"Poor Sick Baby"

 

My poor "sick" child ;)

Evie has been "falling ill" all morning. 

It looks a little something like this: phase one: Evie "falls" (very gracefully) off of mommy's bed. She lies quietly on the floor for a few seconds for dramatic effect, then (in the most pathetic voice she can muster) says "Daaaddy, help-a-you" (a.k.a "help me"). phase two: daddy helps the poor child to sit back up on the bed and she says (still in her pathetic voice) "oh, sneezies!" and then proceeds to cough as if she is going to die. At this point we are supposed to say "oh no! are you getting sick, Evie??" Then she lies down on the bed and we have to tell her she needs medicine, soup, and lots of rest, all while putting a washcloth on her forehead and taking her temperature. She usually decides she's better at this point and runs off to play... Until she decides she's coming down with something again and we have to repeat the process.

I guess we haven't been giving her enough attention lately?

Thankful

Welp, it's that time of year again. I'm once more feeling the need to make a "thankful" post with Thanksgiving and all, and especially since I do so much complaining the rest of the year ;)

1. I want to say how thankful I am for this pregnancy. 

I have a couple of health problems that make it harder for me to get and stay pregnant. Knowing that, and with how long it took for us to get Evie, I think Karl and I both thought that once the time came for the next baby, we'd have some time to prepare ourselves. I personally thought I would have to do a lot of mental preparation for the months of negative pregnancy tests. Imagine our surprise when this little guy came about rather suddenly... I honestly never thought I'd possibly know what it would be like to be one of "those" people. 

In addition to all that, there's the fact that I'm kind of living with the whole genetic problem thing hanging over my head, but so far he looks so healthy and perfect! I know this little one belongs in our family and I am so grateful to have the opportunity to have him. This pregnancy has been a difficult one for me mentally and emotionally, but I just wanted to get it out there that I truly am grateful for the amazing chance to carry this child. He is a miracle :)

2. I'm grateful for the Lord's timing.

I did a post about this last year around this time... and it's time to revisit the topic ;) This fall I was supposed to be doing my first semester of grad school. The beginning of last summer I did all the applying and paperwork and was admitted to a program, all I needed to do was finish my scholarship application stuff. I had until June 30th, and not super long before the deadline, Karl convinced me to basically just forget about it (I'm stubborn and hard of listening sometimes)... and I was like, what the heck? Then, a couple weeks later, we found out I was pregnant. I was STILL at that point thinking, well, I was going to be doing online classes and the semester wouldn't have started until I was almost into my second trimester, so everything should have worked out fine if I'd gone for it. Little did I know how the beginning of this pregnancy was going to go... Evie stopped sleeping and has had a terrible time with everything from teething to colds, I was miserable for a lot longer than I expected, and Karl has been insanely busy and stressed. Adding school to all that mess would have been a terrible, terrible idea. I'm grateful that even though, for all my planning, I can't see the future, someone can ;) I'm grateful that I have some direction in my life, even when it REALLY doesn't feel like it.

3. I'm so thankful for my hardworking hubby :)

Karl has honestly been amazing this semester; it has been a rough one! He is working two different part-time jobs (one of which is very... irritating) and is taking a full credit load at school (not easy classes, either). On top of that he works amazingly hard to be a good daddy and make sure Evie has enough time with him. He has been so tired and stressed, but he's so willing to work incredibly hard with little complaint to take care of our family. I honestly don't think I deserve him! I'm so grateful to have him in my life and to have him as the father of my children.

4. I'm grateful for my Evie-Cakes

She has been the sunshine in the dark corners of my life since the very beginning. It sounds weird, but I have honestly had quite the struggle throughout my life to just be happy, and I've got to say, that since Evie has come on to the scene, I am the happiest I have ever been. Ever. She is funny and sweet and so determined. She is the silliness and the joy in our house. I am so thankful I was given the chance to be her momma and so thankful that I have the opportunity to stay at home with her. I only hope I can be the mother she deserves.

5. I'm grateful for "all my many blessings"

There really is just so very much that I have to be grateful for that I don't even have the time to get into, buuuut: I'm grateful Karl is employed, I'm grateful we have a reliable car, I'm grateful for our current living situation, for the chance that Karl has to go to school, for the love and support of our families, for books and knowledge, for sunshine, and the gospel :)

I really do complain a lot more than I ought with so many amazing blessings in my life, I'm glad I can take a few minutes to remind myself of how good things are ;)

Baby. Brother. Smith. ;)

21 Weeks!!

We've made it beyond the half-way mark!

I meant to do a 20 week post, buuuut it was right before Halloween and I was completely overwhelmed by costume requests... So let's just pretend this makes up for that :)

The last week or two I've been feeling a whole lot better appetite/nausea-wise; I actually want to eat again, YAY!! I've now gained 5 lbs total this pregnancy, thanks to Halloween candy and my renewed interest in food ;)

The awesome rib pain that I love so much has made an entrance, however, but the sciatica/pelvic pain has backed off somewhat, so I guess I'm doing ok in that department. I'm not totally incapacitated as I had feared I would be, anyway, haha.

I'm also finally feeling baby on a regular basis and I'm no longer just feeling flutters, but full on kicks and rolls! It's pretty amazing :) It's so weird that in just a couple of weeks I went from feeling nothing, to feeling random little "bubbles", to feeling such definite, regular movements!!

And now for a cute big sister story:

The other day Evie was in her room saying her name over and over again, "Evie. May. Smiff." and giggling about it. THEN she suddenly stopped, looked right at me, and declared "Baby. Brother. SMIFF!!!" It was absolutely adorable.

I know I say it over and over, but she loves this baby so very much! I love it!! Just hope she keeps loving him this much once he actually gets here ;)

Halloween 2013 :)

My Jedi and Little Snow White :)

Yay for Halloween! It's always been one of my absolute favorite holidays, and now it looks like Evie is following in her mother's footsteps ;)

This Halloween season really started for us at the end of September... That's when I made the mistake of leaving Evie with Karl and Christer while I went to the General Relief Society meeting broadcast. They took her to the mall to play on the playground, and while there, Evie discovered the TaylorMaid Halloween shop. Why they put it RIGHT next to the playground, I'll never know. I mean, there were super creepy zombie/possessed/evil/clown/insane automated mannequins in the windows. I was even a little off-put by them. 

Evie, on the other hand, was obsessed with that store...

She really liked that they had cardboard cut outs of Darth Vader and Rapunzel and there was stuff from a bunch of Disney movies she's into, so I think that was the major draw for her, but she was also very interested in the creepy stuff. 

Over the course of the next few weeks we made at least a couple trips a week to the "Halloween store" (which included that store and two different "Halloween City"s). She was very serious and a little unnerved, I think, but she kept wanting to go back and look at everything; I'm still slightly worried that we are terrible parents and have ruined her for life.

Evie now loves everything Halloween and especially creepy things: ghosts, zombies, spiders, mummies, etc. I wish we had gotten some pictures of her at her favorite stores! She was so sad when Halloween ended and all the special stores closed.

By the time we got to the day itself, she was pretty excited! She'd been talking for weeks about "tricken-treating", it was super cute.

The nearly finished product

I really wanted Evie to be Snow White this year; I thought she would make a perfect little Snow White and I figured this would be the last time she wouldn't have a huge opinion on her costume! I got the idea to make Evie's costume from scratch, and I just have to say, I am so proud of myself for going through with it! Usually I have all these ambitious ideas and they never go anywhere... There were so many places along the way where I could have given up, but I didn't! And I think the results were pretty cute ;)

Karl also had a pretty ambitious idea once he saw that I could kind of sew... He wanted to be a Jedi, and he wanted me to make the costume. Considering we've had costume ideas every year, and yet never completed one since we've been married AND I'm not very confident in my sewing skills, I was a little skeptical that it would happen. I have to say, I'm pretty stinking proud that I managed to finish TWO costumes. I'm not a very good seamstress, so it took a lot of late nights and incredible frustration, but they got done (barely) in time! Unfortunately, with the complicated nature of Karl's and Evie's costumes and the lack of free time to work on them, my costume never got finished. So, I was boring this year, hopefully next year we'll get everyone dressed up!!

 

Princess Evie: Jedi Knight

 A couple of days before Halloween, we got to go trick-or-treating at Riverwoods! I honestly didn't know that there were so many places that did trick-or-treating events, but you learn a lot once you become a mom of toddler who needs lots of things to do, lol! We were a little nervous about how many people would be there, but decided Evie would like it anyway, so we gave it a try.

 

She seemed a bit overwhelmed most of the time, but she really liked it! She loved seeing all the other people in costumes (especially the costumes she recognized from movies, haha). My one complaint with the whole experience was that they had very cheap candy... Not that I'm a snob or anything, but it was all the super hard kind that is terrible for little kids, unfortunately. Also, a bunch of shops ran out of candy by the time we got there, which was only about a half hour after they started, and the thing had another hour and a half to go!

 

 

 Halloween itself, we started our trick-or-treating at the mall! Once again, she seemed pretty overwhelmed by all the people and things to see (and I think she was a little tired), but she had such a great time getting candy in her pumpkin! She got a lot of compliments on what a perfect Snow White she made :)

 

Finally, we got to go trick-or-treating around my parent's neighborhood with my little sisters, Mary and Amaia (and grandmama, Susi, and Andy were there too)! This was by FAR the best thing that happened EVER. I wish we had gotten some pictures, but it was already very dark by the time we got out :(

All the other things we had done were great, but this was the real experience Evie had been waiting for. She had a great time marching up to all the doors and saying "tricken-treat!" and getting candy in her pumpkin! She had a hard time keeping up with Mary and Maia, so there was one point where she tripped and fell in street trying to go "fast like a superhero!" and she got an owie, but she recovered pretty quickly (though she will continue to comment on the incident for months to come).

After going just halfway around the block I noticed that she was starting to slow down more and more. It took me a bit to figure it out, but I realized that her pumpkin was getting so full of candy that it was too heavy for her! I tried to hold it for her and even asked if I could just help her, but she adamantly refused to let anyone touch her candy bucket! She dragged that thing along for at least 20 more minutes of trick-or-treating (meanwhile, it's getting heavier and heavier!). I can't believe what a determined little girl she is!

All in all, it was a pretty good Halloween :) We discovered Evie's slightly morbid side and got a ton of candy!!

Ultrasound #3

Beautiful Baby Boy!

Ultrasound #3: complete! At 20 weeks our baby boy is STILL a boy (in case you were worried) ;) He's looking good for the most part; currently growing well and still measuring about 5 days ahead. According to the tech he's weighing in at about 14oz!

I'm still a boy!!

We got to see baby bumping around in there and even practicing his sucking skills (it reminded me so much of newborn Evie!). It was really amazing to see him doing something so incredibly baby-like. I feel like up until now he hasn't seemed "real" any of the times I've seen him in there: yeah, he had the whole basic human shape to him, but still didn't seem like an actual baby. Seeing his little mouth moving in there, doing something I've seen babies on the outside do so many times, was really something.

I'm gonna say that the baby boy I'll be holding in my arms in about  20 weeks definitely became a lot more real to me at that moment. Pretty amazing stuff ;)

Little hand up by his face :)

We ALMOST escaped with this being our final ultrasound this pregnancy, but at the very last minute the doctor saw something she didn't like... So we get to go back at least one more time.

She came in telling me how awesome everything looked and was congratulating me on not needing to come back in, but just as she was wrapping up, she noticed that baby has an echogenic bowel. Basically, his cute little intestines were showing up white in the ultrasound (like bone does) when they should show up dark. 

This could be an indicator of a bunch of things, including infection, trisomy or cystic fibrosis, or something that might restrict his growth later on in the pregnancy... Or it could be absolutely nothing. 

Since we've done a bunch of tests looking for things like trisomy and they've come back with really good results, the doctor wasn't so worried about that, her main concern I think was that it's either an infection (toxoplasmosis or cytomegalovirus) or something that would cause intrauterine growth restriction as the pregnancy continues.

We did a blood test to check out the infection theory (waiting on results) and we'll be going in at 28 weeks to see if it has gone away on its own and to check up on his growth. If it's still there and he seems to be falling behind in his growth at all, we'll have to come in weekly to check his growth and fluids.

The doctor wasn't severely concerned, she mostly wanted to check up on things to be on the safe side, so I'm not super worried, but it's still a little stressful to know that there is the potential for something to be wrong with our little one!

Our next ultrasound will be right around Christmas (I'll be 28 weeks on the 23rd!), so we're hoping and praying for good news!

Final picture: five little toes :D

Pumpkin Land!

I seriously love how much better having a kid makes holidays! We were so excited for Halloween and we wanted to do something special with Evie to get into the mood, so we went to Pumpkinland! It's a little pumpkin patch put on by a local garden center in Orem. My family used to go when I was younger, so definitely a little nostalgic for me ;)

 Evie was a little bit tired and slightly grumpy (which actually just made it difficult to get any good pictures of her) but she loved it! She's really into all things "Halloween" (she's going to be festive, just like her mama!) so she had a great time!

First thing we saw when we arrived: giant inflatable Halloween decorations! They had a ghost that popped out of a pumpkin (which she thought was great) and even a creepy vampire Tigger (she loves Whinny the Pooh AND creepy things... So very perfect, lol)

Next we went out into the corn maze/pumpkin field, which wasn't quite so exciting (she didn't get the point of walking through a bunch of corn...) but they did have a "secret tunnel" and some Halloween decorations that she kept trying to give hugs to, haha.

They had a bunch of these little picture take-y things (I really can't think of what to call them...) out in the corn, and Evie thought they were cool, but didn't quite get how they worked.. She wanted to look through the "windows", but she also wanted to see the fun side! So we have a lot of pictures of her trying to see what's on the other side, lol.

Evie is a huge fan of animals and they had a bunch just for her! There were bunnies, chickens, cows, goats, and all kinds of birds. Pretty cool!

Probably her second favorite part of the whole thing was the little playground. There were tunnels to crawl through, things to climb on, and even a giant pumpkin to go inside!

We tried really hard to get a "family pic" buuuuuut, cranky Evie just wouldn't have it... Love this picture anyway, haha.

Probably Evie's favorite part of the WHOLE experience was the bouncy house... This was her very first time trying one out, and I'm pretty sure we were just reintroducing her to her natural habitat, lol. They had a big inflatable slide that you had to climb up some ladder-y rungs to get too. Evie REALLY wanted to do it, and she tried and tried and tried, but the ladder was too worn down so she kept slipping and couldn't make it to the top no matter how hard she tried. I really couldn't believe how determined she was to do it though, I would have given up after the first couple attempts, but she really wanted to climb up that slide!!

At the very end, Evie got to pick out her very own "baby" pumpkin! It was super cute how excited she was about it; she HAD to hold it in the car seat with her on the way home. Also, I just have to mention, we got three pumpkins for super cheap... it was an awesome deal! So glad we didn't just grab some at Wal-Mart.

We had so much fun, we really wanted to go again (maybe sometime when Evie wasn't so tired...) but we didn't get the chance, unfortunately, with school schedules and sleep schedules :( I hope they have it again next year, but I've heard rumors this might have be the last time they do it! So sad! I'm glad we got to go this year!

Movement

19 weeks today, and where to start...

I guess the most exciting thing is that in the last week I've finally started feeling some movement!

A few days ago I collapsed in bed (laying on my tummy) after Karl finally woke up and took over for me for a few minutes, and I felt some little flutters! They were low down on my right side, and when they would stop I kept wondering if I had imagined it, or if it was just some bubbles or something, but then they would start again and it felt a whole lot like baby! Later that night I was just sitting in the bedroom talking to Karl and I got a pretty noticeable little thump, again, pretty low. Then yesterday, we were sitting in the car, about to get out and go into the house, when I got I good little kick (or punch) right where my seat belt was pushing on my tummy! I've been feeling more and more little movements ever since, but it's all still very random and not very noticeable for the most part.

I've decided having an anterior placenta stinks... I was so sure that this time around I'd catch a break and I was all prepared to feel my baby earlier, but no. It's also supposedly more common to have a posterior placenta, but I'm just super lucky I guess. The front of my uterus is just the cool place to implant, apparently ;)

In other news, we got our test results back from our integrated screening, and this baby has less than a 1 in 10,000 chance of having down syndrome, trisomy 18, or spina bifida. Yay! And since baby was measuring well with no soft markers for down syndrome, and no signs of cleft lip or any other defects, it looks like baby is healthy! This isn't a guarantee that there isn't anything wrong, but it is nice to have some reassurance. We still have one ultrasound to go to check things out next week, so hopefully everything is still fine and dandy in there (and hopefully our little guy is still a boy, lol)!

Also, I've gained a couple pounds! I'm now up to 3 lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight, and I think I'm happy about that... But now I get to freak out over the whole gaining thing, lol. I'm just never happy.

Anyway, things are starting to pick up a little, and I have started to bond a little bit more, so I'm hoping that the next few weeks will be even better :)

Ultrasound #2, and it's a...

Demon-alien-skeletor!!!

 Just kidding... I love my baby, but this picture is pretty creepy looking. I thought I'd share for the sake of Halloween being right around the corner ;) Also, the doctor looked at these face pictures and kept telling us what a cute baby we have on the way... Between that and her comments about me being thin, kinda not sure about her judgement, lol.

ANYWAY, point is, we got to go to our ultrasound today, YAY! Karl and Evie got to go this time too, which was a fun adventure. 

A cuter, though blurry, pic of our little-one :)

The ultrasound went really well. The tech was pretty rough on my tummy, and her pictures weren't great, but it wasn't too bad of an experience. Evie was very interested... for about two minutes, then she wanted to go back to playing with her baby game, haha.

Baby was once again pretty chill and kept turning away from the tech so she couldn't get a shot of the face, lol. I don't know if we've just caught the babe at nap time twice (I even drank a bunch of OJ right before to help wake bebe up!) but this kid seems much more calm than the Evie-Cakes!

I have an anterior placenta again, which means it's probably going to be longer before I really feel anything, and a longer wait before we can feel baby from the outside, which makes me a little sad, but we'll see how it goes. Baby is also currently head down facing my right side and there is a baby bum hanging out just below my belly button ;)

Everything is measuring perfectly and looks good! Still measuring 5 days ahead, which is exactly what we were measuring last time. No soft markers for down syndrome, no cleft lip from what they could see, heart is looking good so far, fluid was good and no signs of pre-term labor... So happy!!

Waving hello!

 Also, the tech DID ask us if we wanted to know the gender... and we said YES. I Tried looking while the tech was moving around looking at things, but I didn't really see anything, so I was kind of thinking it must be a girl... but the picture was pretty hard to see! The tech finally got through with all her measurements and she suddenly said, "well THAT'S not umbilical cord!" I wasn't quite sure what she was looking at at first, but apparently, THAT little extra appendage means we are having a BOY! Apparently my mommy-intuition was indeed correct, I don't know why I doubted ;)

Bum pic!!

I'm still super nervous that our boy is somehow going to end up being a girl at our next ultrasound... but both the doctor and the tech (who looked separately!) seemed pretty sure he's a boy in there!

I'm also a little nervous about the prospect of being a mommy to a boy, but we're excited! We just have to get though the issue of names (Karl and I have differing opinions here), circumcision, and somehow coming up with a bunch of boy stuff, since all we've got are very feminine items... But I'm sure it's going to be great! 

Time for a little blue in our princess castle ;)

10 1/2 Hours...

First off, happy 1st day of October! So excited for this month!!

Secondly, we have an ultrasound tomorrow (in almost exactly 10 1/2 hours)!!! I'm super excited to see baby, but I'm trying really hard not to get my hopes up about finding out whether we have another girly on the way or if we're getting a little bit more testosterone in our house!

They MIGHT not even look, and even if they do, the baby MIGHT no cooperate, and even if baby does, it MIGHT be inaccurate still at this point... So yeah... Trying to prepare myself for the worst, but it's not really working.

For most of this pregnancy I've been pretty convinced this kid was a boy. I don't particularly want a boy more than a girl or anything, but for some reason I just had it in my head that it was a boy. Every time I thought about baby I would just automatically use "him/he". The last couple weeks though, I've been starting to get unsure! I've had two separate people tell me (based on our last ultrasound/how I'm carrying) that it's a girl, so I've been trying to prepare myself to wrap my head around that outcome, and now I just don't know!

This is like the complete opposite of how it went with Evie. I had no feelings or intuition about her gender forEVER. People kept asking me what I thought and I felt so lame saying that I had no idea. Then, the week or so before the ultrasound, I started feeling "girl", still not superly firm in my mind, but I was getting a girly vibe.

Garg! I just don't know what to think this time around!

Luckily, neither Karl nor I have super strong feelings either way. A boy would be awesome, since we don't have one of those, it would be cool to try it out! It would be nice for Karl to have a boy to be more manly with too, but we've also identified some downsides... On the other hand, we know girls are awesome, we know how to deal with them, and we have all the stuff we need for one already, so that would be cool too. And it would be cute for Evie to have a sister.

Either way, we're happy. The thing I'm not happy about, is the waiting!! Let's see if I can get any sleep tonight!

16 Weeks and Feelin' Big ;)

This baby has officially made it's presence known to the world... Lol, definitely no hiding it now ;) Surprisingly, I'm still at my pre-pregnancy weight. I'm having a hard time gaining, though it certainly doesn't show, haha.

Also, while I'm here, I think I should mention a bit about cravings... This whole pregnancy I've only really wanted savory type things (well, during those brief periods when I've wanted anything at all), unlike Evie's pregnancy where what I wanted was all things SUGARY.

Right now what I'm going to call my cravings (but might be more like the only things I feel like eating), are J.J.B.L.T.s (from Jimmy John's) with cheese, onion, and oil & vinegar, and Starbursts (seriously, my favorite candy in the world right now).

Just thought I'd throw that out there, you know, in case anyone ever wants to make the the crazy pregnant lady happy... haha

Surreality, Pt. II

Getting close to 16 weeks and I'm still having a hard time really connecting with this pregnancy... I can't seem to keep myself excited about the whole thing, because most of the time I don't even feel pregnant. It's not that I am not intensely aware of my many pregnancy symptoms or that I don't look extremely pregnant (the belly has more than definitely "popped"!), but I just don't relate it all to the fact that I'm pregnant. 

I want this baby and I'm happy for this pregnancy, but for some reason it just hasn't clicked in my head. I've even seen baby moving around in there and I haven't gotten it yet. I have an ultrasound pic of our little-one in a frame in our living room, but when I look at it I seriously could be looking at someone else's ultrasound, I really don't have any feelings there yet. 

My brain also really can't grasp the idea that I'm going to be a mommy (again) in just a few months! This time next year I'm going to have a toddler AND a baby, and it just doesn't seem real! I think I may be in denial, haha.

I'm trying to remember how things went with Evie, but maybe I'm comparing a little too much. I know that by the time we had her ultrasound and found out she was a girl, I had a pretty good "bond" with her, but I forget that wasn't until 20 weeks and that was right around the time I finally started feeling her move. This time around I got to see baby so much earlier and haven't felt any movement so far. I'm thinking that's when it's really going to hit me. 

The other problem I think I'm having is that I just don't have the mental energy to spend on this pregnancy that I did with Evie's. I have to devote most of my brain power to the child who needs (sooooo much of) my active attention, plus there are so many "family issues" that are taking up my attention (well, stress), so I really don't have much to spare for daydreaming and bonding with the kid who doesn't remind me he/she is there every two seconds.

We've got two ultrasounds coming up in the next few weeks, so hopefully we'll get to know a little more about who this little person is, and I'm hoping to start feeling him/her soon!

I'm sure that in the next month or so reality will finally set in, to some extent, I just feel a little bit like a terrible mom in the mean time!

2nd Trimester

Today I celebrated finally reaching my second trimester by vomiting while Evie patted me on the back...

shouting: "Spank your bum!! Spank your bum!!"

*sigh*

Morning sickness is definitely a different experience with a toddler in tow ;)

Dancing in the Rain

We had a HUGE rainstorm today! Like, pouring rain, flood causing, non-stop thunder and lighting, micro-burst winds, and power-outages kind of a storm! 

Evie and I had been waiting for Karl to get home from work, when I thought I heard it raining outside. I thought it might be kind of fun to go play in the rain for a bit, so Evie and I went out to take a look at things. To my surprise, things were kind of crazy out there! I managed to get Evie to come in for a bit, but she kept insisting on going back to play outside. Luckily, things weren't too bad when we went out, and they didn't get quite as scary at our house as they did in other parts of the valley, but I was still super nervous even being on our sheltered little doorstep! 

We got drenched and I had to keep bringing Evie inside, but once things calmed down, we had a ton of fun dancing and playing in the rain!

 

I've decided that being a kid in a rainstorm is one of the best things to be ;)