Baby furniture

Right now I'm sort of at a stand still as far as baby stuff goes. I feel like nothing is happening to my body at all. Actually that's a lie, my tummy is slowly but surely getting fatter and my back has been hurting lately. I'm not sure if it's because my husband was playing too rough in the swimming pool the other day and I'm feeling the effects now, or if i need to get my butt in gear and work out more regularly. Maybe it's a warning for what's to come and I need to take the warning. I'm not so sure just yet.

It has been impossible for me to sleep lately. On that one I'm not sure if it's because I'm feeling anxious and overwhelmed about the deployment. But, my body really hurts, like laying on my side, my joints seem to hurt at every pressure point. I never had a problem before, so it must be a baby thing. I was just thinking after all this crazy prego stuff we go through, it's a wonder we automatically love these little one's when they do finally come out. Anyone else in the world who did this to ya, messed with your body, your mind, and made you crazy for 9 months, it'd take a miracle from God for us to forgive them and love them after that. But nope, not babies. They're exempt from that i guess.... hmmm..... it must be because they're so dang cute ;-)

On a happy note, Troy and I decided it'd be nice to look at SOME baby stuff together before he leaves. We just looked online mostly at cribs/nursery sets (changing tables, dressers, etc) and strollers. I, admittedly was terrified of his taste. We have yet to buy furniture together but when he talks about it it scares me! I'm picky and particular and if i could have what i want we'd already have a beautiful new living room and bedroom. I LOVE watching HGTV and I love thinking about decorating and I've ALWAYS been so excited to have my own place to finally decorate the way that i want... now I'm married and have to take into consideration Troy's taste as well. Besides the fact that we're in an apartment and have decided to wait 'til we have a house to put the stuff in before we go out and pick out cute furniture. Anyways... I'm scared to death of his taste. I'm stubborn about cute furniture. When I have a vision I want to roll with it. Much to my surprise, we actually were able to compromise on this awesome crib and changing table that we'll probably end up getting.

This is AWESOME! It has the shape and wood that I was looking for and the practicality that Troy was looking for. It has an adjustable mattress, it turns into a toddler bed, a day bed, then later a full size bed frame.

Yea that's awesome right! and looks cute too. So we'll get that one, or one very similar to that. Now the argument stood around a changing table. Troy is convinced we don't need one. Which agreeably we could probably live without one, but whatever why would we!? It'd be so much more convenient and pleasant for me to have a changing table to use. Plus this one hides everything away, which is something i LOVE. I just love when there's doors and things to hide all the ugly unsightly things.

Plus it's cute!

I feel bad about this now, but my snappy moody mom-to-be attitude came out when we were talking about this. I said to him, "I didn't get a wedding, I didn't get to pick out our apartment or any furniture in it (that i didn't already own because of hand me downs), I don't get to live in a house with you that i get to decorate, I have to live in California away from my "home", I have to deal with you going to Afghanistan while I have a baby without you. I want ONE thing at least. Just let me pick out baby room stuff. Because I won't even get to make that the way I want because it'll have to double has a guest room and possibly an "office"!"

A little harsh, which i apologized for and I don't really blame him for, I agreed to all these things too, but sometimes it just gets me. It's stupid in the big scheme of things I know but It's our first baby. Let's learn from this one. I'm sure as more come and we have no money or means to splurge, we'll learn to just accept donations and hand me downs. But at least ONCE lets buy our own!

So, we're gonna!

We didn't pick an actual stroller that we want, but we did find a style that we both like. The one's with three wheels that can accommodate an infant carrier and a little later accommodate a toddler. We want one that's fairly compact. We're not looking for anything huge and bulky. The less stuff to deal with the better. We'd be happy to take suggestions if anyone can recommend one that's a reasonable price. Also we were looking at carriers, the one's that go on your front or your back. We'd love a recommendation for one of those too. We'd like one that isn't too girly and mom-ish looking, that Troy would feel comfortable wearing as well. I think right now we'd like a front facing one, where the baby sits on your tummy.

oh! this is so exciting, and so expensive! We've never done this before and would LOVE some advice and suggestions on great products (of any kind) that are affordable on a fairly small budget.

The Few. The Proud. The Marines.

oh wow okay so "the deployment" (dun dun dun...) is nearing... closer and closer it gets! For you who are wondering he is leaving mid October. Honestly, for the sake of doing my duty as Marine Wife, I'm keeping some details out of this blog as far as exactly when he leaves, exactly when he comes back, where he's going, etc. I'll be more then happy to answer questions in a more private email sort of way, but for the sake of our men I'd feel more comfortable being sorta vague since anyone who wants to can read this blog. And you know how SOME people are these days. They'll take any info they can get and use it their advantage to destroy other people's lives... for what reason? I really don't know.

That takes me to this horrible story I heard at one of our family deployment briefs. One of the ladies was telling us that this actually has happened to a lot of wives/family members with Marines gone away in Iraq or Afghanistan (or other deployments). You know how we see on the movies when the Marine dies and they send the "big boss man" to the wife's house to deliver the bad news... well I guess SOME people (those people i was referring to above) dress up in a fake marine uniform (the nice one, dress blues, not the camo and boots.) or possibly a real uniform that they obtained one way or another. Using info they've gathered from different sites such as Facebook, Myspace, different online blogs, they figure out who the wife is, where she lives and what her Marine's name is, what company he's with, where he is exactly, etc. Then the one guy goes to the house tells the wife the bad news (which is fake cuz her hubby is still alive wherever he's at) then asks for tons of personal info such as social security numbers and such, saying he needs that info in order to get the Marine home, or whatever other lame excuse he comes up with.

First of all.... WHO would do this!? What an absolutely horrible and shocking thing! I couldn't even believe it when i heard it. I guess I should not be surprised, but come on! Secondly, the Marine Corp already knows EVERYTHING about you and your Hubby, so as a wife, why on earth would you just give this guy all the info? come on! this is just horrible. Luckily, the ladies at the brief gave us a description of the proper protocol for this situation, which really, is very different from the process these scammers are using. Ugh! it just makes me sick to think that people would really take advantage of a Marine Wife, while her Husband is out potentially killing himself so that YOU can have a better life! ooooh it just sends me into a rage. People are just sick, sick, sick!

That story scared me enough to keep some information out of public access. Just know that he's leaving mid October and we need your prayers :-) and THANK YOU all very much, because both of us REALLY appreciate all the support that we're already receiving from family, friends and people we don't even know. We are so TRULY thankful for you all!

Thank you, Thank you VERY much

I'm feeling sentimental and emotional and just wanted to take a second to thank everyone for their advice and comments. Thanks for sharing your own stories. I LOVE that. It makes me smile and makes me feel better,like I'm not the only one in the world who's ever gone through this. Which obviously I'm not, but sometimes I start thinking, jeez there's no one who knows what I'm going through or what I'm thinking about. I would comment back on every comment, but that seems sorta silly.

I especially want to thank you Rox. It makes me feel better to hear from you because you at least know what's going on in my head with the whole military side of things, since you've been there. I really appreciate your tips and advice. Everyone else, don't be jealous! ;-) I appreciate all of your tips and advice as well, very very much. She just shares that special weirdness and confusion of the Marine Corp and deployment.

So keep 'em coming! Dont' be afraid that your story is not worth hearing, because to me, it's so totally worth it!

Thanks!!!! :-)

Short and Sweet

At our appointment yesterday, no ultrasound (which we thought there would be) so unfortunately Troy still  hasn't seen our baby on live video since the first appointment when it was just a little blob. He got to see the pictures that I have from the appointment on the 15th. So at least that's something. He did get to hear the heartbeat with me though which was really exciting for us! It was a super short appointment where we found out good news about most of the testing they did on the 15th. Basically everything bad came back negative and everything good came back positive. So for now, everything looks great and healthy! Yay!! That's exactly what we want to hear! Other then that, and the heartbeat, we found out we won't be able to see the baby again 'til about mid September (20weeks along) but at that appointment we'll get to find out (finally) if it's a boy or a girl! I can't wait for that!!! But September sure is far far far away from now! But on an up note, We'll get to find out together and we'll find out before Troy deploys.

To test or not to test

I'm SO excited!

I got to see our baby again yesterday! It's been almost a full month, I'm 12weeks2days now.

I went in to a different doctor, not my actual OB, to get some "tests" done to check for possibilities of Down Syndrome or other Chromosome Disorders. Don't freak out just yet... as far as we're aware, this doesn't run in my family or Troy's family but I figured, the tests are safe for me and the baby, so why not check for these things... ya never know!

The medical building I had to go to is a part of the hospital that I live near, and it was nearly impossible to figure out which building I was suppose to go to! And I had to pay for parking! Lame! At least that should be the only time I'm going to have to go to that building. So I get there, and end up having to wait almost 15 minutes past my scheduled appointment time...which was plain old boring! But the nurses were SO nice and SO easy to work with, it was really great!

Finally they call me back, and have me sit on the table for an ultrasound. Which I was so excited to do because I knew our baby would like a real baby by now. We'd actually be able to make out the head and arms and legs. And I just can't wait for the chance to see our baby again. It's so exciting to me, it makes me wanna jump for joy and cry all at the same time!!

This was my first ultrasound that they do on the outside of my tummy. Which was WAY more comfortable then last time. Basically they rub this jelly on your lower abdomen then use the little tool and run it over your tummy, angled whichever way they need to see what they need to see with the baby. There's a big screen that I can see on the wall in front of me while I'm laying down... and there it was.... our baby! Looking so cute and babyish already with a big head and little legs and arms (in the picture though, the arms didn't really show up, but don't be concerned, it really does have arms) 

So with this ultrasound she was going to measure the fluid space behind the baby's neck. I guess if this space is bigger then a certain measurement then it's possible the baby MIGHT be showing signs that could lead to Down Syndrome. She measured this space three different times, then gives the lab the largest measurement for the highest possible risk. She also measured the baby from the crown of it's head to the end of its butt. She said it's about 6cm, which is about 2inches. She then told me that that's a perfect length for the due date they gave me. So based on that, they have my due date correct so far, and the baby's growing just how it should be. 

Then... I got to hear the heartbeat!! She said she needed to measure the heart rate too. This was AWESOME, but also made me feel bad because I didn't think they'd let us hear it until my OB appointment on Monday which Troy actually gets to go to. He couldn't go to this appointment with me and was pretty bummed to find out what he missed :-( but happy everything was going good. Let me take a second to get all emotional.... He's really concerned with what he'll miss and it's getting hard to keep his spirits up about it as we get closer and closer to this deployment. It just breaks my heart because it's just so sad. I feel so bad for him and the two of us would really appreciate and really need your support and your prayers especially as the months progress. 

The heart beat was 155/min! Wow, that's fast. I didnt' realize that baby's hearts beat so quick. It sounded great! It was so exciting and made me feel sooo much better since I've sort of been in this drag since I have not really been aware of what's been going on with our baby. it helped sooo much to see and hear!

She then showed me where the baby's feet and legs were and explained how they were positioned and where the arms were and how they were positioned as well. It was actually pretty obvious and clear to me where they were. But one of the legs looked all weird and I guess it was folded under the baby sorta like criss cross applesauce style while the other was up and bent. Both of the arms were extended almost reaching up. We talked a little about this then she asked me if she was able to tell, if i wanted her to find out what the gender was. She implied it still might be too early, but she could try to see. AWWW!!! how tempting! I've been dying to know! But, I just could not bare to do that without Troy. He HAS to be there for that one! So MAYBE during my appointment on Monday, depending on what they're going to do, we can ask them to try to find out for us. I don't want to get my hopes up just yet, but oooh! i just want to know SO bad! Plus, I'm hoping for a girl, Troy's hoping for a boy and keeps jokingly rubbing it in that he KNOWS it's going to be a boy. How great would it be to say "i told you so!" when we find out it's actually a girl. :-P aww that will be a great day either way!

After the ultrasound was all done and everything looked good there, they sent me to the next room for the second portion of the test. I don't think I explained this before. Basically the test has two parts. The ultrasound which will measure that neck thing and the heartbeat, plus a blood sample taken from me. The blood then goes up to a lab where they'll check for proteins and such and depending on the number they get from that, if it's above "normal" then they'll place it in a category of say 1out of 500,000 chance of the baby having Down Syndrome, depending on how much they find in the blood the category could be a larger chance or smaller chance. Then, when I'm about 15-20 weeks along, they'll do one more blood test and take the numbers from both tests, add them, and determine a fairly realistic risk for Down Syndrome. At that point if everything's fine, we don't have to do anything. If not, they'll call us in to talk options for further testing and such.

So my right arm has this crazy vein that sticks out all the time and I always thought it'd be a good vein to draw blood from. But for some reason they always seem to pull the blood from my left arm. Well this time the lady actually looked at both arms and went for the right. Well, then we found out why they might be too scared to take it from the left all the time. She put the needle in my arm and it made the blood squirt out and drip down my arm. Ew! But she got what she needed to get and now I just wait.

"Dream, Dream, Dream..."

I've been having really weird and vivid dreams lately.
Normally my dreams are weird to begin with and I often attempt to explain them to Troy and he's just weirded out... they never make any sense, but would make great movies if I could explain them.


But lately, they've been REALLY weird and make NO sense. I've found myself dreaming about things that have nothing to do with anything, and within one dream I'll go many places and see many things and nothing seems to go together. To top it off they're very vivid and I actually remember them really well in the morning. It's really starting to freak me out... like last night I had this really scary dream that, like the others made no sense, but this one was scary! It's hard to explain, but I'm starting to think i was dreaming about a movie trailer for a new scary movie that's coming out. I felt like I'd seen it before. I was panting and whimpering and Troy had to wake me up because I was obviously scared of something. Then in the dark there half asleep I couldn't stop thinking about it and didn't want to go back to sleep for fear of falling back into the dream. It was scary.


Luckily most of the dreams I've been having are not scary. But still, this is just weird....
Has it happened to anyone else during pregnancy?

The Blue Fairy

Oh goodness! I'm just itching to go to my next Dr appointment! It'll be my second one and I SHOULD get to hear my baby's heart beat!!! I can't wait for that! I'm soooooo excited, it'll just be one more thing to make this really real.

I feel like I have an imaginary friend. I'm getting attatched to someone that still doesn't even feel real. I need the blue fairy to come along and make "it" a REAL boy or girl.

For now, my Dr feels like my own blue fairy. She gives me the ability to see and hear my baby, just more proof (until I have a tummy and can feel "it" moving) that I have not gone insane and created an imaginary friend baby.

I'm so excited to see how "it's" grown over the last month... i think it might be starting to look like a real baby instead of just a blob! OOOh!!! Then pretty soon I'll get to FINALLY find out what gender "it" is so i can stop calling it "it" and start buying cute baby clothes (hoping for lots of pink!)

What a worry wort

When saying that phrase worry wart, is it correct to say "worry wart" or "worry wort" anyone know??


I know this is probably another one of those totally normal things that every mom to be, especially first timers goes through... I feel like I'm worrying about EVERYTHING from what's happening/going to happen to my baby, to what's going on with me. Some of it I admit is probably a little vain and unnecessary but it's becoming hard to help!


I was at the dentist and the assistant told me that I'm more susceptible to gingivitis now that I'm pregnant. If you know me well you know that these perfect teeth didn't happen on their own! I work hard to keep my teeth cavity free, white and healthy. At times i believe it's become sort of an obsession of mine... I mean I won't even switch dentists, I know as soon as something is not "normal", I'm usually the one telling my dentist when there's a suspected cavity or "problem" occurring. I pay too much attention to my teeth, but hopefully I'll keep them all when I'm old because of it. Well I sorta brushed this off (no pun intended) and figured oh sure, that won't happen... but the other night I'm reading one of my pregnancy books, and there it was...
 " ...hormones also make the gums more susceptible to plaque and bacteria... possibly leading to gingivitis and even tooth decay." She wasn't kidding! Luckily so far I've seen no negative changes in my mouth, but have been inspired to floss more regularly. As anal as I am about my teeth, I'm still terrible at remembering to floss! It's sorta silly now that I'm writing about it,  but I was really freaked out about this possibility.

I've been praying and I know that in my heart I'm putting this baby and myself in God's hands and I'm confident that He'll take care of us, and through Him I should have no worries or fears. But come on! My head doesn't always agree with my heart and my head is taking all this information and creating at times, irrational fears.


Here's another one... something about hair popping up in places that it wasn't as visible before being pregnant. What!? Hello, I have ENOUGH hair! Again, if you know me well, you know that I'm definitely Dutch and German (that's what I'm blaming it on) and the hair is everywhere, thick and dark. It's been a problem I've been running from my whole life. Come on, I mean I have to shave my legs EVERY day if i want them stubble free. I swear sometimes it grows back by 5 o' clock... my own 5 o' clock shadow! Annoying! I'm not looking forward to this if it's going to happen to me. Maybe I have so much hair that I'll be spared any further inconvenience... I'll be pitied (spelling on that??) because I already have enough hair to comp for at least two people.


Sometimes I wonder if I'm making myself worry about stupid things like this because I feel like it's been too easy so far. Everyone is always complained about all the inconveniences of being pregnant, now, granted, I'm only in the 1st trimester still and have a very long way to go still, but overall, thus far, it's been a breeze... most of the time, almost as if nothing is going on. That alone kinda scares me! I mean... no morning sickness, no constipation, no loss of appetite, no staining, spotting, or discharges of any kind, and no nauseating smells (except the celery incident, but that just smelled gross, didn't make me sick) I mean really, I've just been totally moody, nauseous when I'm hungry (but nothing unbearable), very fatigued, and sometimes a little bloated... oh! and I just started getting headaches. I wonder if some of that is related to how bad i was eating all week. So I know symptoms are different for everyone and not everyone has everything, but it's just overall so much easier then I thought or ever heard it'd be ( I may change my mind about that statement later on).... maybe God's taking it easy on me because He's aware of the extreme emotional battle I'm going to face during this whole thing... with Troy leaving while I'm bringing our first child into the world without him....


I am getting very impatient about showing though. I'm tired of having to tell people I'm pregnant because there's no way they can tell. One thing that's been kinda weird, that I'm thinking has to do with bloating or possibly my bowels is one day I'll look in the mirror and definitely look like I'm starting to show, then the next day I'll look basically back to "normal" non pregnant size. I have gained some weight i think, I mean, unless my tummy always had this extra little pooch, i mean i know it did, but it feels bigger then it used too. Its not like a had a flat six pack tummy before hand, but I swear its getting bigger, but it doesn't feel hard like a baby tummy, it just feels like I ate too many burgers and gained 5lbs in my tummy. Weird... maybe it's just the fact that before now It's an area of my body that I'd always wanted to work on toning up, but never cared THAT much or spent so much time looking at it, so maybe I always looked this way and just didn't realize it... Troy says my tummy looks a little fatter then before... but same thing, it's not like he ever paid this much attention to my tummy either. Aw, it will be exciting to see a big pregnant belly!

Roses and Daisies

I just have to take a second to put it out there, mostly just to make you all jealous ;-) , that I officially have the sweetest hubby of them all. Despite my dramatic mood swings... which are definitely are in full swing!... he still loves me and still wants to do what he can to remind me that everything is going to be okay even though we've been through a few more tussles then normal lately. He had a work thing, basically  had to be gone for 24hrs, he left on Friday morning and got to come back home on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning, I'm sleeping still, it's about 9am, suddenly something wakes me up and I look over and Troy's crouched down beside the bed (like he was trying to sneak up on me and saw me move so he ducked down, but unfortunately for him, i saw him...busted!) with two bouquets of roses! How sweet! He stood up, gave me a big kiss, told me how he missed me while he was at work.... aw it was the sweetest thing! Later after showering and getting ready for the day, I come out to the kitchen and he's already trimmed the roses, put them in a vase and added a few colorful daisies to the bunch. It was so sweet of him! A much needed reminder of his appreciation and love. I've been feeling more then just a little like a crazy loon lately. Between the dramatic and nonsensical mood swings and the stress of the upcoming deployment. I've definitely not been the nicest person to be around so it was really nice to see that he still wants to do sweet things like this for me even though we're going through a bit of a rough time and even though I'm a bit of a snooty pants. **sigh... gosh I love him :-)

So back to prego talk...
I'm noticing extreme mood swings lately. Seriously... it's like PMS on overload. I cannot even begin to explain it, especially to a guy. I think the boys think it's fake... I've heard too many jokes about how PMS is something we ladies make up just to be able to be snooty for a while. Well apparently the same thing is happening with pregnancy and it's REAL. Seriously, there's like a million hormones coursing through my body, the combination of them must be making me crazy! So one second I'll be sitting here laughing, feeling great, five minutes later I'll be crying about something, or be freaking out because I'm irritated. It's just too weird to handle! Hopefully it'll calm down a little.

A little side note, I found the latest (i think it's the latest) edition of "What to Expect When You're Expecting"
on Amazon.com for like 4 bucks! Total score! However, you'll find it's sorta silly but you'll pay the same or a little more for shipping. But still under 10 dollars for a book i saw at Barnes and Noble for about 30 dollars. Sounds good to me!

Oh my gosh, and don't even get me started on the food thing! Wow, We've been so bad lately! I think one of the most difficult things for me to do is eat really healthy. I'm a sucker for junk food, empty calories, fast food, oooh and ice cream! I LOVE it all! It's just so delicious. I will be the first to admit though, it's disgusting, horrible for your body, and makes you feel like crap after you eat it. Most of the time I can stop myself from eating this stuff because I just flat out won't buy it. Since I'm the one doing the grocery shopping, it's pretty easy. However, lately I have not felt like doing anything, I mean seriously, by the time 6pm roles around, and it's time to make dinner, that's the LAST thing I want to do. So Troy and I have been eating out almost all week. It's horrible. I'm starting to feel even worse then I ever thought I could. Not to mention it's been ages since I've eaten this way, and my body just hates it now. So, first thing's first, back to our normal healthy eating habits.

I know, for my baby's health I'll need to gain weight, but not like this. Not straight up empty calories and fat that will do  nothing for me and nothing for our baby. So back to the list of good food to eat that the Dr gave me. Which actually, I'm worrying about that. I'm worried about not getting all the nutrients I'll need to get. Frankly I just don't feel like eating all the things I should eat. It's more that I just feel to tired to even make something. This as got to quit too. Hopefully my energy level will pick back up soon!