Preggy Differences

I think I hear myself talking more about how different these pregnancies have been for me than much else about my pregnancy, and I keep telling myself I need to write down some of the differences before I forget them. So here's a small list for now, that I am sure I will add too throughout the next 4 months!

• Sleep. I slept all the time during my pregnancy with Brayden but now have a hard time sleeping. Sleeping at night and staying comfortable is much harder with this one as well, I toss and turn a lot.
• Oranges. They gave me the worst heartburn when I was pregnant with Brayden, along with orange juice and I am loving them this pregnancy.
• My Hair. Last pregnancy I dont remember my hair really being all that dry and this pregnancy it really is. I just had Mike's mom cut about 4 inches off my hair a few weeks back. It needed it desperately and she did a great job.
• Skin. It's really dry this time around too. Also, a lot more breakouts this time around as well.
• Weight gain. It just feels different this time. I didnt lose so much weight in the beginning of this pregnancy like I did with Brayden, but I am constantly hearing how "small" I am this time around. I am anywhere from 5-8 lbs under weight for this pregnancy, but the belly is definitely there!
• Where my belly is. I know this will show even morei n the coming months, but I can already feel Paytin is higher than Brayden was. When I sit down, I feel my tummy hitting high, like against my chest, and it was always so low when I was preggy with Brayden.
• Heartburn. I stayed away from it during Bray's pregnancy by staying away from acidic foods, but this time around, its night time that brings it on. If I dont eat anything big after about 730ish, I'm ok. But if I snack a lot, or drink a lot of something, I can expect heartburn all night long.

Ok....that's it for now. I'll have more to come but that's actually better than I was expecting for this late at night and a post on a whim! Ultrasound coming up soon so more info and pics to come. And surprise, I actually got my camera out today and played around with it so I will have a few pics to share with you all soon enough!

While I've been gone

from blogging....

Here's a few things that I've missed posting about, and still, alas no pictures, but this time I have a very good excuse.

First off, It was Mike's birthday this past Monday. My sweetie celebrated 26 years of life, and we were able to celebrate how much we LOVE him with a small family birthday party on Sunday afternoon. In typical Mike fashion, instead of letting his birthday be about him, he spent it doing what he does best, putting others before himself. He surprised me with a quick trip to Chico to eat Olive Garden as a family, and with the cutest darn puppy stuffed animal and most beautiful bouquet of flowers a girl could ever think of. That night, we had Youth Group and I made Mike's Small Group a batch of chocolate cupcakes with strawberry frosting (trying to mimic a Mike-favorite dessert of chocolate covered strawberries) and then we called it a night.

I'll spare you the long story of the rest of our week, but it can be summed up in one word, illness. All of us have thrown up, all of us have had aches, chills, pains, all of us have slept way more than usual, and none of us have eaten very much at all. The three of us all got some sort of flu/cold/stomach bug/virus that has zonked us out, on top of me getting another bladder infection that has been extremely persistent to say the least. We are still hoping and praying that the medication they put me on for the bladder infection starts to kick in more than it has in the past three days as I am still not feeling well at all. Thankfully, we were able to quickly check on Paytin today just to hear her heartbeat, which was strong at 150 bpm, praise the Lord!

Those are all the updates I have energy to type up now, sorry for the lack of blogging in the last few weeks! I hope to get caught up soon!

Big boy bed

This was last week, but Braydens first nap in his big boy bed! He is doing great in it and is so proud of himself :). He loves to show it off when people come over too!

Pregnancy, Week 21

Pregnancy: technically 20 weeks and 6 days, but in two hours, 21 weeks! More than halfway!

 

Weight Gain: I'm guessing 7-9 lbs. I'll find out at my next doctor's appt in a couple weeks!

Sleep: Still not the best, waking up a lot to pee or rearrange to get comfortable. Not hurting from my belly still, I know it's still small, but just can't get comfy! That goes for pretty much everywhere I sit or lay down these days which is such a change from my "I could sleep standing up" habits!

 

Gender: Baby GIIIIRRRLLL!! Though I posted her name a few days back, Mike and I have since seen a spelling we like even more. We're still deciding for sure, but I will keep you posted!

Name: Payten Lily, spelling still in the works, sorry little girl but we want it to be perfect for you!

Feeling: pretty darn good! sharp pains in my belly every now and then, but know they are just growing pains!

Health: Great!

 

Belly: Bigger everyday now. If I am wearing a sweatshirt people cant tell most of the time, but a regular shirt is impossible to hide. In fact, I'm to the point where, you better make a comment about me being pregnant and not act surprised if you dont make a comment, when I tell you that I am, because that just makes me feel fat ;)! 

 

What I am looking forward to: decorating her room, shopping for her, feeling her move more (praying that my placenta shifts and makes this possible!)

 

What I miss: it's just now starting to get hard to pick Brayden up and stuff, not very hard, but just a tad so that I notice. I know I will miss the ease of just picking him up easily and even tossing him around, soon :)

Milestones: Over halfway there!

 

Movement: I can honestly say I have felt her less than 20 times total. I feel hardness, and sometimes a little flutter, but it's REALLY hard to feel anything and I have found the best times I have felt her has been when I have a pillow against my belly, or Brayden leaning on me on the couch! Other than that, braxton hicks contractions every now and then, which even those have been better the last few days! I only had 2 today!

Cravings: Nothing! Something totally different about this pregnancy is my love/enjoying oranges. I couldnt even look at orange juice when I was pregnant with Brayden, it was so acidy and made me so sick, and here I am buying oranges in bulk! Never been a huge orange person in the first place but they are growing on me now!

A little bit more...

about our baby girl. For those of you who don't know, I have what is called an Anterior Placenta in this pregnancy. We found out during our last ultrasound but it's nothing to be concerned about. Basically it's where the placenta is in front of the baby at my stomach, instead of at my spine, which makes it harder to feel the baby moving around, harder to hear their heartbeat, etc. It's totally normal, safe, and no harm to the baby at all, just makes things a little bit more difficult.  I found a great article that explains it better than I ever could, here it is for those of you who are interested: http://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/ask-heidi/anterior-placenta.aspx

Nursery Theme

Finally a picture! Not one that I took though, but still a picture and that's what counts! Here is our little sweetie's nursery theme. It's called Cocalo Jacana and we couldnt love it more! We wont have everything in the picture, just the bedding, hanging diaper holder, valance, and three piece art set.  I am planning on tackling a huge endeavor though and painting the animals on some of her walls! We've got it all mapped out and planned out in our heads, and now have about 5 months to execute it!

Her name among names...

In announcing that we are pregnant with a Baby Girl this time around, we tried to call as many of our loved ones as we could and at least tell them on the phone. Well, we have officially decided on the name of this dear little babe, and decided to share it publicly on the blog for everyone to read! Come June,

Payten Lily Kincaid

will be joining our family :-). Just like with Brayden, we found a name that we loved and it just stuck. We weren't intending on doing such similar names for the little ones, but both Mike and I couldnt change our hearts from Payten, though the spelling was hard one to agree on (someday Payten will be mad at her Dad for not letting me spell her name the way I wanted too) or the name Lily, which is so dainty and feminine . So there you have it! And for those of you to whom I have already mentioned that I have a ridiculous nickname for baby girl already that has stuck, her nickname from Mommy is P Lily. Sounds like P Diddy, didnt come up with it for that reason, but seems like when I talk to her I call her that more than Payten!

Potty Training

What Potty Training has taught me:

• You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
• I wanted Brayden to be potty trained when I was ready, and wasn't even aware that he wasn't ready yet. Though for some people this method works, the method of having Brayden sit on the potty until he "accidentally" went, didn't work at all for him, he just didn't get it.
• It's alright to have accidents.
• That's another one of those "bigger than the situation" lessons I feel I was taught again. We have accidents in life, we make mistakes and it's ok. That's what I tell Brayden (in 2 year old form) when he has an accident. Sometimes he isn't too bent out of shape that he has had one, and other times he has this serious look of dissapointment on his face that I can see go away when I tell him its alright and encourage him to keep trying.
• Encouragement works.
• Something I have enjoyed even more than Brayden succeeding at potty training, is Brayden's pride in his accomplishments before his Daddy and me. He runs to us SO excited every time and does his little "potty dance". I love that he seeks out that praise from Mike even more than me, and I love how much it means to him when Mike makes a huge deal out of his success. I attribute Brayden's potty training success to Mike's encouragement. Both to me, to keep trying and finding new ways to teach Bray, and to Brayden to keep it up.
• Take it a day at a time.
• Brayden isn't potty trained. He is training. And we are all ok with that. Today he had two accidents, but had some major successes, like #2 on the potty, waking up telling me he had to go, and asking to go on his own without me having to ask him. For the past three days Brayden has gone through his naps completely dry, even though he wears a diaper just in case. It will be awhile before we try to "night" train him because he is such a deep sleeper, but that's ok, we're taking it one day at a time, just like I need to remind myself to take my life and my problems one step at a time!

These are just a few of the things that have been on my mind while we've gone through this process. I didnt realize that something as silly as potty training would make me think of how it relates to life, but since I struggled so much with wanting Brayden to be trained, and how to train him, etc. I realized how much I have been taught through this. Poor Brayden has had it much harder than his little sister will because I am learning everything with Brayden, and hopefully will be better at it the second time around.  But yes, potty training has been successful so far, a couple of accidents here or there, not making it to the potty on time, etc. But Brayden is really enjoying training and doing it at his own pace and it's fun to watch him learn and become more independent too!

Bed Time

The growing bump of my belly that now holds our 20 week old daughter is proof that time stops for no man. It seems like just yesterday I was in this position with Brayden, dreaming of the child he would be, and of watching him grow up. And today, he grew up a little more. With potty training going so successfully (another post to come) we decided to go ahead and move Brayden to his big boy bed. Note to self, thank hubby again for convincing me during my pregnancy with Brayden to buy a convertible crib. I didn't realize it at the time but it will save us a lot of money in the long run as his crib converts to a toddler bed with rail, and eventually to a full size bed (I didnt even remember this until a couple days ago!). For some reason, I thought, we're not going to have to buy any furniture for this baby, we have it all! Oh but wait, Brayden still needs a bed and a dresser too, whoops! So, we decided to go ahead and keep Brayden's room the way it is and let him "grow" with his bed. Either way we'd have to spend money getting a kid new/used furniture.
Anyways, another thanks to my hubby for dealing with my requests to put the toddler rail on Bray's bed, when he really didnt have too, and it cost him an extra hour's worth of work. The bed looks awesome, and what's even more awesome is how well Brayden is doing in his new bed and how much he likes it! He was so excited that we "fixed" it (I didnt know it was broken) and thinks its the neatest thing ever that he can get in and get out. But wait, it gets better. Bray still has the mindset that once Mommy and Daddy put him in bed, he doesn't/shouldn't get out. Amazing right? I know it might not last long , but I am enjoying the fact that he is staying put right now and not wandering around!
I got some great pictures (I'm always telling you guys that) but will post them at another time. You see, I blog from our laptop, and for space reasons, have decided to only use our desktop computer for my pictures. I will get better at blogging from that computer to post pictures because we moved the computer desk downstairs today to make room for the Baby's room (goodbye office!)
Anyways, that's the end for this post!

What I would miss

if we didn't have dogs.

Conversations like this" Brayden running and screaming : "Mine!" "Mine!" "Mine!" "Mine!" which I soon realize is at Dottie, our dachshund, who has run away with a stolen matchbox car. Then I remind him to say "Please" for no other reason than to try and teach manners after hearing the much dreaded word "mine". Then I hear him say "Please Puppy, Car Please!", Dottie promptly drops the car, and Brayden then pats her on the head while picking up the car and says "Thank you Puppy, You're Welcome, Good Girl" all in one sentence. Too cute for words.

Bear and Brutus letting Brayden "ride" them like a horse, since he can now manuver onto their back, they are so gentle and know they can only take a step or two before Brayden falls off onto the carpet, then the shower him with kisses.

Brayden laying on the couch yesterday covering in his blanket, sandwiched into two dogs (who aren't allowed on the couch and were milking this opportunity) and gave them both kisses before pretending to fall asleep watching a cartoon.

Baby GIRL Kincaid

Another wordy update, and pictures will come tomorrow because they are on our other computer. I will also try for a belly shot since I'm hard to miss these days and asked constantly how far along I am :-).

Yesterday we went for a fun Ultrasound almost 2 hours away in Paradise, CA. It was a birthday present for Mike because he has been dying to find out the gender of our little one. We had a wonderful ultrasound technician who made our experience even more beautiful! There was one large room that we went into that was nice and dark, and Mike and Brayden say down while I layed on a nice cushy and comfy table. Within minutes we heard the words "It's a GIRL!" and couldnt believe it! We both had hoped to have a girl this time around since we are only planning on having two children, but had plenty of pros for either gender! When she announced that we were having a girl it was all grins ear to ear in the room.

Our little girl was happy to show she is a girl. She showed us four separate times as if to warn us ahead of time that she expects a lot of pink and purple in her wardrobe! From what we have heard from friends and family, we know there can be concern if a girl is truely a girl or just hiding boy parts, but our ultrasound tech was awesome to explain to use exactly what we were seeing and that in fact our little one is for sure a girl!

Little Girl was a little less forthcoming with her face and for the entire 45 minutes got to see her, stayed tucked up into the corner of my placenta. There needs to be a 1/2 inch pocket of fluid between the baby and the placenta in order to see the baby clearly in 3d, and baby girl was NOT willing to budge. Jumping jacks, pokes and prods from the ultrasound tech, tootsie rolls, and even going to the bathroom did not help get her to move. She was happy where she was and showed us her stubborn streak at only 20 weeks along :-). Like I told the technician, our kids had a 50/50 shot at getting blue or green eyes, but they had a 100% chance of coming out stubborn!

We got to see beautiful shots of her feet, kicking legs, umbilical cord, chubby tummy, arms, a hand, and her face sporting "Angelina Jolie" lips but tucking her chin the whole time too! She even showed us she is going to be a talkative little one and probably a little chubbo too because she was moving her mouth a lot as well!

She weighed in at 11 ounces and was just perfect in measurement for her gestational age. They showed my due date two days later than it actually is, so she's doing great! Her heartbeat was strong at 153 bpm and we loved being able to see her little heart flutter too!

We got a video tape of the whole thing from the place we went (included in our package) that we have enjoyed watching bits and pieces of yesterday and today. We also got a DVD of pictures, over 40, from our ultrasound as well!

Brayden did really really well and kept talking about the "baby on the chee-bee" (baby on the TV). He was super patient and quiet and well mannered but was a little concerned about why I had to lay down and he had to sit with Daddy. He looked at my tummy, and then at the screen a couple times as if trying to piece it together.  Today he's talked about the baby a couple times even mentioning in his own words that she isnt here yet when I asked him if he would share his blanket with her!

Mike and I thankfully had the easier decision as far as baby names go, because we already had our girl name picked out awhile ago. What I didnt expect was us to disagree on spelling of her first name as much as we have :)! We decided that since its a treat enough to be having a little girl to add to our family, we would go ahead and share the name we have picked out with everyone rather than wait. Once we nail down the spelling, we will share it and then share it on the blog as well!!