Just a few days away from the third!!!

This picture was taken a few weeks a go but holy cow!  He's really showing himself these days... I remember thinking "I can't wait until I'm REALLY showing..." and that time has definitely arrived!  I'll be standing up and Lance will come in and sort of giggle to himself about how much my belly has popped out over the last few weeks... I love my baby bump.  Yeah, it makes life pretty difficult these days but I know he's inside me growing and my belly has to grow with him.  Lance just has to listen to my moans and groans when I try to bend over, tie my shoes, cross my legs, etc. etc.  Haha. This is my last week of my second trimester and things have remained pretty great.... the bigger little man has gotten the more he's hurting my pelvis and my sciatic nerve but all those pains are definitely worth it.  It's mainly my left leg that has the most troubles... sometimes it feels like it is just a complete dead leg and I have to lift it up to cross it and move it, other days it's completely fine.... after a long day at work though nothing sounds better then stretching out on the couch with my feet up.  I have thirteen weeks left and I know as he gets bigger the pains will get worse and worse... I can only imagine how much fun these next three months will be...but come January 2012 we will have this beautiful baby that I was blessed enough to carry around in my body for nine months and all the aches and pains will be forgotten.

Lance and I can feel him moving ALL THE TIME!  He's an active little guy...and I'm thinking he must be pretty long because I will feel him at every corner of my belly at once...so he must be kicking and punching like crazy in there.  Sometimes I'll be laying on the couch and Lance can see him kick through my shirt...I absolutely love it!  I'll never forget the look on Lance's face the first time he felt him kick on his own...it was two weeks a go and we were laying in bed and I told him to just try and see...and little man gave his daddy a HUGE kick and Lance has never looked happier.  Now we feel him all the time... I just absolutely can't wait to meet him!!!  Kendalyn and Kassidy make me lay down every time I see them to see if they can feel him move and every single time he freezes up and won't do anything... they have tried singing to him, yelling at him (haha) and just talking.  They're so stinkin' cute...I hope they get to feel him move soon.  Kassidy always yells at him to COME OUT BABY!!  She doesn't quite understand... They have named his TreeBranch Spider.  HAHA!  It's amazing what little kids come up with. 


I got my flu shot this past week to protect me and him and my next appointment is this Wedensday...That will be the infamous glucose test...yuck.  I know it's necessary but I'm not looking forward to drinking that gross drink to see how my body metabolizes sugar... I'm pretty sure I don't have diabetes due to my average weight gain and all my UA's have never had any glucose in my urine.  At my last appointment I had gained nine pounds but I'll be interested in seeing this week.  I know it's the third trimester where most of the weight gain happens and my appetite has definitely spiked... I know why too!  He's so strong in there now he's requiring a lot more food so he can kick and punch me! haha.  Right now he's jumpin' and jiving in there like crazy... :) 


A different note..Lance had waited 20 weeks to tell his family about the baby because he figured there would be some sort of drama once we told them...the week after we told them his brother and his new wife...(of one week....) decided they wanted to start trying too and they announced to his parents last week they were five weeks along.  I'm not going to get into anything negative on my happy blog but I will just say that's awfully convenient timing if you ask me.  Oh well though, I have my handsome husband and this beautiful baby boy who I just know will be perfect...my life is complete! :)  No need for immaturity or competition like the rest of them.  I wish them the happiest pregnancy just like it has been for Lance and I.


My mom has been having a pretty difficult time with her chemotherapy...she hasn't been able to eat anything and she has a lot of cramps in her stomach and chest.  She just keeps going though..week after week she goes for her infusions knowing what that will mean for her...this is her week off from chemo so hopefully she gets a break and can enjoy Halloween and everything.  Love you mom!!  I am so glad that Lance and I have this baby boy on his way to bring some happiness into the family because it's about time something good happens and I know my parents couldn't be anymore excited...gives them something happy to look forward to! :)

Baby Boy!!!!

We had a second ultrasound on Lance's birthday and boy oh boy has he grown!!!  Here's a picture of his profile and I must say...he might just look like his daddy.

Well our appointment on Wednesday went great... at our ultrasound, Lance and I both got to feel him kick for the first time.  My belly has always had all sorts of rumbles in it so it's been hard distinguishing what is normal and what is the little man...so the sonographer had us push in on our belly to cramp his room in there and he got irritated and kicked.  Seeing him kick helped me know that's exactly what I was feeling!  It was so neat!  I couldn't stop laughing because of how much of a little attitude he has already!  Haha!  We got some great pictures and it was neat to compare them to last month's ultrasound pictures...he's gotten SO much bigger!!!  His little head has doubled in size and he looks more like a little boy rather than the alien he looked like before....lol.

As of right now we are leaning towards the name Lathan Rush... we wanted something original but nothing too bizarre and out there that people couldn't pronounce it or they would think "What in the world? Where'd that crazy name come from?"  We both really love Lathan so I guess we will see! :) I am at 24 weeks and have gained nine pounds... I am still not excited about gaining any weight at all but I know that's just silly and selfish because baby boy needs to grow! And man...it sure feels like he's growing a TON! He is only a pound and a half but my belly has just exploded lately...Lance loves to rub it and he says he loves it when my baby bump is showing...he always wants me to wear shirts that show it off. He's such a proud daddy already...it's adorable. I gave him a hard time this morning because he grabbed my belly and gave it a kiss goodbye before he gave me one... He instantly felt bad and grabbed me and gave me a big ol' hug and kiss. Lol!  I still feel pretty good...the body aches and stuff have started but I expected that. As I get bigger...I know those will only get worse. Great.  I've been really busy at work lately so it's been kind of exhausting come night time but Lance is still doing an amazing job helping me out around the house and taking care of the dogs, cooking dinner, etc. etc. I'm finding it harder and harder to bend over or even to see my toes...haha.  Although the baby bump is getting in the way of everyday life...I'm so blessed to have this baby boy growing inside of me and that little bump is just proof of the life Lance and I have started together. Lance worked his butt off to get little man's room ready... before it was a little girl's room and it was a light purple with wall paper and kitty cat border (absolutely hideous...) so Lance scraped and scraped to get all the wall paper and glue off and painted it a sort of sky blue.  I'm so in love with the color.  We bought the crib and dresser and he put that together a few weeks a go and is getting the bed ready today...the crib mattress, mattress pad, and the sheets.  We haven't bought the bedding set because we are waiting to see what all we get from our baby showers...but the theme I think we are going with is "Little Aviator."  Since the room is painted a sky blue, the air planes and clouds would look so cute in there.  We still have to purchase the glider but we are pretty darn proud of all the progress in there.  We have gotten SO many clothes for him already and they are all washed and either hung up or put away in his dresser.  He's going to be SO cute...I just know it!  :) My mom bought him a newborn KU track suit...which of course is Lance's favorite outfit out of all of them.  There's just so many cute outfits to choose from I might just have to changes him ten times a day so he can get wear out of all them...and we haven't even had a single shower yet!  We are going to be SO set! I'm so thankful that Lance and I have such a wonderful marriage now...we went through hell and back but have came out completely and totally in love with one another.  He's such an amazing man...absolutely amazing.

My mom continues with her chemotherapy...she lost her hair last week and Kendalyn is having the hardest time with it.  She is always so nervous what the kids at her school will say if they see her "Ma" doesn't have any hair...my mom pretends like it doesn't hurt her feelings but I know it does.  I don't know how my mom maintains her strength...I find myself waking up in the middle of the night (to go to the restroom...imagine that...) but I have a mini-panic attack thinking about all the what if's.  What if the chemo doesn't work, what if her scans come back bad, what if she decides to just stop her treatment all together... it's terrifying.  My son needs her as a grandma and it scares me so much to think about how unpredicatble cancer truly is... at any point the cancer can just stop responding to treatment.  I see it in patients all the time... we have so many repeat patients that just keep coming back for treatment and I can't imagine how they feel.  I know how my heart ached when my mom's cancer metastatisized from her breast to her bones...I can only imagine getting news that it had went to the brain or major organ.  It's heart breaking...each and everytime I hear of a patient returning....it just puts so much fear in me that at any time my mom might be in their shoes. I get angry and bitter a lot of the time for her... she's lived such a good life and it's just not fair that she has to deal with this.  She deserves so much out of life and although I know she doesn't allow the cancer to affect her life too dramatically, I know she can't help but wish life were different.  I love you so much mom and you are such an amazingly strong woman... :)

Halloween is in a few weeks...it's crazy to think that at this point last year was when my grandpa broke his femur and everything in my life went absolutely upside down.  I thought that Lance and I were falling apart, my grandpa's health declined in just two short months, and I entered such a deep and dark depression I can't believe I am where I am today.  I still miss my grandpa every single day...don't get me wrong...but my emotional self is so much better then it was at this time last year.  I now have such a wonderful marriage, I can think of my grandpa and smile rather than cry my eyes out, and in three and half months I will be a mom!  Life has truly came full circle and I couldn't be happier about it.