Spring Cleaning / Nursery

Jeff & I had a BIG weekend. Actually it started on Thursday when Jeff finally got rid of our unwanted reptile... so now the nursery is officially in the works! I booted out the roommate because I was getting so anxious to start and it's a good thing I did. Turns out one of the walls is cracking and looks like is about to fall down. I'm not sure why she didn't tell me about this.

SO Jeff & I cleared everything out and I got started spackling the stuff I could right away. There were little cracks that I could handle all around the room but I left the one wall alone. We thought about cutting a huge hole at the beams & getting new sheet rock but I decided to leave it for now & think about it. Jeff & I have been getting so independent with home improvements and I feel good about everything we've accomplished. Even though I don't want to I might have to ask my dad to come help with that wall because I don't want to mess with putting up a wall wrong.

We rented a steam carpet cleaner from Home Depot. It was nice to see all those gross stains come right out! The carpet looks brand new again and I'm so glad we did it. Jeff threw the couch out to the curb and I filled up countless garbage bags of junk/clutter. It felt so good to clear out stuff. While all this was going on Jeff was busy moving furniture all over the place out of my way so I could steam clean & I was doing 4 loads of baby laundry! I was way too excited to do my first baby laundry. It really made me realize how clothes crazy I got though. I told Jeff not to let me buy anymore clothes because we really have an insane amount. I steam cleaned the nursery first so it would dry first. Jeff put the nursery furniture in as soon as it dried & I folded & organized everything I washed. It felt so good to be able to put things away in their place instead of just stacking stuff on top of stuff in a temporary spot wherever we could find room. We still have a lot do to but I'm thrilled that we made this huge start.

I have been exceptionally cranky & emotional the whole weekend. I feel bad that Jeff had to deal with me but he did a great job. I can't think of anyone else that would let me bark orders at them all weekend and hold their tongue while I insult them for not doing it "the right way". Then the poor guy had to deal with my meltdowns! It's amazing to me how fast I go from lovable to bitch to crying in the corner lately. Hopefully I can learn to control my feelings a little better and not let Jeff be my punching bag. I want to be able to deal with things the right way for the baby so she won't be around any negativity and I'm sure my hormones will still be all over the place after she's born so I really need to start now!

Rough Night

I had one of my worst nights of sleeping of the pregnancy last night. I fell asleep from 9:30 - 11:00, got up to pee, and couldn't fall back asleep. I had nausea, cramps, a killer headache, and my lower back felt as if someone was stabbing me repeatedly. I took some tylenol & tried to get comfortable with NO luck at all. I watched the clock till midnight when I had to pee again. This time when I got up I actually almost fell over because I had such strong hip pain that apparently I wasn't aware of until I tried to walk. Somehow I fell asleep when I got back to bed but only until 2:30 am when I woke up & I never made it back to sleep before the alarm clock went off. I woke Jeff up close to every 20 minutes to whine and then told him to go back to sleep because there was nothing he could do for me. I guess misery really does love company. I'm amazed that he didn't yell at me for waking him up so many times. He actually didn't even seem to care. He got into the routine of letting me move him the way I wanted, saying how do you feel, listening to my answer, giving me a kiss, and then falling back asleep. I've always been jealous of the way that Jeff falls asleep insanely fast. It's like one minute he's talking and the next he's passed out. I was REALLY jealous last night.

24 Weeks

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and our baby girl measured perfectly :) Apparently the number of weeks pregnant is proportional to the lenth of the baby in centimeters. I complained some more to him about not being able to eat anything and he told me again there's nothing he can do for me. He laughed at me though so I guess I'm being a baby! My blood pressure was high so they said they will need to keep an eye on that to make sure it doesn't get any worse. Apparently that is a dangerous thing.

Then he gave me more bloodwork and another glucose test. I went to Labcorp directly from the appointment to get the tests done so I wouldn't forget about it. So I drank another sugar drink, waited an hour, and then they took all sorts of blood. My arm is pretty bruised this morning from it.

Our little family had a cute moment yesterday when we got into bed. The baby girl was moving around and kicking like crazy which Jeff could feel and then he started kissing my stomach and the baby was kicking his lips. He rested his head on there for awhile and the baby kept kicking him which we got a good laugh out of. It was just a really precious moment to me. I'm sure there's many more moments like that to come :)

I'm looking forward to our romantic getaway in only 2 days! It will be so great to be at such a nice all inclusive resort and just be able to relax for once. We get breakfast in bed, good fancy dinners, pampered at the spa, and a great comfortable room. Then we also have nature trails, a sports arena, pools, hoseback riding, and Jeff can even go water skiing! I've been calling it our babymoon :)

23 Weeks.. Wow...

My pregnancy counter tells me I have 119 days to go. That is just crazy. This pregnancy is flying by. I hit 23 weeks today and I have to say that I've been feeling worse the last week. I started getting painful cramps on top of the nausea and it's been a little hard to deal with. Last Friday I got very sick and dehydrated. Nothing I ate would stay in and I was getting dangerously dehydrated again. I went to the clinic to get help before it got worse, and thank goodness I did. I spent the whole weekend recovering from that and didn't do much else.

My bed has a horrible sag which really adds to my back pain and trouble sleeping. We have a better bed downstairs but since it's a king we can't fit it up the stairs to get it in the bedroom. Since I get up to pee so many times at night it's a hard trade off between sleeping in a saggy bed right next to the bathroom or sleeping in a comfortable bed and walking up and down the stairs every time I have to pee. Not to mention I have fallen down the stairs plenty of times which I'm scared of doing while I'm sleepy. Jeff has been dealing with the bed company for a long time now and it seems like there's always one more step to go. Now we are waiting for an inspector to come out and inspect the bed because from my pictures the sag looks like "normal body impressions". So they are pissing me off and I'm pretty much leaving it totally up to Jeff to get it fixed so I don't need to fight with them anymore.

We went to the newborn class on Monday and announced we were having a girl which was exciting. We also picked out A LOT of baby girl clothes. We got home to put them away and realized we had no more space in her furniture for them so we had to start to use hangers. I am getting very anxious for the nursery to be set up and ready. I'm getting way ahead of myself but I want a finished nursery so bad! Next thing is fixing the hole in her wall that the renter put there and getting all the carpets cleaned, though. Jeff already tested 2 different rooms in the house with a lead paint testing kit we got from the hospital and the results came back normal/safe so that was a relief since it's such an old house. But we still have lots to do!

I'm feeling the baby get stronger and stronger. Jeff can even feel the kicks now which is super exciting. At night after I shower and first lay down in bed she moves around a lot so that is when Jeff & I usually lay together & he keeps his hand on my belly. I'm getting to know her schedule and when she's moving around and when she sleeps. I'm really enjoying getting to know her already before she is even born. It's crazy to me that a human is growing inside of me, and I don't ever think I will get over it. I think that no matter what I do, nothing will be able to compare to this. Do I wish this wasn't such a difficult pregnancy? Yes. But the joys far outweigh what I'm going through physically and emotionally.

It's a *GIRL*

It's a GIRL! Up until now everyone involved was SURE that I was having a boy but it's a baby girl :) Jeff wanted to wait until the birth and be surprised and I wanted to finnd out. After we talked about it I decided that I could wait until the birth to find out because I didn't want to ruin his surprise so that's whatwe decided to do. BUT after we went to the doctor and got that envelope I guess Jeff could tell it was driving me crazy!

So my wonderful man took the unopened envelope to cookies by design and had them open the envelope, make a cookie with whatever the sex was, and close it in a box for us without telling me a thing! It was definitely one of his best surprises ever! We found out together by opening the box, which was way better then the doctor telling us during the ultrasound or opening the envelope :)

So we are having a baby girl, and I really can't believe it!