Baby Fred - 20 Weeks!

Date
March 30, 2015

How far along:
20 Weeks - Out of the teens!!! Halfway there!!

Baby size:
A Banana

Baby milestones: 
Per my baby apps, our baby weighs around 10 and a half ounces, but per our ultrasound last week, our baby is already at around 12 ounces! He's about 10 inches long as well. Our baby is also gulping down more amniotic fluid, which is good practice for his digestive system. We actually got to see our baby take a big gulp during our ultrasound on Wednesday!

Maternity clothes: 
Same story here - all maternity pants and a mix of regular and maternity shirts.

Have you started to show yet: 
Yep

Symptoms: 
Hungry all the time still and growing belly

Food cravings: 
Nothing

Aversions: 
None

Movement:
I don't think that I have felt any more movement this week. At our ultrasound on Wednesday, my doctor told me that I had an anterior placenta which means that my placenta is essentially between the baby and the outside world which makes it harder for me to feel the movement. It makes my 72% confidence that I felt the baby last week go down. The baby's feet in the ultrasound were right in the area where I felt the movement last week, so it's still possible that that was it. I guess I will just wait patiently until I feel it again and see if it's the same as what I felt previously.

Mood: 
Good. :) (We'll see how it ends up being by the end of this week, though, because I stayed up too late last night watching the season finale of The Walking Dead!)

Sleep: 
Pretty good this week! Still have to get up to pee at some point in the night, which I don't like, but it could be worse.

Dreams: 
I had some weird ones but I can't even type them and have them make any sense... There were family members there that we thought were dead because of carbon monoxide poisoning but then no one would go to look. Turns out they were okay. Then there was a storm and I was driving and my brakes weren't that great. Trent was mad at me and there was a little girl there and those two were kind of teaming up against me. When we got to our destination, the girl was evidently a little talking dog... and the dog went and peed on a rug that looked like grass. (I know that makes absolutely no sense)

Miss anything: 
Not really.

Gender prediction: 
I still say "he" more than "she" but I really don't know

Names: 
No change here

Best moment of the week: 
Our ultrasound on Wednesday! And getting to do a little redo ultrasound on Friday. I can't even describe how amazing it was to see our baby in there and to see he or see moving around!

Looking forward to: 
Hanging out with Grandpa tomorrow during Grandma's knee surgery, having Friday off for Good Friday and going to see both sides of our families for Easter this weekend.

Other thoughts: We had our 20 week ultrasound on Wednesday. I was nervous but so excited going into it. When I laid on that table and first saw the heartbeat I felt the first wave of relief and as the tech started showing us different parts of our baby, my eyes started filling with tears. Not too long into it, she showed us the baby's face and his hands were right up by his face. Then he moved, kind of rubbing his face, and I felt a feeling like I'd never felt before - I have never been so in love! I briefly started sobbing and I'm sure it probably sounded like I was sad about something, but I was happier than I've ever been in my life. It was amazing. The last few minutes of the ultrasound, the tech put in a DVD to record some of it, unfortunately, when we got home, the DVD didn't work. On Thursday, I mentioned that fact to a friend of mine who works at the Women's Center and she got me in touch with the Director of Ultrasound Imaging and she made an appointment for me on Friday to go back and redo the DVD portion, so I got to see our baby again for another five minutes!

The point of our ultrasound was to make sure that everything looked good with our baby, and our doctor confirmed for us after our ultrasound appointment that everything looked great. The baby's heartbeat went between 146 and 156, measured about 12 ounces and 10 inches long. Absolutely perfect!

Some pictures from our ultrasound are below. After getting ultrasound pictures of our own baby, I totally get why people share them with the public. Before this, I didn't get what the big deal was with the grainy black and white pictures!! TOTALLY get it now!
If you want to see our ultrasound video, let me know, I'm not going to put it on this blog though, but I'm willing to share our baby with whoever wants to see :)

Our baby's beautiful spine!

Sucking his/her thumb

Our baby's legs crossed at the ankles (the knees are pointing to the left)

St. Patty's Day Party 2015

The weekend before St. Patty's Day, we had our second annual St. Patty's Day get-together with both sides of our family. The main dish once again was corned beef and cabbage. Our get-together was larger and more planned out this year so we had a chance to invite all of our family to come. This year we had about 25 people here compared to just 11 or so last year.

There was a lot of green to go around in people's shirts, socks, and accessories as well as in the green beer and some of the food. I say this every time we have something at our house, but I love having our house full of people, it just makes my heart so happy!

Grandma and I had our green socks on!

Mattie loves it when we have people over so she can get loved on by everyone!

Baby Fredericksen got his/her first Beanie Baby from Aunt Doreen and Uncle Nick at the party!

Grandma Kock brought some fun St. Patty's Day themed gifts that got some great use!

Green beer was enjoyed at the party!

The girls even got some green drink (water!)

The girls helped me to make a rainbow out of fruit.

Our finished product

Time to eat!

All the young girls had fun playing together and decorating the nursery with Beanie Babies!

Trent's parents had come the day before the party and helped to paint the nursery and also hang the new light fixture. This meant my mom made me take an embarrassing picture with it :)

Iowa State played (and won) in an exciting game that night as well, so that's where all the "big kids" were gathered for most of the night. It must have been halftime or not quite exciting enough for Grandpa Kock yet! :)

It was a great party! We will see what comes of our party next year when there's a new little one in the picture!!! 

St. Patty's Day Party 2014

#1 Grandpa

A few weeks ago when I went back home to visit my mom for the weekend, I finally had the chance to go out to my dad's grave site and hang up the flag I got for him. 

I miss my dad all of the time, but when I think about actually getting to hold our baby in my hands, it's very easy for me to think about how I'll never get to see my dad hold our baby in his big, strong hands. I imagine that my dad would be to my kids (and Kellsey and Jared's) like Grandpa Kock was to us. He'd be fun and goofy and play off his toughness to "scare" them, just to make them laugh about it afterwards. Of course, he'd tell them lots of inappropriate (but clean) jokes - like "How do you know that the flat cat had blue eyes? Because when it got run over, one blew one way and one blew the other" (Grandpa Kock will have to correct me on that one if I'm telling that wrong!) He'd love to play with them and watch them grow up and he'd be there for all the fun activities in their lives! I can just imagine all the basketball advice they would have gotten at a very young age! Most importantly, I know he would have done anything for them, just like he did for us growing up, and would have loved them so very much!!

There's so much that our kids could learn from him. Now it will be up to all of us who knew him to pass on what we know of him to his grandkids and teach them all about the wonderful man he was! I know he'll be watching over all his little ones and will be proud of the people they become!

Baby Fred - Week 19

Date

March 23, 2015 

Baby size

A Mango or Large Heirloom Tomato

Baby milestones

Our baby is about 6 inches long now and working on developing her five senses.

Maternity clothes

All maternity pants (except sweatpants/yoga pants) and about half and half between regular and maternity shirts

Have you started to show yet

Yep

Symptoms

Just always hungry and nauseous when I need to eat.

Food cravings

Nothing

Aversions

None.

Movement

I thought I felt something on Saturday night while we were watching TV. It felt like little pokes or punches or something like that. I am about 72% sure that's what it was, but it might not have be. If it was, I loved it!

Mood

Good for the most part

Sleep

I've been sleeping pretty well. I got to sleep in on both Saturday and Sunday mornings this weekend and it was glorious! The cool and sunny weather was perfect for sleeping in!

Dreams

On Saturday, I had a dream that we had twins and then adopted an older girl all on the same day. It was December 23rd and none of our family knew about it, so when we saw them on Christmas Eve, we had to explain to everyone that these all were our kids... 

Miss anything

Not really

Gender prediction

I'm going with boy. It felt like it was a boy that was hitting me from the inside (whatever that means)
Names

We haven't talked names in a while, but I think we both have our front runners. We'll figure it out some day...

Have you told family and friends

Yep - I think everyone knows!

Best moment of the week

The nice and relaxing weekend we had at home and sleeping in both Saturday and Sunday. Going to the Sam Hunt concert on Friday - it was tons of fun!

Looking forward to

Our ultrasound and appointment on Wednesday morning!!! Can't wait to see our baby and know everything is looking good!

Baby Fred - Week 18

Date

March 16, 2015 

Baby size

A Sweet Potato

Baby milestones

Our baby is yawning, hiccuping, sucking and swallowing, twisting, rolling, punching and kicking. I'm patiently waiting to be able to feel all that moving!!

Maternity clothes

Same story, but I bought some more stuff online today, so I'm excited to get those things!

Have you started to show yet

Still feeling just "fat" but I do think it is pregnancy-caused

Symptoms

Nausea when I need to eat, sensitive gag reflex when I brush my teeth, etc. 

Food cravings

Smoothies...

Aversions

None.

Movement

Nothing yet.

Mood

Good for the most part (I believe)

Sleep

Yes, please. I like sleep better these days, but I don't so much like waking up to pee in the night...

Dreams

I had a one with a lot of different things going on in it, but the details I remember about it were that I was at the house where I grew up and upon arrival, there were animals (cows, I think) in the field along with four really bright blue elephants (two in the pen with the cows and two on the lawn somewhere). My dad was there in his coveralls and his blue stocking cap that he'd always wear and he had Millie on a leash in the backyard. I like that I had a dream with my dad in it that included a part of my life now that he never knew while he was on earth. Only in my dreams would I be able to see my dad with Millie :) A part of me thinks that this dream was triggered by the fact that I just bought a pig with wings (something that reminds me of my dad) the day I had this dream. I set it in our family room by the memorial garden stone that I have and all night, Millie kept staring and barking at it so I had to turn on the light by the fireplace so she could see it better and see that it wasn't scary. After she realized that it wasn't scary, she kept licking it and checking it out... So I think that since the pig reminds me of my dad and Millie was really fixated on it, that made them go together in my dream... Or something like that!

Miss anything

Not really

Gender prediction

 I still go back and forth, but I mostly think it's a boy

Names

Same story here. I just can't wait to meet our baby and call them their name! (Whatever it might end up being - haha)

Have you told family and friends

I think everyone knows!

Best moment of the week

Having 25ish family members here for our St. Patty's Day part. Having Trent's parents come and help Trent paint the nursery and picking out and hanging a beautiful chandelier in the baby's room! 

Looking forward to

The Sam Hunt Concert with Joce and the girls on Friday. A relaxing/productive weekend (maybe?!?)

Other thoughts: As I said above, Trent's parents came and helped him to paint the nursery on Friday while I was at work. I was so fun to come home to an empty nursery that was painted and clean and just perfect! We then went to Lowe's and picked out a few options for new light fixtures, but we only had to put up one because we loved the chandelier we picked so much :) 

Five on Friday and a Favorite Song {03.13.2015}

This was supposed to go up last Friday, but it ended up being a super busy day at work and that just carried into the evening, so it never got done. So I mixed some of last week's stuff with this week's stuff and called it good!

ONE.

Last weekend, some of my best friends and I met up in Omaha for a little girl time. We all met at the mall and did a little looking/shopping and a lot of talking. Some of us then got our nails done and went out to eat at Roja before retiring for the night at Lauren's. These girls' weekends are usually very late nights, but I don't think many of us made it to midnight... we decided that we need to start our girls' weekend earlier in the day next time!
 

 

TWO.
When Mattie and Millie eat, they usually like to take turns so that they can watch each other. This really makes the whole process take longer than it needs to, but as long as it gets done, I guess... I think it's so cute and funny when Mattie's eating and Millie is watching her because Millie will get as close as she can to Mattie and her bowl of food. This happened, as usual, the other evening when I was feeding them (I usually only feed them in the morning because Trent gets home from work before me), so I had to get a picture of it.

 

THREE.

I have been thinking a lot lately about what it will be like to actually meet our baby. It's crazy to think about them actually being here (on the outside of me) and seeing their little face and hands. When I think about it, I really just feel like I am going to cry every time I see them! I just cannot imagine what it will be like to hold a baby that is all ours and we will be their mom and dad!! August really feels so far away! I love this baby so much already, I just can't fathom what it's going to be like to meet them for the first time!!! Ah!

FOUR.

Last week, I purchased the Eyefi Mobi SD Card for my camera. It basically acts as a wi-fi hotspot so when you take pictures, it can connects and uploads them right to your phone without having to get out my computer and upload them there before uploading them to my blog. Normally waiting to upload them isn't such a bad thing, but I bought it for when I take my weekly pregnancy update photos in the mornings so I can get the pictures and the blog post posted during the day without having to hassle with getting out my computer in the mornings (because I would never have time for that anyway... I like to sleep too much). It's not quite as slick as I was hoping it would be, as it kind of takes a long time to connect at times, but so far it has gotten the job done. I think it will be fun to use when I want to take pictures of our little baby with my good camera and be able to share them without having to find time to get my computer out and all that jazz.

 

FIVE.
This song is on Jeremy Camp's latest album and is, of course, a new favorite. (Is anyone surprised? I didn't think so...) I put some of my favorite lyrics below, but it's definitely worth a listen!

Same Power - Jeremy Camp

The same power that rose Jesus from the grave

The same power that commands the dead to wake

Lives in us, lives in us

The same power that moves mountains when He speaks

The same power that can calm a raging sea

Lives in us, lives in us

He lives in us, lives in us

 

We have hope. That His promises are true

In His strength. There is nothing we can’t do

Yes, we know. There are greater things in store

We will not be overtaken. We will not be overcome

 

Greater is He that is living in me

He’s conquered our enemy

No power of darkness

No weapon prevails

We stand here in victory

Baby Fred - Week 17

Better late than never, I guess. This week has just been busy, so I haven't had time to sit down and post this! I wrote everything and took the picture at the beginning of the week, so it's just my posting timing that's a little off! 
I'll try to do better next week :)

Date

March 9, 2015

 

Baby size

An Onion

 

Baby milestones

Our baby's skeleton is changing from soft cartilage to bone and the umbilical cod is growing stronger and thicker. He now weighs about 5 ounces and is around 5 inches long!

 

Maternity clothes

Just the same ol' pants and a few shirts.

Have you started to show yet

Still feel like I haven't gotten any bigger lately, so I hope that baby's still growing in there!! There's definitely a belly though

 

Symptoms

Just get nauseous when I need to eat something and I'm just feeling "big"

 

Food cravings

Still cold things... Smoothies, Fruit, Cucumbers with salt, etc.

Aversions

None.

 

Movement

Nothing yet that I have been able to recognize... can't wait for the day it happens!

Mood

I think I'm in a pretty good mood. Just tired lately - I think Daylight Savings Time messed me up or something...

 

Sleep

Fine for the most part. Still getting up to pee in the night at some point.

 

Dreams

Saturday night I had one that I was one of the final two girls left on The Bachelor.

 

Miss anything

Not really

 

Gender prediction

No clue...

Names

Nothing really new here... I've gotten pretty attached to the boy name Trent wanted and there are two girl names I like a lot.

 

Have you told family and friends

I got to tell my Grandma and Grandpa Jons this weekend. It was nice to see them both smile at me when I told them. Grandpa kept winking at me and smiling. Makes me happy to think about!

 

Best moment of the week

The really nice weather! Telling Grandma and Grandpa. Going home on Saturday/Sunday and getting to see more family.

 

Looking forward to

Having our house full of our family on Saturday for a St. Patty's Day party! Having Trent's parents come and help to paint the nursery on Friday!! Yay!

Other thoughts: I decided on some colors I wanted to do in the nursery. I'm excited to fill the room with stuff!

Baby Fred - Week 16

I need to work on looking happy and not like I'm in pain in these pictures! :)

Date

March 2, 2015

Baby size

An Avacado

Baby milestones

He has bones forming in his ears, so he can most likely hear us talking. (I guess it's time to pull out the books and start reading to him!) His legs are more developed, his head is more erect and his eyes are moving more toward the front of his head. He's about 4.6 inches long and weighs 3.5 ounces.

Weight Gain

Per the Doctor's scale, I had gained 5 pounds in the last 4 weeks, but per my scale, I think it's been about 7 total, so that doesn't quite add up, but I'm not too concerned about my weight. I am just focused on eating what I need to to have a healthy baby. Hopefully I'm doing okay at that one!

Maternity clothes

Same situation here. All maternity pants except for my yoga pants or sweatpants and regular shirts for the most part except for the few casual ones I've purchased.

Have you started to show yet

Yes, but not very much. Still doesn't feel like it's gotten any bigger lately.

Symptoms

I think I turned a corner this week with the nauseousness. I feel better most of the time now, just only get sick when my stomach is empty. Surprisingly, eating all the time isn't as appealing as you'd think it would be... Still having back pain and the whole numb left hip thing, but hopefully I'll get some help for that soon.

Food cravings

Cold things. Smoothies, etc. Chipotle tacos...

Aversions

Nothing specific.

Movement

Nothing yet... still anxiously waiting (It's not to be expected for a few weeks yet)

Mood

I think I'm in a pretty good mood.

Sleep

I think it's been fine lately. I still wake up at least once in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and several times because I've rolled onto my back and need to adjust my position, but at least I'm sleeping, so I'm alright with that!

Dreams

One this week was that Trent scheduled pedicures at a place for me and all my friends but then there was only one lady working and she really was a bad businesswoman... In the end, she had to close before we were all through. Then I left and was on some scavenger hunt type thing with some older men and Trent was there too. Number one on the list of things to find was a Cassowary bird, which is a bird that lives in Australia... we ended up finding the one we were looking for but it was dead in someone's front yard. And it didn't look like a real cassowary, it looked more like something I may see on Sesame Street or something... The second thing we had to do was go to an American Girl Doll store and get whatever doll and accessories were on our sheets... I never did find out what #3 was... and I never got my pedicure either...

I also had two last night that were really strange but I only remember one and I'm not about to share it with all of you! haha. :)

Miss anything

Dr. Pepper

Gender prediction

I don't know anymore! I think it's either a boy or a girl...

Names

Still just talking about potential names (and some who have no potential at all) every now and then.

Have you told family and friends

I told Melody O'Connor this morning. I wish I could have told her in person, but I wasn't going to see them any time soon, but it was still fun to share that news! I will soon be able to put to use all the skills I learned while watching their kids when they were little with my own child!

Best moment of the week

Our appointment on Friday and hearing our baby's heartbeat. Seeing my friends on Saturday and hanging out with them for an extended amount of time! Spending Sunday afternoon with Trent.

Looking forward to

Going home next Saturday night and getting to see some of my family! I will also get to see my Grandma and Grandpa Jons and tell them that we're having a baby if they haven't already read it in the paper :)

Other thoughts: We had an appointment late last week. We heard the heartbeat (she found it immediately!) and it was at 163 when she looked the first time and then it went up to the 170s, so she said the baby was probably moving around in there! I can't wait until I can feel it!