19 week belly photo

Here is the 19 week photo I promised. I cut off my head because I wasn't looking to cute that day since it was around mid-night when the photo was taken.

So here is the official documentation of my growing belly at 19 weeks.

20 weeks

We're half way there!!!

Now I know I promised to post some belly photos, and we did take them, but Jeremiah always takes my camera to work and I never have it here with me to download to pictures.  Better than a belly picture though, is this cute profile picture of Baby Eli...

And this shot confirming that he is in fact a little boy, something my sister was skeptical about since our "gender reveal" ultrasound was done at a mall rather than a doctors office.

Now that I am 20 weeks and half way there I am getting so excited to just hold our little baby and start our new life as a little family together.  I am beginning to wonder more and more what he will look like and who he will take after.  Will he have dark black hair and light light skin like Jeremiah or will he have olive toned skin and light brown hair like me.  Maybe he will be a red head with pink skin and blue eyes like my dad and grandmother.  Whatever he looks like I am sure that he will be the most beautiful baby I have ever seen.  After all I think that my precious pug Madeline is the most adorable dog I have ever seen and so many people complain about how ugly she is, she truly has a face only a mother could love.

So at 20 weeks, I am feeling really good and really starting to feel the little guy kick.  The other night I was sitting in bed playing words with friends or reading blogs or something and I had my iPad resting on my belly when all of a sudden Eli kicked and I could see it plain as day right through my belly skin.  Kinda freaky but so cool!  Guess he didn't want me resting anything on him :).  Since then I have felt a few real kicks throughout the day but nothing regular yet.  My belly is definitely starting to be noticeable and doesn't just look like I have a gut from too many bean and cheese burritos.  I haven't had any real food cravings yet but hot dogs are really starting to call my name; what's funny is I don't really even eat hot dogs but since I can't have them, I WANT THEM!

Overall, things are really good and we are very excited.  Also, I hope that really soon I will have more house projects to share.  I still have a few things I want to finish before I start Eli's room so that when he gets here I will feel at peace with my surroundings, right now I am loathing my unfinished master bedroom :(.

Whats in a Name?

Well folks, we decided on a name.  Actually we decided some time ago but I was letting it sink in and well, it has.  The name of our baby boy is...

 

Now of course you are wondering what the story is behind both of these names, so here they are...  

Lets start with BUSTER.  Jeremiah really wanted to give our baby, if a boy, his grandfathers name.  The day we found out that we were having a boy it became official that his middle name would be in honor of his maternal grandfather.  We were calling friends and family and telling them the exciting news and when Jeremiah called his grandparents in Texas he told his grandfather that we were going to give our little boy a middle name that honored him, his name is Louie Woody (nickname Buster).  Jeremiah asked his grandfather which name he would like best for us to use, Louie, Woody or Buster and his grandfather responded, "Well I sure do like Buster" and that was it.  I will admit, I had some strong hesitations but what was I to do since he had basically promised to his grandfather just minutes after we found out that we were having a boy that his middle name would be Buster; I thought that maybe we'd discuss it first.  Well, I didn't really say anything but a few days later at dinner with some siblings, we were all teasing Jeremiah, later that evening when we got home I told him that I was sorry that we were teasing him and that we would discuss the middle name Buster.  Then, completely out of character for Jeremiah, he looked straight at me and said, "Sally, there is Nothing to discuss", not in a mean way or angry way, just really matter of fact.  Right then and there I was sold, if he felt that strongly about it and loved it that much then I loved it too.  You see, Jeremiah is very strong willed about certain things in life (faith, family, morals) but usually he lets me make decisions and pretty much goes along with what I want.  You know, "honey what color should we paint" his response "what ever you want"..."Miah, do you want to go to Italy or Bahamas for our honeymoon?" his response "what ever you want".  So when he told me that there was no discussing this, I knew it meant a lot to him and that Buster was set in stone.  Of course some people still give us a hard time about it but it has really grown on me and I am excited to name our little boy after a man that is very important to Jeremiah.  His grandfather was really the person that instilled Jeremiah's faith in him and both of his grandparents really mean a lot to him so I will be honored to have a son named after such an important person to our family.  

As far as Eli goes, I was pretty sure that I wanted to pick something simple yet unique.  I wanted a name that was not overly used but of course that went with the middle name Buster.  I played with lots of names that I had always thought about but none seemed to fit.  Then one day I heard the name Eli, not sure where I heard it but it kind of clicked and felt like it fit.  It even works out that Eli is a Biblical name, although Eli in the Bible ends up falling off a rock and breaking his neck but we won't dwell on that part, so it fits with the name Jeremiah and all of his brothers names (Jesse, David, James, Joshua).  I am very excited to have picked out a name and it is just one more step to meeting our precious little boy. 

P.S.  thanks for all the kind comments, I really am fine and while the anxiety comes and goes a little, lately it is more concentrated on this weekends wedding.  I just want to get through these weddings and be in September :).  I really do think it just has to do with what ever is going on at the moment but it is not that serious, I just thought I would share and see if it was "of the norm".  I am still very much enjoying myself and my pregnancy and I think I even felt the baby kick on my hand this morning, I may have been totally imagining it but I really think I did.

P.P.S  I am 19 weeks today so hopefully I will take a 19 week picture tonight and get it posted soon, lets be realistic, next week.  I have flowers waiting to be made right now, a wedding to set up tomorrow, my wonderful friend Lisa's 30th birthday tomorrow and Easter on Sunday.  But you never know, maybe I will stay up late tonight and post a pic ;)

Anxiety

Warning:  LONG blabbing post with lots of run on sentences :)

I have been having some major anxiety lately and I hope that by writing it all out this post will serve as a kind of therapy.  I am not sure where the root of the anxiety comes from (well I guess besides being pregnant) but it has begun to go beyond just regular anxiousness.  I see my belly and I get anxious, someone mentions my pregnancy and I get anxious, I think of all the weddings I have between now and August and I get anxious.  I can't put my finger on one thing in particular that gets me feeling this way.  It makes me wonder if I am weird, is there something wrong with me?  I am so incredibly excited to be a mommy to this little boy growing inside of me but at the same time something has me all freaked out.  I know for sure that it is not the actual taking care of a baby idea, I feel pretty prepared for that with 13 nieces and nephews and 3 cousins I cared for when I was younger, that doesn't make me scared or anxious at all, it is something else lingering in my mind. 

I almost want to say it is either the attention of the pregnancy or the idea that something could go wrong or maybe that I am really no longer a child (haven't been for a long time but still the idea of being "grown up" is kinda freaky).  Looking at all 3 freaks me out I think.  First with the attention thing, I am not sure why but people noticing I am pregnant kind of weirds me out and I can't figure it out, then that freaks me out cause I am weirded out and think there is something wrong with me.  Maybe because it is such a new experience to be on this side of the pregnancy, the "you're growing a baby" thing, do I make any sense at all?

Then of course there is the what if something goes wrong anxiety.  What if the umbilical cord gets wrapped around his neck, what if my body just decides to have another miscarriage, what if I have to come home from the hospital without this precious baby I have been growing?  I have seen first hand from my own dear sister-in-law that kind of pain and that freaks me out too.  I was there for her then but I didn't really understand it, well not didn't understand, I couldn't understand.  Now it is all so close to my heart (not that it wasn't then, I too mourned the loss of a nephew but I wasn't a mother then and couldn't grasp that feeling of motherly loss) and it makes me feel like something is pushing on my chest and my heart starts beating fast and I am scared.  Even though I haven't met this little guy yet I already love him so much and the idea of not getting to be his mommy scares the heck out of me and makes me sad. 

Then there is the grown up thing, or maybe its a mortality thing, not sure.  I couldn't go to sleep last night because I was thinking about dying and how sad I'll be when my parents or my grand parents die or how Jeremiah and I are so young now but someday we will be at the end of your lives looking at death and while my faith in God and heaven comfort me, I still am scared and sad to leave my children or to live without my mom and dad or a brother or a sister or JEREMIAH.  How sad to be so close to someone and then one day they are gone, an idea I have fortunately not had to experience yet but that scares me.  This doesn't seem like it relates to pregnancy but in a way it does.  I am going to give birth to a little boy and raise him and teach him and then one day it will all be over.  When you are busy living your life you never stop to think that someday it will all be over and again while my faith in God comforts me, it doesn't change the fact that we will eventually die and it will all be over.  Am I being a total downer?  I just wanted to express and record these feelings.

So in regards to growing up, I really think that this is the first life event that puts mortality in perspective.  I mean, yes I am married and live in my own home and take care of a household and a husband but Jeremiah and I both still go to our parents house and besides the fact that we don't live there anymore, nothing has really changed since we got married.  Now, when I think about going over there with a baby, a child of my own, it makes me feel like I will be all grown up bringing my child to my parents house like my parents used to take me to my grandparents house.  It just seems so grown up and again there is that heavy chest feeling and faster beating heart.  It kind of makes me yearn for my child hood in a way, maybe because it was a simpler time and there wasn't really anything to screw up.  Now we will be raising a child and we will do the best that we can to make him the best he can be but all really have is hope that things will turn out right.  I don't want to go back to being a child because I really do love my life but it just all seems so much simpler.

Anyway, like I said there are a lot of things freaking me out but I just needed to get some down on "paper" so that I look back and laugh that I was so freaked out.  I am not going into some downward spiral of depression, don't worry, I just get a little freaked out these days.  Understandable?  Did anyone else deal with this while pregnant?  I am a pretty positive person so I usually just brush it aside and move on with my thoughts but I really did want to record these feelings. 

Honest Thoughts would be wonderful :)

1st belly photo

17 weeks in and this is the 1st "belly" photo we have taken.

I did have Jeremiah take one with my shirt up but it was just to much skin, ewww.  It is such a weird phenomenon to go from always wanting your stomach to be flat to now feeling like it isn't growing fast enough, I keep thinking "when am I going to actually look pregnant?".  Hopefully we will remember to take weekly, if not bi-weekly photos to see how the belly progresses.

On other belly news, I think I am feeling the little guy fluttering around.  Not full kicks but definitely something is moving around in there.

Headaches and Big Boobs

That's all I have to share right now.  My head has been throbbing on and off for 2 days and I looked in the mirror this morning and realized that my chest is "Out of Control!", well for me at least.  Something this eternal 34 (barely) A wearing girl has to get used to seeing :). 

Baby Boy G Nursery

So this is what I have so far.

I love it, it is the perfect mix of baby and will match the rest of our home decor perfectly.  

I actually have left over paint from when I painted the kitchen, I bought 2 gallons and only need 1/2 a gallon, so I am ready to start painting.  I have the crib which I bought brand new in the box on craigslist for $40 and now I am on the hunt for the dresser which will serve as the dresser/changing table.

I am reconsidering the rug color though because our floors are actually chocolate colored hardwood flooring so the rug would just get lost, I will probably go for something like a taupe or maybe a cool blue print design. 

For the bedding, I love the one on the picture but I think I might attempt making my own bedskirt and bumper since this one is $280 for the 2 pieces.  I think I can do it and if not, I know my aunt can :).

Besides that I just need the rocker, which is pretty expensive, and thats it.  The room is tiny so I won't be able to get much in there anyway, a few accessories here and there but not much.  Can't wait to get it started in the next few months.

Crib: Jenny Lind Crib
Bedding: Linen Baby
Rocking Chair: Carolina Cottage
Pillow: Walmart
Dresser: Eco Friendle Home
Rug: Shaggy Raggy
Fabric: Dahlia
Pictures: see this post