Monday, February 24, 2014

We are having a .......

????????



                                      BOY!!!!!

I have a set of coffee mugs from Anthropologie (one of my fav stores) with letters of all our initials that I just love.  I bought a mug a month ago with the letter L because I was almost positive I was having another girl and if so we would name her Lily.
At 17 weeks along I just found out the gender over the phone after taking the Harmony blood test 11 days ago.  The test mainly looks at the babies chromosomes for any abnormalities like down syndrome.  Thankfully the baby shows no signs of any chromosomal abnormalities.
I must admit it was a bit weird finding out we were having a boy over the phone from a complete stranger with no one around, but O.  Charlie was still at work and I didn't want to tell him until he got home.  I was jumping out of my skin waiting for him to get home!
Last night Cha was drinking his tea from this L mug and says to me,"what if it is a boy and we have this L cup for Lily?"  My response was it really doesn't matter, it is just a mug, plus we could always find a boy's name that starts with L.  Coincidentally, a while ago I did come across the name Liam and really like it.  So as a way of breaking the news to Cha I wrote the rest of the name on the mug and wrapped it up.
Only problem was that Miss O knew the news and was having a hard time keeping it in.  I sat her down to explain how I wanted to surprise Daddy by opening the wrapped mug with the boys name on it and she said, "ok mommy I won't spill the beans, promise."  But right as Cha opened the garage door she ran out and yelled "It's a boy" just as he got out of the car.  She is excited beyond words!
She really wanted a sister, but seems totally ok with a brother.  I think she just wants to be a big sister more than anything.
But I am shocked!  Everything was pointing to a girl.  The night before I found out we were pregnant I had a dream I was having another girl, O has been adamant it is a girl, and I kept seeing the name Lily everywhere.  I asked the genetic counselor who gave the news, "are you sure" and she was like "umm, yes the blood test is 99%," which I knew, but I was just so flabbergasted.  When I got off the phone a magnitude of emotions came over me and I began to ball.  I was sad that I was not going to have another girl, O was not going to have a sister she wanted,  I was not going to have a Lily.  Plus all the cute girl clothes that I hoped to reuse.
But then I began to cry even harder out of happiness that we were going to experience a boy, O was going to have a brother, and the Bush family name was going to live on.  I am 95% sure this is going to be our last kid, although if you ask Cha it is more like 100% sure, so I am happy that we have one of each.  Our family is complete!  Plus the last thought I had before I feel asleep last night was, if we have another girl I am definitely going to be the third wheel, competing for my husbands love and attention.  With O alone it is hard to get much attention, if we had another I might as well as sleep with the dogs, ha!
As far as names go, boys names have always been hard for us.  I have always liked the name Gavin and we used to like the name Noah.  But lately I seem to lean towards Liam or William.  Miss O picked the name Jack once we found out we were prego and asked her for a boy name, which both Cha and I don't mind either.  It will be hard deciding and I welcome your opinions of these names or any other ideas.  The middle name will most likely be Charles, just like his Daddy. :)

Friday, February 14, 2014

Happy V-Day!


Wishing you all a Happy Valentines Day!  Above is some art I did with O this past month.  All of it is made from using her hands, feet and fingerprints.  I have them hanging in our living room and love looking at them.  For Christmas we made a Christmas tree using her hands as the branches of the tree.  For every holiday I plan to do art with her to hang on our walls, as a form of holiday decor.  Hopefully one day when we settle down and buy a house I would like to display all of our art together on one wall.  Soon enough there will be an extra kids art work to hang as well, can't wait!
One of O's and mine gift to Charlie is a hand made picture frame of us in NYC.  It is made of painted puzzle pieces, popsicle sticks for the frame, cardboard, and a lot of hot glue.  Most of it was created at the local library were we do arts and craft along with book time.  I hope he likes it and adorns his office desk with it.
My next project, which is a lot more entailed is finding an antique dresser to go in the babies nursery.  I plan to up cycle it by painting it grey and white, and installing new hardware.  The nursery colors are primarily going to be grey and white.  If it is a girl I will use purples and if it is a boy I will probably use red, yellow, and black.  We will probably only be living here for another year in a half, but Cha will have to paint the nursery walls a grey color because I cannot stand the poo brown it currently is.  A year in a half is too long for me to look at that wall color, although it might be good for diaper accidents. ;)
Well I am at the end of my 15th week and about to enter my 16th.  Today I finally worked out, for the most part getting my Harmony blood test.  It is a very confusing and aggravating process of trying to get an authorization for the test through our medical insurance Tricare.  I will not bore you with the details, but lets just say it is has been a royal pain in my butt.  But today I got my blood drawn and about 10 days from today we should know the results of the babies chromosomes and gender.  So exciting!

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

So long first trimester and hello second trimester!

I cannot believe I am already in my second trimester, 14 weeks along to be exact.  So happy to be out of the first trimester!  Any women who has been pregnant knows what I am talking about.  You want to enjoy your pregnancy, but in the back of your mind you don't let yourself fully celebrate in case something might go wrong in the fragile first trimester.  Now I can for the most part relax and just enjoy.
From this pic I think it is safe to say my tummy no longer looks like I over ate over the holidays, but a true baby belly.  One of my fav parts of pregnancy is that I have increased a bra size, from a B to a C.  My pregnancy with O I think I got to a D, which is very large for my body type.  Just wish this was one symptom of pregnancy that would not go away! :))
So far I feel great!  My late night yuck feeling has subsided, my boobs don't hurt anymore even though they are 5 lbs. heavier, and not many food cravings.  Sometimes I forget I am prego, especially since I am kept busy by an energizer bunny of a daughter.  But then I look in the mirror or put on pants and I am like, "Oh yeah".
Our high energy daughter attended her first preschool class at St. Joseph in Hammonton today.  She is doing two half days a week for four hours each day.  My parents had been visiting from California for the past two weeks and felt that she was bored and needed to be challenged.  They are helping with some of the cost since private preschool doesn't come cheap.  We will be doing this up until the middle of June and then resume preschool at the public school in the fall.
She has been asking to go to school since she was 2 and absolutely loved it.  She wishes she could go for the whole day.  Cannot believe how fast our baby girl has grown up, but it was time to give her a new outlet since I pretty much ran out of things to teach her and the cabin fever due to the extreme snowy weather of NJ is making her a bit batty.  O is also a social butterfly and needs to be around people at all times, I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. :)