What do you think???

I'm just interested to know what everyone thinks. :) So I created a poll! (check it out in the right corner)

Do you think we'll have a boy or girl??? Hopefully in about a week we'll finally find out!

38 weeks... c'mon baby!

tick tock, tick tock

I am so tired these days. I'm having a really hard time focusing on work when all I want so badly is for this baby to arrive. I know, I should enjoy this time while I have it because once this baby comes the silence will be gone forever! I had my 36 week doctor appointment yesterday. No progress has been made as of yet... meaning I'm not dilated. The baby's heartrate was 155. He or she has definitely dropped at least a little bit which is so very nice because I'm able to breathe a little easier! :)

Over the past couple of weeks I've been so lucky to have had two baby showers! One thrown by some very dear friends of mine and another was a dual shower at work with my friend Meredith who is due a week before me. How lucky we are! Here are a few pictures from the first shower on 2/28.

This is my friend Michelle, she made the cute tiered cake with the little pregnant lady on the top!! It was so delicious too. She is so stinkin' talented... love this girl!

Everyone was encouraged to decorate a onesie. Oh my gosh they are priceless!! It was such a great idea and it will be a wonderful memory from the shower each time the baby wears one. How sweet! :)

Ah yes, the belly string game... let's guess how big you are! This is Ellie, my cousin's daughter, trying her string on for size. She did a good job guessing!

My wonderful friend Valerie made a cute-as-can-be diaper cake! We will definitely be using those here soon! Thanks Val, you're the best! :)

And last but not least, are the amazing party planners! I know these girls put a lot of work into making it a beautiful shower and I can't thank them enough!! I am so incredibly lucky to have such great/amazing/sweet friends!!! :)

What's in a name?

Matt and I are having the hardest time picking baby names. We just can't seem to find one we both love. AND it's so much harder to have to pick one boy name and one girl name... it would be so much easier if we knew the gender! Oh well too late now! I just have to laugh because we're so indecisive.... here's an email chain we've been working on for oh, about 5 days now...

Me:
Do you like??
Boys:
Alec
Benson

Girls:
Juliana (I think I mentioned before but can’t remember what you said about it)
Brenna
Calista
Eden

Matt:
I like Alex better than Alec, but I'm sure that is off the table because of Mr. Stoermer (FYI-a friend of ours)

I like Bennett better than Benson.
I do like Juliana... what do you think about Julia?
Of the last 3, I like Eden the best.
What do you think of Caelyn?

Me:
Well I thought I would suggest Alec BECAUSE you like Alex.
I like Juliana better than Julia.
I like Caelyn.

Matt:
What about Dillon or Vanessa?

Me:
Not really a fan of either. For girls, I don’t really like names that end in –issa or –essa, that’s why I don’t like Alyssa either (sorry no offense to anyone!!).

Matt:
Do you like:
Hannah
Pheobe

I'm liking Owen more and more...
I really like this website: http://www.nymbler.com/
Try it out!

Me:
That website it not helping. It keeps showing me the same names over again even though I have blocked them!

Matt:
It works awesome for me...found a few more names to try on for size:
Girls
Elise
Avery
Hope
Clara
Olivia

Boys
Vaughn
Graham
Grant
Caedyn
Quinn

Me:
Oh my God I'm going to smack you... I asked you about Elise a long time ago and you didn't like it!

Matt:
We've discussed a million names at this point! You also loved Bennett and have since changed your mind. Do you like any of the other ones?

Me:
I still like Bennett... I just want to give our child his own name and feel like Bennett is maybe a little too close to Benjamin. I'm on the fence.

And no, I'm sorry I don't like the other names.

Matt:
What about Owen?



This is just hilarious to me! This doesn't include all of the countless conversations we've had about names up until now... Who knew picking a name for your child could be so hard!! haha! It's all in good fun though and hopefully we'll be able to agree on something soon! :)

much ado about baby

It's about time I update this thing! So here goes... We never did get the 3D ultrasound. Due to the atrocious Ohio weather the office called and cancelled the appointment just 2 short hours before we were due to arrive. Matt and I were SOOOOOO bummed, to say the least. :( The office said they could reschedule us for late February/early March. whaaaa?? Oh I was mad. But what are you going to do? At this point the baby will be here in less than 6 weeks anyway so we'll just save the money and see our little babe then. 


We're having a blast putting the nursery together. It looks wonderful! Here's a little preview so far...

It's exactly what I imagined! Is it weird to be in love with a room?? Well then I'm guilty because I loooooooove it! It's so calming and beautiful. :)


This past weekend my step-mom Angie threw me a baby shower for my Dad's side of the family. It was kind of a couple's shower. The guys were invited to come and participate in a poker tournament as long as they brought a package of diapers. We are definitely good on diapers for a LONG TIME! Well until the baby reaches about 15 pounds... which might not last as long as we think. Anyway, while the guys did that the girls did the baby shower thing. It was so much fun! We got SO MUCH wonderful stuff. More importantly stuff we need! :) Of course we need absolutely everything so it was all appreciated! We are so thankful!

My parents are HUGE Harley fans so this little onesie was quite appropriate. :) It says 

From Cradle to Chrome

My cousins Kylie and Kenlea

My cousin Kenlea is due exactly one week after me!

My wonderful parents!

I have another shower this weekend with my Mom and Matt's side of the family. Then we should be all set for baby! I've also been working on a few projects of my own. I've been 'trying' to make baby bibs... 'trying' being the key word here! Here's a few that I've done.... I've actually made all of them by now I just haven't taken a new picture. They are quite cute if I do say so myself but I'm just not sure how they'll hold up. The thing is my sewing machine only sews in zigzag mode so it's a little tricky to make the stitching look pretty as well as make sure the fabric stays put. If they fall apart, oh well! I've really wnjoyed making them and they were made with love so that makes them even cuter, right?! :) 

and here's few random cute pictures... Matt putting together the pack n' play. Good job babe!

and how funny is this picture of Cricket?! haha! Someone's going to be a little jealous when the baby gets here!

Time Goes By...

I cannot believe that it's 2010 already. Every year seems to fly by faster and faster. I'm sure it gets worse the older you get. I am so so ready for this year though. There are SO many wonderful things to look forward to!

So to start off... things are going great with the baby and my pregnancy in general has been smooth sailing. Thankfully I didn't gain a crazy amount of weight during the holidays (like I thought I would!). My weakness these past few months have been buckeyes. Oh those sweet delicious rounds of peanut butter dipped in chocolate... I just couldn't resist them... and I didn't. Thankfully they are completely gone from our house so they won't be tempting me anymore. Otherwise the baby's heartbeat has been pretty steady at 145. I'm starting to see my doctor every two weeks now which means I'm in my final trimester! (or will be at the end of this week) How exciting! I've been feeling a ton of movement from the babe in the last couple of months. He or she is very fond of my ribs. I haven't noticed a pattern as far as when I feel the most activity... whether it's day or night, but I do cherish every movement. I love it! I feel as though if the baby is moving then it must be doing ok in there. It still absolutely amazes me how far we've come and that this is actually happening to us! We've slowly been preparing the nursery... it seems like it's taking forever. People ask all the time if the room is ready or what kind of things we've bought so far and so far, nothing. In which I get a super surprised face saying -Really?! You better get going! Nope, we don't have the furniture yet, nope, I haven't bought a single thing for the baby... wow this baby is coming in roughly 3 months, maybe I should get busy?! We've finally registered though, does that count?? I guess I haven't quite hit the 'nesting' period yet because otherwise I'd probably be going crazy stressing about it. Anyway, without further ado here is the most recent belly shot at 27 weeks. It's getting huge!!

We have also decided to get a 3D ultrasound which I am SOOOO excited about! Our last time seeing the baby before it's born... it's going to be amazing. :) I'll be sure to post pictures!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year! Here's to a wonderful, exciting, and happy 2010!

Pop!

Wow time has flown, I've thought about posting about so many things these past few weeks but never got around to it. Unfortunately I only feel like doing the minimum!

This week I had the big 20 week ultrasound. What an awesome, amazing, surreal, experience. I never wanted it to end. At the first ultrasound way back around 7 weeks when I first heard the baby's heartbeat I immediately signed up on a few websites to get weekly update emails that tell you the baby's growth, development, all that fun stuff. The day I hit 20 week I got the standard email telling me the baby is around the length of a medium size banana and will weigh about 10 1/2oz. So imagine my surprise when the sonographer tells me the baby weighs 13oz!! Holy crap! This is going to be a big baby! I was also surprised to learn the heartbeat had changed drastically from my last doctor's appointment. It was at 147... interesting. All is well though and the baby looks good! Here's a good look at the little guy or girl. :)

I know it's hard to see but you get the idea! The second picture are of his/her tiny feet!

and here's the belly shot.

Have I mentioned that I CAN'T WAIT for April!?!

Welcome baby Max!

We have a new baby in the Rings family!!! Meet Max Benjamin, isn't he the cutest little thing?!

One proud papa!

He found his thumb already! :)

He weighed a whopping 6lbs 15oz! Tanya had just about given up that this baby was ever coming out. Her due date was 10/16 and had to go in to be induced on 10/22 (late at night). Luckily there were no complications and little Max was born at 6:07am on Friday 10/23. I'm bummed we haven't gotten to meet the little guy yet but look forward to a weekend with the family in just over a week. You better believe I'm taking a TON of pictures. :)

I had a doctor's appointment this past Monday for our own little baby Rings. Everything is going great so far. I've been feeling pretty good lately, eating like a horse, still having trouble sleeping and catching my breathe at times but otherwise great! :) Baby's heartbeat is 160. Last time it was at 150... seems to be climbing! I will have my 20 week ultrasound on November 16th. We are so excited to be able to see the baby!! Finally! Normally at that point we would find out if the baby's a boy or girl but sorry to disappoint because we aren't finding out! It's a surprise for everyone! :) Although I have a strong feeling, at this point, that it's going to be a girl. Could be the heartbeat that's leading me to believe that... could be that I feel karma is going to come back and bite me in the butt for being such a rotten hormonal teenager to my parents! Never-the-less we will be happy either way, boy OR girl!

So without further ado, here I am at 17 weeks...

No fat jokes, please! haha, just kiddn':)

Life comes at you fast.

I had my doctor's appointment last Monday for the breathing thing, she gave me an aerosol treatment at the office and sent me home with an inhaler. Not quite sure what's causing this problem but it could be stress induced. Who knows... maybe it's just physically and emotionally hard for me to just let go at the end of the day and not care if the dishes get done, or if the floor has shoe tracks all over it, or what's the first thing I need to do when I get to work tomorrow. It also doesn't help that my husband yells at me for ACCIDENTALLY breaking the chain on our new ceiling fan in our bedroom. I mean it was an accident, it hangs low, and I ACCIDENTALLY bumped it while ruffling the blanket. It's not unusable and can be fixed... I feel horrible as it is. oopsey!! Anyway, so the inhaler has been helping, but my mind keeping me awake at night is not.

As far as the pregnancy goes, I've been feeling pretty good! I am very happy to report that I have more energy, food no longer makes me sick to my stomach, and I can stay up longer at night. yay! :) Actually my appetite has been out of control... hello baby weight! I have however been experiencing major sinus congestion, apparently this is totally normal. It's amazing what is 'normal' when your pregnant... nose bleeds, sensitive to smells, acne - oh I've got loads of that, insomnia, forgetfulness, etc. I've got it all! :)

...and this is me at 14 weeks.

So I believe Matt and I have decided on a nursery wall color and overall look. I'm so excited! We're going to paint the walls a color called Nightfall. It's a pastel silvery bluish color. Don't worry it's beautiful. :) The instant I saw it I loved it. Then I'd like to add some bright green accents, things like curtains, a lamp, bedding... stuff like that. I also kind of want to do a nature sort-of theme, something simple though. I found this gorgeous wall decal on etsy.com and I'm so happy that Matt likes it too!

LOVE IT. It's the little things that make life fun. :)

Well unfortunately life isn't all paint swatches and awesome wall decals... Matt's car got crunched this past weekend. Thankfully is is A OK but the poor Nissan is not. He got rear-ended which completely took off his back bumper and the trunk hood is totally smashed. The guy behind him was not paying attention and rammed into the back of his car which then caused Matt to lightly tap the car in front of him. I cannot begin to say how incredibly happy I am that he, and everyone, is OK! No one was injured and luckily everyone had insurance. So until the car gets fixed he has a fun little G6 to jet around in.

I feel like I was going to write about something else but I just can't seem to remember! Go figure!! Until next time...

weekend update

This past week has been a whirlwind. I guess I should start with last weekend... we made a very quick day trip to Pittsburgh to attend my sister in law Tanya's baby shower. It was a very nice party and I'm so glad we got to see Ben and Tanya one last time before the baby is born. She's only two weeks away from her due date.

Of course I had to get a belly shot, who knows if we're ever pregnant again at the same time! So this is me at 13 weeks and Tanya at 37 weeks. She looks so good for being 37 weeks pregnant! I look like I'm just a wannabe. haha. :)

Work has been ca-rrrrrrrrazy busy, but good. Yep, nothing more to be said about that!

Today we attended the wedding of Matt's cousin Dave and his gorgeous bride Christy. It was such a beautiful ceremony and they are such an adorable couple.

Aw, I just love weddings. :) Congratulations Dave and Christy!!! Love you both!

And here is where I tell you more about my problems. :)

So in the midst of all of our busy-ness I've been dealing with some annoying health issues... yeah I have more than just morning sickness! It seems that almost every night I lay down to go to bed I start having problems breathing, can't catch my breath, yawning constantly to get oxygen, taking deep breaths every couple of seconds, my lungs feel so incredibly tight and it makes me panic a little... this usually makes it really hard for me to fall asleep at night... as you can imagine. There have been numerous occasions where I've woken up at 1 and can't go back to sleep until around 4 because of this breathing thing. It's awful. I've had this 'problem' for quite some time now (waaaaaay before I was pregnant so that has nothing to do with it). I've tried to do my own remedies to help take care of this, like drinking tea before bed to try and help me relax, take a nice warm shower, you know things like that. I just can't seem to shake it. Nearly every night it happens, I don't know what causes it. I talked to some other people in the healthcare field and they thought it might be stressed induced which I could totally believe and there for a while I thought that's what it was, my job has been super stressful, I've got a lot on my plate, worried about the pregnancy.... well I'm at the point where I feel like I'm in control of what's going on with my job, and since we've heard the baby's heartbeat I'm feeling better about that stuff but yet I'm still having trouble catching my breath at night. What on earth could it be?! All of a sudden I've developed asthma that only hits me at night??? Ahh, it's so frustrating and exhausting. Well I've finally decided to go see my doctor about it and thankfully my appointment is tomorrow. I can't wait to hopefully get a solution to this!

Ok and that concludes me telling you about my problems. Thanks for listening. :)

Lucky number 13?

13 weeks. I can't believe I am 13 weeks pregnant. I kind of wish I could've slept through the past 4-5 of them though. You know in my last post how I said I had felt sick but hopefully I was in the clearing? Boy was I WRONG. I'm feel like I have a constant hangover that just won't go away. Oh yes I said hangover, but have I had one single drop of alcohol in any way? NO WAY! But you know what I'm feeling now, right?

The constant feeling like you're going to throw up but your either not quite there or your trying to prevent yourself from getting there. (please don't throw up, please don't throw up...)

Headaches. Constant slap across your forehead headaches.

You can only eat the blandest, driest, most carb filled food out there for fear of getting sick on something else. Oh and are sure you even want to eat something? It might put you over the edge and your stomach might just decide - WRONG! You shouldn't have ate that, NOW YOU MUST PAY.

You just want to sleep, but sleeping isn't so easy because you feel so terrible. Still praying as you lay there, please don't get sick, please stomach, just feel better!

You see where I'm going? Imagine that every night from 5-9 (or whenever I go to bed)... I'm experiencing it right now actually that why I can be so descriptive. :)

Oh please stomach just feel better! I remember when I used to enjoy my food and enjoy trying new things! Now? I'll just take a bowl of cereal or some mashed potatoes, thanks.

Don't get me wrong here, I am SO FREAKING EXCITED AND HAPPY TO BE PREGNANT! But please please God, let me enjoy it. Please let me feel well enough to stay up past 9:30 and please let me have my good days back. And I mean GOOD DAYS..... you know, the days where I used to come home and run 3 miles and feel awesome! Then I'd eat dinner and not regret every single bite I put in my mouth fearing that I might see it again later. Being able to go to bed without taking 4 Tums, 2 Sudafed, and 1 Pepcid.... Oh please please!!

What to expect...

WE'RE EXPECTING!!!!!!!! That's right, Baby Rings will make his or her debut early April of 2010! We are SOOOOOOO excited!!

I have been waiting to post for a while until we heard the heartbeat, then we wanted to personally tell our family and close friends rather than reading it on a blog. Although who the heck reads this thing anymore anyway!?!?

So those few that know know we have been trying to conceive for almost three years. It was a looong process as well as a huge emotional and physical struggle but the end result is, of course, so rewarding and we are so incredibly thankful to be welcoming a baby into our lives! We couldn't be happier!!

So how am I feeling? What's going on in our lives? Well the first few weeks (and this might be TMI so read on only if you're super interested in details :) ) I was super bloated, uncomfortable and crampy. This was after our last fertility treatment.... so I just felt like something was different. I had never felt that way for so long in my life! Around week 4 I took a pregnancy test (3 to be exact) and viola! The treatment worked (finally!!!!) and we're pregnant!! YAY!!! We quickly told our parents and families because we were just over the moon that this was even happening. Sometimes I still just can't believe it. I called my infertility doctor and they quickly told me to come in and get a blood draw to check my HCG level (the pregnancy hormone) to make sure it was elevating as it should be. Good news is that it was elevating appropriately so that definitely confirmed that I was pregnant. Over the next week and a half I had two more blood draws taken, again, to make sure my HCG level was continuing to rise. Everything was looking great!!! Around 7 weeks we went in for the first ultrasound. I feel so incredibly lucky to have been able to have an ultrasound at such an early stage. Normally they only do a doppler ultrasound (so you can hear the heartbeat) between 8-12 weeks. The first concern going into the ultrasound was (1) is there a heartbeat and (2) are there more than one heartbeats? This was a concern for us because I had been taking a high dosage of fertility drugs which increased the possibility of multiples. I thought I was going to pass out before I even got to the waiting room.... I was prepping myself just in case of a miscarriage but also what if there was more than one baby in there?! I was a wreck! Ultrasound confirmed there is one baby and one heartbeat. :) It was the most amazing and surreal experience to be able to actually SEE the little tiny baby bud and actually HEAR the heart beating!! AH-MAZING. Tears of joy all around!!!! And here's a picture of our tiny little offspring at 7 weeks! :)

Not too much to see but to us, it's a miracle picture! :)

Over the next few weeks I started to finally feel the 'morning sickness' (and headaches!!)everyone had been warning and asking about, only it lasted pretty much all throughout the day. Thankfully we were in North Carolina on vacation for a week of it so I didn't have to be miserable at work. This past Tuesday was the last time I felt really sick. (knock on wood) Headaches still come and go but I can definitely deal with that!!

I am now in my 10th week and everything is going along wonderfully! I have my first appointment at my regular Ob/Gyn's office on the 21st. I cannot wait until I get to hear that little heartbeat again!

Thank you to everyone for your love and support and I'll keep you posted along the way!!!! :)