My ribs hurt!

Ok, so I can't tell if my rib pain is from Olivia's little feet or from them feeling like they are collapsing when I lay on my side. I think both! They hurt at night when I lay on my side, but they also start randomly hurting during the day when I am upright now. I think little Livy isn't so little anymore and she is kicking away in there. She is apparently more than a foot long now and weighs more than a pound. And when she's kicking and moving around (which is a bunch!) I REALLY feel it!

Other than that, I had a doctors appt today. Everything looked good (weight and measurements), but my iron is a little low and if it is low again next time, I'll have to start taking supplements. . . yuck! I guess now's as good a time as any to get over my aversion to red meat (left over from the morning sickness era) and start eating more of it! Olivia's heartbeat was strong and they found it right away - 150 beats/min - perfect!

My next appointment is the biggie! (March 31st) I'll have the ultrasound to check on that misbehaving placenta of mine and that will pretty much determine how the rest of the pregnancy will go. If it has moved, then everything will be normal. If not - then I may have more restrictions and will have another ultrasound every 3 weeks thereafter to check on it - but usually if it is going to move, it will have moved by that point (week 28). And if it never moves, I'll wind up with having a C-Section around week 37 (right around my 30th birthday!)

I will also have my glucose screening that day - to determine if I have gestational diabetes. I REALLY hope that comes up negative because I DO NOT want to live without my sweets - but especially not my starchy foods! Wish me luck with that whole appointment - that one is going to stress me out.

I've got the Cruds!

Ok, so I'm sick and it sucks! Grant was sick last week and I was fine . . . so I thought I escaped! But, nope, didn't escape. These germies just layed around dormant somewhere and a couple days ago - they attacked!! I look like rudolf, I've been blowing my nose constantly! And, of course, you can't take any of the good stuff when your pregnant so I'm taking what I can. Anyway, now that I've done my complaining for the day let me tell you what we've been up to.

Ok, so we did our registries this week at Babies-R-Us and at Target. There are a lot of items on each one because we half don't know what we are doing. But it's done and I'm glad for that. Other than doing the registry thing this week and being sick, not a lot else has been going on. Olivia Rose has been moving around quite a lot every day now. It is all still really strange to me when she hasn't moved in a while and I almost feel normal . . . then she moves and I'm going - "wait a minute, there's a little person in my belly!!!" The whole concept is really odd, but very cool! Grant gets to feel her regularly now and that's cool, too!

Aside from that, I'd like to congratulate my brother, Sean, and Camille on closing on their very first house this week! It has been a long road to getting it, but they have it and are moving in this weekend! I know they are excited and we are all very excited for them!! Can't wait to get back into town to see it all.

Here's what's coming up:

I've got another doctor's appt. on Monday afternoon. It's just a check-up, so there will be no new news on the placenta issue, but I'll get to hear the heartbeat and they'll check me out. Next weekend my parents are going to come help us get the nursery ready (paint, put up a chair rail & wanescoting). I'm really excited about seeing it all done! Now, just to wait for the furniture to come . . . then Olivia! :) We were supposed to do this a couple weekends ago, but little Drew decided to FINALLY show up that weekend and we were glad to postpone, then my parents are helping my brother move into his new house this weekend! (Sean, don't break dad - I need him next weekend! :)

Well, I hope everyone is doing well and staying away from the cruds! Take care and thanks for all the fun comments!

A Rose

Ok, so Grant and I have been doing some thinking and tossing around some things. We think that it is important for our little ones to have names that mean something and are more than just "cute" names. We are definately set on "Olivia" as her first name, but we have decided to change her middle name. It's not that we didn't like "Anne." We have decided to change her middle name to "Rose" after my mother's middle name. I have always liked Rose and Grant does too. We really wanted Olivia to have a strong family connection and since my mom has always been wonderful and already is a wonderful grandmother to my niece and nephews, we decided to name Olivia after her.

I already know that if/when we have a boy, his middle name will be "Houston" after Grant and his father. This way, Olivia will also have a family connection - and be named after her loving Grandma Noreen Rose!

So, now her new name will be: Olivia Rose Nelson

A couple more pics of Drew

Here is the happy new family!

Here is the proud mama!

Welcome Andrew Alan Nelson!

Drew is finally here! He really didn't want to join us in the real world. It only took an extra 11 days to go into labor then 30-something hours of labor to convince him, but he's here and he's adorable!

Here are his stats:

Andrew Alan Nelson (aka: Drew)

Born at: 10:15 am on February 16, 2008

8 lbs, 3 oz

21" long

Here he is a couple hours after delivery - already pulling for the Pack!!!
And, here's the proud papa! Well, it has been a long delivery for Chad and Becca, but very good end results. There was a lot of stress and worrying going on in that 30-something hours. Here's a brief rundown of the events.

They went into labor thursday night/friday morning and arrived at the hospital around 2:30am (2 cm), they didn't even get into their own room until around lunchtime. They started her on pitocin around 2:30pm. Around 4:00pm, she was about 3-4 cm dilated. We got into town around 7 and she was still only ~4cm dilated. We stayed there for an hour or so visiting and decided that we needed to eat and let them get some rest so we left and Chad was going to call us if it looked like it was going to happen.

Apparently around 4am this morning, she finally got to 10cm (after an increase in pitocin) and they wanted to start pushing. She pushed for 2 hours to no avail. He was face up instead of face down so he was having trouble coming out. They stopped her from pushing because she was exhausted and her epidural was wearing off. A couple hours later they tried again. 2 more hours of pushing and still nothing.

So . . . around 9:30am they decided they would try to use forcepts and if that didn't work they would move right to a C-Section. They took her into the OR and tried to use forcepts to get him out. Still nothing. (stubborn little guy!), they wound up delivering him by C-Section at 10:15 am. It was a long, long road - but he is here and he and momma are healthy and doing well.

Congratulations Chad and Becca! He is adorable!

(Olivia - let's not follow in their delivery footsteps, let's be more like Sara and Randy and just come on out easily and maybe even a little early! :)

Drew-watch update!

Ok, so here's the latest update on the whole 'Drew's missing in action' subject. Becca had an appt. yesterday afternoon and she was dilated only 1 cm (still progress) but they went ahead and scheduled her for induction for Tuesday morning in case he didn't arrive on his own before then. However, to try to make him show up in the meantime, they "stripped her membranes." Apparently this is a layer of membrane that holds everything in - one more layer to bust through. So by stripping this, it should make labor come on quicker. I read up on it last night on one of the prego websites and they all said that if you are close to going into labor anyway, you should go into full blown labor within 72 hours (or sooner), but if you aren't then it may not work. So I went to bed with a little prayer for them (as I'm sure the rest of the family did) and we just got a call from Chad. Drew is on his way! Yeah!!!

Apparently she was woken up with bad contractions about 2 1/2 minutes apart at around 2:30 this morning and they didn't ease up so they took her in. She was only 2 cm when they last checked her at 4am, but since she is making progress and she is past 41 weeks, they are pretty sure they will keep her. So . . . I have a text into Mom and Dad to call me when they get up (no sense in waking them up this early!) and I'll let them know not to pack - we'll be headed there when Grant gets done at work. The nursery can wait!

Becca - we wish you a quick (not too quick so we don't miss it, but we understand :) and relatively painless delivery so you can finally see the cutie you've been hiding in your belly! Congratulations, Chad and Becca! Can't wait to meet him.

I'll post a good picture of him for you all to see, once he has arrived.

Yeah!

Drew, where are you???

Ok, so still no baby Drew! Poor Becca! He is now 9 days late and has everyone's full attention - so now would be a great time to make his grand appearance! Hopefully we'll wind up in huntersville this weekend to see him and Mom and Dad can just come next weekend to do the nursery with us.

Anyway, so Grant started back at work this week . . . and what a week it has been for him so far! Sunday he had a bit of a fever and has come down with a bad cold or something (just in time to start back to work). THEN on tuesday morning (his REALLY early morning) he came back into the bedroom at around 6 in the morning, and told me that his car wouldn't start. GREAT!! So, I let him take mine since I could do most of my stuff from home that day (except for the meeting I had to go to in Wilson - 45 miles away!!!). So I called my boss and he came to my rescue. He came by and helped get the battery out, which was like an act of congress. Apparently with the European cars, they really don't make it user-friendly to get batteries in and out of a car. Besides the battery being the largest one we'd ever seen, we had to remove some rubber molding - just to free up the large plastic frame that covered the battery and the whole back end of the hood. Then there was this crazy allen wrench bolt holding the bottom of the battery in place - which would have been fine except that you couldn't get to the stinkin' thing to uncrew it. So . . . a half an hour later, my boss and I had the thing out of the car and we were running late for our meetings. Ugh! So we put the battery in his car and headed off to Wilson. After our meeting, we got a new one at walmart and it didn't take us nearly as long to put it all back together once we had figured it out (and bought longer allen wrenches to assist us!!). So, half of my day was spent toying around with that and I didn't get a whole lot more done. But he has a working car again and successfully drove it to and from work today.

I did find out that my brother is quitting smoking . . . finally! I am sooo glad. I have been waiting for this day forever. He apparently just decided that it was time to quit on Saturday and has been doing pretty good with it. He's only had 3-4 cigarettes a day since then and seems really serious about quitting this time! :) Best of luck with that, Sean. And he is thinking about going to college to use his GI bill. So I was talking with him quite a bit about that. He just needs to figure out what to major in. That would be great for him to be able to have a real career that can take him into the future - one that doesn't involve lifting really heavy things and lots of physical labor. Anyway, I wish him luck with that, as well. Lots of changes for them!

Aside from all of that, not much has been going on here. Olivia has taken to sticking her foot in my ribs now - not fun! (not to mention that she is still kicking my bladder every chance she gets). Now if I can only figure out how to get a comfortable night's sleep, we'll be doing good.

Well, that's about all for now. Keep your fingers crossed that little Drew will decide that tonight's the night! :)

He can walk!!

Ok, so sorry it has been more than a week from my last posting, but we've been pretty busy this week. First of all . . . Grant was cleared to begin bearing weight on his leg on Tuesday - so NO MORE CRUTCHES!!! This is wonderful for soooo many reasons: he can carry things himself now and I don't have to follow him around with his food/drinks, he can assist with chores (i.e. cat litter and vacuuming), he is more independent in general . . . oh, yeah and HE CAN WALK! He is doing well with it, though his leg is very sore now from not being used in so long and is not very strong yet. He's going to have a rough Monday when he has to go back to work for a full day!

Other than that, we are waiting for the phone call from Grant's brother telling us that Becca has gone into labor. She was due on Monday and no baby Drew yet! We are hoping it happens soon so we can go down there and see them, otherwise if it happens after Sunday morning, we won't be able to go until next weekend since it will be Grant's first week back at work! Keep your fingers crossed on that one!

This morning we re-visited one of the daycares we are considering and need to check back with the other one sometime to make our decision between them. We may have another possible option besides the daycare route, but we're still figuring that one out. I'll keep you all posted if we go that route - with more details!

Sara and I went out to the outlets in Smithfield this afternoon and got some cute new maternity tops I can wear to work and got a couple cute little outfits for Olivia (THEY HAVE LAMBS ON THEM!!!). We have our shelves for the nursery closet done, but not hung yet. Maybe we can get that done this weekend (if we are in town).

Other than that, I am still doing pretty well. Not enjoying having to sleep on my side and not sleeping well because of it. So, been pretty tired lately. Olivia seems to be doing well, still. She has started doing full fledged sumersaults lately and as I am typing this she is kicking me square in the bladder . . . "Livy, it's not nice to kick mommy's bladder!"

Well, that's about all for now. I'll try to write more often. For now, I need to head off to the bathroom!!! (thanks, Olivia!)

20 Weeks - Half way there!

Hey there everyone! Ok, so as of yesterday, we are officially half way there! Yeah! I can definately tell that she (i.e. "I") am growing at a rapid pace these days. All my books say that she is having a growth spurt and if you haven't seen me in a while - you'll definately notice that so have I!! (See pics below!). Apparently she is supposed to weigh about 8 ounces and be about 6 1/2 inches long now. One of my websites says she's about the size of a coconut this week!! wow!

Ok, so here are the 20-week belly shots for your viewing pleasure:

Ok, so here's what's been going on other than me growing like crazy. So, before I said that I was starting to feel her move a bit. Well, her little flutters have turned into pokes and then into pokes directly into my bladder!!! What in the world! She's already started giving direct hits to my bladder - that is sooo not cool! I've tried to reason with her and let her know that it is not nice to kick mommy in the bladder - but she seems to be just as stubborn as her mother. Ugh, kids these days! :)

AND the best part is that Grant felt her for the first time on Sunday night. It was very cool for him. She was going to town in there and he must have felt her kick at least a dozen times. I'm so glad that I can share that with him now. Her kicks (even those to the bladder) are very comforting with everything else going on. Now I at least know that she is still happy and doing well in there on a regular basis.

Other than that, the bedding that we ordered from Grant's parents came in and it is BEAUTIFUL! We both love the bedding and are so glad that we picked that one out. And the mobile is adorable with the little lambs on it. - Thanks Susan and Alan! Now I just can't wait to get the nursery put together and get the furniture to put the bedding on it! Her room is going to be great!

We are also expecting to hear from Chad, Grant's brother any day now when Becca goes into labor with little Drew. She is due on Feb 4th (Monday) and we can't wait to meet him. I know that they are excited to meet him, as well and Grant's parents are DYING to become grandparents for the first time. Best of luck Chad and Becca - can't wait to get the news that Drew is on his way! :)

Well, that's about all that is going on here. I still have about a month until my next appointment - which is just a checkup. Grant's follow-up appointment for his knee is Tuesday, so hopefully after that, he'll be able to start "learning" how to walk again. I joke, but I'm sure his leg is going to wonder what on earth is going on when he puts weight on it and tries to use it after 6 weeks of not using it at all. I'm sure he'll be up and around on it in no time since he is sooo anxious use it again! I'll let you guys know how his appointment goes.

Until next time, take care.