Jack's Belated Birthday Post

Since we traveled over the course of Jack's birthday week, I never made it around to blogging about it. But here goes! Jackson turned 1 last Wednesday. I'm sure you're expecting the "I can't believe it" and "How time flies!" comments, but they're true! It has been an incredibly fast year. He's an awesome, sweet, cute kid, though. See how cute he is:

Boy loves him some sweet corn:)

He had a great birthday.  The celebrations spanned between the end of June and the beginning of August, so he feels VERY special.  He got lots of great gifts.  My personal favorites?  The new cloth diapers we got!  We got 7 total.  Three special prints (camouflage and 2 denim), three minkys (zebra, polka dots and cow print) and one red.  They're great.  They're also the first snap diapers we've owned.  I must say, I've whole-heartedly recommended velcro in the past, but I disagree now.  They're convenient and all, but the snaps fit so much better.  But, I digress...

Jack's list of 1st birthday milestones/loves, etc:

-He started walking over a month before his birthday.  Now he just runs.

-He still only has four teeth

-He's down to nursing only once a day, in the early morning hours.  It's really just a ploy to get to sleep in our           bed.

-He can now climb onto the couches

-He's learning how to go down the stairs the proper way

-He has a growing vocabulary.  First thing in the morning, when Kate wakes up he always says, "Sissssss."  

-He will often bring me a clean diaper when he's ready for a diaper change.  Hysterical.

-He still loves his cars and anything with wheels, though he does try to steal Kate's baby dolls...

-He's getting very good and aiming and throwing a ball.  It nearly ALWAYS manages to hit me.  

-He prefers cups with straws, especially if they're mine or from a fast food establishment.

-He's generally sleeping from 8:30-6:30, at which time he gets in bed with me and nurses back to sleep

-He takes two 1-2 hour naps in the day.  Generally, for a total of 3 hours.

-He loves to give hugs and kisses.

-The kid has rhythm.  Future drummer of the Bishop Family Band, no doubt.
-At doctor's appointment a few days before his birthday, he weighed 22lbs even.  No idea how long he is.  The official well-baby appointment is in a week or two.  Updates then!

And now, some pics for your general enjoyment:

Yes, I turned his car seat around.  I'm that mom.

The closest thing we got to a family picture on his birthday.  Looks a little different than the one last year:

Things have definitely changed!

He dug in mouth first:) Smart kid. Just did what the rest of us wanted to do.

And he's grown a little bit...

Happy birthday, sweet Jackson!

37 weeks tomorrow!

When I was pregnant with Kate, I wrote a note on facebook for each trimester about how things were going. I haven't done quite the same thing this time around, since I've updated here more frequently, but I thought I'd take a minute to talk about the last two trimesters overall....

The Second Trimester
The second trimester with pregnancy #2 was much like the first. Not much going on other than a growing belly. I felt pretty well and had decent amounts of energy. We found out baby #2 was a boy. That's about it.

The Third Trimester
Oh where to begin. It didn't take long for the third trimester to become complicated. I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Good fun. I got it under control with diet and an insulin injection at night. No biggie. I even lost 8 pounds. Not too shabby. At 32 weeks pregnant, I traveled with our youth group to Tennessee to attend a summer conference there. It was hot and miserable, but I survived by driving myself nearly everywhere we went. It was just too much walking. My muscles were really starting to ache about this point and walking very long got to be pretty painful. That hasn't stopped. At 33 1/2 weeks pregnant, I tripped and fell while carrying Kate. Kate and Jack were fine. I tore up my leg and spent two weeks sleeping on the couch because of it. Walking was very painful. At 34 1/2 weeks pregnant, I was in a car accident. That was 2 1/2 weeks ago, and I've had steady contractions coming at least every 15 minutes since then. It's good fun. After the accident, I spent seven hours one day being monitored and three the next. Fortunately, the contractions haven't yet caused any dilation. As of tomorrow, we'll be full term. I'd love to get him out of here, but I'm grateful that he won't be considered a preemie at this point. Also at 34 weeks, I started having doctors appointments twice a week. I have NSTs at the hospital on Mondays and one at the doctor's office with a regular appointment on Thursdays. Things have definitely been busy! I'm very glad this pregnancy is coming to an end. I've loved most of it, but I'm done. These last few weeks, especially, are hopefully enough to make me remember in the future that I don't want to do this again. Two are enough for me!

All in all, with gestational diabetes and the fall and accident, things could have been much worse during this pregnancy. I'm very grateful that God has really watched over us through all of this and I'm very excited to meet our little boy. At this point, if I don't have him in the next 15 days, they'll induce. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to go into labor on my own this time, especially since my blood pressure is staying where it should. So the countdown continues. When will Jackson arrive?!

Twenty down, how many to go?

I cannot believe that I've made it through 20 whole weeks of pregnancy already. It feels like time has flown by this time. When I was pregnant with Kate, I wrote several notes on facebook during the process. I think I wrote one for every trimester and one for her birth. I've kept a more constant update on here about how things have been, but I think I'll recap the first 20 weeks.

Our hope was to be strategic in when this baby would be born. We live far away from our families and we live in the mountains, so we knew we didn't want a baby at a time that would impede our holiday travels or where the weather would prevent our family to come visit. My husband is also out-of-town several weeks in the summer, and I'm definitely not interested in having a baby by myself. So between December and February are good months for us to conceive, and between June and August. I went off birth control several months ago just to get my cycles regulated so that we could try between December and February. But I conceived in November. Both our babies have been conceived in November, actually. I should have waited til at least Monday, December 6th to test, but I was too anxious to wait. I bought a two pack of regular pregnancy tests on Friday the 3rd. I took the first one Friday night, and I was convinced there was a faint line. Kraig agreed. So we waited and I took another Saturday morning. Still a faint line, but definitely stronger than the night before. I couldn't take the anticipation anymore, so I went to Target and bought two digital tests. There's nothing like the word "pregnant" on the screen to convince you. Saturday night I took the digital test, and it was positive. We're pregnant! I still had another digital left, so I took it Sunday morning just to make sure the previous three weren't flukes. It also said "pregnant." It may be a month earlier than we planned, but we are ecstatic!

I felt the baby move pretty early on, which is always a comforting thing. I've never had morning sickness or most of the traditional pregnancy symptoms, so feeling the baby definitely makes everything feel real. I didn't have an early ultrasound with this pregnancy, either, so we hadn't got to see it yet. I went for my first physical appointment on February 7th and finally got to hear the heartbeat for the first time. I think the heart rate was 148 bpm. All the old wives' tales say that anything above 140 is a girl. I was pretty convinced we'd have a girl, so the heart rate was no surprise to me.

I scheduled my big ultrasound appointment for March 14th, my birthday. I thought it'd be a great way to spend my birthday. We found out Kate's gender on March 13th, so it was kind of neat to have the appointments on such similar dates. Our friend Sara took the day off work to keep Kate for the morning, so Kraig and I went by ourselves. We got in pretty quickly and got to see the baby very quickly. It was comforting to see that there actually was a baby in there. The tech took pictures of various body parts and organs, and then the time came to look for the gender. Before she even asked if we wanted to know the gender, we could tell it was a boy. She finally asked and I quickly said, "yes." I could feel my heart racing. I knew what she was going to say, but I wanted it confirmed. "It's a boy," she said without hesitation. My eyes welled up with tears. It was definitely an exciting moment. We're having a boy. Kate's going to have a brother. We would have been just as happy with a girl, but we could hardly contain our excitement. Before we had even made it out of the office and to the car, we were on the phone spreading the news. I was 18 weeks that day.

Yesterday, we hit the 20 week mark. The beginning was a little exhausting, especially when chasing around Kate. Once the second trimester hit, though, my energy returned. I'm feeling great and enjoying being able to feel Jackson move more and more. There's nothing like feeling a baby move inside you. It's a feeling that's only for you. No one else can share it. I cannot wait to meet this little boy. This first half has flown by. I'm sure the second half will go slower, especially as I continue to grow larger and larger. I'm just trying to savor every moment. It's almost April, though. August will be here before we know it!

The Results Are In!!

(Pardon me while I take a break from the current blog series to make an announcement!)

Yesterday was a big day. We were celebrating my 26th birthday and we were having our big ultrasound. It was a great day! My ultrasound appointment was at 9:30. We got in pretty quickly, and it wasn't long before we were finally seeing images of our little one. This was the first peek we'd had, and we were ready to see it! The tech began taking pictures of different body parts, examining the heart, stomach, and other organs. Then came the obvious between the legs shot. I knew what she was looking at. Kraig knew too. And it was quite obvious that baby had boy parts! We knew before the tech even asked if we wanted to know. Finally, she asked. I said, "Yes," quite emphatically, even though I was pretty positive about what I was seeing. She said, "It's a boy!" It was shocking. We wanted a boy, but we were perfectly happy with our girl and another would have been fine--definitely more economical. But we're getting our boy. I cried a little because I was so shocked. It's still not quite settled in me. The ultrasound finished pretty quickly and Kraig and I left to make our list of phone calls. My actual appointment with my midwife wasn't until later in the day, so we sat in the parking lot sharing our good news.

Then we realized it was barely after 10 a.m. Our friend Sara was watching Kate so we could go to the appointment and then enjoy a lunch out for my birthday. So we headed to Target to kill some time. Once it was lunch time, we headed to our favorite Chinese restaurant and ate way too much food. It was great. Then we headed home in time to feed Kate lunch and put her down for a nap. Shortly after she went down, I headed out for my midwife appointment. After waiting in the lobby for over an hour past my appointment time, all she really had to tell me was that the ultrasound looked good. Good news, but such a wait! Then I went to do my weekly Monday grocery shopping. Once I got home, we rested for a while and continued to question our name choice. We want to be 100% sure about it before we let it out. I also decided I wasn't interested in cooking dinner, so we went to Cici's and enjoyed some pizza and salad.

It was a great birthday. It was very special to have our ultrasound on my birthday. We had Kate's the day before my birthday, since my birthday was on a Saturday that year. They were both great experiences. Now we're planning for a boy. We'll have a new room to decorate, clothes to collect, and I finally get to start ordering my cloth diapers! I'm super excited to finally know the gender. I'm very grateful that I'm still feeling well. I'm tired and having difficulty sleeping, but that's the worst of it! 22 weeks to go!