Only 3 more months for our tiny dancer!

I'm six months pregnant!! YAY! I love it. She moves a lot and it's much more noticable than before. She moves in response to sounds and movements now, too, which I think is too cool. Steven layed his head on my tummy Tuesday night and talked to her and almost immediately she started kicking his face, lol. She and I also listen to Mozart around 10 every night (we try to in the mornings, but they're more chaoitic with work and whatnot). She moves to all the songs, but I've noticed that there are certain songs that she moves nonstop to. She hasn't even taken her first breath and she's already my little ballerina (takes after her mommy!).

Now, depending on which parent she's going to take after, she's about a foot long. If she takes after me then she's about a foot and a half, if she takes after Steven she's probably about 6 inches... hee hee. Her little brain is growing really fast right now (that's why we listen to Mozart) and she can probably use her taste buds by now... which probably explains why certain foods are baby movers, lol. Her lungs are developing branches of the respiratory tree and cells that produce surfactant, a substance that helps the air sacs inflate easily once she's born. This developmental landmark in particular makes me happy because if, god forbid, she's premature, her lungs are getting near their full development so she has more of a chance of surviving.

Life is really awesome right now. I've had an amazingly easy pregnancy so far and I've had a lot of fun with everything. Logan and I listened to her heart beat a few days ago. It took a while for him to sit still long enough to hear it, but once he did he was so excited. He asks me about her all the time. "Is my sister awake?", "did she eat your food?", "what's she doing right now?". He made me lunch on Monday and when I went to find him to tell him thanks his first question was if my baby ate my food. He's really excited. He invited me and Annberlynne to watch him play baseball for the Royals. I promised him we'd be there. I'm really glad that he's so excited. I'll have to post the story about telling him later, it's cute.

Steven and I are trying to get through all the obstacles right now, the money, the apartments, insurance, school, work... the list feels eternal. Apartments seem to be our biggest challange right now. But it's turned out really nice because as we work through these problems one by one through the week, the weekends are great. He'll listen to Mozart with us and we've listened to her heart beat together a few times. Even though we still have to talk about these things and our options during the weekends, our weekends are a lot of fun and pretty laid back. If there ever was a superman, it's Steven. Still the same ol' Steven, but somehow more. He's really helped me have an easy pregnancy. And especially now that everyone knows (parents, Logan, siblings, etc.) it's that much easier to enjoy... the burden of the secret is gone. Now we all can share the joy of having our wonderful tiny dancer in approx. 3 months time!!!

22 weeks!!

Knock Knock!! Are You In There?!

I don’t know if this is typical. I can only imagine that it is for every first time mommy. I know that when I wake up in the morning and start getting ready for my day, my baby girl starts moving around too. I also know that if I’m sitting in a chair and bend over a little too far forward, she’ll start kicking (I guess I’m squishing her, lol). And, like clock work, at about 8:45 every night she gets into karate mode and starts wreaking havoc on my bladder. But there are times when she’s late and my mind instantly goes into panic gear and I start wondering what’s wrong. Now, the reasonable side of me is saying that everything is fine… I’m not hurting or cramping or bleeding or any of the other tell-tale signs. But there’s still that part that can’t help but go nuts! Where are those kicks?! Where’s my baby? Rest assured, within the hour (and most times it’s not even that long) she’s reassures me of her presence by giving me the hardest kick of the day, and despite the sudden pain I’m now in, I can’t help but smile and put my hand to my tummy. There she is. There’s my baby girl.

Ultrasound

Mommy-to-be!!

I’m going to be a mommy! The mommy of a beautiful baby girl, our baby girl. My lovely daughter. She’s 22 weeks old and I love her more than I can say. Her lips are starting to be more distinct and her soft baby hair is slowing growing more and more. She has two small eyes though they still lack a color of their own. And though all these things are still growing and developing a little more each day, I know that she has two little feet with 10 little toes, and two little hands with her 10 tiny fingers. I know that she has a heart that beats and nerves that feel and ears that hear. I know that when I tell her I love her, she hears me. She doesn’t understand, and I know that, but her small growing brain is becoming more familiar with my voice, with my feelings for her. I can trust that when my love, her daddy, lays his head on my tummy and tells her that she’s beautiful that she knows it’s her daddy. She feels our hands as we wait anxiously for her next kick, and feels her daddy’s loving kisses on my tummy. And I know that she feels the happiness, the joy, and the shear elation that I’ve felt because of her, because she’s still a part of me, living inside my body, sharing her life with me.

TSP: The Back Story from Steven's POV

Soooo...
I had been looking at lizabef sideways and she had caught me a few times. "What? Why are you looking at me that way?" But...how do you tell your girlfriend she’s getting fat? I went for compliments "WOW, baby that shirt is really cute, it makes your breasts look really big. Are they growing?" "I love that dress, you look so curvy" "I love to snuggle you, you are sooo soft". lol. But she just turned the fat jokes my direction, and I had to go cry and eat another PB&J. Then, she started working out every night, but her breasts were REALLY starting to grow. On 4/23 she asked if we could talk...I think I knew immediately lol. That night she was very scared, but I told her we needed to make a doctor’s appointment and see what was next. I told her THAT WEEKEND that if she was really pregnant she would have the baby before her birthday…it was a joke since it will be her 21^st. Little did we know…

The week before this Logan had really spooked me out with 2 dreams. In the first dream he had he was a big brother. He informed me, as I was waking him up that he would be a big brother when he was 5. I laughed at him and told him to get some clothes on and meet me in the kitchen. 2 days later, while we were eating breakfast, Logan informs me that “Babies don’t like shots”. I asked him what he meant, because Logan is constantly thinking and pondering things before he says them. He said that the night before he dreamed that he was with a baby and the baby was getting shots, and didn’t like them…spooky lol.

05/01/08 9a.m. I am lost, running late, but I make it to Dr. Carter’s office just in time to run in for the ultrasound…and find the nurse in full panic mode. Where she was expecting to do a “first visit” ultrasound and see nothing, she is confronted by a perfectly round head, fully developed spine, then a face, then a foot. We were all shocked, but this nurse was FLOORED! None of us realized how far along Elizabeth Ashley was. I mean, she had been to see Dr. Carter in November, January, and March for her endometriosis and the pregnancy hadn’t been discovered. I look back and laugh, but both her and her nurse were pretty freaked out. I thought Dr. Carter was going to cry lol. I have never heard a doctor apologize for ANYTHING, but she apologized every third word or so ( I know I exaggerate STFU its my story) and then we had to do blood tests, readings, everything you do in the first 5 months of a pregnancy- but in 2 hours. After this whirlwind of activity we still had to go to class and school. Spent, we kissed, parted ways and said we would talk later. I dove into my research at work and designing some new logos to distract myself. It was starting to hit me…this baby is going to be fatherless after George Thomas Renfro gets a hold of me. Oooo shit. I left work, picked up Logan from school and we went and played. After he went to bed I cracked open a Corona, shut off the lights and sat and thought and thought and thought.

Friday I muddled through my day. At 5:30 p.m. I took Logan to meet his mom for a visit. She was late, so Logan and I had fun reading books and talking about being a big boy. We have decided to wait on telling him, so I took this time to get a feel for his thoughts on brotherhood and whatnot. He’s going to be awesome. I finally got to Elizabeth’s house at 11 p.m. I put my head to her belly and watched a movie. By 2 a.m. I was excited, anxious, and in love.

I’m gonna have a princess

A baby grrl

A daughter.

She’s going to love me,

I will love her,

Someday she will leave me for another man

And Elizabeth Ashley and I will remember these days, and laugh

Hi!

Hi Elizababy!
I made this blog site for you today so that we can write all about this amazing pregnancy. I love you. I am excited for this precious gift that we have been given. Hopefully we can keep a good web journal of this rush to the finish line. Please think of what you would like this site to look like, draw me some pictures to put up, lets take lots of pictures of you, us, and Logan. Here is the place everyone will come to see our progress, talk about our worries, hopes, fears, and the future. This is the living room where our entire family and our friends can all come together and talk to us, talk to each other, and see whats going on.

I love you.

Steven