Better grab some popcorn for this one!

Well since my broadband modem decided to finally quit on us last week, my Mother’s Day post is just a little late. Regardless I hope all mothers, to-be, new, seasoned, young, and old, had a FABULOUS Mother’s Day!

Friday we went down to the lake and fished a little bit. Bryce caught one bass on Friday. Of course I wasn’t there yet to catch a better picture so you’ll just have to settle for the crappy picture taken by Nic’s phone.

 

… and Nic caught one crappie on Saturday.

 

Needless to say it was an extremely productive weekend! They boys did give me a gift certificate for a massage, mani and pedi…I just hope I can remember (and find the time) to use it sometime soon!

On Sunday Nic was on duty (as usual, it seems!), so Bryce and I spent the majority of the day with my Mom, Aunts, and Grandma. It’s a little exciting to think that I just spent my last mother’s day as a mother of an only child…

Bryce is going to become a big brother in November! Since Bryce has pretty much been begging for a baby brother (which is still to be determined whether it will be a baby brother or baby sister) and with me finishing up with my Bachelor’s degree, we decided it was time to bring another little one into our lives. On Sunday I was 14 weeks (or 14 weeks 3 days depending what you go by), either way it doesn’t really matter since I’ll be having a repeat c-section. I’ve been keeping somewhat of a journal of this pregnancy since I knew I wanted to wait to announce it to the world. I felt I announced it WAY to early with Bryce and experienced all the fears and what-ifs that come with a new pregnancy…though I don’t believe those fears ever stop until you’re holding that little baby in your arms…and even then they never completely abate. So below is what I would have been posting about this pregnancy all along.
  

~02/25/2012~ 

I took my last birth control pill on Jan 3rd. Yep, we're trying for #2...finally!

And I will never take another birth control pill again! Okay, maybe I should take the mini pill again while I breastfeed our next child, but after that we'll opt for a permanent birth control.

So in an effort to figure out my cycle, I've attempted BBT charting...which as you can see below hasn't gone well.

I don't think I'm a good candidate for this charting stuff! From what I've read in order for to get an accurate temperature you need to have 3 solid hours of sleep before you wake up in the morning. With me...that doesn't happen! I sleep hard right when I fall asleep, but then I start waking up around 2 or 3, and doze on and off until my alarm goes off. I tried to do this when we were trying to get pregnant the first time, but after running a fever of 101+ for a couple days then becoming pregnant soon...it never panned out.

So according to a positive OPK I should have ovulated right after Valentine's Day. The chart somewhat supports that besides the temps not staying elevated like they should. However, for the past couple days my temps have appeared to sustain a shift and have stayed near or above 98 degrees. Then today I had what appeared to be implantation spotting...and of course my boobs have been tingly and REALLY sore. So the impatient me went ahead and took a First Response HPT...and it showed a VERY VERY faint line...so it seems I definitely could be pregnant. 

Can you see the line? (~10 dpo)

~03/02/2013~

So my temps have stayed high and I've taken two more pregnancy tests. One Wednesday morning with this result. (~12 dpo)

Then another Thursday evening (~14 dpo)

 So the test line has gotten darker and darker! And just like that WE'RE PREGNANT...and it was just as easy as the first time. I'm still in disbelief and it won't really set in until we hear the heartbeat or see an ultrasound, which is still several weeks out. Even then it might not seem real.

Of course most of you won't know until we return from our trip to Cozumel at which point I will be 12 weeks along. 

So far my boobs have been insanely sore! I feel like I have a couple of bowling balls hanging off my chest! I don't remember them hurting this bad the first time. Then I'm exhausted...already...which started last Saturday when I took a short nap for the first time in a VERY long time. I started taking prenatal pills when I first stopped taking the pill and since my first bottle was almost out I did a little research, including a spreadsheet analysis (I'm an accounting nerd what can I say?) and I decided on getting the GNC Prenatal Formula with DHA, plus an iron supplement. Since the prenatal pill I took with Bryce contained 29 mg of iron and I was still anemic, I figured 36 mg total would be better than the base 18 mg in the GNC vitamin. So only 8 weeks until the second trimester.

~03/04/2013~

New symptom - chest acne!!! Ugh! I believe I even have some acne on my scalp! I know when I was pregnant with Bryce my face became so oily and would break out periodically. I guess since then I never stopped using an acne face wash, and it seems to be keeping my face under control. Looks like I'll need to be using it on my chest too!

~03/23/2013~

So I'll be seven weeks tomorrow. In the past week and a half morning sickness has set in with a vengeance! I remember with Bryce it lasted most of the day, but I feel sick nearly every hour of the day with this one. Also I don't believe it was as intense either! It's taking everything I can to get through the busy time at work. So I'll be seven weeks tomorrow...the next 6 weeks are going to be loooooonnngg!

~April 4th~  
8w 5d

Today was our first prenatal doctor’s appointment, which of course was BORING! It was pretty much just like a normal annual preventative care visit, but with a lot more questions. They didn’t attempt to hear the heartbeat, which I was okay with me since it was still early and would just make me worry if they couldn’t hear it. Plus Nic wasn’t able to be there, and I wouldn’t have felt right if I got to hear it and he didn’t.

He did confirm we’ll definitely do a repeat CS, and that it won’t be done before 39 weeks…which is just fine with me. I asked if they would let me go longer than that and he said they would let me go past my due date if I wanted and if I didn’t go into labor before then. I don’t really want to go past my due date but I’m thinking November 6th, 7th, or 8th. I told him I wanted to try to get it where I could have the kids’ birthday parties together…he laughed at me and said that wasn’t going to be fair! LOL!

 Otherwise had 5 or 6 vials of blood drawn. There were 3 phlebotomists (I think that’s what they’re called) in the room, one lady comes up to me and says “ Hi my name is ___. I’m a student, is it okay if I draw your blood?” I asked in reply “Are you good at it?” The others laughed, but I don’t think she thought it was very funny! Oh well she did the draw anyways without answering my question. Thankfully it only took her one try to hit the vein.
 
 I have an ultrasound next Friday at 1:30 to confirm the due date and make sure there’s only one in there. I’m sure we’ll hear the heartbeat then too!


~April 10th~ 
9w 3d

 I had my first dream about the baby last night. Of course the dream made little sense and I’m not exactly sure if the baby was shown to be a boy or a girl. For some reason I’m thinking it was a boy but I don’t know if that’s just me thinking that in my consciousness or if that thought actually occurred in my dream. The really crazy part of it was that the baby was at work with me and was being kept in one of my drawers (open of course!). We all know how those pregnancy dreams can be! Then on another wave of dreams, I dreamt about trains, baby chicks, and miniature camels!

 In other pregnancy related news, I’m still feeling nauseous most of the time, but it’s started to come in waves where I’ll have a couple of days where it’s not too bad but then I’ll get one day where it kicks my butt! I’m not feeling as exhausted and am finding I have small (albeit very small) bursts of energy where I want to do housework. I definitely have a little bump, but of course it still is hidden with clothes, though many of my pants are already uncomfortably tight. Thankfully I haven’t had any weight gain yet…at least according to my scale.

 Aside from the fact that I am having major aversions to most food, I’ve had a couple of cravings. Which of course once I have the food I’m craving, I’m over it and then it becomes an aversion. For a couple of weeks I wanted a nice cold glass of milk every morning! Then also later in the morning I’d want a V8. So far this week though I haven’t craved those two items. Friday I wanted Chili’s Honey Chipotle Chicken Crispers and Artichoke & Spinach Dip…so I picked it up on my way to pick Bryce up Friday afternoon. I ate until I felt full, which didn’t take much, and never touched my leftovers because it never sounded good again. One thing that always sounds good to me though is a salad. When all else fails, I can always be happy with a salad. One craving that I have not indulge in is seafood! I want a nice bundle of crab legs and a lobster tail (or two)! I’m waiting on the lobster until we go to Mexico, but maybe one day I’ll make it by the White River Fish Market to pick up some nice plump crab legs to cook.


~April 16th~ 
10w 2d

 On Friday we had our first ultrasound. We hadn’t planned on taking Bryce with us, but since our sitters were unavailable we took him. Up to this point we hadn’t exactly told him I was pregnant. As we were walking in to the imaging center Bryce asked why Mommy was going to the doctor. We told him it was to see if there was a baby in Mommy’s belly! Of course I was a bit nervous that everything wouldn’t turn out alright, but fortunately we saw ONE little baby in there with a strong heartbeat (168 bpm)! I was a little disappointed to not get to hear the heartbeat, but I definitely saw the flicker of the heart and that was enough reassurance for me.

The baby measured 3 days ahead, which would put it at 10w 1d, however based on my LMP it is 9w 5d.  I think it’s funny how Bryce also measured 3 days ahead too! I’m not sure if the doctor will move my due date up or not...I’m hoping he doesn’t but since I’m having a repeat c-section I guess it really doesn’t matter. I just hope I can keep that baby in there as long as I want to, but considering my Mom had both my sister, Melissa and I late I’m assuming I’ll have no problems!


During the ultrasound Bryce didn’t really get much out of seeing the baby on the screen as it still looks like a little peanut and doesn’t move much at this point. Once we received the printout I was able to point out where the baby was and I think it became just a little bit more real for him. I also explained to him that the baby was about the size of his thumb and has to grow in Mommy’s belly for a while. Then of course he asked did we build a baby, how did we build it, and how did it get in Mommy’s belly? I just told him a seed was planted in Mommy’s belly…which is the semi-truth! Of course he’s set on a baby brother! Also at some point along the way home he asked what we were going to name his baby brother? I told him I didn’t know yet since we didn’t know if it was going to be a brother or a sister, but that we had plenty of time to decide that. I then made the mistake of asking him what he wanted to name the baby…his reply was that he wanted to name his baby brother “Butchie”! OMG!

Here's the best image we got...

 Otherwise I’m still getting a little morning sickness here and there…yesterday was especially bad. I hope it lets up before we go to Mexico next week.

So here we are on May 16th! 

We had our second doctor's appointment on May 2nd, where we got to hear the heartbeat for the first time. The heartrate was 154 bpm.  I'm about 15 weeks along and FINALLY the morning sickness is letting up!  Naturally, heartburn has continued and I expect it will continue until this baby is born.

So about that much needed vacation....

A week ago we returned from that vacation I dearly felt I deserved! Of course the timing seems to have been bad; I’m not sure if the recent sequesters had an effect on the messes we encountered or if that’s just the way it is these days for air travel! UGH! Over the past week we have spent well over 6 hours standing in lines…with a 3 year old...which let me tell you was so much fun we can’t wait to do it again! NOT!!!!

 When we left Thursday morning, Nic and I debated about arriving too early to the airport to just sit there…as we usually end up doing. Nic wanted to get there only an hour early, but I convinced him to get there 90 minutes…THANK GOODNESS I won that battle! The security line was the longest I had EVER seen at the Tulsa airport, it was so long it was outside of the roped area by several yards! It took us nearly a whole hour to get through it and we arrived at our gate just before they began to board. Definitely not the norm! Flight went smooth and Bryce was perfect for the short flight. We were in the very back of the plane, right across from where a flight attendant sat and she talked our ears off, but did give Bryce an Aviation Log book for us to fill out about all of his flights. It would have been nice to have in November 2010 when we took his first flight.

Memorable moment: Old lady eased her way all the way through the line until she reached the front. Like myself, I believe everyone thought she was meeting up with her husband…which never happened!

We arrived at DFW with plenty of time to sit down and have a hot breakfast, given we had more than 1 ½ hours until our next flight departed. At this point Bryce was bouncing off of the walls with excitement and could not wait to get to Cozumel. He just couldn’t understand why we had to take two airplanes. Though, he did pretty good playing on his Leappad while we sat at our gate waiting to board the plane. Of course after we sat in our seats he started kicking the seat in front of him and wouldn’t keep his seatbelt on. Fortunately we got that under control and he fell asleep while we were taxiing to take off…so essentially he became a perfect traveler on that flight. ; )

We arrived in Cozumel to the familiar blue waters and palm trees for it to take us TWO hours to get through customs and immigration! For the first time ever, in my TEN trips there, I got the RED light…which meant additional time while they hand searched our luggage! Of course they found nothing of interest besides Bryce’s watering can in his sand toys, which for some reason they found to be funny. At that point it felt never ending…

But we finally made it to the hotel. Immediately the front desk handed over a bag of sand toys for Bryce to use during our stay…of course it would have been nice to know they would do this so I wouldn’t have packed some for him (and got laughed at by the guys at the airport, LOL!). Either way, we were given a room on the bottom floor with easy access to the pool. This was another first for us. All other trips I had booked an ocean view room and were given a room on an upper floor with awesome views where most evenings I sat on the balcony to watch the sunset; but this time I felt the gap between the balcony railings was just too risky for my little monkey so I sacrificed the amazing views and settled for a garden view with a partial ocean view.

For our first evening we had dinner at New Especias. Especias (before the new) was our favorite restaurant on the island, but it recently underwent an owner change and is now an Italian restaurant (ristorante). The food was good, but I definitely missed the menu for the prior Especias…I really liked the chimichurri sauce…and the crab surami fingers…and the bacon wrapped shrimp…and the margaritas! Oh this was a bad idea to rehash all those yummy things…

We returned back to the hotel in time to watch the Belly Dancing/Black Light Show, which wasn’t too bad. It did get a little repetitive and boring after about 30 minutes, but we definitely enjoyed it in the beginning. Some of the comments I heard from my guys during this show were:

 “Mommy, where is her shirt?” Bryce asked in reference to the glittery bra looking top the belly dancer was wearing.

 

“I think Victoria is my favorite Mexican woman!” Nic in reference to the belly dancer herself!

The next day was a lazy day of playing the sand, swimming in the pool, and a round of mini golf…which of course Bryce won! Our routine for after mini golf quickly became sitting at the nearest beach bar and having a cold drink while we rested. I think this was also the day where 3 or 4 drinks were spilled by our sweet little boy…I packed just about everything I could imagine, but apparently a sippy cup wasn’t one of those imagined things!

Memorable moment: One day during our post mini-golf “rest” a guy came up to the bar wearing a Speedo. Again I heard the curiosity when Bryce started to ask “Mommy?” I knew what was coming and tried to interrupt Bryce or distract him long enough for the guy to walk away. Again he started “Mommy…” and I knew I couldn’t stop the words from coming out of his mouth, “where are his pants?” At that point I couldn’t help but look at Nic and just laugh. Where we are from you don’t see men wearing Speedos. We all know kids are so great at saying and asking honest things, so I guess it’s just part of the territory.

Saturday we had a taxi take us to a few of our favorite spots along the Eastside of the island. After a stop for refreshments in town, we made our way to Mezcalito’s. Bryce wanted to sit/lay in the hammocks and swung on some swings on the beach.

 

From there we went to the all famous Coconuts, where we had lunch. Once again Nic’s fire department badge was still there, though it was obvious it had been there a few years…I’m thinking maybe 7, I’d have to go back and look to be sure!

Next stop was Chen Rio beach where Bryce could play in some calm ocean water. This is a spot that is typically very popular with the locals, and although it wasn’t packed like it would have been if it were a Sunday, there were still several local families. As soon as we got in the water, one little girl brought her large dolphin inflatable over to share with Bryce, which I thought was so kind. Of course Bryce was still a little unsure of the ocean and didn’t want to play with it. 

After a stop at the supermarket, where we bought Bryce a “snorkel” mask, we returned to our hotel to rest before getting back in the pool.

This evening we finally caught a sunset.

Later that evening the hotel had an outdoor Mexican buffet and show, and we felt we couldn’t go wrong with the buffet considering Mexican food should be what they know best! We were right, anything and everything was on this buffet: tamales, taquitos, tacos, empanadas, fajitas, etc. It was really good!

The shows quickly got underway and the next thing I knew one of the staff were carrying Bryce up to the stage.

So I snuck up there to snap some photos and the next thing I know I'm up there on the stage with him!

We quickly found out we were participating in a hat game that is played similar to musical chairs, but in this game you put the hat on, spin around and hand it to the next person. Whoever has the hat when the music stops is eliminated. As luck would have it, I was the first one eliminated but Bryce continued playing.

It wasn't long before Bryce was eliminated, but since he was the smallest one up there on stage they offered to give him another shot but he quickly told them "NO" he wasn't interested.



He was such a good sport about the entire thing! I'm still surprised he even went up there without me to begin with!

Random memorable moment from this day: As I mentioned before we had a ground floor room and our patio was probably 10-15 feet from the stage and the area where some tables were set up for the buffet. After Bryce was washed and out of the shower, I was finishing up my shower enjoying a few minutes to myself. So my husband decided he would interupt my few minutes of peace and got in the shower while I was still in there. I immediately asked what Bryce was doing because he could easily open either door to the room and get out. Nic wasn't worried about him and said he was fine, so I hurried up and got out to find my child was buck naked between the glass door and the curtain where everyone eating could see him!

The next morning we woke up, had breakfast and decided to walk south along the beach towards the former Sol Cabanas del Caribe, which was destroyed by Hurricane Wilma. After 7 1/2 years they've finally began removing the destroyed hotel. On our way back Bryce did a little seashell searching.

We had dinner in town this evening and Bryce found a horse while Daddy was grabbing a rare Bud Light at Fat Tuesdays.  

For our last full day we relaxed at the hotel along with hitting up the tennis courts. Bryce remembered playing last year and bugged us most of the week about playing tennis.



On the day of our departure our flight didn't leave until 1:35pm, so we spent a little time by walking out to the pier and fed the fish.

 

Loaded in the plane and headed to Dallas! Of course all I could get out of Bryce was a funny face. 



During our flight to Dallas they informed us that we would be late arriving since we couldn't take a direct flight path due to weather. I immediately knew this wasn't good since we only had a 1 1/2 hour connection to begin with and we needed every minute we could get to get through customs, immigration, re-check our luggage, and go back through security.

We ended up landing 30 minutes late and as soon as we got off the plane we loaded Bryce up in his stroller and started hustling to immigration. As soon as we made it and we saw the line...our hearts sank...there was no way we were going to make our connection and be home by 7pm...

We were unable to see the end of the line and it seemed to go on and on and on. When we finally got to the end of the line I knew we were going miss our 6pm flight to Tulsa. While we were in line I went ahead and called the airline to reschedule us to another flight; fortunately they had already rescheduled us on the next flight to depart at 7:35pm...but given the line we were in that was going to be tight.

It took us over an hour to get through immigration. All along I thought customs would be a breeze, but BOY was I mistaken when we went to get our luggage. The line wrapped around several of the luggage carousals and took us another 45 minutes to get through this line.

We finally made it through and rechecked our luggage. Security probably took another 15-20 minutes and we made it to the gate for our flight about 15 minutes before takeoff! Geez! Talk about stressful!

We landed in Tulsa around 8:30pm...and headed home with only two of our three bags...apparently the other one was still in Dallas. Not sure how that happens but thankfully it arrived the next day!

Since we've returned it's been a whirlwind! If the long lines weren't so fresh on our mind I would almost be in the mood for another vacation...

Happy Belated Tax Day to me!

 Woo! The past month has been a whirlwind for me since it has been our busy season at work! I know I’m definitely ready for a vacation! I’ve probably thought daily about sitting down at my laptop, pulling pictures off of my camera and writing a post…but I just haven’t had it in me. In addition to my professional life, my home life has been just as busy. 

Bryce continues to show many of my personality traits, including my brains ; ), on a regular basis. We’ve finally conquered the counting stump that the number 4 presented and can count all the way to 13, 14, or 15…depending on the day. He also can count a little in Spanish and decided to pull that one out on me one day in Walmart, where we were in line and he started counting LOUDLY in Spanish.

He can pretty much say his ABC’s in the song format, of course he slurs the L-M-N-O-P into something unrecognizable.

He’s definitely showing a tad bit of my type A personality. I’ll let this picture do the introduction for that and anyone that knows me well will easily see why!

Nic and I noticed he was REALLY quiet in his room, and as a Mom of a toddler knows that usually never ends well. So I went in there to see what he was up to and find he had lined up all of his Hotwheel cars and they were all facing the same direction and he started to color coordinate them…of course I think after he got past his favorite colors he quit! 

The weather has been pretty unpredictable with us getting a good mix of warm and cool days, but it still seems like winter just won’t let up! So of course we take advantage of the warms days whether it’s spent fishing at the lake, playing baseball or blowing bubbles in the back yard. Either way I love how our TV time has decreased with the longer and warmer days. Though we do manage to watch at least one episode of UmiZoomi at bedtime…at least it’s educational! 

Of course lest we not forget that Easter was in the past month. I’ll admit, that I almost forgot to include it this catch up post. It seems like it was ages ago yet it was only 2 1/2 weeks ago.  The day before Easter I boiled two dozen eggs for Bryce to color. Since I decided I wanted more vibrant colors than what the kit tables usually provide, I used good ol’ food coloring and vinegar. I bought some funny face stickers for Bryce to further decorate the eggs, but of course he lost interest after doing just a few. So we were left with pretty plain eggs. 

 Though there was a threat of some severe weather, Easter ended up having pleasant, sunny weather and were able to enjoy the awesomeness of one of my Aunt’s backyard. For one reason or another (including Nic being on shift…AGAIN!), this year was a little bit smaller family occasion than normal, so Bryce didn’t have much competition when it came time for Easter egg hunting. In fact on the way down there my 14 y/o sister decided she would rather hide than hunt, so that left Bryce with no competition on hunting the 43 eggs we had. He did really good finding most of them, but felt the need to ask if each eggs was his!
 

  My nephew Kell’s birthday fell on Easter this year so my sister decided to do his party the week after. This year she also did a swimming party at the Leapin’ Louie’s Lagoon in the Wyndham hotel, like another party we recently attended. At first Bryce didn’t want to get in the water, I think he “fondly” remembered his attempt at drowning at the last party. He eventually decided he was ready and enjoyed splashing around...while steering clear of the "deeper" end.

We also managed to have a night out with Elmo…well at least Bryce and I did. Daddy, lucked out of having to partake in this fun adventure since he was in the middle of training and needed to study. So we bought an additional ticket and invited a friend and her Mom to come along. Last year when we went Bryce was terrified…of course then I had bought floor seats so we were really close to this action. This year I chose seats in the raised section farther back from the stage (and much cheaper) and OF COURSE this was the year he wanted to give Elmo a high five! Geez, I never know what I’m going to get with this kid! So I’ve been thinking about trying to plan a trip to Sesame Place. We have some friends that live in Philly, with a son a little younger than Bryce, and I think it would be a perfect opportunity to meet up with them and allow Bryce to get up close and personal with the Sesame Street characters…though he still is afraid of Cookie Monster for some reason!?!

 

I'm going to try to post again much sooner than a month from now...