Dirty Laundry

A few days ago, I was sorting through my laundry and noticed a trend. Being pregnant dictates the way you do your laundry, how much laundry you have to do and what type of laundry/clothes you wear. Maybe you're saying "DUH" in your head but please, continue reading and let me explain.

First of all, pregnant laundry requires something called "the sniff test." I have become an expert at the sniff test. When you're pregnant, certain places ... and certain things ... smell different (use your imagination). Especially pants. Pants can usually be worn only once and then they have to pass the sniff test, which they most likely don't pass the sniff test after one wear. No more wearing my jeans 5 times before I wash them.

Second, because you can't wear certain items of clothing more than once, we're doing a LOT more laundry. Because we end up doing more laundry, I ended up pulling out more maternity clothes to compensate so we don't have to do laundry so often. So I got rid of wearing my jeans (due to the number of times I have to wash them) and added black stretch pants. Black stretch pants are ESSENTIAL because they're comfortable and they can also double as black dress pants (shhhhh, don't tell my patient's I'm wearing stretch pants to work.)

Another essential would be bra's that FIT!!! Good grief ... my normal C's and even the last pregnancy D's don't fit anymore so ... if you do your math right ... I had to go and buy new bra's. Bummer. It's really hard to find something cute that's that enormous.

Because I couldn't find anything particularly cute, my next decision was to go the comfort route. So, I broke out the old NURSING bra's. Now those things are HIDEOUS, but most definitely the most comfortable.

A few more tid bits; hair binders are attached to all my old buttons of my clothes. they're instant waist lengthen-ers. Another way to lengthen the life of wearing "regular" clothes is to not button the pants and just cover it with a belt or even better, use one of Jason's old ties. :)

Speaking of laundry, I put a bunch of clothes in the baby dresser and I just had to take a picture, everything is blue! Completely different from Abby's wardrobe. Here's some pictures.

These little shoes are my favorite item in the dresser.

Look at ALL the BLUE!

Here's a belly shot

I just had to add this. Abby looked so adorable in this little outfit. She wore it to Joy School (church) she is getting so BIG!

The size of a cauliflower!

On THIS meter, it says the baby is the size of a head of cauliflower ... I'm pretty sure he's bigger than a cauliflower. At least, he feels bigger. He's been kicking and scratching at just about the same times everyday. At least he has a schedule.

There's been a lot going on since we got the ultrasound. After we got the ultrasound, I decided I've been having a hard time dealing with the whole LOOMING possibility of a secondary C-section. So, I've been talking with several people about it, learning about different people's birth stories etc. The whole fear of this second birth has been hindering me from really bonding with this baby so talking to people helps me get my mind off the inevitable. To bond with the baby, we went garage sale-ing for baby boy clothes. We've gone to several garage sales over the past few weekends, we also got a new dresser for Abby's clothes to make room for the boy clothes. Just the process of going through the baby clothes and imagining the baby wearing them was helpful in bonding with him. Now, the dresser is filled with baby blue clothes instead of pink clothes. :)

Here's a picture of my belly at about 24 weeks.

We've also been trying to come up with names for him and it seems to be even MORE difficult than it was for Abby. We have a list started but it's a long list, there's nothing that Jason and I agree on and nothing REALLY jumps out at us. Bummer. At least we have 108 days left. :)

AND the verdict is ...

The baby's head is the right size, the ventricles are developing at the right rate, the kidney's are functioning, the heart has 4 chambers, ten fingers, and all other parts are functioning just fine. The baby also cooperated and opened it's legs and in between there was ... A PENIS!

Abby's going to be a big sister to a healthy baby BOY!

She's a little disappointed but I think if we would have waited, she would have been even more disappointed when the baby came out. At least she has time to adjust to the idea of having a brother.

UF-Dah. :p

Today's The Day!!!

I've been so excited about today that I didn't sleep as soundly as usual last night. Today we get to see the baby via ultrasound!!! We will be posting if it's a boy or girl later today. Hmmmm, but which blog to post on? Technically this is my blog and the other blog is the "baby" blog. You'll all just have to keep checking. I'm sure the suspense is killing you. :p I know it's killing me.

Any guesses as to if it's a boy or girl?

As for now, I'll leave you with this picture my brother received at 2 am from my wild and crazy father in Las Vegas. (He's at a conference for work as you can see, he's still wearing his badge work badge.)

I Love my Dad. :) (My Mom's name is Janis.)

Baby Beal Number 2

BOY or GIRL
April 21st is the day we find out if the baby is a boy or a girl. I'm so excited. I already told you my prediction. Jason doesn't have a specific feeling on if it's a boy or a girl. But, either way, we're super excited to finally find out if Abby will have a little brother or a little sister.

HOW I'M FEELING
Having to do my job is very different from a desk job. Don't get me wrong, I sit down during the day and do desk work too but my job is pretty physical. The last few weeks of March Accel and Be Well was really busy and since I have to do all the adjusting, I was coming home from work REALLY sore. Specifically my inner left leg and left glut muscles. I would come home and have Jason stick his elbow in my butt. I have Dr. Desiree' adjust me but when you're pregnant, you produce a huge amount of hormone called relaxin which allows your muscles to stretch out and joints to become loose. Thus, the adjustments hold for a few days at the most. Bummer.

Another thing I've noticed is that my mind is having a REALLY difficult time focusing. When I'm at work, it's fine, I can write a list and check stuff off as I go but, for instance, I had to take Abby to get her haircut today and I wasn't 100% sure where I was going, it was raining, AND I had to take a detour to get where I was going, I kept having to tell Abby to be quite so I could concentrate (how do you explain concentrate to a 2.5 year old) and I got REALLY lost going home. Ugh. It's really frustrating because there's nothing I can do about it but blame it on the pregnancy.

On an up-note, I haven't puked in a few weeks but I definitely feel nauseous several nights a week.

WEIRD THINGS ...
Some weird things that I've noticed would be ... my eye sight has been terrible. I was reading in our book that pregnancy can make your eye sight worse while you're pregnant. ALSO, my tongue is all patchy. Yes, PATCHY. I'm pretty sure it's a vitamin B deficiency. Obviously I'm sending all my B vitamins (the vitamins that come from protein) to the baby.

CRAVINGS
I have a huge crush on fruit pies these days. When I'm not pregnant, I don't usually crave fruit pies or any pies for that matter. But, if I was going to have a pie, I'd have a chocolate-y french silk pie but these days that doesn't even sound appetizing.

Speaking of appetizing, these days I have a really hard time finding foods that both I and the baby want to eat. For instance, I LOVE LOVE LOVE sweets and Easter candy. But, this candy doesn't sound appetizing to my stomach. My head says "eat the candy" my stomach says "don't do it!"Same with Milk. I know I'm supposed to drink milk while I'm pregnant but every time I drink it, my stomach hurts afterward. Ugh, I just can't win. (well, maybe I win with the fruit pies.)

Before I forget, I am doing a new pregnancy diet which calls for me to eat a lot of eggs. Unfortunately I have never liked eggs and am having a hard time figuring out how to eat them. If anyone has any recipes or ideas as to how I could eat them, I'd love suggestions. I'm supposed to eat 2 a day. Here's my stipulations. I can't stand hard boiled eggs. I even tried them in an egg salad sandwich (I tried really hard) but I just couldn't do it. I don't mind eggs scrambled or in an omelet but I'd prefer some type of Egg bake. Any suggestions would be helpful. I can' only stand scrambled eggs for so long.

So, that's enough for now. I'll leave you with an updated picture of my tummy. Looks bigger than last time. (Boy, I still haven't washed that mirror. I better get on that. Just ignore the dirt.)

~Mama Beal

THE BOOK!

In the process of Jason and I taking control of the reigns in the birth of our next child, YOU guys are going to be an educated bunch by the end of our pregnancy. (Lucky You!)

This blog is going to be about the Bradley book that Jason and I are reading called "Husband Coached Child Birth". The basis of the book is about how humans are Mammals, physiologically stemming from the Animal Kingdom. BUT, what this Doctor Bradley has insightfully pointed out, is the way humans give birth and the way all other mammals give birth are completely different. Doctor Bradley decided to ask, why are we so different if we are so similar physically?

GREAT question. Not many people my age have grown up on a farm these days but Dr. Bradley talks about how his experience growing up on the farm was that the animals giving birth on the farm did NOT have complications, they did NOT need medication to give birth, they do NOT have a doctor or ANYone attending their birth, giving birth was peaceful, quiet and unhindered. Our "Human" idea of giving birth is ... hospital, medication, doctors, screaming, painful, recovery, complications, C-SECTIONS!!!

Dr. Bradley goes on to explain that the difference between Animals and Humans is that Animals have a huge instinct as to how to live and give birth. Humans are not instinctual but God differentiated humans from the mammal world by giving them their ability to learn. A perfect example of this, besides child birth, is swimming. When you put an animal in water, it instinctually knows what to do in order to swim. If you put a human in water that has never learned how to swim, they WILL drown. But, the good news and key point to this blog and book is that hunmans can be taught how to swim and give birth.

I like this theory. It makes a lot of sense. With my first birth, I had no idea what to expect, we saw maybe 3 birthing videos but besides that, we never were taught how to have a baby. We were even taught how to raise the baby and care for it AFTER you give birth but we learned nothing about birthing the baby. With this birth, I am going into it more informed and educated than I ever was with the first. If this theory is correct, I KNOW I can do this better the second time around.

With that, I'll leave you with a little intresting fact I learned.

A 9 month pregnant uterus (without including the baby's weight) weighs 15 lbs!!! No wonder women get low back pain with pregnancy. :)

~Mama Beal

Alright, Alright!!! I'm gettin' a lot of Guff from certain people from certain states (Montana, you know who you are) to update my blog. Nobody else seems to care too much so this one's for you Ash. :)

So, I'm still pregnant. Yep, still puking on occasion. Still feeling nauseous every morning but at least not puking every morning (have I mentioned that I HATE puking??) I've been getting a lot of headaches, my hips hurt, and my hands fall asleep at night ... I am more uncomfortable with this pregnancy than I was with Abby. Maybe that will make the birth easier. (Fingers Crossed)

Speaking of birth. Not only do I have a great mid-wife that I like but I've taken it upon myself to be more proactive with this birth. I DO NOT want what happened last time to be what happens this time around. Here's what I've been doing to prepare myself for a different experience.

A few weeks ago, Jason and I watched a documentary on Natural Childbirth called it "The Business of Being Born" produced by Ricki Lake (yep, the same lady that had the famous 90's talk show.) Jason was a trooper and watched it with me. If you ever have kids, I think it's a MUST WATCH before you give birth. (A warning: you see a lot of "bush" and they are very blunt leaving nothing to the imagination. Mom, if you don't know what "bush" is, don't look it up.) Although it seems kind of crude, it was actually very touching and done very well.

The other thing I've been doing is research on the Bradley Birthing Technique. It's a natural birthing technique that really incorporates the help of the husband through the whole process. With Abby's birth, I felt like Jason was helpless and he didn't really have any tools to help me through the process. This time around we're going to work as a team. There's also Bradley classes that start in April which several of my friends who have had natural child birth have strongly recommended and I am pretty sure we're going to sign up for them as well.

Lastly, Jason and I are both reading a book written by the "Dr. Bradley" of the Bradley Birthing technique called "Husband Coached Childbirth." I think doing a lot of these activities together as a team will really make a difference when it comes to actually having the baby. I'm so grateful that Jason is willing to go through all of this to show his support and help me achieve the type of birth that I truly want.

I know this birth is going to be different than the last. At this point, we have done so much extra research and we intend to do so much more that it would be impossible for us to have the exact same birth. I'm glad we're on a different track than we were with my first birth.

Well, that's all for now. I'll try to be more vigilant with my blog-up-keep. :p Enjoy this picture of my belly. (just ignore the fact that I haven't washed the mirror for a long time.)



PS, we find out the gender of the baby in about 6 weeks. My prediction is that it's a boy. Here's why I think that; I've been more sick with this one, my acne is terrible (got better with Abby), the hair on my legs is growing like weeds, I'm easily irritated recently. (Maybe the later is not pregnancy related, for Jason's sake, I hope it is.) I'll keep you posted as to the gender when we find out. :)