Spring Break and Baby Room

It was off to Arkansas for me this week as I went to visit the Bennicoff family and my St. Louis relatives.  I flew for the first time being visibly pregnant at 30 weeks!  It was only an hour flight, thank goodness!  After getting off the plane, I was greeted by my parents and sister.  They were excited to see me, but I think more excited to see the baby belly and feel the baby!  We then boarded their car bound for Arkansas.  Baby R must like car rides because it always seems that he or she is moving around and doing flips.  It was a four hour ride to Arkansas and a with a 7 month pregnant women we took many stops, turning four hours into more like 5!  Finally we arrived in Arkansas and pulled up to the Bennicoff house!  They were so excited to see us!  As soon as I walked into the house, Liam ran over and hugged my belly, talking to the baby and saying things like, "It's your cousin, Liam",. "I love you baby cousin",  "you are so cute baby", and "you can kick me if you want to."   He was so excited about the belly and baby!  Bedelia was a little more reserved but still very excited about Baby R and having a new cousin.  They both came up with names for the baby. Liam talked a lot about the baby being a boy and most of the time called it a he.  He thought a good name would be Tyler or Storm.  Bedelia thought it was a girl and thought either way, it should be named flower.  The trip to Arkansas was great!  We got to dance on kinext with my family!  How funny it was to be pregnant and dancing like that!  I enjoyed spending time with Chas, Jason, and the kids as well as my parents and sister.  We got to see the Duggar house, Tulsa Zoo, Melting Pot restaurant, and a wonderful park where we had a picnic lunch and took a nice walk along some trails. It was special to spend time with my brother and his family and have some nice chats with both him and Chastity.  Baby R is lucky to have so many great family members.  The five days with them was great and it was hard to say goodbye.  We got to see Liam ride his bike without training wheels and see him practicing at soccer.  Bedelia is getting so much bigger and it was fun to be able to play with her and see her wonderful imagination at work!  On Wednesday we boarded the Camry again bound back to St. Louis to spend a few moments with the St. Louis relatives.  It was a great surprise to find that they had planned a shower for me there that evening where I got a chance to see all my St. Louis relatives including Auntie Sug and Uncle Ralph and all the cousins from St. Louis, and Jim and
Maggie!  I got some great gifts, enjoyed spendning time talking to each of them, and Baby R really got a kick out of it.  As Baby R is growing, you can feel him or her even more and the baby was especially active during the shower.  I think that he or she was just as happy as I was to be able to spend this spring break with all my family down South! 
Meanwhile, back at home, David was busy designing and working hard on the baby nursery.  He installed a chair rail, put up Wainscoating, painted the ceiling, put up the valances and pictures, painted the trim, and then set up the entire room.  He did an amazing job and while he was at work, every now and again, he would think about how soon we would be in that room with the baby as parents.  It was a little emotional to think about!  When I arrived home on Thursday, David taped me seeing the room for the first time!  It was amazing!  He is such a great husband and will be a fantastic daddy!  Baby R will love his or her room because it is so adorable but most of all because it was created with so much love and hard work.  I am so proud of daddy Rothe!  Baby R is so lucky!    To see pictures of the completed room, go back to our website!  It really turned out fabulous. 
Baby R is moving like crazy lately with full on rolls and feet/hands sticking out through my belly.  It is so crazy to see a hand or foot move across my belly.  Dave has felt it a few times and we know it will continue to be more as the baby gets bigger.  9 weeks left and counting till our little one comes.  It has been a journey so far but we know we have so much more of a roller coaster ahead of us!  It was a fun week of spring break which ended with Daddy Rothe buying a "practical" car for our family!  Practical but definitely slick and attractive!  We've had a wonderful week!

Baby Shower and Head butting

This weekend was our first baby shower.  We made the 6 hour trip back to Wisconsin and boy, was it a long one.  Stopping every 2 hours to go the bathroom, pain from sitting so long, and a little indigestion made it super fun!  BUT it was all worth it to see our entire famiy and a few friends!  We arrived on Friday night and Mom Isaacson, Dad Isaacson, and Karissa all got to feel baby r moving around in my belly.  It was a special moment.  Karissa felt some wiggles when she visited me the weekend before, but really got to feel and big kick.  She jumped back from being a little frightened.  It was kind of funny!  Baby R just wanted to make his or her presence known to the Isaacsons!  Mom Isaacson couldn't keep her hands off my belly and really enjoyed feeling our little baby!  The next day we headed off to the Pachners for our wonderful family shower.  Sue really made the day special by opening their home to us and hosting our shower.  Kathy made some great food as did my mom.  The three of them really went all out and made the day very wonderful.  We got to play a few games featuring famous kids and their parents and a game to name all the movies you can think of with the word baby in them.  Mom Rothe made the cutest favors that were little baby bottie shaped filled with jelly beans. and Auntie Lisa and Margaret made adorable bookmarks that welcomed our little Rothe!  The presents were wonderful too and we are getting to almost all set for our little one.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  It was a great day and we really enjoyed both being there to open gifts and spend time with the family!  Grandpee Isaacson even joined us!  Many guesses were made as to the sex of baby R but we still don't know!  Boy or girl, we just want a healthy baby! 
As for the head butting belly experience, as David was getting our sick Tiger back into his crate, Tiger ran away.  David turned to catch him and tripped and fell into the belly pretty hard.  I was a little concerned and it did ache a little afterwards but I wasn't in severe pain and there was no bleeding!  So the next day, I called my doctor to let her know and she said to immediately come into the MAC at the hospital to be checked out.  I had to leave work early and sit there for four hours hooked up to a fetal monitor. Baby R was moving all around, kicking the monitor, and my belly.  The nurse had to let me go early because she said this baby is just fine!  David felt awful but obviously it wasn't his fault.  I was moving forward as he was trying to get tiger so it was just an accident and baby r is doing wonderful so no worries. 
It was an eventful weekend for our little one and us!  We are so blessed with fantastic family and had an amazing shower!  So special!  We got to relay all the stories to David's mom and dad!  They are excited to feel the baby in May!  We even got to chat with Auntie Noreen and Susan who have made the most adorable sweater and hat for our baby!  Everything is happening and soon he or she will be here!  Can't not wait for these 10 weeks to go by!

Birthing and baby classes

I forgot to mention that we finished our four week course on birthing last week. We met some great people, Melissa and andreas, won a baby toy elephant, and learned a lot about labor and delivery. We are more anxious than before but are glad we took good notes and are more aware of what to expect once I go into labor. We still have to write up a birth plan and really plan out what we need for that big day. I created a play list for some music I'd like to listen to in the birthing room. We also got to tour the hospital and see where all the action will happen. While there we got to see some tiny babies in the nursery. So amazing that we get to take ours home! The all about babies class was fun! We chose a gender ambiguous doll to act as our baby. We practiced swaddling, diapering, and bathing a baby as well as learning all about what to expect health wise with our little one when we bring him or her home. We learned about car seat instalation, safety concerns in the home, and met a pediatrician. That's our next step. Finding a pediatrician as well as a daycare person. So much to do! All about babies really is and will be our motto for a long time to come!

Less than 3 months!

Baby R is about two pounds now and we can really feel the little one moving. Dave has laid his ear against my belly and baby r has kicked him right back. I find it fun to watch my belly move and jump when he or she gives me a kick. It is an amazing yet strange feeling having a live human rolling and moving inside me. Dave thinks it is humorous that I keep making comments about myself and how big I am getting. I make comments like, just look at me and can you believe how big I am. Dave replies back, honey you're pregnant and you act so surprised that you are getting big. I think it is still strange to see myself with a pregnant beer belly like tummy. I know when I was little I'd stick a pillow under my shirt and image being a mommy. It is exciting to think in less than three months we will meet our flesh and blood son or daughter. We have begun playing the song, "you are my sunshine" for baby r and he or she seems to like it. The room has ben painted a nice light blue after several color choices like yellow or green. We decided on blue because if it is a girl we can paint clouds and butterflies around the room. If it is a boy we'll do some sort or air or boat theme. As I am typing this our little one is banging away at my belly probably loving listening to the tv instead the loud noises during the day of mommy teaching and my 2nd graders voices. Today you are active little one. Maybe it's the mint ice cream? In two weeks is the first baby shower already! 26 week doctor visit showed I am slightly anemic. I need to be eating more iron rich food to increase my blood count. Good news is my glucose test was passed so I don't have gestational diabetes. Yippee! Baby r's heart beat continues to be 140's so it's still a guess to as if it is a boy (old wives tale) or girl (grampees guess). Lois, our midwife, keeps saying we have a 50% chance of either! All we care about is that you are healthy baby r. More later. . .

Felt a foot!

We've been really busy the last few weeks planning the baby room, going to birthing classes, worrying about leaking (TMI), trips to the doctors, and a surprise ultrasound.  Let's start with the baby room.  David is really excited to start painting and putting up the chair rail in the baby room.  He plans on doing it while I am away visiting my family in Arkansas.  We might actually paint this weekend but are still unsure of the color!  Baby R's room will be adorable and is coming together already!  Birthing classes are fun!  I didn't think I'd say that, but we are learning alot and getting more comfortable with all that might happen during the labor and delivery of our baby! It is so cute to see Dave taking notes and getting a little anxious about the whole process. It makes it that much more real to both of us!  We met a great couple in the class and plan on meeting up with them after both our babies are born.  So far we've learned about the whole labor process including all the machines and interventions that might need to be used during delivery, all about epiderals and epiosiotomies, and even got to hear our birthing teacher practice moaning!   Relaxation techniques have been interesting with the use of ice in our hands and music playing in the background.  We have started thinking about how we want our birth to go and what to include in our birth plan.  It has become apparent that I don't like too much talking during pain and definitely like a laugh here and there.  With a wise cracker as a husband, that could go either way!  Will I want that during labor...hmmm...I am not so sure!  The two doctor visits this last week were due to my anxiety about whether or not I was leaking fluid.  Turns out both times the test came out negative so the consensus is that I need to practice my kegels more!  Also turns out that I have a touch of maternal anxiety, which leads me to my midwife, Lois, saying, "Let just do an ultrasound to be sure".   Well, ultrasound was wonderful!  Baby R looks beautiful and we even got to see him or her in 3D.  What a little cutie!  I am so excited to meet our baby.  I know I've said that before, but as I get bigger the feeling grows more intense.  I am so excited to be a mother and have Dave's baby.  I know he will make an incredible Daddy and talks to our little one all the time.   My appetite is definitely something to laugh at!  Dave can't believe how much I eat sometimes and we spent Valentines at Arezzo were I couldn't wait to eat!  I love italian and we both enjoyed great meals.  We had bought desserts from Cocoa & Fig (where we got our wedding desserts) and enjoyed those when we got home.  Then today I ate a big mac, fries, and a shamrock shake! I love me some shamrock shake!  I still manage to work out and walk on the treadmill but this baby might end up being a big one!  I need to slow down on the food.  I am going to end this blog with the fun event that happened tonight.  I was using Dave's Ipad and all of a sudden felt a kick to the Ipad!  I went and felt where I thought it was coming from and pushed in on it!  Then I felt a body part kick back and felt my actual baby's foot for the first time.   I've felt the baby inside but never felt an actually body part!  What another incredible pregnancy experience.  Baby R, I felt you for the first time today!   It is amazing how you can love something so much and I've never even seen you in person yet!  100 more days!

Wow, I finally felt something!

OK, so as you can tell from Jenni's comments in her previous blogs posts, I'm not much of writer. It's not that I don't have anything to say, I just lack the grace of putting words together in an eloquent manner. That being said, tonight something happened that I didn't expect that's worthy of writing about.

For the last month or so, every couple days, Jenni would run up to me, place my hand on her belly with hopes that I would feel what she just felt. I would sit there, with my hand on her belly, in total quietness and deep concentration, waiting for something to indicate to me that what's been growing in her stomach the last 24 weeks would give me some kind of knock of life. Each time she felt something, she would ask "Did you feel that? How about now? You had to feel that!" Each time we came up empty...until tonight.

As I was sitting at my computer in deep concentration measuring the pros and cons of a miter cut vs a coping cut for a chair rail that I plan to install in our baby room, Jenni came running downstairs. She said that the baby was kicking like she hasn't felt before (I'm sure as a result of the 2 brownies she had for dessert!). She sat down on the sofa and told me this has got to be the time where I would feel something. I sat down next to her, place my hand on her belly and sure enough, I felt a kick! A sign of life!

What an amazing feeling. The fact that this little bean has grown into a 1 pound, 12 inch being inside my wife's belly is truly a wonder. It was a great feeling to finally feel what my wife has been feeling for the past month. Can't wait to feel the next kick!

Doctors and dreams

So my husband needs to write on the blog... But I will do a quick update. Baby is moving up a storm but Dave hasn't felt it yet. Every time he puts his hand on my ever expanding belly, baby r goes still. I can definitely feel our little one from the inside but not sure about the outside. Hopefully Dave will feel it soon. We had one scare with a trip to the ER a few weeks ago. Pain in my belly that ended up being round ligament pain but better to be safe than sorry. Ever since then, I have been feeling fine. Hip and belly pain on occasion but it is normal and the doctors say to adjust how I move and get up from a sitting position. Baby r is a mover at night. LO moves at the same time everyday from 6pm through the night. I am getting more and more excited to meet him or her. As we put the room together with some help from my parents and sister, I think about how wonderful it will be to hold our baby. We got a glider chair now and I even sat in it with a blanket just to test out how it would be to rock our baby to sleep. Goodness knows we will spend many sleepless nights in that chair with our crying child. Dreaming of that day...did I mention it is true about crazy pregnancy dreams? We won't go in detail about those. And daycare searching, I think I will let Dave tell you about that.