My Addiction

They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. My addiction is vampires. Maybe it's because they have flooded mainstream society but I'm madly in love with the blood sucking variety. My husband knows this and he accepts it, even occasionally he'll contribute to my needs. Between Anne Rice's vamps and the mild manner Twilight variety, I'm like a pig in mud... allow me to overindulge in these naughty creatures of the night. The kind I like the best comes from my fav author Christine Feehan. Of course her vamps are the uberbad kind and it's the Carpathians I love the most but again... I'm addicted.

As far as vampy movies go, I don't like them.. Vamps are super sexual and yummy, not dirty foul smelling beasties. I will probably watch New Moon when it comes out but I really hate the actors they chose for a fav series of mine. Hopefully they'll redeem themselves by the time Breaking Dawn comes around.

Until then, I will feed my addiction through my books that I've read a hundred times and pray that it's enough!

20 weeks

This week you're carrying about 10.5 inches and 10.5 ounces of solid baby-miracle-goodness! Their little delicates bones continue to ossify and toughen while their itsy bitsy finger and toe pads are finishing up. Your little monkey now has teeth buds, although they’re hidden beneath the gum line. And finally! Their limbs have reached their relative proportions—no more alien baby! Their cute pink lips are more defined, and might be helping out in a bit of prenatal thumb-sucking. If you have a little boy, then their tiny testes are descending, though they have not yet passed the abdominal wall. What’s more, eyelashes and eyebrows are also visible. At this point, your little one really looks like a miniature baby—and we do mean miniature as your little swimmer currently weighs a mere eighth of their final birth weight. With half the pregnancy behind you, the most significant gains are yet to come!

To Kiera and Bella

Inspired by my friend Natalie:

I want to say I love you and thank you for being my daughters. Words can't describe the way I feel towards my beautiful babies.

Kiera - I'll take the sleepless nights, the bedrest, the morning sickness and all just for that first moment I got to hold you and kiss your chubby cheeks. Every day I have with you is a gift from above and I cherish every moment I have with you.

Bella - even though you are a stubborn little girl, I still love you with every beat of my heart. We've made it halfway through. I'm sure as you get bigger we'll enjoy more moments of kicks and punches and I'll value each and every one of them.

I love you girls more than life itself and I'm so grateful I get to be your mommy!

19 weeks

Your amazing little baby is now around 10 inches in length! If this seems a bit shocking, you’ll be relieved to know they’ve not actually grown over 3 inches, but that their little legs are now straight enough to be measured. This is when doctors begin measuring fetal growth from head to toe, (no longer “crown to rump” or CR). Lanugo (little hairs) covers their whole body now, trapping that charming cheese-like vernix caseosa (see week 18) to the surface to the skin. This week your lil’ fetus will start on an appetizing diet of amniotic fluid which they are now capable of swallowing, digesting, and passing the fluid as far as their tiny “large” intestines. Fortunately for you, this nice little lump of baby-poop won’t be coming out while they’re still in your womb. Some time shortly after they’re born, this fun lump will become the first in a long line of baby poops. (What finally comes out— commonly known as “meconium” to the science world, will be black and sticky, and you’ll be very glad it happens only once!)

It's a girl!!!

We confirmed today that Bella is in fact Bella and not Robert!!! Woo hoo!!!! I'm so tickled to pieces that I'm going to be a mommy to 2 little girls. It's almost as if I still had Nikki to go with Kiera. I've made my peace that Nikki isn't here but it's nice to have two girls!!!

Now that I'm halfway done baking this stubborn child, hopefully the other half isn't as bad!

18 weeks picture

Here I am, late but here's the 18 week pic. I don't think I changed much from last week!

18 weeks

We have two more ounces! Your "getting bigger-n-better by the minute baby" is already up to 7 ounces and 6 inches! This is a big week for their baby skin. There are now two distinct layers—the epidermis (or the surface skin) and dermis. Currently, their skin is covered with a greasy, waxy, cheese-like substance, known as vernix caseosa. Sure, it sounds pretty nasty, but this mixture of fatty secretions covering your little swimmer from head to toe is the best way to protect their oh-so-thin skin from bruising and abrasions as well as chapping caused by amniotic fluid exposure (and your little one is swimming in that stuff!). Still don’t like the fact your little darling is currently slathered in fatty cream like a greased pig? Well, you know the birthing process? Where you have to push something the size of a watermelon out a hole the size of a grape? That adorable little greased piglet would have a lot harder time getting through the birth canal without the vernix caseosa. Fun fact for momma’s with baby girls: it’s a uterus within a uterus! Your little girl will have developed a uterus and vagina canal by the end of this week.

Bad day

Last night my father (I use that for lack of a better term) came home while I was putting away groceries. He asked me if I made anything.

Nope I said I'm putting groceries away.

Fine then, make me some soup.

Why can't you make it yourself?

He got himself some tea and a yogurt. He inhaled the yogurt and bitched some more about the soup. I got pissed and fixed his damn soup.

Get me another yogurt.. something with banana in it.

So I go hunting for another stupid yogurt with banana in it. Then I realize he's almost out of tea. Since I'm the only one who can make it this means I have to do it. Brandon just finished giving the baby a bath and was getting her dressed meaning I didn't get to. I ask Mom to get his damn soup out of the microwave (mind you he's already polished off the 2 yogurts). This starts a chain reaction.

He gets bent because Kiera comes out after being dressed and he calls her but I call her back. I pick her up to take her back out to our room and he gets in my face, puts his hands on me, and pushes me back towards the stove with Kiera in my arms! Shouting ensues and finally I can get past him with Kiera still in my arms. I'm shaking by this point from being so angry. I tell Brandon if it continues to leave.

Needless to say the shouting, fighting, name calling, etc continues for hours. Brandon leaves with the baby. I didn't go because I knew I would never hear the end of it. Not to mention, he went to his aunt's house and they still haven't figured it out that I'm pregnant.

Once everything calms down I finally get a chance to call Brandon. He doesn't answer the phone because it was in another room charging. I didn't know this and break down once again. I then proceed to make cuts into my wrist.. just enough to bleed. Brandon still hasn't seen them and I will never hear the end of it if he does. There's 5 little cuts. The pain reminds me I'm still alive and can feel something other than extreme sadness.

Brandon finally calls me back and comes back around 9:30 last night. I get Kiera into bed. I go to the bathroom and my father calls me over to him.

Get me some tea and my meds.

Whatever. I get the crap so I can go to bed. I'm exhausted and drained by this point.

Do you really hate me that much?

No I tell him, lying through my teeth. I should have said Yes and we just move on from this point. But I'm tired of crying and feeling depressed so I just tell him what he wants to hear and I move on.

Finally around 11 I fall into a restless sleep. Kiera wakes up at 2:30 am and it takes me over an hour to get her back to sleep. I look like I've been beaten this morning, have a major headache and generally feel like crap.

Hopefully today will be better.

17 week pic

Here it is... 17 weeks!!! Baby is kicking away while I'm sitting here typing!

17 weeks

Courtesy of baby-gaga.com:





Don't be too shocked but... your baby is EVEN bigger than it was last week, not to mention getting cuter, and smarter every day! As you’ve come to expect, there’s no shortage of growth and development this week: your fantastic little bean stalk has added yet another half inch to their overall height-- making them nearly half a foot long! Their little limbs have reached (or are within one week of) their relative proportions, and will continue to grow evenly with the rest of the body after this week. Reactive listening has begun for your baby, even though their ears are not yet structurally complete or fully functional. Meanwhile, different parts of their astonishingly complex brain are developing to process your little one’s hearing and other senses, (you know, sight, smell, taste and touch). Mind boggling factoid of the week: if you’re having going to have a little girl, her ovaries have already produced millions of primordial egg cells, which, within a few weeks, will develop into actual eggs! Phew… just wait till she’s a teenager eh?

16 weeks

Courtesy of baby-gaga.com:

Over the past three weeks your astounding growing baby has managed to stretch yet another 2 full inches (totaling about 4.5 inches) and weighs around 3.5 ounces. Yessireee, that’s some pretty serious growth... and with it comes several physical developments! For starters, their head to body ratio is finally starting to even out a bit as the rest of the body is actually growing faster than the head at this point. Yes, your little light bulb is not so top-heavy. Their adorable little limbs have lengthened, almost reaching their normal proportions which they will have at birth. Their eyes are still closed but moving and if you had an ultrasound, which many doctors recommend you have at about this time, you may even see your little one sucking on a thumb, not to mention the necessary signifiers to let you know whether you’ve got a wee lad or lassie.

tuesday morning

Here it is.. Tuesday morning.. I'm sitting here watching Kiera eat Cheerios aka baby crack with the news on.. They are calling for another day of rain...

Oh joy.

Yesterday I kept feeling the baby move thinking it was so remarkable since I'm only 16 weeks along to be feeling movement already.

It's another sleepy day.. I slept most of yesterday and I'm still tired. Maybe Kiera will be up for some cuddling so I can sneak in a nap.

I doubt it.