Category Archives: Pregnancy

Well I’ve made it to the third trimester! I’m so glad I still have three months left with Joshua in my belly – I want it to last forever.  For now.  :)  I’m sure I’ll want every stage of his life to last forever!  I remember when my little sister was a baby, I wished she would just stay that way and never grow up.  I was already a Mom at 6 and she was my little baby I wanted to keep that way. lol

This is Dad introducing us to our little sister in the delivery room (we actually got to see the birth and took classes beforehand to prepare for it). I’m on the right, Danielle on the left.

I was totally in awe of this little baby!  This could have been the exact moment that I realized I wanted to be a Mom. By contrast, Danielle decided she would never be a Mom, and still holds to that decision. I think Mom being in labor scarred her for life-lol.

So I’m doing much better now, despite a rough weekend.  I stayed up until 5 in the morning after I got home Thursday night because I had to bake my chocolate cake twice (the first time I underbaked it).  I went to bed and two hours later, got up to get ready to take my cake to the fair.  We got showered and dressed, and when I retrieved my cake from the refrigerator, I said, “Well, I guess I’m not entering the chocolate cake contest after all.”

I’d had trouble getting the cakes out of the pan and the top one cracked a little bit so it became a weak link that couldn’t hold up to the weight of the frosting and that cracked piece just fell off while I slept.  It was so upsetting, I couldn’t even get upset.  I was in shock, and also I was grateful in a way that I could go back to sleep since I now had no reason to go to the fair so early.  So we got a couple more hours sleep and headed to Hutchinson.  Because we took the day off for the fair and we weren’t going to waste it.  Besides, we had tickets to see Kansas in concert that night! :)

I had a great, sweaty, and exhausting time at the fair, and hardly regretted my caketastrophy.  There’s always next year! :)  The concert was so, so good.  I only knew three songs they played because I’ve never been familiar with their music (I know, for shame living in KS, right?), but wow.  They are incredible musicians, and why doesn’t every band have a violinist?  It adds so much to the sound.  I put together a short video of clips from their concert, which  you can see here if you like.

The next day we got up bright and early, and completely exhausted, for our sonogram.  And got to see baby Joshua in 3D!  This made the weekend fantastic.

Here he is in 2D with his legs curled up so his feet are almost to his head!  So cute.

And here he is in 3D:

Look at that huge nose!  Remind you of anyone?

Like father like son.  Same birthday, big noses. lol  OK, maybe he’s like mama, too.

Maybe a lot like mama.  But I think most like Aunt Danielle.

Between us, the kid didn’t have a chance.  But he’ll probably grow into his nose and wear it just as well as the rest of us.  :)

I may have helped him out with a fat nose, but at least he didn’t get my skinny lips! Love those fat lips!

He slept through the sonogram and was imperturbable when the sonographer tried to jostle him awake by pushing on my belly with the wand and wiggling it around four different times.  He would just stretch or readjust and never moved more than that.  I told everyone that means he’s going to be a calm baby. :)  I really think he will be, and hopefully the same mother’s intuition that told me he was a boy will hold out for the calm baby thing as well.  I really feel he will be!  I hope I don’t have to eat my words.  lol

I had to go to work after the sonogram, and got so sick while I was there.  Another stomach bug!  I got sick Thursday but was better Friday so I thought it was the goat cheese I’d forced myself to eat (I deplore goat cheese but am trying to make myself like it).  But the sickness came back in full force on Saturday and I barely made it through the work day.  By Sunday morning, I finally figured out it wasn’t anything I ate and it was time for another potato cure.  Dennis bought me some yogurt and a few hours later, I was all better and taking pictures for you guys. :)

I’m sure you’ve noticed my environment and have been waiting for me to say something about the nursery, which I’m obviously standing/sitting in.  Well too bad! I’ll have that for you tomorrow. Pinky swear. :)

I don’t have much to tell you this week!  I did get this outfit (skirt and shirt) from my wonderful friend, Stephanie T., who is also currently helping with the nursery.  That’s the big news – that the nursery is almost finished as I type this.  It should be totally done by Monday night so I plan to do a separate post with pics just for the nursery some time this week. You guys, I’m soooo excited!  It looks so so good already.  Momma Donna, her sister Connie (who was a stranger to us before she came over!), and Stephanie did almost everything and they really have outdone themselves. Prepare to be amazed by the transformation, that’s all I have to say!

Also, my inny is halfway to becoming an outie (this has been slowly happening for the last month or more, but you can now see it kinda poking out in photos), and if I lean back and clench my stomach tight, it pops out almost all the way!  So crazy.

I did manage to bite the bullet and give my toes a little TLC last week.  I did a base coat, two coats of pink, one pink sparklies, and a top coat. It was not fun, but I’m so happy to see sparkly toes on the rare occasion that I glimpse them.  I like sparkly things. :)

So Dennis was taking my update pictures as usual and I asked him what I could do that was more fun than just doing different angles and holding my belly.  I guess I’m getting kind of bored/boring!  He had no ideas so, unfortunately, this happened:

What exactly happened here?  I have no explanation.  I look like I’m high on ecstasy and my arms suddenly grew a foot longer than my legs.  Not one to let a golden opportunity pass me by…

Please share the message.

After that little mishap, Dennis suggested I show you my back.  Sure, why not?  At least it’s something I haven’t done yet.  I had no idea what my backside looked like but I think it’s cool you can’t tell I’m pregnant from behind.  I’m still rockin’ my curves. ;)

Have a wonderful Labor Day!  I’ll be back soon with nursery pics. :)

Two strangers recognized my pregnancy last week!  First time that’s happened, so I guess that’s the upside to having a big belly – people are no longer embarrassed to ask how far along you are, or when you’re due, for fear that you might just be fat and offend you with the question.  I’m to the point now that it must be kinda obvious. Ya think? haha

I’m almost ready for the sumo wrestler try-outs!

Joshua’s older sister wanted to get in on the maternity pics! :)

But the cashier checking me out at Aldi, who is from Germany and has a thick German accent, said, “You have a questionable belly.  You’re so tiny it’s hard to tell if you are just a little heavy or if there’s a baby in there.”  Have you ever noticed how people from foreign countries can say things that we might usually find rude, and they’re not offensive?  Something about having an accent and their straight-forwardness. They can get away with anything.  Anyway, I wouldn’t have been offended anyway because 1) she called me tiny – she’s my new BFF, and 2) there actually is a baby in there so there’s nothing for me to take offense to.  I told her yes, I was having a baby, and thanked her for calling me tiny since I’d been feeling so huge.  She laughed and said she gained 97 pounds with her last baby, and again said, “You are tiny!” waving her hand as a “get over yourself” kind of gesture.  That kind of put a damper on my enjoyment of being found tiny, since it was in comparison to an almost 100-pound weight gain, but I’ll take any compliment right now.  LOL!

Oh and if you were wondering, my weight gain so far is either 10 lbs or 14 lbs, depending on if you ask my diabetes doctor or my Ob-Ggyn. Both numbers are based off of my visits with them in May, and I’m choosing to believe my diabetes doctor because I like his number better.  :)  Maybe I just go to the bathroom better before those visits or something? lol!  In any case, I’m not stressing about the scale.  Health-wise, my main concern is keeping my blood sugar at a normal level to prevent birth defects and I’m doing really well with that.  Though it is very challenging, I will admit! Anyway, my Mom and my sister both gained like 60 pounds with their pregnancies so as long as I don’t go that far (lol), and my doctors don’t start complaining, I’m not going to sweat it.

Speaking of doctors, I’m now far along enough that I have to see my diabetes doctor twice a month (instead of once a month).  I really am not happy about this, and will be even less happy when I also have to start seeing my OB twice a month, and then them both every single week during the last month.  Like I said before, I think the blissful part of pregnancy is over.  Now it’s getting real. lol  I keep wanting this to last as long as possible since it’s likely my only time I’ll get to experience it, but at the same time, I really think by the end I’ll be really super ready to give birth, if not just to end all the doctor visits. LOL!

This is as far as I can comfortably reach now without bending my legs.

I now have to bend my knees a little to be able to reach my toes.  This whole toe-touching update started because I was determined to be able to reach them all the way to the end, so I could continue to do my own toe nails and have them pretty and polished while giving birth.  Well, I took my toenail polish off almost a month ago and still have my polishes (hot pink and pink sparkles to go over) laid out, ready to apply, and I just can’t force myself to do it.  Too much belly, and it’s really hard to get around.  So my pretty toenail days may be over for now, though I may have my sisters give me a pedicure near the end, like we did for Lacey before she had Owen (we did a whole foot spa thing and shaved her legs too, because we’re awesome like that).  I just want something pretty going on with myself when I go into the hospital to make me feel better about whatever kind of wreck I may or may not become while I’m there.  And don’t worry, my toenails are not my chief concern-lol. :)

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s….preggo-V!

Oh and one last thing – no more heel pain! No more Crocs. Freeeeeeeedooooooooom! :D

See all my previous updates here.

A month ago, I told you guys I was going to tell you our son’s middle name “soon” and then forgot!  We picked Joshua as a favorite before I was even pregnant and then settled on it after we knew we were having a boy.  The middle name was a little harder.  Since we went with a Biblical name for his first name, I consulted a Bible baby names book that Den’s cousin, Jessica, had stowed in a tub of maternity clothes she let me borrow, and boom.  There is was.

Isaac.

If you haven’t read the story in Genesis, once upon a time there was a man named Abraham who had a wife named Sarah.  They desperately wanted a child, and God promised them one.  They were getting up there in years and Sarah scoffed at the promise.  But lo and behold, when they were about 100 years old, God gave them a son.

Now, we didn’t have to wait nearly as long (thank the Lord lol), but as you can imagine, we can relate to Abraham and Sarah’s story more than the typical couple.  I know the desperation Sarah must have felt when she sent her servant, Hagar, to Abraham so they might conceive a child together and she could have her child by this surrogate (there was a child born to Hagar, and it basically just caused a lot of problems, but then they had their own son many years later).  When you want children, it is so painful and frustrating to not be able to have them.  It is one one of the biggest ways I have realized who is really in charge and it is humbling.

Abraham and Sarah named their son Isaac and we decided that was perfect for our son’s middle name.  Isaac means “laughter” (can you imagine their laughter when they realized they were having a child at such an old age, and also how happy they must have been for this prayer to have been answered?).  As I may have mentioned before, I was giggling quite a bit those first few weeks after finding out I was pregnant.  And I know Joshua will bring even more laughter to our lives.

So Joshua Isaac Miller it is.  His initials will be JIM which is funny and cool, because his Great Grandpa Davis (my Dad’s Dad) was named James (Jim) and so was his Great Uncle.  It’s nice to be able to honor these family members, even if it’s by accident! lol

And on a totally random note, this is what I see when I look down:

I love it. :)

While I still feel good, I think I’m past the blissful part of my pregnancy. I still have a month left before I hit the third trimester, but I feel like I’m already there! Two weeks ago I was telling Dennis I wanted to stay pregnant forever as long as I could stay the size I was.  But I guess Joshua wasn’t finished growing because my bump is officially larger than my butt now, which is no small feat.  I felt pretty cute with a smaller, manageable bump, but now I just feel huge.

This week I looked down at my feet and didn’t recognize them.  They are like little fat lumps with fat little toes at the end.  Whose feet are these?  And my ankles make me sad.  I get a crease in my ankle if I stand straight/flex my feet.  Isn’t it too early for the cankles to be coming on? For realz!

In case you’ve never heard of cankles, it’s when your calf meets your foot without an ankle in between. I’m getting there-the ankles I used to know are disappearing!

Also, look at the Crocs I’ve been forced to wear.  Oh so stylish and totally flattering to my stumpy legs.  OK, I don’t mind Crocs that much, but this style is kind of ten years ago…and this actual pair is kind of that old.  But they’re all I have and since my cute sandals offer no cushion or support, I had to switch to the old Crocs because of pain in my left heel.  I don’t know what is going on but, but if I don’t wear Crocs or some other shoes with support, it really hurts.  So Crocs it is.  Woe is me. ;)

Update: some asked about my blood pressure as apparently it rises when you start bloating out. I went to the doctor today and it’s still doing good at 102/62.

Other than my swollen, painful, cankly, Croc-covered feet, I’m doing good.  I can even reach my toes still…

hehe.  OK, here I am actually touching them. I might be bending my legs a little.  This belly is hard to get around I tell ya.

In other news, we finally settled on a nursery theme (Dr. Seuss/Cat in the Hat) and got a baby registry going at Target (some have asked for the link, so here it is for your viewing pleasure).  Since we’ve already started buying/been given quite a bit, when we got there I was like, “we only need a few things–this registry is going to be pathetic.”  Um, yeah.  I didn’t realize how much we didn’t have and still needed/wanted until we were immersed in baby stuff.  Needless to say, our registry is pretty substantial.  How does adding one small human into your life require so much extra stuff?

As for our progress on converting the office into a nursery, we have consolidated to one desk and moved it to the living room, so the room is half empty now.  We just bought a hutch today to put in another corner of the living room to store things that are spilling over from the kitchen now that I don’t have my extra closet for baking supplies.  Making progress, though it still looks like Taz has whirled through our house several hundred times.  Lots of organizing, cleaning, and straightening left to be done.  We have a deadline of Labor Day weekend to have it all cleaned up because Momma Donna, her sister, and our friend Stephanie are coming over to paint the nursery!  So excited! (A few people have asked about Momma Donna. If you missed my introduction, you can click her name to find out who she is-she’s at the end of that post.)

Speaking of Momma Donna, we had her dog, Doc, over this weekend.  If you didn’t catch it before, him and Jessie are best friends and they love having sleep overs.  Here’s Doc giving me some love.

“It’s OK, Aunt Veronica, I love you cankles and all.”

Dogs never judge. :)

I was beginning to think I was going to be like one of those “I didn’t know I was pregnant!” women and never feel the baby moving inside me, but at long last, on August 1st at 3 AM when I laid down to go to sleep, Joshua made his presence known!  I felt these light pops in my lower abdomen and it only took me a few seconds to realize it was Joshua kicking or boxing in my belly. :)

At first it was a little freaky. Something out of the movie Alien.  Another being moving inside me – weird!  But by the end of the day, I loved the feeling and it was really hard not to talk to Joshua every time I felt him moving while I was at work.  We have a totally silent work environment (we are on a large floor, all stationed at small cubicles and doing our data entry while listening to MP3 or CD players) so I kept mostly silent to avoid strange looks.  Though I couldn’t help whispering, “What are you doing in there, Joshua?” once. :)

The kicks come so fast I imagine him kicking his feet like flippers, like he’s practicing to swim, so I keep telling people he’s going to be a swimmer and already training for the Olympics.  Kinda fun to imagine him so far down the road, but he’ll probably be a chess enthusiast or a hunter-lol!  You never know.  But feeling him makes him all the more real and it’s easier to imagine having him in my arms in another 18 weeks.

Yesterday at church, I had my hands folded over my belly and at one point, Joshua moved my hand!  That was the first time I felt him from the outside so I’m hopeful that soon Dennis will be able to catch him moving too.

I’ve come to the following conclusions about our son, based on his movements: he is going to be a swimmer, he loves snacks (he’s more active after snacks than bigger meals), and he gets cranky if Mama waits too long between meals.  I ate a very late breakfast (3 pm) on Saturday and boy, he was moving more than ever, and probably yanking on the umbilical cord and wondering when I was going to send some food down the line-lol.  He finally settled down once I ate.

I have to say feeling him makes me a lot more aware of his comfort level, and I’ve started to worry about going to long without eating, and also what he might experience when I have low blood sugar.  Something to ask the doctor at my next appointment. I desperately hope he doesn’t feel the same thing I feel when it happens.

I can still touch my toes! Though it’s not comfortable.

And just so the Daddy-to-be isn’t left out, here he is at 22 weeks, his hair a bit darker thanks to his wife’s meddling ways.  I need to learn to leave well enough alone-it’s so weird for him to have brown hair.  He’s a natural blonde turned silver, so dark hair just seems a little strange, though not bad. Just not completely right-lol.  Still, he’s my sexy beast!

We had a garage sale last week and let me tell you, I never want to have another one again! We’ve done them twice before, but this one was bigger and more tiring, especially since we did it in the front yard and had to carry out tables and unpack tubs/boxes every morning and then put it all back every night (I continually refilled the tables as they emptied, so there was never less).  Not to mention the lack of sleep – there was so much to do we both got only 2-3 hours the first two nights of the sale.

My parents-in-law came the first day and they were a godsend! Phyllis made us lunch, and made extra for me to take to work. I had to go to leave for work at 2 and they helped Dennis pack up that day, and helped us sell a lot of stuff too!

Every physical demand seemed ten times harder than before I was pregnant, and it was frustrating because I’m used to being able to push myself to do what needs to be done, no matter what.  I had to let Dennis do more than his fair share of the work involved (lots of heavy lifting, which is what was hardest for me, and what I’m not supposed to be doing anyway), and I hated it. I could always do a my share of hard work before being pregnant and it’s hard to accept I can’t do it now.

The good news is that we both survived, and sold a ton of stuff.  The reason we had the sale was to get rid of enough stuff that we could rearrange our house so that we could completely empty out the office and turn it into Joshua’s nursery.  The hardest part is now done-hallelujah!

It was also a nice opportunity to see some friends who I haven’t seen in a while (I’m sort of a recluse, don’t tell), and to meet a blogger friend, Melissa of My Recent Favorite Books!  I think she found me through another mutual blogger friend, Marsha, The Better Baker, and it wasn’t long before she realized we were both in Wichita.  She also delivered a hug from Marsha, who she had told about our meet-up, which was so sweet.  It was so nice to meet you, Melissa!!

Now that we’re done with step one of Battle Plan: Getting Ready for Baby, I’m really eager to finish the remaining steps so that we can get the new furniture set up in the nursery.  I know we still have 19 weeks (if he comes on time, anyway.  Yeah right, right?) to get ready, but I’m so anxious to just have everything done now!

I will definitely be taking pictures of our progress but won’t share them until the nursery is finished because if I showed you the current state of the office/nursery, you would have a heart attack and die, and I would die of shame and embarrassment.  I know you’re imagining something really bad, but believe me it’s even worse than that.  Now you’ve got an even worse picture, and let me tell you, you’re still nowhere close to how bad it is. I promise I will show you eventually, but only when I have the finished room to show you so you won’t question our ability to raise a child without him being crushed beneath an avalanche of stacked papers and books and laundry.

I know you’ve been eying my shirt, so here’s a closer look:

My friend, Tara, the one who pimped Den’s guitar (and won a 2nd place ribbon at the fair for it) and fixed the stain in my jeans by turning it into art, did this custom artwork for me!  I so love it! (I just looked at the old post with Den’s guitar in it, and thought it was funny/cool that I’m wearing the Heart of God bracelet in these pictures (and I think last week’s too) that I also pictured in that post!)  I now have a cupcake shirt to deliver cupcakes to my customers in.  :) Thanks Tara!

Oh and I’ve been doing good on the temper tantrums, or at least haven’t freaked out to the degree I did last week.  In fact, one Friday morning shopper who arrived while we were still setting up and arranging things, asked, “How do you guys get along so well?”  After last week’s meltdown, this was incredibly encouraging. I must be on the road to recovery. lol.  And the answer to her question?  Jesus is our foundation. <3

P.S. I can’t see my feet when I look down any more. I’m not sure how I feel about this.

I have always been a bit of a drama Queen, though it has definitely improved with time, so I was prepared to be really out there once pregnant, totally emotional and irrational and unreasonable.  I’d heard all the stories from women who were normally level-headed that had turned into all the aforementioned things once pregnant.  Surprisingly, pregnancy has been nothing like what I expected.  I waited for the nausea and vomiting.  It never happened.  I waited for the tears and screaming, and they never came.  Happy, healthy, and solid, that’s me.

Until yesterday.

It was a long, tiring day.  Getting up early for church, cooking sticky sesame chicken legs for lunch, getting ready for our garage sale which is coming up way too soon, meeting Momma Donna to look at baby furniture, becoming overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude when she bought an entire set for us (my first case of emotional tears since becoming pregnant!), hauling it home, helping Dennis unload it, our evening church service, then snapping photos for this post before we lost our sunlight (my camera doesn’t take good indoor pictures and the flash washes everything out if I use it).  I felt drained as I looked at the pictures, and when I saw that in every single one my shirt was bunched up, creating a line along my lower belly, I lost it.  Like way lost it.  I turned into the pregnant woman from hell.

See, it looks like I have a belly button or a pointy baby foot poking out of my belly!

I screamed and yelled and made Dennis feel like the only worse thing he could have done besides not tell me that my shirt was unattractively bunched in all the pictures was kill our baby.  We went back outside to try again, but I was so mad I could not smile for the pictures.  I got mad all over again, realizing I’d eaten my lipstick off and forgotten to put my earrings back in.  I knew I was being ridiculous for being so angry about these superficial things, and hating myself for it made me even angrier.

Thankfully Dennis handled it well and I hope every pregnant woman has a partner as understanding as mine because otherwise, pregnancy might turn into the number one reason for divorce.

The yin to my yang, my laid-back wonderful fella. Still looking pretty trim at 20 weeks. :)

So we survived hissy fit number one, and I will do my best not to have another one until possibly childbirth, in which all bets are off.  I will hissy fit it up if it helps me get the baby out without killing someone!  In the meantime, please pray for my husband! lol

I’m such a dork. Somebody save me from myself.

And I just wanted to point out I’m half way through my pregnancy now! Wow, time is flying. I’m so glad we’re getting stuff out of here (garage sale-ing it up this weekend) to make room for Joshua, and already have his furniture to put in the room once it’s emptied.  *totally crazy amazing*  I’m ready to get my nesting on, even if it is a little early. :)  If you live in Wichita, I hope you’ll stop by if just to say hi! Email me for my address: vraklis (at) yahoo (dot) com.