Much to Look Forward To

We only have one more week of school left! Friday we get out of school early. My school's done at 12:15 and Nick's is done at 1:15. After that, it's off to our ultrasound to find out if we're having a boy or a girl!!

Saturday morning we will be getting up super early to make the 16 hour drive back up north to family! First stop- Iowa for a week, then off to Indiana for a week. Christmas is coming so fast and I'm so looking forward to it and all that it bring...closeness to our family!

I took the first pregnancy picture this past week. Thought I'd share it with all of you. This is me at 20 weeks and 2 days.

Poll

I forgot to mention in the previous post: Please take our poll to the right! We want to see what you think the baby is! :)

Week 20

Time has flown right by! I can't believe we're almost done with 20 weeks which marks the half way point! Everything is still going great! I went for an appointment this past Monday after Thanksgiving. My doctor's words were, "You're weight is great! You didn't gain anything over the holiday!" Haha...I told her that I just find myself not being able to eat much at all these days. I do believe this was the first Thanksgiving that I didn't have seconds of anything! I could barely eat everything on my plate! I don't mind really and it makes me look forward to Christmas because I know I will be able to keep myself from pigging out.

This past week Baby Fishback grew a lot. I was having growing pains...not so much pain but just discomfort...a few days this week. I could feel my muscles pulling and stretching to make room for the baby. I've heard a few people say that one day they are not showing and they wake up the next morning and then they are showing. I think that was me on Friday morning. I can definitely feel the bump myself but just hadn't been showing much at all. On Friday morning the shirt that I chose to wear was just a little tight around the belly and it stuck out just a little bit above my belly button. I know some of you have asked to see belly pics...I think the time is coming close where you can tell. No pics today, but maybe next week! :)

Nick and I have doing a lot of yard work the past two weekends. We cut down a dead tree in our front yard with help from friends last weekend. However, we didn't get it completely cleaned up. So today, Nick and I spent the afternoon cleaning everything up. I really do dislike yard work but it needed to be done and it now looks so much better!

Some other exciting news...IT SNOWED!!! Yesterday it was forcasted to snow around 2-4 inches. I came to school prepared to have a bunch of crazy, wound up students. Sure enough, around 9:15 it started snowing. The kids went crazy! We took them outside to play in it and they had so much fun catching snowflakes on their tongues. I forgot my good camera at home, but I used my camera phone. It was difficult to see the snow falling on the camera so I got no good pictures. It didn't stick to the ground at all, but it was fun while it lasted. I don't know what's going on with the weather these days. Houston never gets snow...or so we were told. In 2004, it snowed around 3 inches on Christmas Eve. Last year around this time it snowed and actually stuck to the ground. This year it snowed again! I'm thinking these political people may want to reconsider "global warming".

Only 13 more days until we find out what we're going to have!! Nick decided he wants a boy, I really don't care what it is, but I just have this feeling that it's a girl. :) We'll see soon!

Christmas Wreath

Here is the wreath that I made for our front door. I had to have Nick help me out with a few things. I had fun doing it and I only spent a little over $10 on the entire thing at Hobby Lobby.
Hobby Lobby had premade decorated wreaths for $30!! I like mine better...and it's cheaper!

Week 18

It's so hard to believe that we're already into the 18th week...it's really gone by so fast!! I am so thankful for so many things! We went to a doctor's appointment 2 Friday's ago to hear the heartbeat. Our doctor found it almost immediately and that was such a relief!! Last time our doctor couldn't find it and then we had to wait until the ultrasound 4 days later. That was torture then, so it was a wonderful sound to hear finally!! We also found out the results of the genetic abnormalities testing which is a normal procedure. Our doctor said everything looks great and we have a 1 in 10,000 chance of having a child with down syndrome. When the doctor said that, I teared up a little bit...I guess I didn't realize how much I was really worrying about this and once she said that, I felt this huge load lifted off of my shoulders. The whole appointment went well and my doctor said that even though I'm losing weight still, it's ok. I'm healthy and the baby's healthy! I think at that moment, Nick and I let ourselves get really excited!

Nick and I have been pretty busy lately. School's been very demanding on both of us. We had a curriculum audit and so we had to make sure we really knew the districts curriculum in case we had to talk to any of the people doing the research. The reason we had to have this done is because we are one of the largest districts in the state of Texas with a high ranking on our students' performance. They hired a group of people to come in and make sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing. Of course it was talked up and we stressed over being interviewed and asked a million questions...the day of the audit for Nick's school, he never even had anyone come into his classroom to look/observe/ask questions. The day of my audit, one person came in with the principal for 10 seconds, looked, never asked any questions, and then walked out of the room. I guess we heard that we did a fantastic job and to keep doing what we've been doing all a long. A lot of stress for nothing really...LOVE IT! haha

Nick also started his after school tutoring program to make some extra money for the baby. He gets home about 2 hours later than usual 3 days a week. It's not bad at all and it's so worth the extra money. He told me he was going to be doing it again this year for the baby and my heart was warmed at the thought of his kind, loving heart towards our child already. Then the other day, we were talking and he said we would probably be using the money for a crib and/or travel system and other things that we might need. He had really been putting more thought into it than I thought he had. He's going to be such a great daddy!

Last weekend I went on an all day shopping excursion with my friends Paige and Leslie. We traveled 3 hours away to San Marcos, TX (close to Austin and San Antonio) to a huge outlet mall. We were there from 10:45am-5:30pm and had only been to about 8-10 stores! We did a lot of walking and we all wore ourselves out. I bought my first pair of maternity pants. My jeans were pretty snug and just not comfortable to wear when sitting down. Every Friday is jeans day at school and I really wanted to enjoy wearing jeans to work. They helped me pick out a pair of very comfy jeans! I'm thinking that I might wear them the rest of my life...(not really) haha!

This week is Thanksgiving break and Nick and I are so looking forward to spending time with one another and relaxing. We have plans to try and camp in the back yard (if it dries up outside and doesn't rain again this week!), put up Christmas decorations, and go to a couple of different friend's houses for Thanksgiving. I also am planning on making a Christmas wreath to hang on the front door, and I'm making some presents for friends and family so I'll be busy being crafty! I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!!

Week 14

We are officially in the second trimester! Still have morning sickness all day, but that's ok because it's so worth it. I've also been feeling my ab muscles and ribs starting to ache a little from the stretching and growing. It's pretty cool to think that our baby is just hanging out inside and some days it seems so unreal!

Here is what our baby is doing during this week:
By this week, some fine hairs have developed on your baby’s face. This soft colorless hair is called lanugo, and it will eventually cover most of your baby’s body until it is shed just before delivery. By now, your baby’s genitals have fully developed, though they may still be difficult to detect on an ultrasound examination. In addition, your baby starts to produce thyroid hormones because the thyroid gland has matured. Your baby now weighs about 1.6 ounces (45 grams) and is about 3.5 inches (9 cm) long from crown to rump.
http://kidshealth.org/parent/pregnancy_calendar/week14.html

Baby Fishback

Nick and I have been blessed with the miracle of life. We are expecting our blessing to be born around April 27. We are a few days away from being done with the first trimester and are looking forward to the joy of second trimester!

We had been trying ever since my doctor gave me the ok to start trying again which was the end of June. Thankfully it didn't take long at all. I am very aware of my body and when it changes so I knew or thought I was pretty sure I was pregnant even before taking the test and of course it came back positive. We were excited but we both had our nervous reservations about it. I could feel myself fill with worry about the chance of loosing another baby. Of course that worry is still there a little, but with God's help and taking it day by day, we have managed to get this far. We are just now letting ourselves become more and more attached to our baby and growing with excitement with each passing day.

Around week 6 I started getting very nauseous. I started throwing up every morning and it would persist throughout the day. I was starting to loose a few pounds because it was difficult to keep things down. I was able to get by on Sprite and crackers until Sept. 14th. I had a doctors appointment that afternoon and woke up to the usual and rested all morning (I took the day off). I couldn't keep sprite and crackers down. I ate nothing and went to the doctor (Nick was with me). They did an ultrasound and checked everything and it was looking great. They also said that being sick was a good sign of a healthy baby. However, not being able to keep anything down is dangerous so they gave me a prescription for nausea meds. While we were waiting for the prescription to get filled, Nick decided to take me out for ice cream for my birthday. I was thinking that it sound pretty good and I would try it. It tasted so good and I ate the entire thing. We walked out the door and I knew that I was going to throw it all back up. Thankfully there was a trash can right outside the door for me to use. I couldn't believe I had just thrown up that much in public!! Needless to say, I couldn't wait to get my medicine and start feeling better! It did help me so much and I was able to not have to leave the classroom while teaching to go throw up! I'm still taking it every 5 hours because I'm still nauseous. However, the past two days I've been nauseous, just haven't thrown up! My mom told me she was sick the entire pregnancy with me! I am hoping that the second trimester will be great and my hormones will level out like they say they will!

We went in for an ultrasound on Thursday and what an amazing difference 5 weeks can make in the development of a baby! Nick and I were amazed and thrilled to see our baby kicking, moving, and wiggling around. It was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced in my life so far. I was relieved to see a healthy baby who had a great heartbeat and so much energy. I can't wait to start feeling our baby kick in the next couple of months! I wish we would have brought our video camera, if we had I would probably watch the whole experience every day! Plus it's so much better live and in person than a photo. But the photos are a great thing to look at in between ultrasounds. Our next one is Dec. 18th and that is to determine the sex of the baby! We're excited about that as well!!

This picture is a profile shot. The head is on the left.

The fist is right in front of the face.

The back of the baby. It measured between 2 1/2 and 3 inches.

Anyway, I'll continue to keep you all posted on our journey...hard to believe we only have 6 months left! So much to do, so little time, but I know we'll get it done! :)