Another change recently is my waistline. My belly hasn’t quite popped out yet, but I definitely see some changes… finally. Maybe I’ll actually look pregnant soon (and not just overweight). Speaking of weight, at my last appointment, I was still under the weight that I was at my initial prenatal visit. So I’ve still haven’t gained any weight. And I guess you could say that I’ve lost weight, because the baby (and all that entails) has to weigh something, right?!?

On Monday next week (July 26), we are going on a tour of The Baby Suites, where I will be giving birth. Then the week after that, on August 3, we go in for our next prenatal checkup (and I will also be doing a glucose tolerance test). And starting on Thursday, August 5, we will be going to a 4 week childbirth class (every Thursday for 4 weeks). Fun times! Maybe our schedule will be full enough for it to go by quickly. I’m sure October will be here before we know it.

So, we have about 13 or so weeks to go… I’m hoping less because I’m ready to hold Baby Buzzbee! We are getting more excited everyday and can’t wait to meet him/her!

I’ll be going back in 3 weeks (when I am 28 weeks) so that I can do another glucose test. That is always fun. The nurse didn’t give me an option of flavors this time. But I did ask if they had other flavors and she said it was either orange or lemon-lime. So I opted for the orange. The strange thing is, at this clinic, they have like 8 oz bottles of this stuff. But you’re only supposed to drink 5 oz. So, I’m not sure why they just don’t save money and buy the 5 oz bottles??? Weird. Maybe they get them for free or something. Who knows?!?

Anyway, I really do like our new doctor. She is very sweet and personable. And she seems very supportive of our natural birth plan. I’m glad that everything worked out quickly. She’s received all of my records from my other OB, so we should be fine from now on.

On Monday, July 26, Eric and I will go tour The Baby Suites at River Oaks where we will be having the baby now. I’m excited to see it. I’ve heard it’s pretty nice. We’ll also be signing up for a Childbirth Class soon.

Then, as we were traveling back home on Friday, my older sister Candi called to give me an update from her doctor’s appt. She said she was already 3-4 cm dilated and that the mid-wife said she would go ahead and break her water on Saturday if she wanted. So they opted to go ahead and do that. Eric and I got home about 3 pm on Friday afternoon and repacked a few things, then headed down to Baton Rouge. Candi, Craig, Cameron & I headed to the hospital first thing Saturday morning. Since Candi had tested positive for Group B Strepp, she had to get 2 rounds of antibiotics before they broke her water. So they started the first round at 9:30 am and we had to wait 4 hours before the next round could be put in. So around 1:30, they started the 2nd round and then broke her water around 2 pm. Her contractions started picking up after that and she got into the birthing tub around 3 pm. She gave birth to Cole Benjamin Lindsay at 3:50 pm. He is such a cutie! And I feel so blessed that I got to be a part of the special day with them. I’m so glad that she held out the week we were in Louisville!

So last week, I spent the week in Baton Rouge to help Candi with the other 5 kids. I’m glad that I was able to help her and still be able to work. That’s the perks of working from home! Anyway, Eric came back on Thursday to pick me up and we headed home on Friday afternoon. Although I had a wonderful time being with my family, it was definitely good to be back home with my husband!

And because I spent last week in Baton Rouge, I had to reschedule my OB appt! So we’ll be seeing Dr. Johnson for the first time tomorrow, July 13. It’s been almost 6 weeks since our last appointment. So I’m anxious to see how everything is going. Although, the baby has been really active, moving around and kicking. So I’m sure everything is fine I’ll try to give another update tomorrow after we see the doctor.

Drama #1—Baptist is not an in-network provider on my insurance.
This came as a total shock to me and Eric. How could we not know this?!? I guess we just assumed that since our OB was in-network and was in the building right next door that the hospital would be in-network. But apparently it’s true! I know it’s totally our fault for not checking first! Oops! Anyway, our out-of-network deductible is $10K so it looks like we’ll be switching to River Oaks Hospital (and YES we checked to make sure they were in-network!!!).

Drama #2—Finding out if our current OB would deliver at River Oaks.
I finally got to talk to a nurse today and she said that they ONLY deliver at Baptist. So, now we’re back to the dilemma of switching doctors. Back in April, we were contemplating switching because we felt like our doctor wasn’t being supportive of our birth plan. And we actually met with another OB at River Oaks to discuss switching to her. However, we decided to stick with our OB after discussing our birth plan further with him. Apparently, that wasn’t the right decision… hmm…

Drama #3—Getting in to see the new OB.
I called the East Lakeland Clinic today to make an appointment with the doctor I saw in April. The lady I spoke with on the phone said now that I’m over 20 weeks, I have to be approved by the doctor. And it may take 10 working days for them to call me back. Sooooo…. we’re kinda in a holding period until I hear back from them. However, I feel like we’re in a catch-22. The doctor we’re currently seeing won’t deliver at the hospital that we need to deliver at and I don’t know if I can get in with the doctor that can deliver there. So what to do??? What happens if I don’t get approved with the new doctor? Do I keep seeing my current doctor for prenatal checkups and go to River Oaks and let another doctor deliver? Do you see my dilemma?

Oh well. I guess we’ll just be patient and wait for the verdict from the East Lakeland Clinic. I’m not too stressed about it though. I know God will take care of us and put us where we need to be. At the end, we’ll have a baby, right?!? And that’s all that matters

Eric didn’t get to feel them because he was already up and in the shower. But I’m not even sure he would’ve been able to feel them since they feel more like taps than full-on kicks right now.

I’ve tried to be still some and feel for others today, but it’s been a little crazy with VBS. I’m running the MediaShout slides (basically putting up the words on the screens) for the worship rallies & music time. So you know I have to sing and the do the motions with all the songs Anyway, I was excited to finally hit this milestone in my pregnancy! I’ve been hoping for weeks to feel the baby move and it finally happened. I’m sure as they get stronger though, I’ll be ready for it to stop But for now, I’m savoring every minute of it!

Emilio - Lemondrop Fabric

We finally started working on the nursery last week. Eric and I were both off on Memorial Day so we decided to make good use of that time and start painting. We are planning to do the nursery with a bee theme (because of our last name). Although I haven’t found any bedding or decoration that I really like yet. But for the room, we knew we wanted to do a yellow color. A few weekends ago when were were in Baton Rouge, we found some fabric that we liked at P. Tree Textiles in Baton Rouge. It’s called Emilio – Lemondrop and it looks sort of like a bee-hive, although not really… But we like it. It’s definitely our style. Anyway, we matched the paint color with the fabric and chose a color called Summer Harvest (Behr).

So, last Monday, May 31, we started painting the walls. We got 2 walls painted. Here are a few pictures showing the before color and the color now. The yellow doesn’t quite show up exactly how it looks in person. But you get the idea.

We finished the painting the other 2 walls on Saturday. Eric actually has another coat to do on the cutting-in on those 2 walls… just near the ceiling. But you can’t really tell at first glance.

Our second project was the baby bed. We actually had some friends, Joey & Jennifer, give us their crib (you can see it in the picture above) and mattress. It is a Jenny Lind crib in a Walnut finish. We thought that we might try to sand and paint it white, but then decided that we weren’t really up to that. Especially since we’re not the “home improvement” type of people. So we did a little shopping and found a bed we liked at Target for only $130 (+ FREE Shipping!) and decided that it was worth it just to buy that one. We chose the Graco Lauren Classic Convertible Crib. We ordered it last week and it came yesterday. So after we got home from church and choir, of course, we just had to put it together. We actually did it in less than 1 hour! Our only hiccup was that we put it together in the living room, not thinking that it was going to be too big to fit through the door. We realized it when we got it into the hall, but couldn’t get it through the room door. But we only had to take off the back (which was only 4 screws!) Once we did that, we slid it into the room and put the back on again. I told Eric, “We put this together, took it apart and put it back together without fighting!” We make a great team (at least I think so)! So here are a few pictures of the bed in the nursery. Now we just need to find some bedding… or have some made… Sara?!?

So our next project, or Eric’s, is to paint the small chest-of-drawers that we already have in the room. It’s also a walnut-colored wood that we want to be white. Maybe we can get that done this weekend.

Today we went for our monthly checkup and our mid-way ultrasound. My OB also wanted to do an early glucose tolerance test due to my PCOS, meaning I already have a tendency toward insulin resistance. So I drank the awesome bottle of sugar glucose drink this morning before we headed to the doctor. My flavor options were Lemon/Lime (Sprite), Orange, or Fruit Punch. I opted for the Fruit Punch flavor because (1) I normally drink Sprite Zero and a Diet Orange drink so I thought those would be TOO similar and seem extremely sweet and (2) I rarely ever have fruit punch so I wouldn’t have a daily reminder of the bad glucose drink. My glucose level was 116 after an hour, which is good because they want it below 140. However, I will have to retest around 28 weeks because the doctor says gestational diabetes can develop around then due to hormones. So I have that to look forward to again

Our ultrasound today was good. Everything looked great. The baby was VERY active, probably due to the giant bottle of sugar I drank beforehand. The baby kept putting his/her feet over his/her head, which probably would have given us a good shot to find out the gender if we had wanted to. But we are not, even after the many attempts at persuasion by some! When we told the nurse that today, she was SOOO excited. She said nobody does that anymore. So at least someone is excited for us!

Anyway, the tech got all of the pics and readings she needed. The heartrate was 158 bpm and the baby weighs about 13 oz. Here are a few pics from today:

We also took a video of the ultrasound and as soon as we get it ready for the Web (hopefully by tonight), I’ll put up another post with it.

Our next checkup is July 7, which is getting extremely close to my sister’s due date. So try not to go into labor that day, Candi. If you do, of course, I’m coming down there and skipping my appointment! I wouldn’t miss that for anything (unless you labor too quickly). Remember, I need 2 1/2 hours!