Long overdue update (sorry!)

Sorry it’s been so long since we posted an actual update, but life has a way of getting in the way. Since the last real post, Carter has turned 2. He had a lot of fun at his birthday party, with lots of his little friends. Counting adults and kids, there were 27 people crammed into our house for the party, but fortunately it was nice weather and it ended with all the boys getting to play outside in the yard. The party was a football theme and we had face painting, a piñata, and a 3-D football cake.

Carter is a really good boy in general, but he is also your typical 2 yr old, meaning the “terrible two’s” are in full swing. He doesn’t always want to listen or do what he’s told, but we have a pretty good reward/punishment system that we try to stick to. Regardless, it can be very frustrating at times and in my opinion no woman should ever have to be pregnant and have a 2yr old at the same time, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it to have the boys close in age.

We have decided on a name for our new little one- Owen Rylan Herman. We derived Rylan of course from Ryan. We decided that Owen Ryan sounded too much like Nolan Ryan, the baseball player, so we modified it a little. I hit 24 weeks yesterday, so only 15 more to go. (That’s 104 days, but who’s counting?!) We’re having a planned c-section, so I only have to make it to 39 wks! We have settled on August 18 as the delivery day. We had considered the 20th, since that’s Ryan’s birthday, but after much thought and consideration, we decided it will be special enough to have their birthdays so close, but they’ll each still have their own special day.

For my part, my dizziness finally let up in my 5th month, but my blood pressure hasn’t really gone back up much. I guess my body just adjusted to it and compensated. It’s still really easy for me to get dizzy if I get up too quickly or anything like that, but it’s definitely better than suffering motion sickness around the clock, day after day.

After finally getting to the point of actually enjoying pregnancy, except of course for the frequent bathroom breaks, a new problem has arisen. I’ve been experiencing some really painful contractions and lots of cramping for the past couple weeks. I had Braxton Hicks contractions with Carter, but they didn’t get painful until the last month of pregnancy. This time I’m experiencing some that feel like real labor and cause me to double over in pain and yelp.

This past Sunday afternoon I had 5 in one hour (you’re supposed to call your dr. or go in if you have 4 in an hour). I held off on calling since they were getting further apart, rather than closer together. I called Monday morning and left a message for the nurse, not expecting a call back from the nurse until that evening. I was surprised by a call back from my midwife around noon concerned about what she’d heard in the message. After explaining what I’ve been experiencing she put me on pelvic rest for the next week or two with instructions to call or go right in if they start coming regularly or get really painful again. I had a few REALLY painful ones yesterday, because I wasn’t taking it as easy as I was supposed to, but fortunately they let up after just a half hour and subsided to just cramping.

For those who don’t know, pelvic rest is modified bed rest. There are different limits on different people, but for me it means no lifting, exercising, or sex and I am to rest as much as possible and drink lots of water. So I can get up and take care of Carter, but I can’t lift him or chase him around or do much around the house. Just walking around for a bit is enough to make me start cramping badly, so I’m trying my best to take it easy. Although let me tell you, it is really hard to stay off your feet when you’re drinking about 10 glasses of water a day. Even for someone not pregnant that would make you have to pee A LOT! I’m scheduled for my next appointment with the midwife this coming Monday, so I’ll probably find out more then.

In the mean time I’ll try to get some more blogs and pictures up. There has been a little more going on in our lives in the past couple months, but this post is already long enough, so… the end.

Results are in!!

The final vote came out 11 to 20 in favor of a girl. And the result is.... 65% of you (and myself) were wrong. :) We're having another boy!!! We'll let you know when we decide what his name will be. We haven't quite narrowed it down yet. :)

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11wk update

So it’s been a long and rough couple of weeks. My morning sickness finally subsided a few weeks ago and I felt pretty good for about ½ a week. Then one day I started feeling really dizzy and as a result I was feeling motion sick- like being stuck on a boat on rough waters. The only thing I could think of was maybe a problem with my blood pressure. Normal for me is about 90/60, which is considered borderline low. Sure enough my blood pressure was down and was averaging 75/55 over several days. My doctor has assured me that it is normal for blood pressure to drop during pregnancy and that I should just be careful so that I don’t fall and hurt myself or the baby.

I went in for my routine prenatal checkup a week later and my BP was down to 74/48. After consulting with the Dr. my midwife assured me that I have nothing to worry about, but she did run some extra blood tests to see if there is an underlying cause. She also wants to see me in 2wks rather than the normal 4wks, because she is concerned that I have been continually dizzy for so long (even when I’m laying down). The good news is that at that appt (11wks) we were able to hear a nice strong heart beat, so the baby appears to be doing well. I just have to ride this out and hope my blood pressure goes back up soon.



Here is the latest sequence of pregnancy pictures. The one on the left is at 4wks, so basically the before picture. The others from left are 8wks, 9wks, and 11wks. I was too sick to take a picture wk 10. :( Believe it or not, I lost 5lbs between the 4wk and 8wk pictures and then lost 2 more lbs. after that, but I have yet to put a single pound back on. But that hasn’t stopped my belly from growing.







Here I am at 11wks and I am the same size that I was with Carter at 19wks.



















And of course Carter still loves to give the baby some love.

Baby Talk

So I was lying on the couch this morning and my belly was poking out a little from my shirt. Carter came up to it and said "there you are!" and preceeded to say goodmorning to the baby and give my belly hugs and kisses. He later came back up to me, when my belly was fully covered and he said "where did it go?" So he had to pull my shirt up and find my belly again to talk to the baby some more. I think he's getting excited about being a big brother. I asked him if he wanted the baby to sleep in his room when it came out of mommy's belly, to which he excitedly replied "yes!" (If it's a boy they'll share a room). It was the sweetest thing and I just had to share it.

Pregnancy Update (8 1/2 weeks)

So we’re 8 ½ weeks into this pregnancy and I am feeling slightly better with the help of some anti-nausea medicine from my midwife, but there are still many bad days (they’re just not as bad as they were).

We finally got around to taking a belly picture today after we took down the Christmas tree that was blocking the “photo” wall. Here’s a look at the “before” picture (3 ½ wks) compared to now. I’ve done a lot of growing in just 5 weeks.














Clearly what they say about you showing sooner with your second is true. Here’s a look at my first pregnancy at 15wks compared to this one at only 8 1/2wks.















Carter already loves being a big brother and loves to give my belly hugs and kisses and talk and sing to the baby. He tells the baby “morning” when he wakes up and tells it “night-night” before he goes to bed. (Of course if the flutters I’m feeling already are an indication, the baby is actually waking up about the time he says night-night)




We got our first ultrasound picture last week.







Here's a little diagram I made up to show you what you're looking at. It's harder to distinguish on a still picture than it is while they're doing the ultrasound and you can see things moving, so I figured I'd offer some help.










And here's just a fun little thing I did in Photoshop. Nothing genius, but seeing as out last name is Herman, I always remember the character of Baby Herman from the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He's the cute little baby that's really a cigar smoking man off camera.




And just because no blog is complete without a Carter update- this week we're working on shapes. So far he knows: oval, triangle, diamond, moon, star, and circle. (He has one of those cubes with holes in it that you put different shapes through.) He had square down, but he just learned diamond and now he gets them confused (along with rectangles). He also occasionally confuses a circle for an oval, since he just learned oval too, but he's getting better.

So that's everything for now. Only 4 1/2 weeks left in the first trimester, so hopefully all the nausea will subside soon. In the mean time I'll keep eating whatever cravings hit me that don't make me want to vomit. :)