Little Lilly, where are you?

So...I will be 39 weeks tomorrow and we are not that far away from meeting our precious daughter. I can't describe the anxious feeling I have, though I'm positive most of you that are moms have felt this. All I want to do is hold her and kiss her and tell her I love her and that her Daddy and I will always be there for her. I am also going to miss being pregnant, having the baby bump, being able to experience all these news things, wondering about her, etc. I realize the next part of this journey will be amazing, but I will really miss how things are right now. I wish I could record the feeling of her moving in my belly, kicking me, pushing on my arms everytime I lay them on top of her. I won't feel this again for awhile, if ever, and it really is the best and most amazing feeling. Andy and I are just so excited and we talk about her all the time. Jack and Jonah are both really excited, too, though I think it will really hit them once she's here. Jonah absolutely loves baby clothes and he loves to go through them with me in the closet or when we are shopping at various stores. Jonah loves babies and little kids so I know he will be a great big brother to her. And so will Jack. Jack is the one that talks to her all the time and is always putting his hands on my belly. He also puts his ears up to it to see if he can hear her. This morning he did this and told me that Lilly knew his name was Jackie. Speaking of names, Jack insists on calling her "Champion". He is obsessed with the musical Annie and he loves the song where all the orphans are trying to name Annie's dog, who ends up being called Sandy. Anyway, one of the names in this song is Champion and he is very insistent on this being her name. He told me that he has a Lilly in his preschool class and that she is not his sister. So, obviously he is a bit confused and I think that's why he wants to call her Champion. I find it hilarious and it makes a great story to tell them when they are older.



Last week at my 38 week appt., my doctor sent me to the hospital for another ultrasound, bloodwork, and more urine testing. yay! Apparently, I still have protein in my urine, though my blood pressure has consistently been 110/70 for the last month. So, I got to head over to St. Francis and spend 2.5hrs there only to find out everything is perfectly fine. I did get to see an amazing ultrasound, though. The entire laptop screen was Lilly's face only and I almost couldn't speak. It was crazy to see her and actually see features and what she looks like. The Nurse Practitioner was like, oh she has such gorgeous full lips! That's right. Andy was extremely bummed out that he missed all this, but he really didn't need to leave work to watch after me. He has already stayed home with me a couple times because I haven't been sleeping and I basically become delirious and don't know what is going on sometimes. He takes such good care of me, of all of us. We are all really lucky to have him. So, anyway, Lilly passed all her tests on the ultrasound, which included things like breathing, sucking, opening her mouth and swallowing, hand and foot opening and closing, etc. She is quite the squirmer, so we were glad to know everything went well. We are also thankful for having such an attentive and precautious doctor. I recommend Dr. Salazar to anyone living on the southside - he's awesome!



In more fun news, I celebrated my 28th birthday on Friday. Babyless, but that's okay. We thought she might try and come out on my birthday. Andy bought me a gorgeoous bouquet of lillies, representing our little Lilly. He is just so thoughtful and sweet. He also took me to dinner at my fave "during pregnancy" restaurant, Lotus Garden. We also got to sit outside on our front porch all evening and talk and spend time with Roxanne. On saturday morning I woke up with a terrible sore throat and sinus issues. Blah. I am still dealing with them now and trying to rest as much as I can because I can't be going into labor without any energy! Jack had a 9am t-ball game that morning, so we went and baked in the morning sun. Jack had an awesome game. 2 hits off the pitch, a few plays at 3rd base, and he made an out. We had another game the following day where he had 3 hits off the pitch! Go Jack! Also for my birthday, Andy took me to Menards to get flowers, plants, and a rose bush for the yard. It's a work in progress, but we are hoping to do all the landscaping this summer. I specifically bought a peach rose bush in honor of my mom, since those were her favorite. Now I just need to figure out the best place to plant it!



So, we are pretty much ready for Lilly to be here. The bags are packed, the furniture is here (thanks to Ann & Ray...and the handiwork of Fain and Nat putting it together), we bought all the baby gear - swings, pack n plays, strollers, etc. We are ready to roll! I am also prepping for Tara and Knoerzer's arrival the weekend or 2nd weekend after Lilly is born. I am super excited for them to be here to meet her and hang out with us.



Andy is supposed to update the blog again later tonight, so hopefully he will get around to it. We need Dad's final thoughts documented, too. : ) Oh, and we finally found the perfect baby book for Lilly and have been working on that alot, too.



And if you'd like to catch up on some recent pictures, then just follow these links:


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=116992&id=687245238&l=3175958d0d




http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113387&id=687245238&l=2b92747bea

It's Official: We Have a Name!

Our daughter's name is going to be:

Lilliana Kathleen Harrier

Andy and I were both undecided between two names, Lilly and Ana. We loved them both, but could not stick with just one. When I was working in the Pharmacy last week, I waited on a 4 year old girl and her mom coming out of our Minute Clinic. The little girl's name was Lilliana and I thought, how funny...that combines both of our top two names. I told Andy of this new finding and he liked the name alot, too. Now, we still plan on calling her Lilly or Lil, but thought it would be really neat to have her full name have a bit of a background story to it. Plus, as I researched the name, I saw that it was used in Polish speaking countries. Awesome!

Obviously, her middle name is after my mom, so everyone knows the story there. : )

Jack has been practicing saying "Lilly". It's a bit hard for him and comes out as "Willy", but we have been practicing pushing our tongue against our teeth to make the "L" sound. He can say it now for the most part, but he says it really slow and emphasizes the "L" alot. It's pretty funny.

Actually, Andy and I were both having some trouble saying "Lilly Harrier", but I think we've got it down now. It's like when I was kid (or adult...) and had (have...) trouble saying "polish sausage" together.

Check out Baby Shower Pictures!

These links give you access to Baby Shower #1 in The Region and Baby Shower #2 in Greenwood, IN.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=112187&id=687245238&l=e5e091414a

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=112197&id=687245238&l=a799f2c8b9

This one goes out to Unckie K in St. Louis...

So.

We've slacked a bit on the baby blog and we truly apologize for that. Some of our friends have been kind enough to let us know this, too. : )

I don't know about Andy, because I think he ALWAYS feels busy, but I have never felt so busy in my entire life! Between the two baby showers, traveling, baby classes every week, house-hunting, working, dr. appts., and studying for my Pharmacy exam...I don't know where the time has gone. And don't forget to add in family time with the kids and time for just Andy and me.

There has been alot going on and alot to update you on, so I'll try and start from the beginning of my list.

The Baby Showers:

On March 14th, we traveled up north to The Region for our first baby shower. This was thrown by my Grandma Cheney, Nicole Voges (best friend) and my sister, Tara. Andy and I traveled up on a Friday afternoon and stayed at one of the local Marriotts. We met up with Tara, her friend Ashley, and her friend April who traveled up with her from St. Louis. We went out to dinner at a Region fave, Pepe's, and then went over to Sara Eisensee's (Grudzien) house for catching up, baking, and drinking (not me, I had Vitamin Water). It was great to hang out with my old pals from high school and my sister. Andy made his way to Sara's husband's "man cave" for the night for a few beers and some NCAA action. The next day was the baby shower and it was held at my Grandma's church in Hessville. It was a fantastic time and they had great food, lovely decorations, and organization only I can appreciate. : ) We received many wonderful and beautiful gifts and we are so thankful for all of them and for all the people that attended. I got to see all my family, all my friends from high school, and alot of other people that i haven't seen for at least 5 to 10 years. It was a magnificent reunion! Our hosts did such a wonderful job and I can't thank them enough!

And this Saturday is Baby Shower #2! This one is being hosted by Ann Harrier (Andy's mom), Amanda Rumsey (another BFF of mine), and Autumn Harrier (Andy's sister-in-law and aunt to our baby!). We are really looking forward to seeing our friends from around Indianapolis that we don't always have time to get together with. And of course, seeing Andy's family and family friends will be fantastic, too. We are really looking forward to tomorrow!

Baby Classes:

So far, Andy and I have taken Newborn Care and Breastfeeding classes. Both were held at St. Francis Hospital where I will be delivering. I'm glad we took the newborn class because I have never cared for a newborn before and my brother is the last one I remember being around and he is now 19! Alot of it was stuff I knew already and honestly, when it comes down to it, I'm sure Andy will be my answer key for everything. He is an excellent father and really good with all kids. The breastfeeding class, though, was very imformative. This is obviously something I know NOTHING about and it was good to learn all the positions and techniques. And we got to hear alot of personal stories from our instructor that made me feel more confident in my decision to breastfeed. Next up is our childbirth class in April. That should be fun...

Dr. Appts.

As for the Dr., I feel like I am there all the time now! I have been having a few protein issues recently and I am being tested for things right now in regards to that. So, everyone cross your fingers that everything will be okay in the end! Other than that, everything else has been going well. All of my tests have come back in good standing in everyway possible. The baby is still growing a bit bigger and ahead of schedule, but that's okay. We'll take her whenever she is ready! Aside from the all the fun testing I have been doing, I am basically just getting checkups every week and everything has been good. My total weight gain so far has been 13lbs, but I expect to put more on during these last 6 weeks. We get to hear the heartbeat everytime and she has been really consistent. We have another ultrasound scheduled next week and this will be our last one. Let's really hope she is a girl!!

The Baby:

She's a pusher! She loves pushing on me all day long. She still kicks and when she does I almost fall out of my chair. But lately it has been alot of pushing, which is crazy to feel and see. It was obviously weird the first time I felt movement and had to get used to it. But, I think it will be even more weird to NOT have that feeling in me anymore! I will miss it. My belly has brought me even closer with Andy's kids and I love that. As for her name we still have no idea!! We have narrowed it down even more and you can throw our last ideas out the window! It's a hard decision and one that we hope to come to very soon.

Personal Life:

Yesterday I took my exam for National Certification. This means I get to have CPhT after my name now! Certified Pharmacy Technician. Yippee! I studied long and hard for this and I am so glad I passed the exam. Before I was only State Certified, but now with National Certification I can work at a hospital and in other pharmacy environments. Unfortunately, I can't do anything with this right now since the baby will be coming, but I will continue to work part time (VERY part time) at CVS until the baby is born and then we'll see where I go after that!

We've just been busy bees around here and I feel busier and busier the closer we get to the due date. Andy and I are both really excited and this will be a new adventure for us.

If I can figure it out, I will post Baby Shower pictures in the next blog for everyone to see!

As Requested....

Please stay tuned for an updated blog tomorrow, Friday, March 20th. Unckie K (Tara's boyfriend, Mike) has requested a blog update and kindly reminded me that we have not blogged in over a month. Thank you, AGAIN, Unckie K.

Let's see...last Wednesday I had another OB appt. I have officially graduated to going to the Dr. every 2 weeks now! We've tagged third base and we're on our way home now...

I had a Glucose Tolerance test, which I'm assuming I did okay on because they didn't call me to come back in and I felt great the whole time. Andy and I did basic stuff like hearing the heartbeat, etc. We were also told that she has moved into place now and I hope she settles there and stays that way! I also had a lovely cervical exam and found out I was NOT dilated yet - yay. I gained three pounds, I believe, so total weight gain is around 7.5/8lbs. Right now I am 29 weeks and the baby is measuring about 5 days bigger, so either we're off on the due date or she's going to be a big baby!

We are still undecided on names, but Andy is leaving all next week for a trade show in Nashville that he has to go to for work, but he is planning on taking all the baby name books. I've already finished reading them and am happy with our 2 names choices, but I want him to read the rest of them to see if anything else pops out at him. I want to have a name picked by our first baby shower because that is the big question everyone asks you!

And speaking of baby showers, Amanda worked super hard this weekend and got all the invites for the Indy shower out yesterday, so everyone should start receiving them soon! I look forward to seeing them because they sounded really cute over the phone!

Valentine's Day/weekend was wonderful this year and I hope everyone else enjoyed theirs, too. Andy and I relaxed all day on Saturday and ran errands. Then he asked me what I wanted to do for dinner and of course, I was being a bit crabby about it because I hate thinking about cooking food or figuring out what won't give me heartburn. So I walked into our kitchen and he had a whole dinner (not made yet) laid out on the island. He had 2 strip steaks, a baked potato, rolls, and a spinach salad with apples and feta. It was all so very sweet! And he had hid the whole thing from me in the fridge and cabinets! But, that morning I had come down with a really bad cold/allergies and wasn't feeling too well, so we decided to put off this dinner until Monday evening. So, we went to good old McDonalds and got ourselves some dinner there instead. Andy also presented me with a couple gifts and a sweet card. He bought me this amazing necklace that I wanted so bad to wear now and to my baby showers. It is supposed to represent a seed growing or something like that, but regardless, I loved it and what it meant to me becoming a new mother. He also got our daughter a new sock monkey for her nursery. It is really cute with more of pastel colors and what not. So, Monday rolled around and he made me a wonderful steak dinner and he made a fire and we watched The Bachelor (of course). It was perfect. Thanks, sweetie!

Andy and the baby have also come up with a little "game" they like to play in the middle of the night. He pushes on my stomach until he wakes her up and then she pushes him back. They go back and forth and it's really the sweetest thing ever. I honestly believe she is sitting in there giggling and knowing that she is playing with her daddy. But, really, it's so cute and I love that they do it.

I have been sick all week with a cold, etc. and yesterday morning I woke up shaking for like 10 minutes and couldn't stop. I felt like I was freezing, but I didn't have a fever. Andy and I went into the dr. that morning, and basically I just have a virus and have to let it run it's course. My heart rate was super high though. One time it was 122 and another time it was 148! But, that's when Jack was in the room with me running around while the Dr. was trying to talk to me and I think he made my heart rate skyrocket! I have a rapid heart beat anyway, so it wasn't really a surprise to me or anything alarming and the dr. didn't think anything of it. I'm definitely out of shape, carrying more weight than usual, and have higher levels of stress. It could be from any of those, really.

That's all. Andy will be leaving me for 6 days starting on Tuesday so please keep me company and check on me while he is gone!

Apparently, I am seriously slacking on my blog. I don't agree, but Andy called me from work and told me I needed to write another blog update. I do have stuff to chat about, but I am NOT a slacker! : )

Tomorrow I will be 7 months along and I cannot believe how the time has flown by. I am really enjoying being pregnant. It's amazing to feel something inside of you moving all the time. She has been much, much more active lately. I can actually feel her kicking when I am at work and moving around. She seems to go crazy when I am around alot of people, so we are hoping she will be a social butterfly like me. : ) She is also lying in certain places and we can feel those, too. She's really pushing against me pretty hard these days. After my first three months of misery, I am really starting to like this pregnancy thing. Andy has even requested that I be pregnant all the time. Uh, no. But, with every pregnancy and every hormone imbalance, there are good days and bad days. Here is a list of what I think the good things of pregnancy are and the bad things:

Good Thing:

getting my belly rubbed all the time by Andy

Bad Thing:

random people wanting to rub your belly, even 50 year old bar owners...

Good Thing:

shorter shifts at work!

Bad Thing:

shorter temper and lower tolerance when dealing with the public

Good Thing:

getting asked a million questions and getting to answer them/tell stories

Bad Thing:

people's opinions of names; hearing pregnancy/labor horror-stories. Who does that, really?? Shut up.

Good Thing:

food!

Bad Thing:

trying to decide what food I actually want to eat...my apologies to everyone having to deal with this (mostly Andy!).

Good Thing:

baby showers, friends, and family

Bad Thing:

stressing out about address spreadsheets, registering, and traveling.

Good Thing:

getting kicked by the baby/feeling her move

Bad Thing:

getting scared or jumping everytime she does it!

Good Thing:

No more nausea!

Bad Thing:

hellish heartburn

Anyway, these are just a few of the joys/sorrows of pregnancy. You take the good with the bad, and for me, the good always outweighs the bad.

Again we have been talking more and more about names. And yes, I did buy a silly book from Barnes and Noble, but it was quite the conversation piece last weekend when we had people over for the Superbowl. But, I like different names because it can spark an idea of how to change that name and make it your own. We do have two front-runners, though, and one of them is very recent. Stella is one we've had FOREVER. I remember sitting in the McDonalds drive-thru with Jack and asking him to say the name Stella. This was way back when I found out I was pregnant. Andy takes credit for thinking of this name, but it has always been one in the back of my head, too. I was really set on "A" names because I wanted my daughter's initials to be the same as Andy's, which are AKH. Since I knew we would be using my mom's name (Kathleen) as the middle, I thought an "A" name would be perfect. We both loved Abigail and Ava, but soon learned they were two of the most popular names in the last couple years. I even wanted a couple names of Andy's past "loves", Anna and Allison, as I think those names are very pretty and simple. But, as time went on, I let go of the "A" name idea and have looked on to other wonderful options. Back to Stella...we absolutely love this name. It's funny, though, because my boyfriend all throughout high school had a mother who was originally from Poland and she would always call me Stella. It was sort of a slang Polish term for a girl. My mom thought this was a riot, also, and would call me Stella, too. Obviously, you know that my mom passed away from cancer in 1997 and sadly, Erick's mom passed away from cancer, too, in 2007. So, in a way, the name keeps wonderful spirits alive and I think it would be a neat story for our daughter to know about. The other name that recently came about and we both are really liking is Nola. I have liked this name ever since I saw the movie Matchpoint, which is one of my favorite movies. It offers a pretty dark story, but the name is absolutely beautiful. It's the name of Scarlett Johannsen's character, who ends up being killed at the end of the movie, but the name is still lovely. See how much you have to really think about these names? It's so stressful!! So, it's between those two.

What else...?

We have a dr. appt. on Wednesday morning for the lovely glucose-tolerance test, so let's hope that goes well! I received my own invite for my first baby shower (the NWI one) and they were gorgeous! I want to thank Nicole, even though I have already told her this, for doing such a wonderful job on them and basically doing exactly what I would have wanted and I didn't even give her any clues. That's a BFF. So, if you received one, please note that my best friend Nicole created these! I've also been working with Amanda on my Indy baby shower on invites this past weekend. Her and I went out shopping to a couple stores to find the ingredients to make the invites. I think we just may have it and after that, I am setting her and Autumn free to handle the rest. I am officially on pre-maternity leave and no longer watch kids during the day. I still work about 12-15 hours a week at the pharmacy, but like I said, I love my new shifts and schedule. Anyway, my little Chloe started preschool today so my last day watching her was on Friday. I had to be done watching kids sometime, as it was becoming stressful and harder for me to do things. Jack is also staying home with his mom now during the day, but I am still taking him on Wednesdays because God knows I gotta have my time with that little devil. I seriously missed the kid. He is such my little buddy around the house when it's just me and him and I love it. We have awesome conversations. He tells me stories and about the dreams he has. We talk back and forth like adults. He's also really good about helping me with things like letting Roxanne outside and in for potty breaks and he also feeds her. He gets the mail for me, brings me dirty dishes, throws his garbage away, and cleans his room. Small blessings...let me tell you. But hopefully he will be starting PreK soon, too, as he starts kindergarten in August.

This was all a big ramble, but that's what I do when you get me started. Andy and I will write more after our dr. appt. and about the upcoming baby showers and name decisions.