Best Friends Forever

Here I am at approximately 38 weeks.

I know I haven't written much about this pregnancy. It seems like it's been a pretty miserable/uncertain 9 months. But it has been nice to know that I'm growing a little playmate for Brooklyn in my belly. I love her so much already.

Just for journaling purposes, I wanted to write a little bit about the whole experience. We found out we were expecting in late March. I took a dollar store pregnancy test and there was a faint, faint line indicating positive. I thought for sure it was just the result of a cheap test because I had to squint to even tell if it was there. (And I really, really wanted it to be there!) I didn't even tell Jason about it when he came home for lunch. I told myself to wait a few more days and go buy a decent test. Well, I couldn't wait that long. I had a digital test that I had gotten for free with another package a while back. I had been saving it for when I was sure I would get a positive reading. It was the only one I had left, and since there was a faint line (sort of) on the first test, I decided to use it. I was shocked when I saw the word "pregnant!!" No arguing with that! I told Jason when he got home from work and filmed his reaction. We were both so happy!!

I was nauseated for probably the first HALF of my pregnancy. It was miserable. Finally, I discovered Unisom. I would take a half tablet before bed each night and it would keep the nausea in check for the following day... and help me sleep. =) That was a huge blessing.

When I first went to the doctor, I was given a due date of November 21st. Based on that date, they did the routine 20-week ultrasound at the end of July. However, the ultrasound showed that the baby was only about 18 weeks. Because of that, they changed my due date to December 6th. That is also when we found out that we were having another girl! I was SOOO happy! And Jason was too. He said that he thinks girls are easier... at least on the dad. Because somehow a daughter is the mother's responsibility and a son is the father's? I dunno.. but I'm glad he was happy. They also told us at this ultrasound that since the baby wasn't as developed as they thought, they couldn't get a clear look at her palate to see if it was cleft or not. We had another ultrasound a month later and everything looked great. The technician was even nice enough to pull out the 3-D machine and give us a few pictures of our baby looking like a real baby! She has such a sweet little face with perfect lips.

Anyway, shortly after the nausea subsided I had some major dental problems. I had a root canal, a crown, two teeth extracted, an infection, and another root canal all within a two-month period. There were a couple of weeks where all I did was lie on the couch with an ice pack on my face and try not to cry. I was able to take Lortab (they say it is safe during pregnancy), but I tried to take as few as possible because it does affect the baby. The billing for all of these treatments is STILL not resolved and has been a major headache.

After my teeth started feeling better, I got a pretty bad cold and was sick for a couple of weeks. Not long after I started feeling better from the sickness, Jason lost his job. They shut down the entire call center where he had been working. (He also graduated from college the same month, so August wasn't ENTIRELY bad.)

September was a traveling month for us. The contract on our apartment was up (we had moved there at the beginning of May), but my grandma wasn't ready to move out of her house yet (we live there in the fall/winter while she goes down to sunny St. George). Since Jason was unemployed and my schedule is pretty flexible, we decided to spend the month visiting family. We went to Arizona for almost 2 weeks and stayed with Jason's parents. They were nice enough to watch Brooklyn for us while we took a little vacation to Las Vegas for about 3 days. We couldn't believe how cheap it was to stay there. We got a hotel with free internet access and a pool about 2 minutes from the strip for less than $20 a night! We had a fun time, but I was anxious to get back to Brooklyn. It was the first time we had left her. She did great and loved being with her grandparents, but she has been apprehensive about us leaving her ever since. Last week was the first time she actually stayed in nursery by herself since we got back from AZ. And even then she cried for the first few minutes. That was never a problem before.

After AZ, we went to Bakersfield, CA to stay with my family for another 2 weeks. We got to go to the fair and Jason did a couple of job interviews. It was fun to be there, but it is tiring to be traveling and unsettled for so long.

In October, we moved into Jason's cousin's basement apartment. While there, Brooklyn turned 2!! She had a great day. I wrote a nice, long blog all about it that day and it somehow got lost. Hopefully I will feel like writing about it again sometime soon. She is a happy, healthy little girl. Here are her 2-year-old stats: height: 38 inches, off the charts; weight: 32.5 lbs, 96th percentile, head: 48 cm, 60th percentile.

At the end of October, we moved AGAIN. We are currently back in my Grandma's house in Lehi. During the last month or two of my pregnancy, the baby has been measuring really big. They did another ultrasound to make sure everything was okay, but who knows if that December 6th due date is accurate or not? According to my own personal calculations, it's more like December 1st. I will be induced on the 1st either way. My lovely little sister is coming for Thanksgiving and has offered to stay with me until I have the baby so that Brooklyn doesn't have to stay with a stranger. Brooklyn loves her Aunt Katy and her cousins, so I am so happy they are able to come. Especially with her fear of being left... at least she will be left with people she knows and loves.

About 2 1/2 weeks ago, I had to go the emergency room. I was having flu symptoms and a persistently rapid heart rate (around 150 at rest). They took some tests, gave me some fluids, and sent me home. I ended up testing positive for Swine Flu. Luckily, we caught it in time and I was able to take Tamiflu, which shortened the duration of the symptoms. I have been feeling exhausted ever since then... which could be from the flu or from late pregnancy or both. It has been putting a damper on getting things done, though. I just want to sleep all the time. Plus, with the baby measuring so big, I feel really uncomfortable. I haven't been able to work much because I can't sit up at the computer for very long without feeling like I'm going to break in half.

I am so anxious for this little girl to come!! The first good news in a while! Brooklyn talks about her all the time and likes to lift up my shirt to see my belly. Of course, she also likes to lift up her own shirt and show me the baby under there.

We have decided to name the baby Adalyn Grace. Naming kids is so hard!! We wanted to include the name Lynn somewhere, either as a first or second name. Growing up, I was the only one in my family without a middle name twin. My dad and brother both have the same middle name and so do my mom and sister. I always felt kind of left out. In fact, I secretly gave our dog the middle name Lynn just so I would have a buddy. What a coincidence that Jason's middle name is also Lynn!! Another happy coincidence is that Brooklyn has the name. We named her after the place we met, but it fit well with our family. So, we are going to "add a Lynn." Get it? Adalyn?? (The second n in Lynn is rather superfluous, don't you think?) We both like the name and think it is cute to call her Addy for short. The name Grace is one we considered as a first name. We like the sound of it as well as the religious significance.

We are so excited for Addy to get here!!! We've been trying to walk and clean and coax her to come out as much as possible. At most, it will be just another 10 days. Hooray!!! We'll let you all know when the big day arrives and let you see pictures of our second precious little girl.

And just for good measure, a picture of Brooklyn "taking a picture" of Jason with her "camera phone" while he takes a picture of her.

Today was Melody's birthday! Melody requested carrot cake from Paradise Bakery and it was so good! While I was singing Happy Birthday to her Brooklyn decided to chip right in. I got the camera out and tried to get her to sing it again. It's not quite as good as the first time but Mom still liked it. :-)

Neither Melody nor I consider ourselves artists but we sure had fun carving the pumpkin. We tried to get Brooklyn to help us clean out the inside but she wanted no part of it. She insisted on watching a movie instead.

We lit the candle and turned out the lights and Brooklyn started crying, "scary, scary!" This picture was taken just after we turned the lights back on, she's still pretty nervous. We took her to a Halloween store at the beginning of the month and they had a lot of cool Halloween stuff including a lot of moving and screaming Halloween things. She has been pretty leery of anything Halloween since then. It will be interesting to see how the ward trunk-or-treat goes!