My Growing Belly

So although the last post was a little on the down side, here is one to lift your spirits. I included a picture of my stomach at 17 weeks and now me at 30 weeks so you can see the difference. Only 10 weeks left! Right? Now I REALLY can't see past my stomach! I took two pictures tonight. The first one I took was in the stripped shirt. Well as you can see it came out a little blurry. Then I changed my shirt and took the second one with the white shirt on. Since Clint's at the hospital working, it feels kind of strange to smile at a camera when you're the only one in the room. :}
The baby moves around like no other, that I know of. :) I think he's already going to take after Clint. He's not a morning person! He's pretty quiet in the morning, and starts to move around bunches after lunch. A lot like Clint. I'll be siting on the couch at night and my whole stomach moves when he moves. In fact, last Sunday was great at church. Clint was sitting next to me in the pew. My stomach was kind of next to his back. Then the baby kicked, kicking me hard, he kicked him also! He turned to me and gave me the "did he do that!" look. I nodded yep! In the car on the way home, Clint asked if it was distracting being kicked like that all the time. It only is when he kicks really hard. Clint really liked being kicked other then when his hand's on my stomach. It gave him an opportunity to be part of the pregnancy in a sort of way.
My doctor's appointment this week went really well. The last two doctor visits, the doctor said I was measuring further along then I was. This week, I measured at 30 weeks. Guess that's a good thing.
I also hired a doula. Clint and I interviewed a two of them, well the only two in town. It was a hard decision, but I'm happy to have a doula and an extra expert in the delivery room.
As for how I'm feeling, I've been really tired. I don't know if it's because school started and I worked a whole week. Today was particularly hard. Cleaning the house took about 3 times as long as it should have. Put away laundry, watch t.v. for 20 minutes. Clean the bathroom, watch t.v. for 20 minutes. Vacuum, watch t.v. for 20 minutes. I don't know if I'm so tired because of going back to work or because I'm carrying around a massive amount of extra weight :(, not sleeping as well as I would like (too many bathroom breaks) or just the general uncomfortableness that I constantly feel. O.K. I've complained. I do have to say that being pregnant isn't as much fun as I thought. I know it will be worth it, when our gift from the Lord will be in our arms. Can't wait to meet him and for all of you to meet him also!

We love our pets

I wanted to tell you all about our pets. After all we only have so much time with our pets while they are on the face of the earth. Clint and I have been reminded of this fact because about a month ago our dog, Reiner, came down with Hermangiosarcoma. It is blood vessel cancer. He collapse in the hall way a few days after we got back from CA. and had to have emergency surgery to remove his spleen that had a mass on it. So he's a spleenless dog now! Since we love him so very much, we also decided to try to extend his time with us by having his cancer treated with Chemotherapy. (GASP) I'm sure most of you just did, but chemo with animals isn't this horrible aweful thing that many of us think of when we think of a person who is getting chemo. Instead, they give animals just enough chemo to suppress the cancer for a few months. It wouldn't be kind to animals to load them with chemo, making them feel horrible, but not be able to communicate with them that this is "for their own good."
The reason I am writing this post is because I want you all to have a desire to help your pets. Not just because Clint will need your business later when he goes into practice, but because we take animals into our homes and they are our responsibility. Many of us love them so much that they are like children to us. Reiner is very much our "child." Clint bought him and gave him to me the same night he proposed to me. He had my engagement ring on a red ribbon around his neck. The first three years of Reiner's life, he didn't leave my side. I went EVERYWHERE with him. So this dog means an aweful lot to me. :)
I also included a picture of my cats. As of right now, O.C. the orange and white cat is the only one who hasn't had to visit the vet. Wes, our black cat, has diabetes. We just discovered this about two weeks after taking Reiner to the vet.
Anyways, I want to share my adorable animals with you because I love them very much. Although I havne't had the cats for near as long as I have had Reiner, they are still members of my household and family. I also wanted to show you that even though Reiner is doing chemo, as you can see he looks very healthy. He also has all his hair. Chemo with animals doesn't make their hair fall out, it just keeps it from growing. Wes on the other hand looses his hair from licking it off. This is the origin of him getting diabetes. We gave him a steroid to help his allergies, and he ended up being one of the unlucky cats that was affected by the slight side affect of getting diabetes.
I also wanted to tell you that even though our pets have cost us an arm and a leg, our decision to help them was made easily. After we found out what was wrong with Reiner, Clint called me up and said, he's going in for surgery, come down and visit him before he goes in. We didn't have the horrible conversation of, "he has blah blah, and here are our options or we can put him down." Emotionally knowing that we were going to do what ever we needed to do to fix our dog was so much easier. We are so happy to help our pets and although it is costing us money, it isn't costing as much as I thought and I/we are dealing with their illnesses with a little ease of mind because we know we are doing what we can. So I hope after reading this blog, some one received the comfort they may have needed. :)

Funny Stories

Let's start with the kind of sad one. Sunday I had to finally take off my rings because my hands are swelling from the heat and hormones I'm sure. I was worried that I would wake up one morning and not be able to get them off at all. I also get kind of claustrophobic when they are tight, so I figured now was the time. My hands look so sad.
My stomach has really gotten so big now that I can't see much past it unless I put my feet up on the table. Should have seen me try to put a band-aid on my pinkie toe. PATHETIC! At least I'll have a REALLY good reason to go get a pedicure soon. :) They come with foot rubs also. Yippie!

Funny Story:
Clint started his equine rotation today. They went out to this farm to check this old man's pregnant mares. Clint told me that the farmer walks out all "western like" with his gun and gun holster strapped to his side. Not like there's much reason to use a gun on his own land, but here's the REALLY funny part: The gun was wrapped in saran-wrap! Like he didn't want to get his gun dirty, but he wanted to make sure he had it. The other really funny part was out walks his wife. All leathery and wrinkly with her gun holster strapped to her side, but instead of a gun, she had a can of MACE! HILARIOUS.

Clint has had some difficult rotations at the hospital that require him to wake up early and stay late along with go in on the weekends to take care of animals. So far, probably the worse was when his pager went off at 3 am because someone's animal had mangled a baby rabbit. Sucks that he's having to pay to be there, but not much longer and he'll be able to get paid for the slave labor he does. :)

Animal Assistance

So a good friend gave us this bassinet today. After Clint got home, Wes was out in the living room with us and decided to jump into the bassinet not having any idea as to what was inside. Then the dog thought it was fun to watch. It will be interesting keeping the pets away from the baby.

New Blog Look

So today at church I talked to a friend who said she had found my blog from another friend's blog. She admitted to blog stalking me. Cool, I have a blog stalker! Well I checked out here blog too, and found that she has this really cool background. This motivated me to change mine. I never knew you could go to other websites and get really cool, main blog stuff for your blog. Like I knew that you could add gadgets, but I didn't think a background is a gadget. Apparently it is!

Therefore, in light of school starting on Wednesday I gave our blog a school look for the time being. Hope you like it!

I'll take more pictures of my expanding belly in a couple of weeks. I can tell you that he's kicking the heck out of me, so much so that I couldn't take a nap after church today! Oh well.

Now I have to go cut cantaloupe. Hubby put me in charge of it so he could study some more. I even made pizza FROM SCRATCH for dinner. I'm not as cool as Jeanette, and I didn't take pictures. Sorry! I can tell you that I put lots of sauce, tomatoes, cheese and bell peppers on the pizza and made garlic bread sticks. Delicious!

Until the next post, wish me luck with school! I'll need it!

Baby's Room

Clint and I have slowly been gathering needed items to make our baby comfortable. We have received many items from friends, and we got a great deal on the crib. 15 bucks! By the time that we repainted and bought a new mattress, we've probably spent 100, but it's still a great deal. The crib use to be a dark blue, but the color didn't go as well as this chocolate color does.

I also included a picture of our cat making himself at home or testing out products to make sure they are baby safe. He even liked it when I turned on the vibrations and music! HA. So far the cats have done a good job with staying out of the crib which is what we want.

The funny thing is that we had our friends over with their kids. She put her 18 month old in the crib. When she took him out, he got REALLY mad and threw himself on the ground and started to cry. It was hilarious that all he wanted was to be in the crib with the blanket! Oh and thanks Merrills for allowing your children to test our crib and make sure it won't collapse! :)

We're still in need of many items, and that is why I didn't take a picture of the entire room. Most of it is piles of bags. It's amazing how much stuff we still need and it's a little overwhelming, but little by little we'll get it and I'll take a picture of the finished product. For now he's going to have an animal room. I don't want to take down my ribbons because then I'll just want to redecorate the room, and I'd rather spend the money on fun things for him now and do a really boyish decorating job when we move next summer. Clint thinks that only gay guys would have horse stuff in their rooms. I told him he's crazy and I'm not changing the room, for now anyways.

Lastly today marks me being 7 months pregnant! Oh and I totally thought I would love being pregnant, but not so much. I've been very uncomfortable for the last month and am pretty much ready to be done. I've been very fortunate to not suffer too much in the heat. This summer has been very friendly to pregnant women. Thank goodness. So here's to the last trimester of being pregnant. May it go painlessly and quickly!

My life in the future, I'm sure...

Cute kid moment: I was at the dealership waiting for an oil change and this adorable little girl comes up to me a says, "My mommy's having a baby. Are you having a baby?" I replied, "Yes." Then the little girl turns to her mom and says, "Mommy, where do babies come from?" The other gentleman and I both started to laugh.