Home for Thanksgiving

Mike and I went to Atlanta for Thanksgiving to spend our last trip out of state with my family.  They actually have been getting cooler weather than we have and our trip home was no different.  We stayed with my sister and spent plenty of time with my mom and stepdad, too, along with time here and there with other family and friends.

Thanksgiving day we went to my aunt and uncle's in Peachtree City to get to catch up with the whole family.  Needless to say, it's near impossible to successfully catch up with 50 or so people, but we really tried.  And I think there were one or two people who Mike hadn't met before and the majority of the rest he had only met once or twice.  So overall it was a great day.  Again, since I didn't have my camera, I'm stealing from my family members who actually took some pictures.  :)

I'm not sure what the goofy look on my face is all about here...

I love my cousins!  I really wish that I were closer to home to spend more time with them.  My sister (on the left) and I are the oldest of 23 grandkids so I have watched these ladies grow up - one is a senior in college and I used to spend LOTS of time babysitting her and the other is a senior in high school - I can't believe she's about to start college!

One thing that would have been great to get a picture of would have been me and my cousin Ashley.  She and her husband welcomed their first child, beautiful Savannah Lea, just a day after Mike and I left Atlanta so we just missed getting to meet her.  So after my nephew and Savannah, Baby C/Baby Naughton (whatever you'd like to call it is fine with us) will make great-grandchild #3!  Congratulations, Ashley and Jacob!  I can't wait for them to get to meet each other this spring and have a play date (as much of a play date as you can with a 2 and 4 month old I suppose).  :)

My fabulous sister also hosted a baby shower for me while I was at home and my family chipped in to get me and Mike and awesome BOB Revolution stroller.  We decided on the chocolate and blue combination.  Leave it to Mike and I to specifically wait until it was on sale, too.  According to our friends are REI, these strollers never go on sale and are not eligible for using the 20% off coupons they have.  So thanks to snooping by mom and my stepdad, we found out they would be on sale at the end of the year clearance!  So we held off on buying until the sale started and ended up saving 15%.  Turns out, Amazon and BabiesRUs were having the same sale so I guess we weren't too special but hey, we're just glad to find it on sale!

I can't find where my mom has posted any pictures, so I'm stealing these again from family on Facebook.  (I really do take my own pictures, I just didn't while we were in Atlanta.)

The hostess with the most-ess and another of my beautiful cousins... again, when did they grow up enough to go to college?!?

The black dress hides the actual size of the belly!

I'll work on locating more photos from the shower because I know my mom took plenty... once I find them I will definitely update the post (or just create a new post).

Thank you, Jenni, for an amazing shower and for having Mike and I in your home for Thanksgiving!  We had a great time and I could go on for days about Mike and Tilden playing together, but I think that's another post altogether.  We love you!!

Hanging out in Glenwood Springs

I know it's been a long time since we have updated anything - since right before we left for Atlanta for Thanksgiving, I believe.  Since then we have had a trip to Atlanta, Thanksgiving with my family, a family baby shower for the little one, going to the Buffalo Creek area to cut a Christmas tree, put up the tree (not decorated yet), had a shower with my work ladies (and Jacob), both been sick, and now we are having a "babymoon" in Glenwood Springs where we both are still sick, although much better, and are heading back to town tomorrow.  Keep an eye out for update posts on all the fun we have been having over the last few weeks, and an update on Baby Naughton.

I know it's been a while...

But I find publishing to the blog falls to the way-side when you are working a mixture of night and day shifts and averaging 5 shifts/week of 12 hours each. Luckily, I'll be heading out of town for 8 days on Tuesday morning so I won't have to worry about work for that time. So please forgive me for falling down on posts and keep our patients and their families in your prayers - and throw in an extra for my sanity as well.

In the way of what else has been going on, we had our 27-28 week appointment this past Thursday and all looks good. The baby, however, has decided it really doesn't want to flip to be in the correct direction (it has been breech at every ultrasound so far). So now I have an ultrasound appointment every two weeks starting right after Thanksgiving (and every 2 weeks is normal for how often to go once you get to 30 weeks, it's the ultrasound that's different than normal). The doctor said that he wants to be able to document the head flipping down and if it hasn't by 34 weeks we'll have a conversation about options. I definitely DO NOT want a c-section so I'll do almost anything I have to... let's just hope that we don't have to worry about that. (As an aside, I still don't know what it's like to be kicked in the ribs all the time but my bladder is definitely up to par on what it feels like to be kicked.)

Also, the growth has finally slowed down. Instead of measuring at least a week big, the baby is right on target. Now the "if you go to term" weight prediction is 7.5 lbs rather than 8 lbs so I'm a little more at ease about that. My weight gain has leveled off as well... at least until I get to Thanksgiving!

I really can't believe that in as little as 10 weeks I could have a little one in my arms! It's been an exciting journey and I'm sure that I'll have many more pieces of the journey to enjoy in the next 2 months. I especially can't wait to hold him or her in my arms and cuddle as much as possible!

Moose the bully

Ever since Mike and I noticed this about a year ago, I have been trying to get this series of photos taken - but I always seem to miss one here or there.
Basically what happens is Oliver starts out in the big bed, Moose then hovers for a few minutes until he decides to join Oliver in the big bed. They share the bed for a few minutes but Moose HAS to keep inching into Oliver such that finally, Oliver jumps out of the bed and Moose sleeps all by himself.

My favorite part of these pictures is Moose's expression. He is just so nonchalantly looking over Oliver's shoulder, then he has the ticked off look when he's having to share, followed ultimately by the best sleep he ever has had, clearly!It's hilarious because the bed is obviously large enough for both cats - and probably another small cat - but Moose just will not share. It's not just the beds in the bay window, either. He does it in the bed we have in our bedroom of even if Oliver is just sleeping next to me at night.

Moose is just a big bully - a very cute bully, but a big bully nonetheless.

Rockin' the Impala

Last Monday I was on my way to work for a meeting. I was driving in the left lane of a one way street and noticed this minivan turning in to my lane. I'm not talking that she was coming in to my lane about to side swipe me, she was doing a full left hand turn in to my lane. The only thing I can think is that she thought she was in the middle of a two way street and so it didn't occur to her to look to see if the left hand turn she was about to make would cause her to t-bone a car coming up on her left driving in the same direction she was. I tried to get out of the way but that was basically futile so I was t-boned in the passenger side (luckily no one was in the car with me and it wasn't on to my side). No one was hurt though I did go to the OB since I was already on the way to the hospital as it was. I was fairly shaken up but had no problems and was given a clean bill of health later in the week at my almost-24 week appointment (after he did an ultrasound just to be sure).

I thought pictures would be good to share - but first I had to get them from the collision place that is currently repairing the car. Among other things such as getting the license plate of the other car or calling the police, I also forgot to take pictures before I took the car to get repaired. USAA has been fabulous to deal with and lucky for me the other insurance company has been great as well. The only thing left to be seen is if they will have everything settled before I get my car back next week. And until then, I'll be rockin' the Impala courtesy of Enterprise. I'll definitely be glad to get my own car back though!

Here are some pictures. It's not as bad as the $3800 estimate makes it out to be but basically the front door wouldn't open at all and the back door would open about an inch. So the front door had to be fully replaced and the back door had to have the outer portion replaced (whatever that's called).

Random Thoughts

Over the past few days, I have had random thoughts. I actually blame it on Facebook. Not that it's a good thing, but when you spend a little too much time on Facebook, you begin thinking in terms of status updates. I'd bet the same would be true for spending too much time on Twitter - all these short sentences that people wrap their entire thought processes in to in the hopes of getting their point across. But I digress... now on to some random thoughts.

• Mental and physical exhaustion + 5 straight night shifts in a row + 1 Benedryl = really good sleep!
• I know I'm big and may look like I'm more than 24 weeks pregnant, but I'm not and I'd appreciate you not telling me how big I look and/or asking if I'm sure there aren't twins in there.
• My job, while I love doing it, really sucks sometimes when it comes to patient outcomes.
• Why is it that both cats feel the need to be surgically attached to me when I'm sleeping??
• Feeling the baby move is completely different than I anticipated; I thought there would be more sharp movements as opposed to light little feelings. I'm told the sharp (i.e. uncomfortable) movements come soon though.
• Why is Similac already sending me cans of infant formula?!?
• How can I be so tired all day and not be able to sleep at night?

I'm sure I'll have more installments to add at a later time, but that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed them (and a window in to the way my mind works).

I'm still here

Things are still going well here, I just haven't had a chance to update the blog in a bit. We have had our next appointment, turned the enormous family room downstairs in to a family room and bedroom with the help of Mike's parents, bought baby furniture, I got in a wreck and am now stuck driving a rental for another 10 days at least (don't worry, everything is fine with both me and baby, the car is another story), and now I'm working nights because of working being crazy. So it's been very busy, but I'm working on catching up on some posts.

I can't believe I'm almost 24 weeks along now!  It seems like I remember just yesterday thinking about how in 10 weeks I would have a viable baby if something did for some reason go wrong and I went in to labor early (I can't help it, it's how you think when you see preemies and ex-preemies so much in your every day life) - and here we are.

According to the doctor (who did another ultrasound thanks to the wreck on Monday), I'm looking at a BIG baby... that shouldn't surprise me since I was 8 lbs, 9 oz and Mike was over 8 lbs, too, along with the fact that my nephew was 7 lbs, 15 oz, but still! I wasn't completely ready to hear that even though I knew it in the back of my head. Of course, it's all just predictions, but this is the second appointment in a row that he told me the baby would probably be around 8 pounds. So we'll find out in early-mid February! I have another ultrasound appointment in 4 weeks so maybe the baby will have slowed down in growth by then?!?

We still don't know if it is a boy or a girl. I'm driving my girlfriends at work CRAZY in not finding out. We have thought about maybe finding out by having the doctor put it in an envelope to open on Christmas but by then I'll be 32 weeks and what's another 6-8 weeks to find out? I'm pretty certain if we had another baby we would find out if it's a boy or girl - that was kind of the compromise we came to - unless we have too much fun not finding out for this one. I still call the baby a boy in ultrasound pictures and a girl when I'm feeling it move inside of me, so who knows. During my ultrasound this week it had its legs crossed nicely so the doctor said he couldn't tell even if he wanted to. He did remember from my last ultrasound though - or maybe it's in my file, I don't know. Either way, he knows and I don't. When I asked about a little bit of pain I'm feeling in my bladder area, he said that it's more than likely because the baby's butt and feet are constantly sitting on my bladder. So instead of the head being wedged in the bottom of my uterus, the baby is breech and a good sized rear end is wedged in to the bottom of my uterus instead. I can tell because all the movement I feel is in the lower portion of my belly, but seriously! Mike tried to have a heart to heart with baby but it wasn't listening; it's still sitting in the same spot.

Time to get ready for work... one nice thing I do like about night shifts is that it's kind of luxurious to get to sleep in bed all day. That is, until the dog barks when the mailman comes, the cats come walk all over the bed (and me), Mike has to be in and out to get to the office (the only way in is through the bedroom) and the baby sits on and/or kicks my bladder.