Say What?

From the Mouth's of Children

Kaylin: (humming ABC's/Twinkle Twinkle)
Jon: Kaylin what are doing?
K: I'm making my teeth tickle.
J: You're what!?!
K: I'm making my teeth tickle. (humming again)
Daddy it's ABCD....(singing)


Kaylin: (while holding onto my arm) I am going to be your seat belt.
Natalie: Oh yeah, are you going to keep mommy safe?
K: Yes, I don't want you to die.
N: Well I don't want to die either, but some day everyone dies.
K: Mommy? When you die are you going to go to God or Kevin?

Welcome Lauren James Anderson

We want to let everyone know that Lauren James Anderson is now here and doing very well. She was born on September 10 at 12:50 pm, she weighed 6lbs 14.8oz and was 18in. She is such a blessing to us all and we are so happy that she is finally here. As for me I am also doing really well. The blood pressure has gone down since delivery and I feel FANTASTIC! As you all know they delivered by c-section (which went really well) and I only had to stay in the hospital for two days after delivery. Since I was doing so well with the healing process we were able to leave the hospital on Friday instead of having to wait until Saturday or Sunday. We want to thank everyone for all of their prayers and thank you to those of you who came to visit, it really meant a lot to us. I will put up some pictures so you can see the newest little memeber of our family!

Here Comes Baby!!!!

Okay so for those of you who may not already know, they have moved up the c-section to this week.

When I went to the doctor last Thursday my blood pressure was 128/100 so they sent me to the hospital and I have been here since. Today is the first day that I have had consistently good blood pressures. The rest of the time I have been here they have been extremely high, accompanied with a headache that just wouldn't go away. They gave me something other than Tylenol and I finally had a day with out a headache! Yay! So delivery is set for Wednesday and the only thing that we ask is that if you would like to come and visit to please call Jon or myself before you come up. We want to thank everyone for their prayer support through this entire ordeal and we look forward to welcoming our newest little family member! We will post pics as soon as she is here.

SO....

Here is a doctor update for the last two appointments:

August 14th: Well with my doctor being on vacation I had to see another doctor in the practice. Luckily it was the doctor that I had seen previously when my doctor has been on call so he knows about my situation. Like I have said previously they are now doing sonograms every week to make sure that the baby has good movements, is doing her fetal breathing and checking the amniotic fluid. Her fluid looked good, her breathing looked good so we were two for three and next it was movements. Needless to say we stayed two for three, she was not moving. They have this little tool that vibrates that will "shock" the baby to try to make it move and the sonographer used the tool for quite a while trying to get her to move and she just wouldn't budge. Her heart was beating well and everything else looked good, so she just told me to go out to the waiting room and she would talk to the doctor. Well when they called me back to the office they took my blood pressure which was 200/100 (Yikes), it did go down to 148/92 which is still not good but lets face it lately my BP's haven't been good. So they put me in a room and had me lay down and the nurse came in and hooked me up to a fetal heart moniter, contraction moniter and gave me a buzzer to push every time I felt the baby move. Needless to say I didn't really feel her move a whole lot, I could hear her making movements on the moniters but they wanted me to buzz the ones that I could feel. So they pulled out the baby "shocker" to try to get her to move and again she didn't really do what she was supposed to. The doctor came in and said while it wasn't great it is something he would be okay with. He re-checked my blood pressure and it had come WAY down. So they sent me home (thank goodness) and told me to come back the next week.

August 19: So this week Dr. Atkins was back from his vacation and I got to have my appointment with him. We had the sonogram first and everything looked PERFECT! She was moving a lot, fetal breathing was good, heart rate was good and fluid looked good! We even got to see her grabing her toes with her hands and she was moving her mouth, it was awesome! Then we went to the doctors area and the bottom number of my BP was high but they wouldn't tell me what it was. They re-checked it a little bit later and said that is was 128/88, which the nurse said was a ton better. They weighed me and as of now I have gained 5 lbs, YAY, that is way better than the 50 I gained with Kaylin. The nurse also informed me that starting next week they will be checking for dialation (oh boy). So the doctor came into the room and we had a little chat about how my appointment had gone the week before and he basically told me that if I have another appointment like I did on August 14th that they would move up the delivery date again. He said he is glad that we have made it this far and now we just need to try to push through week to week. We also talked about how here in the last two weeks I have been having severe headaches that won't go away with Tylenol and some blurry vision. So my delivery day will all depend on several factors. If I go into the doctor and the baby isn't moving like she should or I have high blood pressure or the fluid is low they will deliver early. The good news is this week has gone really well my blood pressures have been as low as they were when I first started going to the doctor so I will definitely make it to at least 35 weeks which is in two days. The baby has been moving really well and other than being tired, uncomfortable and still having the headaches I have felt pretty good. I am pretty positive that I will make it to my scheduled c-section as long as things keep going as well as they have this week, but of course as you all know everything with me can change in the blink of an eye.

So I have my next appointment on Tuesday and I am super nervous about it only because Jon is going to be in Kansas and it seems like when he isn't with me my appointments are REALLY bad. So hopefully it will go well and the baby won't try to come while Jon is gone.

An Answer to Prayer

Okay so I didn't do an update last week so I will put last week and this week in this blog.

At my doctors appointment last week my BP was up pretty high but not as high as the week before. The did a sonogram and said that the baby looked good and that it looked like she was 4lbs 8oz and 17 in. So they said that we would keep the c-section date of Sept 2nd and just take things week by week.

This week my appointment went really well. My BP was 120/80 and on the sonogram the baby looked GREAT! She is moving a lot, they said there is plenty of fluid around her and that her fetal breathing looks like it is supposed to. The doctor came in and started talking about the c-section date and said that when he originally scheduled it he didn't realized exactly how early that was so he has rescheduled it for later in September which will give the baby some extra time to get nice and big. Yay!

Now with all of that said, we will still be taking it week by week and there is always a chance that they will have to deliver sooner due to BP issues or if there is a problem with the baby. However, we are going to stay optimistic and be grateful for that extra time we have been given. As always if anything changes we will definitely let everyone know. Thank you all for your prayers!

When Fears Are Realized.....

As you all know, I am an awful pregnant woman. You can just read the previous blogs and you all know about my pregnancy with Kaylin, I just don't handle pregnancy well. It must also be said that my doctor was correct, the very first time I had a visit with him this is what he said to me: "A lot of women have blood pressure issues with their first baby but it is usually at the very end of the pregnancy right before they are due to deliver. I must warn you though that when women have the extensive problems that you had with your first, the problems tend to be worse with following pregnancies." Well as you all know there for a while my blood pressure issues had seemed to go away and he even talked about sending me back to work until last week when my BP's were crazy and they sent me to the hospital. Well I had a doctors appointment today and was feeling great, but the appointment did not go so well. My BP was 139/108, it had also been high the majority of the day at home. This startled the doctor he didn't really know what to say so he checked Lauren's heart beat had me lay down and checked my BP again (it was 144/90) and he said that he had to think about what to do next and left the room. When he came back he said that we can't increase the medication because I am already maxed out, so what we will be doing is having weekly visits. We will be doing more extensive sonograms where they will be looking more closely at the baby's growth, the fluid surrounding her and some other things as well. This is all stuff that I did with Kaylin only it was with a specialist, fortunately I don't have to go to the specialist it is something that Dr. Atkins feels comfortable handling. I also have to keep a close eye on my blood pressures at home and any kind of other side effects that may come along with it such as headaches that don't go away, swelling, dizzy spells, blurry vision and seeing spots. If I have any of these with blood pressures that are 160's/110's and they aren't going down, I have to call the doctor immediately. So my next appointment is Monday July 28th.

Now throughout this entire pregnancy my biggest fear was that I wouldn't make it to 37 weeks (which is considered full term). I had Kaylin at 38 weeks and she was 7lbs, 10 oz so I figure is I can at least make it to 37 weeks the baby would be between 5-8 lbs (depending on how fast she is gaining weight). Well, today my fears were realized. Since I have had blood pressure issues they will be doing another c-section b/c it is too dangerous for me and the baby to try to do a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean), so they scheduled my c-section today which will be September 2, I will only be 36 weeks which means the baby will be one week premature. The really scary part though is that Dr. Atkins doesn't think that I will make it to the September 2nd date, he said today that he thinks that we will have to deliver even earlier. Please pray for this baby, I want her to be healthy and I don't want her to have to go to the NICU. My prayer is that we will make it to the September 2nd date.

Oh Joy....

I went to the doctors office yesterday and my appointment went really well. My blood pressure was 122/72 and the doctor said, "So lets start talking about you going back to work part time." Well I told him that while my blood pressures are doing well around mid afternoon that in the morning and at night they are running pretty high, usually 140's/90's. So he drew some blood and said that they could run some tests to see if there were any other blood pressure issues showing up.

When I woke up this morning I was not feeling so great so I checked my blood pressure and it was 141/90. So I decided to lay down on my left side and checked it again 15 minutes later and it was 138/92. I rested and then got up to make Kaylin lunch, was only up on my feet for about 3 minutes I checked it again and it was 153/101. Rested, took it again 15 minutes later, it was 155/93. So I put in a call to the doctors office to check on my test results and to let them know about what was going on and they took a message for the nurse to call me back. Well, the last time my BP's were up high they called me and told me to come straight into the doctors office. So I called Jon and told him what was going on and then I got up and put my clothes on and pulled out some clothes for Kaylin. So I was up on my feet for about 5-10 minutes, I started to feel faint and decided to check my blood pressure....it was 196/108! YIKES. So you can see a pattern, I stand up and my blood pressure shoots up (I lay down it goes down). Well I called Jon and he came home immediately and when he got home the nurse called and told me to go straight to labor and delivery. So we went to the hospital and I was sure that once we got up there that my blood pressure would be perfectly normal (since that is what has been happening at the doctors office) but it was actual 150/99 and that was after I had been sitting for about 15 minutes on the bed. They kept me for observation for a few hours and my BP was all over the place ranging from the 150's/90's to the 140's/high 70's. So the nurse talked to the doctor who was on call for my doctors office and he said that I need to stay on bed rest but be more strict about it and make an appointment with my doctor for next week (which I already had scheduled).

The good news in all of it is that other than the really bad headaches and high blood pressure, I am not having any other pre-eclampsia symptoms. Also the baby is doing really well through all of it, which is my main concern. So just keep us in your prayers please and I don't know that I will be seeing any of you any time soon since I will be spending a lot of time in bed but just know that if I don't talk to any of you that you are all in my thoughts!

~Natalie

FANTASTIC!

Last Week: At my doctors appointment my blood pressure was good. It was back down into the 120/80 range. The doctor said that as long as it stayed down the next week then we would go back to appointments every two weeks. He also did my measurements and said that I was measuring 5cm larger than I was supposed to, so we would have to do a sonogram the next week to make sure everything was okay. Usually when you have high blood pressure issues they worry that the baby is not growing at the right rate b/c blood flow to the baby can get restricted. But since I was measuring bigger than normal he wanted to make sure that I wasn't farther along or that there wasn't something wrong. I also had my glucose test, which kept me up all night that night. I didn't think that I would pass it since I didn't pass my first glucose test when I was pregnant with Kaylin and I did not want to go back for the three hour test. Which if I had gestational diabetes then that could also contribute to me measuring larger b/c they baby would be gaining weight more rapidly.

This Week: So Jon went with me to my doctors appointment this week b/c he wanted to talk to the doctor about some concerns he had. I may have already mentioned this before so if I have be patient with me. After Kaylin was born my OB/GYN at the time had told Jon and I that I had uterine fibroids which are benign cysts that can cover the outside/inside of the uterus and can grow on your ovaries. Now mind you I was on a lot of pain medication and I don't remember the doctor telling us any of this. The fibroids grow larger with an increase in estrogen (which happens during pregnancy), they can cause fertility problems, during pregnancy if they become larger that can cause you to measure father along than you are, etc. So Jon wanted to talk to the sonographer and the doctor about all of it. We went in for my sonogram and they said that the baby looks fantastic! They said she looks to be about 2lbs 9oz and 14 1/2 in long. Which is right on target for how far along I am, she also said that she only saw one fibroid and it is about the size of a penny, so that is nothing to worry about. She also told us that we have a very limber little baby on our hands. In the last two sonograms Lauren has had her legs straight up over her head. The last sonogram she had moved into the position where her legs were over her head but this time they were over her head the whole time. So it was good news all around. Next we went in to see the doctor. My blood pressure was AWESOME!!!! The best it has been the entire time I have been seeing him for this pregnancy, 110/80. So when we sat down and started talking to Dr. Atkins I asked him about the bed rest and work and he just smiled at me. I asked him when I might be able to go back to work and he said that considering I have only had about two good blood pressure readings in quite a while he wanted to wait a couple more visits. I have a feeling though with the way he just smirked at me that he doesn't think that it will stay down and Jon came to the same conclusion. My weight at this point is something else I am super proud about I have not gained any weight! A few weeks ago I had gone up about 4lbs but it is back down to where I started. My glucose results came back and I passed! YAY! Dr. Atkins said it was 119 and that abnormal ones are around the 140s so I had a lot of leeway. He also talked to us more about the sonogram and said that everything looked perfect. He did say that I am still measuring larger than normal so they will probably do one more sonogram before the baby comes but right now there appears to be nothing to worry about. The only bad thing that happened during my appointment....I had to have another shot b/c of my rh factor but hey since everything else was fantastic I am okay with the shot.

Kaylin is doing really well, she is so excited about her baby sister and every time I go to the doctor she asks me if they are going to take the baby out that day so she can see her. I have been talking to her a lot about how they are going to cut mommy's tummy open to take out the baby and that after they take the baby out I won't be able to pick her up for a long time. I have also been trying to not pick her up as much as I use to, hopefully it will get her use to it before the baby comes.

Kaylin just turned three on June 23rd and we had a Cinderella party. This year we invited her little friends Kallie and Luke Johns, Tucker Sloan and Noah Chapman (who by the way she told us the other day she was going to marry and we have no idea where that came from). Not all of her little friends came but that's okay, she had so much fun and ever since the party she has not stopped talking about Kallie. We had all of our family there too, and it was a perfect, beautiful day. It is amazing how fast the time goes by! She is such a smart little girl, she picks up on things very fast. She has an incredible memory (which sometimes is not a good thing), she has a big heart for all people, she is very loving and likes to cuddle with her mommy. She is extremely clumsy, Jon and I joke about how she hurts herself just standing up (and I'm being serious she will be standing up and somehow manage to fall over nothing and hurt herself). She makes the funniest faces sometimes and all of the family says that she gets her attitude from her mommy (which I have no idea what they are talking about....hehe). She is an absolute blessing and joy and we are so privileged that God has placed this little girl in our lives. I can't wait to see what kind of characteristics Lauren will have. Kaylin is very much a girly girl and a mommy's girl. It will be interesting to see if Lauren is the same or if she is a daddy's girl. Either way both of our girls are blessed with amazing, godly grandparents, great-grandparents, one great-great- grandmother, aunts and uncles. We have such an incredibly strong family to support us and we are blessed beyond measure.

So I figured for those of you who know Jordan and Kristina I would also give you a short update on how they are doing. Kristina went to her specialist yesterday and is going to see her OB/GYN today, her specialist said that they baby looks to be about 6 1/2 lbs. She is definitely all baby and she still has about four weeks left, which they say the baby gains one pound a week the last month so if she makes it to August 4th (which I don't think she will) baby Kali will be anywhere from 10 to 11 lbs. Jordan is predicting that the baby will come around July 14th, so we will see if he is right. The only concern at this point is that there seems to be a problem with Kali's kidneys. I'm not exactly sure of all the details but there is a chance that she may have to have surgery on her kidneys after she is born. So we are praying that the problem will clear up on its own, at this point it has already cleared up from when they first discovered the problem so hopefully it will continue to do so.

My next appointment is July 16.

The Last Three Weeks

Well, I must say last time I wrote it was looking like this pregnancy was going to go better than my pregnancy with Kaylin, boy was I wrong........

On May 29 while at work I was in a morning meeting and passed out. So they sent me to the hospital ran some tests and everything came back normal, the only problem while I was there was that my blood pressure was high when I first went in (160/100) and then fluctuated the entire time I was there, my heart rate was fairly high too. So they sent me home and then I went to the doctor and they told me to take the next few days off and go back to work the next week. I went back to work and worked a few days and had to go back to the doctor for almost passing out again. So they sent me to the hospital and did an EKG and blood test to check my thyroid. Both tests came back normal. I went to work last week, having moments where I was feeling lightheaded, faint, heart racing, etc but made it through the week. Now the whole time this has been going on I have not been seeing my regular OB/GYN, he has either been on call or out of town. I was seeing another doctor in the practice who told me I need to sit more at work. Which would help if we weren't so short staffed and I wasn't having moments where I was by myself for up to four hours. He told me that I was probably okay and that it was just normal pregnancy stuff.

Needless to say this week did not go as well. Today while still at home I was not feeling very well and decided to check my blood pressure, since that seemed to be the problem the day I passed out. When I first checked it my BP was 144/88, I rested for a little while checked it again and it went to 132/90 (now my blood pressure medicine should be keeping my BP regulated, it should not be fluctuating like that according to the doctor). Well, against my better judgement I went to work anyway was there for about 20 minutes and sent home b/c I was starting to feel worse. Put a call in to the doctor and while waiting for them to call me back rested (at home) and checked my BP a couple of times the first time it was 163/93, I laid down in bed for about 20 minutes and when I checked it again it was 146/92. When the doctors nurse called me back and I told her what was going on she asked me to come in right away. Thankfully Dr. Atkins was actually there today and I got to see him and fill him in on what had been going on the last few weeks. When I got to the doctors office my BP was 142/88 which they weren't too happy about but it wasn't too bad. The doctor came in and we talked for a little while about my job status, whether or not I was still taking my medicine, and about everything that had been happening. When he went to check my BP again it was 140/94, and he was said those words that I had been dreading to hear this entire pregnancy BED REST! UGH.

Dr. Atkins had said that fainting in pregnancy can be common with all of the changes that your body is going through, however, my problem is worsened by my BP issues. He said that I am doing a good job of recognizing that when I am feeling faint I need to sit or lay down and rest but I can't do what I need to do at work. So my bed rest is not as strict right now as it was with Kaylin. I can still do things if I feel up to it, I am just not allowed to work. Good news in all of this is my job has short term disability that they will be placing me on (as long as all of the paper work goes through and they don't find a reason for me not to have it) so I won't be going the next five months without being paid (last three months of pregnancy and then two months after the baby). So please just keep us in your prayers, that everything will go okay and that the baby will stay healthy. Next week I go back to the doctor for my appointment where I take my glucose test. I will keep you updated as find out more information.

What a Week

So I know it has been a while since I updated, so I thought I would sit down and let you guys know what has been going on. I had my last doctors appointment on May 14th and it went really well. They did the 20 week sonogram and said that everything looks really good. They baby seems to be growing the way it is supposed to and they said it didn't look like the baby had any kind of defects (as far as they can tell from what they saw). They also confirmed that it is for sure with out a doubt a girl. As far as the actual doctors appointment went I still have not gained any weight, which is AWESOME!!! My blood pressure was also fantastic, it was 110/74. The doctor was very happy that it was down, unfortunately he didn't seem very optimistic that it would stay down. He said that at about the 20 week mark is when every pregnant woman's blood pressure is at its lowest, so he is anticipating that it will be going back up and that bed rest in inevitable it is just a matter of when. Kaylin and Jon went with me to my doctors appointment and Kaylin got to see the baby during the sonogram, which she was excited about for like 1 minute and then she lost interest. All in all it was a pretty good appointment. He also said that I didn't have to come back for another 4 weeks instead of the 2 weeks that we had been doing.

As far as the rest of the week went it kind of stunk. My great grandmother passed away on Tuesday night (May 13th), they said she went in her sleep so it wasn't like she was in pain or anything like that which was nice to know. We had her visitation here in Arlington at Moore funeral home on Friday and her funeral was in Amarillo on Saturday. It was a sad week but it was also a happy week.

Getting Better

So I went to the doctors office on Tuesday. My blood pressure was okay, not great but it is definitely getting better! It was 126/90, like I said not great but getting better. The doctor did ask me if there was anyway that my job could put me in a position to where I would be sitting instead of standing all day. I told him that I didn't think that was possible and he said that may be something we will have to look more closely at in the coming weeks. My weight has been an interesting subject this time. When I was pregnant with Kaylin, I was gaining weight like no other. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't keep from gaining weight. Well this time I have not gained any weight, I have actually lost weight. And it seems like I will be all baby this time which will be AWESOME!!! I am feeling the baby move now which is fantastic, now it just needs to get a little bigger so that Kaylin and Jon can feel it move. I go back to the doctor in two weeks and they will do a sonogram/check-up and we will see if my doctor thinks it is a girl. I am holding out hope that maybe it is a boy. A girl can dream can't she. Jon's not as optomistic as I am which is out of the ordinary for us, usually he is the optomistic one. We will keep everyone updated though as soon as we find out anymore information.

Oh NO!

On Monday at my doctors appointment things did not go so well. I was feeling fantastic however my blood pressure was up, it was 158/102. So the doctor increased my blood pressure medication and told me that I would have to come back to visit him in two weeks. So my next appointment is going to be on April 29th and if my blood pressure is still high then they will be changing my blood pressure medication. Dr. Atkins is really wanting to get my blood pressure under control before I start the second half of my pregnancy. He is trying to prevent me from having to go on bed rest and hopefully it will work. Jon and I are trying to be optimistic but it is hard when we have already been through this before.

The Specialist

So today I had my doctors appointment with my high risk specialist. The doctor talked to me about why they are worried about my blood pressure being so high. He also explained to me what numbers were okay when it came to blood pressure. He didn't actually check my blood pressure since I am going to the doctors office on Monday. He did do a sonogram and said that the baby looked good and that the baby was the size that it is supposed to be, it looked to be about six ounces. They gave me a couple of pictures, that I will try to get on this blog as soon as I can find the wires that go to our scanner. So now the question that people keep asking me and are dying to know......Did we find out what we are having? Yes we did and........


It's a GIRL!

That's right another girl. Kaylin is going to have a little sister. So now for the next question what will her name be... well after a lot of condsideration I have decided to let Jon be the one to pick out her name. We were both hoping for a boy and I had told Jon that if it was a boy that he would be able to pick out the baby bedding and the baby name. So now that we have found out its a girl Jon will be naming her and I will be picking out her bedding. Now there is always a chance that the doctor could have been wrong and it could end up being a boy but the baby's legs were spread wide open and the doctor said it's a girl, there is nothing in between those legs. So my next sonogram will be around 18/20 weeks and we will see at that point if they still think its a girl. So here is what Jon has decided out new little girls name is going to be...



Lauren James Anderson

Now if for some reason we find out in a couple of weeks that the specialist was wrong and that it is a boy his name will be Graham Riley Anderson. The names we picked weren't necessarily the most popular out of the ones that we had everyone vote on but these were the ones that we liked. Now I know some of you are wondering why in the world we would pick the name James to be a girls middle name, here's why. James is a family name both for the Anderson's and the Armstrong's. I had a great-grandfather who died my second year of college who I absolutely adored his name was James, my grandfather who I also love dearly is named James. Jon's grandfather who is very ill at the moment is named James and it is also one of my brother in-laws middle names. Like I said it is a family name that we would like to pass down to our child. So we want to thank everyone for their prayers and ask that you continue to pray for us as we prepare for our new little one.

NOT SO GOOD

Okay, so I had my doctors appointment and it didn't go very well. They took my blood pressure and it was 180/110. YIKES! It ended up going down but only to 160/100. So, they have decided to send me to a high risk pregnancy specialist. I will still go to my regular OB but I will also see the new doctor too. They have also put me on some medication as well. So now for the good news (I guess), the doctor thinks that my blood pressure issue may be something that is not pregnancy related. He said that when you have pregnancy induced hypertension (fancy words for high blood pressure), it usually doesn't effect your blood pressure until later on it the pregnancy. He thinks that I have an underlying blood pressure issue that I have had all along that has just not been diagnosed. So hopefully we will get it under control and I won't have to go through the months of bed rest again. My next appointment is April 9 with the specialist and April 14 with my OB. Kaylin went with me to the doctors office and she did pretty good until they got out the little machine to listen to the baby's heart beat. She started crying and telling the doctor not to hurt mommies baby. It was very sweet. The doctor and I were laughing at her because she really thought that he was going to hurt me and the baby. Needless to say she won't be going back to the doctor with me for a while. The baby's heart beat was 169. I would like to ask that you all please keep us in your prayers. If we have to go through all the stuff we went through with Kaylin it will be a long and hard pregnancy, and most definitely the last. Thanks.

My Goal

Okay my goal for this pregnancy is to keep everyone up to speed on this website. So I am going to try to blog every time I go to the doctor and let everyone know what happened at my appointments and such. So here we go:

My first appointment was on February 12, they did a sonogram and found out that I was 7 weeks and 3 days, so not quite 8 weeks. They told me that my due date would be September 27th. I know another September birthday for the Anderson/Armstrong families, as if we didn't already have enough. For those of you who aren't family members we have 6 (one of those is Jon's best friend, so he's not blood family but family still), and we are adding in number 7.

I will pause here to add, before I had gone to the doctor I had been having dreams that I was having twins, and Kaylin kept insisting that mommy was having two babies not one. The sonogram technician said that there was only one baby in there, praise God, I don't think I could handle two newborns and a 3 year old.

So the sonogram technician said everything appeared to be okay and she was able to let me listen to the heartbeat and is was 152. It didn't really look like a baby, it was more or less a little blob. After my sonogram I went back to the doctors area and they checked my weight (and no I don't know what it was, I didn't want to know what it was, I think if I start gaining too much weight the doctor will politely say something but he didn't seem to have an issue with where I was starting out at) and they also checked my blood pressure. My BP was 116/70 which was fantastic! Then I went into his office and we had a little chat about my pregnancy with Kaylin and the issue I had with her. He told me that since I had BP problems last time that started around 20 weeks that we would start doing appointments every two weeks once I hit the 20 week mark, unless I have issues before then. He also told me that if I have BP problems then we would automatically do a C-section again but, if I don't have BP problems then I could possibly deliver naturally.

Now let me pause again to say that, a part of me would love to deliver naturally just to have the experience but...I will be doing another c-section. With Jon and I both working full time and having Kaylin it is just easier for us to know exactly what day this baby will be here. Plus, as my mother-in-law so wonderfully put it, people don't win awards for going through labor and to me it just seems like it would be easier to just do the c-section to begin with and not go through the laboring (like I did last time) and then end up having to doing an emergency c-section.

So after my little chat with Dr. Atkins, he did the rest of my exam and said everything seemed to be going well. I went and had my blood work done and went home feeling fantastic (aside from the nausea and vomiting). Unfortunately that didn't last....I had to go back to the doctor two days later because I was bleeding and cramping.

Come to find out I am Rh negative, which in the back of my mind I knew I had negative blood but at the same time kind of forgot. They did another exam and sonogram and everything looked great. The baby's heartbeat was 159 and I wasn't showing any signs of miscarriage (which is what I was worried about). The just gave me a shot and put me on some restrictions, which I've done pretty good with. So my next appointment is tomorrow March 10 and I will let you all know what the doctor says. Kaylin is going with me to my appointment so she can hear the baby's heartbeat and I hope she does okay and doesn't freak out.

By the way overall, this pregnancy has gone better than it did with Kaylin. I have been sick but not as sick, if you asked Jon he would say it is just as bad but what do men know. I have been extremely exhausted which I don't remember from last time but I also wasn't working 40 hours a week at a job where I stood all the time and I didn't have a two year old to take care of on top of that. All in all, I must say that this has been a somewhat pleasant experience up to this point and I hope it continues to go that way. And for all of you who are wondering what Jon and I are hoping for, we really would like to have a boy but seeing as we don't really get a say in it we will be happy with whatever God has chosen to give us.

BIG NEWS!!!

So as some of you have already heard we are going to be having another baby!!! I am 8 weeks and 2 days today. The baby will be coming in September. We are very excited that we are finally able to tell everyone that we are expecting again. It has been a rough year of trying and some loss but we know God has everything under control and that he has a plan and a purpose for everything.

Kaylin is doing really well so far with the idea of there being a new baby. Everyday she askes if she can see the baby and she doesn't understand that she can't see it right now. I told her that mommy would bring home a picture for her to see on Tuesday after I have my appointment. Our biggest concern about having another baby was having Kaylin potty trained before the new baby came and that is one less thing we have to worry about. Yes that is correct our two and half year old is fully potty trained. She sleeps in her underwear at night with no problem and it has happened soon enough into this pregnancy that I don't think there will be any backstepping when the baby comes. She is pretty funny when it comes to talking about baby stuff. Before we found out that I was pregnant I was talking to Kaylin and asked her if she wanted mommy to have another baby and she said yes, so then I asked her if she wanted mommy to have a baby boy or a baby girl and she said "No baby turtle!". I thought that was just the cutest thing!

Also, we were in the car on our way home from eating dinner on Friday night and we asked Kaylin what she wanted to name the baby and she just said "Um....., booger". Jon and I started laughing and said you want to name the baby in mommy's tummy booger and she said "No the baby in Kaylins tummy...Booger." It's amazing how since mommy has a baby in her tummy now she thinks she has one in her tummy too. She told me the other day that her tummy hurt and I asked her if she felt sick and she said " No baby in tummy!" It has been very cute so far and we can't wait to see how everything goes for the next 7 months.

Keep tuning in regularly and we will try to keep you updated with every appointment we have!

Christmas Picks

These are pictures from our family Christmas.

Okay

So it has been a long time since I wrote anything. Life gets so busy with work, family and all the holidays that fall so closely together in the winter. We had an awesome Christmas, we went to church Christmas eve and then spent the rest of the night with Jon's family. Kaylin loved Christmas this year, it was her first year that she really got the concept of it all. Before we went to sleep we put out cookies and milk for Santa, and her face the next morning when she saw that Santa had eaten all the cookies was priceless. The next day we drove down to College Station and spent time with my family. It was really nice to get together with all of the family.

So not much else went on, we have just been busy with work and life. Kaylin has been potty training and it didn't really seem to be going anywhere until recently. Kaylin is now in big girl underwear. She has worn them for the last three days, and wore them last night to bed as well. She has only had one accident and that was the first day she wore them. She slept through the night last night and didn't wet the bed! We are so excited that she is doing such a good job. Everyone kept warning me that potty training is difficult and it has been really easy for us and for Kaylin. She is growing up so fast, I wish it would slow down!