Pregnancy Insomnia... one of the joys

And so it begins... again. Early on in pregnancy I had sleep troubles which was an adjustment for a bit. I've always been a heavy sleeper, though because of the jobs I had in college I've been very good at being woken up in the night and being tired and still functioning fine (this will serve me well in the future as a mom) And working at the birth center certainly keeps me nicely conditioned. But then I had a second trimester full of deep sleep (still waking up tired), not waking up to pee until morning etc. which I happily welcomed. It seems those days are over. I am back to waking up, and now the real treat is, I can't fall back asleep! This morning I made it until 5:00 which is great, and then I tried reading, relaxing, and other techniques to fall asleep for the next hour... but no luck. So here I am at 6:30 and doing something semi useful with my time. I got excited that I had hit an appropriate breakfast hour so I couldn't even relax in bed anymore, I was in the cereal cabinet in no time at all. Maybe this will be the start of a new productive time for me, we'll see! I'm thinking after I write a bit I may have time to clean the downstairs quickly before going up to get ready for work.

The rest of the long weekend was lovely up here. No snow fall, but the snow remains all around us, and the cold has felt very refreshing. The best part is, I've come out two days in a row and my car has been perfectly clear in no need of scraping. Perfect! Christmas was wonderful, and we had no babies on the day so everyone was able to enjoy Christmas. Christmas at the birth center would have been wonderful too and I'm always happy to be called in, but it was nice to follow the plan we were sort of hoping for. I woke up Christmas morning and Eric made me french toast (not part of the plan but instead a lovely surprise). I claimed I wanted one piece and one piece only, but that of course did not happen and I stuffed myself on the deliciousness. I chatted with Kate, chatted with Rach, and then we opened gifts at our house. Eric got me the most wonderful bag that I have been wanting for over a year. I found it on ebay last month and after my first ebay bidding experience-- more of a bidding battle, I won and bought the bag while Eric watched the scene I was making at the computer. I think he is hoping I won't become an ebay regular after that. I made the house fall quiet while I tried to outbid everyone in the last 6 seconds... I then proceeded to do a happy dance and I tracked that package every day thereafter. Finally now it is here, and I never thought I'd be so excited about a bag. Those of you that have seen me often for the past 3 and a half years know my wonderful tote bag that I have used. It was $12 and recycled and wonderfully perfect, but it now has holes from all of the love I (and my 13 pounds of crap I haul around) have given it over the years. So it is retired for the time being and I'm surprisingly excited to have something different. I was also surprised with a pair of brown leather keen boots that I saw at REI and loved. I have wanted some new boots for a very long time and I'm so excited to have them! Mom was happy when I showed her on skype, to see that they are flat... so hopefully no more slipping pregnant lady. Although I can't make any promises as far as that goes, because I do recall the woman in the REI shoe department telling me that those boots are slick even indoors... and she's not kidding. I put them on in the house and pranced about for a bit, and sure enough slid on the carpet and spilled Eric's coffee on the floor. In my opinion the coffee shouldn't have been there :) but I guess I'll be wearing yak tracks with these boots as well! We have carpet at work so I hope I don't slip there. I also got a set of 5lb weights so I can do some of my exercises at home, earrings, and David bought me something fabulous and useful. It's an ivory hat that has earflaps that are actually a scarf-- does that makes sense? The sides of the hat extend down far enough to go around your neck as a scarf. It's really neat and will be great for going out because sometimes I forget a scarf and then regret it when my nose starts to freeze off. Denny bought me some funky and very cozy gloves and earrings that I love, and I felt at home when opening the stocking mom sent me. I'm so excited to try all of the things that came in there! I threw laundry in the machine right away and tried out my new dryer balls :)

I surprised Eric with cross country skis, which he has been wanting so badly and he was able to take those for a long ride during the afternoon. I'm very happy he's so excited about them.

Last night we spent a few hours at one of the midwives' house, Barbara, with her husband, her daughter/my friend/coworker Claire and Claire's boyfriend Mike. We were fed the most delicious dinner of salad and cioppino (tomato based soup filled with seafood-- mmm!) We then had dessert and chatted for a long time and then decided Barb should feel which way our little baby is facing because he is no longer sitting breech (yay!) we could feel his little tush but it was hard to tell where his head was, so we are thinking he must have turned head down like a good boy, but we decided we'll take a little peek this morning on u/s at work.

As far as our little Henry goes, he seems to be doing very well! They are guessing he's about 2 pounds now, and I feel him every day though he seems to be a calm boy for now. I feel him rolling around bed time, and when I wake up, and if he is truly head down then I am feeling his hands tickle under my waist band every day. I haven't been getting the usual kicks under the waistband, but it feels like a tickling/squirm so we think he is doing that with his hands. He doesn't seem to love the band of my pants but there isn't much I can do about that. I'll probably continue to wear pants for the duration of this pregnancy :) Mostly I feel his tush push out and then some little kicks on my right side.

We are in the last week of the second trimester, next week we reach the home stretch! I'm anticipating many new changes and looking forward to them (minus the less fun ones but those are part of the process) I was happy today to look at my legs and see my ankles looking normal. I should just only look at my legs in the morning, 5 am is a great time for them as opposed to late afternoon when it looks like I have consumed my weight in salt that day.

Well, I have 15 minutes until my alarm goes off which is just enough time to do a quick sweep of the downstairs... it's amazing, I JUST deep cleaned this place. You would never know by looking 2 days later.

Happy Monday to all, let's hope the day goes quickly for everyone!

Happy Holidays!

Hello all! Merry Christmas Eve to those who celebrate it, I'm having a pretty cozy one so far. More about that later, first of all I have some backtracking to do! Not that I have such overly exciting things to do, but there is something unsettling about leaving things out so I feel like I should cover the last few weeks. The past few have gone by pretty quickly... My guess is because Eric and I were able to get away for a few days last weekend, and also because between then and now I have done 4 births and that makes the weeks very busy. They make for long days, but when you sit at the end of the week and think back I can hardly find where the time went. I feel very very lucky to have gotten the births and now is the big question-- usually I like to put birth money towards big things like buying tickets home. I have been planning to make one last trip home in January before I our little man comes in the spring, because I want to see the family and meet my new niece who will be here soon! I'm having trouble deciding if I should go however. I would still really like to but I know it will be a long few flights for a short few days while I'm 31-32 weeks pregnant and swollen. It's still really important to me thought, that I see everyone and meet this new person, so I hope it works out. It's amazing how fast everything is changing, and in such exciting ways that every day I look forward to the next exciting moment and stage, but sometimes I wish I could have a tad bit of extra time to do some things like go visit home!

So my wonderful husband planned a weekend trip for us as a birthday gift to me, and since my work Christmas party (which was extremely fun!) was the weekend after my birthday, we had to go another weekend so that ended up being last weekend! We went to Girdwood, AK which is about 45 minutes away from here. It is nice and close, and somewhere we've passed through many times but we have never really explored the area. It's a small town, and a ski town so it's easy to explore the whole thing in not much time, but that makes it extremely relaxing. And it is so very beautiful! I tell you, when I picture living life in Alaska, Anchorage is really not what thrills me. But the minute you get out of Anchorage, even 5 minutes down the highway, everything changes into the beautiful place it is. The drive was gorgeous, we drive along the coast the whole way, surrounded by mountains. On the left people are ice climbing on the side of the road, and on the right is the ocean covered in ice chunks with snow covered mountains alongside. Really not a drive to complain about so we were off to a very good start! When we got to Girdwood, we stopped at a little restaurant right next to the skiing action so we could see them come down the hill, and the brunch was delicious! I most mostly in awe of the space-- it was a large house and the seating area is in the large 4 season porch area. Huge windows that let all of the light in, surrounded by snowy trees, and it was really beautiful inside. I kept telling Eric I want a house with a room like that!! It was then that I decided, (though I've thought of it before) that when we get our new couch set I want to turn one so that it faces out our back window. We have an interesting layout where there is only one windown downstairs and it goes straight to the back yard. I personally like to see out onto the street but even so, I just want to be able to sit and look outside so we will be doing this soon I hope :)

After brunch we walked into an adorable shop that had fun jewelry, clothes, little knick knacks, and baby things. We bought Henry a little onesie that seemed perfect because it reminded us of Iowa. And though this babe is going to be born in Alaska, he'll still be a little Iowan. It's a onesie with a big ear of corn on it. I'm sure that will seem a lot cuter when you see the photo of him wearing it, but really it is very cute. Eric bought me a really great hoodie as another birthday gift (feeling spoiled). It was so comfy, and FIT me! A really unique dark redish color, and on the back there are white dandelion prints going across the back. Hard to explain, but it's really lovely and it kept me so warm. We then went to the "downtown" which is one street that took us about 5 minutes to get from one end to the other. I love towns like that! We stopped in the coffee shop where a little group was playing music and we sat there relaxing for a couple of hours. I told Eric while we were there, that it's funny we feel like we don't have time to do that kind of thing anymore. We used to go to coffee all of the time together when we were dating, and now we rarely do... It's funny because we still could but it sometimes takes getting out of town to really feel like you have free time, even if you could make some while at home. It felt great, and we were entertained the whole time by a fluffy 4 month old puppy named Joe. It was easy to tell he spends the day with his person at the coffee shop every day because this 4 month old can put on an entire show of tricks. Very impressive. The man making our coffee told us they have a lot of time on their hands :)

We then checked into the bed and breakfast which was amazing. So beautiful, comfy, perfect, and we'll definitely be back there. To Mom and Denny and Mike and Ruth: I think you guys would REALLY enjoy it and I would strongly encourage you each to spend a night there sometime during your visit up here in the spring!

We had dinner at a restaurant called the Double Musky which is famous nationwide for their huge steaks. Huge indeed-- we at 16 ounce steaks at this place which were amazing. Every night of the week the restaurant is STUFFED full, both in bellies and in overall space. It's hard to even walk in there it's so busy, but so worth it. We spent the rest of the night watching movies and being cozy, and then enjoyed the wonderful breakfast and company of the owners at the bed and breakfast the next morning. Back to Anchorage, and we went straight to pick up the nursery furniture that had come in!

Eric wasted NO time putting it together, so it was done a few hours later. Over this last week the painting has also taken place as we decided to change the color of the room from yellow to a nice latte color with one green wall. So it's starting to take shape, but there is a lot of work yet to be done.

We ordered this wonderful wall decal that is a tree with an owl sitting on it--brown and green. It's perfect! I ordered it on Etsy of course, because I am thoroughly obsessed with that website and have been a little "etsy happy" recently. It came quickly and yesterday we put it on and it looks fabulous I think!

That essentially brings us to today-- it's been a busy week of trying to get Christmas shopping and such finished. We are going all out with Christmas together this year, I'm not sure how that happened but it looks like Santa hit our house with gifts. Usually that isn't how it goes, but I think it's just a special year for us and I like to justify it by saying that in the following years it will be about our little guy so this year we're spoiled.

It was so lovely to be able to sleep in today on Christmas Eve, not that I really slept in that much... I hopped out of bed at 8:30 to get ready, and Eric and I headed out for some last minute things, a trip to the grocery store etc. I had planned to put away laundry then, but instead I fell asleep for over an hour which was lovely! We spent the evening at the UU service, then came home for some homemade soup. Bekah/Ted made oyster stew, and Eric/I made cream of chicken and wild rice soup. I tried to replicate the Panera soup, but this was a little funkier. Still very good though! Eric and I took Finn on a walk afterwards which was chilly to be sure, but felt so good. I really like to get a walk in each day, but it's harder to keep that motivation when it's bitterly cold out. We had to get out one of Finn's "christmas presents" early... His feet have been getting really cold when we go out and walk on ice, and sometimes he gets balls of snow caught in his pads so I bought him booties. Of course this led to the funniest walk I have ever seen in my life which gave me a great laugh, but he caught on soon and didn't mind them at all. It's funny, it's as if the minute something warm and cozy, however unusual, touches his feet his limbs no longer work. He was walking on three legs with one back one hiked way way up, and then was wobbling the front two all over the place and he just looked plain ridiculous. But look now, he's a natural in his booties! We are home now, I'm comfy in my sweats and my big slouchy grandpa sweater :) Another thing I got during the birthday weekend. I wear a lot of slouchy sweaters usually but now that I have a belly my big sweatshirts are like spandex on me so I bought a maternity one and it looks just like something I would have before, but now it fits! Long thigh length brown sweater with toggles, I love it!

(These last 3 pictures are from tonight), I like the last one because Eric's mustache froze on our walk.

I'm thinking I'll go put the laundry away and head to bed, I just now realized it's already 11pm and I go on call at 6am... I would love another birth this weekend but I'm hoping for Sunday because I really don't want to miss Christmas! Whatever you do this weekend, I hope everyone is safe and happy.

Merry Christmas!

Birth, Guitars, and every day things!

I have tried multiple times to learn to play acoustic guitar... never once has it worked for longer than 2 days when I forget the chords I've learned all over again. This time, I am determined to learn, and I'm going to make that my project over the next 3 months until there's a little man in my life and there is less time for guitar playing! I want to learn how to strum which I'm horribly terrible at, and I want to learn a few songs by my three very favorite artists-- Brandi Carlile, Jeffrey Foucault, and John Gorka. Good thing I like slow mellow music because I can already tell you, I slow down even those songs about twice as much. At least.

Tonight Dad and I skyped for about an hour, and we both tinkered on the guitar and listened to music and I'm feeling inspired to try again! Eric, David and I played a few songs after that and after looking online I realized I really could learn to play some of my favorites, and that would make me extremely happy. So here I go!

My weekend turned out to be entirely unproductive. I made crappy pancakes because we had 2/3 of the ingredients and in a sleepy stupor I decided it would be a good idea to try making them anyway. Ew . I watched movies instead of doing laundry, but it felt nice. Eric and I took a trip to Blockbuster on Friday night, and watched a movie that night, and then Sunday we woke up and had coffee and watched a movie together. I don't know when the last time we had time to do that was, and it was great. Saturday I dusted off the cross country skis and headed out with some friends from work, Felicity, Sarah, her daughter Maddie, and Kasey. It was so rejuvinating! So Sunday we headed out again and this time brought the dogs which was extremely fun, and we went about twice as long so I got a really good workout in . I love the feeling of skiing even though I'm not an efficient skiier by any means. It will be a regular weekend activity, as I don't like to go out alone in the dark and it's dark well before I get off work. On the weekends, we caught the daylight and went during sunset around 3:30-- beautiful . Another fun activity of the weekend was going to an Irish pub to listen to a blue grass band play. My friend Kasey's boyfriend plays the bass in the band, and it was great music and great fun. I ate my share of delicious snacks which made it easier to stay out past midnight-- I was quite proud! Midnight used to be nothing for me, but now I start craving bed around 9... There are nights like tonight where I fell asleep on the couch before 9, but I bounced back and woke up for a walk with Finn and Eric and then here I am, still awake! (Not for long)

While we were skiing yesterday, I got a call saying that our nurse/friend Jen was in labor. We have been waiting for her little girl named Story to arrive, and knew she'd be here soon!

I rushed off the trail and to the birth center, and it was a beautiful night. She had quite a few of us from work there, which was different and fun. She did beyond a wonderful job, and brought a very small and gorgeous little girl into the world! Jen is a childbirth instructor as well as a nurse, she has tought hypnobirthing and now teaches birthing from within, and I knew she'd handle the experience gracefully. She sure did and it was wonderful to be a part of. We were up late, and back to work early in the morning so I am exhausted, and on that note I'll head to bed now.

Have a wonderful Tuesday. It's trash/recycling day here, always exciting! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my wonderful Stepdad, Denny.

V

Non Working Friday!

I really shouldn't act so excited, like it's been oh so long since I've had a day off. With the holiday week being a week behind us, it really hasn't been that long. But who doesn't love a day off!
I work M-Th and every other Friday, and so today is one of those Fridays where ideally I get some things done. So far, I have accomplished snoozing in bed a bit longer, then thinking of getting up, and deciding not to... Then I came down for some cereal and strawberries, watched a show and pet Finn for a while, and here I am. So far, obviously a productive day. On the agenda for the day, laundry, cleaning the house, lunch with Eric, and I may go look for some paint colors, followed by a trip to the dog park. We want to paint the stairwell, laundry room and Eric and I are going to paint our bathroom. There are constant house projects in the works, which I love. Eric and David put new kitchen flooring in which is great, and we are going to do that in the laundry room, as well as our entryway. Eric and I found a new living room set last week, so we may order that in the next couple of weeks. VERY exciting, as our current couch just must go. It's not in the greatest shape, and we're trying to make changes for a comfier cleaner nicer place before baby Lindeen gets here.
We picked nursery furniture, and that will be ordered Monday. Such exciting changes, it feels great to get moving on a few of these things. Rachel is our designer from afar, so she'll be helping us to find some curtains and other things and we'll get this little man's room rolling .
Yesterday we had a baby shower at work for our nurse Jen, who is officially term today! She'll be having a little girl any time now :) Eric's work Christmas party was also last night, and it was actually really enjoyable, and I was able to find a dress that fit, so that worked out nicely.
Off to make myself productive, let's hope I get some things done today!

cont...

Well that post probably seemed a tad anticlimactic. Somehow as my fingers hit buttons too fast, I hit the perfect combination of keys that told the computer to publish my post without my permission! Anyway, believe it or not, we did more than start preparations and listen to music :)

It finally started snowing again today, and we had beautiful huge flakes falling. Very festive and very beautiful, and refreshing after all the rain and ice!

It was a pretty relaxing morning, and then we started on our first ever turkey. It almost seemed too easy! We used a turkey bag, which ziplock makes and it made it so easy, we just shoved the bird and such in the bag, put that in a pan, and it cooked everything quickly and well. It even browned perfectly. It was so easy in fact that we thought "this can't be, let's leave it in a while longer" and it ended up being great, but we probably could have taken it out a bit before. Next time!

Everyone started coming over around 1 something. Our friend Dave, the Haussners, and my coworker Sarah and her family came to join us. It made for an extremely fun Thanksgiving, and we had so much food. Turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, corn casserole, another kind of potatoes, salad, veggies, cranberries, rolls, turnips, and 4 different kinds of pie. Delicious. After eating way too much dinner, we played some games which were lots of fun, and then somehow a neighborhood snowball fight started up. I have never seen our neighborhood look like this before, and it was really really nice, and fun for everyone. There was no difference between the kids on the street and the adults, everyone was running around throwing snowballs for over an hour. Something that has never happened around here, but now that it did tonight, I'm sure it will again! When we all came in and got dry, we played a few more games, and then everyone took off to head home. We got the kitchen cleaned up and here we are relaxing again and I'm thinking bed is in order.

So because it's Thanksgiving, and just because, I should give thanks for things in my life.

I'm thankful this year for a wonderful wedding and a wonderful husband, a healthy pregnancy, and an always exciting job to go to every day. I'm thankful for the arrival of Truett who I was instantly in love with of course, and thankful I was able to go and visit Sydney and Macy and family recently. So thankful for seeing friends in Iowa City and just having the feeling of driving around Iowa City again on a pretty fall day. I'm thankful for family and friendships and the list goes on!

I'm off to bed and hoping the turkey I ate for dinner (and just finished for snack) will help me to sleep soundly. Good night!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all! We just wrapped up our fun Thanksgiving, after a long day of activity. We got up this morning and Eric, David and I worked on some preparations and listened to music.

Photos!

So I've been asked for some photos and I said I would post some, so here they are! This first belly shot is me at 18 or 19 weeks. I can't remember, but somewhere in there. I should start keeping better track. The one in the white shirt is from today after work, at 22 weeks and some days. Now granted, it's the end of the day and no one is their smallest after a day full of snacks! But I think it has become more clear that there is more than just snacks in my belly, our little man is making a nice home in there! Definitely a noticable jump! The picture of him is from our midway ultrasound 3 weeks ago. He has always loved having his hands up on his face every time we have seen him, and he scared me by having his cord draped over his shoulder/neck. No worries, plenty of space for him to bounce around in there and not get tangled in it, but what mom likes to see the cord near the neck? So we're all happy and healthy, and Eric let me know tonight that "he's a natural" :) So I'll mention that next. Definitely worth a mention-- My wonderful husband has been SO great during this pregnancy. From the surprise of it all initially to the day to day changes, emotional ups and downs, he has been extremely caring, supportive, and is always thinking of us. We're a lucky pair to have him!

Ever changing updates!

Happy winter to all-- it sounds like it's creeping up on everyone, and it is certainly in full force up here in Alaska! Welcome dark sky, welcome snow, but no welcome to the ice storm.
That's right, we have been in the middle of an ice storm the past few days. I don't think it's as intense as a few I have seen in Iowa, but it does the trick for making every surface outside as slippery as can possibly be... not so good for the preggo trying to walk down the ice rink driveway. I learned my lesson a week ago when I went down the driveway too quickly and while trying to avoid tripping over Finn, started falling immediately. I was putting on a ridiculous display trying not to fall on my belly, or my back, or my head, or who knows how else I could have fallen at that point... After spinning my wheels for a few seconds I was able to just slide down to my knees. So close to saving it but the ice won this time. Yesterday, it was a struggle to get to work and many people (hubby included) were unable to get out. A friend and coworker of mine has a van with nice studded tires so her husband and she came to get me and we made our way to work, only to find out we were closing early. No complaints here!
I cannot believe how quickly the holidays have gotten here, but I'm very happy about it! In a way though, it sends me spinning into this unnecessary cycle of worry because Thanksgiving is here, then on to Christmas and Christmas parties, and then it's New Years, and then Kate has a baby and then it's already practically February and when we get there I'll be weeks away from having a baby... and we have done NOTHING to prepare. I realize there is time, but my point is all of these events make time pass quite quickly and pretty soon it will be hard to catch up!
I am definitely in the mode of holiday cheer, however. This weekend Eric was nice enough to humor me and so we went to Target together in search for festive decorations. He got into it pretty quickly though and we ended up going home and while I made chex mix and listened to Christmas tunes, Eric and David hung Christmas lights outside (SO excited to have those this year!) and then Eric made a wreath for our front door. He wired berries and little frosted pine cones and made a really nice looking wreath. Haussner clan came over after that and we made rolls for Thanksgiving. There's a chance I already ate my portion, but good news is we made a ton! Well I actually had nothing to do with the making, I was the taste tester. Anyway, a very festive day and it felt really nice.
Baby boy is kicking, he must know I was just about to mention him.
So on that topic, here we are at 22 weeks! Pretty amazing really, at the beginning the time went so slowly, and now I feel like it has picked up and doesn't plan to slow down. I won't complain because I'm loving all of the changes. (Well, not the ever increasing numbers on the scale, but it's all fine and normal) I have been feeling baby kicks and squirms for weeks now, and I just can never have enough. Last week for about 3 days though, I stopped feeling him as much. Maybe a few squirms here and there but really not much at all. Turns out he must have been resting through a growth spurt because during the weekend, he was more active and stronger than ever. He just barely stopped moving! Morning, day, night, none stop kicks and movements. It. Was. Wonderful.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about the nursery that has nothing in it yet, and trying to work out a plan of attack in that department. I'm finding it's just hard to get started though with so much going on. I think if we just pick out the big items, the rest will fall in place over time.
We had our second ultrasound a few weeks ago at about 19 weeks. I will post some pictures later on this evening, but everything looked great! He is most definitely a boy, and looks healthy in every way-- we are SO thankful!
His name is all picked out and he fits naturally into daily conversation, we are getting very excited to meet this one. Along with it comes all of the normal fears of becoming a new Mom however, so that stage is the one I'm currently experiencing. It's a LOT of change that we are in for, change that we are excited and ready for, but it is easy to worry about and fun to anticipate.
I hope everyone is staying warm and having a very wonderful holiday season! Happy eating! :)

Things are changing

We are constantly surrounded by change, and I am being reminded of that in every way, every day. We have had a beautiful, beautiful fall this year (which I am SO happy about) and the Alaskan winter is quickly approaching. Each day the sun rises a few minutes later, sets a few minutes earlier, and the dark is extremely dark since the snow has not fallen yet. We can walk through the park in the evening and it's hard to see other people or see the dogs. This will all change when the snow falls and things seem much lighter. But it's certainly a change to adjust to! I keep having to remind myself that I need to wear my coat (which has sprung a leak and sprays down all over the place) and that I need to get moving a tad earlier to scrape the frost off my car. I will also need to remember to carry a headlamp or some light source with me in case I end up out and about wandering in the dark!
I kind of like this in between stage, because the weather is cool and there are periods of dark, but the sun still shines for us in the afternoons and the leaves are still falling and making the fall stick around a bit longer. I wait all year for fall, so I'm not quite ready to let go.
Other changes are upon us too! I am now approaching 18 weeks pregnant, so getting close to half way. Changes this week are a larger belly that is becoming more noticably pregnant to people who don't know what my belly looked like before... Also my wardrobe is shrinking as all my pants are inches away from closing around me, and my shirts are getting a tad shorter in front. I'm still making it work for as long as possible, so we will see what changes the belly takes on in the next few weeks and a shopping trip may be in order. Also new this week, I can feel our little boy moving! It isn't regular and won't be for a while, but I can feel him a little in the evenings and sometimes when I sit at my desk at work. Just a few pokes and squiggles here and there. It's so fun I wish I could feel it all day long! Soon enough, I'll feel them more and as he grows so much bigger each week I should get more obvious kicks in the next few weeks. I cannot wait to feel what an actual kick feels like. My appetite has also changed in a big way! Until this point, I have gone through fairly common bursts with a weird appetite. Food didn't sound good for weeks, then it started to a couple of months ago and my appetite was just fairly normal, and now I can tell we are growing because I am hungry ALL of the time. I have to bring tons of snacks with me, eat mini meals, just so I don't starve during the day. Chances are I wouldn't starve, but this little one is telling me it's time to eat :) I love a man with an appetite to match Mama's!
It is sounding as though there may be a birth at the birth center today/tonight and I am on call so I'm thrilled about that! I have been hoping for another baby or two before going home to Iowa in a few weeks. I am heading home for a short trip to go to Kate's baby shower, meet my new and adorable nephew Truett, and see the fam, the girls etc! I talked to Sydney and Macy on the phone today, it has been way too long since we have talked on the phone. Sydney sounds practically like an adult with a sweet little voice, and Macy is sounding so much older! I have never heard her talk this much. She had all kinds of things to say to me, and kept throwing my name "To" in there which I just love to hear. Although I'm not excited about my flight itinerary and a few very long days of travel, I cannot wait to get to Iowa and see them!
I have the day off today, and I'm excited for that so I'm off to switch laundry, and of course, have a snack...

A busy fall!

Hello! Wow, there has been a lot going on around here! After getting back from our friends' wedding in Iowa in early September, we started a constant stream of activity. Eric's mom Ruth was up here when we got back, waiting for the arrival of Bekah's new baby Jonah. We all thought that Bek would go early and that it wouldn't be a long wait... however, it was almost 2 more weeks after returning before he decided to make his grand entrance. We spent the week waiting with anticipation, and starting some large house projects. Eric and David, with the help from Ted and a few neighbors, completely remodeled our deck! It looks so much nicer. The wood was rotting and there was a big hole where we had cut the hot tub out, and now it is a clean, lovely looking deck. They did great work. My high school friend Molly came to visit me a couple of weeks ago and stayed for a week which was great, great fun. It felt fun to have a vacation here in town, and it is always so fun to spend time with her. It was just like old times. As soon as she took off to head back to MA, Eric's dad Mike got here! That was one day after Bekah had Jonah at the birth center where I work. He was a good little baby and came in the morning so after a really nice water birth, everyone was able to hang out in the birth center, have breakfast, etc. That was a fun mix of family fun and work! Also during that week, we had an ultrasound which was amazing. We had such a wonderful time watching this little babe on the screen, as active as can be. The first thing we noticed was something sticking up, which led the ultrasound tech to believe that this baby is very likely a little BOY! So that was exciting. We loved watching him move around, wave his hands and roll around. Everything looked perfect and healthy and we feel very lucky for that! The place we had the ultrasound done was great because they gave us a DVD of the whole scan so we can continue to watch him move around, and also a few still pictures that I'll show here. We looked on the regular screen as well as in 3D and 4D. He is still so skinny that 3D was a little freaky looking, but still amazing.

Well I'm now 14 weeks, so I'm oficially in the second trimester! Feels good to be here and we're really excited for all of the changes that come soon, like feeling the little one.

Ruth and Mike are both still here, so the activity and house projects have not stopped. There are new lights going up, new floor for the kitchen and laundry room has been purchased so we will do that at some point, shelving is up in our laundry room and closet (hoping to make it a pantry!) and it's always GREAT to see the changes take place. I love house projects!

Eric has been traveling for work the past week, off and on. He leaves for 2 days, and then is home for one, and then took off again. First he went to a village called Nondalton, and now he is in Ketchikan until tomorrow. The nice bit about being in Ketchikan (other than the fact that it is supposed to be a very interesting town!) is that he at least has cell phone reception. So we can hear that he has landed, what he's up to, and that he hasn't been eaten by bears. This provides much more comfort than his other trips :)

That brings us to now and I have no other news to report at the moment! But I'm sure I'll have more to say very soon.

For now...

A lovely sounding heartbeat

So today felt like a fairly normal day, though numerous really great things happened that collectively made it a great day.
To start, I went into work today and asked one of the midwives, Barb, to listen for heart tones on the little one we call "Emby" (like emby the embryo). We have seen the cardiac activity plenty of times on ultrasound, but we haven't been able to hear it yet. Today we wanted to either hear or see it before leaving for Iowa. I don't want to do too many ultrasounds, so we were really hoping to hear the heartbeat... and we did! What a wonderful little sound! I hear other people's babe's heartbeats all the time, but it was pretty wild hearing our own. Eric wasn't there to I taped it on my phone and sent it to him right away which he was able to hear at work.
So that was a good moment.
The other lovely things were Eric surprising me by taking the afternoon off of work to come home and help do laundry and things that I wanted to get done before leaving. He folded so many loads of clean laundry, and made my evening much easier! I still have to put away the other half and start to pack, but I don't know how I would have gotten it all done and it was such a nice surprise. He also brought me lunch at work (always wonderful!) and then we took the dogs to the park tonight while the sun peaked through and that too felt really great. We didn't take a very long walk, but a good loop for the pups and they had a lot of fun. About 6 days ago Finny was walking around putting no weight on one of his back legs and we weren't sure why, but we tried to let him rest for the week. He was putting weight on it the next day, but just to be careful we took it easy all week, though it was clear he wanted to get out. So tonight, he was a very happy boy and looked completely like himself sniffing and leaping around with great youthful energy. A woman stopped and asked about him and said she could tell he was the happy pup, he had that look about him! So that brings us to now...
I am going to go pack, and for some reason it still doesn't feel like we're about to go back home! Usually it feels very real but it snuck up on us this time, so it seems crazy that we leave tomorrow night. Hope everyone had a nice Monday!
Please send positive energy towards my friend Josh Koeppel who got hit today while riding his moped. He is doing ok luckily, hoping he feels back to normal very soon!

This time I mean it!

I'm back! This time for good I hope. I never feel the pressure to write, but I really enjoy doing it, and I love the idea of people sharing stories with each other so it bothers me when so much time goes between posts on here. I must say however, that I don't have too many interesting stories to share, but that doesn't mean that I won't at some point!

So much has changed since the last time I wrote... I was just looking at my last entry (April, yikes!) where I mentioned that there were 50 more days until the wedding. I remember looking forward to the day with so much excitement and anticipation, and we are now a few months past it looking back on a truely perfect day. I wish we could do it again, just to enjoy the feeling for a while longer, spend more time with so many friends and family in one very beautiful and happy location, and have more time to talk to everyone. It went so wonderfully, the simplicity of it, it was exactly what we wanted. We had the greatest pair of photographers, Jodi and Rodney Gehman, and they captured the day and evening in exactly the way we had hoped, we have such wonderful memories to hold on to. And a wonderful start to marriage since then! We got back to Alaska and got back to work, with a quick trip to Homer, AK in between for a weekend away together. We camped on the spit one night, went to a cabin for the second night, and just bummed around town eating good food and looking around. It felt wonderful to go somewhere different up here! We spend the majority of our free time in Anchorage, and one of our goals continues to be to get out of Anchorage a bit more. Last weekend we didn't quite get out of Anchorage, but we at least made it above it! We went with a couple of friends and the dogs up to Arctic Valley, just a 20 minute drive up a mountain where blueberries are supposed to be plentiful. Well the truth is, they're not... but it was fun and beautiful anyway. We went on the more quiet side of the hill that gets less sunlight, which is probably a good indication that it isn't as great for berry picking. Both the lack of sunlight and the fact that everyone else was on the other side were pretty good hints, but we enjoyed the quiet, and the good deal of sun that we did end up getting. What we did end up picking were crow berries, which are small and a bit tart, but I really like them. Finn had such a great time running around freely on the hill, and learning to eat berries, it was really relaxing for all of us and will probably jump start a series of small trips that we will soon take. A larger trip we'll be taking next week-- is to IOWA! We are taking off on Tuesday night and will arrive Wednesday. Our good friends Erin and Justin are getting married on the 4th, and the rest of the time will be spent with wedding celebrations, visiting family and friends, and hopefully getting some actual sun and summer weather, even if just for a few days. We are all really excited to get back. I shouldn't smash on summer here... While it hasn't been the greatest in the last few weeks, this week has finally risen to the occasion and been very beautiful and warm, filled with sunlight. Before that, we had reached the record for days of measurable rain in a row, at a whopping 30 days. So you can imagine why a little bit of summer is a very exciting thought.

When we get back from Iowa, we will be just days away from Eric's sister Bekah giving birth to their second child, and first son. We are very excited about this! Eric's parents will be up staying with us for a while, and my lovely friend Molly will be up on the 13th of the month to spend some time with us. We are hoping to come up with some fun activities while she's here both in town, and elsewhere in AK. Maybe a trip to Seward is in order.

For this weekend, we're going to the State Fair, as well as deep cleaning the house, both of which sound like VERY exciting activities to me!

Other big news that most already know... We are expecting in March! It was a big surprise but one that we are very excited about, and we're already enjoying the ride. More to come on that later as we get more to tell! We had the first visit (though at work every day is like a visit), and everything is going great. I had a very busy week at the birth center last week, with 4 in one week, and 3 right in a row. I was like the walking dead after that string of births, but it was a very special few days and a lot of fun for me. Eric got to do a bit of traveling, he flew out to Ekwok for a wetland deliniation and he enjoyed that for the most part! He also attended a class in town where he spent a few days learning about deliniations, so he has had a lot of information to share with me since then on our regular walks at the dog park (one of his class days took place there)

I think that is about it! I'll be checking in more regularly I hope, with maybe slightly exciting things to report but probably not so many changes at once! We shall see :)

Happy Friday!

I'm doing better! Writing without 4 months going between. It's a busy day with births all around, meaning it's not too busy for me since I'm working in the office today rather than the birth center and all of our patients had to be moved since providers are in the births.
Just a quick sidenote-- 50 DAYS until the wedding! I absolutely cannot believe it. Thanks to Rachel (with Sydney's help) and Mom as well, things are getting done very quickly! Details are overwhelming us.
I feel like there are a lot of things that really need to be taken care of right now, but it's hard to know where to start!
I realized it has been 6 months since Kate's wedding (hard to believe!) which is the longest I've been away since moving to Alaska, so I am incredibly excited to get home and see family and friends. We will be back in Iowa for a few days in September as well for a friend's wedding, so there is much to look forward to! I'm hoping Rachel will have that baby early so I can be there :)
I thought maybe I had a lot to report, or something interesting to say, but sadly it turns out I don't. I'm very tired today, so have a wonderful weekend!

Woops...

Hello all! I'm sure anyone who may have been reading this blog, which may be no one at all? has probably stopped by now... I would like to say that I can't believe I haven't written since Thanksgiving, but I kind of CAN believe it. I love the idea of blogging every few days, but no matter how hard I try, and even if I have things to say it never seems to play out that way. I hardly have time to think, don't you know that feeling?
Work and day to day business is great-- the sun and warmer weather has made an appearance, and I am absolutely LOVING the increase in daylight every day! It's so thrilling :) And I can almost feel the energy riding in as well. Soon I hope to not be tired at 10pm, because with the daylight gaining on us I can accomplish so many more things after work!
The most exciting news... 64ish days until the wedding!! I cannot say that time has really flown. If I could I would have made the past few months and these upcoming weeks as well go a bit quicker. I know, I know, you're not supposed to wish away the days like that and believe me day to day I don't. But as a whole, I'm getting very excited for the wedding and wishing it could be right now. We only have 8 weeks to go, and about 7 until we go home. I always round down a few days just for fun :) Overall people have made this very easy for us, Mom and Rachel have been doing quite a bit for us, but now we are down to details which does in fact, prove to be a bit stressful. I think we have done well at not letting details get to us too much, but we're getting down to the wire and it feels like there is much to be done!
I hope you are all well and happy, and getting some sunshine as well. How refreshing!
Other exciting news in my life: TWO new nieces or nephews on the way! One from my lovely sis Rachel, and one from Eric's sis Bekah. I am so excited for this. Sometimes I laugh when I think how surrounded my life is with pregnancy. It feels like every person I know is pregnant. Of course this isn't the case, but almost! Congratulations to my beautiful cousin Laurel and her husband David, on their new arrival Noah... sisters, my friend Lily (whose little girl should be here any time!) friends from high school, and of course at work. Many many women at work who are pregnant. :)
I'm off for the weekend hoping for some outdoors and sun, although I'm sure there will be at least one or two births to attend this weekend. I am getting very anxious for the training to be done, I hope that with a few more births I can make my way to the schedule so I'm not on call for births all the time. I LOVE them, but never knowing when I might be at work gets interesting.
I'll try to post more often, until then...