Ellen Recap

I have been asked by several people to give a recap of Ellen's Mother's Day Show. It was so much fun! Ellen is hilarious and the whole experience of seeing a show tapped was really cool.

She gave away a ton of awesome baby items! David was super stoked about the high chair and video monitor. My favorite gift by far was the stroller. We found a store nearby that carries them and I test drove it around and I am in love!

We had 11 options of colors!! I went back and forth for several days on the color. I finally settled on the red and I can't wait for it to arrive. I am already looking forward to using the bassinet attachment when David has softball games!



I still can't believe that I was lucky enough to get to go to Ellen's show. Even after the show, I feel like I am going to wake up and it was all a dream.

Here is a list of all the items we received from Ellen









Photo credit: http://photos.ellen.warnerbros.com/galleries/may_10_shows#66461

Pictures of Baby Ivy

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about how we had a 3D/4D done to confirm that we were indeed having girl. Which, I am only now blogging about it now. Better late than never though, right? :)

So here are a couple of photos that my friend Jenni took for us from our first session. Ivy was very uncooperative and we only got one good photo. But it was super cute to see her yawn and stick her foot in her mouth! The place we went had a huge room, so the entire family came out to see it, which I think they enjoyed.






We went back a week later and she was much more cooperative this time. She did have her hands in front of her face and feet above her head for a lot of it.






A DVD of the session was included, which I am excited to have. Now if only we weren't so lazy about making a copy for my parents, who live 2000 miles away!

Isn't the technology that we have now amazing?!

100 Days!

According to my ticker, we have 100 days left! Holy Cow! Well a 100 days more or less, since it's an "estimated" due date.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I was complaining to the girls on the Bump how at about 20 weeks it felt like time had slowed to a crawl or been put on slow motion. Well all of a sudden it feels like someone hit fast forward!

 

If it could just be somewhere in between the two, I would be a happy camper. But, I have feeling that it's only going to go by more quickly!

~ 25 Weeks, Baby Update

It's been awhile since I last blogged, so there is a lot to say.

 

~ I am currently 25 weeks along! We had made it past viability (24 weeks). Wohoo! Ivy, you better stay in for another 15 weeks though. You need to bake awhile longer!

 

~ We confirmed with an elective u/s that baby is indeed a girl! She was very cooperative in that aspect this time and we saw the "3 lines". I will update soon with photos!

 

~ Did our tour for the second hospital my Dr. delivers at. Conclusion: not a big fan of either hospital as there are pros and cons about each. But we decided to go with the smaller, less busy hospital. From other women that I have spoken with, the nurses there are very accepting towards a natural birth plan.

 

~ Peri - we have decided to not continue seeing him. At our second visit, he stated Ivy was looking great. I was low risk, but wanted to add additional monitoring that he never mentioned in our first visit with him. He never provided us with any medical reasons for the additional monitoring. He said most parents like "the peace of mind". After, a conversation with my OB who agreed that she did not see any reason to continue seeing the Peri, we canceled our next appointment!

 

~ Next week we start our Bradley Method classes. I can't believe we have reached this point. The classes are 12 weeks long, so this will us take right up to 3 weeks prior to my due date. I have been sponge recently looking of any all information/books regarding natural childbirth and these classes are specifically geared towards this!

 

 

~ And the most exciting news is that I get to go to Ellen's Mother's Day Show!!!!

 

Her show is for first time expecting moms and she gives out the most awesome gifts to everyone in the audience. I basically stalked her website everyday for about 2 months waiting for the sign ups to start. This is how much I desperately wanted to go! Thanks to Jenn (I puffy <3 you!!) she emailed me that they had started. I was swamped that day at work and hadn't had a chance to look at Ellen's website. I would have been so sad if I had missed the sign ups! So, the show is in 2 weeks and I can't wait to see what stroller she gives away this year. Last year was the Uppababy Vista (my never gonna happen, dream stroller, which I have drooled over for many hours). Anyways, I am so, so excited!!

 

Yep, so that's everything baby related that I needed to update you guys on right now. Hope you all have an awesome weekend! 

 

It's a...

Girl!!!!

Well... pretty sure. The u/s tech wouldn't say 100%, but most likely the baby is a girl. I was completely shocked. Actually... I think I am still in denial!

Boys dominate David's family and when I married him, I thought to myself, am I prepared to have all boys? Yes I was, as David was totally worth it and I would love any child that the Lord blessed us with regardless of whether it was a girl or boy.

So going into this pregnancy, I was convinced this little baby was boy. I even called the baby a he/him several times this past weekend, haha. I hoped that I was wrong and that it would in fact be a girl, because honestly the girls stuff is just too cute for words.

David on the other hand, had thought the baby was girl since the beginning, when he had dream about it. He is taking the announcement completely in stride and already thinking about little USC cheerleading outfits!

Anyways, everything looked great at this u/s and she(that's weird to say) is measuring right on track at 11 ounces. Ultimately a healthy baby is what we have been praying for and finding out the gender is just a perk of the amazing technology that we have now.

My next appointment with the Peri is in 4 weeks and I will have another u/s. Hopefully the baby will cooperate a little more and we can get a good look at the goods!

But we are very excited and can't wait to meet our little Ivy Mae in August!

~ 20 Weeks!

We are halfway there! Halfway to meeting our little one. Holy Cow! Well minus 2 days, but it's close enough. I haven't done a real baby update in several weeks, so there is lots to say!

As I mentioned in my last post, tomorrow we will hopefully find out the sex of the baby! Yay! Other fun stuff is that I have been feeling the baby several times a day, since about 16w2d's. He or she is kicking like crazy right now, as I type.

I have been receiving lots of comments at work lately. When are you due? Is it a boy or girl? I "popped" a couple of weeks ago. I haven't been taking weekly belly shots, but here are two recent ones.

15 weeks



19 weeks



I have been wearing maternity pants, since about 15 weeks and really should have switched sooner! Shirts wise, I am still in half regular/half maternity. I have been wearing the same 4 shirts to work and it's pretty sad. Trying to find business professional clothes for work, that also fit, has been interesting. If I could wear casual clothes everyday, I wouldn't be having any issues. I have found a couple of cute items though.

How am I feeling? Pretty good! Emotionally a 1,000 times better than the hot emo mess, that I was in the 1st trimester. Sleeping the entire night still. No stretch marks or heartburn (yet). Food cravings - not so much. I am running more hot than I used to be and when I get too hot, I do get dizzy. But overall, I am doing well.

Coming up, we have to decide which of the two hospitals that my Dr delivers at, that we want to go to. I am leaning heavily towards one of them, but feel it's best to do as much research as we can, so we will be touring both. Those appointments have been made and will be coming up soon!

David and I made the decision awhile back, that it is our goal to have a natural childbirth, so I have been doing a lot of research. We will probably be taking childbirth classes on the Bradley Method and have a potential instructor lined up. I also would love to have a Doula there to help while I am labor, but I don't think we will be able to afford it. :(

I have reserved two books at the library, that were recommended to me on natural childbirth, including Pushed by Jennifer Block and Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. I will have lots of reading to do.

So there you go! I think I just about covered everything, haha. I will try and post tomorrow when we get home, about how my appointment and u/s go!

Boy or Girl... That is the Question

A week from today, we have our next appointment with Dr. B, my Peri and get to find out the sex of the baby! Well hopefully I should say. Baby, you better cooperate next week, I mean it! We don't want to see any crossed legs or funny business going on. ;)

The last couple of days have been creeping by because of the growing anticipation. I remember when we got our bfp, David and I were discussing when our big u/s might be and March seemed so far away and now we are only a week away. At times it has seemed as the days were going by so slowly, but most of the time it has felt like time is flying by. I now think about August and how it is going to be here before we know it!!

I am looking forward to calling the baby by his or her name, picking out clothes and knowing more about who our little one is. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas morning! I currently think the baby is boy and David on the other hand thinks it is a girl. We shall know soon enough who is correct!

Only 7 more days!!!