The Nursery!!!

Well we only have 28 days to go and the nursery is almost complete! Nick and I have been working on it for a while now and we are so pleased with how it turned out. I have attached pictures below and hope that everyone takes a peek. We now have everything done except we are in the process of replacing outlets, baseboards and putting up crown molding. Hopefully that will all be done in the next week or so. Other than that pictures are hung, toys are out, and curtains are up. Oh and by the way the curtains and my rocker were hand done by my mom and dear friend Vicki all I did was pick out the fabric! I do not have a picture of the rocker but I will take one tonight and add it to this. I hope everyone enjoys.

Amazing Baby Shower

This is so late, I have been bad with my weekly updates so here we go. On June 29th I had my baby shower and it went so perfect! We were surrounded by everyone we love and care about, had good food and good times, what more could I ask for. Nick and I owe a big Thank you to my mom, cousin Buffy and aunt Sherry. The shower began at around 1:00pm with food and greetings. Shortly there after started our activities! Half of the people made me scrapbook pages for me to put Makayla's pictures in and the other half made her onesies. What fun! I have all personalized things for her from everyone and that is so amazing. These are definatly things that I will save for her forever so she can see how much she was loved before even making her grand debute. As the women went through and did our crafts the boys (Nick, Ryan and Steven) went outside to enjoy a nice bottle. No really I mean a bottle see pictures below. Nick and I enjoyed everything so much and will be finishing out Thank you cards this week so I havn't forgotten you I promise.

P.S. A big Thank you to our wonderful photographer Cousin Brandi for the pictures. I can't wait to get them all developed.

34 Weeks only 4 weeks to go before induction!

Your baby's preparing for her arrival in just a few short weeks! By now, your baby weighs around 5 pounds and may be as long as 20 inches, head to toe. Her fat layers —which will help regulate her body temperature once she's born — are filling her out, making her rounder. Her skin is also smoother than ever. Her central nervous system is maturing and her lungs are continuing to mature as well. If you've been nervous about preterm labor, you'll be happy to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine. They may need a short stay in the neonatal nursery and may have a few short-term health issues, but in the long run, they usually do as well as full-term babies. In the coming weeks her head will go down further behind the pubic bone. The pressure of the growing baby and your loosening pelvis will allow the baby to descend lower and lower in your pelvic region. Even if her head is engaged she can still easily turn on her axis. At one moment, she is lying with her back to the right, the next minute she turns to the left, which will feel like a huge movement - anyone could see this on the outside! You'll hear her heart on the right one minute and left the next.

~It is just about time for Makayla to be born, only 4 weeks to go! I can't tell you how excited I am but at the same time I am saddened thinking of her not being in my belly anymore. Time is flying by!
Cassie

Late update! 33 weeks

Got a night owl in there? Your baby continues to develop regular sleep-wake cycles now. When your baby slumbers, she'll close her eyes (they're pretty sensitive to light these days) and she may even start to dream. But when your baby's up and at 'em, be prepared for some powerful kicks. You might be feeling them in a new place now -- your ribcage (just below your breasts). And wow, can they be sharp sometimes! But on the bright side, these movements are probably a sign that your baby's head-down, perfectly poised for her big birthday entrance. All of the organs are now developed and some are functioning already just as they will after the birth. More and more subcutaneous fat is forming so your baby's wrinkles disappear slowly but surely. The skin becomes a rosy color and the fine downy hair that was on the skin is replaced with vernix caseosa. This "baby cream cheese" prevents the skin from drying out. The fine downy hair comes off and floats in the amniotic fluid. Because the baby takes small sips of amniotic fluid, he swallows these hairs which then tickle and stimulate his intestines, which helps in their function after birth. For the time being, your child must continue to grow. He is now 16 inches (41 cm) long and weighs 4 ½ pounds (2 kilos). For the next four weeks on he will gain up to a couple of ounces a day. Depending on the time of his birth he will become a seven-, eight-, nine- or ten-pounder. Little girls are a bit smaller and lighter and the oldest (first) children are generally lighter than the following children. That may be because of the tight abdominal muscles, the stretching of the uterus and the age of the mother. The more children a mother has, the more the abdomen will be able to stretch.


P.S. 4 and a half pounds yeah right! She weighed more than that a week and a half ago. We all must remember her daddy was 23 inches and almost 10 pounds!

Dr. Appt and we have a birth date for Makayla!

Well on 06/25 we went in for our 3d/4d ultrasound that is administered at the doctors office and boy do we have news! At this appt they had a few things on the to do list besides just letting me see our beautiful daughter. One of which was to check her heart because when she was 19 weeks her heart skipped a beat regularly and they wanted to make sure that went away. Sure enough it did she had a perfect heart beat of 150bpm, and is very healthy. Second thing was they wanted to check her weight at this point of the pregnancy. She weighs approximately 4 and a half pounds!!!! She's a big baby but that's not the part that made me shiver. The parts of her body they measured showed her stomach measuring perfect with my due date, her legs measuring very long, and her head measuring 2 and a half weeks later! In other words it would put me at over 34 weeks pregnant. I began to relies the first thing that I have to get out is that big ol' head lol. From the ultrasound pictures we have concluded this...
-She obviously has Nicks "Big" head lol
-She has Nicks nose not mommies =(
-She has Nicks lips because I have no peeks
-And she has huge chubby "chipmonk" cheeks
I think I got screwed out of this deal, I get to build her for 40 weeks and she gets no features of mine! I guess she is going to be a daddys girl. Oh yes and she appeared to have long feet, look out here comes daddys size 14 shoes!

Anyhow but to top of the appt because she is measuring large the doctor is going to induce me on August 13th (time of day will be given by the doctor in about 4 weeks). This is in hopes that I will be able to get my little munchkin out the normal way instead of a C-section. So depending on how my body reacts to the induction Makayla's b-day will be either August 13th or 14th. Wow that means she will be here in about 6 weeks. Below are some of her latest and last pics until she is born, enjoy!

32 WEEKS, less than two months to go!

She's becoming quite a big baby, your little one! She's about 16.7 inches long and almost 4 pounds now. Your child is so big now that the space in which she moves is very limited. She can't make any more major movements - a final turn-around before she engages, at the most. But he can still prod, push and kick. However, once he engages, he will no longer change his position. Sometimes you can feel the engagement. At that time, you will get a heavy feeling in your vagina and some women have contractions for a brief while. After the baby engages, you will have more air and space in the upper part of the uterus. The lack of pressure on your ribcage is a huge relief - you can take a deep breath for the first time in weeks!

~I can tell you the pressure and pain Makayla is causing in my ribs is not what I expected. Wow does she kick! I push on her feet and bottom to get her to move down and the second I let get go back up she goes. Oh well, were not that far away from D-day lol.

Daddy's Take on Birthing Class.

Its a good thing! For sure. I hate speaking infront of people i dont know. I hated it in elementary school, I hated it in middle school, and i surely hated it in high school. For whatever reason, at the beginning of the class, i knew the 'teacher' (who is really a RN / midwife) was going to be calling on all the 'dads to be' in the class to make complete fools out of themselves. (i guess with a little girl on the way, i better get used to that) So she (the teacher) held up a pamphlet and asked if everyone had this. Now, i know i had one, but i didnt get it out because i had already 'briefly' looked over it, but Cas looks over at me and says, "i think its in that book". (nicks thought) "Crap". So i relucantly pulled out this pamphlet on 'Pre Term Labor' and as the dad infront of me is reading the first line (he got the easy one), the teacher looked at me and asked if i could read #2.

The Big Number Two...i knew it...and i couldnt do a thing about it. (time to soak up some pride, bow my head, and read it) "Look to see if there is vaginal discharge or bloody discharge from the vagina" It is pronounced VA-ginal ... but look at me, I threw down a 'VAGINA-uh-al Discharge'. needless to say, daddy was a little embarresed at this point. But i knew, in the back on my mind, with the exception of one maybe two guys, they all would have said "Vagina-uh-al" instead of VA-ginal.

Oh well...maybe i can embaress myself again next week!