30 Weeks! Yikes!

Here's me at 30 weeks! At this point in time, there are approximately 10 weeks left in the pregnancy, though full-term is considered 37 weeks. Clara is approximately the size of a squash now! She is anywhere from 15 to 17 inches long and weighs anywhere from 2.5-4lbs. Other things that she's up to in there: forming wrinkles on her brain. :) Don't worry, this is a good thing. She's also establishing sleep/wake cycles...though I haven't really found many sleep cycles! She's been very active and loves to beat Mommy up all day long! I don't mind. It lets me know she's ok.

Today we had our 30-week check-up with Dr V. Everything is still looking good! I caught a bug sometime during the beginning of the week. I ended up sleeping most of the week away, and generally didn't have a lot of energy. I'm still not 100% today, but I'm getting there. Anyway, I digress. My blood pressure was awesome again: 122/64 and my weight was 155.9-up only 2lbs since my last appointment two weeks ago! It seems to have tapered off some, but as long as Clara's still growing fine, there's nothing to worry about. And she does seem to be growing fine, she's still measuring about 1 week ahead at 31 weeks. We also went over our birth plan with Dr. V. He said it looked good and there weren't too many surprises on there. It's mostly a fall-back in case he isn't the one to deliver me.

So what's coming up next? For OB appointments, not much. At 36 weeks we'll get our check for Group B strep. Not a big deal, if I test positive I'll just be getting antibiotics during labor. And I do believe that will be the first of the internals, as well as checking to make sure she's head-down and ready to go. Until then, we just continue to make sure she's growing like she should be.

I also posted 2 pictures from her latest ultrasound, which was on August 13th. She wasn't cooperating very well to give us a profile shot, but there is one of here looking straight on. It's sort of hard to make stuff out, though. And also, a "money" shot, confirming that yes, she's still a girl. :)

A Great Weekend. :)

So as I've written before I had my 3-hour glucose tolerance test on Friday. It sucked, just as I suspected. I woke up in the morning and was so hungry and exhausted. I normally make Adam's coffee every morning since I'm up before him. Well, I forgot to put coffee in it so all he had was hot water. And I almost couldn't dress myself, either. We got to the clinic a little after 8 and started with all the fun bs that I posted previously. The girl in the lab told me I'd be able to call back later that day for the results, even though my doctor isn't in on Fridays. Well, I called about 2:30.....AND I PASSED!! All my numbers looked really good. My fasting blood sugar was 75 and the rest of the numbers were in the 130s which is good (after the first hour it needs to be under 180). When we were done at the clinic we went to McDonalds to eat. It was HEAVEN!!

Adam was slinging drinks at the Vets Club on Friday night so me and my folks went there for dinner again. It's always good so I don't mind. :) Plus I get to see the hubs. :) I also picked up a few last minute items for the baby shower on Saturday while I was out running errands.

Saturday morning was my baby shower. Anita and the girls did a WONDERFUL job setting everything up. It was really cute. :) There was Dr. Seuss stuff everywhere! We got a lot of gifts...many of which will really help us get our nursery started! We got a lot of gift cards that we'll be using to get the rest of the stuff that we need. I'll post a few pics on here when I get some from Stacy.

This week isn't too busy for us. I have a chiropractor appointment today after work and then we're running to Manitowoc. I need some new shoes as some of mine aren't fitting anymore. Tomorrow we'll be running to GB to look at fabric and maybe do some baby shopping. And then Thursday is our 30-week appointment with Dr. V. I can't wait! After Thursday we only have 2 more every-two-week appointments before they go to every week! It's getting close now! Just a little over 7 weeks until Clara's considered "full term" at 37 weeks. :) We'll be setting up our maternity photo shoot soon, as well.

Nursery Progress

So our Baby Shower is on Saturday morning. I wanted the nursery done by the time the shower rolled around so that I could start putting things away when we get them home. This is what the nursery looked like when we started:


Adam's been hard at work trying to get it done. A couple weeks ago Jessi and Mom came over to put the first coat of paint on the walls. I'm not saying it was bright, but holy crap, I thought 2 things: either I made a huge mistake with the paint color, or our poor girl was going to need sunglasses to live in her own room! The first coat didn't cover very well. And the light fixture was terrible! A couple more weeks went by and Adam was able to get all the paint up on the walls. It took 3 coats plus touch-up! We also ended up finding a ceiling fan that we both liked.

The next step was installing the hardwood floor. We decided to go with bamboo, because it's a light color, it's inexpensive, and well, it looks awesome!

Here's Adam and his dad installing the floor. It's almost done!

The last two pictures I took were today. Some of the trim is in and Adam put together a storage unit that I plan to use next to Clara's changer to store bath items, diapers, wipes, etc.

Crap.

So the doctor's office finally called about my labwork results. As we already found out, my results for the 1-hour glucose test came back at the cutoff. And as I feared, my doctor wants me to take the dreaded 3-hour test. This is what's going to happen:

8pm-No more food or drink.
8am-Report to the clinic and get stabbed. Then chug a nasty sugar drink and try not to murder everyone in the clinic because I'm starving.
9am-Get stabbed again. Try to continue to occupy myself...either by reading, or crying from hunger, or something yet to be determined.
10am-Get stabbed again. Rinse, repeat.
11am-Get stabbed yet again. Notice a pattern here?
12pm-Maybe get stabbed again before I leave. And then cross everything that can be crossed that I pass and I don't have to go on some crappy diet.

I get nothing to eat or drink while I'm at the clinic, and I must stay at the clinic for the entire test. Not exactly how I wanted to spend my day off. But a lot of ladies on thebump.com say that they failed their one-hour and went on to pass their 3-hour with flying colors. Hopefully I'm one of them.

To console myself after this news today, I went shopping and bought some cute clothes for work beceause they're finally letting me ditch the uniform and wear clothes that actually fit! It was money I didn't really need to spend right now, but at least I can be comfortable at work.

And I have my shower to look forward to on Saturday...

Test Results

Yesterday I took my Glucose Tolerance test. It involves chugging a sugary drink (sort of tastes like flat Sunkist) and then waiting an hour and having your blood drawn. It wasn't so bad. We got to the lab at 3:20, and then at 3:30 we had our monthly check-up with Dr. V upstairs. So I chugged the drink and we went to our appointment.

Everything at our check-up looked great. I'm up to 155lbs. My b/p was 120/70. Clara sounded awesome on the doppler and I'm now measuring 29 weeks (still 1 week ahead). We'll now be going to see Dr. V. every 2 weeks starting August 26th. Dr. V. also wanted us to start taking "kick-counts." Basically we need to pick two 2-hour parts of the day when she's active and count movements. Thanks to Android "there's an app for that." She already passed this morning's count...in 5 minutes she had all her movements in and she was still at it hours later!

After our appointment we went back downstairs to wait for the rest of the hour to be up so I could get my blood drawn and we could go home. Compared to the last time I had blood drawn, it wasn't bad at all! The tech got the vein on the first try and we were in and out in 5 minutes.

This morning I called the office. My doctor isn't in on Fridays, but his nurse said I could call and at least get my results. The triage nurse told me that my glucose results were 140, which is the cutoff point. She wasn't sure what Dr. V's protocol is for this situation. Either I will have to do the dreaded 3-hour test, or I'll just have to watch what I eat. The 3-hour test is much the same as the one-hour test. However, for the 3-hour test you must fast for 12 hours beforehand. Then you must chug the drink. Then you sit at the clinic and wait while they draw your blood once per hour. You're at the clinic for 4 hours. Number one: I can't fast. I'm ravenous and get really nasty angry when I'm hungry. Number two: I don't want to sit at the clinic for 4 hours doing nothing. And number three: I'll either have to take another day off of work (which I don't have) or do it on my Friday off, which is not how I want to spend my Friday off.

The other test that I had done was to test my iron and hematocrit levels. This test also came back low. This one isn't as big of a deal. Most women end up being anemic during their pregnancies. She said my doctor may prescribe me a supplement, or what I think I'll do is just go to Walgreens and pick up an OTC iron supplement. The only side effect? Constipation. I'm not looking forward to that. Pregnancy already gums up the digestive works, so throwing iron on top of that isn't going to be real pleasant. But they make things for that, too. I'll just be taking a fist full of pills every morning!!

Tonight at 3p.m. we have our follow-up ultrasound. This is just to check on the placement of the placenta: to make sure it has either moved up or hasn't moved any lower since the last one 4 weeks ago. I'm looking forward to this!! I love seeing our daughter on the ultrasound. :) I'll try and post the "results" of this tomorrow, but I don't really see any problems, and I don't even know if I'll know anything more tomorrow. That might be something else I'll have to wait til next week for.

Getting closer!

Adam got Clara's room painted on Monday during the day!! It took 3 coats of paint, and still needs a little touch-up, but it looks great. :) Today he's finishing up the trim.

Yesterday he got the ceiling fan put up, but today it decided it didn't want to work properly so he's now ripping it apart.

Monday we also picked up the flooring from Lumber Liquidators. It's exciting because it finally feels like it's coming together. I can't wait to see the room with the new paint color and the floor together. And our baby shower is in 2 weeks so we'll have a lot of new things to put in the room. I'm getting really excited! Adam is, too, and he's super happy that he gets to be the one who builds her room for her. :)

HOT HOT HOT!

Well, we had another great weekend. On Friday I finally got my name changed with SSA and the DMV, as well as my credit union. The DMV was the worst. We waited in line for over an hour!

Friday afternoon I drove to Green Bay to hang out with my friend Melissa. We went to Olive Garden for lunch and then we went back to her place to hang out by the pool. Man, was that nice! I think Clara even liked it a lot. :) I did get a little sun-burned, though. I got home right before 6 and then my parents, their friend Barb, and I all went to dinner at the Vets club. Adam was tending bar, so I got to hang out with him a little bit.

Saturday we had our Kappelman family reunion. Honestly, we socialized more with my brother and SIL than with anyone else who was there. We got home around 5 and I think Adam was in bed shortly after. Neither of us slept very good at all on Friday night, so I'm not surprised. I also got the wedding thank-yous done and in the mailbox.

Sunday was the church picnic. We only stayed for church and for lunch before coming home. We ended up having to clean up water from in the basement and the cats wrecked my closet in the bedroom so I had to clean that up, too. It needed to be done, I just didn't want to have to do it right then. I also finished my last class in school!! Yay! No more school until Spring!

Today I'm at work. It's supposed to be almost 90 degrees today with major humidity...and the A/C is out in the building where I work. Fantastic. I don't now how long I'll be able to sit in this. It's supposed to be this bad all week, so I hope they get it fixed soon. I'm going to the chiropractor after work, which I'm totally stoked for. I woke up at 11:30 last night to go to the bathroom and could barely walk.

Tomorrow we're hoping to go to Green Bay and pick up our pictures, as well as the flooring for Clara's room. It sounds like Adam's planning on finishing up the nursery before our baby shower on the 21st.

Thursday and Friday we have doctor's appointments, with Friday being a quick ultrasound. I can't wait to see our beautiful girl again!!

Baby Clara Update-27 Weeks.

So today marks 27 weeks of pregnancy. By many sources this is considered the beginning of the 3rd trimester....the home stretch!

So what's new? As far as symptoms go, the only really noticeable one is my fatigue is starting to come back. I find myself having a harder time getting up in the morning (though that could be from the 1-3 trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night) and I feel like taking a nap in the afternoon. I'm also getting much hungrier and finding that I have less room for food. I've also been thinking about getting in to see the chiropractor more than once a month. I feel like I'm starting to need more adjustments.

According to babycenter.com, this week Clara might weigh 2lbs and be about 14 1/2 inches long. She is sleeping and waking at regular intervals, opening and closing her eyes, and maybe even sucking on her fingers. What I can tell you is that she's often a very active baby, and today I may have even felt a foot! All I know is it was something pointy and it was up by my ribcage! It honestly grossed me out a little bit, but I'm chalking that up to it being the first time.

Coming up: Saturday we have our family reunion. This will be the first reunion since my brother married his wife Jessica and I married Adam. It probably won't be any different, but I thought it was neat anyway. Sunday is our church picnic. Next week Thursday we go see Dr. V again. I also have my gestational diabetes test that day and on Friday we'll be seeing our precious girl again via ultrasound for a quick check up. I'm going to see if the tech will give us a quick measurement, since I measured a week ahead last time I was in (at 24 weeks).

The best day of my life...so far.

Our wedding day!

July 31st, 2010 I woke up to pouring rain. Not what one would want to see on their wedding day, especially when the wedding is to take place outdoors! I knew there was a chance of rain, but really hoped it would hold off. No such luck. It did eventually stop raining in the morning so I was optimistic. I kept checking the radar in hopes that the sun would come out and all would be saved.

At noon I went to get my hair done. I think I was in the salon for about 40 minutes and when I came out....you guessed it. It was misting again. But I've heard that rain on your wedding day is supposed to be good luck.

My SIL Jessi picked me up at 1:30 and it was done misting. We got to Mom & Dad's around 2:15. I took a quick walk-around outside to see how wet it was and if we wanted to move the ceremony indoors (not bloody likely). The grass was dry, for the most part, so I gave the go-ahead to set everything up outside. I was really keeping my fingers crossed that I wouldn't regret this decision later. Adam got to the house around 3. I banished myself to the lower level so he wouldn't see me before the ceremony. Stacy was awesome and took lots of pictures of Mom pinning flowers on everyone. I was pretty jealous of everyone being able to socialize while I was stuck downstairs. :(

Finally, it was time to come upstairs. Adam had everyone seated and Stacy was taking care of the music. Right at 4pm we started the ceremony. I was so nervous! But really, just excited to become Adam's wife. I walked out, and all I saw was his 3000 watt grin. I met him at the front of the aisle and the ceremony began. Pastor Jeff did a fantastic job. There was just enough serious and just enough humor to make it really enjoyable. I managed, somehow, not to cry during the ceremony! I was surprised! I almost lost it during our vows, but Adam kept me strong.

Pictures were a pain in the butt...mostly because the mosquitoes were trying to eat us alive! It was terrible, but Katie assured me that she could photoshop out all the red welts on my back. :) She did a fantastic job. Both Adam and I are very anxiously awaiting the pictures to come back! The nice thing about Katie? With her wedding packages she also offers 50% off a maternity photo shoot! I think we'll be taking advantage of that, especially if our wedding pictures turn out as well as we think they're going to.

After pictures were done, we ate dinner. The food was great! We had chicken from the Rendezvous, and Grandma Mueller was well represented by Stephanie, as she seems to be the only one to perfect Gradma's layered Jello. I think it was Grandma's way of being at our wedding. We were also very sad that Grandpa Mueller couldn't make it. He ended up in the hospital, but is on the mend and should hopefully be home today. We'd rather have him miss the ceremony and get well than come to the ceremony and take a turn for the worse. We'll get together with him when we get the pictures back so he can see everything.

Once dinner was done, we did the Scooter exchange in Green Bay. Shaun said Scooter was a great boy and got along with Princess (their dog) and Kaden (their son) very well! Scooter then went home with my parents and Adam and I headed to Appleton to check into our hotel and meet up with our friends. Even though it was a small gathering of friends and not as many people showed up as we had hoped, it was still a good time. We left Old Town around 12:30 and crashed...HARD! We were both exhausted, but extremely happy.

Everyone was so concerned that I was being jipped out of my "big white wedding," but, as I told my new husband, I wouldn't have traded Saturday's small, intimate ceremony for anything in the world. The people I loved most were there to support us and all that matters in the end is that Adam and I are committed to each other for the rest of our lives.

I'll be posting pictures when I get more back from Katie, but the sneak previews I've gotten so far are amazing! The only thing I wish I could change? The fact that we're not on a honeymoon right now. Yep, I'm back to work already. Fun stuff. Oh well. The important thing is that we love each other!!

We want to thank everyone who was a part of our very special day: Our parents (especially The Muellers, who hosted the event), our siblings, Grandma Ruby for the money to get our marriage license, and all of our friends who came to celebrate with us afterward. We couldn't have done it without the love and support of you guys. :)