Puerto Rico-2015

This past January, John and I were lucky enough to take a little trip to Puerto Rico for work.  We went two years ago with one company and now this time we went with a different company.  They were very different experiences.

Last time in 2013 we were at a resort in San Juan, this time we were to the east of San Juan in Fajardo.  It was absolutely beautiful.  The trip was Jan 12th-15th so four days, three nights.  It was actually a perfect amount of time.  We had a very early flight on Monday morning.  WE were up by 3:00 for our 5:30 AM flight.  We connected in Chicago and then had a 4.5 hour flight to San Juan.  We arrived in San Juan just before 4:00 local time.  We then had about an hour shuttle to the resort. Upon arriving, we got checked in, found our room and walked around a bit before the Welcome Reception.  The dinner was really good and John enjoyed the drinks.  It is a good thing this time I pregnant because it is no an all inclusive place.  Drinks were only covered when it was for a work related event.  After dinner we headed back to our room and had an early night-we were exhausted from a long day of travel.

View from our Room

The next morning, I got up with John and we went to grab breakfast before John had his meetings for the morning.  While he was in the sessions, I found a nice shady spot to try to catch up on some random things like blog posts, shutterfly books, etc.  

View for the deck where I spent the mornings.  

John got done around 10:00 AM so we decided it would be a good day to check out Palomino Island.  We had the option to do other activities but with being pregnant, a lot of them were out of the question like ATV trip, horseback riding, and catamaran trip (I was worried about motion sickness).  We could have gone on a trip to Old San Juan but we had done that the last time we were there so we decided to just take it easy and relax-something that doesn't happen too often at home.  

This resort was nestled along side of the cliff which provided beautiful views.  The picture below shows the resort from the water taxi.  There was the upper section and then the lower side and we had to use a little tram to get down to water level.  Because of this, the resort actually doesn't have a beach right there on the resort but they have a private island accessible by water taxi so we spent Tuesday afternoon there.  

The island was really pretty and peaceful.  The first spot we sat at was a little more secluded and quiet which was nice.  

My Virgin pina colada.  I was definitely missing the rum :)

After awhile we decided to grab some lunch at the little restaurant on the island and then we moved more the the sandy side of the island.  

This is a picture of the tram that took you up and down the cliff.  

When we got back to our room we discovered that our carpet was soaking wet!!  So after a few calls to management/housekeeping they discovered there was a leak in the room above us which was causing the water to seep into our room.  They ended up moving us to a new room.  After making the switch we headed to dinner with our sales rep and all of the other dealers in his territory.  Our table was filled with dealers from MN, IA, and SD.  It was interesting to hear how different businesses run compared to ours.  We decided to call it an early night again-I know we aren't too exciting.  

The next morning we woke up to our new view from our balcony.  

We headed down for breakfast, John had breakout sessions, and I hung out by the pool again.  

That afternoon we decided just to hang out at the resort vs head over the island again.  We found a some chairs by the pool and just lounged all afternoon.  It was wonderful!!   Then we headed back to our room to get ready for the banquet.  This is when our relaxing vacation turned not so relaxing.  As we were walking to the banquet room I tripped and fell on and floor outlet that was missing its cover and was located right in the middle of the hallway.  Ugh I kind of got nervous because I fell and called my Dr. just to confirm I had nothing to worry about.  The nurse immediately told me I needed to go into the hospital to be monitored!! What?!? I was not going to go to a hospital in Puerto Rico.  After talking to the Dr. the nurse called me back and said I just needed to take it easy and to go in if I noticed any signs of trouble.  Thankfully, I never did and the hotel staff were super awesome.   

They brought up food from the banquet for us to eat in the room and I just rested for the remainder of the night.  It was scary though-all I could think about was going into preterm labor, having a premature baby on an island and being stuck here until my baby was strong enough to head back to the states.  Thank goodness none of that happened but after I fell I couldn't wait to get back to the states.  

The next morning we packed up our stuff and just lounged around.  We didn't have to leave the resort until after noon so we had a relaxing breakfast and just relaxed until it was time to catch our shuttle.  

We had this yummy fruit plate for breakfast along with this amazing corn bread and then shared an omelette.  It was perfect!  

All in all we had a great time minus the incident with tripping the last night (I cant' believe I am so clumsy!).  It was good to get away and spend some time with John, we met some nice people who are in similar businesses as us, and learned some too.  

Pregnancy Update: 39 Weeks

Whoa!! One week left, although I know that pregnancies go beyond your due date and have a good feeling this one will it is still crazy to think less than a week of my official 40 week pregnancy.  I have said this over and over with the pregnancy but it has gone SO fast!  I know I haven't done a lot of updates but to be honest, I don't have a lot to update.  Most of my appointments over the past few months have looked like this:

Check in
Pee in a cup
Sit back down in waiting room
Get called back to exam room
Weight check-nothing significant although there was a time when I wasn't really gaining weight.
Sit in Exam Room and get blood pressure taken-always normal
Greet doctor
Report that I have not issues and no questions
Listen for heartbeat-always in the 130's-140's
Measure belly-always right on for the week.
Say goodbye to doctor and schedule next appointment.

Honestly, it has been all the same with one exception-I think it was at my 36 week appointment I made a comment about how I hadn't felt baby move so much that particular morning and then they insisted I do a non-stress test and of course all was well thank goodness.  

This pregnancy has been so uneventful-I hope that continues on with delivery as well as health of the baby when it is born.

My biggest complaint has been heartburn but we have that under control.  Even some of the things like bad back pain and swollen ankles that I experienced with Elsie are non-existent.  I started to get bad back pain but a single trip to my massage therapist has cleared that up.  I just am feeling pregnant :)

Here are some things that stand out about the pregnancy:
1. I am tired-I take a nap most days I am home with Elsie.  I wake up in the middle of the night and have a hard time falling back to sleep and am up for and hour or two at a time.  On the rare occasion I am able to sleep through the night.  However, I still feel like I am accomplishing a lot throughout the day.  I do miss my two hours in the afternoon to get stuff done though because I am napping.  I have also come up with a good solution for sleeping comfortably.  Poor John said he can't wait for the "barrier" to come down which is my big pillows that I used between us to support my arms when I sleep.

2.  This baby has been hanging out on my right side-it is definitely not centered in my belly and I feel all the kicks on my right side as well.  :)

3.  I crave sugar-which is so not like me-give me salty and savory but this pregnancy my cravings for sugar have been out of control.  For a while I was eating a bowl of ice cream with chocolate syrup almost every night.

4.  I haven't hit that "uncomfortable" phase yet.  Maybe it will hit this week.

37 Weeks

Me at 38 weeks 4 days!  

I had my 39 week appointment this morning and all seems to be going well.  

• Blood pressure is normal
• Heart rate was in the 140's
• Down a pound which bring total weight gain to 23 lbs
• Belly is measuring at 39 cm-right on track
• No swelling in ankles/feet
• I declined to be checked again this week.  I was worried they were going to insist that they check to see if I had dilated at all-I remember with Elsie this happening a few times.  But no, they were just fine with not checking for dilation and actually said most of the time they do it because that is what the patient wants.  They want to see if they are progressing at all.  I figure I will know if I am progressing when I start having contractions or my water breaks ;).  

My next appointment is next Friday which I will be 40 weeks 2 days at that point.  I am scheduled for a non-stress test, ultrasound, and regular appointment.  We will see if I make it that far.  My parents are coming down Thursday night so I am hoping to make it until at least then but we shall see.  

Feeling Pregnant-25 Weeks

Well I can't believe it!  I am 25 weeks (almost 26 week) along already and in the last couple of weeks of my second trimester.  This pregnancy is flying by and so far has been pretty uneventful.  I have't really done any updates on the blog so I thought I would do a quick rundown of how things have been going.

Overall, I have felt wonderful.  I never really had that "exhausted feeling", nausea has been practically non-existant, and I have felt good enough to get a run in here and there.  Really my one and only complaint has been heartburn.  It has been around since the very beginning and tums would do the trick. About 1-2 months ago that stopped working so I started taking Zantac once a day, then that stopped helping so we upped it to twice a day, well about a week ago that stopped helping too.  I have a call into the doctor and we will see what she says.  When I was pregnant with Elsie I had to go a prescription and that made the world of difference.  I would like to avoid starting that so soon but it is getting a bit unbearable.

Oh-also if you haven't heard we are having another little girl!!  We are so excited and I can't wait to start going through some of Elsie's things from when she was little and get it all ready for this new babe!  After the holidays we are going to get started on the baby's room.

My doctor's appointments have been going pretty good.  We had two ultrasounds-one at 18.5 weeks and one at 22.5 weeks.  The ultrasound at 22.5 weeks was to try to get a better view of the vessels leading to the heart.  In our first one, our little babe just wasn't cooperating very well and wouldn't get into a good position so we had to try again.  The second time it still wasn't cooperating but finally, she got a good shot of it and said everything looks normal.

My blood pressure has been good so far and baby's heartbeat has been anywhere from 138 into the low 150's.  As of my last appointment 3 weeks ago I was up 7 lbs total for the pregnancy.

Like I mentioned before, for the most part I didn't even feel pregnant and if I didn't have a growing belly I wouldn't even think so but starting last week things definitely have changed.  I feel like my belly is getting so big, I am getting more tired and out of breath at times, and I can tell that bending over just isn't as easy as it used to be.  I am feeling pregnant-which I guess should be expected this far along right?  Oh another symptom that I have been experiencing is congestion in my nose in the morning.  It clears up within minutes of waking up but I definitely wake up stuffy.

Like with Elsie, I felt this baby move later in the pregnancy.  It was probably close to 20 weeks before I thought-that is definitely the baby and it was close to 24 weeks where I felt movement pretty consistently.  The other day I actually thought

Me at 25 Weeks.  I feel like my belly just got HUGE!  

Elsie is really excited about getting a baby sister and she talks about the baby all the time.  At Disney she found this cute little baby Minnie Mouse plush that was swaddled in blanket and just insisted we get it for our baby.  I hope this love continues ;).

Baby #2: The First Few Weeks

So now that the news is out there in blog land and I can catch myself up on the pregnancy up until this far.  And now that I am close to 17 weeks I have a lot to cover so I apologize for these text heavy posts.  :)

John and I found out that we were expecting back on July 22nd.  I had a pretty good feeling I was pregnant because I had heartburn at night again and had to take tums before bed like three nights in a row.  Occassionally, when I am not pregnant I get heartburn but that is after I eat  a lots of yummy, bad for you food.  That was not the case this time and not three nights in a row.  So I had a good feeling.  And of course, this was something we were hoping for.  We had returned for Poland and was hoping for this to happen as soon as possible so we were over the moon with the positive test.

Because I had the heartburn, I had a feeling I was pregnant.  Well on the 23rd I had a massage scheduled with a sitter lined up to watch Elsie in the morning.  A few days before my appointment I made a mental note not to take a test until after my appointment because I know my massage therapist doesn't want to give massages during the first trimester.  Well that slipped my mind the night of the 22nd and I decided to take the test.  John was working late, Elsie was in bed and I just wanted to know.  After I took the test, saw it was positive it finally dawned on me that I had my appointment the next morning.  I quickly shot off an email to Missy begging for some form of massage and of course, she said to let my baby grown big and strong and she would see me in the second tri.  This same thing happened with my third pregnancy so I knew her stance on it but what are the odds.  The last two appointments made I had to cancel the night before because I found out I was pregnant-ha!  I shared the news with John when he got home that night.

The next day instead of my appointment, I did a little shopping since I had Tanner lined up to babysit and I didn't want to bail on her.  That evening we were supposed to go to Zoo Brew down in Des Moines for date night but instead hit up one our favorite restaurants in Ames instead since I wouldn't be able to partake in any of the beer at Zoo Brew.

On Thursday (7/24) I finally put a call into my doctor.  The last time around (my third pregnancy) they didn't have me come in for any testing (bloodwork) which helps determine if my pregnancy is progressing the way it should.  This was the testing done during my first pregnancy that led them to believe I had an ectopic pregnancy.  With Elsie the bloodwork showed things seems normal and with the third, well I believe if they had done the early bloodwork to monitor hormone levels they would have discovered earlier that it would end in a miscarriage.  I figured it would be the same this time around but when I called they wanted me in that day for my first blood test.  The first test was just used as a baseline and then I went in for a second test and like we hoped it has increased to the level it should be.  I REALLY wish I would have written the numbers down and maybe I will ask the next time.  When they called with the results from the second test they said they wanted to schedule an ultrasound.  So on August 7th at  6w1d I went in for our first ultrasound.  And much to our relief we saw the baby.  Having this be the fourth time we have had an early ultrasound done I know the feeling too well of discovering a problem at this appointment and so I did not go into it with excitement as most women probably do.   So not only did we see the baby where it should be but were able to see the little flicker of a heartbeat.  Which is crazy to me because this babe was only 2mm big!

Like Elsie, they told me that once a heartbeat was detected the risk of miscarriage decreases.  Although I was relieved to see everything so far was so good I knew until my next appointment at 10 weeks when they do another ultrasound I just wouldn't feel 100% reassured.  In fact, we waited a little bit to even tell Elsie.  Even though she had no idea she was going to be a big sister or her mom had a "baby in her belly" she was still telling people.  Little did she know she was right.  I think she was originally saying it because two of her friends from daycare were going to be big sisters and thier mom's had a baby in their belly.

In fact, the weekend we told my parents at (5w5d) Elsie had spent the weekend with them.  When we shared the news on Sunday my mom said she already  knew because Elsie had told them.  WHAT?  We had never even said anything of the sort to Elsie or talked about it around her.  I asked her why she said that and she ran off and got one of her Little Lutheran books that has a picture of an ultrasound and we had talked about what that was.  So anyways...long story short she was just talking randomly and didn't even know she was right or that she spilled the beans :).

The main symptom at this point was heartburn-otherwise I felt great.

Coming April 2015. . .

The newest addition to our little family!  We are so excited to share that our family of three is growing to a family of four!  Our little babe is due April 1st and we just couldn't be happier.  I am currently 15 weeks along and have been meaning to write about this for quite some time but life has been busy and I am so far behind on blogging.  I had also hoped to have a picture to accompany this post but that just might come later ;)  It is hard to believe that our next appointment is the anatomy scan already and I am in the second trimester.  Elsie is excited to have a little baby brother or baby sister (who we should name Donald or Daisy after Daisy and Donald Duck of course).  I will post more about how the pregnancy is going and more details but for now I wanted to share our good news!