Snow, snow, snow

Isabella hasn't gotten too many opportunities to play outside this winter, due to the awful, arctic winter we're having. But if the temps make it up to the 20's, and there's not much wind, you will more than likely find her outside with her daddy.

Here she's standing in our driveway, people say it looks like a tunnel! This was in January, so the snow has gotten much higher on both sides since then. Monte has actually had to scoop DOWN to uncover our mailbox a few times! Thankfully the city came and got rid of some of our snow for us, at one time it was piled about 8 feet high on both sides.

Playing with her sand toys, which have become snow toys for the winter.

Making "Snow castles".


Many of you know the lengths one must go to in order to get your child properly bundled up to go outside (or as Isabella says, "bungled" up). Here she is looking a little stiff.

It was too cold for the snow to stick together very good, so they settled for a mini "Frosty". Today they were able to make a much bigger one, appropriately named by Isabella, "Frosty's Daddy".

All worth it

In my last post I was complaining about how hard this has been, but then I go to my appt. and get to see our precious baby, and it's all worth it!


This ultrasound was a little over a week ago, at not quite even 12 weeks. It's a picture of the picture, so not that great of quality here. I think it's amazing for only being that far along. I've had four ultrasounds already, and it appears I will have one at every appt. The main purpose for the ultrasounds is to check the length and position of my cervix, since my cervix started changing and dilating at about 24 weeks with Isabella. My new doctor is really growing on me, he's great, and knows his stuff, that's for sure!

My nausea is still going strong, and I got reprimanded by my dr. a little for continuing to lose weight. He said I should not be looking at pregnancy as a weight loss program, ha! I'm not too worried about that, I'm positive once the nausea is through I'll have NO problems gaining weight! I'm actually a little worried that once food starts tasting good to me, I'll go crazy and gain a huge amount! I think I fugured out a connection between my migraines and not eating enough, too. It seems like on REALLY bad days when I can't keep anything down, and I can't even force myself to eat much, I always get a migraine. I'm going to try drinking some En.sure or something similar to that to see if it helps at all. He told me to try Uni.som (yes that's a sleeping pill, but it has been known to help morning sickness), but it didn't help me at all. He also gave me a prescription for Zo.fran. That stuff is expensive!! I got 15 pills (generic form), the price for them was $140, thankfully I only had to pay $18 with insurance. When I asked the pharmacist about it she said the actual name brand of the drug is over $400 for 15 pills!! I've only taken it a few times. I just take it when I have to go somewhere, or if I'm having an especially bad day where I just can't keep one thing down. And it's just enough to take the edge off, it's not a miracle pill or anything (for me, anyway). I am SO looking forward to feeling like my old self again, I'm pretty sure Monte feels like a single dad!

Update

I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since I've posted! I'm still here . . . I know I shouldn't complain, but this has been hard. I'm almost 12 weeks along, and the nausea has gotten worse this week (just when I was hoping it would be starting to get better!) At the beginning of the week I was wondering, jokingly (yet somewhat seriously) if one's throat can be damaged from vomiting a lot, because it sure felt like it. :) But the worst has been my migraines, I normally take medication for them, but can't take it while I'm pregnant, of course. They have been terrible, leaving me unable to get out of bed for 2-3 days at a time, while Monte has to stay home from work to take care of Isabella (luckily he's home more than usual this time of year, but has still had to miss some days). Isabella did go and stay with Monte's parents for four days recently, and that helped quite a bit, although I was glad to get her back home. I have finally made a decision to talk to my doctor at my appt. tomorrow about the anti-nausea meds. I think I'll get the prescription and at least have them on hand. I feel better about them now that the most critical time of development for the baby is over. I still feel very leary about taking meds while pregnant. Although, when I was pregnant with Isabella I had to take all sorts of different meds, plus had lots of different IV's and shots, all to try and prevent pre-term labor, plus I even had a CT scan and X-ray (which you are NOT supposed to get while pregnant, and I was freaking out about, due to a possible blood clot in my lung) and she seemed to turn out okay. :)

Isabella has been good through all of this, she is always kissing me and hugging me, telling me she loves me, and telling me ALL the time, "I just wish you would feel better, Mommy." She's pretty good about just getting some toys and playing on the floor next to me while I lay on the couch. But in typical only child fashion she likes her fair share of attention, too, she LOVES Candyland, and only asks to play it about 50 times a day! She does love to color, too, and that's something she and I have fun doing together, and it doesn't take much effort on my part. :) She's recently gotten into drawing, and it's been fun to see what was just a short while ago, nothing but scribbles, turn into to actual shapes and people. She loves to build things with blocks, so we decided to get her a nice set of wooden building blocks for Valentine's Day. That is definitely not something we would ordinarily do, buy her a nice toy for something like Valentine's Day (normally she would just get some candy or something very small) but she's been cooped up in the house with me all winter, with little attention from me, so we figured this would be new and exciting for her to have something new to play with while I watch from the couch. :) She got to pass out valentine's for the first time to her little friends at my Bible Study this morning, she was pretty excited! She was also pretty excited about getting valentine's back from them, too.

My next appt. is tomorrow, I was really sad when I went to my first appt. and my doctor, who I LOVE, refused to take me as a patient (I say refuse, but she was very nice about it). She felt I should see a doctor who specializes in high risk pregnancies, after all the problems I had last time. I like my new doctor fine, but he definitely doesn't take the time to sit down and "talk" like my lady doctor did. :) One neat thing, though, is that he has an ultrasound machine right there in his office, and can perform an ultrasound at any time. I'll have more appts. due to my history of pre-term labor, he also said I will be getting steroid shots to develop the baby's lungs faster (I had these with Isabella as well). He said after this spring I probably won't be allowed to do much physically (excercise, go for walks, etc) :( And he would consider putting me on bedrest around May, but also said we will just wait and see. I PRAY everything is okay and that I don't have to be on bedrest, what will I do with Isabella?? I also will be having this test at least a few times during the pregnancy (which I also had with Isabella). I am really hoping and praying to make it to 36 weeks this time, that would be great. Isabella was born at 34 weeks, which is 6 weeks early (after I had first gone into labor with her at 24 weeks). The doctors say I am more likely to deliver even earlier this time, but I'm not going to worry until I have something to actually worry about. But even then, it's all in God's hands, and all I have to do is TRUST (and pray!). We really are SO excited about this baby! And in some strange way, even though I'm feeling so sick, I feel like the nausea is a good sign that everything is okay.

Christmas Part 2

I figured since it's almost February I should probably get around to our Christmas post! Part 1 was our celebrations with Monte's parents. We had a major blizzard over Christmas, but were all nice and cozy celebrating with my family at my parents' house. We left a day early to beat the blizzard, but still encountered some pretty icy roads.

We had to wake the girls up from their naps in order to make it to Christmas Eve Mass. Can you tell they just woke up?! Their little sleepy selves were not happy about being immediately forced into uncomfortable Christmas attire. The weather was bad, and we barely made it home from Mass, I'm so glad we were able to go, as the weather was REALLY bad as soon as we made it home from Mass.

Three 3 year old cousins. Such little ladies they are! I love these girls!

All the grandkids.

A new doll with hair to style from Mama and Papa.

The cousins woke up Christmas morning to find presents for them from Santa.

The stockings were hung on the fireplace . . . pokers . . .with care. ?? (Even as kids we weren't allowed to hang our stocking on the fireplace, my dad said it was a fire hazard!)

Her Santa present was a beloved baby doll that she immediately named Katie.

Me holding two babies, my sweet baby nephew and Isabella had me babysitting Katie, although she didn't ever leave Katie's side for too long that weekend.

This is where the girls spent the majority of the time. Rachel got a sled for Christmas, which they were pretending was all sorts of things. They mostly played babies in it.

Week 10 . . . and praying for the morning sickness to end!

The second trimester is approaching in just a couple weeks, YAY! Although, I think the nausea ended at about 16-17 weeks with Isabella, but hey, I can hope! I can't wait to eat real food again. My mom is coming this week, weather permitting, to help out, and she's bringing lots of homecooked food for Monte and Isabella to eat. They are going to be so glad to have homecooked food to eat! This past week, two different friends brought a meal for Monte and Isabella as well, that was such a nice surprise, and greatly appreciated. When I first found out I was pregnant I made several meals to put in the freezer, knowing I probably only had a limited time before the nausea hit, but what I made wasn't nearly enough. Next time around I think I'll go crazy with the cooking as soon as I see the two pink lines. :)

In other news, we had an ice storm here this weekend, but not as bad as predicted. My mother and father-in-law are in Jamaica for almost two weeks right now, they picked a good time to be gone! Our electricity flickered on and off quite a bit, but we never lost power for very long, thankfully. We do have a small generator that would run a space heater, so I at least feel good in knowing we would have some heat if the power did stay off. The sidewalk going into church this morning was glare ice, so Monte was carrying Isabella so she wouldn't fall, but then HE fell. I felt like I was watching it in slow motion. I don't know how he did it, but he somehow controlled his fall so that he landed on his back with Isabella on top of him, and Isabella didn't get hurt (he's fine, too). Whew.

Not quite the reaction I was hoping for

Me: Isabella, wouldn't it be really neat to have a brother or sister someday?

Isabella: Ya, or maybe I'd like a cat.







We don't plan on telling her for a while, and actually I think she will be really excited. She is absolutely obsessed with babies! I think she is going to be a big help, and it will be really good for her.

Week 9

I am thankful that I haven't felt as bad as I did while pregnant with Isabella, but it has been bad enough. With Isabella, I lost 16 pounds in the first trimester, I was absolutely miserable! I've lost a few pounds so far, and that's okay with me since it's right after the holidays. :) I am SO thankful for this little baby and would go through anything for him or her, but if there is anything I can do to feel a little better right now, that would be great. So . . . please weigh in in the comments if you have any experience with anything that has helped you through morning (all day) sickness (thanks to Anne for already weighing in in the last post). So far what has helped me the most is sipping on ice cold lemon water ALL day long. I have also been wearing sea bands on my wrists, I don't know that they help all that much. Chewing gum helps for a little while, someone mentioned sucking on sour hard candy, but that definitely makes it worse for me. My doctor mentioned he could give me some meds for the nausea, and after not being able to move off the couch all weekend I was ready to call him first thing Monday morning. But then I had a good day yesterday, I even cleaned the whole house and did 5 loads of laundry. I think it had been about 3 weeks since I had even been able to clean. I'm leaning toward not putting any medication in my body right now, but I do know people who have had to take the meds, and they had healthy babies. So . . . weigh in on the meds, too, if you have any experience with that.

And most of all, thank you SO much for all of your prayers and well wishes that you left in the last post!