As we look for a house to live in, I keep on thinking of the nursery. I have so many ideas to make the nursery look unique. Poor Matthew has to somehow make my ideas come to life. I know we want our color theme to be green and brown, I always love those two colors. Matthew and I love nature so these color really catch our eyes. 

Next we came up with the theme forest or medieval. Two themes that we can make one of a kind. Today I found a cool tree shelve! 

Cool right?? It made out of metal and welded together. I would put pictures, books and little nick knacks on it. Plus we can always use this later when the kid does not want it anymore.

I also found a neat idea that I could put just above the crib to add another cool looking feature. 
The only difference I would do is I would put forest/medieval items on it, maybe a unicorn if it is a girl or a dragon for a boy. The green and yellow things would be something along the lines of knights and castles.

Of course I want to do wood letters for the baby's name.... 
Still brain storming and I am excited to see what the final outcome will be for the nursery.  
 
Ah, I am so happy that we are at 18 weeks pregnant. I don't care what anyone says, I love being pregnant. It is one of the greatest gifts from God. I am started to feel bigger and had to break down and buy some maternity clothes. Thank-you for Ross because I got a great deal on clothes!! 

I am starting to feel baby more often, the other day I felt a nice thump when I pressed my hand against my belly. I can kinda guess where the baby is because of where I find the heart beat and where I feel those kicks. 

I thought I had a good amount of energy until it was 3pm and I needed a nap. I am finding out when you are pregnant you have those moments when you just feel like you cannot move from exhaustion. I am so glad I am not working so I can have that option to just relax for a bit until my energy comes back. 

We are 15 days away from the scan, I know I mention this a whole lot, we are super excited!!! I am wanting to start "nesting" but cannot until we get our own place. I want to do the nursery so bad! And buy the baby lots of things!! I love shopping for others!

Well, Matthew is watching a movie and I want to join him.

Here are some baby bump pictures...

  
 
Your Baby Week 18:

Your baby weighs about 5.25 ounces (150g) and now measures 5 to 5.6 inches (12.5 to 14cm) from crown to rump. He is practicing breathing by gulping amniotic fluid into its lungs. This helps the lung's development so they will function at birth. Your baby may also be sucking his thumb.

Meconium is present in your baby's bowels. There is hair present on your baby's scalp and sweat glands are developing.

Your baby is becoming more sensitive to the outside world and is moving around, kicking and punching. As there is still plenty of space in your uterus, your baby can move around a lot, sitting cross-legged, reclining or even turning somersaults!

He can probably hear by now as the ossicles (the bones that pass sound to the inner ear) have hardened and the portion of the brain that receives signals from the brain is under development. Your baby is getting used to the sound of your heartbeat and blood passing through the umbilical cord, but may be startled by loud noises. Your baby is aware of some things in the outside world, including sounds and light. If you let the sun shine on your belly, your baby may be able to perceive a warm red glow. 

 
Dear little one inside me, 

I get all excited as the days draw near to finally meet you. I have been waiting for you since the day I decided I wanted to become a mother... which was about when I was five. When I finally met your daddy, we talked a lot about you and your future siblings. How we would take care of you, love you all and give you the best of us. Your daddy is super excited to meet you, he talks to you daily. Please continue to grow up inside of me, take your time if you need to... just don't go over 40 weeks. Did you know you already have pets? I hope you are an animal lover because our animals will defiantly love on you! Squirrel, our dog, will adore you! I hope you don't mind we told her she was getting a sibling! Ha ha ha. Anyways... Mommy and Daddy love you and cannot wait to meet you!! See you in about 23 more weeks!! 

 
Here is our baby's heart beat, he/she heart beat is usually in the 140's. I love hearing this sound :D
 
Wow, the time just seems to keep on flying by! It feels like I was celebrating being 6 weeks pregnant! Not that I would want to go that far back! I am very happy to be where I am. Baby seems to be doing alright, I don't know if I am feeling kicks or just gas bubbles... I cannot wait to start feeling my little one inside of me!! I have been craving food like crazy... several times I woke up starving! Where I was so hungry it hurt!!! 

My belly seems to have grown a lot, my clothes are starting to not fit :( time to find some maternity clothes I suppose. I hope they are cute! Ha ha ha. 

I had to move my Anatomy scan until March 2nd... boo! Now I have to wait 22 days until I get to see our little guy... or gal!! Ha ha ha, I still think I am carrying a boy. I am keeping the gender a secrete still... even though people are giving us evil looks about keeping it to ourselves... Oh well! 

I am still sick, but the cold has defiantly gotten way better. I still feel like my chest is full of gross mucus and I cough a lot but knock on wood I have not ran a temperature like I did Saturday and Sunday. 

I am uploading a video of our baby's heart beat! Just in case someone out there does not know what a fetus heart beat sounds like... it is sometimes easy to get the baby's heart beat and one of your major organs pulse mixed up. Did you know you could hear your own heart beat all the way down to your hip? I have discovered this with my handy dandy doppler.

oh and I got some baby bump pictures to add!!!

Here they are!  
 

Your Baby Week 17:

Your baby now weighs more than the surrounding placenta. She measures about 4.4 to 4.8 inches (about 11 to 12cm) from crown to rump and weighs about 3.5 ounces (100g). She is positioned halfway between your pubic bone and your navel.

Fat, which is important for your baby's metabolism and heat production is beginning to form around this time.

The placenta, which will weigh more than a pound at full term, is also developing rapidly. It is now a large and well-established network of blood vessels responsible for exchanging nutrients and waste to support your baby. 

 
This post is about three days late.... last three days I have been sick plus we had some difficulties during the week. Matthew was not feeling well on Monday so we went to the ER and waited 8 hours in the emergency room. Turns out Matthew had an ear infection. We are very glad it is something "minor". Tuesday was horrible because we were running off of 4-5 hours of sleep. Matthew had to work still and I had a swimming class which my teacher won't care if you were in the ER for 8 hrs, she will still count you absent. I kinda wish I did not take this class because usually the teachers are more flexible and will give you some "free" classes that won't count against you. Not this teacher. My horse and math teacher are amazing and will give me some freebies. I just have to have a doctors note or just tell them ahead of time. I think it has to do with the different lives that my teacher's live. My swim teacher is not married and has not kids... my math teacher has a little girl and her husband is in the army. My horse/equine instructor runs a horse boarding center and she is married. So they both understand that life gets in the way and sometimes we HAVE to miss class. 

Anyways.... made it to 16 weeks! We went to a doctor's appointment... I, as usually, was very nervous. I gained three of the 10lbs I have lost... Yay!! Just took 16 weeks to do so. When our doctor walked in, Dr. Quin, he announced that we were going to get another ultrasound because he wanted to check on the baby's growth and see about that blood clots that we saw behind my placenta. We were very excited and nervous. Poor Matthew got all nervous and started to worry that something was wrong with our mini me. When Dr. Quin came back he and started the ultrasound, lots of thoughts went through my head... Have I been careful enough while being pregnant? Have I done anything to harm the baby? Could I have done things better to help the baby grow more? Right away he found our baby's heartbeat! He was very happy how strong our kido's heartbeat is. Baby is growing on target, though being a Singer, and our child, he/she was stubborn and hid behind something so he could not get a good measurement but he said what he could see the baby was growing on target. And... The blood clot is gone!! Dr. Quin said there were not evidence that there were ever a blood clot! Praise God!!! He is happy how we are doing so he said we can see him in six weeks instead of 4 weeks. Cool. Our Anatomy scan is in 19 days... I hope those days fly by! We get to see what we are having! Everyone else gets to wait until birth ;)

So... about being sick. I am pretty sure I caught whatever I have from going to the ER with Matthew... there were a ton of sick people in there, duh! But on Wednesday I had a sore throat, on Thursday I just felt off. I wish I could have skipped swimming class because I am sure jumping in cold water did not help. On Friday, the day of our appointment, I was coughing and feeling super tired... then On Saturday I felt horrible. I had a fever of 99.6 and was coughing, sneezing, nose running, horrible headache... just felt horrible. I had Matthew go on a sick run for me. That night I thew-up, afterwards I went and cuddle with Matthew who was asleep... apparently my fever woke him up. I was running a fever of 102.02... great. So for the next two hours Matthew worked on getting my temps down... when it got down to 100 we went to bed. Matthew is such a good Husband, he takes such good care of me... I love him to death! He had to work on Sunday but called in and found a replacement to stay home with me in case I needed anything. I woke up with a temp of 99.5. Which is better.

I am glad I am in my second trimester, if I was in my first, a fever could be bad for our baby... but because I am in my second trimester we have no worries about a fever hurting the baby, unless it gets to 104 then we have to worry some. 

Check baby's heartbeat on a doppler and s/he had a nice strong heartbeat. I just hope I get over this cold ASAP because I have hw and school to do and I cannot let a cold hold me behind.

I am going to try and take my baby bump picture tomorrow when I look and feel better...

Now I shall end this with pictures of our kittens are cuddly, I think they knew I was feeling bad so they came to comfort me.

 


Your Baby Week 16:

Fine hair called lanugo covers your baby, who now measures about 4.3 to 4.6 inches (10.8 to 11.6cm) from crown to rump and weighs about 2.8 ounces (80g).

Fingernails are well formed and the arms and legs may be seen moving on an ultrasound. Your baby already has his own unique fingerprint pattern!

Your baby can hold his head erect and he can also make faces with his slightly developed facial muscles. Your baby may practice squinting, frowning and opening and closing his mouth.

Your baby's bones have enough calcium deposits to show on an X-ray. If your baby is female, her ovaries will be in place in her pelvis and more than five million ova (some of which may be fertilized to become your own grandchildren in another generation!) have formed.