Sweet Girl

Here are some pictures of one day old Katherine. She is doing really well, breathing on her own and to our delight learning to suck on her own. She is of course sleeping most of the time, as preemies do, but Nat and I still try and make a run for the NICU for every feeding, every three hours, to feed and bond with our little sweetheart. We take picures everyday so keep checking back, we will keep posting them!! Thank You to everyone for your continued thoughts and prayers......Love, Nat, Suzi and Katie

Katherine Elaine Burt

Just in case you didn't get the news, Katie was born 11-08-06 via C-section at 12:06pm here at York Hospital. She weighed in at a whopping 4 lbs. 6 oz. and was 18 inches long. Both Katie and I are doing well, although I have only been able to see her once outside of the delivery room, Nat has been over as much as he can to hold her and check in on her. I am still on so many drugs that they haven't moved me out of labor hall yet and hopefully at some point today I will be back in my bigger room in the maternity hall and more importantly able to get out of this stupid bed and spend some time with my daughter. Fingers crossed. I'll keep everyone posted as things happen...... I will also try and get some more pictures of the cutest addition.

Ready Or Not

It is currently Monday morning, 4am, and here I sit in my Maternity ward bed awaiting for my vitals to be taken. I have been in this bed since Friday around 1pm when once again my blood pressure went nuts at my doctors appointment and they sent me over to the hospital to be observed. Once admitted to the hospital on Friday I was given some tests, blood and urine, and slowly over the past three days my body has begun to fail them, one by one, to the point where it is now apparent that Katie will be born sometime this week.

So, ready or not, she is on her way.

I am currently 33 weeks and 1 day pregnant, so she will be a preemie, small but developed enough that we are pretty confident that she will not need to be on a respirator. Nat and I are of course worried and nervous but we know that we are in the best place for both Katie and I to succeed and not only are we well taken care of but since I have spent the past 33 weeks living with my doctors so I am very, very secure in the fact that they are making the best choices for our continued success.

There is no definite timeline for this birth, no doctor has given us a day or time, my body will be the final judge. Everything depends on how well I continue to progress downward with my labs. The last doctor we spoke with was guestimating earlier this week than later, which prompted Nat and I to ask to visit the NICU here at the hospital, so we were given a short but mentally calming visit of where Katie will live for the first few weeks of her life. It was an eye opening experience to see such tiny babies, but again we were comforted in the fact that Katie will be very closely monitored and that even at 33 weeks she will be big enough to be out of the real danger zone that many preemies face.

Are we going crazy, absolutely. There are a million things running through my mind at every second, this is why I am awake at 4am and this is why my stomach is currently in knots. I guess I am mostly worried about the unknown factors, I haven't been in control of this pregnancy from day 1 and now it seems as though even my last moments of this pregnancy are out of my hands. I wish someone would just say, "Wednesday at 4pm we are going to induce you." A plan, that would be nice. But I guess planning and I aren't friends right now so I just have to sit in my hospital bed and wait.

Nat and I would just like to thank everybody who reads this for your continued thoughts and prayers, they have meant so much to us in the past and right now we need them more than ever. This is going to be the most incredible week of our lives and no doubt the most panicked and stress filled as well so please keep us close to your hearts.

Hopefully the next time you get a post from me we will have a happy, healthy, little girl to show off. Like I said she will be tiny, around 4 1/2 lbs., but I have been given steroids to pump up her lungs and even being born too soon she should be in good shape. With love from Room 413 at the York Hospital, Suzi

Ultrasound at 32 Weeks!

Here's Katie!!

She is currently weighing in at 4lbs. 8oz. and is in the 53% for weight. We learned that she does have hair on her head, obviously they can't tell you the color, and she is very flexable, yes that is her big toe right by her mouth in the first picture. Nat, my father and I both think she has Nat's nose, thank God, and other than that well we think she's just down right adorable.

I have another doctors appointment on Friday so I will fill you all in about me then, today was Kaite's day in the spotlight so I really don't have more to say than she's looking perfect!!

32 Weeks!!

Good Morning!!

Well here I sit at 4:52am, bored, awake, and tired at the same time. I have been wide awake since about 3am; I wish I had a great story as to why I am so awake but I think my bladder woke me and my mind wouldn't let me be, so here I am. I just wanted to give everybody an update on my doctor’s appointment yesterday and my first NST (non-stress test).

First and foremost Katie is looking great and she passed the NST with flying colors. All the test consisted of was strapping me to a baby monitor and handing me a button to press every time she kicked or moved, as expected I was depressing that button constantly and told the nurse I would pay for the next ink cartridge for the machine. (A black line appeared on the print-out every time I pressed the button.)

About half-way through my 30 minute NST my doctor thought it would be funny to zap my stomach with a little hand held buzzing device that looks like a mans Norelco shaver to get her really fired up. I tried to tell him that was a bad decision, but he did it anyway and we couldn't get a fix on her heartbeat for about 3 minutes because she was flipping around and making too much noise with her kicking. The doctor and nurses thought it was hilarious meanwhile I'm getting the crap knocked out of me and I had to deal with a foot-in-lung situation that literally took my breath away for a few minutes.

So Katie did well, but Katie's mom is still having issues, of course. My blood pressure was 140/90 and I had 3+ proteins in my urine, again, but in a small but countable victory my weight was down about 3 lbs. which sounds like a weird plus but with my swelling issues loosing some weight is good and indicates decreased swelling. (small hooray!) Due to the high blood pressure I am now mostly confined to my bed, laying on my left side and ordered to take my blood pressure a few times a day.

I am now visiting the doctors office twice a week, having NST's done every time and on watch for any new signs that I could be slipping in to more trouble like headaches, more swelling and vision problems. My doctor can't predict when Katie will need to make her appearance but she will not be a Christmas baby, we are all thinking she'll be a Turkey baby. I am currently 32 weeks pregnant and both my doctor and I think I should be able to make it at least to 35 weeks, meaning Katie will be small and premature but her lungs will be developed and she will most likely be able to avoid the NICU.

Up next is our ultrasound on Halloween and tacked on to that visit another NST. Hopefully we will get some good pictures of Katie to share, this is our last ultrasound and even though a c-section looks more and more likely I'm still holding out hope to see her in the right position just in case I can have a natural birth.

Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we scramble to get things ready for Katie's arrival; it's going to be a fun ride here with me on bed rest and Nat working over an hour away from home!! Have a good weekend!!

Another Weird Day!

I just wanted to give everybody a quick update on my current situation since I haven’t blogged in about a week so I thought I’d let you all in on my exciting life!

Yesterday morning I woke up with some swelling, nothing too bad, but after weighing myself and noticing a 5 lb. Increase in my weight in the past week I decided that I had better call my doctor just to be on the safe side. They told me to come in and have a quick evaluation just to rule things out and wouldn’t you know that I had to go and add some high blood pressure to the mix.

Ugh.

The first reading was 128/90, which for me is high; my blood pressure normally is in the 110’s/70’s. My weight from swelling was up 5.5lbs. and I had 2+ proteins in my urine once again, so my doctor thought he would check my blood pressure one more time and damned if it didn’t come out 128/100. That was that and my happy butt was heading back to the hospital for some observation time.

My all too frequent trips to the hospital must be boring you all by now, I don’t even think Nat and I react to them anymore, it’s almost an expected trip following every appointment. Anyway, I waddled back over to the Labor hall to room 2314, same boring room with outdated wallpaper, to be poked and prodded and hooked up to machines for a few hours before inevitably being sent home to stay off of my feet.

As soon as I got in my bed I was hooked up to a blood pressure machine and an IV line was started. I had some tests done and although my blood pressure stayed high, around 130’s/90 it didn’t do anything funky like jump up and down so they called it high but normal. They did hook the baby and I up to a fetal monitor and for the first time we got to hear her have a bout with hiccups, which was funny and cute, but no doubt annoying to the woman in the bed next to me trying to sleep off some nausea. And yes once again Katie seems to be unmoved by any of my problems, happily kicking me and flipping all around.

The final call from the doctor is that I am headed for preeclampsia but no one is quite sure when it’s coming. His analogy was that of skating on a pond with a big hole up ahead, I’m going to hit it at some point but the ice leading up to the hole is thin and at anytime it could crack and send me in the drink. Long story short, am I going to make it to my due date, probably not, am I having her this week, probably not…but she’s coming sooner than later.

All of my other blood work was fine and just like I had predicted I was sent home and told to back off on all activity. I am back at the doctors office on Friday and fingers crossed everything will be somewhat normal again. Oh and did I mention that my parents are in Ireland, so making a big deal out of this might send my mother to an Irish hospital or she might start swimming home, either way $10 says they don’t leave York until she’s born.

Ok, I will say goodbye for now, I’ll update again after my doctors appointment on Friday, pray for lower blood pressure!!!

Random Pictures

Here are some random pictures from the past few days. Obviously the picture of me is just to show you my current size, extra large, since I didn't get any pictures from the shower of me standing up or moving around. This picture is at 30 weeks and 3 days.

The other two pictures are of my Dad and Nat running the Dr. Segro Memorial 5K this past Saturday in Red Lion. It was a great morning for a run, about 50 degrees and sunny, my Mother did a 1 mile fun walk after the 5K so we both watched the boys take off and met them at the finish line. Nat clocked in at 30:09 and dad at 32:21, both had minor complaints about their personal run but Mom and I thought they did really well. Also you can tell luck was not on Nat's side with his random number assignment?!

Baby Shower

This past Sunday was my baby shower and man did I get a ton of good stuff!! If I had time to tell you everything we recieved I would but, I don't think this blog is big enough to list everything. In short it was awsome and my friends and family were overly generous, so a big thank you to everybody.

I will say this, my sister-in-law Christy came up with an awesome bingo game for opening gifts, all the cards had different registry items on it so there was crazy competition going on. When you are opening gifts for over an hour it makes it fun for everybody to stay somewhat involved and the crowd was watching intently as I opened every gift. It was mayhem up in front, at one point I though MaryAnne Tillotson and my cousin Allison were going to leave the shower just to buy me a gift card just so they could win at bingo! MaryAnne did win in the end with the opening of the Boppy, thanks Shannon, so all was right with the world!! (It was hilarious!!)

Thanks again to my Mother, Mary, Liz, Christy and Sarah for an awesome afternoon, everyone had a good time and for a biggie sized shower I thought it ran really, really smoothly. Katie will be blessed to be born into such a loving family, I know I am!!

29 Weeks

Well here we are at 29 weeks, only 11 to go!!

Let me begin by saying that today is an ugly day, inside and out. It's currently 2:15pm and 49 degrees outside, there is a bit of a drizzle and everything is soaking wet. This of course would have to be the day that I scheduled my three-hour glucose resistance test for my gestational diabetes, lovely. I'm sure you are all familiar with the notion that when it's cruddy outside you just want to stay curled up in bed all day, well today was that day for me and not only couldn't I stay in bed I had to have this stupid test done at 7am, when it was pouring outside and dark.

So you can see my day started off with a bang, oh and did I mention that the power went off at some point last night so lucky me that I woke up at 6am or I would have missed my appointment. I guess this is one time when I can thank my bladder for not allowing me more than two hours of sleep at a time! Anyhow I got to Apple Hill Medical Center at 7am and they immediately ushered me back to the galley of blood letting to take a vial of my blood, have me drink this even nastier, and sugary, version of orange soda for the test and they put me in a separate waiting area with a 13" TV and some magazines.

At first I didn't think I was going to have any issues with the gross drink but after sitting for 15 minutes Katie started going bonkers and banging on my lungs and I got all sorts of queasy. I knew right away that having to fast for 10 hours previous to the test was going to be an issue but I never really considered the ramifications to adding a high concentration of sugar to the mix, very bad things people, very bad. Thank goodness I was in a waiting room by myself, with a closed door, because I started burping like a trucker and for all I cared if someone would have come in I don't know if I could have stopped.

At 8 am the nurse came in my room to usher me back to the hall of blood letting to take another vial of blood from me, of course with my awesome luck she couldn't find a good vein in my right arm so back to the same spot on lefty we went. That same spot ended up getting a quadruple hit because apparently I only came with one good vein. After that I went back to the waiting room to wait another hour for the test to be readministered at 9am and finally at 10am.

The waiting wasn't as bad as I thought but the not eating was horrible, especially with that horrible sugary mixture floating around in my stomach. Me being a thinking lady, I had two pieces of bread stashed away in my purse so I could chow as soon as my nurse would allow me. (She complimented me on my thinking ahead, nice eh?) I came home around 10am, ate a baked potato and fell asleep curled up in bed with my cat. What a morning.

In conclusion, after just speaking with the nurse at my doctors office it has now been determined that I do NOT have gestational diabetes. (and the crowd goes wild) She didn't give me the exact results but my doctor did say to me that sometimes women test high after one hour which would indicate diabetes but during the three hour test their levels normalize after one hour, to be diabetic it should stay above 140 for two of the tests. I guess I fell into that catagory.

Score one for me, finally!!!

Ok everybody, have a great weekend, and don't forget Baby Shower next weekend; I can't wait to see everybody. And, YAY, I can eat my own cake!!! (I was a bit worried about that.)

New Baby!!!

Lauren Claire Mishler

Born September 28th at 9:54am

in Charlottle, North Carolina

6 pounds 12 ounces

19 and 1/2 inches long

Welcome to the world Lauren, it's a better place now that you are in it!!!

Crazy Swelling!!!

I just wanted you to see my fat legs, ankles and feet, it's like walking on water balloons! My real post is below.....Enjoy.... 

Back To The Hospital

You would think by now Nat and I would have our own parking space at the York Hospital, we made our fifth and sixth trip of the pregnancy this week and had our first overnight experience. Before I get ahead of myself lets take a journey back to Tuesday........

Tuesday morning I woke up and at first didn't really think too much of anything; I ate breakfast and then went about my morning routine of checking emails, reading the paper, and surfing online. While I was sitting at my desk I noticed that my normally swollen fingers looked especially plump and when I looked down at my feet I almost laughed out loud, I had no ankles and my toes looked liked little sausages. Now I know that swelling is normal in pregnancy so I kind of wrote it off as normal swelling, but as the day went on I noticed I was walking funny and my socks were too tight on my ankles, I had noticeable indented rings around them.

At this point I decided that I should weigh myself, just to see if I was really as swollen as I thought I was, I tend to be a tad overly dramatic. I couldn't and didn't believe the scale when it popped up that I had gained 14 lbs. in the past 8 days, what the crap, how do you gain that much weight that fast? I naturally assumed that the scale was broken so I used a backup scale that was in another bathroom, that scale said that I had only gained 7 lbs., still high but more acceptable.

I didn't really think too much of the rapid and abnormal weight gain, mostly because I convinced myself that scale #2 was right, and forgot about my bloated body until Nat got home from work. When Nat came home I was sitting in a chair in my sunroom with my feet propped up and Nat noticed my chub legs right away. I explained the tale of the two scales, showed him the rest of my lovely swollen self and he looked at me like I was five and asked why I hadn't called my doctor. I told him it was normal to swell and that although 7 lbs. was a lot to gain, it wasn't out of the question. Nat immediately went upstairs weighed himself on scale #1, came back downstairs, handed me the phone and said, "Call them and tell them you have gained 14 lbs. in 8 days!"

Oops.

Of course I called the doctor who told me to go immediately to the hospital to be checked for preeclampsia. Luckily my blood pressure was fine and when the hooked Katie up to the monitor she was happy as a clam, no signs of trouble. After two hours of monitoring and some other tests we were sent home and I was told to stay off of my feet and avoid salt.

Then came Wednesday...

I woke up Wednesday with the same swelling and another familiar symptom, nausea and vomiting. Ugh. I called my doctor and was told to head on in to get a full check-up. Once there I was told that maybe I might have something non-pregnancy related going on so my doctor ordered a gallbladder ultrasound and some blood work to check on my kidneys. So that evening Nat and I headed back to the hospital for the gallbladder ultrasound, which turned out to be normal so back home we went.

Then came Thursday......

Thursday started off alright, had my breakfast, read my paper, went back up to my room to read emails when all of a sudden I began vomiting, hard, and kept on doing it three times before 9am. (I get up around 7am.) I called Nat at work who agreed that I should call my poor doctor back, who by now was most definitely sick of me, so I put in a call, left a message and waited for a call back. At this point I was feeling rotten so I called Nat back and asked him to come home from work and no sooner did he walk in the door than my doctor’s office called and told me to head straight for the hospital. This time I was being admitted for observation, I think they were just sick of me bugging them, hehe.

We got to the hospital around 11:30am and I was immediately shuffled into a bed, placed in a horrible robe that didn't fit and was missing snaps and an IV line was started. The nurse asked me tons of questions, hooked me up to a monitor and then administered a drug that we now know I'm allergic to called Phenergan. Phenergan is a drug that helps stop nausea, so is Zofran the drug I told her I had been given every other time I was in the hospital for the same reasons, but in all of the rush the doctor most likely didn't even look at my chart and just decided to give me what he normally gives sick pregos.

Bad decision.

Within 30 seconds of being given this drug I turned into a raving lunatic; Nat was convinced I was possessed. I was shaking, the room was spinning, I was convulsing, itching and I couldn't get comfortable (tossing and turning constantly). Plus there was the crying, I was so dehydrated that I wasn't producing tears so it was blubbering without the blubber. My inhibitor switch was also turned off and I began swearing, mostly to Nat not at him, and I have no idea what I said to the nurse and doctors that kept checking on me, but I'm pretty sure I owe them all flowers.

At some point when everyone around me agreed that it was safe to move me, safe for them not me, they moved me to my own room in the maternity ward to let the rest of the drug ware off. The next point in time that I was aware of was when my friend Michelle came in to visit after she had gotten off of work, she is a nurse in the OR. When she came in I was still itching and twitching, but most of the spinning had worn off. Michelle let Nat take a much-needed break from me and while he was gone I got sick all over my bed and myself. Thank God Michelle is a nurse and a mom because she flew right into action, cold washcloth on my neck one on my forehead, she called another nurse in the room, basically she did all of the thinking that I was unable to do. After getting cleaned up and Nat coming back in the room, I passed out. I think now that the throwing up was like the curtain call on my drug addled afternoon, it was over and so was my day.

By Friday I was feeling better and had some visitors that afternoon. The culprit of the vomiting and nausea seems to have been really bad heartburn, can you believe that? I guess my diet wasn't jiving with my stomach and with Katie getting bigger and bigger and putting all sorts of stress and strain on my system it finally just gave out. I am now on a bland diet, eating six small meals a day, nothing fried, greasy, or spicy. I am also on a new pill called Protonix, for the acid, and it seems to be working at least a little because although I am still having problems getting the food to go down, no acid is coming back up. I can work with that.

They sent me home Saturday afternoon and I just had a check-up and my weight has stabilized although I am still really, really puffy. (Call me Puff Mommy) I just had my baked potato and half a chicken breast so now I am going to prop myself up in bed and try to relax, drink lots of water, and take a snooze. There is more to this long story, including a new baby in the group, but that's too special to add to this pitiful post so I will update again really soon. Sorry this was a long one, I just have to write it down so I have proof when we ground Katie for freaking her parents out so much.

Update at 27 Weeks

Nat and I have just returned from another awesome ultrasound and first news first, Katie is still a girl; I admit I was a little worried about that one. I know it doesn't happen to often but sometimes those little buggers change sexes on you and the good Lord only knows that we have enough pink stuff in this house already, we would have been in trouble!!

On with the good news. Katie's approximate weight is 2.8 lbs. which the doctor said puts her on course to be a "medium" sized baby, about 8 lbs. at birth. I'll be very, very happy with those results but we seem to make bigger sized babies than that in our family so I'm going to stay cautiously optimistic. Also after further review Katie's cord situation doesn't seem to require a label anymore, her cord was being called "velementous" or attached at the side, but now it appears to be only slightly off centered so they are stripping her of her label. (this is a very good thing!!) They are still going to require us to have weekly stress tests at 34 weeks, but the chances of her having any problems with the test just dropped consiterably, also lessening the chances of me needing a c-section. YAY!!!

In stupid news it looks like I have gestational diabetes, boo!! I had my glucose tolerance test on Saturday and my results came in this morning, to be considered diabetic you have to be above 140 mg/dl and I was at 183 mg/dl. I won't be offically diabetic until after my next test, which I'm waiting to schedule, which is another fasting test but instead of drinking the Sunkist tasting drink and waiting an hour for a blood test I now have to get a blood test done every hour for three hours. To be honest I could care less how much blood they take from me, it's the not eating after midnight and then not being able to eat for three hours that scares me, I don't know if I can make it that long?!

Ok well that's it from our camp. Mama and baby are looking good, feeling good, and excited about all of our great news. I posted some pictures below from our ultrasound today and yes she has her mother's giant feet, no need to pass that one back to me!

Have a Good Week!!! 

Katie at 27 Weeks

 

She Has A Middle Name, Finally!!

So we have finally decided on a middle name for our daughter and I'm pretty sure none of you would have guessed it?! Her full and proper name will be:

Katherine Elaine Burt

Katherine is Nat's great-aunt's name and Elaine is my mother's middle name; we went back and forth with the middle name so much because Nat really liked Elaine as a first name and wasn't sure he wanted to give up on that possibility, chances are in our favor for another girl. In the end we both liked the way it sounds when the first words are, "Introducing the next President of these United States" or " Introducing the Shuttle Captain for this mission", you get the drift. Feel free to substitute your own aspirations for my child in there, gold medal winner, Nobel Peace prize recipient, yada, yada, yada.......

In other news we had a doctors visit yesterday, the last one of my second trimester. Katie's heartbeat sounded great and my blood pressure is looking normal at 124/70. The nurse told me there was a "fair" amount of sugar in my urine, sorry if that's TMI, but I am scheduled for my glucose resistance test on Friday or Saturday so we will soon be finding out if I'm turning diabetic, why not?!

Also I was told that beginning at 34 weeks I will be given weekly stress tests, the baby would actually be taking the test, to see how well she will potentially handle labor. In the last ultrasound they discovered that she has a condition that is called, velementous cord attachment, which means that her umbilical cord isn't attached to the center of the placenta but off to the side somewhat. It isn't that uncommon and would only be detrimental to the baby if I were to go into active labor and she wouldn't do well, the most likely outcome would be an emergency c-section. By running the fetal stress tests they will be able to tell me if I should just go ahead and plan a scheduled Cesarean or if she does well than we proceed with the normal birthing process. I guess just another one of those wait and see situations?

We do have our next ultrasound on Monday, hopefully we will learn more about this cord situation then. Overall I'm not to worried about it, my doctor reassured me that she has seen this all before and if I have to get a c-section then oh well. So I'm just going to go with the flow on this one, plus I'm definatly more excited to see how big she's gotten and to find out that she's just as healthy as she was at our last ultrasound. Can't wait!!!

Ok well that's it for me. Oh, except my doctor was proud of me for finally hitting my pre-pregnancy weight, I'm back to normal, and my measurement from pubic bone to the top of my uterus was 27.5 cm, I'm 26.5 weeks, so she was happy to see that too. Ok now I'm really done, I'll catch you all up after the ultrasound on Monday!!!!

Have a good week!!!

Baby Shower Invitation

Here is a copy of the invitation to my baby shower, please let me know if you haven't gotten one. I know there are a few missing out there so let me know if you need me to send one your way. Also to the right of the picture are links to my registries and to a map of the location of the shower, you can plug in your address and get door to door directions. 

Losing a Role Model

Today I lost one of my role models and boy was she a big one for me. I almost couldn't believe the news when I saw it; former Texas governor Ann Richards had passed away yesterday after a bout with esophageal cancer. Many of you know that I am a Democrat, and very interested in politics, and as a woman there was and is no greater woman to represent that party than Ms. Richards.

Many people outside of Texas might not know much about her; she was a one term Texas governor who was defeated by now president George W. Bush in 1994. She never did run for anything again, but her silver tongue and quick whit made her a favorite guest commentator at conventions and on TV political shows. I had the privilege of seeing her as a guest speaker at my community college in Fort Worth in 2000, I really didn't see her as much as I heard her, even though she had not been re-elected as governor in Texas her popularity rating never dipped below 60% and people would come from miles around just to see her.

She is from a dying generation of women that could be feminist without shoveling it down your throat, classy and brassy at the same time. She always said she got in to politics and out of being a housewife so her tombstone wouldn't read, "She kept a really clean house". She spoke her mind and there isn't anyone out there that could disagree with someone with more sass than Ms. Richards, it was always fun to watch her get someone going.

In the end her I know her legacy and spirit live on. Texas women have something inherently special about them that this Yankee girl can't get enough of, Ms. Richards had it and so do many women I have known from Texas. They aren't afraid to be women, they speak their mind, have opinions, disagree with people and aren't the least apologetic about it; all this while looking like they just walked out of a beauty salon, hair all in place and perfectly dressed. What's even more remarkable is that I rarely hear or heard swearing, they don't use it because it's not effective as a woman, a trap that I often fall in to.

Now that's a legacy, leaving behind a generation of women, on both sides of the political isle, that can serve it up and take it all while wearing high heels and manicured nails. Thank you Ms. Richards for always being yourself and not fading in to the sunset. The stars tonight will be a little less bright.........

Atlantic City

We are back from our short, but needed, vacation to Atlantic City. All in all it was a fun trip, the weather could have been a bit more cooperative, but it really didn't matter too much to us in the end.

We had two good beach days, the day we arrived and the day we left. The water was freezing, like in the low 60's cold, but we chalked that up to Ernesto plowing through the previous week. Nat did get in to ride the waves but the undertow was really bad so I didn't even bother, to get in not to ride the waves?! Instead, I stood at the waters edge and watched my 30 year-old husband body surf with a bunch of kids and get clobbered by some really choppy water, which in the end was much more amusing than immersing myself in freezing water.

On the rainy days Nat and I visited casinos and went to all of the stores and shops around town. The Borgata was the only casino we spent actual gambling time in. I'm no good at table games so I, being both frugal and lazy, parked in front of the nickel slots and got down to work.

First thing you need to know about Atlantic City, in case you have never been there, is that by day it is filled with the over 65 crowd who take bus trips from surounding areas, more women than men and all of them loving the slots!! They will sit at one machine for hours with their casino cards on lanyards attached to their necks and machine at the same time, oxygen machine by their side (while smoking a ciggy in their other), completely transfixed by the sound of their machine beeping and dinging. Every once in a while a friend of theirs will come sit next to them for a quick chat, but mostly they are alone and at one with the machine, focused on hitting that button, waiting for the triple bars to appear. Nat and I laugh, knowing full well that this will be us in forty years, holding on to each others arm, wearing our nametags and hiking our pants up a little to high, excited to hit the buffet for lunch but also excited to smell the acrid, smoky odor that is Atlantic City success.

I started at my "Lucky" machine with five bucks and took it up to $20 before giving it all right back to the casino by my inability to know when to walk away. Meanwhile Nat lost ten dollars in the same amount of time, on slots as well, but he just kept laughing because he couldn't win to save his life. We have no luck with gambling. After about one hour of paying the casino to enjoy it's lovely decor, we left and went back to the hotel. The only other "action" we had while in the casino was at Caesar's when I had to make a bathroom break and Nat felt the call of the slots and lost 50 cents at the machine adjacent to the ladies room. We are hopeless.

We didn't do much better in the shopping arena either. The city is about halfway through a new upscale shopping pier right outside of Caesar's, which was awesome, but mostly out of our league. We went in to Tiffany's, Burberry and glanced at Louis Vuitton. I couldn't seem to convince Nat that Katie's mother should have a $500 diaper bag from Burberry or that Katie's should have a baby cashmere blanket, didn't bother looking at that price tag. (Shannon, you and I can never go to this mall with credit cards!!)

It was a fun little trip though, bad gambling and shopping aside, we ate well and laughed a lot and knowing that was our last trip alone was something special all in itself. We said goodbye to couples vacations, lazy afternoon naps, and quiet dinners and to be honest, right now, I couldn't be happier to see them go.

Family Reunion

Can you guess which one is me?? I'll give you two hints, at 5'5" I'm probably the tallest female and at a whopping weight (not going to say it out loud) I'm most likely the heaviest in the whole crowd!

Marty Party

Saturday night was my first night out with friends in almost 6 months and boy did they all tire me out! As you can tell by the pictures we were involved in a high stakes beer pong tournament that ended with Heather and Nat dancing, oh yeah it was that kind of fun. I actually didn't play in the tournament itself, I'm no good without beer, but luckily after the tourney ended they let Nat and I play against Deb and Rob. We didn't win, by a large margin.

The tournament was held at the 4th annual Marty Party, a charity event to raise money for Pennsylvania kids through "The Second Mile" foundation. "The Second Mile" was founded by Jerry Sandusky, former defensive coach for Penn State, and our good friend Mark DeRose's father Marty was a huge contributor and cheerleader for both charitable organizations and the Nittany Lions. In honor of Mr. DeRose spirit for giving and for fun, the Marty Party is held every year, Mark's band Ernest Good Life plays the tunes, and we all eat, drink, and play pong. Most of all we have a blast and all of the money we spend goes to help a group of kids have a better shot in life, how cool is that!

As for the results of the tournament, well, let's just say that round one knocked out 2/3rds of our group. Deb and Rob were the only bright spot, making it to the semi-finals before succumbing to an old guy with a band-aid on his nose. In the 2nd tournament Nat and Michelle actually went up against Heather and Brandon in round 1; Brandon and Heather took that game to advance to round 2 but that was about the time that Heather kept wandering away to talk to people, and dance, so Michelle had to step in and finish out the game. That was where the hopes and dreams of Pong Championship died, no big wins in our group.

In the end it was fun, so much fun that I woke up at 2am with leg cramps and a head ache. Nat and I didn't win anything, beer pong or raffles, but we got to spend much needed time just enjoying the day with friends. Sure there was talk about the baby but there was also laughter, jokes, trash talking and good ol' fashion mockery and that is the stuff you can't just muster up on your own. Thanks for the good times, oh and Deb next year it's sooooooo on, you better get your tickets now!!!

In case anyone was interested in more information about The Second Mile here is their website:
http://www.thesecondmile.org/welcome.php

 

Moving Right Along!

We had our monthly visit with our OB/GYN Monday evening and as it stands we are looking good and moving forward. Katie's heart was nice and strong at 150 bpm and I have offically gained 14 lbs. from my lowest point and the doctor told me I can resume a regular diet now, no overeating to catch up! He also measured my belly, actually my uterus, and the measurement in centimeters should match-up with your development in weeks and I was dead on at 22 cm. So I guess I am average for once, who thought that would ever make me happy!

I will say this about being pregnant, I look in the mirror at myself and wonder how in the world my body is ever going to recover! I am enormous and to top it all off I still weigh about 14 lbs. less than I did when I first got myself into this position. My mind can't seem to wrap itself around the fact that I'm going to keep getting bigger and that I still have a LOT of growing to do; how does my skin keep stretching like this? I just keep reminding myself what my friend Michelle said after she had her daughter Makenzie, "It's not like we were strutting around in bikini's before we got pregnant!". True.

I am enjoying this part of being pregnant, this mostly calm 2nd trimester. Gone are the IV's, the constant trips to the doctors office, the constant trips to the bathroom to get sick, the not eating and not being able to leave the house. I feel almost human now, part of the world again; I can even drive my car!! There are still some food issues and this stupid heartburn that is a constant 24 hour friend, but overall I would say that compared to about 8 weeks ago I am sitting pretty.

Well that's it from me for now, I have to go eat something..............
Talk to you all soon!!!

Just shy of 22 weeks!

Ok, it's offical, I'm enormous! Laugh all you want, I'll wait.......

Done?

Well, in the news here is that Nat was able to feel Katie kick for the first time on Monday night. It was pretty cool, she would move around and start kicking and then the second I would place Nat's hand on my stomach she would stop. We played that game two to three times when Nat leaned over my stomach and started talking to her and off she went. I guess she recognized her daddy's voice becuase she gave him a few nice solid shots.

I'm just starting to feel her with consistancy and on a schedule and as we found out yesterday, bananas make her go crazy! She is still really low and I'm pretty sure she is on or near my bladder because I'm heading for the bathroom more and more every day and night. It's all really fun and exciting and for the most part I'm enjoying all of the changes, although my chest can stop itself from it's rapid expansion at any time. It's getting a little out of hand.

Ok well I have my next doctors appointment on monday so hopefully you will all hear from me at some point next week. To all my teacher friends and family, welcome back to the school year and good luck! 

Katie's Room

Here are a few pictures of the nursery, or what we have so far. The dresser was actually Nat's changing table when he was a baby, my sister Liz sanded it down and painted it for Katie to use. We are going to paint the room a light lime color and are looking into gliders but that will be it for furniture, it's a very small room so we didn't have much wiggle room. Well that's about it for now, I'm just photo happy................ 

Week 21:

I don't know if I was at a weird angle in this picture or what but you can barely see my bump. In case you aren't familiar with this group, from the left is my brother-in-law Doug, sister Liz, me, Nat, sister Sarah and brother-in-law Tim. Yes I'm really pale and with my dumb luck Liz and Doug just returned from the beach so I look like death. We were at Sarah's friend Brandy's wedding tonight, which was my first big event out and wouldn't you know the only other pregnant person there was wearing the same dress as me. (and she was skinny too!!)

Anyhow in bigger news, I'm finally eating so I'm getting bigger all of the time now. I have been eating almost everything that passes in front of me with the one enormous exception being chicken, go figure? I don't know what I have against it but it grosses me out right now so I'm avoiding it like the plauge. I am enjoying Italian Ice's , at least twice a day, and tonight I rediscovered ranch dressing which might finally bring vegtables back to my plate. Everything else is coming back little by little but due to my troubles with heartburn I have to be very careful with the size of my meals and the quickness to which I inhale it.

Well it's late and a bit past my bedtime so I'm going to make this a short post. Have a good week and hopefully I'll be in contact soon....... 

Half Way There! (20 Weeks)

Well first let me explain the noticable change in the background...... I'm bored and it's girly; Enought said. (Everything is pink right now, it's a sickness, I can't help it!)

Secondly, look at that big bump I'm wearing, can you believe I'm only half of the way there?! The funny thing about the belly is that I'm still about 15 pounds less than I was when I got pregnant and I'm only up about 7.5 from my lowest point. What I'm trying to say is that I'm going to be very rolly-polly in a few months, like Violet in "Willie Wonka" when she ate that flavored gum and had to be juiced. Oh yeah, I pulled that out of the memory vault, but I think it's an accurate compairison, or it will be.

Other than my rapidly expanding mid-section there isn't much to report. I'm starting to branch out with my eating, I had a slice of pizza last night for dinner and another slice today, yummy. I also had a miniature candy bar today, first chocolate tasting in over 4 months, is was so good I don't really care if it makes me sick! It beats the crap out of Triscuits that's for sure. I'm still slamming orange sodas for some reason and toast with cream cheese is my meal of choice, although I'm hoping that will fade as I can eat real human meals again.

Well Katie and I are going to try and take a quick nap while Nat and his dad are out at the fairgrounds checking out the plans for York's new minor league baseball team, the York Revolution. (We bought season tickets.) Oh by the way Katie's middle name is still being discussed, I thought we had it down to two options and now Nat isn't sure so the field is wide open again. Ugh. Have a good weekend, enjoy the break in the heat!