Closing in on 25 Weeks

We had a doctor visit today, and it’s starting to feel silly blogging about each one because they’re getting more frequent and not much new has happened. We’re moving right along at nearly 25 weeks and things are going well. However, I did gain about 7 lbs. this month, so I’m going to try to make a better effort to get in a little more exercise and eat a little better. As for Trace, he’s moving around a good bit and his heart rate was 148 bpm. Also, I have a gestational diabetes screen next visit with Dr. Harris on May 3rd and we’ll begin seeing her every 2 weeks after that. Yeah, it’s getting close!

The nursery is coming along nicely, but it’s not in any real order. We did get a new rocking chair recently (an early bday gift from my parents), and Ernie’s parents got us a car seat and an extra base for Easter. We’re still waiting for our wall letters to come in. They’re expected to be here by April 25th; I can’t wait! Once they’re here I’ll be sure to take pictures and share them with you all. They’re gonna be so cute.

Well, that’s all we have to report for now. Thanks again for all your prayers and concern.

One last thing, please pray for our friends Angie and Tony. They lost their baby yesterday at 17 weeks.

22 and a half weeks...

Today, we had our second visit with Maternal Fetal Medicine. Everything went well and there's not much to report. Today's visit was fairly short and everything looks good. Trace is growing at the normal rate, and we received the reassurance that everything looks good. He weighs in at 1.2 pounds and is very active. He was moving around quit a bit during the ultrasound and was making it difficult to get a good profile view. We did get to see him yawn twice and it also looked like he was trying to put his foot in his mouth.



The nurse tried to get us a 3-D image of Trace, but he wasn't very cooperative. In a few months, she said we'd be able to get a good look at him once he is a little more chubby. Here's what she was able to get today:

Daycare Anyone?

So, today we had a visit with Dr. Harris, but not much new to report. She weighed and measured; and we listened to his heart, which was 147 bpm. We just finished our last round (hopefully) of antibiotics; so they’ll check for the bacteria next time we go. Let’s hope that the pesky germ will finally be gone! Also, I’ll have more blood work at my next visit, as ordered by Dr. Jaekle. She said I’ll have these randomly, sort of like “pop quizzes”. He also put me on some additional vitamins that are supposed to help with thinning my blood even more so than the regular low-dose aspirin, which I’ll continue to take as well. One final note on our visit – our AFP screen came back normal, which we were relieved to hear.

Alright, now onto daycare, this has become a big topic of discussion in our household lately. We really don’t have any firm plans yet and are looking at all available options. Right now we’re just trying to get on waiting lists, which is looking like I won’t be able to go back to work for a year or two after Trace is born, because these are some serious lists! We’ve been on a list at LSU for over a year now and they still can’t tell us when or if we’ll be accepted until after we deliver. We visited two new places this morning and went on tours of their facilities. UPC on campus seemed like a good option until we went there today and waited a half an hour for the lady to tell us to come back in February to get put on a list. Plus, the lady was kind of rude, so I’m gonna go ahead and rule them out. Then we went over to Country Day School on Highland and Kenilworth , which we liked and it seemed nice; but their waiting list is booked until March 2008. They told us they have another location on North Blvd., which is in our neighborhood; so we’re going to check that place out on Friday. Plus, their list is a little shorter. We also plan on taking a tour of the LSU facility and Parkview’s preschool on Friday, which by the way, also has a waiting list of at least 2 years! So, if you know of anyone in a good daycare or if you have some alternative suggestions, we’re interested!

Thanks so much for the prayers, happy thoughts and encouragement. We love you all!

About Half Way There...

We're closing in on the mid-way point of our pregnancy and had our first visit to the maternal fetal medicine doctors. Our visit was yesterday (March 7) with Dr. Jaekle, who we had heard good things about from our friends. He definitely lived up to what we were told. He is a kidder and likes to use humor to make you feel comfortable. We had an ultrasound done and everything looks great and normal for this point in our pregnancy. Trace measured in at 12 ounces and was confirmed to indeed be a boy:


We are scheduled to go back to the maternal fetal doctors in 3 weeks, and they gave us a lot of comfort and positive reinforcement. The doctor said they would be watching us closely and said that if we ever have questions or want to come in for a check-up, just to give them a call or come by. We may not take them up on this offer, but it's good to know that the opportunity it there if we need it.

On the home front, we are starting to get the nursery ready. We ordered some wall letters off the Internet and bought a shelf to put up in the room. Now we have to figure out how we want to arrange everything in the nursery. We'll probably move stuff around quit a bit between now and July. Ashley is doing great and hasn't had the nausea that she felt last time. Her hips are starting to bother her a little, which may be caused by our hard-wood floors. The doctor told us that wearing shoes or slippers around the house may help.

We want to continue to thank everyone who has been thinking about us and praying for us and ask that you continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers. It's been an exciting 19 weeks so far, and we look forward to sharing the rest of our journey with you.

Sweet Sixteen & A Half!

What a great way to start off Valentine’s Day…we had an ultrasound today and got to spend the morning looking at our baby! I guess you could say curiosity got the best of us, because we decided to find out that It’s A Boy! He’s doing just fine. His heart rate is 152 bpm and he’s weighing in at 6 oz., which is right on track. I think we were both really surprised to find out it was a boy, because everyone has been telling us they think it’s a girl. After awhile, I think we kinda started to believe it. But we’re both very happy to have a boy, and we just can’t wait for him to get here. (It’s so fun saying “he” and “him” now, so I apologize if I use those terms excessively).

Here's a picture showing us that yes the baby is indeed a boy:

The first thing we did after our doctor visit was head over to Babies "R" Us to get a frame for the ultrasound pics. Ernie warned me ahead of time that I was not allowed to buy out the boy’s section of the clothes. I assured him I would not and did not even look at any. Let’s just hope I can maintain control for the next few months (that goes for both of the grandma’s, too!) Well, our next doctor visits are on March 7^th for Maternal Fetal Medicine with Dr. Jakel and on March 14^th for our regular visit with Dr. Harris. I was really excited that Dr. Harris let me choose the MFM doctor that I wanted because several people have told me how great Dr. Jakel is, so I’m looking forward to meeting with him.

Well, that’s all we have to report for now. If we can get the video uploaded we’ll do that real soon. Here's a picture of the baby with one of his hands on his head:

Bonus Visit

Okay, so don’t freak out cause it’s nothing major, but I got into a little fender bender last night. The roads were wet and my breaks just wouldn’t catch. I rear-ended a sweet little lady in a small pickup. There was no damage to her car and only a small dent in my bumper. I did panic a bit and called my doctor. I got the nurse on call, Annette, who recognized my voice right away. (How reassuring is that?!) She told me not to worry, but if I wanted to come in for a check up I could. So I went in this morning and everything looks fine. The heart rate measured at 156 bpm this time. Also, I still seem to have this rare bacteria lingering, so she put both me and Ernie on another round of antibiotics. Otherwise, she said everything looks great and I’ll still have my regular appt. on Feb. 14th.

An update on the nursery…Ernie put together the dresser which looks nice, but now I’m all thrown off on how to arrange the furniture. If you’re good at this sort of thing and want to come by and give me some advice, I’m all for it. Plus, I really think Ernie might kill me if I ask him to move things around one more time. :-)

12 Weeks...can July just get here already

We just had our fourth doctor's visit since finding out that we were pregnant. Everything is going well, and they measured the baby's heart rate at 163 (it was 169 last month). There was a little bit of nervous tension while waiting for the nurse to find the heart rate with the baby monitor, but everything turned out to be fine and eased our worries. We go back in a month for a check up and ultra sound, so we're excited about that.

We've been debating the pros and cons of finding out the baby's gender, and we're not sure which way we are leaning now. This is a tough decision for us but we still have some time to decide.

We have some work to do in our nursery. Nothing major, but the baby's dresser came in today...in two separate boxes. Looks like some assembly required. Guess this will be a good time for us to start focusing on getting the spare room to look more like a nursery and less like a junk room. It's not too bad right now, but we need to do a little cleaning out of our extra stuff.

Only a little more than 27 weeks left...sounds like a long time, but July will be here before we know it.

By the way, WHO DAT?!

8 Weeks Strong...and Growing!

Today was the highly anticipated dr.'s visit and ultrasound (at least for me anyway). Today was the first time we could really see the baby and finally hear it's heart beating! I was very anxious leading up to this point; but once we could see it and hear it and know that it (and by "it" I mean he or she) was really there, I was very relieved. See pics below:




The first picture is flipped, so you can see it better. The baby is actually standing on it's head and just hanging out for now. (Maybe we have a gymnist on our hands, who knows?) I was surprised at how much it looked like a baby at only 8 weeks. You can already make out its head and limbs and what I imagine will someday be some fairly chubby cheeks! :-)

The second picture shows the heartrate which measured at 169. This is fairly high compared to what we've had in the past. I asked Ernie if he thinks it's a girl or boy and he said "girl" simply because I'm not nearly as sick as I was last time and everything just seems different about this pregancy. I'll go with his reasoning, but we'll see. And as far as that goes, we're definately leaning towards finding out the gender as soon as we can. I think we've waited long enough on things like this.

I had a gestational diabetes screen today, so hopefully that goes well. Also, the dr. put me on a round of antibiotics (not real sure what this does), but she said it would be good for me to do at this point in my pregnancy considering our history. Whatever...you're the doctor, not me. I just hate taking any type of medicine even if I know it's okay. I cringe everytime I take the low-dose asprin she prescribed, simply because it says on the bottle, "Do not take if you're pregnant."

So, that's about all the updates I've got for now about our visit. Our next appt. is Tuesday, Jan. 16th; so we'll keep you posted. Until then, keep us in your prayers.

5 Weeks!

A little more than a week ago, we found out we were having a baby! It has been a rough few months for us, but this news is such a huge blessing. We had been praying for God to provide us with a baby in his time, and we are blessed that it has happened so soon. Everything happens for a reason; and although we may not always understand it, He has a plan for us.

After taking a few preganancy tests and still being nervous, we scheduled a doctors appointment. It was still too early for them to see anything on the ultrasound, so they did some blood work to make sure everything was as it should be. On Monday, Ashley went back for more blood work, and we found out yesterday from the blood tyder test that her numbers went up from 348 to around 3,700 in about a week. (The number needs to be around 2,000-3,000 to see anything on a ultrasound, but can be as low as 25 to show up as a positive pregnancy test). Yesterday, we went in for our second ultrasound and everything looks great (See below). Ashley is 5 weeks pregnant and the ultrasound showed that everything was progressing well and gave us postive reassurance:


Everyone at the doctor's office was extrememly nice to us and almost all of the nurses told us that they had been praying and thinking of us. After telling our parents at Thanksgiving and getting a good ultrasound result, we have begun to tell our friends and other family that we're having a baby next summer. Our due date is around July 31, but the doctor said that we'll probably deliver early. We're trying to get back into the pregnancy mode and remember everything we were doing before. The nursury has turned back into our junk room; so we have to get that back in order, but we still have plenty of time.

We thank everyone for their prayers and concern over the past few months and we hope this baby gives hope to you as well. Please continue to pray for us, as we expect this pregancy to be a long, but rewarding 9 months.