....and so we start Trimester 2

14 weeks, 1 day : WOO HOOO officially out of Tri 1 and working on Tri 2. I am over 33.3% done! (thank god).

01/25/12

Mood – sentimental, and relaxed. The endorphins from DanceTrance are still hanging with me….ahhhh feel so good.

Symptoms – Indigestion, Heart burn, fatigue and swelling in my feet. Feeling much than I did in Trimester 1, but still not as good as my prepregnancy self.

Useless Ramblings -WHEW life has been so busy, I have hardly had the time to think about the thing growing in my belly.  I have been doing my best to support Case and help him get ready for his race in S. Cali. This has defiantly been a big goal for him, and I couldn’t be more proud. I remember how much he helped and supported me when I was working on my goal of competing in the Miss Alabama USA competition, large goals like this take months and years of preparations and he has been working so hard every single night for MONTHS to get ready. It has literally turned into a second job for him, working nearly everynight of week from 6-10pm. I am so proud of Case’s focus and determination. Not everyone has the gumption and determination to stick to a goal for so long or to tackle one so large. My baby has a good hardworking and determined daddy, much like it’s momma. J

School started back, so you will hear a little less from me. Sad. But….I gotta do what I gotta do. I need to get this masters done ASAP, so I have more time with the little beany, Case, and my family. I will be better for the sacrifices I make now, but man….it sure doesn’t make things easy. Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, my plan is to finish up this MBA program before kid #2 gets cranked out.  Like all goals, I will rely heavily on the love and support of Case, my family and friends. Without the love and support from my people, my “work, life, school” balance would send me to the nut house. I owe a lot to the people around me that support me, I can’t thank everyone enough. Told you I was in a sentimental mood. J

On a similar note, I have been overwhelmed with love and attention from friends and family.  I have already been showered with gifts, compliments, love, support and most valuable….encouragement. Pregnancy is hard, I can use all the wonderful encouragement I can get. Friends and family surprise me with small favors or little gifts every week! I dare to even say that I have friends and family that are more excited than I am. LOL. I already have more baby stuff than I do room to store it in. J You guys are all so wonderful, I don’t expect a thing from anyone, really…..but I do appreciate it, the gesture means a lot to me and I feel very loved and blessed. Not sure what I did to deserve such wonderful people around me for love and support, but man……am I glad you are here. J Thank you so much.

My next appointment is Feb. 1^st. I hope all continues to go well. In the meantime, I will chug along helping Case get things in order for his trip, and plugging away at my course work. I will post a quick update after my next appointment.

Fried Hamburgers and Sexy dresses

11 weeks, 4 days

1/7/12

Today, Case woke me up about 10:30pm…..ahhhhh glorious sleep, I better get it now while I can. I was half asleep when he gave me 2 assignments to complete today. One had to be done today, the other one just had to be completed in a timely manner. Assignment 1 was a new pair of Carhartt jeans from Preston’s in Athens, and a belt. Assignment 2 was a sexy (cleavage) revealing dress to wear out to dinner, for his birthday. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH you are joking right, a sexy maternity dress. I am about as likely to find that as I will some maternity insulated work bib overalls. Déjà vu……right. Again I am flooded with memories of my rant about maternity clothing. There are only 2 types of maternity clothing, “Corporate” maternity clothing and these horrible thin silky “Floucny” trendy floral tops that you would wear with some nice dark jeans and heels. Dresses of the maternity variety tend toward the “church going”, “Sunday Best”, “baby shower” conservative style.  ALL of these are made in muted colors in that thin polyester “flouncy” fabric. Insulated, thermal, or warm maternity clothing simply does not exist

According to retail America, if you are with child, you are strictly corporate, conservative, yoga practicing, and apparently burning up hot all the time….. I am apparently the only strange bird pregnant woman who is FREEZING COLD ALL THE TIME, and who wants rugged work clothing, real athletic clothing (not just yoga pants), and sexy dresses. I guess now that I am going to be a mother, I can forget doing any work outside, I should dump the idea of a hard workout, and looking sexy will never happen again. Other than my new elastic waist jeans, I am totally not digging my choices in maternity wear. It all looks so…..boring.

 I finally decided against purchasing anything else new, and would pull something from my own closet. I have a cute black, yellow, and teal blue dress I think will work. It is one of those dresses that is like a bubble skirt with a tighter band at the bottom. The bubble skirt will have plenty of room for the expanding belly.  The dress is low cut, which is all Case is concerned about anyways now that the little bean in my belly has so graciously blessed me with tata’s that I never imagined I would be able to have, without surgery. Lol J Thanks ‘lil Bean. This will just have to do…….now to attempt to squeeze my feet into my prepregnancy heels. I am not far enough along to have major foot swelling, but I have a mad case of plantar fasciitis in my left foot, that isn’t being helped by the new weight gain.

Enough with my rant on maternity clothing…..so today I ventured out with Grandmamma June and Aunt Dale to Smalltown USA….Athens, Alabama. I love my Athens…..it has that quaint hometown feel. The thing I like the most about Athens – about 100 fewer traffic lights than Madison. J Sorry Madison, I have been sending my tax dollars into Athens here lately, I can’t seem to even drive across Madison without  wasting HOURS in traffic lights. While farther from my home, Athens has become a quicker trip for shopping and dinning, than Madison.

Every small town has one, an old school (REALLY OLD SCHOOL, like pre civil rights movement kind of old) greasy burger joints with the lunch bar counter. Huntsville has Big Spring Café, Decatur has C.F. Penn’s Hamburgers, Athens has Dub’s burgers…..every town has one. All of these healthy choices will often advertise, as soon as you walk in, that they have been using the same cooking oil for the past _____ number of years (at least more than 60 years in most cases). In a generation of organic, non-beef tallow, no high fructose corn syrup, whole gains only touted foods; you would think that these kinds of burger joints would have went to the way side years ago. On the contrary, these restaurants are just as busy as ever.  If you have never been to a burger counter like one of these, I suggest that you harden up your gastrointestinal track and take a venture down retro burger lane. This style of hamburger is what our grandparents grew up with before foods were baked, broiled, and grilled. I call it “retro” because you won’t find any modern fast food restaurants that make  hamburgers like this. These hamburgers are fried (in the 100 year old recycled oil) to the point where there is this glorious fine “crust” encompassing the hamburger meat mixture. Think Taco Bell was the first to come up with a “Meat Mixture”, no. These “retro” burger joints are not serving you a 100% beef patty, matter of fact, we aren’t really sure what it is….but it doesn’t really matter because whatever it is, it is an amazing slice of heaven between mustard, real hearty chucks of onion, and a bun. To be truthful, before I turn some of you folks delicate tummy’s into a wad….most of these restaurants supplement the ground beef with eggs and bread crumbs or crackers. This gives the fried burger that nice golden dark brown crust of heaven, it also gives the burger a softer consistency which is strikingly different than the tougher texture of a 100% ground beef patty. I do prefer the softer “reto” burger over our modern fast food burgers any day of the week. Basically it is meatloaf in the form of a burger, without the ketchup.

I have digressed…..I got lost in my own burger fantasy there for a moment. J The point of this story…..while Grandmamma and I were in Athens we noticed that Dub’s Hamburgers was still open. (Often these Mom and Pop burger places close early in the day on Saturdays). Her and I stopped, and ‘lil Bean had it’s first Dub’s Hamburger. Only the best mystery meat for my growing fetus. Pregnant with the inability to indulge myself in any vices……my Dub’s burger was like heaven.

My Baby TOTALLY looks like the Robot from Mystery Science Theater 3000

1/3/12

11 weeks fat

Had my 2^nd prenatal appointment today. Case was going to go with me on this one, but well…..he had went with me the day before when the office was closed. Yea………. So the day before today, (1/2/12) I was all gitty and excited because Case and I had the day off, and because he was off work, he was going to be able to go with me to my prenatal appointment and hear the baby’s heartbeat. I was so excited I could hardly sleep a wink. I could not wait for Case to experience the same elation as I had, when I first heard the baby’s heart thump. On Monday morning, he and I wake up at 7:30, shower, and head out the door just a few minutes early (that NEVER happens). He needed diesel, and we were about 20 minutes early, so we stopped at the Jet Pep. Some stoned guy bugged Case for gas money, of course not for too long though, at 6’7 and 270lbs, if the man says “no” you leave. LOL. Then off to my appointment we went. I was more excited than Case, but I could tell he was interested to see what this was all about as well. We roll up to the Medical Plaza, hmmmmmm there are not many cars in the parking lot, maybe the other offices are closed. We walk in, I turn the handle on the office door, “click, click”. A sign on the door said they were closed for the holidays. I promised up and down sideways that they had told me that my appointment was on Jan. the 2^nd. I KNOW THEY DID. I was so heartbroken, I nearly cried…..and I am not an emotional girl. Disappoitment swept over my face, and my big doe eyes must have broken Case’s heart. He gave me a hug, told me it was ok…. That ne needed to get up and get to work on his Jeep project anyways. No harm no foul. Lots more hugs and pats on my back.

……..so…….day 2 of the 2^nd prenatal appointment. MULLIGAN. Case had already left for work by the time I had woken up at 7am. I was suppose to call him as soon as I called the Dr. office to MAKE SURE my appointment was today at 8:30. Apparently it was not meant to be for Case to be at this appointment, because at 8:25am, NO ONE WOULD ANSWER THE OFFICE PHONE. At that time, it was too late for Case to meet me there, so I called my mom.  She was ready to go in a split second. “Hey Momma, you wanna go t………..” “Yea hun, sure be right there (click)”. We go in and they put Momma in my exam room while they have me pee in a cup, take my BP (95/70, it dropped) and check my weight. I nearly fainted when I saw that I had gained 6lbs. 6 POUNDS!?!?!?! HOW?!?!!? I was totally flipped out. I had read online and in books that I was not suppose to gain more than 4lbs in the 1^st trimester. I just knew the Dr. was going to have a freak out on me. The Dr. walks into the exam room, and it was one of the 1^st things I asked……”have I gained too much weight, I saw where I gained 6lbs.” The Dr. reassured me that this was normal and I was on schedule to gain 30lbs over the course of my pregnancy. She tried to make me feel better by adding in that we ALL had gained about 3-4 lbs over Christmas break, then add another 1-2 lbs for the baby…there you go. This was not the most reassuring answer for me, but nothing I can do about it now. I was really nauseated and sick feeling, sure some days I ate a good bit, but it was balanced out by days where I hardly ate a bite. I really made a point to not over eat, and to try to stick only to the health things, limiting my junk/fast food. Oh well…….. it is what it is……I normally gain weight in my legs and butt, which are still the same size. Maybe the alien in my belly will rub my fat down to a thin layer with all that squirming around ‘lil Bean is doing in my belly.

Next they checked the fetal heart rate with the Doppler. No dice…baby was still to small for the handheld fetal Doppler to pick up any heartbeats. I did hear the blood rushing to my uterus……yea…..that is exciting….woooooo…. blood in my uterus. Get to the good stuff lady, I wanna see the creature in my belly! Mom and I got very excited when the Dr. told us that she had to have a heartbeat and that if the Doppler wasn’t strong enough, looks like another ultrasound was in store. The Dr. was about as excited about that as we were.  Yeaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!! MORE BEAN PHOTOS. We were very excited, especially since an elective ultra sound is normally an additional $75. Ouch. They take mom and I back to the ultra sound room, and this time, they performed the ultra sound on my belly….instead of more…..invasively like last time. J  The lady performing the ultra sound was so excited for us. We got to see Lil Bean move around, it pressed its little face right up against my belly at one point, did some flips in my belly, put its butt toward us, laid on its side, on its back, then again on its side, hands over its head, hands around its body, little legs going in every which direction……the ultrasound technician said, “My you have a very active baby in there”. Oh boy……an active baby, that means I won’t sleep a wink once those kicks become bigger and more powerful. It was so neat to watch my baby swimming around, kicking its little legs and arms, in my belly. Lil Bean wouldn’t set still for a photo for too long……and of course like all sonogram photos, my baby looks like some kind of alien. Of course I think it is great, but I am pretty sure the rest of the world finds the sonogram of the face, incredibly creepy. ROFL. I won’t force you to look at my naked pregnant belly, but you will have to look at my funny alien sonogram photos. Sorry ya’ll J.

We got to hear the heartbeat……boy that little heart was a pumping away at 171 BPM. We could see the tiny heart inside of Bean beating away on the sonogram. The Dr. said that if we wanted to put any stock into the old wives tale of being able to determine the gender of the baby based on the heartrate, then I am on tap for a possible girl. Everyone keeps asking Case and I what we want, to be honest, we just want a baby that has all 10 fingers and toes, and all its brain cells firing on all cylinders. We are going to get what we are supposed to have, and our baby will be  a wonderful blessing and loved, regardless of what gender it is……or what gender it may *think* it is in the future. It is our beautiful child and we love it no matter what………awwww J

 We ain’t greedy, we will take whatever…..more hands for the farm work and chores!

So be sure to check out my awkward baby sonogram photo! Maybe I should host a contest to see who can best describe what my baby looks like….. I said that it looked like the Robot from Mystery Science Theater 3000. LOL!!!