Richards Reflections

Saturday, March 26, 2011

....and they call the thing rodeo

We had a wonderful Spring Break! We mostly relaxed but we did get out a little bit towards the end of the week. I love that Spring time in Houston also brings the rodeo. It's one of my favorite things about living in the Houston area. We had never been during the day during Spring Break and quite honestly I'm not sure we will do it again. The last two years we have just taken Bella during the week in the evening before Spring Break and it hasn't been to crowded. During Spring Break that place is CROWDED! I'm glad we got to go though. We met Mom, Dad, Mema, Papa, Courtney, and Ryan and headed in to pet some animals. Bella loves the animals...alot! She has no fear with them and makes herself right at home with the goats and pigs and llamas.

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She also got to see the baby chicks. Tonight she was looking at these pictures, I asked her what she thought baby chicks ate, she said, "cookies". If I was a baby chick, that's what I would want!

Bella went home with Mom and Dad and Terry and I got to stay and meet up with our friends Lori and Adam for some Zac Brown Band. Terry and I sat outside and people watched for a while waiting on them. Interesting mix of people at the rodeo. We had already eaten but when they got there they both had food on a stick so naturally I needed some food on a stick. I got an awesome sausage on a stick. Terry wanted a bite and he DROPPED MY SAUSAGE ON THE GROUND! How are you going to take a pregnant woman's food on a stick and then drop it on the ground. Good thing I looked up and saw some homemade chocolate chip cookies (I would not share these with baby chicks). Oh My Goodness! Lori and I shared a "few" of them. They were hot and gooey and yummy goodness. I had chocolate all over my fingers including under my fingernails. You know those were some GOOD cookies. After I finished eating my "few" cookies we headed inside to listen to some loud and awesome music. Bella had fun spending time with her great and grand parents and cousins and we had fun getting to hang out with our friends!


Thursday, March 10, 2011

20 weeks

How Far Along: 20 weeks
Size of baby: about 6.5 inches/size of a banana
Total Weight Gain/Loss: Gained about 15 lbs (yikes!)
Maternity Clothes: I'm pretty much into maternity clothes now. Definitely in the pants area. Although my favorite pair of jeans still fit with the rubber band trick. I can still wear most of my regular tops but the belly is getting snug!
Gender: It's a GIRL!
Movement: I'm pretty sure this little girl is practicing her circus acts! She moves a lot but I love it.
Sleep: It comes and goes.
What I miss: Dr. Pepper.....
Cravings: I have discovered Frustista Feezes from Taco Bell. Oh my!! They are some yummy goodness!
Symptoms: I am dead tired!
Best Moment this week: Felling the baby move and getting to hear the heartbeat at the doctor's appointment on Monday. 146 beats per minute!

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Don't be jealous of how awesome I look. HA!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Baby Sister is still Baby Sister

Today we had our anatomy scan and got the results of our blood tests (we do blood tests for Down Syndrome, Spina Bifida, etc). Thank you Lord that Baby Sister looks fabulous and all the tests run came back negative. We checked to make sure she was still a girl and sure enough she is! She is a wriggly little thing. She was moving all over the place. She was drinking the amniotic fluid and appeared to be rubbing her eye. Bella went with us and was quite nervous at first. She is not a fan of going to the doctor. She kept saying, "Baby Sister gonna be ok." "Mommy gonna be ok." She also thought I should take my clothes off and go weigh. That part was actually hilarious. Apparently she remembers that part of her own doctor's appointments.

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The doctor that we go to for our ultrasounds is a high risk doctor. They have awesome equipment and you actually watch the ultrasound on a 37 inch flat screen TV. Bella pretty much talked through the whole thing. Mostly she just wanted to go back to the waiting room and look at the fish in the fish tank. She did get really excited a couple of times. At one point she said, "Baby Sister is coming!!". I think she got much more excited after seeing her on the TV today. The doctor even gave her her very own picture of her feet!

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At this time I do have placenta previa. I will go back in 6 weeks to check on it. I have had this since the beginning and they thought it would move. It has not moved yet. If it doesn't move I will have to have a C-section. Not really sure how I feel about that!

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She's a mover! I'm feeling her move ALOT and I LOVE it! By far my favorite part of being pregnant! This picture shows her heart rate which was at 150.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

16 weeks

How Far Along: 16 weeks
Size of baby: about 4.5 inches/size of an avocado
Total Weight Gain/Loss: Gained about 11 lbs (yeah, not good!)
Maternity Clothes: I'm pretty much into maternity clothes now. Definitely in the pans area. Although my favorite pair of jeans still fit with the rubber band trick. I can still wear most of my regular tops but the belly is getting snug!
Gender: It's a GIRL!
Movement: I'm feeling some movement. I really love that part.
Sleep: Getting better if I could just get rid of this cold and keep it gone.
What I miss: Dr. Pepper.....
Cravings: I'm hungry most of the time. I'm finding myself craving dairy. That is the same thing I craved with Bella.
Symptoms: I am dead tired!
Best Moment this week: Felling the baby move and getting to hear the heartbeat at the doctor's appointment on Monday. 154 beats per minute!

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Oddly I think I looked bigger in my 12 week picture than I do in this one. Who knows. I must have eaten alot that day.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Think Pink

On Friday we had our nuchal translucency screening. This is a screening done between 11 and 13 weeks to look for Down Syndrome. Everything looked great! At the end the sonographer asked us if we wanted to take a look at the gender. Of course we said yes! As soon as she started looking around the little turkey flipped over facing away from us. The sonographer was doing everything she could to get the baby to turn back into "easy access" position. She was shaking my stomach, making me cough, and turning me on each of my sides. After about a good 10-15 minutes little bit finally decided to show us HER stuff. That is right, another little girl is joining our household. Of course we were told this early it is only 80% accurate but I had a feeling it was a girl all along so we are going with it!

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Our newest beauty!

We have been asking Bella if she is going to have a little sister. Her answer is "no". Oh dear! Mom and I went shopping Friday afternoon and bought both girls some clothes. I showed Bella her clothes and showed her baby sister's clothes. She said they were ALL Bella's clothes. Looks like we have some work to do to prepare our big for our little. I did ask her today were her baby sister was and she said, "In Mommy's belly."

Needless to say we are excited to be adding a little more pink to our household!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

12 weeks

Here we go....pregnancy posts!!

How Far Along: 12 weeks
Size of baby: about 2 inches/size of a lime
Total Weight Gain/Loss: Gained about 5 lbs
Maternity Clothes: I wear a couple of pairs of smaller maternity pants but everything else is regular.
Gender: I can't wait to find out! I'm happy with a boy or girl!
Movement: I'm not feeling anything yet but at our doctor's appointment we heard the baby kick the doppler when listening to it's heart beat.
Sleep: I wish!
What I miss: Dr. Pepper.....
Cravings: I'm hungry most of the time. I'm finding myself craving dairy. That is the same thing I craved with Bella.
Symptoms: I am dead tired! I was nauseated but that has pretty much gone away in the last week and a half. I'm also having heartburn....woohoo!
Best Moment this week: Hearing the heart beat and the little kick.

(I stole this from another blogger. I'm sure some of you recognize it :)

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These pictures are not all that great. I waited to late so the light in the house was yucky and I had just gotten out of the shower. Oh well!

As I'm sure lots of you have already figured out I posted the time line of the beginning of this pregnancy in a link at the top of the page. It is under baby #2. We chose to keep this to ourselves this time because it relieved alot of the pressure we (or I) felt before. We are so thankful that everything worked out for the best and so far everything looks great. We went to the doctor on Monday and baby's heart rate was 155. It had dropped but she said that was no big deal and not to worry. We have an ultrasound scheduled for next Friday for the down syndrome test and several others. We are taking all precautions because we want to be prepared in case something comes up unexpected. We expect everything to be fine.

I am not sleeping very well at all and it is beginning to take a major toll on my already tired body and mind. Last night I was awake from 1-4. Yikes! Bella is sick so I kept hearing her whine plus I just cant get comfortable. Needless to say I finally fell back asleep and my alarm went off. I accidentally hit the off button instead of the snooze button and woke up at 7:25. That would be 5 minutes before I'm suppose to leave!! Good thing it was a jeans day!

Saturday, January 8, 2011

I'M GONNA BE A.............


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