18 weeks/flying kites for Michael

 

 

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along:  18 Weeks

Size of baby:  Baby is the length of a bell pepper. He/she is as big as a bell pepper and weighs almost 7 ounces. (Length: 5 1/2 inches, head to bottom.)

Total Weight Gain:  14 lbs. Ouch.

Maternity Clothes: Everything is maternity, except for sweats

Gender: We had our chance to find out this week and we didn't take it.   It's official, there are no more chances to find out now! 

Movement: I felt tiny kicks Friday morning!  (and a bunch last night!)

Sleep: I've been sleeping really well!

What I miss:  eating whatever I feel like, and not thinking about how much protein I'm getting, or thinking about if what I'm eating might be harmful to the baby.  

Cravings:  gummy bears.

Symptoms: right now, my biggest symptom is this big round belly I have developed.  I have had some heartburn (not regularly though, thank goodness) and some tailbone soreness (again not regularly).  Both symptoms I do not miss from last time.  

Best Moment this week:   Our ultrasound, seeing our baby, and feeling kicks!!  This was a great week! 

Here are some of the ultrasound pictures!!   We kind of expected the baby to look like Jack's ultrasound, but it doesn't!!  I also found out that my placenta is not in the front this time, so I should feel kicks sooner and stronger.  It turns out, I felt kicks that morning, before I realized what they were.  I had never felt these tiny kicks before with Jack because they were so muffled by my placenta.  

This is a good shot of his/her arm and hand.

Sweet profile view.  The baby kept opening and closing his/her mouth!  So cute!  

This is a closer view of the head, check out the lips on this kid!

Ultrasounds make everything seem so much more REAL!!  I was excited before, but I feel much more of a connection now that I have seen the baby!   He/she was really moving around in there, waving arms, opening and closing his/her mouth...it was fun.  

The tech says she knows what we are having, but gave no clues, thank goodness!  

Jack finally is getting it, I think.  I pointed to my belly and asked him what it was and he said, "baby!" then he said "baby brother."  then, "baby sister."  awwww...

On a sadder note, John's cousin Michael was killed (accidentally) recently.   We hadn't seen him in about 10 years, but about 10 years ago, he played football with John every week.   Just like we did a few years ago after Shawn's death, we flew kites in Michael's memory today.  

 You will have to enlarge this one to see it well, but here are our 5 kites in the air at once!

These were the 2 kites we brought.

My sweet boy just being sweet.

Happy Mother's Day!

To me! Hahaha! It was weird to actually celebrate Mother's Day for myself! Jack wished me a happy Mommy's day, and picked out a digital picture frame for me (says Daddy...). We had a nice brunch and went to the zoo, with my mom, Uncle Doug, Aunt Karen, and Jillian.


After we got home, I made some carrots for Jack, and he acutally LIKED them!!! Wow! He ate them right up!


Last weekend, we flew kites in memory of Shawn. It was fun, until Daddy lost a kite in the tree!





While Daddy tried to get the kite out of the tree, Jack tried out the baby swing, and loved it!



Jack rode in the shopping cart for the first time. He loved being able to look at everything! Thanks to Aunt Rachel for the shopping cart cover!



Nana got Jack a horse jumperoo for Easter, here's my little cowboy jumperooing.


Jack's new favorite thing to do? Blowing raspberries and spitting all over everything!



I'm going to try to blog more often, so posts aren't so long! I'd rather do a bunch of short ones! Much less time consuming!

We love you, Shawn.

This was Christmas of 2007 and the last photo we have of Shawn (sitting next to me, wearing a hat).

As some of you know, John's nephew Shawn died over the weekend. He was 19 years old. He was a sweet, kind hearted young man and will be missed terribly. He died of a self inflicted gunshot wound to his head. We have had a pretty rough weekend. When it happened, John was in North Carolina on business. Shawn has always been very special to John and I knew this would tear him up. And it did. He was frantic trying to get home so he could see Shawn before he died. Fortunately, he made it home. Shawn died on Friday night.

Shawn has saved 7 lives since then, thanks to organ donation. What an incredible gift!! We were praying when they were taking his organs, and it was such a good feeling that lives were going to be saved that night because of Shawn!

Visitation will be at the Vermeulen Funeral Home in Westland from 5-9 on Thursday night. The funeral Mass will be Friday morning at 10:00 am at Holy Trinity Student Chapel in Ypsilanti. In leiu of flowers, please make a donation to the funeral fund.

He is going to be missed so much. Please keep Shawn and our family in your prayers.

In Memory

I heard about the shooting at Virginia Tech while I was at work, and while I felt disgusted and horrified, I was also rather disconnected from it. It was even an afterthought when I saw John...."Oh, you heard about that shooting at Virginia Tech, right?"

Until last night, I pulled up a message board that John and I both read. Motown Sports is a large Tigers message board with a huge community of Tigers fans from across the country. Like any message boards, lots of people read them, a few people post. Last night, I kept seeing posts about "Brian Bluhm." I had no idea who this was. Brian Bluhm, was a frequent poster on the board. He posted under the name estrepe1, which is how John and I knew him. He was killed in the classroom at Virgina Tech. He was a huge Tiger fan, and was an incredible contributor the the Motown Sports community. His posts were posts that always got read. He was 25 and a few weeks from graduating with his Master's degree as a civil engineer. All of the sudden, that shooting that I was so disconnected from became VERY real. I have been near tears many times last night and today about Brian and I never even knew his name. But I knew he was moving to Baltimore after graduation and just attended the Tiger game in Baltimore last week. I knew Curtis Granderson was his favorite Tiger. I knew that Hobbes was his avatar and he had a Sparky Anderson quote in his signature.

Rest in Peace, Brian. Our prayers are with you and your family.