Dr Appt

Today we had another doctor check. Like John said we are boringly normal - YEAH!! Today I had to do my glucose test to check for gestational diabetes. That was something I was really nervous about it, but it went better than I expected. I had heard some pretty bad horror stories about the stuff and with all of my puking I wasn't looking forward to possibly puking again. I was surprised. It wasn't that much and it was really easy to drink - tasting like flat 7-up. Now we wait and just hope that comes back boringly normal again. I gained 5 pounds this last month, giving me a grand total of 8 pounds gained - but I lost 10 pounds right away so I'm still technically down 2 pounds. Baby's heart beat was good at 156 bpm. It really is an amazing sound to hear that little heart beat every time. It's one of the best sounds I've ever heard.

We have another dr appt in 1 month and then we will start our appts every 2 weeks - he said we should be starting them now, but since we are so boring he said we are ok to wait longer :-) John keeps picking on me now and says for the first time I'm normal. I thought he was supposed to be nice to me when I'm pregnant :-)

In the meantime, we await the arrival of our new niece or nephew - and can't wait to see pictures of JP & Erin's little bundle of joy!

Bottle watching

Amanda has a new hobby. Now she sets a bottle of water on her belly and watches it move...

We had another Dr. appointment today, and everything is still "boringly normal", so we are pretty happy with that.

Amanda will be at 27 weeks on Wednesday, so she is now in the third trimester. We are on the homestretch, and there will have to be lots of action now as we have to get everything ready for the new arrival.

Speaking of new arrivals, Amanda's brother J.P. will be a new daddy tomorrow (if he's not already). Erin has the delivery scheduled for tomorrow morning if she doesn't go into labor before then. We are very excited for them and can't wait to go visit at the end of July!

Cousins

Sunday was a fun day. John's parents had a cook out with brats, potatoes, and the whole deal. Hooks actually managed to not turn all the food into hockey pucks and didn't set himself on fire - and considering he cooked a lot of it, the food was excellent!! It was just a small little cook out - John's mom and dad, his grandma, and his sister & her husband - and our baby's 1st cousins, our nephews Ebin (10) and Adler (6). I can't believe how big they are getting.

Ebin is so smart and just a fun kid to be around. He was showing us how well he is at making a big splash in the pool that was set up - I'm surprised there was any water in that thing by the end of the day! He also took some time out to listen to us adults yammer away. Hopefully he didn't get any ideas from listening to the stories of things Hooks used to do as a kid. (For those of you who don't know - Hooks is John's dad.) We are actually going to the Science Museum with him on Tuesday. He and John will be running around mesmerized by the Star Wars displays. I don't know who is more excited - him or Ebin!!

Adler is just a little sweetie. At one point Adler starting to tickle me and then said he was going to tickle the baby - well, baby must be ticklish because it actually kicked as he was doing it. He thought that was pretty cool and tickled again - and baby kicked again - which got Adler curious. He wanted to know how baby ate. So I told him everything I ate the baby got. He promptly went inside, told Nana, and came out with a bowl of fruit telling me that he wanted the baby to eat this grape, this blueberry, and this cantaloupe. It was pretty cute!

Our little boy or girl will be pretty lucky to have such cool cousins. Speaking of which, John and I should have another little niece or nephew (although pretty sure it is a niece) in about a week or so. My brother JP and his girlfriend Erin are expecting on July 1st. It's a bummer they are so far away in North Carolina, but it will be nice for Thomas/Lily to have a cousin the same age. We are getting really excited for them as we await the arrival of their little bundle of joy!

Anyway, better hit the hay - have a big day tomorrow of checking out the Millennium Falcon with the two Star Wars buffs!! Hopefully I'll be able to keep up!!!

Karate Kid

Between yesterday and today I'm wondering if I'm going to have a baby or an octopus with boxing gloves on. This kid is really getting to be pretty powerful. Saturday morning after eating my morning yogurt I'm pretty sure the kid was making a break for it - my shirt was bouncing all over the place! We are thinking it was because I had Peach Yogurt. Early on in my pregnancy I survived off of peaches. They were the only thing that seemed to stay down :-) Baby must have fallen in love with them too!

Sleepy, Sleepy, Sleepy...

Hello all. John keeps telling me that I can post too...and keeps telling me so I'm thinking that's my hint to get on here. :-) Not too much to say. Now that I am finally feeling better and not throwing up all the time, I am now sleeping all the time. I better get it now though as it won't be very long before there is a little person waking us up at all hours - and not letting us sleep until the afternoons on the weekends. I think I'm already adjusting to that though. I wake up pretty early on the weekends now (any time before noon on a weekend is early for us for those of you that know us really well - actually any time before 2 or 3 or 4, etc. LOL). I'm not used to falling asleep at 10:00 at night. I feel like that's all I do these days, but I know it's worth it.

Every little thing is blessing to us, considering we never thought we would get to enjoy this. John is the cutest expectant father. He is so excited over everything and also so nervous about everything, but I know he'll be a great dad. I keep telling him that - and telling him if his dad didn't kill him we'll do great!! (Sorry Hooks!)

Anyway, here's a picture of the ever expanding belly - figured I would share. It's finally starting to pop. It's great to look down and see it growing and actually know I want it that way and there is a little person rolling around in there. "Runty munchkin" certainly let's me know that he/she is there. Those kicks are forever getting stronger! 25 weeks 1 day - I can't believe there is less than 15 weeks left!!! Gotta go raid the fridge!

Mommy to Be

Tuff

My parents were recently on vacation in Deadwood, SD. While there, they visited one of my favorite poker rooms at the Old Saloon #10. My mom found a jean jacket there that she purchased for the baby. I thought it was pretty funny when I looked at it, it's so tiny! I mean, we've picked up a lot of baby clothes, onesy's (sp?) and little pants and shirts and stuff, but this thing just looked funny. Anyway, check it out below. The right side is the back. The black thing under the collar is a DVD case (for size reference). Won't the runt look rough and tumble wearing something like that?

A thousand words

These were taken at the halfway "survey" the Dr. wanted.

I think this one is funny:



Here is baby, going for the alien/skeletor look:


Finally, a profile shot. I always ask for an orange contrast, I can see the image better:

Kung Fu

For about a week now, I've been able to put my hand on Amanda's belly and feel the runt kicking, punching, doing somersaults or whatever it is doing in there. A little while ago we were sitting in the living room and she said "Look over here!", so I looked and saw her belly move! The munchkin is getting stronger, pretty cool...

What's in a name?

Just thought I'd post the names that we have most likely decided on. If we have a girl, she will be named Lily Donna, and if we have a boy, he will be named Thomas John.

I came up with Lily because it is Amanda's favorite flower. Donna was Amanda's Grandmother's name.

Thomas was my Grandfather's name. John because most of the males in our families are named John. (Me, my dad, Amanda's Dad, Amanda's brother, Amanda's Grandfather, etc.)

There were a few other names we came up with, but there is also another reason we chose these. We can't think of anyone with any of these names that is an asshole, so they are not ruined for us.

Some people tell us how they agonized over deciding on a name, and how they went back and forth on various different names. It literally took us about 10 minutes one day in the car on the way to go out for supper. We don't mess around.

Over halfway there

I guess I'm starting this blog a little late, as Amanda is at 24 weeks 6 days along. I wasn't really even planning on blogging this whole thing, but people kept asking us if we were going to register for baby stuff somewhere, and we couldn't decide on what we wanted or needed. I didn't even know that registering somewhere was an option, I just thought that you had to gather all this stuff on your own, so that is cool.

Anyway, we looked all around and found stuff we like, but from various different places. So we figured we could just make this blog and post links. That'll be forthcoming, so those of you that are interested might want to keep an eye open.

This is also probably a good way to keep my Mom updated on happenings, as I'm sure she doesn't think I call her often enough :).

I called this Herring Baby 1, because right now we have no idea if there will be more than 1 in the future. This baby wasn't expected, and as far as we knew, impossible, so who knows. Plus, after this one, will we even want another!?!

Amanda might be posting on here, too, who knows. I'm sure she'll identify herself, though. Plus, the grammar will be better...

Maybe later I'll put up some ultrasound images, but I gotta roll right now. Talk at you later.

Oh yeah, if you think there is anything I should put on here, leave me a comment.