30 WEEKS?!

Wow.  I am 30 weeks pregnant.  30 WEEKS!  (Now technically 30 weeks and 3 days.) Each week just flies by!  I think I have said it before, but this has been a great pregnancy for me.  Other than the obvious weight gain and blah blah blah I have felt great for the most part.  Obviously I have experienced all the aches and pains, but that is just the wonderful side to pregnancy.  And yes, I really do mean the wonderful side.  Call me crazy, but I have enjoyed the aches and pains, and ligament stretching, and all of that fun stuff.  Well....maybe enjoyed is not the right word.  But I haven't minded any of it.  There are times that my sciatic nerve kills, and I get a lot of pubic bone pain, and of course the cramping.  But I am one lucky girl.  This means that my baby is growing and that makes me happy :)

I have been so lucky for a number of reasons.  Let me just list them briefly...

*We are able to get pregnant, first off.  I know how hard it can be.

*I never threw up during my pregnancy, at all.  Hopefully I don't jinx it.

*I haven't had major heartburn.  I think my Tums count is up to 4.

*Our little BOY is healthy, and as far as we know, everything looks great!

*Sometimes when I am at work, I hear of stories and I can get paranoid.  I am lucky enough to be able to use the doppler on myself to listen to his precious heartbeat.

*I have been able to sleep with very little discomfort.

There are a lot more reasons to be so lucky, but those are a few.

So, since I haven't been the best at documenting things, I am just going to name off a few things that I can remember about this pregnancy so I don't forget them.

*At the beginning of my pregnancy, I despised the smell of meat.  I couldn't brown hamburger.... Scott couldn't eat his chicken (from a can) sandwiches.... it was all too much for me.  Eggs made me gag also.

*Other than Taco Bell and Costa Vida, I haven't wanted any type of mexican food or chinese food.  Which has been hard for Scott because he LOVES El Toro Viejo, and any chinese place.

*February 23, 2013 was the first time I felt more than just a single jab from my little boy.  And that was the first time I KNEW for a fact that it was him moving inside of me.  I was at the temple with Scott's family going through with Dakota for the first time.  I felt a jab, kind of like popcorn popping inside of me, and I thought to myself, "Okay if this is the baby, I need a little more reassurance!"  And right after thinking that he moved again, again, and again.  I was so excited!  I was 22 and a half weeks along. 

*Cravings?  Initially, I craved Raisin Bran, and Ice Cream (which is weird because I always choose salty over sweet.) Throughout the whole pregnancy, I have loved cold cereal.  Raisin Bran, Coco Roos, and Honey Bunches of Oats have been my favorite.  Usually I don't eat much cereal.  Now, I could eat any of those, as long as I have a banana to cut up and throw in also.  I never can get enough fruit, sandwiches,  and pizza--I constantly want them.

*The second week in March (I believe) was when Scott started feeling him kick for the first time.  I was 25 weeks.  I think he could have felt him earlier, but he wasn't sure what it felt like.  I could put my hand up to my stomach and feel him earlier.  Oh, and he loves to kick (or punch) my bladder.  I get these funny spasms of REALLY having to pee when he does.  He already is a silly boy.

*He is extremely active at night!  He kicks up a storm--I love to feel him moving inside me, there is no better feeling.  I go to sleep feeling him, and I usually wake up feeling him also.  One night when we were going to bed, we decided to play him some tunes.  Scott puts his phone on my belly and we introduced him to 3 songs by the Beatles.  "Hey Jude," "Here Comes the Sun," and "Let It Be."  He loved it and was kicking a ton.  We think he loves the Beatles as much as his Daddy :)  We have played other songs for him since and he doesn't kick as much.  (It's probably just coincidence...) 

*We STILL don't have any baby boy names narrowed down.  There are a few that Scott likes, and like, 10 that I like.  But we are having such a hard time agreeing.  Our goal is to have 2 names by the time he is born, so that we can choose one of the two that we feel suits him best.  Please bless that happens!  I'm starting to get nervous about it...

*I have been horrible at documenting pregnancy pictures.  Mainly because I'm not the biggest fan of taking pictures of myself growing.  But I will put them up so I can have some to remember :) I only have 5 pictures total. 

We didn't even take any photos of my before week 20.  

22 Weeks 

25 Weeks.  This picture shows that my backside is also growing...lucky me :)

28 Weeks

30 Weeks.  The latest photo.

*Not only has my stomach gotten bigger, but my legs and backside have also.  It's at times really frustrating, but I try not to worry about it seeing as I feel like I'm doing the best I can to stay healthy.  I will just have to find motivation to lose it all after our little man is born.

*This week I have started having trouble breathing a little bit more.  I run out of breath a lot faster than I used to.  Scott and I were walking yesterday and he said to me, "This is the first time I feel like you're acting like you're pregnant."  Because of me running out of breath.  It is sometimes hard to get a full breath of air in also.  Just another perk of prgnancy :)

*Scott has been great through the whole thing.  He is going to be a great dad.  He is always looking out for me to make sure that I am comfortable, and that I have what I need.  He loves to feel him kicking, and he loves to talk to him as well.  He is already very protective of our little guy--even down to the music we show him :)  It's so great to watch.  He is excited to be able to spend some "guy time" together once our baby is born.

Well, that is all I can think of to post for right now.  Hopefully that covers it.  Being pregnant is such a blessing.  I'm glad the Lord has blessed us with such a precious gift.  It makes me extremely nervous to think that in 10 weeks (give or take) we will have a precious life to take care of.  I am so excited for it, but it is still unfathomable in my brain.  It just still seems so surreal.  Even when he is wiggling, I know that there is a little boy in my belly, but it's so hard to comprehend.  I'm excited, scared, nervous, anxious, and happier than happy all at the same time.

20-Week Ultrasound

Where has the time gone?!  This pregnancy has flown by lately.  When I hit my 30 week mark on Monday a little anxiety hit and it still hasn't gone away.  I am shocked that this has gone by so quickly.  The first trimester was the only slow part about it.  The second flew by and now here I am, 10 weeks from having a little baby BOY!  What the....

I believe that last time I posted was in January when I was around 18 weeks.  I am so awful at documenting stuff :(  I really need to be better so that I don't forget everything about this pregnancy.

We had our ultrasound on February 6, 2013 to find out what gender our baby was.  At this time, I was 20 weeks and two days.  I worked the night before, came home, and barely could sleep because I was so excited.  I couldn't stop thinking about it.  Our appointment was at 13:30.  We got there and the tech began showing us everything there was to see about him.  

She started from the top and went all the way down.  She showed us the brain, and how there were two hemispheres, and the cerebellum. She showed us the face, (eye sockets, nose, chin, etc..) She showed us the heart and the four different chambers.  We could see the valves opening and closing. (which I think is amazing!)  She showed us the aorta.  She then showed us the whole stomach, the bladder, and the cord.  She then asked if we wanted to know the sex of the baby, which....OF COURSE WE DID!!  <>  As she was trying to see the "parts," our little one wouldn't stop moving around.  The tech very camly said, "this is a boy".  And Scott and I couldn't have been more thrilled!  We both giggled because we were quite giddy.  We could finally stop calling the baby an "it" and call him a "him" now!  She then moved down and showed us his cute little legs, and his femur bone.  She showed us his feet, and his cord, and again his boy parts.  We saw his kidneys, his spine, his ribs, and his neck.  She then showed me all of my woman parts on the screen, and said my cervix, and placenta looked great!

After she went through that, she went back through and took photos of everything all over again.  She was using the 3D and 4D machines to look at him.  In the 4D one he looked so scronny and tiny, which of course is normal for 20 weeks. Our little boy started wiggling like crazy-- Scott asked if I could feel him wiggling around, and I couldn't.  She told me it wasn't unusual because my placenta was in the front, so he would have to kick through the placenta to get to my stomach to where I could feel him.  She told me to give it a couple of weeks to grow and get stronger, and I would start feeling him more.  I had felt him only a small handful of times from about 18-20 weeks, and I still wasn't even sure if that was him...  So I was happy to hear why it was taking me so long :)

These are the pictures she got of him.  I wish she would have taken the pictures as she went along the first time--they definitely were better of his face, and boy parts.  But we will take them!

There is his boy parts, along with the chord, his leg, and his stomach/ribs

Face shot

Another face shot--with his sweet fingers up by his face

The tiny little arrow is pointing to the penis.  This is a view if you were looking straight down from the top of his head

We left the ultrasound feeling extremely happy!  On our way to tell my parents, we called Toni and told her.  We then called Cody and Chel and told them. We decided to just show our families the ultrasound pictures that we got and told them to guess.  That didn't work out so great because the second my dad asked a question about what he was looking at, I said, "Well, there's his legs, and there's his head..." and my mom said, wait....HIS?  Haha dang it--I gave it away.  My parents were happy for us, and my mom was surprised it wasn't a girl.

We drove to Jana's work to show her the pictures, and this time I decided to keep my mouth shut and not even explain the photos to her.  She had a hard time guessing.  I don't remember if she finally said boy or if Scott told her, but she was sooo happy.  She always knew it would be a boy.

We then went to Neil and Andrea's and showed them the photos.  I believe Andrea saw that it was a boy before anyone.  We also set up the ultrasound DVD that they gave us, and the family watched that.   It was fun!  On our way home from that, we called Bethany and Kacee and told them.  Of course, they were excited also :)

This is how we told the rest of the world:

Kind of a fun idea.  I like it anyways :)

We couldn't be more thrilled to be having a boy!  It was the best feeling in the entire world to be able to see him and know that he is growing perfectly, and that he has the parts he needs to survive and function.  It was beyond relieving.  We are so blessed!

This is our ultrasound that the Dr's office gave us for those of you who are interested.  This is very near and dear to our hearts so I hope you enjoy it.  There aren't any words.  Thank goodness Scott recorded the ultrasound with our DSLR camera so we can remember everything the tech showed us.  I just haven't found a way to upload that yet.  Hopefully this video works.

Vegas Vacay

Well, once again it has been a long time since I blogged.  Maybe because since it's been winter, I haven't felt the need to post because winter is boring and nothing has really changed a whole ton for us since?  I dunno.  

The first week in March, we had the opportunity to go to Las Vegas for a little bit of a vacation.  Vegas was hosting "Heli Expo" this year, and Scott and a bunch of his schoolmates all decided to head down and check it out.  Heli Expo is basically a yearly get-together of everyone in the business.  There is a broad range of things that are at heli expo.  There are education courses for pilots, displays of the newest helicopter technology, heli vendors come to sell their helicopters, etc.  It's a pretty great way to start putting yourself out there and meeting others in the industry.  So we decided it would be good for Scott to go.

Basically I just wanted a little vacation away from the weather.  I didn't go to Heli Expo, but since I crave the warmth and sunshine on a daily basis, I was just along for the ride.

We drove down and one of Scott's heli buddies named Clint drove with us.  We had booked a hotel at a hotel called The Quad.  It was where a few of the other students were planning on staying.  It was super cheap so we kinda figured it would be quite the dump.  So, we dropped Clint off at his hotel, and got to the Quad at around midnight on Sunday night. We didn't have the best experience there, let's just say.  We ended up waiting in the check in line for 45 minutes (at midnight!), we got sent to a room that wasn't ours, and we were told that their pool was not open.  Bummer for me.  So, by the time we got into our room, we decided that we didn't want to stay there anymore.  Clint said that the LVH was nice and the pool was open, and it just happened to be right next to the Convention Center where Heli Expo was at this year.  So, we picked up our luggage, and headed over to the Las Vegas Hilton.  Yes, we surely did at 2:00 am.  Crazy?  Yes.  But in the end, we were happier.  They gave us a great room at a great price for the 4 nights we were there... and it was a much better hotel, and their pool was open, and I had the car to go wherever I wanted while Scott was at the Expo, so obviously I was a happy gal.

Our trip was pretty simple, but it was great at the same time.  Scott went to the Expo everyday until around 5 that evening, while I hung out by the pool and soaked up the warm weather, and shopped around at the outlet malls.  It was super relaxing for me--I enjoyed it immensely. 

Scott has an enjoyable time at the expo, but I could tell he was a little stressed out.  The reality of taking the right steps in becoming a helicopter pilot is pretty intense.  I'll explain:  When Scott finishes his schooling withe Mountain Ridge, he will have 200 hours of flying experience under his belt.  The majority of companies will not hire you until you have about 1,000 hours of flying experience.  So the part that stresses him out the most is what he is going to do in between those times to get hours.  Many pilots are able to become flight instructors (CFI's) at the school they graduated from...but some don't.  That's the stressful part.  So he really has had to work hard in meeting a lot of people, being social, and putting himself out there. (Yes, even this early in his schooling.)  But he seemed to do well from what I saw :)  He went to a couple of education classes, talked with some different people in the industry about the routes they took to get where they are today, and he got to see some amazing helicopters (of course).  It was time and money well spent.  

After Scott would get done with the Expo, we would have the evenings to spend with each other.  This usually included meeting up with students/instructors from the school.  We got together for pizza and hanging out one night at the Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino, we all also had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, and the Hard Rock Cafe... We walked along the strip a couple of times and watched the show at Treasure Island, and we walked up Freemont Street, which was thoroughly entertaining, and of course we had to check out the Pawn Stars shop.

It was fun to meet a bunch of Scott's classmates, and their wives.  It gave me the opportunity to relate to other wives who understand what it's like to have a husband in flight school.  It was great to meet them.

All in all, Heli Expo was a success.  It was great to get away for a few days and be able to enjoy the Helicopters, and the warmth :)