So in love..

With this big 21 week, 4 day belly!

I definitely feel bigger than before, but I also feel great! I'm starting to get sluggish in the afternoons now, and I'm gasping for air when I go up any stairs. I also have trouble rolling over at night sometimes! LOL But I guess it all comes with the territory, and for carrying around a big belly, I feel pretty darn good! :)

All things a-girl!

Since finding out on Friday that we're having a girl, we just get more and more excited about meeting her each day. We've settled on Ashley Margaret for her name, instead of Ashley Erin. Margaret is DH's grandmother on his mother's side's name, so it had more meaning than Erin (which we just liked).

On Sunday, I went out and by chance caught a crib that I liked on sale at Sears, so I decided to just go ahead and buy it. It's a Storkcraft Holly 4-in-1 crib, so it should last us through this kid and the next one should we decide to have a second child. :)

This is the crib (crib only, not bedding):

We should have it in about a month, which works out perfect because we will want to paint he nursery first anyway. :)

DH and I had already settled on a stroller (travel system), but it was more than we were looking to spend, so I suggested that we go and just take a look at some cheaper travel systems just to make sure we didn't find something we liked in a better price range. We tried a lot of them, but we're still stuck on the original one we liked, so I guess that's that! This is the stroller we'll buy in another couple of months. I was tempted to buy it now, but I figured that we should wait in case it goes down in price. I think it's kind of funny that stollers have MSRP's. LOL

For the nursery, we haven't exactly settled on a theme, but I've been really in to giraffes. We're thinking of going with something like this for the bedding:

DH found the cutest lamp to go with this set too. We really like the browns and pinks. The only problem is that we have this painting/reprint that my parents gave us to go in the nursery, and it really doesn't go with the whole pink/brown motif. The painting itself is of children playing musical instruments, and there's a lot of red in it, and it's in a forest green frame. We probably won't have one of those nurseries that you see featured on those famous nursery websites, so I guess it doesn't really matter, but I'm just not sure how to work around it yet. :) I thought I had our nursery colour schemes for the pain all picked out, but now I'm really not sure!

Okay.... and now about the baby! LOL

I had an OB appointment on Monday, and things are looking great! I have to do the 1 hour glucose test in a couple of weeks, and doc wants to do some additional bloodwork to make sure all is good with my blood pressure, so that's up next. For now, we wait... and we shop! :)

Well, I can forget this morning...

BECAUSE I'VE 360'd (and DH has too)...

IT'S A GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today will get better.

I have 2 ultrasounds today, and at least one of them should be able to reveal what the sex of this baby is. That will be the good part of today, and if it doesn't work out.. well, at least I still get to see my baby so that should brighten me up.

But I've got to say that this morning has been trying so far.

I woke up early to drive DH to work because I needed the car for the first u/s at 11:20 this morning. As I'm getting ready to leave, DH tells me that the dog has puked downstairs. The dog ate a 5 dollar bill and two balls of yarn apparently, so I'm sure he's fine now that he's got that all out of his system... I finish getting ready, and go downstairs having expected that DH would have cleaned it up.... NOOoo.. Instead he went downstairs and effed around on his computer for a 1/2 hour while I was getting ready and left it all for me to clean up. Gee... thanks dear.

Well, since it took me extra time to clean up the mess while DH sat on his ass.. we couldn't leave on time, so I couldn't drive him in.. and he had to drive me in instead.. which means that he has to come pick me up and drive me to the appointment.

So then, he's all pissy while driving me in because he now has to go out of his way... Like I didn't have to go out of my way to clean up the dog puke you so kindly left for me a-hole???

Anyway, I ignore him, and I start talking to him about the appointment today, and asked if he had any guesses as to whether or not we'll get to see anything today.. just to start conversation. His answer? "I don't care."

Well.. that's nice. Then you know what DH? If you don't care... then I don't care that you have to go out of your way to drive me around! He knew we had to leave and couldn't even be considerate enough to clean up the mess he found this morning.. He does this whenever any animal in our house leaves a mess somewhere... He just takes a look at it, and then ignores that it's there.. and when I find it, he pretends that he didn't see it, then he effs off while i clean it up because it "makes him sick".

Normally, I would just tell him to get off his ass and clean it up, but we didn't have time for his BS this morning.

I could have murdered him for having an attitude with me this morning. Where does he get the right to be grumpy? He's not the one who had to clean it up... and driving me in shouldn't be an inconvenience, especially when it's his fault we had to leave late!!!!

I think this is the first time this whole pregnancy that I want to whisk him off to his parents place just so I can get him out of my hair for the weekend.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.... MENNNNNNNNNNNNNNN............

Now... that was a long and angry rant.

Things should get better and keep getting better at 9am, starting with a pancake breakfast at work.

I hope this working part of the day just flies by, or I may not make it.

My 20 week belly!

 

Just look at this half-baked belly! I realized in taking this picture (at work in the bathroom) that my shirt is a lot shorter than I thought it was when I put it on this morning. I currently don't have any long-sleeved maternity clothes, but it looks like it's about time for me to do some shopping. I'm excited about this bump, it's so big in comparison to two weeks ago! I think I popped (again) somewhere at the end of 19 weeks.

We have 2 upcoming ultrasounds on Friday. I got a call from my doctor's office yesterday, and they need me to go back so they can re-scan baby's spine. They said they only got a limited view of it the first time. I'll admit, it concerns me a little that they want a second scan even if it is for a seemingly valid and benign reason, but I'm trying to ignore my paranoia. 

The second u/s we have on Friday is the re-do of our 3D ultrasound. They couldn't figure out baby's gender because the umbilical cord was in the way, so we get to retry it once more for free. Here's to hoping that everything with baby is great, and that we will finally get to know if this baby is a boy or a girl!

Baby's been kicking up a storm this week. DH felt it for the first time on Friday night. It was only one kick (or possibly head butt), but he felt it, and it was really cool. Since then, I've been seeing baby moving around from the outside. Different parts of my tummy move at different times. It's a strange and wonderful thing to see. :)

Admittedly, I'm also getting a little nervous about things. I can't believe that I'm already halfway through this pregnancy. I've been having dreams or even daydreams about what labour and delivery will be like, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't scare the living daylights out of me. haha

I hope to be able to update this blog with the sex this week, and I still have to scan my 3D pic of baby and put it up here, so I will get busy!!

Tricky little baby!!

We had the elective 3D ultrasound this afternoon to try and see if we could get an answer on gender. Well... NO DICE!

Baby's umbilical cord is up between its legs, so yesterday's gender prediction was likely inaccurate and today we got nothing! :) The 3D tech said that sometimes it can take a couple of days for baby to move enough to get the cord out of the way, so likely what we saw yesterday was cord, and not girl parts.

Oh, and I didn't know this, but apparently when the cord is up between the legs, it can look like girl parts! I guess that's how mistakes get made! LOL

The clinic policy is if they can't get the gender, they will try again for free, so we're going to go back and try one more time next Friday. I hope little one shows us the money shot then! :) If not, then I guess we're going team green!

It's a possible girl!!

We went in for the 20 week ultrasound (at 19 weeks) yesterday, and everything with baby looked great! Baby was floating around, and moving all over... it's such a beautiful and reassuring thing to see. Baby was being cute and a little tricky for the technician as every time the tech tried to measure the baby's head, baby would turn around so that her bum would always get in the way. Sounds like she's a little trouble maker like DH ;)

After looking at the baby for about 20 minutes, the tech tried to determine the baby's sex. She didn't tell us for sure that baby was a girl. All she said was that she couldn't see boy parts anywhere, and she thinks that baby might be a girl, but couldn't say for sure because it's still possible that baby was hiding the goods.

DH and I really want to be able to tell both sets of parents the sex this weekend (which is Thanksgiving here in Canada), but we really don't want to tell them if we can't be sure it's a girl, so we've opted to go for an elective 3D ultrasound today at 2:45pm!

The lady at the 3D place said that they should be able to get it as long as baby doesn't have her legs crossed or anything, and if they can't get it, then they'll check again for free at a later date. Here's to hoping they can give us confirmation today. I have confidence that if they say it's a girl, it is... This particular 3D ultrasound clinic prides itself on the fact that they have NEVER been wrong on gender, so I think our chances our pretty good. :)

Oh, and we'll get a 3D pic of our LO, which would be awesome to show the grandparents at Thanksgiving!!

If this baby truly is a girl, DH's mom is going to go CRAZY!!! She had two boys herself, and currently has no grandchildren, so this would just be heaven for her. She's always wanted a girl. :)

Of course, my mom would be ecstatic with another girl for a grandchild (my brother had his little girl 11 years ago), so I know she's just waiting to hold another little grandchild again. :)

I am super excited that this baby is possibly a girl. With every fiber of my being, I thought it was a boy. I could still be wrong, but a girl would be such a wonderfully unexpected surprise. I am completely happy with whatever we get, but was a little saddened yesterday to find out that DH is actually disappointed that it's a girl. I told him that it won't matter, when LO gets here, that will be the furthest thing on his mind. He says he's happy for a girl too, but he really wanted a boy. This is a far cry from his original "I don't care if it's a boy or a girl, girls wear team jerseys too!"... but I digress.. at the end of the day, I know he'll get over it, and welcome his daughter in to the world with a pink Toronto Maple Leafs onesie. ;)

After the ultrasound today, if they confirm girl, then I think I'll take DH to the NHL store so we can buy the first onesie, and I'm sure that will get him girl happy! :)

My baby sling came today!!

And what better way to test it:

 

Noodles loves being the baby. :)

Just have to get through today!!

Ultrasound is tomorrow! I can't express how excited DH and I are to find out what sex this baby is, and to see this baby again! Last time we saw him/her, baby was only a bean.. so I think it will be extremely surreal to see something that actually fully looks like a baby. :) We're both praying for a happy healthy little guy or girl tomorrow. I will update for sure... I'll need to get it out somewhere if we're going to keep this a secret from the family until Saturday! ;)