2/2/08 Not much has been going on here. Unfortunately Ryan left on Thursday to go up to Jackson, MS for a full month. I miss him already : ( I've been trying to keep busy in the meantime. This shall be my month of organizing, cleaning and babyproofing! Sounds like such fun. Hopefully I can get over my being sick while he is gone too - I have had a cold or sinus infection for about 2 weeks now and I'm getting tired of it! Fortunately I have my dogs here to keep me company. Campbell has been busy causing trouble. Dixie has taught him the joys of eating toilet paper. This means that today when I got home Campbell had taken it upon himself to decorate the house! He had pulled the toilet paper roll all the way through the bedroom and out into the hallway! I have attached pictures of his dedicated work. Today I also got to experience my first Mardi Gras celebration. New Orleans and Mobile apparently take this quite seriously (it is actually considered a holiday day at work!). I went to Mobile this afternoon to catch up with my friend Julie. We went to watch a few of the Mardi Gras parades. I didn't realize this was such a health hazard! As the floats pass by, they toss out beads, cups, candy, toys, stuffed animals, moon pies and tons more. Beware of flying objects : ) It was fun to experience though. You should see the bags of stuff people were walking away with. Definitely worth experiencing. The number of parades they have in Mobile though is fascinating. They had some all last weekend, several last night, three this afternoon, three more tonight and loads of them tomorrow. Then of course Tuesday will be the big, all out celebration day. I will have to account for this in my drive to work on Tuesday night. Otherwise no news here - just trying to keep busy till I get to go visit Ryan. I have a doctor's appointment in a couple weeks - check back for updates.
2008-01-21 (27 weeks)
Visiting Stryjki This past weekend Ryan and I took a trip up to New York City to visit my great uncle Stryjki. Unfortunately he is not doing well. We were glad for the chance to see him, and especially for Ryan to get to meet him. He may hopefully go back to the monastery on hospice care on Tuesday, which is what he wants. Please keep him in your prayers. Fortunately for Stryjki there have been a ton of family members around him taking wonderful care of him. It was a good opportunity for Ryan to catch up with and meet some more of my side of the family. I have put up pictures with many of them. We had a good weekend overall, making all of our flights this time! Also we had a little time to go visit NYC. Ryan had never been before so, so he was quite excited. We went to see the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center site and Times Square. We are very grateful we had this opportunity to go see Stryjki and the family.
We have also included an updated picture of my growing belly - Kirsten is really starting to get big. She is supposed to be around 2 lbs now and growing! We'll update again soon.
2008-01-17 (26 weeks)
1/17/08 Things are going alright here, aside from all of the doctor visits. I had a routine doctor's visit on Tuesday. Everything went well. I've put on a little more weight finally - starting to look like I swallowed a basketball! The baby measured right at 26 weeks so everything matched up right. Her heart rate was in the 150's and going strong. She is very active now, especially when I am trying to sleep. Sometimes if we just watch my belly, you can see my belly move! After my doctor's appointment I had to do my glucose screening test, which came back a little high. As a result I had to schedule a 3 hour glucose screening test - had to get stuck for blood draw 5 times! Fortunately though, this test came back completely normal - so no gestational diabetes.
The other fun with doctor's- starting on Tuesday afternoon I started having heartburn pretty bad. This lasted nonstop through Wednesday, and almost felt as though it were getting worse. I tried several at home remedies with nothing providing relief. As a result I had to take a trip to the ER. This was not fun at all, I had to get stuck again for more lab work and get hooked up to the EKG machine with wires everywhere. Fortunately my EKG came back normal. My heart rate was elevated, as was my blood pressure, but not to a truly worrisome degree. One of my lab tests came back a little elevated so they sent me up to get a CT scan to make sure I didn't have a pulmonary embolism. The CT scan ruled out a PE but did show a hiatal hernia - this is where the stomach protrudes up through your diaphragm into your chest cavity. This can be a normal complication of pregnancy and should relieve itself after the baby arrives. This however is currently resulting in very strong heartburn and unfortunately will probably be symptomatic for the duration of the pregnancy. Now I'm just trying to adjust to the heartburn and minimize it.
This weekend Ryan and I will be traveling to New York City. My great uncle Stryjki is in the hospital quite sick. Please keep him in your prayers for us. I have received permission from the doctor's to fly, and I am taking my own personal physician! We look forward to seeing all of the family members there and for Ryan to get to meet Stryjki. We will update after our trip and put up pictures soon.
2007-12-26 (23 weeks)
Christmas Holidays Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! This has been a very busy season with work and preparing for the baby. Fortunately we were able to get some time off together, where we got to go visit Ryan's family. First we went to visit his parents in Jacksonville. It was great to just relax and visit everyone. Ryan and his parents went to town rocking out to his new game - Rock Band. He has become quite the video game guitarist! The dogs had a great time too. Campbell even went swimming! We got a ton of books to start reading to Kirsten. I still find it a little weird reading to my belly, but well worth it. They say reading to the baby in utero really helps their future language development. After a few days in Jacksonville we went to Enigma, GA to see some more of Ryan's family. We got to stay with Granny and see the rest of the family. We filled up on some excellent food and got to open a ton of gifts for Kirsten! We can't wait to put her in her new outfits and use the rest of her stuff. It's so exciting as we get stuff for her and place it in her nursery. She's definitely kicking a lot now and showing more and more. I can't believe how quickly it has all gone by. We're already about to start our third trimester. We've gotten back home and mostly unpacked now. Unfortunately I had to work Christmas Eve and Christmas night, but someone has to watch the kids in the hospital so may as well be my turn this year. I'll have plenty of time at home in a little while with Kirsten. Hope to finish getting settled back in over the next few days. Be on the lookout for our Christmas trip pictures! We'll update again soon.
