our child.

This week, Bob has left the fuzzy butts and I home alone to travel to Maine. His Grandpa is currently living there (with one of his kids), and he's not in the best of health. Bob went up to spend a couple days with him. No one knows for sure how long Gpa will be here, so Bob wanted the chance to see him again.

Since he's been there, Bob has purchased groceries for the Aunt and Uncle Gpa is living with, and he's cooked them dinner tonight (with enough for leftovers). It makes me so proud that he's so thoughtful and generous. He didn't have to do all that. He didn't need any prodding from me. He just decided to do it.

When I see Bob do things like this, it makes so happy and proud that he will be the father of my children. When he sees that there is something he can do to help someone, he does it. He doesn't expect a single thing in return. He does it because he wants to make that other person happy. While he was in training in Little Rock back during the summer, he spent a weekend and went down to see our families. I didn't expect him to stop in and see MY grandparents, but he did. He spent the afternoon with them, and it meant the world to them. They are still talking about his visit 6 months later.

I want our son to be like this. I want him to genuinely respect his elders. I want him to see an opportunity to help someone, or make someone's day, or go out of his way to be kind to someone in need, and do it. I know it will take urging and examples from Bob and I to teach our kids this. We can show them through actions how we want them to grow up. We can mold them and help them learn to respect their elders, to see how to care for others, to have good manners. To say yes ma'am, no sir, yes thank you, and please. To treat others how they would want to be treated. To respect other peoples opinions and beliefs. To know that being different is okay.  These are things that are very important to me and Bob. I'm excited to watch our son grow up and become the man his dad is today.

Large and in charge.

Being pregnant is such a weird thing. I've never in my life weighed this much or had such a large stomach. Obviously, I know. It's just bizarre to know how large I am. And my boobs. Good lord. I don't understand how they're going to get larger, but as I understand, they will. They're interrupting conversations they're so big. As in, I'm talking and whoever I'm talking to waits for me to pause for a breath before saying, "Damn your boobs are enormous."

Baby G is racking up on good stuff too. His Aunt Carly sent him some cute bibs and onesies, and his Auntie Ashley brought him some adorable Saints gear for next football season. I'm so ready for him to be here, and not just to dress him, but to hang out with him!

Sugar much?

I've reached a new level. I've just bulk ordered Wonka Giant Chewy Nerds. A case of them. At least it wasn't a case of pickles... yet.

Houston: we have movement!!

Last night, after polishing off three Halloween size Kit Kats, I felt little dude move! I'm so very excited that I finally felt him. At this point, I'm kind of still assuming it was him. My stomach wasn't bothering me, I wasn't gassy, and I wasn't moving around. So that leads me to believe it was my baby guy.

Sickly.

So at my last appointment with Dr J, we talked about my gastroparesis. Use The Google to see what that is. Anyway, my main symptom is vomiting, and it's been fairly under control during my pregnancy. Dr J had warned me that it typically gets worse during pregnancy, but I thought I had dodged a bullet. I was wrong.

At this point, I've gotten over my morning sickness and my allergies, but now my GP has flared up and my ankles have started to swell.

I'm so ready for baby to be here!!

Lots of blue!

SO last night, Auntie Jess and I went to register for Baby. Holy balls. Instead of spreading out over several baby stores, I'm only registering at one for basics and one for cutesy stuff.

Last night, we were in BuyBuyBaby for almost 4 hours. I was smart and made an appointment with a personal shopper. Shavonda and Mike were lifesavers. There's no way possible I would have made it out of that store alive without their help. I feel like I registered for the entire store, but in reality, it's probably not even half of what we'll need for the baby. Once I got home, I tweaked it a little bit. I have a feeling it'll be like our wedding registry. I'll make tons of changes between now and March, and I'll stalk it regularly. While there, I bought a few things that I didn't think would be there later... a sweet little Wendy Bellissimo sweater and some burp cloths that were extra cute. Auntie Jess bought Baby a pacy holder with planes on it. Super cute!

I also started a Pottery Barn Kids registry online, mostly for blankets and cute little things. Although I did find a changing table there that I love. Bob will be in for quite a surprise when he sees all these things. And we'll both be shocked when we have to find a place for all this gear in our house!!

IT'S A BOY!!

Well, it's been a roller coaster week in our house.

Let's start with Wednesday. We found out.... WE'RE HAVING A BOY!!! HE was super very proud to show us his junk. As I was lying on the table, the tech did all the measurements first. Then she started looking for gender clues. She had barely started looking when I saw IT and started crying. Immediately. Bob was so confused. The tech said, "Aw. Mama sees what's going on!" We clued Bob in. He cried. I kept crying. We made the tech cry.

We both wanted a boy, but Bob was convinced it was a girl. We took all the pictures and went to sit in the hallway to wait to see Doctor J. While out there, we started crying again. We dried it up and went into an exam room, where we started crying again. The Doc had seen us a couple of times by then, and made a pretty good amount of fun of us for crying for so long. 

Here's our boy!

Saying hi to us.

A sweet little profile.

After my appointment, I went on to work that afternoon. After work, I was in a car accident. My poor car... A lady failed to stop while leaving a parking lot and t-boned my passenger side. We were both okay, but I called my doc just in case. She advised me to go to the ER just make sure the baby was okay. So 4-5 hours later, we left the ER with a confirmation that baby boy was okay and that HE was definitely a boy.

It was so cute during that ultrasound. He was asleep. The tech kinda pushed on my belly, and he woke up, looked around, stretched out, rolled over, and went back to sleep. It. Was. Adorable. And I cried. Again.

Along with everything else this week, my gpa ended up in the hospital for emergency surgery, and we also found out his brother passed away. I wasn't close to my great uncle, but I know it's weighing heavily on my gpa, especially since he was in the hospital and unable to attend the funeral.

So we're hoping next week we will all be back to normal. Or as much as normal as possible! For now, I'm working on keeping baby BOY toasty and snuggly. 

Sickly, but excited.

I hate to sound ungrateful or complainy, but gah. Being pregnant can suck. Especially during ragweed season. I'm so sick, and apparently I can't take a decongestant. I go to my doctor tomorrow, mainly to find out what Baby is (!!!!!!), but also to talk about my snottiness.

I always knew pregnancy would be difficult. I'd been hoping otherwise, but had a sinking feeling it wouldn't be easy. Between my back, my sinuses, and my exhaustion, I'm barely making it through the day. To say I'm ready to meet this little bundle would be an understatement... obviously for more than one reason!

Bump watch.

A couple of people have requested a picture, so I sent this out to them today. I'm posting it here too, so I can keep up as well. Please ignore our white walls, disorganized mud room, and Jack in the background. Painting our new house has fallen on a back burner, especially with me being sick this week. Hurricane Bob came home last night and our house is no longer pristine and put away.

I am 17 weeks along right now. I've gained 8lbs since getting pregnant. Next week, we find out what we're having. I'm excited. I have pinned sooo many things on Pinterest, to a private board, of course. I'm ready to start narrowing down those pins- either to pink or blue. Or shades of those. I don't want to do something typical, so our colors won't really be pink or blue. Not straight up anyway.

So here's the bump. This is why the girls at work call me "belly." As in, "Uh oh. Belly gotta pee. Again. Ya'll watch out."

Pickles and....

Well. I've had my first weird craving. Pickles at all isn't weird. I've loved pickles my whole life. But washed down with orange juice is new. I bought a jar of pickles at the store yesterday, and I've eaten them already. Paired with orange juice, of course.

The oj is good right now. I'm struggling with a raging sinus infection, which sucks even more while pregnant. I'm waiting on a call from my doc about drugs I can take. It's weird to me to think about what I take, what I put in my body, now that I'm pregnant. Drug users and addicts abuse all sorts of things while pregnant, and they have seemingly healthy babies all the time. And here I'm concerned about medicine that would make me human again. It's a hard fine line to walk. Or to nap on. Whatever.

New names.

I'm a little slow sometimes. Yes, I'm pregnant. Yes, I know I'm having a baby and this will likely change almost everything in our lives. But still. Last night, it just dawned on me that Bob and I will be Mommy and Daddy in a few short months. Of all of our names, given and nicknames, these are two we've never had before. It's weird to think about.

I've been thinking about planning ahead and the decisions we need to make: to bank cord blood, to use cloth diaper vs disposable, to breastfeed, which church to christen the baby, how many pack and plays and boppy's we need, whether or not to accept a free crib or buy a new one. I've considered all these things, but for some reason, I haven't considered them as "Mom." I've considered them as Rachel, as Bob's wife, as Dad's daughter, as Hank's mom. But not as Baby's mom. It's weird. I will be responsible for a whole 'nother person.  And it's scaring the shit out of me.

Part of my heart.

I'm typically a pretty sentimental person. I cherish my family and the relationships I've built. Some very important people in my life are no longer here. My Mamaw, my great Aunt Sara, otherwise known as Hazy, and my great grandmother, Grandma. There are others, but these three have recently, within in the last 10 years, passed away.

Oh how I wish they were still here. I want to so much to pick up the phone and call my Mamaw, talk to her about having a baby, to get her advice, to go pick her up and take her to dinner. I'd like to go to my Hazy's house, with a pizza and cheese dip in hand, and talk about the rest of our family and how I'll need to make sure I raise our kid to be normal, unlike the rest of the family. And I'd like to be able to take our child up to Grandma's farm so he/she will learn all about animals and the responsibility of a farm, just as I did as a child.

I miss these women an incredible amount. Earlier this week, one of the residents at my facility started singing Mamaw's favorite hymn. Just to hear that song, I immediately started crying. She, along with Hazy and Grandma, were so important in my life, and they still are. They would be so proud of the marriage that Bob and I have and the life we've built. They would be ecstatic over the baby. I mean, ridiculously ecstatic. Mamaw would teach baby all the Bible stories and how to properly till a garden. Hazy would teach baby all the good cuss words and how to make a mean margarita. And Grandma would teach baby about how to raise chickens and how to make an killer wedding cake. These are some of the things I learned from these amazing ladies. Things that are now my responsibility to pass on to baby. I can't wait to share these things with our kids. They will know all about the important people these lessons came from and how awesome they were!

A bump!

So I finally broke down and went shopping for maternity clothes. Actually shopping, not just perusing Target. I went to Gap and Destination Maternity.

Turns out, I DO have a baby bump in the right clothes. And I'm not sure I'm ready for the attention that bump will bring. I've been hiding it pretty well so far. I haven't told everyone at work that I'm pregnant, but when I roll in tomorrow in my newly acquired maternity pants, they'll all know. I didn't realize I wasn't ready until tonight when I was trying to decide what clothes to wear. It's just going to be weird.

Somedays you're the pigeon, somedays you're the statue.

Sometimes I need reminding of what I'm doing. A reminder of how awesome it will be in another 6 months. This morning was one of those times.

My sister in law sent me a cheesy, but much needed text this morning. It was a picture that said, "Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle."

This morning, I called in sick to work. For the last few days, my morning sickness has been a little crazy. It's just like mine and Bob's kid to do this... Kind of a- Hey mom, you're in your second trimester now, but boy are you going to get sicker by the day!

Today, after eating some ritz and going back to sleep, I woke up and took Hank outside. While downstairs, I needed to throw up. I went into our downstairs bathroom. While in there, Hank decided he'd also throw up all over our mudroom, in view of me, of course. So once I finished, I walked through and got some paper towels to clean it up. As I was cleaning it up, I got sick again. En route to the toilet, I slipped and fell in Hank's puke. And then I puked on the floor too. I banged up my knee and bent my not yet bendable big toe all the way back. So that left me sprawled out in mine and Hank's puke, with a hurt knee, and a throbbing toe. Crying. And still needed to barf. Again. Of course.

When I say this has been an awful morning, I mean it's been truly awful. Now please excuse me while I go puke again.

12 weeks!!

Look! It's a baby!! 12 weeks last Thursday and measuring perfect.

I can't even express how crazy it was to see this little thing jumping around during my ultrasound. How very surreal. He/she was very active Thursday morning. It was hard for the tech to get a good picture. Mainly because I was crying and my stomach was heaving from it. Cried the WHOLE TIME.

I am so ready to meet this sweet little thing! Gah! March is so very far away.

Big Booty.

So. I'm at that stage where I don't look pregnant, but my clothes don't fit any more. My boobs are too big, and my belly is too bloated. Today, I stopped at Target to pick up some maternity clothes. Guess what Target sucks at? Maternity clothes. They had ONE PAIR of maternity pants. ONE. So I bought a belly band. Hopefully that will help my tight waist band issues. My pants still "fit" but they get a smidge tight when I sit down. As far as the boobs go, I'm still looking for options. My plan is to hit up Destination Maternity this weekend. I don't need much, just some clothes for work mainly.

The few people who know I'm pregnant are counting down to Thursday. Everyone is stupid excited to share our news. I'm ready to tell all of my friends too. It's hard keeping something like this a secret! However, once Thursday around 10am happens, it'll spread like wild fire, I'm sure.

Pictures to come!!!

11 weeks!!

So. Here we are. Blogging from our new house!

A couple of weeks ago, I flew to Hometown for a birthday party, but mainly to tell my family I was expecting. They took it.... well. I told my Daddy at the airport when he picked me up. I wasn't sure I could keep quiet the 30 minutes from the airport back home. So he found out in the parking lot of the Monroe Regional Airport. He cried and giggled for about 5 minutes before he could compose himself enough to take the car out of Park.

From there, we went to my g'rents house, where I told them. My gma, a pretty calm lady, handled the news with a simple "congrats." I thought that was a smidge strange given her neeeeed for a "great grandbaby." Well, turns out, I shocked her into silence. Her later and continued excitement has been nothing short of ridiculous. I love it.

I was also able to tell my two best friends in Hometown. They are two very important people, and I wanted to tell them in person. So Fertile Myrtle and Kat are both stupid excited as well.

I go back for my 12 week ultrasound and bloodwork on Thursday. I am very nervous and excited. I'll be going alone since Bob has to work. I keep thinking, what if something has happened. But then I throw up again or someone hugs me and kills my boobs. Those are not so gentle reminders that I still have symptoms of pregnancy.

As I think I have stated before, I am scared shitless of miscarriage. The wife of one of Bob's friends had one last month, at 8 weeks. She's had a long hard year, losing her first baby last year during childbirth due to her dumbass doctor. And now losing her second after 8 weeks. I cry for her daily. I cry for her and pray for both of us.