I went in for my 35 week appointment today expecting to be weighed, measured and to hear Dawson’s heartbeat only to see the nice little strep B swab sitting on the counter and the nurse to tell me “It’s an exciting day, you get your strep B test today”. I replied “really? I thought that was next week at my 36 week appointment”. She then talked to another nurse and said it was up to me, I could have it today or my appointment on Monday. It really didn’t matter to me and I thought it would be nice to see if I’m dilated, effaced or if Dawson has turned and is now head down. So we decided to go ahead and get it out of the way today.

Dr. Davis came in, did the measurements, listened to Dawson’s heartbeat and let me know I’m dilated 1cm, 0% effaced and she was going to go get the ultrasound machine because she wasn’t sure if Dawson was head down or not. I thought “sweet! I get to see Dawson again and confirm if he’s head down or breach!”.  Sure enough, he’s head down! What a relief to see he is no longer breach and turned on his own like his big brother did.
Now here’s hoping he arrives in the next couple weeks! We’re ready and his diaper bag is packed!

I’m so ready to meet Dawson. Not that I’ve gotten to the “I’m so over being pregnant” phase, I’m just ready to meet the little man. I wonder if he’ll come out looking just like Cooper, which means he’d look just like Tod as a baby or if he’ll come out looking like I may have had something to do with creating this human being. Either way, I’ll love him just the same.

Lately I’ve been having dreams that I’ve been in labor. Sure hope that when the time comes I don’t confuse a dream with the real thing. I can only hope labor and delivery goes just as well as it did with Cooper. I was so lucky to have my water break at home and in the middle of the night. Having your water break is a for sure way of not being sent home from the hospital. I would prefer to not have to go through the pain of contractions and timing them before we can make our trip to the hospital. Unfortunately, I have no say in any of it. Dawson will be calling the shots so I suppose I’ll let him have his moment.

Tod has been working a rough schedule the last week and a half. He’s been having to cover for a co-worker and working 8:30pm-4am (but usually ends up being getting off after 5am). The schedule is really hard on him because he’s not good at sleeping during the day. No matter how tired he is he can’t seem to sleep more than 5-6 hours. Thankfully he’s on his last overnight shift (for now) and will be taking some vacation time before Dawson arrives. Once Dawson is born he’ll also be taking 2 weeks off to stay at home with our new family of 4 just like he did when we had Cooper.

Sunday we reach 35 weeks of pregnancy and starting at 36 weeks I go to see the doctor each week. Hopefully we’ll only have 2 or 3 of those appointments and Dawson comes early. This pregnancy has gone just as well as Cooper’s did. However, I predict within the next couple weeks I will be sore, tired, hot and so over being pregnant. Don’t worry….if I am….I’ll let you all hear about it.

It feels good to now be able to say I’m due next month. We can’t wait to meet little Dawson Elliot and have him join our family. This pregnancy has been going good. Knock on wood! Dawson is growing just like he should be and is currently breech just like his big brother was most of my pregnancy. Let’s just hope he follows in his footsteps and not only arrives at least 10 days early but turns around as well. I will be 32 weeks on Sunday and have continued to experience heartburn daily. Prilosec isn’t cutting it on it’s own so I continue to take a couple Tums a day, which isn’t too bad since it helps me get my daily dose of calcium. I also had the pleasure of taking the 3 hour glucose test. Thankfully everything turned out ok and I don’t have gestational diabetes. Luckily, I went into the lab first thing on a Sunday morning so I got to relax in the room where they drew my blood, in the recliner, watching HGTV for 2 out of the 3 hours I was there.

This past month we’ve been getting settled into our new home and enjoying the summer. The weather we’ve had in Bend this year has not been good. We’ve gotten a lot more rain then usual and a lot less sun. We finally got our nice weather on the first day of summer. It feels good to get a little color on our skin and spend the days outside and in the pool. We’ve also enjoyed a visit from Beth, Ella, Averi, Brett, Betsy and little Ella. We got to take the kids to the pool and spend lots of time outside in the backyard. Beth, Betsy and I also got to enjoy a nice pedicure while relaxing at the house because my nail genius LaLoni was nice enough to make a house call.

We’ve enjoyed our new neighborhood up until the neighbors behind us decided to either get a dog or decide to neglect it and torture the rest of the neighborhood while it barked non-stop all day long. I am currently listening to it bark right now. The cops have already made at least one visit to warn them and if it continues tonight they will be making another visit as well. We’ve also gotten cigarette butts and an empty pop can thrown over into our yard from these same neighbors. I’m hoping they don’t take it any further and make this a big ugly mess between us. The dog has woken Cooper up several times the last couple nights, which has resulted in him sleeping in bed with us…..diagonally with his head in the middle of my back. Ok, enough about our nightmare neighbors. Hopefully you won’t need to read future posts of what they’ve done next.

I’m hoping to get some pictures in a post soon. I’ve been really bad at getting the camera out….which is a shame because Cooper has been doing a good job of saying “Cheese” when I take a picture of him lately too.

This Sunday marks 25 weeks and we should be meeting Dawson in about 3 months! I just thought I’d post an update on how things have been going the last couple weeks. We moved! Yep, it was time to leave our small 3 bedroom 1235 sq ft home and into a 2 story, 4 bedroom, 2100 sq ft home. What a job this has been. Especially for Tod. I thankfully did not have to do any heaving lifting, just packing and unpacking. In the new house we painted every single wall! On top of that the house needed a good cleaning top to bottom. Thankfully all the carpet has been replaced. I’m not sure we could have moved in with the condition it was in. We are still working on getting some stuff moved over to the new house but the majority of everything is in and working well. Tod is now working on finishing up Cooper’s big boy bed. He’s now sleeping on a twin on his bedroom floor and Tod is finishing up painting his bed this weekend. Dawson’s room is getting done as well. I’ll post some pictures once we’re all finished.

During the move we ate out a lot. For about a week we had a fully stocked fridge and freezer at the old house and hardly anything in the house we were living in. I could not wait for a home cooked meal again. After two weeks of eating Schlotzsky’s, Wendy’s, Dairy Queen and a maple bar here and there for breakfast I was really worried about getting on the scale at my next doctor’s appointment. So this last Thursday I had my dr’s appointment that marked 24 weeks and 5 days and onto the scale I went. I looked down to see that I have once again gained zero pounds. What a relief it has been to not gain any weight this pregnancy. Dawson is growing well but the scale is not moving each month which makes me very happy. Good boy Dawson!

Oh how I miss sleeping through the night. Lately, who am I kidding, this pregnancy I’ve been waking up at 3, 4, 5 in the morning and it’s been taking me quite a while to fall back asleep. It starts out with having to go the bathroom and ends up with no less than half an hour of laying in bed wondering when I’ll fall back asleep. Lately it’s been taking around 2 hours to fall back asleep so I’ve had to get out of bed, get on the computer and wait until I’m dead tired before I can return to bed. The insomnia is driving me nuts!

Any ideas on how to easily fall back asleep? I’m open to anything…well almost anything. If it involves food or a drink that I would not like, I’m not tryin’ it.

We had a great ultrasound yesterday and got to see our healthy, active and stubborn baby boy. That’s right, we are going to have another boy. Dawson Elliot! I can’t believe how active he was. He really made the ultrasound tech work for some good pictures. We’re excited Cooper is going to have a little brother and they will hopefully grow up as best friends. I’m sure they’ll have their moments but who doesn’t?
Here are a couple pictures of the little man….and his parts.

We don’t know but will find out soon. Our ultrasound is scheduled for this Monday March 29th at 1:00. We found out with Cooper within the first 9 minutes of the ultrasound that we were having a boy so shortly after 1:00 I’m sure we’ll know what kind of peanut we’re going to have. We’re excited and anxious to find out if we’re going to have a Dawson (middle name Elliot or Jacob) or a Sophie Marie.

It’s so crazy how fast I feel things with this second pregnancy. Things I didn’t notice my body doing when I was pregnant before are so much more noticeable now. The little stings of pain or nausea the second I found out I was pregnant and at 13 weeks I got to that tickling feeling in my stomach of the baby moving. It’s such a great feeling and nice reassurance to feel that little peanut moving inside of me. One thing I missed immediately after giving birth to Cooper was his movements throughout the day. Although I preferred holding him in my arms there’s just something wonderful about feeling a life in your belly.

Tomorrow marks 14 weeks of pregnancy and my next prenatal visit is March 23rd. I’m guessing Dr. Davis will let us make our appointment for our ultrasound and we can find out if we’ll be having a little Sophie or Dawson.

Stay tuned…..

So far we have a couple front runners for a baby name. For a boy we’re pretty set on Dawson Jacob and for a girl Sophie Marie. I also really like Hadley and Emerson for a girl and Grayson for a boy.

What do you all think? Any suggestions? Oh ya…and if you don’t like Sophie or Dawson…I don’t wanna hear it.

Sunday 12/27/09

Today was the day that we found out we were pregnant with baby #2. We are so excited and thankful for the age gap Cooper and baby #2 will have. I am 5 weeks pregnant and due August 29^th,2010. It’s quite possible this baby could be sharing a birthday with their dad. Hardest part now will be waiting until we hear the babies heartbeat before we can tell our friends and family that we’re expecting.

Monday 12/28/09

I called to make my first prenatal appointment only to find out the soonest I could get in was February 1^st to meet with the nurse and February 17^th to meet with Dr. Davis. The appointment with Dr. Davis is the one where we hopefully get to hear the babies’ heartbeat so we’ll be waiting until then to let everyone know we’re pregnant. By that time I will be 12 weeks and 2 weeks shy of being in my second trimester. This is going to be torture. God, please let time fly by.

Monday 1/4/10

On to week 6. Only 6 more weeks before everyone else can know we’re pregnant. I’m not feeling much right now, maybe a little nausea random times throughout the day but not bad at all. I’m sure I have lots of nausea to look forward to as I experienced it daily through my first trimester with Cooper.

Wednesday 1/27/10

I guess it’s been a while since I’ve updated my secret journal that I will post the day we can announce this pregnancy. I am now 9 ½ weeks and just about over the nausea. It’s odd because with Cooper it didn’t end until the second we hit the second trimester. The last couple days have been really hard to keep this pregnancy a secret. I am planning on begging the nurse on Monday to have someone check for a heartbeat. We actually don’t have that appointment until February 17^th. 16 days of waiting when I’ll be at the dr’s office on February 1^st is going to kill me! One of the big reasons it’s been hard keeping this pregnancy a secret is because I’ve learned of three other friends that are pregnant and due around the same time as us. And when it comes to Robin, we have the SAME exact due date. Danielle is due August 24^th and Jenna August 10^th. If only I could have gotten into the doctor sooner I’d be able to announce our pregnancy as well.

Monday 2/1/10

Well I guess I spoke to soon. The nausea isn’t gone, it comes and goes. Definitely not as bad as it was in the beginning though. Today is my first prenatal appointment with the nurse to go over medical history. I’m planning on asking her if there’s anyway we can try and find the heartbeat while I’m there. The anticipation is killing me as well as keeping me up at night. Last night I laid in bed sick to my stomach at the thought of today’s dr’s appointment. I just need that reassurance that everything is fine and there’s a healthy heartbeat in my belly.

Friday 2/6/10

Well, update from the last entry…I asked for the nurse to try to find the heartbeat and she politely agreed but warned me to not be disappointed if we didn’t hear it today because 10 weeks can be a little early. She tried and failed so she pulled in another nurse to give it a shot. She made me promise I wouldn’t get disappointed if she couldn’t find it either. She checked for a bit and twice they thought they got a super quick listen to the babies heartbeat but she didn’t have much luck either. They told me I could come back in next week to try again if I didn’t want to wait until my appointment with Dr. Davis the week after that. At that point I decided I was going to wait it out and by almost 13 weeks we better be finding a heartbeat. So…wish us luck.

Saturday 2/20/10

I am happy to post that we heard a healthy heartbeat yesterday so this pregnancy is no longer a secret. What a relief Dr. Davis gave us yesterday when we got to hear that wonderful whoosh whoosh sound coming from my belly. Cooper is going to be a big brother…now the only question is will he have a little sister or little brother?