The Big 3-0

That’s right, we’re already at 30 weeks! And I thought turning 30 was scary. What an eventful month this has been in the Viscasillas household – although I have a feeling they’re only going to get more crazy from here on out!

This nesting thing really kicks in at high gear when it arrives! September was a busy month for Matt but I made sure to make the most of every minute I had with him. As I write this, we’re completing the first major step in getting a nursery set up by having our office, aka storage room, cleared out to make room for Connor. Connor’s bedroom used to be upstairs next to ours but after a little bit of selling, he’s now excitedly making the move to the lower level where he plans on making a little man cave out of the family room and his new bedroom. Hearing how excited he is, I’m not sure he realizes that the rules of bedtime and video games will actually follow him down the stairs, but I suppose a little man can dream of all things a man cave should bring.

Once we have Connor moved downstairs, our next step is to have the flooring in half of our house ripped up and new flooring put down. Once the floors are done, we just need to paint the nursery, purchase nursery furniture, put together said furniture, gather all the supplies that took us 8 hours to register for (indecisiveness and Type A are really a horrible combination when registering) and just like that, we’re ready for Baby V!

Speaking of Baby V, she’s also had a very busy month! She FINALLY decided to let us feel that she really is in there! I found out in our first ultrasound that I have an anterior placenta, which means that my placenta is actually covering the front of my stomach rather than being more hidden in back or top. They warned me early on that I will not feel her movements like most people do and that the first movements I should expect to feel are ones where she’s grown enough strength to actually be seen from the outside. So I skipped right over the flutter stage I hear people talk about and one day felt a very clear solid kick! Just a few days later, Matt was able to feel it strongly on the outside and join in my excitement! Thinking about it, although flutters would have been neat, I really love the fact that Matt could simultaneously experience such a big event in the pregnancy.

As for me, I’m seeing more of the inside of a doctor’s office lately but all for good reasons. Between the glucose test, the second glucose test and the every other week appointments, I’m wishing they had a frequent visitor punch card because I’m sure I’d be up to a free eye chart by now. Unfortunately yes, you did read it correctly that I had to go through the long three hour glucose test after failing the first short one… by just a few points. Bummer but another yummy (yes, I loved the drink) treat  and a few needle pokes later, I received the very exciting news that I had passed with flying colors. Unfortunately, I didn’t receive such exciting news when my hemoglobin results came back very low. We had been watching that number drop since becoming pregnant so this dreaded news was not much of a surprise but definitely not one I was looking forward to. Luckily, however, I’ve been on the iron supplements for a few weeks now and have felt very few side effects. Here’s to hoping they’re doing some good while staying in the background.

That’s our month in a nut shell! This next month brings lots of more exciting steps as we have two baby showers, daycare visits and childbirth classes!

Baby News: It's A.....

It's a boy!
That's right.  The news has spread around the world and citizens everywhere are in a frenzy over the Royal baby.   In more local news, and much more importantly; the second in line to the throne of Viscasillas is an Heiress!  Yes, Kristie and I are excited to announce we are having a girl!

Kristie and I had her appointment for the ultrasound a few weeks ago.  After tallying votes from friends and family, the odds were leaning for a girl, but We were convinced it was a boy.  Perhaps it was our attempt at reverse psychology, or perhaps we just chose to go against the mainstream.  The ultrasound was performed by an intern - although honestly I think she was more like a Resident.  She was quite patient as the not-yet-born Viscasillas felt the need to get into the "Tornado Drill" position and face Kristie's spine, kick around wildly, and then roll again just out of view of the imager.
"Your baby is being...funny" she said through good-humored gritted teeth. It seemed as though she knew she was being watched and stubbornly decided she didn't want to play along with it (whose side did that come from?).  After taking measurements of femur length, cranium size and stomach circumference from the grainy black and white blobs of images she then moved the ultra-sound image into position to answer the big question: Boy or Girl?  Once again, Baby V refused - twisting, kicking and rolling.
"I'll have to get my instructor" said the intern.
After the intern left the room, I joked to Kristie that it must be a girl if it's being that stubborn.
The instructor came in and took some additional measurements and other stuff that Ultrasound techs do and then began the process of making the baby cooperate.
"If we can't make it move, we move you!" she said with a smile.  Over on the side goes Kristie, a minute later we get the news, "It's a girl, congratulations!"
As soon as we left the appointment, Kristie and I headed to Babys R' US to pick out a couple of outfits, debating whether the current season of fashion will be warm enough when She arrives in December.  Names have now been bouncing from the "we like this one" list to the "let's put that one on the Reserves list", and sometimes bouncing back onto the "We like this one" list again.
As much as everyone is dying to know the names we are thinking about; we are going to keep you in suspense until Baby Girl V (BGV?) is born and has officially been given a name =)

This is a delayed post. I have had it written for a few weeks now, just forgot to finalize it. More to come sooner than later.

FAQ of the first 18 weeks

Wow, how time flies! Here I am writing my first blog post and we’re already almost half the way through the pregnancy!  I had intended on writing the initial post and having it be a little more detailed when we belatedly realized we needed to write it one night when we just couldn’t hold on to our news any longer. Matt ended up having to write the first post as I laid on the couch next to him. Yes, I played the P- card.  

I figured the best way to do my “catch up” post was to answer some of the questions that people ask Matt and I when we tell them our news. 

How far along are we? As of today, we are rounding the 18 week corner and will be 19 weeks on Thursday! Our due date is still set for December 5, 2013.

Is Connor excited? Beyond excited. Connor had been asking Matt and I for the last couple years “when are we going to have a baby?” Yes, “we”, a family event. I can’t tell you what a relief it was to know that Connor was excited for Baby V before Baby V was even in the planning stages. He was excited when we told him the news, even more excited when he realized he was one of the first to know… and then became just a little leery when he learned the answer to his first question of  “when will its birthday be?” Baby V’s due date is about three weeks after Connor’s birthday and Connor has let it be known in the past that he is not okay with having other birthdays around his. Being someone that LOVES my birthday, I can’t blame the kid! Matt and I did take some care to make sure that Baby V and Connor wouldn’t have a shared birthday but the estimated due date is just a little earlier than we originally hoped so now it’s up to me to make sure this baby stays put until it’s due! 

How are you feeling? Eh. I try to be as positive as I can with this question but ask any more details after my “Okay” answer and you’re at risk for some TMI. I’m told this is the “honeymoon” part of pregnancy. I suppose if you compare it to the portion of our post-honeymoon where we felt like we could lay in bed for a week just to recover from the 20 hours a day of walking and stress of foreign countries, then yes, I guess honeymoon it is. I started feeling sick around 9 weeks and have felt like I’m on a rollercoaster ever since then. The nice part for me is that my sickness is evening sickness. I feel absolutely fantastic all day long at work and have noticed very little change in daytime routine. The not-so-nice part for Matt is that my sickness is evening sickness. Usually right around the time Matt walks in the door from work, I’m finding myself down for the count.  For the first 4-6 weeks of feeling like this, I was constantly analyzing everything I had done in order to find a cause and effect pattern. I ate lunch too early/too late. I ate only fruit today/I didn’t eat any fruit today. I need more carbs/I ate too many carbs. I ate too much/I ate too little. Finally I started listening to the gentle reminder that I had been getting daily from Matt:  “Maybe it’s because you’re pregnant.”  Fair enough.

Will you find out what you’re having? Did you read my answer to how I’m feeling? You may have noticed with the cause/effect analysis that I’m a bit of a Type A so…heck yes we’ll be finding out! I’m way too much of a planner to not find out. I’m sure I could plan a lot without knowing, but honestly I’m also way too antsy to not find out. Luckily Matt shares this curiosity with me! Our curiosity will be satisfied very soon but we have not yet decided when we will be relieving everyone else’s curious state of mind. Do you have a guess on what it is? So far it’s about 80/20 for one over the other but I’m not telling which way the scales are tilting!

How did we find out we were pregnant/How did I tell Matt the news? This wasn’t our first go around with a pregnancy test. In fact, we had come to know them well enough that it was killing the frugal side of me so I had bought some cheapie tests to use - benefit being earlier positives, downside being the results were very faint. I had previously been thinking of two special ways to share the news with Matt but those went out the window when I started to get faint positives near the end of March. I had started testing way earlier than they recommend but was too excited to not immediately show Matt these faint positives. Of course, they were so faint that it ended up with us playing a game of let’s see what it looks like in … the bedroom light? closet light? kitchen? rotate it a little bit this way. maybe if we turn our heads, look at it from a foot away and use natural light? Not to mention taking a photo of each test and comparing to the previous day’s photo.  Needless to say, we had looked at enough tests to be cautiously optimistic but not yet ready to accept the excitement. 

I woke up to work from home one Friday morning and decided I just couldn’t wait another day. With Matt still in bed, I took out the big guns – a digital test. It didn’t take long to flash PREGNANT at me! No need to analyze this one! Now how to tell Matt? Given that it wasn’t even 6am, I thought I’d let Matt sleep a little longer while I worked. Finally at 7, I decided it was late enough and I had come up with a plan on how to make some fun out of the news. Some of you may know what a very hard sleeper Matt is and the trouble that I have had waking him in the past. I decided to use this groggy state to make the news exciting despite him probably expecting it. 

I went into our room, sat on the edge of the bed, placed the test next to me, and tried to wake Matt up. I could tell he wasn’t very awake but once I saw movement, I told him that I had tested that morning but couldn’t read it very well and wondered what he thought it showed? (this was an all too familiar line for us by now.) Matt reacted alright. He turned over, groggily looked at the bed and exclaimed “whatsitdoingonthebed! WHATSITDOINGONTHEBED!?!” Well, that certainly wasn’t what I was looking for a reaction on.  I was laughing but still managed to tell him to just pick up the CLEAN test and read it. He picked up the digital test, said “huh? It says pregnant.” (using a “what do you need me for” tone) …Wait for it… face lit up, “IT SAYS PREGNANT!!!” Now he’s awake! 

A few months ago we found out we will be getting an early Christmas gift this year!   A few days after celebrating our second wedding anniversary, we were excited to find out that we were pregnant (well, Kristie is)!  Our due date is currently December 5th which puts us in week 15.

Our plan is to update this as we go and we will be adding some more details here shortly, but we were excited to finally get the word out.

Check back here often for the latest news.

Stay Tuned!