My life is pretty boring lately...Just sitting around obsessing about this little boy inside me and wondering if/when I'll start feeling regular movement, praying he'll live, etc...Anyway, I saw this on a couple of great blogs and decided to take a turn at it since I'm just not very exciting anymore!

7 things I want to do before I die:
1. Have two or three kids and raise them well
2. Know my children's children
3. Grow old with my sweet husband
4. Understand why bad things happen to good people
5. Learn to speak Spanish
6. Visit all the Eurpoean countries
7. Know that I've lived my life to the fullest

7 things I cannot do:
1. Roll my R's (stole this from Lorem...I can't do it either and wish to God I could!)
2. Understand why babies die or why children are abused
3. Sing
4. Dance
5. Ice Skate
6. Write with my left hand
7. Cook

7 things that I'm attracted to:
1. My hubby!
2. The smell of a baby's head
3. Faith
4. Humor
5. Animals
6. Good-smelling cologne
7. Genuine people

7 things I say often:
1. I love you.
2. You're so sweet! (most often said to my kitties and my puppy)
3. Huh?
4. Whatever.
5. Seriously!
6. Oh my gosh...
7. Will you please just HUSH? (most often said to my middle school students)

7 Celebrity obsessions:
1. Ummm...OK, I guess I just have to copy Lola on this one with the Britney & Kevin train wreck that you just can't tear your eyes away from no matter how hard you try...oh, and the Tom & Katie "scientology" thing. (yes, Lola...I can totally believe a turkey baster was involved.)
2. I just can't think of anyone else that fascinates me. I just don't care that much.

That was fun and quite distracting! :) Now I'm off to prepare for the bombardment of trick-or-treaters that flood our neighborhood every year. Have a Happy Halloween! :)

Well, tomorrow when I wake up, I will be 21 weeks. Woohoo! The doctor said I could expect to feel movement around 22 weeks, but it could be up to 25 weeks. Please no! I really, really want it to start SOON. I think I felt a little kick last night, but didn't feel it again, so maybe not. Maybe I was thinking too hard. Maybe my baby wants to torment me. The ultrasound tech said I had an anterior placenta. Doesn't that mean its in front? So maybe I won't feel movement as easily? Sheesh. Like I need the stress of NOT feeling movement. Anyway. I'm off to bed...everyone send me lots of squirmy baby vibes!!

Sorry for being a slacker blogger. I'll try to do better this week!

P.S. I forgot to mention this, but Chris actually mentioned Gideon as a possible name before we knew it was a boy. I had to tell him we couldn't steal the name from a fellow blogger who shall remain nameless...Isn't that random? Not exactly a common name, so I thought it was funny. :)

First of all, THANK YOU for the sweet comments about my little boy! I'm still on cloud nine! So far, the name will be Andrew Lane, but that could change, I guess...I like it, though, and hope it sticks. Andrew is my dad's middle name, and Lane is Chris' middle name (as well as HIS dad's middle name). :) OK, I'll stop now before I babble on and on about how excited I am...

Anyway.

OK, I've now watched about half of Saved! Its HILARIOUS. I went to a private Christian high school, but it was nothing like this. The school reminds me of some youth camps I attended, though, and it cracks me up! I've actually known people like "Hilary Faye" and thought they were really stupid. I mean, do they actually think that approach works? The whole thing just makes me laugh...I can't wait to watch the rest of it. Most of all, I watch it and hope no one ever views us as that kind of Christian, and it makes me more and more determined that my kids will not attend private school. I don't want my kids to be so sheltered that they don't know what the real world is like. I want my kids to be REAL, GENUINE Christians - the kind people WANT to be around, not the kind that turn off people and make them want to run away and never have anything to do with God or the church.
I know I've got to finish watching the rest of the movie to get the full effect, but so far...HILARIOUS. Can't wait to finish it!

Well, we got the "money shot" and its definitely a boy! :) I am so excited! More importantly, everything looked PERFECT! Saw all four chambers of the heart (hb 156 bpm!), checked the brain and spinal cord, saw both kidneys and bladder, and checked the blood flow of the umbilical cord. All is well. (((hugs sigh of relief))) Thanks for the good wishes and happy thoughts!

Here's a cute pic or two of our little man:
We're just so freakin' happy! :)

Baby is now offically half-baked! Monday is the big ultrasound! Fortunately, weekends always seem to FLY by for me, so it'll be here before I know it. Then I just have to make it through the day with the kids and head to the doc! I don't care if its a boy or girl...I just want it to be alive and healthy. I want it to be a very boring, routine ultrasound with no concern or further testing needed. I want that happy moment of "Its a....." where Chris and I gasp and laugh and hug each other and say "I can't believe it!" and all that stuff. I WANT NO SCARY MOMENTS. I think my biggest fear is still a missed miscarriage. I've had no spotting or anything, so the whole missed miscarriage thing is the biggie fear. Of course, after 20 weeks, wouldn't it be considered a stillbirth vs. a miscarriage? Crap. OK, moving on. Can't let myself sit here and think of what COULD happen. I'm trying to be positive and optimistic.

As far as distractions for the weekend, we bought the movie Saved! and hope to watch it this weekend. Should be funny. I know it was produced (or written or directed or something) by a guy who's a Christian and making fun of other Christians. Personally, I don't get offended by that stuff 'cause I know there are MANY stupid Christians out there who give the rest of us a bad name. I just hope none of you judge me by their stupidity. Besides the movie, the Alabama/Tennessee football game is today, and that will be the event of the year here in our household. Chris is a HUGE Bama fan, and I'm a pretty big Tennessee fan, so this game always brings lots of fun to our home. Sunday is church, and we always stay busy on Sundays, so Monday really will be here before I know it. :) I can't wait.

You are Kermit the Frog.You are reliable, responsible and caring. And you have a habit of waving your arms about maniacally.

FAVORITE EXPRESSIONS: "Hi ho!" "Yaaay!" and "Sheesh!"

FAVORITE MOVIE: "How Green Was My Mother"

LAST BOOK READ: "Surfin' the Webfoot: A Frog's Guide to the Internet"

HOBBIES: Sitting in the swamp playing banjo.

QUOTE: "Hmm, my banjo is wet."

Which muppet are you?

I am so excited/nervous/anxious for Monday! My appointment is at 2:20 pm EST. I haven't yet started to count the hours, but I probably will soon. I've had some pretty significant round ligament pain, so I'm assuming that means the baby is growing, which is a good thing. Cramping is not fun, but if its all for the cause, I'm down with that. I've been trying to concentrate on feeling movement, but haven't felt a lot. I still listen to the kicks with my Bebe Sounds device, but feeling them would be great. I can't wait for the day I get a good swift kick in the ribs. I know I'll probably get tired of it eventually, but I think I'll be excited the first hundred times I feel it. :)

I'm off to watch Lost now...It'd better be good this week. The last few weeks have been really frustrating, like its going in circles and answering NO questions. Oh well. I guess that's the point of the show. Anyway. Yawn...

So today I wore orange panties. Not a bad thing, and certainly not newsworthy, but when you're a worrywart like me and having lots of extra, um, "leakage," its not so good. The discharge ends up looking like a big brown spot. Freaked me out in a big way, but (after many trips to the bathroom just to make sure) I realized it was the color of my underpants and nothing to freak out about, and now I am OK. I guess I should get some pantyliners if this is going to continue.

OK, enough about that. I know you wanted to hear all about my orange underwear and the heart attack I almost had in the bathroom.

Not much going on. Middle school football playoffs are this week, so maybe it won't be too much longer until we can end the cheerleading practice. I am getting way too uncomfortable to be sitting in a hot, smelly middle school gym for nearly three hours after school. Is it bad to kinda sorta want your team to lose?

I bought a Spongebob body pillow. Hehe...I went to Target and all they had (as far as body pillows go) was Spongebob, Hello Kitty, and Tinkerbell. Spongebob makes me laugh and my nephew Tucker LOVES him, so I figured I could get that one and just give it to him when I no longer need it. So far, very comfy. Love it. Chris is kinda weirded out by the idea of Spongebob in our bed, but he'll get over it.

Thanks for the comments about my struggle with Hope. I've decided you're all right. She IS a good friend and she does mean well, so maybe I will let myself give in and listen to her a little. One week from today I'll know if she's right...if this baby really IS strong and happy and healthy.

Cat's oft-mentioned "friend," Hope, has been hanging around my house for several days now. If its not her, its her evil twin. She's a hussy, that one. She's making me forget all the bad crap (I'm trying to watch my tongue) that could still happen and leading me into this blissful state of "half-baked baby" expectations. 19 weeks is a big deal to me. I know MANY women who safely delivered their babies at 38 weeks, so to me, 19 weeks is halfway home! However, I have also recently come to know some marvelous women who have lost their precious, dearly loved babies well past 19 weeks. So why should I be so confident and happy? Hope is whispering in my ear each night, speaking to me about cute baby things and baby registries and the wonderful thrill of finding out if we're having a boy or girl...Thing is, I want to listen to her. I want to be happy and enjoy this and savor every moment, because I'll never be 19 weeks pregnant with my first child ever again. My body has never been here before and, though I might be here again one day, it'll never be like the first time...I feel like I'm in a stupid cartoon, but instead of an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, I've got Hope on one shoulder and Worry on the other. Hope says, "You're going to be fine! This baby is going to be strong and healthy! Nothing to worry about!" Worry says, "But what about all those women who had stillborn babies? They all thought their babies were safe, too!" Sigh. I just want to be one of those naive, ignorant pregnant hussies who we all hate...just one day. Is that so wrong?

Well, I barely slept last night...I am so sick of this dern head cold. I slept sitting up for awhile, then tossed and turned as the congestion moved from side to side in my head. So gross. I finally fell asleep and slept really hard from about 6 am 'til about 6:30 when my alarm went off. Crap. Anyway, I have been EXHAUSTED all day but the kids were really good today (wonder what was into them!) so it wasn't as miserable as I thought it might be. :) I finally got home and my dear hubby had gone to get FRIED CHICKEN for dinner! Woohoo! (I know, I really should be eating healthier...) I was really excited about the chicken. I'm breathing all right for the moment, so I'm wondering if I should just take a hot bath and go to bed. But if I did that, I'd be wide awake at about 2 am, and that would be even more miserable. Good news is that DH went to the ear/nose/throat doc today (he has Mondays off) and the doc said that I can safely take Flonase and Nasonex because they don't absorb into the placenta! He gave us free samples and even wrote me a prescription without my being there! I am so excited I can actually take something that I KNOW works!

Wow. I just realized how boring I am. Pretty sad when getting a prescription for Flonase is the highlight of your day...I'm off to check blogs because you wonderful people are SO much more interesting than I am! :)

P.S. 14 days 'til the big ultrasound!!!

Sigh. I'd been doing so much better (physically) these last few days, and of course, now that I'm headed back to school tomorrow, I am all stuffy and miserable again. I was fine until this morning, when I gagged on my toothbrush and threw up. Throwing up seems to send all the mucus in my body straight to my head. Gross. Wah, wah, wah. Listen to the fat girl whine. I took Sudafed but it sucks and does NOTHING. So here I sit, with Vicks Vapor Rub on my upper lip, and trying my darndest to breathe. I do NOT want to go back to school tomorrow morning. Oh well. Six more weeks and then we get a week off for Thanksgiving. God bless the modified year-round school schedule. Gotta love those breaks. Of course, I deserve it for dealing with crazy middle schoolers all day long and not killing them in my psychotic pregnant state. :)

Wow, I am so pissy today. I'll try to be in a better mood later.

Warning: Please don't read if this will make you sad. I don't want anyone to be sad...I just have to express a little bit of joy about my little one.

So I broke down when I went to Target and I bought this little Prenatal Heart Listener. You can't really hear the heartbeat with it until the third trimester, but you can hear kicks, hiccups and stuff in the second tri. I thought, "Why not? I'm already going crazy here so if it brings me peace it'll be worth the $19.84 I'm spending on it." Well, I got in the car and immediately put in the battery and put it to my tummy, when I heard lots of kicks and even some hiccups. I'm addicted now. I love hearing the noises that little one is making. The kicks amaze me because they're so obvious through this machine, yet I feel NOTHING! I occasionally get a little squirmy feeling, but only when I'm lying down, completely still. How weird. Anyway, I am good now and can't put down the darn thing.

Chris was initially like, "I can't believe you spent money on that thing" but when he heard the kicks and movement, he was impressed. That's the best part, I think...him being able to hear those precious movements. Anyway, I think this will help ward off my psycho moments of extreme fear at least until my 20 week appt (which is on Oct. 24, by the way!)...Let's hope so.

Where I live now:

(OK, where I actually live in this area is a lot more populated than this picture, but this is the best picture I could find on the web.)

My name:

(My nickname is Anna Banana. All the pics I could find of just "Anna" were pictures of Anna Kournikova and I just refuse.)

Grandmother's name:

Favorite food:

Favorite drink:

Favorite song:

(The song is Diverse City, by Toby Mac. I fully expect I am the only one in blogland that knows this song.)

Favorite smell:

OK, that was fun and very distracting! :) Feel free to play along!

Thanks for the game, Cat! (And thanks, everybody, for making me feel like I'm not as psycho as I feel.)

I don't know what started it...maybe my being sick and taking medicine...who knows. But here I am, worried sick that my baby is dead. What in the world? Its been at least 2 weeks since I've really considered it, but now its all I think about. I've even considered calling my doctor and lying about some weird pain or bleeding just so I could get in and either have an ultrasound to check things or at least hear the heartbeat. Man, I seriously need some counseling.

I need to remind myself of why things are OK and the baby is NOT dead. First, I'm nauseous as all get out. Second, I've been having serious ligament pain, which tells me the baby is growing (not dying). Third, I *think* I might have actually felt some movement recently. I can't tell. I've never been here before so I don't really know what it feels like, but I *think* I felt some tumbling or swishing or something weird. The baby won't move too much if its dead, right?

I wish I had a doppler. That, and the name of a good psychiatrist. Oh well. I guess I'll have to settle for lunch at the Waffle House. (Can you tell I'm on a kick here?)

Ahh...lazy days. I love it. Monday I was too sick to enjoy being home, yesterday I was cleaning like crazy, but today I am doing exactly what I want to do. I'm lying in bed watching movies and TV. I am still a little bit stuffy, but not as miserable as I was Sunday and Monday. Have I mentioned how much I loooove Fall Break? Only six more weeks of school after t his and we get another week off for Thanksgiving break, then three weeks after that we get 2-3 weeks off for Christmas, and then its January! March will be here quickly after that! I'm counting the days...but for now, I am just enjoying being home and resting. I love lazy days. :)

Oh, and Waffle House was wonderful. I think I'll meet Chris for lunch there again tomorrow. But not today, 'cause today I'm spending the day in my PJ's. :)

Ahhh...breathing is good. I decided to take the Sudafed and rub Vapor Rub on my upper lip and it helped! I was actually able to sleep through the night fairly well and BREATHE through most of it! I was a little nervous about taking the meds, but I figured my not breathing is actually just as bad or worse for the baby than the Sudafed. So, here I am.

Fall Break. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...I LOVE being a SAHwife. My house is clean, the laundry is done, and I still get to rest a little throughout the day! I can cook good meals for my dear sweet husband (as long as I am feeling OK and can handle the smells)...Life is good when you're on break. Alas, I must return to the classroom on Monday. Oh well. I really do like my job, no matter how much I complain. I love the kids, I love the subject I teach (math), and the administration at my school is wonderful. I'm a lucky girl to work for them, really. No Child Left Behind has out a lot of pressure on us, however, and things have been tense. For the past two years, our special education Math scores have kept us on the "Needs Improvement" list. My question is, HOW ARE SPECIAL ED KIDS SUPPOSED TO PASS A GRADE LEVEL TEST?!?! If they could pass their grade level tests, THEY WOULDN'T BE IN SPECIAL ED!! They have learning disabilities!! Am I the only one who has figured this out? Grrr. The kids feel the pressure, the teachers feel the pressure, the parents feel the pressure...Its not good for anyone. I have been feeling the pressure intensely since this year I am the ONLY special ed. math teacher in the school...That means its all on me to get these kids to pass the state test in April. Oh, but did I mention I'm due to have a baby in March? God willing, I won't even be there to give the test. Ah, the stress. I can't wait to have this baby so I can escape that stress and exchange it for "new baby" stress. I really do love my school, but NCLB has made it a little less enjoyable this year. I'm praying my heart out for a way to get to stay home with this baby and not have to go back to work next Fall.

Anyway. Enough ranting about that. I'm off to meet my hubby on his lunch break. We're going to Waffle House! Yum!

Oh my goodness. I am so stopped up I can't stand it. I blow my nose a thousand times and STILL I cannot breathe. I can't sleep because I can't breathe comfortably, and I know poor Chris can't be sleeping well 'cause I'm up and down all night, either blowing my nose or trying to find a position where my nasal passages clear out a little bit so I can breathe for about five minutes. Its miserable. Any suggestions on what to take? People keep saying "Sudafed" but is it safe? Its a class C drug according to safefetus.com...but everybody tells me its fine to take in the 2nd trimester. I'm wary, but willing to do whatever I can to just BREATHE again.

Anyway, other than my trying to breathe, not much else fun is going on here. My BIL is being sent home from Afghanistan for good. I would be celebrating but he's in a lot of trouble and has to fix his marriage because of a stupid mistake he made while overseas, so mostly I just pray that he and his wife can reconcile and make a fresh start.

Oh, and Chris & I went to eat Mexican food with some friends after church today. Bad idea. Its been like 12 weeks since I ate Mexican and it made me so sick, so I was thinking maybe it was just 1st trimester queasiness and now I'd be fine trying it. I had a timy bit of cheese dip and one taco. Pretty soon after we get home, it all came back up. GROSS. So, I guess Mexican food really is out for the whole pregnancy. I was so hoping I was done with the throwing up. Oh well.

Yawn. I am so boring. Sorry about that. I'll try to think of more interesting things to blog about this week. I'll be home on Fall Break so maybe I'll watch a bunch of CNN and FoxNews and perhaps find something newsworthy to blab about. :)

About This Blog

This is me, sharing my journey through struggling to conceive, surviving miscarriage, and, finally, receiving the greatest blessing ever...the gift of a healthy, beautiful little boy.

Blogs I Love To Read

• Aurelia Ann
• Bark Like a Dog - Milo (Justin & Lauralu's babe)
• Beyond the Pale
• Certainly Not Cool Enough to Blog
• Everything Is Under Control
• Galloping Cats
• House of Miao
• Irvin World (our family blog)
• Kathy McC
• Mad Mommy
• No, I Will Never Be "Over" It
• Sweet Coalminer
• Taking Up My Cross
• The Barefoot Mama
• Three-Girls-O-Rama
• Vegas Mommy
• When Eggs Go Bad

• moving
• guilt and bad mommy thoughts
• update on us
• She is here!!!
• 5 days
• still here...
• Full Term!
• Deep thoughts
• Two years old!
• overdue update

• April 2005
• May 2005
• June 2005
• July 2005
• August 2005
• September 2005
• October 2005
• November 2005
• December 2005
• January 2006
• February 2006
• March 2006
• April 2006
• May 2006
• June 2006
• July 2006
• August 2006
• September 2006
• October 2006
• November 2006
• December 2006
• January 2007
• February 2007
• March 2007
• April 2007
• June 2007
• July 2007
• August 2007
• September 2007
• October 2007
• November 2007
• December 2007
• January 2008
• February 2008
• May 2008
• June 2008
• July 2008
• August 2008
• September 2008

annairvin@hotmail.com

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