Tuesday, October 29, 2013 0 comments

5 Weeks To Go!

Officially we have 35 more days. ACK! That sounds so soon! And I haven't gotten her room painted, bag packed, OR had my baby shower! Lol.

BUT! The baby shower is happening this weekend finally! I'm pretty excited, should be fun! I hope most of the people I invited get to come! I need DIAPERS PEOPLE! Haha, really that is about all I need, diapers and wipes. I'm pretty set on clothes thanks to the fb online yard sale and Chloe, and I have all my baby 'gear'. I think mom and dad are buying me a stroller/car seat jogger. Its purple!! Check it out!



I LURVEEE IT!! This will be a total of 4 carseats that I have though, haha. I did give one to the mother in law, and I need one extra for Lee's truck. But not sure what I will do with the other, one of the extras I have is the same exact seat as the purple but in grey and green. I don't know if I'll keep it or the other flowery one. Probably keep the green though since it will go on the jogger and same base.

Jamie and my mom are doing the party. It's going to be all fall stuff, pumpkins, leaves, apple cider, pumpkin pie, etc. YEAH, I love fall! Its actually been kind of a neat time to have a baby. Christmas is magical anyway and adding a baby just makes it even more so. I'm glad she is due at the BEGINNING of December though!

Thursday is Halloween! Stinks though cause its supposed to be stormy/rainy. :( Chloe is so excited too. I hope it holds off or we do it inside or something. We are going to our church's trunk n treat. Chloe is going to be a 'ballerina' puppy, lol! I made her the cutest fall colored tutu and bought her some floppy puppy ears. Then she is going to wear a brown shirt/leggings and I'm going to paint her nose black, haha. She is going to be stinking adorable!! Here is what it looks like sort of:


So! I am at 35 weeks today! Feeling pretty good really. Probably the best I have my whole pregnancy here in the last month or so, weird right?? I'm not as tired, my reflux is under control now thanks to prescription meds, and I am not out of breath every time I try to move around. I do still think this kid is head up tho, but I'm trying not to worry about it until my next ultrasound at 36 weeks. Which I'm getting a 'freebie' this Friday too from my sister in law, hehe. She is head director at a womens center like I said in my previous post, and scheduled me to do a ultrasound with their tech Friday for the fun of it. Hopefully she will have that hiney up by then!! She must know I'm talking about her, she is pushing out and around in there, lol. She sits on the sides a lot more then Chloe. At night when I lay on my side I have to be careful how I lay or she lets me know I'm squishing her, lol.

I'm excited about meeting Shelby soon, but also nervous. I know everyone says you will love your second just as much, your heart expands, etc. But its hard to imagine. I hope I don't have trouble bonding with her. I had a bit of a problem connecting with Chloe for a while. I loved her of course, but didn't feel that specialness I wanted for quite some time after. I think it will be a bit easier this time though, having already done the mommy thing, and being able to share it all with my sweet girl. She is going to be such a help too! And this time I will have the mother in law there close to help, feed us, watch Chloe, etc. Last time she was in the hospital taking care of her baby. 

Baby appointment tomorrow! I also start going every week now, ah! I have my fun strep B test tomorrow too, ughhh. Maybe the nurse will do it, haha. I'm also kind of nervous about having my weekly 'checks' by this new doctor too. One, he is a man, and two, with him being a man, men have bigger hands! LOL. I'll survive though!

Here is the week 35 belly!

35 weeks - Baby Shelby

Wide load!! Lets compare with Chloe's pregnancy...

35 weeks - Baby Chloe

LOTS bigger, ugh! O well, I've pretty much embraced it now, yeah, I'm eight months pregnant, I'm big. Here we go. Lol. 

So lets get on with this weekend! We had lots of fun! First on Saturday we visited 4D Farms to get our pumpkin and have lots of other fun. Chloe didn't want to leave. Next year will be even more fun with a nearly one year old Shelby along! 

Pic overload!

Jumpy jumpin! Check out my cute boots socks, lol










She saw this one and was like GOT IT!

Love that sweet face!
I'm the biggest pumpkin out there by far, haha


  















Duck races!













So as you can tell we all had a blast. It might be $10 a head to get in there but its worth it! They have so much to do and Chloe has a blast. If you zoom in on the pumpkin picture you can see Chloe's little bitty green pumpkin she found, she had to have the tiniest one! Thankfully they didnt charge us for it, lol. So after that we headed to the grocery store and then home to put a wore out Chlo Chlo down for a nap! (and me too, haha) Lee went out and shot guns a bit with his brothers. That night was the Auburn game but we didn't watch it, it was Lee's youngest bros birthday weekend so we went over there after Chloe's nap and ate dinner with them. The game was against a very easy opponent anyway and we smeared them. We are doing so good this year!!

Sunday! Woke up SO SLEEPY and tired so decided to play hooky and stay home from church. Then I got Chloe and we played in bed with daddy for a bit before we got up and she helped me make french toast. It was SO good. While we were eating we did a few devotionals from our church then got ready for the first event of the day, pictures!! I've been wanting to take pregnancy pictures for a while now and finally had a good day for it!

Some of my favs:









Love them!! They came out so good, especially for being taken on a tripod with a remote shutter, lol. I was kind of dissapointed in the lack of color in the trees, but it still looks fallish, I think. And Chloe did so well, she is so photogenic anyway! Lee on the other hand I had to prod a bit, lol.

After that we headed to Decatur to find a present for Lee's bro, then back home before we left out again to Birmingham to eat at a restaurant he picked. On the way home we were listening to a old country station and Chloe was so funny, she kept telling me and Lee to sing (since we were most of the time anyway, we love the old 90's and older country!) and clapping, etc. It was too cute. Ate some cheesecake at the in laws then to bed!!

So all in all, fun fun weekend. Also! Forgot to say our appraisal came in GREAT! 4k above what we needed! So we are just waiting for the last few things to get tied up and hear when our closing date will be. Our loan lady thinks it should be next week. Yeah! Can't wait to get the shop started. I wish we could have gotten it done before the baby gets here, but don't see that happening! I'm still so thankful my insurance is covering my pregnancy. We should just owe about $200 more on the dr and then the $500 to the hospital.

Well I think I have about 20 pages here, so better shut up! Until next time!

Thursday, October 17, 2013 0 comments

33 Weeks! (Plus Exciting News!)

So the 4D went really well! We got some great pictures! I was starting to get worried for a little bit there though, she had her hand and forearm up in her face for the longest time! I think she was napping, lol.

Here is a picture of how she looked at that time, she's grabbing the back of her neck, lol:


Anyway, I asked her at one point to just for me make sure she IS a girl, lol, and of course she wouldn't cooperate in there, but she said she didn't see any boy parts ;). So we have a Shelby officially! (Well as official as you can get without her actually being here, lol) As for middle names we are probably going to do Shelby Marie Mickle if she is born in November, if she comes in December (which I'm hoping it is EARLY December if so!) we are going to go with Shelby Noelle Mickle.

Some more shots!





So the general consensus is she looks like Chloe! Which means a MICKLE. I knew it! LOL, but I'm fine with that. I love seeing Lee in Chloe. I would love for a dark headed Lee look-a-like though! We shall see! The ultrasound tech said she saw some hair floating around, so she isn't bald headed, but how long it is or what color it is, nobody knows! Lol. I keep telling Lee as soon as she crowns I'm going to be like WHAT COLOR IS HER HAIR, GO FIND OUT! ;) No seriously, I wouldn't mind two blondies, they would be adorable.

Chloe is going to be such a good big sister, I know it. She talks about her all the time. I can't wait till she has her own little playmate to have fun with! She kisses my belly a lot too, which is too cute.

So about the exciting news! I went for my 33 week appointment yesterday morning. All is good, I think I am 145 now? He said I've gained 18lbs, which he allows 25 at this point so I'm good! Blood pressure, urine, belly measurement, heartbeat, all good. I asked him if he could feel of her and see if she is breech still, and he was pretty sure she is. GRR! I wish she would turn around so I don't have to worry about it! There are a few exercises and such you can do that encourage them to turn, I've done a few but no luck. I haven't been consistent with them though either, your supposed to do them for 3 or 4 days a couple times a day. She has moved from right under my right ribs, so maybe that is progress??

Oh, my news! Anyway I got done and came out to make a payment, which is still 2k something. I had given them my new insurance card when I came in and didn't think much more about it. (Dad started offering insurance for the shop, paying half, which is great! I have dental and medical, yay! Just comes out of my paycheck) So I tell her I'm going to pay and she goes um, wait a second. And I thought I was going to be in trouble for not making a payment last month so I kind of cringed waiting on her to finish. But then she says don't worry about making a payment this time. "Vicky looked up your insurance and it's not showing your pregnancy as pre-exising." WHAT?! She continued on saying that they would look at my account and take of the self pay fees etc and see if I owed them anything more, or I would be getting a credit back. I was so shocked and excited! I was so sure pregnancy was one of those things you had to wait a year for on insurance.

So I had planned on going to the hospital part anyway to give them my card, in case something came up they actually might pay for, and I now was definitely wanting to know what they would say about it. So I waddled my little self out of there and send Lee a text on the way (its a walk through like 2 buildings to get there) and told him all that went on. He was pretty excited too! But we were both like, this might be too good to be true, lol. I finally huff myself up the stairs to the maternity ward and give the lady there my card. She looks it up on her computer and says, yeah, its not pre-existing and you should be covered. THANK YOU JESUS! So that was another hurdle down. She told me to defenitely call my insurance though and find out for sure. After I got back to work I did just that and the rep told me that they don't cover pre-existing conditions until after a year of coverage, yes, but they don't consider pregnancy as pre-existing. ??? I wasn't going to question that!

We are SO thankful, God is so good, what a blessing! So we still have some co-pays ect but nothing like what it was going to be. Instead of 5k for the hospital and doctor together it will be just $500 for the doctor and $750 for the hospital. So around 1k. Hallelujah! I don't know for sure how much I owe the doctor still, since I have been paying on my bill already, but the hospital is $250 a day, and they figure on three days. I need to call my doctor and tell them I talked to my insurance and see if they have what I owe figured out yet.

Also in financial news, we were tossing about the idea of a shop etc like I said in my other post, since we had to have the $2500 up front for the hospital. But we had pretty much nixed the shop idea and were just going to get a small loan for the hospital. I felt like it was just going to be too much and not the right time. So anyway, we have been getting things in the mail about refinancing from our mortgage company for a few months now and Lee has been trying to get me to call, he figured a refinance with cash out would be our best bet all around. But I already tried that with two other mortgage companies and they all told me if you have had an over 30 days within a year they will not refinance you. But anyway as a last ditch effort to get Lee his shop I went a head and called them one day.

Lo and behold the man ran it through his computer and they did not immediately reject us! So, we are currently in the process of refinancing. We have everything going and are now waiting on our house appraisal which is happening Monday afternoon. If that goes well, we should be set! We are getting 10k out, lowering our payments, and lowering our interest rate. Cool, right?? So now that we learned we are paying only about a thousand for the doctor that will give us some extra money! Lee is figuring about 6-7k for the shop, maybe less. Then that will be 8k with the doctor. We have a mattress and dental bill I want paid off and then we are clear! So we may have around 2-3k to play with. Which I want to keep at least a thousand in the savings for an emergency fund. I would love to be able to get a four wheeler (or two) but we need to be smart. Will just have to wait and see.

Also may have another near 1k coming in from selling a motor Lee has had for a long time. We were going to put it in the Mustang eventually, but its gone now, so someone came in asking for one in the shop and dad told him about Lee's. He came out the same day and looked at it, likes it, but not sure if he wants to spend the money on it, so we shall see.

Anyway, we were going to camp in Tennessee this weekend with the fifth wheel. I reserved us a spot and everything at this gorgeous state park. I wanted to take my pregnancy pictures while I was there, the leaves are really pretty right now. It is by a river and has tons of waterfalls, etc. Perfect! But then we found out the appraiser is coming Monday and Lee has a lot of things he wants to do around the house to make sure we get the highest possible number. So I cancelled, maybe we can go next weekend. I'm not holding my breath though!

Tonight Lee and I are going to a banquet fundraiser for a womens shelter. They educate girls/women and try to keep them from having abortions, etc. My sister in law is over the one here in our town, so we are going to support her. It will be fun to dress up if nothing else, although my big belly is getting harder and harder to make cute, lol. Although it might be a fine line between dressy and too dressy, lol. And if I wear black, which I most likely will, I'll probably get a bunch of double takes, which is kind of annoying. Black is pretty good at camouflaging big bellys, but its hard to hide one this big and people will be like, is she pregnant?? Lol. I don't have a belly shot yet, but will try to add one later. Adios!

UPDATE: Here is a 34 week shot!




 
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