Happy New Year's Eve! ~~ 22 weeks

Andy and I have had quite an eventful last month: 20 week ultrasound and the results of that (plus hitting the halfway mark to baby!), graduation, Christmas, Baby B. moving like crazy, and Kona turning two! It has been an amazing December, and somewhat busy, but we've enjoyed every minute.

Pre-warning: this will probably be a very long update. :-)

First: ULTRASOUND! We went in a couple of weeks ago for the 20 week ultrasound, and what an amazing thing that was! It was the day after my final and the day before graduation from nursing school...needless to say, it was an awesome day! We got to the ultrasound (me with a full bladder, which was extremely uncomfortable) and the tech started trying to get the picture on the screen. As soon as she did, we noticed the baby was sucking its thumb! It was so adorable being able to see it suck its thumb and fingers, move around, flip upside down - we have an active little one! Andy said it became so much more real for him being able to see those images.

Baby's face on the left, belly, and left hand waving!

Baby's head on left, right arm bent, and right knee (it had just taken its hand out of its mouth).

Baby profile.

So the ultrasound was awesome, but unfortunately, we weren't able to ask any questions! I was asking if everything looked okay, etc., and the tech said she wasn't allowed legally to say/diagnose anything. So I got a call from my doctor the next day, 15 minutes before I was about to walk at my graduation, and she said I have what's called marginal placenta previa. The baby looked completely fine, but my placenta is low-lying in my uterus, and could possibly block the baby's way out in a natural delivery. I researched a little more, and it's actually pretty common and usually resolves itself later in the pregnancy. They'll do another ultrasound at 30 weeks and if it hasn't moved up, they'll schedule a c-section (worst case scenario). But, we're thinking and praying it will move. :-)

A quick sidenote: we told the tech at the very beginning that we didn't want to know the sex of the baby. She was very respectful of that and also very careful. She had to turn the monitor screen like four times during the ultrasound, and by the third time she told us, "Your baby is not shy!".....Take that for what you will. :-) Andy still thinks it's a girl, but I'm leaning towards a boy - the first hunch I've had the whole pregnancy.

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Next: GRADUATION!! After a very emotional and trying last week of attempting to keep my sanity, I finally made it to the goal I have been working at for 6 years - graduating from nursing school! I got an 87% percent on the final and ended up with a solid "B" in the class. The graduation day was pretty surreal, but awesome nonetheless. I had a lot of family and friends come out and support me, and that was amazing. Andy and Matt (Jessie from my class' husband) set up all of our decorations, and we were actually able to use some of the stuff from our wedding again!

Christine and Emily at Fox and Goose after the final with other friends from class (an end-semester-tradition).

Jessie and Emily at Fox and Goose.

Andy setting up the decorations.

Faculty on left, students on right, with gorgeous decorations! :-)

Me with my brother Brent and sister Leslie after the graduation.

Emily and Natalie after graduation.


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BABY UPDATE: So I am 22 weeks tomorrow, which means I am officially over halfway to the 40 week mark. Baby B. is moving a lot, and I cannot get enough of it!! I feel like I could just lay there and feel it all day, it's the most amazing feeling. We just started being able to feel it from the outside a couple of weeks ago, which is really exciting for Andy. It is now our nightly routine when we get in bed for the night for Andy to spend a few minutes and feel Baby kick him - it's awesome!

This is what baby looks like this week: it measured 13 ounces two weeks ago at the ultrasound, but we didn't get the length - it's approximately 10-11 inches.

20 week bump picture taken the day of my final, before Andy took me out to Fat's for dinner!

21 Weeks

21 Weeks - getting closer to an outie! (Please ignore the piercing hole).

Sorry this is so incredibly long, I will try to get better at posting more often now that school is over - hooray!! Hope you all have a wonderful and safe New Year's Eve and a very happy 2009!!

Happy 2nd birthday (yesterday) to our awesome Kona girl (happily playing with her new Christmas toy)!

17.5 Weeks, Maternity Shopping, and Baby Gifts!

First off, I hope you all had a wonderful, relaxing, and filling Thanksgiving. We spent the day at Grandma and Grandpa Gruner's house, relaxed, ate awesome food and caught up with family we hadn't seen in a while. Here are a few pics...

Beautiful Aunt Tina and Uncle Gary :-)

Stopping to pose for the camera

Grandma busy making yummy gravy



Grandpa busy carving turkey






Uncle David and Aunt Lisa

After trying to button my pre-baby jeans one last time a couple of weeks ago, my mom and I finally decided to go to the Folsom Outlets (they have a Motherhood Maternity!) and get some pants! It was a lot of fun to take the day off from studying and hang out with my mom. Motherhood keeps fake baby "bumps" in the dressing rooms that you can strap on to your stomach to see how clothes will fit you later on in your pregnancy - we had too much fun with those!

The first look at me with a huge baby "bump"!



I absolutely loved this shirt and will probably wear it on Christmas. :-)

Quick story about a really cool thing that happened last week:

My class usually does a potluck together about once a semester. So a couple of weeks ago, one of the girl's in my class decided it would be fun to do it one last time together! I thought it was a great idea and was looking forward to it. We planned on doing it last Friday, considering we weren't at the hospital, but on campus for a simulation lab. So we had lecture in the morning, and then were getting set up to start the potluck in our classroom. I was toward the back of the line, and when I finally got my food and was about to sit down and eat, Janette and Christine walked in the room looking very suspicious. Janette got everyone's attention and said they wanted to recognize three people in our class - me, Megan, and Andrey! Megan is currently about 5 weeks ahead of me, and Andrey's wife had their second baby last month. The whole class got together, collected donations and Janette, Christine, and Jillian put together three beautiful gift bags together for each of us! I was blown away!

Amazing gift for Baby B. from my nursing class - onesies, washcloths, binkies, diapers, wipes, pillow, bath supplies, toys, changing pad - amazing! Andy and I were completely overwhelmed!


Here are some pics of a couple of other gifts we've received:

Baby B's first official gift - his/her first Bible from cousin Chris, Laura and Levi!



Two comfy gowns and booties from Aunt Lisa

So now it's time to move on to some updates of our little bean! I am currently about 17.5 weeks, have just noticed my belly starting to "pop" a little, and not go completely flat when I lay down! I haven't for sure felt movements yet, but have noticed little "bubbles" off and on that is still too hard to tell for sure if it's really the baby or just me. I'm looking forward to that moment though!

We had our 4th appointment on Wednesday, and because Andy wasn't at the "extra" appointment that I scheduled a couple of weeks ago, he got to hear the heartbeat for the first time - it was awesome! The heartbeat was 159 again, and strong. It's funny that about half of the people that hear how fast it was say it's a girl because of that, and the other half (including my mom) say it's a boy. Everyone's already putting in their guesses!

This is what the baby looks like this week; he/she is about 5 ounces and 5 inches long, can move joints, developing sweat glands, and bone is ossifying and growing harder - pretty cool, huh? Here are some recent 17 weeek bump pictures:


17 week baby bump


The first time my belly didn't go flat when I layed down!

17 weeks


17 weeks, Thanksgiving day

I think that's it for my many updates, hope everything's well with all of you and that you're enjoying this awesome holiday season!

The most miraculous sound...

I just had to write a quick new post about what happened today. Andy and I still hadn't heard the baby's heartbeat, and deep down, it was really kind of getting to me and creating doubts that were creeping in. I made an extra appointment for today (considering how the last one went) to see if they could find the heartbeat.

I got to the appointment about 3:00 today and I was going to be seeing the nurse practitioner (who we saw at our first appointment). I explained to her that this was an extra appointment because it took them a really long time to pick up the heartbeat two weeks ago - she said our baby was already playing games with the docs! I told her I never heard it at the last one, and when the heartbeat was on the ultrasound screen, the doctor took it off my belly before I could see it.

She looked at me with the most empathetic eyes, like she knew I just needed to hear it. Well, she put the doppler on my stomach and it immediately picked up my heartbeat. She moved it a tad to the right, and sure enough, "boom, boom, boom...." - the most amazing, miraculous sound I've ever heard. The heart rate was 160, loud and strong. The baby moved (although it's still too early to feel) and the sound went away for a second. The nurse practitioner said, "Don't move baby, your mommy needs to hear you just a little more".

She found it real quickly again and held it there for what seemed like a good minute. I closed my eyes, thanked the Lord, and continued listening to the most miraculous sound....and then cried my whole way home. :-)

BABY BAUGHMAN!!

Andy and I are so excited to be expecting a new little addition to our family! I am currently about 14 weeks along, and our baby is due on May 7, 2009. We found out in the beginning of September and had our first appointment on Oct. 1, which was our 3rd anniversary. It was such a surreal moment to see our little tiny baby's heart beating on the screen - what a miracle life is!!

Things have been going great since then. I had a bit of a freak out moment at our second appointment last Wednesday (hormones, right?), when it took them about 10 minutes to find our baby's heartbeat. They couldn't pick it up with the doppler (they said it was still too small), so they went and got the ultrasound machine. After about 5 more minutes of looking (and my blood pressure through the roof), they finally found it! Unfortunately, they took the thing off my belly before I could see it. I caught a glimpse of the little profile, and the baby had its arm wrapped around resting on its belly with its head down - precious baby taking naps already!

Some other interesting news: it's already peeing! I thought that was funny...here is a picture from http://www.babycenter.com/ of approximately what the baby looks like right now:

I'm having a pretty difficult time now, with 5 more weeks of nursing school left (yes, 5!!!) - I'm really looking forward to it being over and being able to consume myself with this pregnancy! :-) Here are some other pictures I thought would be fun to share:

Very first belly picture - 4 weeks

Andy excited at out first appointment.

Me with our first picture of our little bean!

Our baby's first debut! (not the greatest pic...), 9 weeks - it's the little ball in the bottom circle

12 week belly

I'm really looking forward to keeping in touch with all of you through this pregnancy!! I'll hopefully be updating regularly with how the baby's doing, new belly pics, etc. Hope to talk to you all soon!!

Gruner Family Reunion

We had a wonderful time camping in Mammoth Lakes for the Gruner Family Reunion. Unfortunately it was scheduled on the same week as our Mexico trip was. We went to Mexico last year for a youth mission trip and did the music. This year, it was a really hard decision as to what to do; but after much thought and prayer, we decided we needed to go to the reunion (considering I hadn't been in over 10 years, and Andy hadn't even met half of my extended family!). We had a great time catching up with family we hadn't seen or talked to in years!

Andy setting up our tent!

Cleaning my dirty feet (one of many times...)

The first of MANY campfires.

My Aunt Tina carrying Kona like a baby (Kona actually liked it!)

Andy, me, Leslie and Chris went to the Mammoth Lake outlet stores for the day.

My cousin Joshua doing some nice relaxing.

Brent showing how the "slackline" is done (he was amazing...).

I gave it a shot, but it was NOT a good thing....

And the first of MANY ping pong matches (I think I have an addiction and need to get a table).

Believe it or not, Grandpa is by far the ping pong champion.

The dogs getting some good tug in.

The clan who started it all...

Happy birthday Brent, Chad and Chris!!!

Brent made a zip line between two trees in the middle of the campground!

It was our turn to make dinner for everyone - a burrito bar!!

Grandpa was in charge of the tortillas...

...and Grandma the meat.

And the not so fun dish duty.

We had such a blast camping and catching up with everyone, we can't wait for the next reunion in three years. Oh yeah, and while we were there, I was volunteered to organize the next one (which I'm very excited for!).

We also need to have some special recognition for a VERY special birthday today - Chuck is 50 today!!! Happy birthday Chuck!!