21 week update

I'm 21 weeks today.  In the past week I've changed doctors and hired a doula...all very good changes I feel.  I feel so confident and good about the care I will be receiving.  Baby girl is doing well.  At today's checkup, she was very active.  She kept moving around as the doctor tried to listen to her heart beat.  I couldn't feel a bit of her activity though a few time each day I will feel her little flutter movements.  The only thing is I keep losing weight with each appointment - down about 7 lbs now.  While normally this would be very exciting news, isn't one is supposed to gain weight while pregnant.  I am eating and haven't had nausea or been sick.  All is well with baby, though, and in all her sonograms she's measuring right where she should be.  The doctor didn't say a thing about it so I guess I can be happy about my weight loss.

Melony and baby movements

This morning Matt & I were making our daily smoothie for breakfast.  We put half a cantaloupe in the smoothie today.  When I tasted it I said, "Wow!  This smoothie is very melony tasting."  Matt responded and said, "I guess that's a name we won't want for our baby...Melanie."  I commented - that's a clever play on words but why wouldn't we want the name Melanie?  Matt, being a man, responded - if she has big boobs and she's named Melanie (Melony) that wouldn't be good.  Ha, ha, ha!

I think I have been feeling the baby move over the past week...feels like little beats down where she is.  Like clockwork, whenever I lay down in bed at night I can feel quite a few movements.  Occasionally I'll feel something that I initially think might be gas but realize it's not and is probably that little thing doing a somersault or rolling over inside me.  Pretty cool is what I have to say about that right now!  Also reassuring to know that I don't have to wait for doctor appts to hear a heart beat and know she's alive inside me.

Pregnancy Pics and baby pics

I had Matt start taking some pictures to track my pregnancy at 16 weeks.  Here are the pictures since then.  Mostly I think I look chubby, chubbier and really chubby and then finally maybe more pregnant than fat.

16 weeks

17 weeks - not a good week for me and pictures

18 weeks

19 weeks and really chubby

20 weeks

Saving the best for last...

Look at this cute little girl!  Looks like her Dad!

Spring Break 2013

For Spring Break this year, we flew the girls to Dallas and we drove down.  We were there for over a week total.  We had such a great time with the girls and with family.  Here are a few pictures of our adventures.

One of the days we took the girls to the new Perot Natural Science Museum in downtown Dallas.  It was packed...tons of people there.  I'm not and never really have been interested in science but Matt and the girls are.  It thought it was okay.  I think they thought it was okay too.

Matt, Lynzee and Abbey using their brain skills in the life science section of the museum.  Matt & Abbey are playing ping pong with their brain and Lynzee is trying to write her name viewing through a mirror.

 

The next day we drove about 2 hours south of Plano to Fossil Rim - a very cool wild animal park.  Matt and the girls have been there before but it's been a few years.  This was my first time.  It's about a 9 mile drive through the park and most of the animals roam free.  As we drove up and saw the animals behind the fence I got really excited.  I guess I must quite reserved around the girls because Abbey thought my exclamation of excitement was pretty funny.  Here are lots of pics of our adventures that day.  This really is the coolest place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a short drive from the wild animal park was a nuclear power plant.  Matt is fascinated by them and wanted to drive by it.  We could only get as close as the security gate so spent a few minutes in the visitor center instead.

On Thursday, we went to East Texas with Matt's mom and Grandfather.  East Texas is where Jody's parents are both from and where Matt's grandmother is buried.  I loved this trip because Pops was with us and shared so much great family history information.  There is a great cemetery near Winnsboro called Pine Hill.  This is where Nannie is buried and where up to 25% of the people buried there are either Pops's family or Nannie's family.  After Winnsboro and lunch, we drove down to Grice Texas where Pops's grandfather settled after serving in the Civil War.  He was from Alabama so he fought in the Confederacy.  Grice Texas is named for Pops's grandfather, John Jackson (J.J.) Grice.  I loved this trip so much.  We learned a lot, spent some great time together, felt connected with all the people we learned about and the girls even got to have some adventures.  We searched the Grice cemetery for Pops's grandmother Grice's headstone.  Lynzee found it and Abbey helped do a rubbing so we could make out what was written on the headstone.

Pine Hill Cemetery

Nannie's headstone

The home that Nannie lived in Winnsboro

Downton Abbey Weekend

The third weekend in March, I drove out to the St. Louis area to spend the weekend with Matt's sister, Jo Anna.  We had been wanting to watch Downton Abbey together and Jo Anna had purchased the discs.  That weekend in March was the first we were both available.  We watched Downton Abbey all day...taking breaks long enough for lunch and dinner.  It was great!  On Sunday, March 17th, I was driving home and listening to some Irish music.  I was so excited to see Matt that I was going faster than I should have been going.  I was taking an exit off one freeway to the last freeway before I would be home.  I must have not slowed down much.  Speed in addition to wet roads (b/c of rain) caused me to lose control of my car on the exit ramp.  It was the weirdest experience...realizing that I had lost control and realizing that nothing I did would make me regain control and that I just needed to let the car do it's thing.  Luckily there were no cars around me and it was a rural part of the city.  The car was going off the exit ramp to the right and there was lots of grass and a slight hill.  I just let the car go and come to a stop in the ditch on its own.  I didn't hit anything and my car was fine...just dirty.  A couple in a sedan immediately stopped and asked if I needed help.  There was a couple of feet of muddy water just outside my door so I really couldn't get out of the car but I let them know I was just fine and would just drive out and be on my way.  They hesitatingly drove off and I tried to drive my car back onto the road without any luck.  Before I could do anything another couple in a Yukon stopped and asked if I needed help to get out.  My first response was "No, I'll call my husband and he can help me.  I live really close."  But the man said that he had the equipment in his car and could hook me up and pull me out.  So, he did.  I was very grateful and was on my way home before Matt had a time to get out the door.  (I had called him and told him what happened).  I am so lucky, blessed, everything...it could have been so much worse but it wasn't and for that I am very grateful.  My car fared the worst...lots of mud all over.  You can't really tell in the picture but there is grass and mud stuck in the wheel wells.

Kidney Stones...and the Atonement

The beginning of last month I had the worst pain in my right back.  No matter what I did, the pain was there. It started out on Sunday morning and we ended up missing Stake Conference that day.  The pain got quite a bit better and we had some friends over for dinner...as we had planned.  Then, after work on Monday the pain came back...bad.  So bad, we finally decided to go to the hospital.  We got there late and were the only ones in the ER.  We were there for about 2-3 hours and the best they could diagnose was kidney stones.  They had on IV pain killers and kept giving me doses because nothing was helping with the pain.  We had a long sonogram session as that was the only way to get a look inside.  We had lots of looks at the baby.  Anyway, after awhile they sent us home with a percoset prescription.  Thank goodness for a fairly close 24-hour pharmacy.  Matt was tired to start out with and was exhausted by the time we got home - between 1 & 2 am.  He had two inspections scheduled for the next day so I was worried about him.  My VT took me to see the doctor the next day but they really didn't do anything except confirm that I probably had a kidney stone.  She said I could manage the pain at home or go into the hospital.  The problem I had was that the pain pills wore off after a couple of hours and I was still hours away from the being able to take the next dose.  There were a few times I seriously considered going to the hospital because the pain was so bad.  Tuesday night it was so bad and I was still a couple hours away from the next dose that I asked Matt to give me a blessing.  While he was up looking for some oil, I knelt and said a prayer.  I have been learning about the enabling power of the Atonement and thought that it might be a good time to try putting it work.  In my prayer I said "I'm not asking that the pain be taken away.  But I am to the point that I can't handle this on my own anymore.  I need help in being able to endure this for as long as I need to.  Please strengthen me."  After my prayer I got a blessing from Matt and went back to my laying on the couch.  The pain did not go away or diminish but there was a  noticeable difference in my ability to handle the pain.  I made it to the next dose, took the pills, got ready for bed and went to bed.  I was able to sleep until about 1:00 when the pain woke me up again.  I had 2 hours until the next dose was due so I went down to the couch and had the most peaceful experience on the couch.  In spite of the pain, I was able to lay there peacefully and even fell back asleep for awhile.  I woke up at exactly 3:00 to take the pills and went back to bed.  By mid-day on Wednesday I was feeling much better.  The pain was gone but I was quite sore.  I went back to work on Thursday but at a very reduced pace.  By Friday, my pace was back to normal.

Matt at the ER with me on Monday night.  He's so tired!

That whole experience was an interesting one for me.  As difficult as it was, it was also a very good experience.  I had several people tell me that they would rather have children that have a kidney stone.  So, my confidence in having this baby girl grew quite a bit.  My confidence in wanting to have her without pain meds grew somewhat as well.

There is a great article in April's Ensign about the enabling power of the Atonement.  This is an aspect of the Atonement that I have not understood well at all, let alone accessed in my life.  As we go around to the different wards for Ward Conferences, it's this enabling power of the Atonement I have been speaking of.  Now, I am able to share (in a small way) my recent experience with this power of the Atonement in my life.