Belly Button

2010 10 20 - 26weeks

I just realized that I have not talked about pregnancy or the baby in a while... or at least it feels that way. Reason being, it feels like nothing is really happening right now. I don't even think my tummy is getting much bigger. Perhaps it's because I'm with myself all the time and see myself all the time, that's why I don't really notice the change in size. Even in the pictures, to me, I don't look all that much bigger week to week. Not that it's a bad thing or anything. I mean, I'm already having trouble getting off the couch and putting my shoes on... no clothes fit me. The few maternity things I've bought fit of course, but it's really starting to get cold and raining and just blah outside. For some reason I just can't bring myself to spend the money to buy a coat or a hoody or something like that that will actually fit nicely. My hoodies still fit and by fit i mean very snugly... maybe that's why. Or maybe I'm just in denial and don't want to get huge and REALLY uncomfortable. I have only 3 more months and I think I'm sort of dreading those last 3 months because I've heard they're the worst. You're at your biggest and most awkward and you're just ready to be done with the pregnancy... I'm not necessarily looking forward to that part. However, I am REALLY looking forward to this baby! I want him here already :-)



2010 10 20 - 26 weeks



I was looking at my belly button the other day and decided now is the time to place bets on whether it's going to pop out or if it's just going to stretch out so far to the point where i don't have a belly button and it's just flush with my skin... sorta like an "outie" instead of an "innie". I think that it's just going to turn into an "outie" and not actually pop out. This is another way I can tell my tummy is getting bigger. Pre pregnancy my belly button was an "innie" and it was really small and went in really far. Then it started to stretch out so it was a bigger belly button but still an "innie". Over time the "innie" has slowly worked it's way out. Now it's not as deep as it was before. I just looked the other day and now my belly button is so shallow that it's only a matter of time before it doesn't even exist anymore. Does it go back to normal afterwards!? I would assume so, but I really don't know. Belly buttons sure are weird! I wonder how long it'll take before I don't have one anymore and how alien-ish it'll look. I've never seen anyone without a belly button and it's not like a spend a lot of time around a lot of pregnant women to see what their belly buttons look like... shoot, the only reason I even know they pop out sometimes is because you see the cute pregnant women who are almost done and you look at their huge tummies and see a little thing poking out right where there belly button used to be... obviously it's been stretched so far it popped right out!



2010 10 27- 27 weeks



Well, little Elijah still moves around a lot. It was very cool the other night I had my hand on my tummy to feel him and instead of real quick sudden kicks I felt him actually moving around in there. I dunno if that would make sense to anyone who's not been pregnant before, but the best way I can explain is if you took something stretchy, like a blown up balloon and  had someone stand inside it then push their fist out and run it along the whole outside while you stand outside the balloon and feel it... lol that's the best I can do! It was really freaky but really cool. Sometimes I actually wish he moved more. I don't feel him much during the day. Mostly at night when I finally lay down I feel him. He is starting to move around a lot up toward my ribs. Over the last two days mostly I've felt him actually "kick" under my ribs. It's actually pretty uncomfortable. And the other night he did something crazy that actually tickled. It felt just like someone was tickling the side of my tummy. It's just so cool! I wonder if he'll be a calm, chilled personality when he comes out too. Maybe God's gonna give me a break and bless me with a perfectly behaved little guy who doesn't fuss too much. ha! we'll see! ;-)

Flowers from Afghanistan

I know I've said it a million times already, but I do have the sweetest husband ever!

Yesterday to the front door came a flower delivery lady with flowers for me. I thought this was kinda weird and I was honestly a little freaked out... who would send me flowers? A crazy ex? A "welcome home" gift? A congratulations on baby gift? I had no idea. Of course mom said, "well I'm sure they're from troy! duh!" I replied with, "well yeah but how would he have sent flowers? He wouldn't use his ph minutes for that would he? and the Internet has got to be WAY too slow..." and of course... they were from him!

The most romantic thing ever!

A husband in Afghanistan, a war zone, in the Marine Corp separated from his fairly new wife of just over one year who's pregnant with their first baby sends flowers to her with a card saying that she's the most beautiful woman and the best thing in his life. He just wanted to send them to make her smile.

Aw! it makes me want to cry just thinking about it! He's so sweet. I found out later he used almost his whole lunch break just trying to log on to the EXTREMELY slow Internet to find some flowers to send to me just because he knew it'd make me smile. awwwww :-)

Then my dumb butt was so excited that he got to call me last night I almost forgot to thank him for the flowers!! Silly silly me! Between this pregnancy and this deployment I think I am losing my mind. Besides the fact that I love Troy so much he still makes me giddy and silly to this day :-) So all hope of remembering to tell him anything worth while is lost when he calls me. I just get too excited that it's him. It makes me stumble around to find the right words to say... i feel like i have a school girl crush. Aw I love him :-)

(And not just because he sends me flowers)

Girlfriends

Ha what a fabulous day!

A day full of girls/women! I love it! First we had my cousin's baby shower, which was super fun, she's about a month or so ahead of me in her pregnancy and she's looking absolutely adorable! I'm sure she doesn't feel that way, but she looks it :-)

After that, a candle party with some other friends, Shelly, Roxanne, and Marilyn who have been such an amazing and wonderful influence in my life, whether they know it or not. I look up to each of you and admire you. I'm thankful to have you. They gave me the sweetest gift ever! Between the three of them they created a necklace with Troy's name and Eli's name and said, "it's to wear so you'll have them close to your heart." aw! seriously, if it didn't show i apologize, but it was the sweetest thing and almost brought tears to my eyes! I love you gals and thank you SO much for thinking of me! :-)

Best of all, I just got to Skype with Troy with the webcam!! yay! I finally got to see him and his newly shaved head!!! Apparently with all the dust and the heat it was just easier to hack it all off. He looks great of course... well I think so because to me he'll always be the best looking man i know! But it is a little weird to see his hair gone! I do love his hair :-)

So I'm flying high right now, I don't think I smile at any other time ever as much as I do when I see him and when I'm with him. He really is my light. I love you hunny! He keeps asking to see my belly any chance he gets to see me which i love! I think it's wonderful that he wants to be a part of this pregnancy even a bazillion miles away. He's so great and is remaining so positive. Today he says, "only 13 more paychecks 'til I'm home!" I'm so proud of him for being so positive. I have not heard a single word of devastation from him since he left. This keeps my spirits up as well. I just hope and pray every day that I'll get to hear from him or see him. Waiting an entire week last week to talk to him was devastatingly long. It was one of the worst weeks of all time and unfortunately I am preparing myself for that to happen again, although I'm praying it doesn't.

I do have a picture of my belly...

You're looking at 25 weeks, 3 days!

... Just a few thoughts

Well thank you gals for your comments, it makes me feel much better to be reminded that I'm not the only one in the whole world who's been pregnant. Obviously that would be ridiculous to think anyways, but sometimes it feels that way! So thank you very much :-) and thank you for the support on the body image, weight gain/loss, that helps a ton also!

Today's adventure consisted of a nice walk with my mom and my "favorite aunt" along the waterfront (the Vancouver side) then a stop at the coffee shot and a long chat over bagels and cream cheese. What a nice way to start the day! It was a little chilly out, but once we got to walking we heated up rather quickly.

(I didn't take this pic b/c I forgot my camera so I'm in no way taking credit for it but this is what today looked like)

I do love spending all this time with my mom and Theresa. It's great to finally be old enough to be included in the adult conversations and activities. It's been that way for a while now, however, now that I've been married for a year and have a baby on the way I feel even closer to them as far as being able to relate to and understand more of the life situations that grown women face... if that makes sense. It's really nice to build this whole new relationship with both of them, a relationship that's more grown up and mature. I feel much more of a friend then a child. It's so nice considering with a lot of people my age I feel like I'm in a bit of an awkward stage. Most of them are not married, they're in college and playing around with their partying days, and most do not have children. There are a few that do share the same experience I'm in, but with most of them I feel a little out of place, like I can get along better with the "old" people and the moms. So often I feel a little weird and kinda left out because my age is 21 but in my experience and my mentality i feel like I should be nearing my 30s.

(I didn't take this one either! But it is beautiful and give props to the photographer)

Later in the evening my mom and I decided to make what was originally suppose to be a quick trip to BabiesRus. Well we're silly how could we possibly think that it'd be a quick trip! Hellooooo! Well I had to pick up a gift for another baby shower, so we thought we'd pop in and pop out... ohhh noooo. There are WAY too many cute baby boy clothes there! I looked online today to try to add some clothes to my registry (which by the way my registry is a little long and has a lot of stuff on it compared to the others I've seen lately, but I'm intending to use it as a list for myself to try to remember some of the things I looked at and liked if I don't end up getting them during the shower). I had no clothes on my registry at all. Well, online they didn't have much of a selection, or perhaps i was just so tired of looking online that i was burnt out and couldn't see anything anymore. Wow we found such cute things and ended up getting a registry gun and zapping everything we saw! It was awesome! I can't wait 'til he's here and we can see him in all his cuteness. Aw it'll be so wonderful :-)

... Some belly pics to come soon! I have a couple, I've been really bad about making people take them, It's not THAT huge yet, but big enough to count as a real prego belly now I think! I just have to load them on the computer.

Gestational Diabetes

I had my latest Dr. Appt yesterday afternoon. I am now 25 weeks along. At this point in the pregnancy (24-28weeks) they test for Gestational Diabetes which basically means that some women can develop diabetes while they're pregnant even if they were not diabetic before pregnancy. The way they tested me for this was by having me consume a Glucose drink called Glucola.

This was a 10oz drink that was slightly carbonated (when refrigerated it tasted almost exactly like orange soda) containing 50g of glucose. I had to drink the whole thing in 10 minutes. For me, this was like an overdose of sugar, after a few minutes I started feeling sorta "wigged out". Nothing really happened, no headaches or anything like that but I did feel pretty icky. My body is certainly not used to that! An hour after drinking the drink I had to be at the Dr office so they could draw my blood. They'll do whatever testing they do on the blood to determine if I have Gestational Diabetes or not. So if I don't get a call to come in for a second test, then the news is good. My mom says, "no news is good news!"

Other then the test, we heard the baby's heartbeat, which was 143. Doc says this is normal and sounds great! We chatted for a little on the signs of pre-term labor, so in case I see any of those signs I'll know to get ahold of him. Basically if i feel contractions that fall into a pattern, give them a call. Other then that we talked about what the hospital offers as far as classes or tours go. I'm going to take a tour of the maternity ward at the hospital, just to check it out, get a small feel for what I'll be in for in only a few more months.

Oh! They weighed me of course... I've gained 15lbs! Doc says this is totally fine and he's not concerned at all. But holy moly! That's surprising to me because I've never gained that much so quickly ever. The kind of plays into some of the slight body image issues I've run into throughout this pregnancy. Its nothing to be concerned about, but it's hard to look at my body and see these changes occurring so quickly and so dramatically. It makes me feel yucky and "fat" sometimes, especially with no Hubby around to tell me I'm gorgeous no matter what. It's very stupid to think this way, but occasionally those thoughts seep in and it's hard to let them go. I think I'm more worried about after the baby comes out...will I ever look like me again!? It's a little scary when your body's been the same way for so long! 

I did get a call today from the nurse. She said that they found a slight iron deficiency in my blood and I'm boarding on anemic or better to say i have a mild case of anemia. This is basically when the levels of hemoglobin are low in your blood as well as the red blood cell count. It can be caused by having low iron intake or low folic acid intake, among other things. It is common in pregnant women mostly because of the increase need for iron as the amount of blood in your body increases. It can increase to about 50% more then normal during pregnancy. This extra blood demands extra iron to produce extra hemoglobin. So long story short, I'll continue to take my prenatal vitamins as well as an iron tablet. The nurse also recommended eating more iron rich foods. All should hopefully be okay after this :-)

At this point it's nothing to be overly concerned about, but I can't help but to feel just a little worried. This is the first thing that's happened so far that could potentially be cause for concern. I guess its a little exciting even, since I feel like this pregnancy has so far been kinda boring... nothings really happened. I always thought lots of crazy stuff happened. However, I'm learning that more "problems" can occur during the end of the second trimester, into the third trimester. I think everything will be fine though.

Our Journey Begins

It's been a few days without Troy, which to say the least has been really weird. Luckily in these past few days he's just being trying to get to Afghanistan which gave us the opportunity to talk to each other almost every day on Skype, or at least IM each other. I have a funny feeling that that will not be able to continue with such frequency (unfortunately). I have to keep details to a minimum as to where he is and when he got there or when he'll get there... but lets just say they must be getting closer because I have not heard from him for a while. This is the hard part... I think I'm sort of getting over the initial shock and fear and sadness of this whole situation, however, it's only temporary I'm sure. Luckily I have lots to distract me now that I'm home. I'm still trying to get myself settled in here and unpack the few things I brought with me, as well as clean out my closet that still contains some remaining items (about a million pairs of shoes and all my winter gear) that I left here when I first moved away to CA. Everyone once in a while it creeps up on me though, out of no where I'll feel this serious stinging pain in my heart (figuratively of course) that won't go away. I'll feel like crying my eyes out, or simply sitting there in a depressed state of mind not wanting to move a single muscle. Sometimes I don't really want to sleep for fear that another day will come and it will be one more day that I have to live without him here with me. Now all of this is not as bad as I'm describing it because I'm smarter then some might think and I don't actually allow myself to succumb to this depressed sad feeling. Not that I try to hide it away, but I do make a very good attempt at remaining positive and pushing forward. It is not only my heart and my body I have to keep functioning now. I have this little boy growing inside me and I cannot let my stress and/or worry affect him.

I'm doing rather well all things considered. Now I say this being only about the first week or so into this deployment, so we'll see how that changes. It's hard. No one will ever really understand unless they've literally been in my shoes, and there are very few in my circle of friends and acquaintances who have actually been here. I do appreciate everyones support and their advice, but sometimes it's just not enough because they know just as well as I do that there's not a whole lot anyone can really do or say to make the sadness of missing someone go away.

Thankfully, so far anyways, Troy is also being very positive and has been doing his very best to keep my head up as well as his own. For this I am truly proud of him and very grateful. He continues to tell me how our time apart is not so long in the big scheme of things, and that he has more wonderful things to come home too. He talks to me about how he's proud of us and our baby that's coming and that he cannot wait to meet our little man. These things make me so happy and so sad all at the same time. It breaks my heart to think of our first son being born and my hubby not being able to be there in person to see and experience it all in real time, first hand. Perhaps I am speaking too soon, because there is always that small possibility that they'll allow him to come home for the birth... which I am always praying for. God works in mysterious ways though, and perhaps, for reasons unknown to Troy and I both, it's in His "plan" to keep us apart for this first birth. It makes no sense to me, but I'm doing my best to keep my trust in the Lord, that he'll see us through this and whatever His "plan" is, it's the right plan and it may never ever make any sense to anyone but Him.

This smile melts my heart. (snapshot taken while webcamming on Skype) He is so truly happy to see me, even through a video on the computer, I can see it in his face and in his eyes. Even so far apart, I'm so so happy I can make him smile :-)

We'll be just fine. :-)

The saddest day