Saturday, May 30th

All has been quiet on the homefront. I did make Steve go with me to register for some things this weekend. Other than that we are relaxing and staying cool. We will be having a 4D sono done at Babywaves on Thursday and I can't wait to post pictures of that. We're starting to get excited about our family vacation at the end of June. Just me, the boys and a cabin on Lake Bullshoals. Okay so it won't be that bad, I made sure we'd have air conditioning! New sono pics to come on Thursday!

Nursery Theme

As promised here are the pics of the bedding we(okay I) picked out for the nursery. I didn't really find much of anything that just reached out and grabbed me. I saw this transportation theme though and thought it was sorta cute. So it's cars, trains, planes and boats for this little boys room. Time seems like it is flying. It's hard to believe that my baby is already as big or bigger than some of the babies I take care of at work. I can't imagine going into labor right now!

I will be at work all weekend as I am picking up some extra hours over the holidays. Saturday night we have a wedding to go to as well. I'm sure I will be more than tired by the time Tuesday rolls around. Have a happy Memorial Holiday!

Update from the Dr.

Sorry I was too exhausted to write last night. Ethanni wore me out in Wichita yesterday! We had a ton of errands to run including walking around the mall shoe shopping and of course went to my Dr. appt. The Dr. gave the "official" report from the radiologist that everything looked great on my sono from two weeks ago. All my weights and measurement were right on target. The baby is currently in the 55th percentile for weight which is excellent. The amniotic fluid index was good. This is the main reason we had the sono was because I had measured a bit large at my 18 week appt. and the Dr. was worried that I might have to much amniotic fluid. So, big relief there. My blood pressure was a little elevated at the doctor's office, 130/72. However we had eaten a huge lunch then had been up walking around for an hour and a half so the doctor wasn't too concerned. I guess we will continue to hopefully be boring for awhile and just let this little guy bake so more. I don't have another appt. for a month. I finally picked out a theme for the nursery. Pictures will be posted when the bedding comes in hopefully at the beginning of next week.

How Amazing

I have only recently come to realize how extensive, complicated and enormous the blogging community is. You may have seen the "Pray for Kayleigh" button on the right hand side of my blog. I learned of this baby and family through Olivia's blog(the one who got me started on this!) about a month ago. However, being an NICU nurse I was quickly drawn to her story and her parents' unique and uplifting perspective on life. After a long battle in the hospital(11months) that began with her very premature birth, Kayleigh has gone home to the Lord. I couldn't help but think of how many lives this little girl must have touched during her short time here on earth. It is evident by the hundreds of comments of support from others reaching out to her family how special and precious she was. The post from today on her page was(to me) truly amazing. I can't imagine what her parents are going through and still they have unwavering strength and faith. If you would like to read some beautiful words please visit her page but I'll warn you to have the Kleenex ready! I know that her family(The Freeman's) would also appreciate any comments of love and support. Though my heart aches for this family and they will be in my thoughts and prayers I can't help but breathe a sigh of relief for this sweet little girl. Never again will she struggle to breath but instead will be resting in the arms of Jesus.

Power Once Again

I came home from work tonight to find a special Mother's Day present...our electricity was back on! Of course that will be a whole load of chores tomorrow with laundry and dishes etc...but tonight it just means that we have lights on and can sit quietly enjoying some TV without the sound of fifteen generators humming in the back ground. It was a busy weekend at work...lots of little babies that need your prayers! I love my job and enjoy being needed but having so many babies in the unit also means that there are that many more babies born early or sick that aren't home with their mommies. Holidays are so hard when loved onces are hospitalized. Be praying for all of these people tonight!

Stormy Weather

We have been dealing with the aftermath of the storm that moved through early friday morning. Thankfully we did not have a bunch of property damage. The roof held up fairly well and no windows broke or anything else. Since we don't own a single tree and only have one very large tree that hangs over our backyard down limbs were kept to a minimum. The boys have spent the weekend cleaning up and helping out the neighbors. We are still without electricity and when I called to check on the status this morning, Westar was still reporting it might be four more days. We are very thankful to have the generator. We bought it a few years ago when we had the big ice storm and lost power for nine days. I can't imagine being without it. Since we buy our beef once a year that would be a huge loss if we had NO electricity for several days. As it is right now, we just run the generator for bit every couple of hours to cool off the fridge and the freezers. I'm back at work for the weekend which means this has been a very looooong couple of days. We don't run the generator in the morning so I've been getting up and doing almost everything by flashlight. Then when I get to work I run the curling iron through the hair real quick and that's about as good as it gets with this girl. There are just so many more important things is life!

The baby is moving around tons. Nine-thirty to ten-thirty at night seems to be the prime time for activity. He's getting big enough now that I can lay very still on the couch and Steve can see him kicking and moving in my belly through my skin. He likes to lay transverse(that means directly across me instead of up and down) and therefore streches my tummy making him easy to watch. We also bought fetal doppler for $35 online awhile back and just received it in the mail this week. It doesn't give a picture but does give a sound. So you can hear the baby's heartbeat, hear him kick and move, etc. Kinda cool. It works much better than I thought it would and is extremely easy to use.

We have an appt. on Tuesday just to check up on everything and get the official word on my sono. Other than that we will be sitting around praying the utility crews keep having good weather to work and that the electricity is restored soon!

It's A Boy

A Still Picture
Looks like he's thinking hard

Not Shy at all

Playing Froggie in my belly

That is a leg by his head not an arm!

The much awaited sonogram went well today. Of course we won't have the final word that everything was perfect until we see the doctor again in two weeks. But from what I could tell everything was fine. There were 3 blood vessels in the cord, four chambers in the heart and to Steve's amazement the child had a brain inside it's skull. They told me to drink and have a full bladder for the sono. I drank one bottle of water and thought I would burst. The sono tech had to have me empty my bladder three times during the scan. The baby wasn't being super cooperative either. He turned COMPLETELY three different times while she was trying to get images. We didn't get any real good profile pics or pics of the face because the kid would not sit still. When we got down to figuring out whether it was a boy or a girl though, there was no question. He wasn't shy at all. Not sure if that is a Howell or Taylor thing...

Many of you have asked so I'll tell everyone now, since we have announced the sex of the baby we will not be sharing the name. We wanted there to be some sort of surprise for everyone and while a few people knew the name we liked for a girl we hadn't shared our boy name with anyone! So now we just sit around and cook...no more appts for two weeks. It great that everything is going so well and I've had absolutely no complications thus far. We will try to be boring for the next couple of months!