*winkswildworld*

I am 26 weeks now and saw the doctor for my check-up and some final blood tests. I had the Glucose test (I had to drink 5 oz. of this glucose crap and exactly an hour later they take a my blood to test it for gestational diabetes). Anyway, that all went fine. I always hated giving blood. In fact, years ago I decided that I was going to overcome the fear of giving blood and I started going to give blood at the Red Cross every few months. But one bad experience of doing that and I never went back. They still call me for my blood! So, lately I have been really trying to internally connect with my hardcore maternal Swedish genes. I come from a long line of strong, stoic Swedish women. My Great-Grandmother Mor Mor (Swedish for Grandmother) lived in a house with her two sisters and brother in Chicago and raised my grandmother Gloria, her brother Jim and sister Carol on her own. Mor Mor's husband was in the Navy and from what I hear was popular with the ladies. Mor Mor died when I was a little girl of Cervical Cancer. Knowing what we know now about Cervical cancer, I'm sure my philanderer Great-Grandfather was the reason she got that type of cancer. Mor Mor was a very tough woman, and that gene was passed on to my Grandmother Gloria, and definitely on to my mom. My Grandma and my mom are the strongest women I know, never complaining when they are sick (and I mean SICK), never wimping out or too tired, they just deal and move on. So now a grown woman, 26 weeks pregnant and seeing what I have ahead of me, giving a little blood isn't a big deal anymore. I have some major kick ass genes on my side that are going to help with the labor, birth and all that fun postpartum stuff! I'm now looking at it as a challenge or some sort of competition and Lord knows how competitive I am!!! Oh, and if you're wondering, the picture above is my mom when she was about 21 years old. Love it!

Here are the ultrasound pictures from 22 weeks. I took actual pictures of them so they are not that great.

Sorry, it's been a while since I blogged. I was building up on stories to share. A lot has happened, and as you can see, I am growing! These pics may be a little R-rated, but what the hell, I don't care. I wanted you to get the full view of my hot pregnant bod. HA! The baby is really moving a lot now, to the point where I can actually see it moving just by looking at my belly. It's nuts!

My 22 week doctor appointment went fabulous. I was nervous about it because the 22 week ultrasound is a big deal. They make sure the baby is growing normally and we found out, it sure is! The baby is over a pound now - they say that it should be about a pound now - so it's bigger than average. It's heartrate is 153, which is great. The ultrasound tech said, "this baby has some long legs!" Not sure where those came from, but I'll take it! The feet are about 2 inches long, which I thought was huge, but I guess it's normal. The tech asked if we wanted to know the sex and we kindly said no thanks, she knew right away what it was. It was VERY HARD to hold back and say no, but now I am glad that we didn't find out. I am sooooo excited to pop this baby out just to know if it's a girl or boy. I cannot wait to meet him or her. I am hoping that excitement and curiousity carries over mentally to help make the labor less painful. I am going to try to get the ultrasound pictures posted on here as well. They don't scan well. Last time a co-worker took high-quality photos of the ultrasound pictures one by one and they turned out pretty good when I posted them. Maybe we'll have to do that again.

WOW. I have had two VERY bitchy days in a row now. Is this normal? I seriously want to strangle at least one person a day. I am VERY emotional too. Today I don't want to talk to anybody! I don't even want anybody to look at me! Is there something wrong with that? This morning leaving for work I put on my red coat over my ivory hoodie and I realized that I totally looked like Santa Claus. I said to Brett, "Great, here comes Santa." He started singing a Christmas jingle and I snapped at him. That started off another emotional, bitchy day. Yesterday I went to Von Maur to look at boots. I need brown heeled boots. Mine are a few years old, and getting pretty trashy now. A woman got me the two pairs I asked to try on so I proceeded to sit down and pull off my boots that I had on. I guess I kept grasping my belly as I kept getting up, sitting down, and walking over to the mirror. She looked at my funny and asked, "Does your stomach hurt?", "No." I said. "I'm pregnant." I think she mumbled something, but I didn't really hear what she said. So apparently, I still just look like I have a beer gut, and not a pregnant belly. Ugh...

I promised a new belly pic so here it is. I am feeling a million times better than I was in the first trimester. I am actually going to the gym after work tonight. I have much more energy and totally feel up to the treadmill and some light weights. The only problem was trying to figure out what I was going to wear to the gym. Definitely no spandex shorts! I am going to be one of those pregnant women with the third nipple. My belly button is already starting to come out a little! I should have posted a pick of it, but I didn't want to gross anybody out - even though I don't find belly buttons gross at all. Maybe I will post it! It's my damn blog!
I made chop suey on Sunday and managed to finish off the entire pot BY MYSELF by Wednesday. I was awfully proud of myself how good it was. So anybody who says that I am not eating, or that I haven't gained enough weight, has lost their mind.

Yes! I finally felt the little monster move! On Monday night I was lying up in bed watching Grey's Anatomy (I recorded from last week) and the creature did a somersault or something in there! I almost leaped out of bed with joy. I put my hand on where I felt it and pushed down a tad with a few fingers and it pushed back! Wow. It is alive! I almost cried. I couldn't believe it. I know, you are probably thinking, "what? you knew you were pregnant didn't you?" Yes, but there are such incredible things that you go through in this whole process and even through each of these events, it's still unbelievable. Like seeing him/her in there and the heart beating on the first ultrasound was the first HUGE thing for me at 10 weeks. And then hearing the heart beat for the first time at 14 weeks. Now feeling he/she actually rumbling and tumbling around in there and to push me back, it's all just still completely crazy that there is a human living and growing inside my belly. I know mother's out there know exactly what I am talking about. Everyday is more amazing than the last and time is going so fast. I am really trying to remember it all.
Oh, and I also wanted to report that I went to the doc on Tuesday for my 18 week and all is good. I am measuring right on schedule. The babies heart rate was 146. I gained another pound. Since the 6Th week I have put on 3 lbs., but I am sure it's more than that since I have been pregnant, because I never weighed myself before on a consistent basis. I think when I went in to my doc appt at 6 weeks I had already gained a few:) The doc says it's a healthy pregnancy and the baby sounds great, so that's all that matters to me at this point. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing!! I will have some new belly pictures soon.

Since I have had some extra time on my hands lately at night, and I have this little bun cooking in the oven, I picked up crocheting again. I am so glad to be doing it. It was either this or taking a pottery class - which I missed enrollment by one day:(
Thanks to Shannon - she taught me this zig-zag blanket pattern, and I must say, I have made quite some progress in just a few days. Although, I am pretty rusty on the stitches. This thing is going to be NO WHERE near perfect, which I guess is the point. I will post some pictures when I get farther along. My plan is to do a smaller blanket and then move on to some quicker things, maybe some arm warmers/fingerless gloves or a neck warmer. I definitely have to ask Shannon if she will teach me the little flowers that she does, I love those!

Sorry I haven't written in a while haven't been feeling the greatest lately. I was so happy to see that my favorite sister-in-law, Shannon, tagged me!! You are probably wondering what this means, so I will tell you. Getting tagged means that I much write 8 random facts about myself, so here it goes!

1- When I was 5 years old I had an imaginary girlfriend named Matilda. We did everything together. I guess I even went as far as leaving seats open for her next to me. Weird, huh? It's almost like something out of that movie "The Sixth Sense".

2- Around the age of 13 I discovered a strange lump behind my knee. I FREAKED. Of course, I thought it was a tumor and that I was dying of cancer. It didn't help any that a close friend of my brother, Brian, and I had growing up, and just around this same time, WAS in fact diagnosed with bone cancer after a fall he took one day when we were all riding our bikes - like we did every weekend. That friend died a few years ago. My lump turned out to be a Bakers Cyst.

3- When I started college I was an art major - Interior Design - to be specific. Most days I wish I would have stuck with it or something along the lines of Art/Design. I LOVED my art history class. Ahh, those were the days at good 'ole ECC. (I left Iowa State U and later received my Associates from Elgin Community College). I REALLY enjoyed ECC. I seriously loved learning then. I wish I could go back!

4- Sticking to the school subject. Someday I am going back. Not sure exactly what for, but I am DEFINITELY going back. I have a yearning to learn more. There are SO many interests that I have that I would love to pursue - and just to name a few - I always wanted to be a teacher and I love history so I always thought that I would be a history teacher. That was my goal when I attended ECC. HAIR! - I am so into the whole cosmetology thing. I am always experimenting with colors. Pottery has always interested me. I think it's a great form of relaxation. You go to the gym, I'll go sit at the wheel.

5- My husband, Brett, and I have known each other since 6th grade. We were in 8th grade science together and I remember he sat right behind me. I remember thinking then, "Gosh, he has nice hands." How funny is that!!!!!!? We were really more just acquaintances then because we ran with a group of different friends. It was the same way in High School sorda. BUT I did ask him to the prom our Senior year. YES, I asked him. He picked me up in his mom's brand new royal blue Mustang Cobra. And because I had shaved my head not long before that, and he was a soccer player with long blonde locks, my hair was MUCH shorter than his. We have the promo photos to prove this.

6- My favorite smell is burning leaves in the Fall. It brings me back to when my brother Brian and I went to our dad's house on the weekends in McHenry. My dad lived on the Fox River and in the Fall we'd all rake leaves into piles and have huge bonfires.

7- I was pretty much a tomboy growing up. I went everywhere with Brian. We rode our bikes everywhere. We found bike trails, went fishing and swimming, I even went to Baseball Card shows with him and my dad on weekends. When we went to our dad's house on the weekends we slept in the same queensize bed (every morning we'd fight) and during the week I slept on his floor next to his bed when we would go back to our mom's house.

8- Girls are so mean. When I was in 7th grade, or maybe it was 6th, I went to a sleep over at a girlfriend's house with a bunch of girls. I woke up with red dye in my underwear - the underwear that I WAS WEARING! They had taken red dye and dripped it on my pj shorts that went through to my undies, to play a trick on me, making me think I had gotten my period. What the hell? I guess I was just too nice back then. I NEVER thought friends would do such a thing. Looking back, I should have beaten them up! I guess that's why I chose to have more guy friends than girlfriends after that.

Thought I would post since I have some time. I have been feeling more and more typical pregnancy symptoms lately. Though, I figured out that if I eat small, more frequent meals/snacks during the day, my nausea isn't as bad. Wednesday, was the first time my nausea did actually get the best of me. I was brushing my teeth -which always makes me gag to begin with even when I wasn't pregnant - and the water I had drunk earlier came up on my toothbrush. Needless to say I had to get a new toothbrush. Good thing my brother is a dentist! I know you all probably are not the least bit interested in my other, not so attractive, "issues", but I FINALLY went numero dos today!!!!!!!! I was getting a tad nervous about it, as it had been a while, so I started on my Citrucel fiber pills again and I guess that did the trick! Thank the lord for those precious pills. I took Tylenol for the first time the other day because my headache was bad and just would not go away. I felt a little guilty but I did some research and found that just plain tylenol [below 650 mg] is okay to take. Boy am I glad it's Friday. These weeks just seem to get longer and longer for me. I can only hope it gets better.
Brett is home from his business trip and I am whole again.

Now that we have the news out to our parents I can finally post it... I am officially pregnant! Saw the doctor on the 25th and it's confirmed. I think I am about 6-7 weeks along (doc didn't tell me) and we have our next appointment on Aug 28th. Hopefully we get the ultrasound then and we can hear the heartbeat. I have been reading my books almost every day trying to gain as much knowledge on this stuff as I possibly can. I am already feeling completely exhausted, nauseous and have some pretty bad headaches. I can only be positive and see it as a good thing that my body is working hard to build this little miracle.