Will it work?!

Ok, so the dr appointment today went pretty good. I am dilated to a solid 1 and 80% effaced. She stripped my membranes and we are hoping that it pushes me into labor. So come on regular contractions!!!! If nothing happens then I have an appointment next Tues with another doctor from the practice and I am scheduled to be induced next Friday the 23rd at 6:00 am. I reaaally don't want to have to be induced so please pray that labor starts on its own before then!

So far nothing much going on, a little bit of cramping. That's about it :)

Check back soon for any updates!!

Tick Tock, Tick Tock....

Ok Ella, its time to come out!! I am exactly one week from my due date, and boy am I ready! Its not that I am miserable like a lot of women at this stage in pregnancy, its that I am just ready to meet her and have my body back! Well whatever my new body will be, not the old one :( I am ready to be able to get up out of chairs and the bed with minimal effort. I am ready to be able to see my feet, and for my feet to not be the size of Africa! I am ready to not have to make 100 trips to the bathroom everyday (and night), and more and anything else I AM READY TO MEET MY DAUGHTER!!!

Luckily I am still sleeping like a rock, and not having many problems. I have A LOT of braxton hicks contractions.... A LOT. And some are getting pretty intense... I am wondering of those are real ones?! Sometime the bh contractions are so frequent and consistent I can time them and they can be anywhere from 5-8 mins apart for several hours, but then they just go away.

Last Wednesday at my appointment my Dr said I was "very very effaced, and dilated about 1/2 a cm". Ok thats not a lot, but hey its definitely good progress! She said Ella had moved down a lot and she could touch her head when she was checking me. Too cool! I told her to tap her on the head and tell her to get out :) So she said that if at this week's appointment (which is tomorrow at 11am) if I am dilated to at least a 2 then she will scrape my membranes and try to push me into labor before she goes out of town. Because as luck would have it my Dr. is going to be out of town from July 15th-July 22nd! Of COURSE I just know Ella is going to come while she is gone and I am going to have to deal with some Dr. that I don't know and has no idea what I want and expect from labor and delivery.

So anyhow, we are hoping that by scraping my membranes it will be enough to start the contractions and get this show on the road!! For those of you who aren't sure what that means it was explained to me like this...Once you start dilating every time you touch the cervix it releases oxytocin which is what dilated you and makes you contract essentially putting you into labor. So by going in and scraping the outside of the cervix it will release a lot of oxytocin, and for some women it triggers labor. For some women it doesn't do anything and it still takes weeks to go into labor. Lets pray I am NOT one of those women!

My Dr. said that if I don't have Ella this week then I will see one of her partners in the practice next week and they can schedule me to be induced next Friday when my Dr comes back in town. I really don't want to be induced so please send your thought and prayers to me that it happens on its own!

This weekend my Grandparents made the 18 hour flight from Iran to witness the birth of their first Great Grandchild! I only get to see them every few years and they haven't been here since our wedding. So yesterday we went and hung out with them, my dad, aunt & uncle, and cousins which is always a good time! I recently bought a new awesome Nikon 5000 camera and brought it with me to take some pics of me and my belly with my Grandparents. Once I download the pics I'll post some :)

So now I am at work, hopefully today will be my last day here!! And hopefully my next post will be to tell you that scraping the membranes worked and I am having some real contractions!!

Ella,
Your Mommy and Daddy are so very very excited to meet you! We already love you more than you will ever know. You also have a TON of family members and friends that are dying to meet you... I am pretty sure that both of your Grandma's are sleeping with one hand on the phone waiting for me to call them and tell then you are on your way to see us! So come on out, there is a lot more room out here than in my tummy and its a lot more fun out here too!! Oh and one more thing... please be nice to me in delivery because I am a little nervous about that part! HA!

I love you so very much,
Your Mommy

Baby bump and what does she look like?

So I figured that I would post some pics of my growing bump so you can see how big I have gotten over time. When the first picture was taken I remember thinking "Wow, I am starting to get big!". HAHA,that is hilarious when I look back!What week do you think I popped?! Also we moved inthe middle of all this so there are some weeks that went undocumented.

15 weeks
16 weeks
17 weeks
18 weeks
19 weeks
20 weeks
21 weeks
26 weeks (new house)
28 weeks
30 weeks (in Ella's new room!)

I have gotten really bad about taking pics, mostly cause I am huge and dont feel so cute anymore! I'll try to get better eventhough I am 37 weeks and almost done!!

We decided to get a 3/4 D songogram done at 28 weeks. It was amazing! We went to a place called Stork Vision and they were so great! The room was set up likea living room, couches for all the family to sit and be comfortable and a flat screen TV so everyone could see our baby perfectly. My parents, Bretts parents, Ashlie and Lauren all came with us. I drank toooons of water the week before in hopes it would increase the fluid around Ella so we got a really good view of her. It worked! We got some of the most amazing pictures!



And here is a video of her moving around in there too!

Showers Galore!

Since Ella is going to be here in a matter of weeks I thought I'd post some about the showers that were thrown for us!

The first shower was a family and family friends shower thrown by my Mom, Mother-in-law Jo-Jo and Sister-in-law Ashlie. They did an amazing job! We had it at our new house since it was kind of a central location for everyone. We had lots of travelers coming from Brett's home town. My Aunt helped by making the punch and bringing her beautiful crystal, and Kirby helped by making the cutest cake for a baby shower EVER! HA!

We had a great turn out, almost 30 people! The boys went down to our community dock and fished the day away while we enjoyed food, games, presents, and good times! It was the first "girly" shower I have ever had since we only did couples showers when we got married. So I really enjoyed having all the important women in my life together at one time! Thanks guys for an amazing shower, it was beautiful and I will always cherish it! I love yall! Here are some pics from that shower.






The second shower was our friends/couples shower thrown by my besties Andrea and Lauren. They also did an amazing job! We decided that since I had a girly shower already we would have a fun one where the boys could come too. So we had it at Andrea's house since she has an awesome pool and turned it into an all day party where we swam and had a cookout. While the girls were inside playing games and opening presents the boys were out by the pool drinking beer and having fun. When the girls were done, we joined them outside for swimming and volleyball. Everyone got a kick out of me in my bikini. Fun times, fun times! I refused to wear a maternity suits cause they are just not too cute and I looked like I was wearing a tent! So I opted for a regular ole' 2 piece.

The night ended around 10 pm and I was exhausted! It was such a fun shower, and I think the most fun I have ever had at a baby shower! Thanks guys, I love you! Here are some pics of that shower.







The last shower was a small shower at my office. I work at a proprietary school so we didn't want to disrupt the students so we held it in between day and evening classes. Ashlie ( sis-in-law who works for me) put this shower together. We had some food and yummy cake and opened presents. Since we were at work we tried not to spend too much time on the shower since we were on the clock and all! HA! After opening presents all my co-workers gave me awesome advise and told funny stories about forgetting their kids in weird places or walking out of the house and leaving their infant in the car seat all strapped up and ready to go! Lol! Thanks guys... it made me feel a lot better knowing all of you made mistakes and had bumps along the way in raising your kiddos! Thank you Ashlie and my co-working family for an awesome shower! Here are some pics from this shower.








Well there you have it... 3 showers down and all we need now is a baby to use all the fun stuff on! I am so grateful to have so many people in my life that love me, and more importantly already love Ella so much! We are truly blessed!! Thanks to everyone that had a hand in making all our showers so awesome, you are much appreciated!

Next post, belly pictures from beginning to end! You get to see how much I have really grown over the last 9 months!

Girl or Boy?!

March 8th, 2010 was the day we were going to find out if our little peanut was a boy or a girl. Both Brett and I had said we didn't care what it was, just ask long as the baby was healthy. But I was so positive that it was a boy for almost 4 months. About 3 weeks before the sonogram Brett had a dream that it was a girl. He dreamed that we were at the beach with her and Aunt Ashlie was carrying a 1 year old baby girl to the ocean as we watched. Then a few days later I had a dream it was a girl. My dream was a little more strange. I dreamed I couldn't get her strapped into her car seat fast enough and whoever was driving the car started driving off and I had to run beside the car strapping her in. Weird, I know! But if you have ever been pregnant then you know the insanely odd dreams that accompany pregnancy!

Anyhow, so now we have both had dreams it was a girl. I don't know what to think anymore! Maybe I am wrong and my gut feeling of a boy wasn't right.

Well of course everyone in our family wanted to be present for the sonogram. So on March 8th, me, Brett, my Mom, my Dad, my Mother-in-Law,and my Sister-in-Law all met at the doctors office. I was calling it our big ole' family sonogram! Ashlie (sis in law) was going to video tape the whole thing so that family and friends that couldn't be there could see it.

We are all in the waiting room and they call my name. We get up and start walking and I told the sonographer, "I brought a crowd, hope you don't mind!". Side note: I have seen several women with 5+ people with them in the waiting room to have the gender sonogram done. So I know its something they are used to seeing and dealing with. Well apparently this sonographer was not to happy about it. She gave this look like "oh, great! What a pain in my butt!" Whatever lady get over it! This is the first grandkid on either side of our family!! lol

So we all pile into the tiny room and Ashlie pulls out the video camera and the lady says "Oh, you cannot video in here!!" Crap! That sucks! Well the sonographer continues to be rude by talking extremely quiet and only to me and Brett. Its like she was purposefully trying to leave everyone else out. I was starting to get really annoyed but I was so excited I didn't say anything. So she went through all the organs and bones and measured everything and pointed everything out to us (well to me and Brett anyway). She said everything looked perfect and the baby weighed about 12 ounces which is normal for 21 weeks. Now getting to the good part.

She leans into me and says "How do you want to do this? Do you want me to just tell you or announce it to the whole room?" Well what do you think lady?? I brought my whole family, but I only want you to tell me. Dear Lord, quit being so rude! But nice me just said "Announce it to the room." So back to the belly she went with the wand and rolled around on my belly and then said "Its a GIRL!!!"!! We of course all started squealing and hugging! We were so excited to finally know that we were having a baby girl!

So we pack up and start to head out to a celebration breakfast, but my dad wasn't following behind us. He was walking around the lobby of the hospital on his phone. What the heck is he doing?! Then he starts texting and walking the wrong way. So I walk back inside and I said "What are you doing? Lets go Dad." And he is all smiles and says OK. We all start walking to our cars and this crazy lady is walking towards the hospital dressed like a Fair Godmother, wings and all, carrying tons of balloons. My first thought was, oh someone just had a baby... how cute is that, she is going to go visit them!

My Dad leans into me and says "What the heck is that?!" (cause the lady looked really funny in her outfit) I laughed and shrugged my shoulders. She made eye contact with me and smiled and I thought she was just being nice since she noticed I was pregnant. Nope!! She stopped and said, "HI, LEILA! I hear we are celebrating your new baby girl!!" OH. MY. GOD. My dad hired a singing telegram in the form of a Fair Godmother!!! (with a northern accent to boot! lol) She then tells me that she is my Fairy Godmother and has been watching me for a long time and she wanted to congratulate me on my baby girl. Then she starts singing a song to me. (I don't have the lyrics with me but I'll try to remember to post them later, cause its funny!)Since we had the video camera with us already, we were able to captured the whole thing on video. Classic!! It was one of the best days ever, and a day that none of us will ever forget! Here are some pics of us with my Fair Godmother.

Thanks Dad for making that day so special! And to our baby girl, Mom and Dad are so thrilled that you are a girl and we cannot wait to meet you!

I had picked a name years and years ago (before Brett and I started dating) for a girl. Ella Lynn. I love the name Ella, Elle for short, and Lynn was my brothers middle name. Aubrey Lynn passed away when I was 10 so I thought it would be awesome to name my first child after him. So Ella Lynn it is! But you know whats really crazy? Brett's grandmother passed away when he was about 10 as well. He was very close to he, and her name was Louella. So what are the chances that I choose the name Ella?! Its like our child is named after the 2 people that we loved so much that we have lost. So here's to you, Bubby (my nickname for my bro) and Maw-Maw (what Brett called his grandma)!! Ella Lynn will live on through you. We love you both and miss you dearly!

Home Buying 101

Hi folks! So onto the other news in our lives. We are now getting all settled into the idea of starting our family. So what’s next? Of course my wheels start turning on the next big thing right?! Lol

We have always rented homes; we never thought we could afford to buy one especially since we didn’t have a large down payment saved. But I started doing some research and found out we were waaay over paying on our rent. For what we were paying we could easily have owned that home and then some. So I did some research on FHA loans and realized we only needed 3.5% down. We had that! So I called our bank and got pre-approved for way more than I thought we would…now to find a realtor. I emailed my realtor friend that works on a lake a few hours from us (Hi Keri!) and asked if she knew anyone closer that she could refer us to.

Enter Paula! She and I hit it off from the very first phone call. Not a shocker since Keri and I hit it off the first time we met too and Keri said I’d love her. So I told Paula our criteria and she sent us a listing of houses that night. Brett and I decided to go do some driving around on our own first to check out some of them and then schedule viewings if we found any we liked.

The very first house we looked at was a brand new, never been lived in home on a GIANT lot, which we really wanted. Some of the neighbors saw us peeking in the window and let us in through the garage door. So we snuck around the house and fell in love. We looked the rest of the day and just didn’t find much that compared that was is in our price range.

So we scheduled a few viewings with Paula one day that next week, one of them being the house we loved. Brett got stuck at work and missed the first house we looked at, which was nice and had a great lot on a golf course. The problem was it was at the top of our price range and being built in the 70’s it needed a lot of work on the bathrooms. Avocado green tub and vanity in the master?! No thank you! Next we went to the house we had already seen to do a viewing with the builder. We didn’t tell them we had already snuck around in it  Brett was able to meet up with us there and we asked our questions and got all kinds of info about the house. It had a lot of upgrades and a lot of perks. Brett was SOLD! I loved it but we hadn’t looked at very many homes and what are the chances that we would buy the FIRST house we looked at?! I was not ok with making a big decision like that without seeing all the homes that we could.

Brett kept saying “I REALLLY want that first house we looked at” but I pressed on with the search. We looked at about 100 more homes online, Paula sent like 10 different listings with like 10 homes on each listing. We narrowed it down to a few more and we scheduled a viewing on one and a second viewing with the home that we loved. This time we brought my dad, who is Mr. Hard-Hitter with the questions. The other house we looked at sucked. The floor plan was no good, and the carpet was in bad shape and the houses were really close together. We went to the second viewing on the dream home and dad asked all his questions. Making the builder and Paula work hard to get them all answered. We left there totally in love still. My dad on the other hand was skeptical because it was at the top of our price range. He wanted us to get a foreclosure so we would have built in equity from the beginning. There were just no decent ones in our area with the lot size we wanted.

So we decided to put in an offer. Brett and I had tickets to a NBA game that night so we were hoping to be distracted and not waiting by the phone for an answer. Well halfway through the first period Paula called with an answer. Here I am pregnant running up and down the stairs taking her calls! Lol Our offer was rejected and the battling began! After what seemed like an eternity (2 days I think) we finally came to an agreement.

We move fast apparently because 3 weeks from the day I talked to Paula on the phone for the first time we were signing a contract on our VERY FIRST HOME! WOW! Can this be real?! Are we under contract? I swear just a few weeks ago we had just casually started talking about buying a house! Closing was set for just 3 weeks after that. So 6 weeks total… from start to finish we bought our dream house! Well not 100% dream house, that’ll come later in life when we move to a lakefront house  But this is by far and away way more than we ever dreamed we would be able to buy. So I’d say its our dream house for our first home. 4 bedroom, 2.5 baths, game room, soccer field size backyard and 2500 square feet. It was all ours!

Our little baby now had a place to come home from the hospital to that we owned. We have a place to raise our children in. It still amazes me sometimes. It feels like a fairytale! Here are some pics of the new crib! Next post, is little Peanut a boy or a girl?!

Our Story- Part 4

Well here we are again! Continuing with Our Story. So I just found out I was pregnant, and I had to leave to go to work and pretend like it was a normal day. I really wanted to wait and tell Brett in person in some super cool way. So off to work I go, just beaming sunshine! I made my normal call to Brett on the way to work, but I was so afraid I'd slip or he'd be able to tell something was going on by the sound of my voice so I kept the call really short.

I honestly have no clue how I got through that day. It was all I could think about! And since I didn't want to tell anyone before Brett I kept it my secret all day... but I would say it out loud in my office by myself just so I could say it. "I'm pregnant!!" hahaha! "Holy Crap! I am PREGNANT!!!" I started googling "Cool ways to tell your husband you are pregnant". I came up with like 100 different things I could do, but none of them really sounded good. I get off work at 6:00, but if you know me you know I never leave work on time...I am doing good to get out by like 6:30-6:45. Not that day!! I was shutting off the computer at 5:59! lol

On my way home I was going through all the options of how to tell Brett. Cook a meal of everything "baby" size, write it on my belly with lipstick, all the silly things I read online. But since it was eating me alive I decided to just keep it simple.

I got home, gave him a quick kiss and went to change. Put on my lounging pants and slid the positive test in the waist band and covered it with my shirt. Brett was busy playing PlayStation so he wasn't paying too much attention. I went and sat next to him and asked him to pause it. He did. I said, "I have something for you" and he said "Oh yeah?". With my hands shaking like a leaf I pulled the positive test out and handed it to him. For a second he took it and was like, what am I supposed to do with this? He hadn't looked down at it to see the word "PREGNANT" on the test. So I said, "IM PREGNANT!!". He said with a huge smile "NO WAY!!!" and he looked down at the test. I turned on the bright overhead light so he could see it better and said yes I am!! Of course I was bawling, and he was just smiling from ear to ear...oh and there was lots and lots of hugging! I told him about my morning and how the first cheap test showed a faint line and all that jazz. He was so proud that I went all day long without telling anyone. I am not known for keeping exciting secrets! It was a wonderful night of smiles, hugs, and celebration! We were finally going to have our little family!

We had always talked about how we would tell our family. I really wanted to tell our families together. We wanted to wait until we had a doctor appt to get confirmation, and my appt was the next day. Well Thanksgiving was coming up in a few weeks so we decided to wait and tell everyone on Thanksgiving. Damn, how are we going to go a few weeks without telling our moms??? Thats going to be impossible!

I went to the doctor the next day and did the blood test, and then scheduled an appointment for a few days later to go see the Dr. In between those 2 appointments I took several more at home test just to make sure! lol I finally got to my Dr appt where they would tell me if in fact I was pregnant... man I was so excited! Brett couldn't get off work so I went alone. As soon as I signed in the receptionist told me to go pee in a cup before my appointment, and to continue to do so for every appointment from here on out. So does that mean the blood test came back positive?? The nurse came in and did the blood pressure thing, and asked if this was my first baby? I said "Yes, and does that mean the test was positive?" She said "OH, you haven't gotten your results yet?" I told her no, and asked if they were positive? She said, "Well I'll let the doctor go over all that with you." UGGGHH!! Just someone tell me yes! Even though I was like 99.9% sure, I needed to hear someone say it! lol So the Dr comes in with a huge smile on her face and says "HI Leila!! You're pregnant!!" and gives me a giant hug!! We went over all the stuff I needed to know and scheduled my next appointment for a month.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving... Yep that means we made it through the few weeks without telling our parents!! Now we did tell a few friends before then, we just couldn't hold it in! But we kept it as quiet as possible. So I charged my video camera the day before Thanksgiving and had a plan on how we were going to do it. Brett's mom, dad, sister and uncle were there and then my mom showed up. I wanted to tell all of them before the rest of the family got there. I wanted it to be a small intimate group of people and not aunts, cousins etc. So there we were all standing around in the kitchen talking, cooking and all that. I got the video camera out and started taping. I said "Here we are at Thanksgiving 2009 at Brett and Leila's. Say Hi everyone!" they all said hi to the camera. The I asked my mom "Mom, what are you thankful for this year?" She said "I am thankful for my daughter's happiness!" Wow, she doesn't even know how good of an answer that was! lol Then once again with my hand shaking like a leaf, I panned back to try to get everyone in the shot and said, "Y'all know what I am thankful for?" they replied, what? "I am thankful that I am PREGNANT!!". The look on their faces was so priceless!! No one had expected me to say that! My mom didn't move a muscle, just stood there speechless. And if you know my mom she is NEVER speechless! (that's where I get it from I guess)My sister-in-law just stood there with her mouth hanging open and my mother-in-law ran towards me to hug me with excitement! I was so glad I captured it all on film, our baby will be so glad to be able to watch it someday.

It was the most amazing Thanksgiving that any of us have ever had. We had so much fun telling family members as they came over that day. Later that evening we went to Thanksgiving dinner at my Aunts on my dad's side and told my dad. I swear he kinda knew already. I guess I am too easy to read! We then made all our phone calls to friends to share the news...all in all it was just the most perfect day.

Well that concludes today's post! Next time I will finish catching y'all up to speed (hopefully). We have had a few more major things happen in our life since the baby came in the picture. I'll also get to the belly pics, and the sonogram pics soon too! Promise!