Progression of the bump

It wasn't until this weekend while I was sitting at a friends baby shower did it start to sink in......I'm finally going to be a mom! Just loved how happy she looked and excited she was with everything - I will admit, I am excited but still cautious. I will be cautious until the day she is in my arms - just one of those things I guess with my history - I cannot help that feeling. I do check on her daily with our doppler and got a little freaked out yesterday when I couldn't find her - but thankfully the little bug had moved from her normal spot and heartbeat was beating nice and strong!
It was fun to see some of the people's reactions when they found out - some of these people I haven't seen since Christmas! One girl was too cute and said she didn't want to ask in case she was wrong.....it's okay, this isn't a beer gut ;)
I am finally starting to feel like I'm beginning to look a little preggers - instead of just looking like I ate too much. Here is the progression of the bump so far:

Excited for our next ultra sound - 18 weeks - which happens to be scheduled on my birthday....
Happy Birthday to Me!

Family

Let's talk about family! I love mine dearly and wouldn't know how I would have gotten through some of these times without them. Then there are days where I look at the caller id and just don't want to pick up...knowing if I don't, they'll call back and ask where I was earlier....Oh just ignoring your call because I didn't want to listen to all the questions.... I say in my head!
My mother has been wanting to have Hubs' parents at our house for dinner for a while now so they can all celebrate the baby. Great idea, sure no problem. Well Friday was that day. It was that day that I REALLY missed my wine. REALLY missed it! I had to listen to both mother's go on and on about making sure I'm eating enough and eating the right things - not sure if they missed the 4 slices of pizza I shoved down my gullet or not, but pretty sure I'm eating enough. Am I making the best choices in food - trying my best but if I want to sit and eat a half a bag of Cheetos, I'm gonna do that....oh wait, that's what I did yesterday.
But this comment was what took the cake! For whatever reason my mother went to get soap from my shower (guess she didn't like my hand soap) and I later found my Dove body soap on the counter.....knowing how she is and how she was growing up (let's just say we tease her and call her Mommy Dearest - rent it if you don't know what I'm referring too...hehehe) I busted her chops saying I'll put the soap back where it came from. I hope you are all sitting down for this one, and I quote: "I'm going to bring you new soap because you are not to use the Dove anymore."
Now if I can imagine what all your faces are right now, pretty sure it's exactly what mine was when I heard that too. I try to gather my head around this absurd comment and ask why - something about it not being paraben free. Um okay - I just let her have her comment.
After we get through dinner I just looked at hubs and said I was going to bed - it was a long night!
My parents made the trek back up to my house (my mother forgot her clothes) and we spent the late morning/early afternoon together.....with my paraben free soap! HA HA
I'm in no way going to tell her how delish it smells but I've been using it everyday ;) When I spoke to my middle sister I asked if she was this....let's use the word overbearing.....when she was preggers with her first and she said not this bad and she will talk to her.
Hubs and I went to dinner Saturday night for our Vday date and when we got home he was going through the children's cookbook my mother had brought up that was from the 50's.
As he was flipping through the book he calls for me to come into the den:
"So your mom does not want you to use Dove soap but wants us to cook for our kid using these recipes that call for MSG in almost all of them?"
I nearly peed my pants from laughing so hard.....YES, I have ammo to fire back at that stupid parabens comment! When I got a chance to speak to her the next day all she could do was laugh and said it's just a collectible cookbook!

Delivery dilemma

We had our monthly OB appointment this morning - the way in....man oh man you can tell that I'm not used to traffic anymore (helps when I get to work at 6:30 am and leave by 3:30 pm) but holy hell was traffic horrendous and for no reason what so ever. Gotta love 9:00 am traffic jams!
Met the hubs at the hospital and wait to get called in. I was so scared for this appointment because of a nightmare I had last night - when I woke up in this nightmare I was bleeding and it wouldn't stop. This was the first real bad dream I've had and I can tell you it was enough.
Doctor started going over things from my blood work - need to get a booster shot after delivery because my antibodies from the vaccine I received as a kid were not measurable...but nothing to worry about. Discussed the Maternit21 test results and how they all came back with no concerns. Told me to schedule my next u/s appointment, which was already done. We then began the discussion on how to deliver this little girl again. She is still on the fence and so is her team - some say they would section me others say they wouldn't. There are a few more doctors that she is going to reach out to and then I will speak to the doctor when I go get my u/s (they are keeping me in the genetic office for these). I just told her all I cared about was the safest way.
Because my situation is so uncommon and unheard of they are having a hard time figuring this all out. There are no cases to study, no research to look up, nothing. If I do a naturally delivery there is a chance for the hole in my uterus to reopen - if they do a c-section they are unsure what they will find inside and could cause damage which could lead to another ileostomy (worst case for both options). She keeps saying a 1% chance, a 1% chance...well Doc, let's look at my history and the 1% chance of things happening that actually did happen. It's just a very delicate situation that needs to be thought through tremendously. One thing that she did correct me on when I said the safest way, was that it needs to be the safest way for both of us (I just said for the baby) I'm not thinking about me, all I care is for her to be safe. I have struggled too long and too hard and battled so many obstacles to not have that be my number one concern.
My safety, yes....but hers is first!
Conversation ended and she was eager to get to the heartbeat.....I did tell her I cheated and found it already. Within seconds of putting the doppler on my belly there my little girl was - nice, strong heartbeat! Atta girl!

Testing, Snow storm, going public

Hubs and I went through with the Maternit21 testing and went back this past Wednesday for the u/s part of it - apparently it was a little too early for me when I was there for the blood work....you would think they would have told me when they booked the appointment since they knew how far along I was, or when I was there but no, take more time off work and head back.
Thankfully she's all okay - wasn't cooperating very well for the tech: was laying on her stomach and not moving around. After the tech left I started shaking around and poking my belly to get her to wake up....when the doctor came in to speak to us she assured us that everything looked great and wanted to get a better picture for us. She was bouncing all over the place and saw her put her hand in her mouth, which was so crazy to see.

This was the best shot they could get for us. But there she is......little Amelia!

The past weekend was spent trapped in my house as the hubs banned me from going outside or touching a shovel. Think we ended up with close to 2 feet of snow. I know it's New England and we are supposed to get snow, but when we've been spoiled for the past few years with nothing really bad, you get used to it! Now I'm ready for it all to go away.
Another big step for us this weekend was going public. I was so scared and felt like I was going to throw up before making it 'facebook' official. Now that we did it feels good to not to have to hide the little belly bulge I'm sporting and to see the love/support from everyone is so wonderful. I also told the ladies in my office and a few others that have been wondering if I'm okay due to the coming and going a lot lately.....they were all thrilled and said they figured that is what was going on - mind you I found out later that one was talking sh** about how I was never in the office....really? I don't work for you so mind your business and lock it up!

26 weeks and 6 days left to go!