Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Third Trimester Blues

Well, hello friends and family. I bet you didn't think I'd be posting again so soon. Well, my friend Erica is also pregnant and she blogs all the time and it has motivated me to be more informative.
So, I am well into my third trimester, but I'm really just now starting to feel it. I sleep ALL . THE . TIME! Monday night I went to bed around 10 and woke up for work at 5am. I came home from work and took a nap from 2:45-7:15, went to bed again around 11:30 and woke up at 8:30 this morning. I'm ready for another nap right now. I guess my sleep isn't all that restful, though, since little Sillaboy likes to move around and wake me up a lot.
Also, I can't believe how small my bladder is! I usually wake up three times a night or so to use the bathroom, not always sure I'm going to make it to the toilet, and then hardly anything comes out! One time, I got out of the shower and used the bathroom, then I got dressed and by the time I was dressed I thought my bladder was going to explode I had to go so bad again! This happened a little in first trimester - third trimester is like three times as annoying!
I also eat a lot now. Which is funny because I thought this would be the time where my stomach is so small that I can't fit a lot of food in there. But no, the other night for dinner I ate three slices of pizza, a banana and a huge piece of cake. A normal day I could barely eat two slices of pizza. I guess this little guy just loves food!
March 5 is my baby shower here in Maryland and I am super excited. My best friend Beth is coming up from North Carolina, and Josh's sister Cherise is coming from Lynchburg!! We are going to Skype with Josh's mom and younger sisters so they can be a part of the fun, too.
On another note, March 15 will be our two year wedding anniversary! We are so excited! We bought a flip camera as a gift to ourselves, and we can't wait to start filming things for the baby, and of course after he's born, we'll be posting lots of videos of him doing cute stuff. Since so many people live so far away, we figured this would be a great investment!
I suppose this post is a little boring, but I just thought I'd give an update on what's going on with us.
Love,
Mommy and Daddy Sillaman

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Wow - Long Time No Update

Again, I am the world's worst blogger. Now that it has been an entire trimester since I've updated, for which I apologize greatly, I have so much to say! Now the reason I haven't updated is because I kept thinking "I need to wait until I upload my pictures from the sonogram!" Well, we don't have a scanner, and Josh's didn't work at church, so here I am, three months and four sonograms later, finally updating. Also I finally just took pictures of the sonograms with my iPhone so hopefully they won't look too bad. Today's update is going to have LOTS of pictures. Here we go!

These are some of my favorites from our first ultrasound. This is when we found out the baby is definitely a BOY! (We knew it :)) I love how you can see his spine and chin in this picture. He is such a beautiful baby!

Here is a great profile shot - you can see his little hand next to his forehead and his cute little button nose.
I love this one. He was playing with his umbilical cord and he kicked it!
This one is our favorite - the classic profile where he is sucking his thumb! So sweet!
In December, we had a blizzard that was the worst December blizzard this area has seen since about 1960. Here are some fun shots of our cars:

Next are some updates of how we looked in December. This is when I was 24 weeks pregnant, so Josh's hair is something like 19 weeks:




At our first ultrasound, the technician had trouble seeing all four chambers of Sillaboy's heart, so we had to go back again. This time wasn't nearly as fun and our pictures weren't as good. When we went to see Dr. Richman again, he said they saw all four heart chambers and it all looked normal. Except for Sillaboy's left kidney. He had a "dilated renal phesis" or something like that, so I went back for a third sonogram. Apparently, this is something that is pretty common, especially to boys. The kidney swells up and he stores urine there. It usually means there is a kink in the tube that carries his pee. Most of the time, as their little bodies get bigger, they grow out of it. Here is a picture from our third sonogram. He's getting so big!! I love his little face! That's his arm up next to his head. At this sonogram, which was on January 11, he weighed 2 1/5 pounds! Here are som pics of Josh and me around that time:

During all of this craziness, Josh and I also moved into a new apartment. We had a tremendous amount of help from people from our church. We really saw how much people love us and wanted to help. It was amazing.
We absolutely love our new apartment! It has two bedrooms, a dishwasher - WOOHOO!! - and a washer and dryer. I honestly don't think there is any way we could have had the baby at our old place. Keith Cook, one of the men at our church, came over and painted the baby's room the day after we moved in and it looks awesome! We are trying to get everything ready for this little one's arrival. I had a baby shower in WV, where I got my stroller and carseat as well as the crib sheets! So now we have the crib set up in the nursery and everything is starting to feel so real!
We had two more blizzards this month - one right after the other. Here are some pics. This, what you can see of it, is Josh's car. The snow was about 30":


Here's the view from our deck. You can see my Jeep two cars away from the streetlight. Everything was totally buried.
The next blizzard came two days after the first, so not everything had been cleaned up yet. Here's my Jeep again:
We went to the doctor yesterday and he said that everything looked fine with Sillababy's kidney. He said it is on the "high end of normal," but I think everything is just fine. Now we have one thing left to worry about - but only a little bit. As of right now, I'm about 33 1/2 weeks pregnant, and my Sillababy is still in the breech position. That means he's bottom down and his head is still up. At this point, he really should be head down, ready to come on out of me. Dr. Richman said that if he has not flipped by himself by the time I'm 36 weeks pregnant, we will go to Labor and Delivery and Dr. Richman will try to turn him. Dr. Richman said that the success rate is about 50%, but it is higher in thinner women. The downside is, it is extremely uncomfortable for me and actually pretty painful .... so I'd rather he just turn on his own. If Sillaboy doesn't turn on his own and if Dr. Richman can't get him to turn, we will have to schedule a C-section. Of course, we'd rather not have to do this, but if we do, there are upsides. In a scheduled C-section, we'll know exactly when he's going to be born and we can prepare for it. I can also tell my parents and if my mom is feeling well, they could plan a trip to be here for the birth. So, please pray that he will turn, but if not, that we won't be scared and everything will go well.
Finally, here are the latest picture of Josh and me - I'm pretty sure we just woke up. Josh's hair is pretty wild and unruly! These were taken Feb. 9, 31 weeks pregnant, 26 weeks of no shaving for Josh:


With Love, (Happy Valentine's Day!)
Mommy and Daddy Sillaman