First OB appointment

Short story.  Baby's great.  Mommy...not so much!

I had my first appointment with the Nurse Practitioner on Friday.  Baby #4's heartbeat was just galloping away at 174bpm.  She was a tricky little thing to hunt down.  We found her for a couple of minutes, but she maintained enough of a distance so that the doppler wouldn't actually read how fast her heart was beating.  We could hear it, however the doppler just couldn't count it.  So the NP had me place my hands under my butt to try to tilt her closer.  Sure enough, that worked! 

As for me, well, the morning sickness decided it would make a late arrival compared to my last two pregnancies.  It hit with a vengeance about two weeks ago...right at about the time that it would normally start subsiding for me.  Ick.  Add to that, I was blasted with a nasty head cold a little shy of a week ago and I sometimes feel like a train wreck!!  Oh well, I'll deal.  Just hoping that within the next couple of weeks, the morning sickness will be gone, the cold should definitely be done, and I'll feel like a brand new person!!

All about Livi

What can I say about sweet little Livi.  She has such a tender heart.  She's so caring, attentive and polite.  I'm not quite sure where she gets her manners from, but she's so quick to spout out a "thank you, mama" or "I'm sorry, mama."  We work on our manners, but at times she takes it to the extreme.  If she so much as walks too close to you she'll stop and apologize!! 

Livi is our little Mother Hen.  She is very nurturing and gentle.  She's the first one to ask what's wrong.  If I'm laying on the couch, she's the one who will take the time to cover me up with a blanket.  She was that way with Elli.  She always made sure Elli had her blanket and if Elli started to cry, Livi was the first one to find a nuk for her.

Despite the kindhearted little soul that she is, she is also learning to stand up for herself.  Six months ago, she used to let Addi walk all over her.  But not anymore.  And in all honesty, she can now sometimes be an antagonizer!!  I vividly recall her stealing both of Addi's teddy bears, louding proclaiming "my teddies, MY teddies!" until she caught Addi's attention, then it was a full out sprint down the hallway.

Livi enjoys both group play as well as solitary play (when Addi will let her be alone that is!).  She still enjoys watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas even though Christmas is long gone.  She loves, loves, loves crackers...of almost any kind.  When she asks if she can have a snack, you can pretty much guarantee that she'll be asking for crackers.  Then it's a matter of figuring out which kind since she loves them all!!

She loves white milk but will not touch chocolate milk.  She loves peas in the pod and eats them whole but is fairly indifferent to any other kinds of peas...sometimes she eats them, sometimes she refuses.  Her typical breakfast food is waffles.  Every now and then she'll surprise me and ask for cereal or pancakes.   But for the most part, she's a waffle girl.

Bottom line:  She's a keeper!!

Feeling lazy

The title speaks for itself. Low motivation lately. Partly due to pregnancy. Probably partly due to the weather. And partly due to many other things. So here are a few recent snow pictures. Who said you shouldn't eat snow? That's what being a kid is all about, right?

Debut of Baby #4

Here she is!!

Baby looked great today.  She was measuring 5 days ahead of schedule with a very strong heartbeat of 163bpm.  The girls were with us at the appointment.  They both said that they wanted a baby sister.  So for the rest of the pregnancy, I will probably be referring to the baby as a "she."  Just like with our other pregancies, we won't be finding out the sex of the baby until the big birthday.

So all is well.  I continue to not be as sick as I was with the other two pregnancies but much, much more tired.  The girls are excited.  They know there's a baby in mommy's belly but that the baby has to get a lot bigger before it can come out to play.  It should be interesting to see how many times they go back and forth between wanting a brother or a sister before the baby actually gets here!

New Year!

With a New Year comes new news...

We're expecting Baby #4.  Now this isn't necessarily new news for people who know us in real life because the word has been out for about a week now.  But for everyone else, it's new news!  I'm 7 weeks pregnant today, due August 22nd.  Last week, we had a confirmed heartbeat.  I was in the Emergency Room for a completely unrelated issue (I was lucky to get the stomach bug for Christmas...I must've really made Santa's naughty list!) and they decided to do an ultrasound while I was there.  So we got a brief little glimpse at a flickering heartbeat.

However, I do have a scheduled ultrasound lined up for Monday, January 9th.  We'll be able to confirm that there is just one baby and make sure that the heartbeat is reassuring.  Hopefully I'll have at least one picture to share then.

I'm feeling okay.  Out of the three pregnancies, this is probably the least sick I've been (knock on wood!).  It tends to come in waves.  But overall, I really can't complain.  I am, however, more tired than I was during the other two pregnancies...that I remember anyway!  Heck, I'll take the exhaustion over morning sickness any day!!

Anyway, this is the first year since I started the blog that I didn't do a "Year in Review."  I thought about it, but I just couldn't.  Come June 2011, I simply would not have had the words.  So I opted out of doing it.  I went back and forth on that decision, but ultimately realized that as much as I loved doing the yearly reviews in the past, 2011's would've been far too painful.

Here's to 2012!  I'm excited it's here.