16 Weeks

Ugh, I look horrible in this pic, but the belly looks great. :) You can definitely see it now. A lot has happened since my last post, so I'll try to catch you up on as much as I can. Since I already started with the pregnancy, I'll keep going on that track first. I've had a few doctor appointments so far and everything has gone well. The doctor gave me a few new options this time around, one I opted for and one I didn't. The first was a 1st trimester screening for downs. It involved blood work and an ultrasound. I figured, hey, free ultrasound. That ultrasound started off torture (they left me in the waiting room FOREVER and I had to pee sooooo bad), but once I got in it was totally worth it. I was 13 weeks along at that point and got to see the baby for the second time (just had the other ultrasound a couple weeks prior). Baby was super active and fun to watch. Results from both the blood work and the ultrasound showed great numbers and very low risk for downs. Because that test didn't cover the neural tube defects and some of the other things the quad test covers, I still had to go in this morning for more blood work to do more screening. The second offer I got from the doctor was to take progesterone shots every week which may help prevent preterm labor. After doing some research, I declined that one because its still so new and I can't see giving myself a shot every week. But, all in all, everything is going perfectly well. I seem to be past the morning sickness and total exhaustion and get to start enjoying the pregnancy now. Second trimester is definitely the best part so I better enjoy it while its here, right? :)

As a comparison, here's my 10 week pic. Man I've gone downhill already since then! Time to get a little bit of color back in my skin and start brushing my hair again. Geez!

In other news.. Christmas was a combination of wonderful and miserable this year. I'll start with the miserable so I can end this topic on a good note. :) I was sick with a horrible cough and even worse sinus infection. I had the worst sinus headaches I've ever had and it lasted almost two weeks. On Christmas day I even had laryngitis from all the coughing. Because I was sick and because we traveled so much over the holiday, I was exhausted all the time. I even broke down crying one day because the stress of everything was just too much. But the sickness wasn't the worst of it.

The worst was definitely December 23rd from 4 am til about 11 am. I wont go into the whole crazy messed up story but my brother and my husband ending up getting drugged in a bar in Ft. Lauderdale. Jason's cell phone was thankfully charged and he was able to call me at 4 am to pick him up. He had no idea where Joe was and we spent a couple crazy hours trying to find him until finally we got a call from the hospital that he was in an accident and he was in the trauma center. The accident wasn't good and he was air lifted and there was a huge scare on all sides of this, but he ended up only suffering from a head wound. No brain damage, no other internal damage. I was literally woken up to the sound of fear at 4 am and the fear didn't leave until about 11 am when we realized Joe was ok, he was coming home, no one else was in the accident, etc. I realized that this was the third time in my life that a tragic event occurred to one of my immediate family members... and the first time that it didn't actually end in tragedy. So, that was a wonderful Christmas present to all of us.

Once we got past that, Christmas was actually very nice. We got to see a lot of family and Halle had a fun time opening presents. She really enjoyed the Christmas atmosphere.. loved seeing Santa everywhere and saying "ho, ho, ho!" She loved Christmas trees and lights and snowmen. I really enjoyed her excitement. Unfortunately with everything going on and my not feeling well, I didn't take a lot of pictures this Christmas. But here's one of Halle at the Christmas present table (my mom didn't do a tree this year), and one of Joe with his lovely head wrap.

As I mentioned before, we traveled a ton over the holidays. South Florida for parties just before Christmas, celebrated Christmas at my mom's on the 24th, back up to Melbourne to celebrate Christmas with Jason's family on the 25th. Back down to South Florida to watch the Gator basketball game on the 29th. Back to Melbourne to celebrate New Years with Jason's family on the 30th. Then over to Orlando to celebrate New Years with my family on the 31st and 1st. I felt like a ping pong ball and its probably why I didn't shake that sinus headache for so long. Thankfully Arielle came up to visit one of the days we were in Melbourne and gave me lots of good massages to help relieve some of that pressure. And she even taught Jason how to do it and he was a quick study! :)

New Years in Orlando was probably my favorite part of the whole holiday because the place we stayed at was soooo spacious and fun, I had lots of babysitters to help with Halle and I took several naps and finally started feeling better... and I was the big winner of the weekend in poker. The holidays end on a good note! :)

And one last thing since, hey, this is already the longest blog ever, why not keep going? Halle got two new 8 or 9 piece jigsaw puzzles for Christmas and has mastered them both. She plays with them constantly. Today I went out and bought her a 24 piece regular jigsaw puzzle (the kind that you have to lay out on the table to do) and although I had to help her with it, she loved doing it with me over and over and is getting pretty good! I have some video of her doing a couple of these puzzles that I'll have to edit and throw up here pretty soon. So stay tuned for that. :)

Hope everyone is having a happy new year so far!