So. Let's say it's been a minute since I've last "blogged"
Oh, how life has progressed. In a multitude of ways!
I believe my last blog post was some time in early 2012 maybe. I was pregnant for my first child. 

Annabelle was born at home on April 20, 2012 at 8:3(something) in the morning after about 8 hours of labor, in and out of the tub, and not too much pushing. It was a beautiful experience. We named her after she was born. Annabelle Lynn.

Life was a little crazy after that. At some point after Annabelle was born, we found out we were expecting another baby. Annabelle was around 7-8 months at that time. I miscarried that baby in December of 2012. Some time around June or July of 2013, we found out we were expecting another baby. Of course, I was emotionally apprehensive at this point. All went well with the pregnancy, and Elizabeth Joan was born at home on February 8, 2014 at around 2am after about a 4 hour labor in and out of a warm tub and she literally almost slid out, still in the birth sac as it broke open as she came out. That was a beautiful experience as well.

Fast forward a few years of crazy, crazy times....

We definitely thought we were done having kids.... the story of a lifetime.. after doing nothing to prevent that from happening.. so the story goes.. we were visiting Oklahoma family for Christmas and New Years in 2017. Long story shortened, we found out during that visit, that we would be having another baby. We told Grandad and Gramma Jody, and they were thrilled and of course, prayed for a boy, as Gramma had for several years. We did discover at the ultrasound that we would in fact be having a little Filkins boy, who we named Howard Thomas, after his Grandad Howard (Howdy) and my father, Thomas. His birth is a story for another time.. let's just say, at home, double-footling breech. Not desired. Not common. Not fun. But in the end, beautiful.

Fast forward 3 years and here we are in Southern Oklahoma at the Texas state line, living on 45 acres with family in a totally different world than we ever started in for all purposes.

Our (my husband's) oldest daughter still resides in Nashville-ish area attending a university. 

My how life has changed.

Today, I would say that online blogs are a thing of the past.. 
Today the trends are video snippets on TikTok. "Vlogs"

So. Here's me, behind the times, typing out an "old-fashioned" blog..
I still handwrite letters, envelopes, write checks, etc. I'm old. It's ok.

26 Weeks and a $.99 shirt from Goodwill :)

 26 Weeks

26 Weeks

Before I brushed my hair and did a little makeup, I didn't want to show my face :-P

So here we are, 26 Weeks.

Today when talking to my Yoga instructor about different poses, etc, I mentioned about being 6 months and her eyes got so big! She was baffled! lol

Again, at night, when my muscles relax more, it pops out more than in the mornings, but still.

Status:

How Far Along:  

26 Weeks - 6 1/2 Months!

Weight:  

155lbs. Puts me at 14 lbs gained. I'll start going from the first weight I told my midwives, which was after I had lost 4-5lbs from morning sickness, which was 141 lbs.

Bump/Showing: 

Measuring on target at 25cm today according to midwife. My baby bump is starting to stick out more and more. Pretty much any normal shirts I had I can no longer wear unless they were extra long or larger than most all my other clothes.

Today I found some cute cheap clothes at Goodwill. The blue blousy top in the picture above I found at Goodwill today for $.99! Awesome! and it's Maternity! I love a great deal! I also picked up 2 other sweaters that I can wear.

Food Cravings/Aversions:

Just hungry all the time still mostly. I've been a little hooked on cookies the last couple days. I'm sure I'll pay for it in my weight gain by next week.. lol!!

Nothing is making me queasy. :)

Gender / Names:

Surprise gender :) Some people think it's nuts to not find out. Oh well, we'll make it work!

Though I've had a few people lately say they "think" it's a boy.. being I'm carrying lower, but who knows. It's 50/50! lol

Nothing solid on name ideas yet. :/  Need to start working on this.

Activities:

Started back to the Yoga class last week and today. I'm using the blankets for support, etc. and not doing poses that are flat on the belly, but rather lying on my side and doing leg stretches when they do those. Most of the other poses the instructor does are safe for me to continue doing. I will of course come out of a pose or not do ones when/if I feel uncomfortable, outside of the normal "I'm out of shape" discomfort.. lol.  I definitely feel good when I leave the class. The next day a lot of my shoulder, leg and arm muscles are sore, but that's normal. I really like the class and hope to continue on for the rest of my pregnancy. I think I will benefit a lot from it during the labor as well.

We'll probably miss out on skating this Thursday, as the rink is having a massive crazy school night that we don't want to be there for. I especially don't, since I have to be super careful when skating. My balance is definitely shifting and the movements I'm used to doing aren't as easy as they were. My skating will probably continue for a while, I just really have to take it easy and be careful.

Supplements / Diet:

Still trying to remember to take the Cal-Mag for my leg/muscle cramps. It definitely helps. 

I also bought some new Prenatal vitamins today, as my first stash is just about out and were a cheap vitamin. I decided to go up in quality a bit. 

I've been making myself very aware of my iron intake. My iron was low from the beginning and my blood pressure has been low as well. I've been eating oatmeal or grain cereals in the morning, along with Orange juice or another Vitamin C beverage to go with it. The body supposedly absorbs iron better when taken with Vit C, so I'm making it a point to do this. I've also been trying to add greens, etc. to my dinners. We had cooked kale the other night and I really liked it. Instead of regular lettuce on my sandwiches, I'll use spinach. Things like that.

Today at my appt, my blood pressure has already shown an improvement

Last month it was 105/65. Today it was 110/75. 

My midwife said we can test my iron levels again maybe after next month, just to make sure we're good. She wasn't concerned with my levels being a tad lower, since they weren't crazy low, but we'll keep an eye on it.

Movement:

Tons and tons! This baby is a mover! My 26 week update said that the baby can start opening it's eyelids and "seeing". The other morning at about 6am, the baby must have woken up and seen that there wasn't any room inside there and started pushing everything around to make room! lol. I swear it was more movement than I'd felt ever! It was crazy!
I'm feeling random kicks in my right lower rib area. This morning I was feeling flutters and movements down at my left hip area. My midwife says it's likely the baby is somewhat diagonal to the lower right side, with the head being close to my left hip and the feet being curled up at my belly button area. This would definitely make sense to the feelings I feel when the baby kicks. If it's kicking forward, it would kick to the left of my belly button, which is where I feel it. When the baby stretches it's legs, I would feel it in my right ribs, which I do.  

I'm about to tell this kid.. you can try to move other parts around, but baby I don't think that my hips and ribs are going to move.. lol. The baby must know I'm talking about it, because it's in here kicking and moving like crazy right now!

Baby heartrate:

The baby's heart rate today was about 140 again. She said it started out in the upper 130's, but I started laughing, and then it went up a bit into the 140s.  :)

Baby's Room and Baby Items:

I still need to do my registry... someone is a slacker and it's me!

A friend of my just passed down some of her baby stuff to me. We got a boppy pillow, a baby bathtub and a ton of toys! She also gave me some nursing tanks and a couple more maternity shirts. How awesome is that!!?!?

I randomly check Craigslist for good deals, and there are tons of them, but I haven't made any purchases. Biggest thing is, we want to catch up on bills and start getting ahead now, plus we have to pay off the midwives, so money isn't free flowing right now. lol

I started cleaning up the room upstairs. I had all the Christmas tubs and mess in there. I got all of that cleaned up. I also moved my sewing desk back over to the window and got that reorganized... I can't wait to get furniture and stuff in there! :)

Sleep, Moods, Misc.:

I've been sleeping a lot lately. Today I woke up the baby woke me up at 6am. I laid there tossing and turning a bit before deciding to go ahead and get up a little after 7. I went to yoga this morning, stopped to the Goodwill and when I came home, the bed with my dingle-doggies on it looked overly appealing, so I snuggled up with them and we all took a cat-nap :) It was nice.

I do find that I wake up randomly at night and am sleeping on my back. I try to sleep on my side as much as I can. I tend to keep my head propped up a bit and my knees are usually bent, but I'm constantly finding myself on my back again. 

The other day I was having ligament/muscle pains/cramps. This belly is already stretched more than it's ever been, and is only going to keep growing, so I expect to have those kinds of muscle cramps and pains. It was a tad more than usual, so I laid down and propped a pillow on my side and that did wonders! I was too tired for a bath, or else I would have taken a hot bath. .. which actually sounds really good right now... hmm.. 

I've also had odd pain in my belly button area.. more so just sensitive than it is pain. Either way, it's weird. lol. 

I'll save all my other randomness for another post :)

25 Weeks :)

The 'bump' is finally really starting to pop out! 
25 Weeks along :) Most people are baffled when I tell them I'm like 6 months.. Especially during the day, it seems my baby bump isn't as prominent as it at night a lot of times. I don't know if my muscles just relax more at night, or the baby moves to a different position, or what, but it's always bigger at night.


So here's where we are at:


How far along:  25 Weeks


Total weight gain: 12 lbs. +-


Gender / Name Ideas:  Surprise on Gender! No concrete names yet


Maternity Clothes: Most definitely have to wear maternity pants. I need maternity sweaters. I bought a few clearance long sleeve shirts at Target, but I definitely need more maternity shirts or extra long shirts. My long torso, plus the belly is making everything I have tight, or really short and it looks stupid.


Baby Bump:  Starting to pop and actually look more 'pregnant' than just beer belly. lol. I think that because this is my first, and my muscles aren't already stretched, and I'm tall, with a long torso, I have a lot of room and the belly isn't popping out as much as most women at 6 months. But it's getting noticeable, especially at night.


Best Moments this Week: Feeling what I think are hiccups. Pretty cool feeling. Every time I feel the baby it's a cool feeling. The other night my step daughter finally got to feel it. She had her hand on my belly, waiting for a kick, and kept thinking she was feeling something, but I told her, just wait, you'll know for sure when you feel it. Then, Bam!.. Her eyes lit up and she says "whoa, I felt that!" That was fun. I still love laying down at night to read and getting totally distracted watching the water aerobics show.


Things I Miss: My husband and I went out Friday night to celebrate New years, since we didn't want to get out on New years, for all the craziness. It was fun. I can't say that I totally miss drinking like a fish, but I do miss the occasional cold Bud Light.. lol. 
I miss being comfortable bending over. I might not even be showing much, but there's a lot of pressure when I bend over, and at work, it's a little harder than normal. I haven't totally cut out coffee, but I do have to watch my intake.


Movement: Tons! Definitely a pattern developing. Mornings are cool, lying in bed feeling the baby move around. And randomly throughout the day. Always at night.  I have a feeling I'm going to have a night owl on my hands. lol. 


Food Cravings / Aversions:
I just want food in general. Constantly and a decent amount. lol. But no specific cravings really. Nothing out of the ordinary for my general weird eating habits. lol. I've always had odd cravings, randomly, so nothing new there. Last week I really wanted some cake. Not totally normal for me. Really I wanted some Tres Leche cake, or white cake with vanilla ice cream.
I don't really have any aversions. Though I'm not totally loving everything I cook for dinner, mostly that's because I made it. I haven't really wanted roast, like pot roast or anything. Last time I made it, I didn't want it. But not to the point where it makes me queasy.


Random things I'm experiencing:
Slight back pain randomly. I think the baby moves around and might be hitting a nerve in my lower back / sciatica-like feelings. Nothing awful and not all the time.
I think I randomly feel Braxton Hicks contractions. I was looking up some of the 'symptoms', if you will, online and it coincided with Braxton Hicks. Just slight, mild cramping in my lower abdomen that lasts for about 30 secs to a min, and mostly only after I've had to go pee, and held it. But I don't even get these but randomly, rarely.


Looking Forward to:
Ultrasound.
 We have an appointment with my midwives next week sometime.. (had to be rescheduled because I forgot to request off for work, and of course got scheduled for that day).. but they are going to give me an ultrasound order so I can get it scheduled. We'll probably go to a dr/hospital for the ultrasound. But I'm quite thrilled over it. I can't wait to see the baby. Not the little boy or girl parts, just the baby. lol


Birth Plan Notes:
Still going with the home birth/Midwives and hopeful Water birth. I need to make a list of other things that are important to make note of.. and maybe even start getting things together. We haven't done much in this area yet :/


Baby Items/Room:
Haven't done much in this area yet either. I need to get the baby room cleaned up, but since we're planning on having the baby in the bedroom with us at first, I'm not in a hurry. I do plan to start picking up things like diapers/wipes on sale, etc. We have a few things, but need to do a registry. Maybe this month! lol


Other Randomness:
I think I'm getting jipped on the "long nails and luscious locks" part of this deal. lol. I don't see any changes in my hair and my nails still look like crap. lol. Of course, I'm sure work doesn't help my nails, but still. But I'll take that over any of the other crappy things some women experience!

I need to get my sleep schedule rearranged. I've been up so late lately because of my holiday work schedule, and have been sleeping in so late and end up wasting most my days off. :(


Ok. That's good for now. :)
Happy New Year!

I have to Potty - Pregnancy @ 23 weeks

How Far along:
Depending on which official 'due date' I use, I'm officially, unofficially 23 weeks today. Since the actual expected date is not official, my emails send me updates on Sundays..
Today was quite productive... after I rolled out of bed at 11:30am.. however in my defense, I was at work last night until 1am, and probably didn't get to sleep until around 2am.. so, considering that, I think 11:30 was ok. I also had to get up at 5 or 6 am to potty.. of course, that's become a ritual, as well as 8am, when my pup Turk tells me it's time for him to go outside.

So basically, not much has changed in the last week as far as the pregnancy goes.

Food Cravings/Aversions:
 I still LOVE food, and there's not much of it that I don't like right now. I'm not really having any aversions, outside of my normal picky eating habits. And I'm not having any particular cravings, outside of my abnormal eating habits I've always had. Cereal at night has always been a semi-regular occurrence for me, and that hasn't changed much.

Vitamins/Supplements, etc:
This past week I've been making a point to add greens and sources of iron to my diet, along with some sort of Vitamin C to help my body absorb the iron, as I've read that helps. Hopefully.
I've also been taking Vitamin B regularly, along with the liquid Cal-Mag (which tastes like yummy good strawberry yogurt!) So far the leg cramps have seemed to subside. Thank the Lord.

Back to today..
It had been on my mind lately to move my bedroom around, but I wasn't sure if I'd actually do it. Well.. today I couldn't resist the overwhelming urge to actually get it done. So I did. Thankfully the bed frame is on wheels, which makes moving the bed very easy to do. Its all moved around and I love it.. and hopefully will for a while. I've always been a bedroom-mover-arounder. Ever since I was little, I can remember cleaning my room and moving the bed, dresser, etc around. My husband knows I'm a nutso. Oddly enough, today he actually encouraged me to move it around. lol. I guess he knows I'm going to do it anyways.

It's the week before Christmas. Can't believe how quickly it's going by. I have some major crochet work to get finished the next couple days. I worked a bit on some tonight. I'll share when it's done. The pattern is very pretty, however, it's a bit intricate and a lot more time consuming. In the future, I probably will rarely use the same pattern, unless I sell it online for a lot of money to make it worth it.

Ope.. there's a baby in the belly and it's kicking me for attention..
time to lay here and watch :) I love this part!

Tutorial: Making Maternity Pants

So, I'm finally at the point where I can no longer wear regular pants and have had to make the move into maternity pants. I have one of the Belly Bands from Motherhood Maternity store, which was like $15.. and it's ok. I don't love it, but I don't hate it, I just have to constantly tug at it to keep it in place. But it's a great idea and it works for a quick solution.
Lord knows I'm not about to buy maternity jeans at that store or any other store that charges over $30 a pair. Sorry, but I don't even spend that much on regular jeans that I wear all the time. Plus, now that I'm working at Target, I needed some khakis. I lucked out and found a pair at the Goodwill that were maternity, so that was awesome, but I needed more than one pair. So this is my tutorial on how I turned a pair of cheap Goodwill-bought khaki's into maternity-wear. I've watched a few other video tutorials. This is basically the same concept.


First I took an old stretchy camisole that I was no longer wearing and cut the top part off, leaving just a tube of material:

Next I took the lucky pair of pants, and cut around the top, basically above the seam of the pants all the way around:

I cut above the seam to give about a half-inch inseam, and I will be sewing right underneath the hard seam of the pants. If that makes any sense.. ?


So next, I take the tube of material, and pull it over the pants, bringing the cut sides together, like so:

Basically, this is how it will look after it's sewn. All right sides are facing out and I pin it together and sew all around the pants.

This picture may appear confusing.. the white panel on the left is the other side of the pants. Where I'm sewing is the inside of the pants and the white material is underneath that. But you see how I'm sewing under the original seam of the pants. I also use that as my guide to make it straight.


I start sewing at the side seam and work my way around. You may need to adjust and tug a little at the stretchy material to make sure it all fits around right... especially around the zipper part. I am careful about sewing over the zipper metal and take this part quite slowly. This particular pair, I left the zipper in, because I can still zip these pants up, but otherwise, you may need to make adjustments to the zipper area.. i.e. sewing it closed.

But you should end up with this basically when you're finished.

and this when you put them on:

this is with the panel all the way up. I actually wear mine with the panel folded down, which is why I sew it the way I do, so that that the inside seams aren't showing when it's rolled down:

Not that you can really even see it when I wear a shirt over it, but, you know, just in case.


and tada!!! Maternity pants that aren't $40!!
Khaki's at Goodwill: $5.00
Old shirt I wasn't wearing anyways: Basically free


Hope this helps!!!

21 Weeks Picture :)

Sharing the picture I took the other day of me 21 1/2 weeks along.

How Far along:
21 weeks 3 days




Activity/Movement:

Very active baby, several times a day. Especially at night when I lie down. I can't get anything done because all I want to do is watch my belly. I can see very defined kicks, poking at my belly. It is very very cool.  The other night when I was lying down, I swear the baby was doing gymnastics! My husband came in and got to feel a kick and got to see several of them too. It is so much fun :)

Birth Plan, etc:

I had an appointment with my midwives on Saturday morning. Everything looks good so far. Baby's heartbeat was around 145bpm.. after they poked around and woke it up.. lol

Diet/Nutrition:

Biggest concern right now is getting my iron up. My hemoglobin is low and my blood pressure is in the "Low-Normal" range.. This time it was like 105/70. Not extremely bad, but I definitely need to get my iron up. I don't want to have issues down the road.

Other Experiences:

The other day I was having really bad leg cramps. It was terrible. It started in my ankle, below my chin, and when I went to stretch my foot and stretch the muscle, my calf balled up in a horrible charlie horse. The only thing I could do to get that to go away was to point my foot back up, which in turn aggravated the front muscles again. ARGH!! It was awful. I just about screamed. Finally got that to go away. Only to get it again that night. I came running out of the bedroom to the living room and just stuck my leg up on my husband's lap and had him start rubbing my calf. I never want those again! lol. My midwife suggested I take Cal-Mag supplement. Supposed to help balance out your levels of calcium and magnesium and help not to get leg cramps. So far so good for the last 2 days. My goal is to get these things under control now, so that I reduce any potential issues down the road or during labor. Last thing I want is to deal with leg cramps during labor!

Well.. off to crochet. I have people wanting to buy up for Christmas gifts so I need to get my little crochet hands on the move!

Too early for a real topic

I think that the weather has officially changed over to cold. We had about a week of cold, then it basically turned warm again for the last couple weeks and we've been spoiled with warmth. But I think that's finally over and it's going to be cold from here out. I'm ok with this I guess. I do love wearing my boots, sweaters, and scarves and not sweating to death in the afternoon. 

We do however need to get our heat up and running. With this new(er) air conditioning unit we put in this summer, we haven't been able to get it to fire the heat up, so we have to call out the guy and pay up :( We've been able to get by with the little bit warmer weather just fine, because it's basically been only chilly at night and in the mornings. Now it's getting quite a bit colder overnight. The fireplace does wonders for warming up the house fairly well, but it's a little too cold until it kicks in. So unfortunately I guess it's time to bite the bullet and fork out the money. Kind of cuts into Christmas fund and Fun Money fund....

 Really this means I may not put up my big tree this year. Maybe I'll do a smaller one, maybe I won't do one at all :( I know, sad times. It's not that awful. I have a small tree I can put up on the table in the living room and make it look cute, along with the decor I've already put out, and we'll be festive. We'll see. It's not the end of the world if we don't get one this year. My husband's daughter will be going out of town with her mom for Christmas at some point, and I know we're not having any other guests over for anything special. Next year will be totally different. We'll have his daughter, and we'll have a brand new baby. So if we skip out this year, I can look forward to making up for it next year. Which is going to be totally overly crazy exciting!! My first baby, and baby's first Christmas!!! :)

I had yesterday off work (yay!!), today and tomorrow too!! What ever am I going to do with myself?! I had a great day yesterday. I actually woke up and got out of bed by 8:30am! I know, I couldn't believe it either! I was motivated! I'm up early this morning, getting my step-daughter up for school.. not sure yet if I'll end up back in bed for a bit. If I stay up, I could go to the Yoga class this morning. I need to go. I'm just not overly motivated to go outside in the cold just yet, but maybe some food, warm clothes and a good hot cup of coffee could fix that, or at least help a little. It's a little difficult to stay up and out here in the living room when I know there's a warm heated bedroom with a nice warm cozy bed just a few steps away.

Well I'm typed out for the moment, but I definitely have more posts to come shortly.. probably even later this morning when I rant about the school system/government and people's lack of personal responsibility. Not sure if I should even go there.. might get me too fired up!