The bar stool saga continues

If you can recall back to the days that we moved into our home, I had been struggling with what bar stools to puchase for our kitchen island. We chose these:



from Target, while cute and my style, I am not in love with them. Shortly their after, we realized the swiveling metal bar stools may also chip our granite when we have little children sitting there, eating their lunch. So, I am on the hunt again and love these from World Market. I can't wait to place the order, they are exactly what I have been looking for!!!! Finally, 1 1/2 years later!!

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Kitchen Window decor

Wow, finally a new home decor item. I haven't had the pleasure of blogging about this in awhile. Have I mentioned how great it is to feel like myself again??? LOL! Here is a cute piece I picked up at Kirkland's in Myrtle Beach.

Myrtle Beach and first maternity pics

We returned last night after being in Myrtle Beach for 8 days. We had a wonderful time but it went by SO fast!!! I can't believe we are back at home already. We mostly laid by the beach and pool although it rained two of the days we were there. Not fun. I was really good about getting up early each morning and going for a walk on the beach. I am trying so hard to have some what of an excercise regime while pregnant. It was wonderful to walk on the beach each morning, I am sure I will be longing for those days once I am back stressing out at my desk this week!!!!! Here are a few pics from our trip and a noticible bump protruding from my now maternity only wardrobe.

16w3d

Wow, where does the time go? I feel like a bad mommy for not blogging about the last four weeks. Currently, I feel great. Finally! The morning sickness started to subside around 12 weeks and officially left around 13. I was still exhausted up until 16 weeks and now really feel like I have my energy back. It's great to feel whole again!!!!!
Peanut is doing great, my belly is starting to grow more although there are days I still wake up and wonder where the heck my bump went. It goes up and down but on the down days I naturally worry and hope everything is OK. As I write, it's a good bump day so I am quite happy.
We go in tomorrow for my second bloodwork. This is the follow up to the initial screen test which all came back normal. I am not too too nervous about this one since little peanut did so well the first time, this is just to confirm that everything is still OK, which hopefully everything still is.
I am really starting to feel anxious about wanting to feel the baby move. I know it can be any day now so please give me a sign little one that you are in there!!!! Talk about reassuring once I finally feel the first flutters. I am also really anxious to know if we are having a boy or girl. Only a few more weeks, I am so excited!
I have been really bad about taking any pictures of my bump this pregnancy. I started taking pics at 6 weeks during the first pregnancy and what a great set of abs I had back then! No trace of a bump for obvious reasons that we know now, not to mention, I was in the best shape of my life back then. Now, not so much after several surgeries and infertility interfering with my workouts. It's OK, plenty of time to whip my bod back into shape after the baby is here. I have gained roughly 6-7pounds so far and tomorrow is weigh in day. We were in Myrtle Beach for over a week so we shall see how that went. I honestly ate quite healthy and turned down several dessert opportunities so it may not be so bad.

Interesting Dining Room

I really think what makes thi dining room so beautiful is that it is so different. I wouldn't have been able to pull this together in a million years but it just works. It's from the blog "Doin it Texas Style."

My long lost friend - Rate my Space

Wow, haven't thought about home decor in pretty much forever and completely forgot about my dear friend, Rate my Space. Here is a gorgous room with a beautiful starburst mirror to spark my interest again.

Winter Black Bean Salsa

With my m/s slowly leaving, I am becoming interested in cooking again. I have barely cooked anything these past few months with the exception of my usual staples. This dip looked delicious, I may need to make at the next bookclub.

What You Need1 can (16 oz.) black beans, rinsed, drained 1 pkg. (10 oz.) frozen whole kernel corn, thawed 1 medium tomato, chopped 1/4 cup chopped red onion 1/4 cup fresh lime juice 1 env. GOOD SEASONS Garlic & Herb Dressing Mix 2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro 1/2 tsp. minced fresh jalapeño pepper (optional) 1/4 tsp. ground cumin Make It
MIX all ingredients in large bowl until well blended; cover. Refrigerate at least 15 minutes.

SERVE with tortilla chips. Store leftover salsa in airtight container in refrigerator.

12 weeks

It's been another roller coaster kind of week for us. On Monday, it started out high and with a lot of hope. We had our NT scan and our little peanut looked great. The ultra sound was actually not a "vag cam" one and it was nice to not have to get naked for it. Ah, the little things...
Anyway, peanut looked great. At first he/she was sleeping and not moving so I immediately freaked out and asked if the heart was beating. It was hard to see because I had to watch on this flat screen monitor across the room from me. Tpically in Dr. G's office, the u/s machine was facing towards me, right in my face. I was reassured baby was fine and looking good. Measuring 12w2d, 4 days ahead again. So baby is growing on schedule still, awesome!!!! That was a relief. Then the u/s tech (who was such a sweetheart) started poking my abdomen to work the little guy up. He started clapping his hands and moving all around. It was really cute. Our baby did not show any signs of a neck fold issue (which would indicate a marker of downs) and appeared to be healthy. It was so wonderful, we kept asking a million questions if the baby was OK and she kept reassuring us that the baby looked good. Fortunately for us, our u/s tech informed us that she was also a victim of infertility and it took her 5 years to have her first child so she did not mind our million questions.
Riding high from our appointment, we decided maybe we could finally tell the family. Jeff tried to get his family together first but no luck, they were busy. We couldn't exactly say why we wanted to get together so we decided to see what my family was up to.
My parents and sister were available to meet at Olive Garden near my sister so we met there afterwork. I know that my mom was totally on to us, I think she was getting suspicious so I knew now was the time. Especially after Nicole's christening, I am sure I was starting to appear "a little pregnant".
As expected, my parents and sister were so happy for us. I was so happy to tell them yet still nervous about it. I keep wondering, was it still too soon? We are not officially out of the first trimester just yet. But at this point, we will take our chances. After dinner, we headed over to my 90 year old Grandma's apartment. What a surprise that this was going to be for her!!! We showed her the ultra sound pictures and she was so thrilled and cried for us several times. It was so wonderful to make her evening. I know she was just spinning from the news.
After a long but wonderful day, we arrived at home and I had to ran to the bathroom. Wouldn't you know it, but I had brown spotting. OMG! What are the chances? I was so upset, so worried to break my families heart again and especially my poor Grandma. Jeff and I decided to "have fun" a few days before, the first time since the first spotting incident and look what happened. At least this is what I pray caused it. I spotted all of the next day and was just so upset and depressed about it. I couldn't believe it was happening again. I also had some weird cramps that I think were gas related but it's hard to tell. Part of me even thinks that the spotting could be the huge cyst left over on my left ovary that my doctor's have been watching. It is starting to break up so perhaps this is causing issues for me? Dr. G said no, however, some women's doctor's on The Bump have said spotting can sometimes be related to cysts so who really knows for sure. I guess the moral of the storey about spotting is that you really don't know why it happens or what causes it and 50% of people who spot miscarry and 50% don't. Let's just hope that I am finally on the right side of this statistic. Please no more spotting. I really want to enjoy this pregnancy and not regret telling people, again!!!!! We are planning on telling Jeff's parents tomorrow so wish us luck.

11 weeks!!!!

Whoa, didn't think I would ever get here (as I sit here trying to update my blog and trying not to puke). I can't believe I have two weeks left in the first tri. I am not counting down or anything, right? Now that I am on the brink of the promise land, the second trimester, it just can't get here soon enough. I can't wait, it's like everything will all fall into place, hopefully my m/s will go away, the baby is hopefully healthy and out of the m/c woods, and we can finally tell people.
I am sick as a dog right now and about ready to go crawl back up into bed for the night. My afternoon/evening sickness turned into an all day sickness today. It was just miserable, from the moment I woke up I knew I was in trouble. I layed in bed, debating on calling off of work. I have gotten through my whole pregnancy so far not misssing an ounce of work, I had gotten through it. It was easier to deal with when it would come on at 3-4pm, only a hour of two to make it through the day before I crashed on the couch. But today, I couldn't shake it. I tried two nutri-grain bars in the morning, no relief. Even regular, not baked, (gasp!) lays potato chips, recommended by my OB, from the work vending machine. They helped for about 20 minutes then the nausea came flooding back. My Subway veggie sub (which has been my pregnancy staple as of late) didn't even help. 30 minutes of goodness all lost. I had a 1-2pm meeting and I managed to suffer through it, luckily it was a guest speaker so I just had to look alive and not like I was going to die. By 2:30, I gave in. The though of staying there another 3 hours vertical was just not going to work. I drove myself home and took a quick detour to Babies R US to try these preggie pops. They are pretty much very expensive hard sour candy that is supposed to take the edge off of morning sickness. I tried one, it did take the edge off. I then had a second and then a third. Afterwards I fell asleep in bed watching General Hospital. I woke up with a nasty preggie pop after taste in my mouth that of course brought back the m/s. We'll see how long these last, they probably will end up in the same category as gold fish crackers and mcdonalds french fries. Delicious in themselves, but eaten when enduring morning sickess equals, nastiness now and never want to eat them again.
My fears are of course ruling my life and I am pretty much still in a "waiting to exhale" phase. I know too much about what can go wrong in a pregnancy so I have definetly not let my guard down yet about this one either. Every milestone brings on new relief, yet to be overtaken by another milestone of worry. I also just read my nestie friend Abbey's blog post today, it was about intuition. She claims that she just "knew" that she was going to miscarry even though she was 12 weeks. Her situation was different, her baby stopped growing at 9 weeks and she cruely didn't find out until the 12th week. I know our baby is still growing, henece the m/s and recent ultra sound pics, however, I am still scared. I don't have any intuition thoughts that it's not going to work out, my situation is a little different, just crazy, worrisome thoughts that will it work out? I don't know if that makes sense but maybe her fear is what she is looking back to now as intuition. Hopefully I will not need to look back, only forward.