16 week appointment

We had our second doctor's appointment on Monday. We thought that he might do an ultrasound, but we're going to wait until next time. Everything looked good. Ben was there and got to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time. It was a pretty easy appointment, nothing exciting to share, except that all is well.

As I was leaving the nurse told me that I needed to go do a blood test, though. For those of you that don't know, I hate doing that! I get so nervous and I've almost passed out a couple of times. I know that's ridiculous, but I can't help it! I hadn't prepared myself mentally for it, however I decided to go down and get it over with anyway. I was fine until she started taking out all of the different vials that they needed. She took 7 vials of blood! I couldn't believe it. Luckily, the lady did a really good job and was quick. It seems like I am fine, as long as I don't watch.

The doctor asked me if I had felt the baby move yet. And really, I'm not sure. I guess I don't know what I am feeling for. I've had some odd sensations, but who knows if they were actually the baby moving. Hopefully in the next few weeks, I'll learn to recognize it. I am just starting to get a little bit of a bump. It kind of depends what shirt I'm wearing if you can tell or not, but my pants are definitely tighter! Here's a picture of me that we took after church on Sunday.

We're Moving

When Ben and I found out that we were adding to our family, we started to worry about the small space that we had to work with. Luckily, about a month ago we found out that our neighbor was going to be moving and we quickly contacted our landlord to see if we could take over his place. The back side of our duplexes have an extra bedroom. We figured the extra space would be worth the hassle of moving. So, we will be moving this weekend and/or early next week. Our move isn't far....in fact, it is probably only about 30 feet down the sidewalk. Here's a picture from the porch of our current apartment looking down towards our new one.Obviously, no moving truck will be necessary. We really haven't packed very many things. We have a few boxes full, but mostly we'll just take armfuls of things down the sidewalk! Anyway, if you have our address on hand, just change the number from 1602 to 1608. Everything else remains the same!

Dog Walkers

This has been one slow week. Nothing exciting has been going on around here—just the same old everyday routine. Ben just finished his third night on call last night. He’s doing really well. I don’t know how he does it, really.

I’m a little short on blog-worthy material this week (as you may have guessed) so I thought that I would share our dog-walking story. Ben and I were going to go for a walk the other evening and decided to ask the neighbor if we could take her dogs out for a walk. We’ve always wanted a dog, but we live in our tiny little apartment and it just isn’t practical for us right now. Anyway, she has two large black labs and we figured it would make our walk more fun and they could use the exercise, too.

Well the first couple of blocks were just plain awful! They were jumping up, biting the leash, and jerking our arms off! Thankfully, they settled down and walked well for us. Almost immediately, one of the dogs made a small "deposit," shall we say, in some gravel in one of our neighbor’s yards. Ben and I, being the inexperienced dog people that we are, of course failed to bring along a collection device for doggy poo. We told ourselves that it was no big deal; we just made a mental note to come back to pick that up after we returned. Unfortunately, one mile later we had a larger problem. Ben didn’t realize that his dog had tried to stop so he just kept on walking. By the time he figured out what was going on we had four or five big piles along the sidewalk—downtown and right in front of the sheriff’s office. Are you kidding me?? What are we supposed to do now? We’re a mile from home and have a hefty, disgusting mess to deal with and we definitely can’t just leave it, especially not in front of the police station. We looked around and found a piece of trash that Ben could use to pick up the poo. So one by one, Ben picked up a piece and walked it down the block to the nearest trash can, while I stood by and watched. It’s kind of funny now, but at the time we couldn’t believe the bad timing. Luckily we finished the rest of our outing without incident and picked up the first “problem” on the way back. Next time I think we’ll be a little bit more prepared—and not walk in front of the police station (just in case!)

Paranoid?

Yeah, so I guess I might be a little paranoid! I noticed earlier this week that I was a little swollen and tender on my right side. I have let it go for a couple of days thinking that it would go down by itself. Well, it didn't and I talked to Ben and we decided that maybe I should call the doctor just to check on it. He got me right in this morning. I felt like I was probably wasting both of our time but I didn't know what else to do. So, I guess it turns out that I have a small tear that could turn into a hernia if it gets too much worse. He wasn't concerned at all and said that if it gets bigger or more painful to call him, but otherwise it was nothing to worry about. Anyway I feel much better AND while I was there he let me hear our baby's heart beat! I could even hear the baby kicking. It was really cool and I wish Ben could have been there, but he was in surgery and really, I didn't even think to call him. Everything continues to look great and I'll go back at the end of July for my 16 week check-up!

Oh, and I guess I haven't posted about Ben starting his internship yet. He is doing surgery this month. Everything has been going okay so far. He made it through his first night on call at the hospital with no problems. He's been going in before 6am and coming home around 6pm, which isn't too bad for this rotation. Of course, we are just in the first week, so maybe I should reserve my judgement. He's already participated in a couple of surgeries and procedures that he hadn't seen before, so that's been fun for him. I think he is enjoying being back at the hospital and having things to do again.

Blueberries

Benj and I went out to pick blueberries at a local farm yesterday. It was so fun! They get you started and then you can just pick and sample as you go. We'd never done anything like it before and had a great time! It was such a beautiful day, too. I don't think I remember such nice weather for the 4th of July. We might have to go out again to pick some more. These were definitely the best blueberries I've ever tasted.