Monday, December 29, 2008

It's a Boy!

AHH! We're having a boy! :-) Curtis and I have been smiling, laughing, and kissing all morning. We're so happy that our baby is healthy, and we're excited to have a little guy around the house. The sonogram appointment seemed to fly by. The Dr. said he's 100% sure, and it's definitely guaranteed that it's a boy. He even zoomed in on our baby's little boy parts and showed us. We won't be posting that picture on the blog. He also gave us a picture of the baby's "face" but Curtis and I have come up with several interpretations of which dark spots could be eyes, a nose and a mouth... We also got a fuzzy picture of a foot, and we got to watch our baby's heart muscle pump while we listened to his heartbeat. I thought that was awesome. We did take a video tape (We don't have a VCR anyways) but the recording machine was broken, so we don't have to worry about converting that. We'll get the sonogram pictures up here later.

For now, here's a picture of me, my belly, and the Christmas tree. I don't think I really look this big, it's some sort of optical illusion with the sun. But maybe I do. Anyways, Baby and I will just be getting bigger from here.

I'm also posting a picture of me and Tommy napping on the floor after we played in the backyard yesterday. Tommy likes to nap on the dining room floor by the sunny window. I had to wear the bandanna because the sun was in my eyes.



Monday, December 22, 2008

December

As I sometimes say, "Sheesh."
I've been avoiding my blog, on purpose.
In my office I've learned that if you have something difficult to email, keep it short.

I found out last week that one of my best friends had a miscarriage. I'm so sad about it everyday, and it's going to be a sad piece of my life for a long time.

This same week, I've felt my baby move everyday. I'm so thankful. Curtis has felt it once, and we laughed. That's a memory I'll keep.

Our midpregnancy sonogram is Monday, December 29th. We'll definitely be posting some news and pictures.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Can you feel the baby moving?

Can I feel the baby moving? Probably. Am I sure? No.

I guess I'm waiting to feel a definite punch or kick, but that's not likely for a while. It seems to me that some women tend to be more aware of their bodies than others. I'm sure there are women that can tell when they ovulate, when exactly they became pregnant, and when their two-ounce baby started moving around. That's not me. I'm lucky if I notice that I haven't been to bathroom all morning. I think, "Oh, maybe I should go to the bathroom."

According to some books and websites, I might be feeling a fluttering sensation in my tummy area. A "popcorn popping sensation" or "gentle brushing" is what I'm looking (feeling?) for. Hmmm. If I hold my breath and try to be very still so I can determine any non-Lauren movement, I just feel and hear my heartbeat. It gets louder and stronger the longer I wait, so I go back to emailing, Wheel of Fortune, sleeping, or whatever else I was doing.

I'll keep you posted.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Early Pregnancy Comments

I'm still waiting for someone to see me, know from my belly that I'm pregnant, and make a comment. It hasn't happened yet. Here's three recent pregnancy conversations I have had.

Today in my office one of my favorite study abroad students came to visit me. Jeremy is from Abilene, has known me several years, and even plays frisbee with my husband and friends. He came in my office, I stood up, walked around my desk to give him a hug, then I remained standing so he could see my belly and (hopefully) comment. We talked about Thanksgiving, his classes, his family, my family, but no pregnancy comments. We finished catching up with each other (I'm still standing), and Jeremy looked around my office and noticed the lists of nominated baby names my student workers keep on my office door.
He looked puzzled, looked at me, and said, "What's this?"
"Jeremy, I'm pregnant!"
My student worker, Tina, witnessed all of this and started yelling, "Didn't you notice her baby bump?! What, did you think she has just gained a bunch of weight?!"
Then I introduced Tina and Jeremy, Jeremy added a name to each list, and left.

I hesitate to put this one up here, because I don't remember it exactly. (hahaha, blame it on the pregnancy) Over the Thanksgiving break we met Curtis's family for dinner one night. I wore a small t-shirt so my tummy would be more visible. I knew that Curtis's family was excited about seeing the baby bump I've advertised on this blog. Eilene saw me, gave me a hug, and said something like, "Well, you're not that big." It's true, I'm not.

Before the Thanksgiving break I was working with the Admissions office helping introduce visiting high school students to ACU. While the high school students were eating lunch I went over to say hi to a group of four admissions student workers that I know (they'd studied abroad). One of the students, Dani, has been excited about my pregnancy ever since she found out a few weeks ago. When I walked up to their table Dani said, "Hey Lauren! Hey, I think you're gaining some weight!"
"Yeah, about five pounds." I looked at my tummy, she looked at my tummy. We were smiling.
"Well, at least your tummy isn't all flabby like some people."
"Oh, I think there's some flabby spots." I started poking the top part of my tummy to show her that it wasn't hard.
We realized that the other two students hadn't said anything in a while, and when we looked at them, they had awkward, embarrassed looks on their faces! Finally Dani said, "Don't y'all know that she's prego?! Oh my goodness!"
They thought that I had just put on some unwanted pounds and Dani and I were just chatting about it for fun!!

So far, my dad has been my favorite. We went to visit my parents over the break. When I got out of the car he said, "Hi Sweetheart, you look great!" and he gave me a hug. Then no more talk about my tummy for four days.
Thanks Dad.

Monday, November 24, 2008

The End

It's the end of my small, non-stretchy shirts. Today started with an email from babycenter.com. "Welcome to your 16th week of pregnancy! Get ready, in the next few weeks your baby will double in size and weight!" (groan from Lauren) Right now I'm doing laundry and sighing as I stack up my small shirts and pants and shorts without elastic. (Yes, because they don't fit, or won't fit by the time I get back from Thanksgiving.) It was a relief to find some towels in my laundry basket. "Aha! These will still fit!" And if I'm going to outgrow my towels, don't tell me now.

I have awesome maternity clothes thanks to some good friends. But I'm still sad about putting away my old clothes. It occurred to me that this is kind of like packing for study abroad. I get to take some clothes with me overseas (through my pregnancy), and the rest I'll see again in a few months (a year or so). Right? Sorry, these reality checks are tough.

There's lots of things to be excited about. ACU is dominating in the playoffs! If you're out of the loop, ACU beat WTAMU on Saturday 93-68! Sheesh! If you want to watch just the touchdowns, you can find the video on D2Football.com or the Abilene Reporter News website. Just the touchdowns - it's 6:00 long! It was a long, crazy, awesome game! We play Northwest Missouri this Saturday. I'll have to watch the game online. Oh man. The Championship game is in Florence, Alabama on Dec. 13th, and I would love to be there! awesome.

I'm also super excited about Thanksgiving! It's one of my favorite holidays. Yum.

Here's the recent picture. We took it last night, 11/23/08.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Lists

I haven't made any lists yet, but I've been thinking about them. Mostly I'm deciding when I need to start working on things. Here's things that I'm not going to worry about until later (definitely after Christmas).
-picking a name
-picking out baby furniture
-picking out a stroller/car seat/etc.
-moving desks out of the office/nursery

Right now I am working on deciding what size I am and what clothes I can wear besides t-shirts and sweat pants. So far I have stacks of maternity clothes from two of my friends. I didn't realize that a woman will go through small, medium, and large maternity clothes in one pregnancy... I also don't understand all the clothes I've unpacked, but that's ok. I like to pretend I know what I'm doing.

Also I think I'm officially in my second trimester. I'm not nauseous and I don't have to use the bathroom in the middle of night. Nice. I know, trips to the bathroom are going to be returning to my schedule as Baby grows.

I have my second doctor's appointment today. I don't know what's going to happen. I'm expecting standard tests (weight, blood pressure, urine test, measure my tummy) and some time to ask questions. If anything exciting happens I'll let you know. My fancy sonogram appt. is scheduled for Dec. 29.

And I'm home sick with a cold. But that's OK. Tommy's snuggly when he knows I'm sick, and I have lots of hot drink and food options here at the house.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Trip to Mexico

Hey, here's some pictures of my trip to Mexico. I don't tend to carry my camera around, so these aren't representative of most of my experiences, just the two times I had my camera: 2 hours on the beach, and 2 hours on the runway in Mexico City. Most of my time I was at a very nice hotel in Merida, Mexico. My favorite part was the Coconut ice cream dessert on Wednesday night - Coco Champola! Sadly, it's only available in Merida.

First the beach with my friend and coworker, Sue Ann. Then the parade of emergency vehicles that checked out and re-fueled our plane when we had some problems with a warning light.







Monday, November 10, 2008

Some Dreams

I've had some pretty wild dreams the last few weeks. Here's my two blog-appropriate favorites so far: In one I was a lead in a Shakespeare play with my friend Amy. I wasn't originally cast as the lead, but the lead got sick, so I got the part. It turns out that I'm a wonderful Shakespeare actress! But after each show the director would pull me aside and tell me to either stop ad-libbing or at least run my ideas by him before the show. I told him that I thought it was important to give the audience more historical information about the play (most of my outbursts were like footnotes). It was pretty awesome.

The dream I had last night was not very fun, but it was crazy. First I was walking around a mall, not knowing which section to shop in. Then someone came up and told me "Happy Birthday!" I asked how old I was, and they said 30. 30?! I quickly added in my head, "born in '83, now it's 2008, yep, that makes me 30!" Then I saw my two good friends Mark and Phil and I asked them if they were 30 too. They said "Of course!" Whoa. So I went home, because my mom was going to bring me a birthday cake. But I knew my house was going to be invaded before my party by a gang, so I waited in my front yard on a wave runner in the pond. (Yes, in my front yard.) The gang came, I got off my wave runner and fought them through the house and backyard. It was pretty cool, but scary. I don't remember all the details, there was something about an airplane engine making fake snow to distract them...(easy, you throw bags of ice through the engine and it comes out all chopped up like snow!) I remember the end - I punched the leader in the face, sent him flying into the fireplace, and I lit him on fire! When I woke up I was terrified! But I slowly realized that I wasn't 30, and I hadn't fought anyone. Thank goodness!

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Progress?

For those of you who are out of town and imagining a cute baby bump, here's the truth. Below is a picture of me at 8 weeks and a picture at 12 weeks. There's not much difference except I need a haircut. And these days Curtis can stick out his tummy as far as I can. (I'm working on getting a picture of that!)

Green shirt - October 5
Purple shirt - November 1



Traveling Plans

So Thursday I went to Houston for a fancy ACU recruiting event. Thursday was a bad day. I felt car sick for most of the long ride, but we had to keep going so we could get there on time, so I just tried to sleep. And none of the convenient stores we stopped at had Icees! bummer. For a while I thought I would have to skip the event that night, but once we got to our hotel room, I started feeling better. The event was great, I love talking about ACU. Then Friday we got back in the car and drove back to Abilene. It's a long drive. We left at 9:15, stopped at the Blue Bell factory in Brehnam, it was closed, and then we accidentally ended up in Taylor! That was not on the route, but it was close to Georgetown, and I definitely know my way back to Abilene from there. I felt really good on Friday, and I knew where we were, so I did most of the driving. And my fellow travelers let me pick all the stops. For lunch we stopped in Taylor and ate at this tiny Mexican food place that was painted bright peach and only had trucks in the dirt parking lot. It was great.

So this weekend I'm here in Abilene and on Monday I leave for a NAFSA (some sort of national study abroad association) conference in Merida, Mexico. I'll feel more excited about it after I pack and get all my stuff together. It should be fun though. I'm going with three other people from ACU. I get back late Thursday night.

My baby will have been to Montevideo and Mexico before it's born!

Check out Merida on wikipedia, it's a cool place!

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Week 11 Report

How am I feeling? This week you'd get a different answer every hour. Right now I feel good. I got a nice nap after work and Curtis just made me a sandwich. Some nights I feel nauseous and I sit in the recliner or lay on the couch until it's time to go to bed. Sometimes taking the dog on a walk makes me feel better, sometimes I don't want to go. And so far, most of it doesn't make sense to me. I generally feel better if I eat something every few hours. But I get tired of eating because I don't feel hungry. Oh well. I think I have it better that other ladies in their first trimester, so I don't want to complain too much!

I really enjoy following the ACU football team. I check their blog and news releases regularly, and I've been to all their home games. We usually listen to the away games on the radio, and the last away game was on TV! I was pretty worried about the WT game last week, but we won. In case you're not in the loop, ACU is undefeated this season, breaking tons of ACU records, ranked number 1 in our conference and number 2 in the nation! We have some awesome players on offense (Malone, Scott, and Knox) and our defense is awesome this year! Our next three games are against some serious teams, so I'm excited.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Pretty Header

Hey! Here's a big THANK YOU to my friend, Hannah, who made the pretty header (picture at the top of my blog) for me. She's a great friend, a wonderful mother of twins, and an excellent photographer! You can check out her work on her website and also on her blog - http://vickersdigitalphotography.com. Hint: she has some really cool designs for Christmas cards!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

First Visit to the Doctor!

We just got back from the doctor's office and it was awesome! Our estimated due date is May 12. Everything looks good and we have another appointment in a month.

The best part of the visit was the ultrasound! We got to see our baby!!! Baby was hanging out upside down (Curtis disagrees - I was laying down, we're not sure about the angle of the camera... we agree that it was upside down in the pictures) and it was so precious! We got to hear the heartbeat for a few seconds. I could have listened to it for hours. After we had been looking at the baby on the ultrasound for a while, Baby started to move around!! That was the best. Now it seems like a long time before we get to have another ultrasound. Our next appointment is November 17th. We'll post the ultrasound pictures on here after we scan them.

My favorite is on the top right - the one with the legs!