Maternity shoot at week 33

I've gotten behind on my postings, again. So we'll do some catching up over the next few days. We got our pictures back from our maternity shoot with Oceandance Photography. She did a great job with the pictures and I can't wait for her to do the newborn shoot after Ada arrives. Below are some of my favorite shots from the session.

Bean - 32/33 weeks

A little behind on my postings, and finally getting caught up. Week 32 came and went with little major news. I had my second growth check ultrasound to see how Ada was doing. My tech this time was very quick. I was in and out in maybe 30 minutes. Ada is in range on her growth, and the tech said they'd let me know if I needed to come back one more time.

These are probably the last pics we'll get before she arrives. The second is our one and only 3d image. Just not enough fluid around her head to give us a good image, but it's something.

This week was an awesome week at the doctor. I'm back in the "healthy" pregnancy category, even though I still have gd. This means no meds, no more growth checks and I get to go 2 weeks between appointments!! I get a week off from going up to the doctor (although we'll probably tour the l&d ward next week). I'm stoked :D This means I will officially make it to 35 weeks without having to add meds, giving me a total of 9 since diagnosis and 5 more to get through. I never thought I would do this well. I feel amazing. And on the plus side, I'm currently at a net gain of 2 pounds for my entire pregnancy. Depending on how the next 7ish weeks go, I could be back to my pre-pregnancy weight before she's even here (along with losing about 10 pounds at time of birth).

Also this week, we did maternity pictures. The weather cooperated and we were able to go out to East Beach for the shoot. I'm excited to see how they turned out. I'll definitely share some shots when we get them. No more news until week 35 though.

A Trip Home (sort of)

A couple weekends ago, I got a chance to return to my home turf (sort of). One of my high school friends got married in Michigan, on the west side of the state. Not quite "home", but close enough. Dinner on Friday night was with another high school friend. While she had been able to attend the wedding, we hadn't gotten to chat much. So this was a nice opportunity to catch up properly.

Apparently I picked the right hotel to stay at for the weekend. I arrived after my nice dinner to find my friend's family chatting in the hall (just down from my room). This afforded us a great opportunity to chat all weekend. Later, I found out that several others that I knew from growing up were all staying at the same hotel too. So I got to see lots of familiar faces.

The wedding was lovely. Holly was a beautiful bride, and JC a dashing groom. The reception was amazing to say the least. Despite my gd, I was able to enjoy most of the food, and even some cake.

Of course I couldn't pass up the chance to see some of the west side of Michigan. Believe it or not, in the 15 odd years I lived there we never traveled that far west to visit. Just down the road from the hotel was the winery of one of my favorite wine makers, St Julians. I just couldn't say no to a free tour of the facility. Too bad I couldn't do the wine tasting portion :( However, I did come home with a bottle of their latest product: Grey Heron Vodka. To be sampled after Ada comes of course. Interestingly enough, it's vodka made from grapes.

On Sunday, to kill time before my flight left, I headed to the John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids. I'm a sucker for zoos, plus it gets me out and walking around (which is good). Several of the animals were already put up for the season, but I still got to see a good variety. Plus it gave me another chance to play with one of my birthday presents: the 55-275 mm lens for our camera.

All in all, it was a great trip back "home".

Bean - 31 weeks

I was trying to space these posts out somewhat evenly, so we could have pictures. The timing is weird on this one, so no pictures today.

On to the update!

Last week my doctor was concerned about my last reading of the day (after dinner). We agreed to give it one more week to see if I could get things under control. This was a difficult challenge as last week had my birthday. I did pretty well until Sunday. For some reason my glucose was wonky, and I was sure that was the end of my run without meds. Much to my surprise, the past two days have been back to normal. I got the thumbs up again today for another week without meds :) My goal is to make it at least to week 32 without meds, which is next week. Goal 1: check. New goal? Make it to week 34 without meds. Keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

The good news is that with my diet changes for gd, I've actually lost a bit of weight. My overall net gain for the whole pregnancy is 4 pounds, which means I've actually probably lost about 10 pounds at this point. I might actually come out of this weighing less than I did before pregnancy.... Might....

In other news, I think I've narrowed down a photographer for maternity and newborn shots. Baby showers are just around the corner, and Friday I head north to Michigan for a friend's wedding. This means I'll have something to post about that's not baby related ;)

Bean - 28/29 weeks

We are officially into the third trimester and things are going well (minus the whole gd thing). Last week was the first of the every two week appointments. Dr was very pleased with my ability (so far) to keep my gd under control with diet and exercise. Hopefully I can keep it up until she gets here, but odds are not in my favor for that. Exciting news now that we've hit our third trimester, Bean has a name! She'll be Ada Claire, but she'll always be our little bean.

Last week we had our first of six child birth classes. I have to say, it's odd taking classes at a hospital that's not where you are delivering. In general, things are the same; however, the specifics are not. Hopefully we can get a tour set up with UTMB in the near future so we can see exactly where we will be going in December.

At the end of week 28

Now that I have been diagnosed with gd, I have to go in for routine growth check ultrasounds. This to keep track of Ada's growth and make sure she's not growing too fast. Today she measure at about 30 weeks in size, which is right about a week ahead. She's a little over 3 pounds and was a bit of a punk (again). At least this time she was head down, although that hindered some of the picture taking.

 Ada's face with her hand at her chin

The tech also tried to get a 3d pic for me, but Ada decided she didn't want her picture taken. Her hand was covering her face during that process. She's nothing if not beau and my's child!

Gestational Diabetes

Well, the results came in from my 3 hour test yesterday. I passed the first two rounds of the test, but failed the second two. Rather than my blood glucose levels dropping after the initial spike, they continued to rise. Consequently I have gestational diabetes.

What exactly does this mean? My body can't keep up with insulin production now that I'm pregnant. To start, I get to check my blood glucose levels 4 times a day. Along with that, I'm going to start adjusting my diet and getting in a bit more exercise. Hopefully that will be enough to get me through to the end of my pregnancy.

The person I spoke with said that since I was diagnosed this late in my pregnancy that Bean is most likely not going to be affected by it. The goal is to keep her from getting too big. I will also probably have to go see the doctor more frequently as the weeks go.

Needless to say, getting set up today has been a bit crazy. The pharmacy didn't have my updated information since getting married. When I came back, I found out that the insurance only covers certain test strips (which neither CVS on the island had). Beau is picking them up for me from Texas City on his way home. I get home to start reading over about the meter and realize that they gave me the wrong lancets for the lancing device that came with the meter. A crazy Friday to say the least.

Glucose Tolerance Test

Well I got to spend my morning hanging out at the doctor's office while doing a 3 hour glucose tolerance test. As I'm sure you can imagine, I was not overly thrilled.

See my happy face? This was just after 8 am, having had my initial blood draw and getting to drink the bottle of glucose stuff. This time I got to hang out in their back room, which had a recliner (which I'm in in the picture), a sofa and a tv. It made the process slightly better.

Tomorrow I will know the results of today's test. My nurse was nice enough to look up my level from Tuesday. I had a blood glucose level of 166 mg/dL, which was about 25 mg/dL over what it should have been. Hopefully when I hear tomorrow I'll have passed.

Bean - 26 weeks

We've made it to week 26, towards the end of the second trimester. Today I had my glucose tolerance test. It wasn't terrible, a little boring but not terrible. The drink definitely left an after taste that I couldn't get rid of until after they drew my blood. However, it was my favorite flavor (lemon-lime) which made it much more tolerable.

We're at the point where I get to go see the doc every 2 weeks as opposed to 4. Woo-hoo.... It was also time to get registered for our child birth classes. The ones at UTMB didn't fit with our work schedules, so we will be going to Christus St John for their 6 week session. Hopefully this week I'll also be getting some info about a possible pediatrician. I've had one come highly recommended by 2 friends, so that's our starting point. So much to do to get ready for this little girl's arrival!

Week 25, finally a noticeable bump :)

Bean - 24 weeks

We are into week 24 and things are going pretty well. Yesterday was our follow up anatomy appointment. I think Bean might have been even less cooperative than the last appointment. Thankfully we only had a few pictures that were needed of Bean.

Profile of face and her hand 

Face and hands

In order to get some of the pics, the tech had to press down pretty hard. I definitely found it uncomfortable. I guess Bean didn't like it much either because at one point she punched out. We also got a video of her opening and closing her mouth. At the very end she stuck out her tongue at us, already sassy like her folks ;)

Currently, little girl is breech. She's got plenty of time to get her act together and get turned though. This is probably the last of the pictures we'll get before she makes her big debut in December.

Bean - Halfway there!

We are past the half way point with little Bean! This week we had another appointment. She was really moving Tuesday morning, making fun sounds through the doppler. I met my new doctor and she's very nice. She complemented me on my pregnancy so far, including my minimal weight gain. It definitely made me feel pretty good. She also cleared me for travel in October. I'm excited to be going to the west side of Michigan for my friend's wedding.

Our next appointment is in another 12 days, the follow up ultrasound. Hopefully we'll get a few more pictures then to share. So far everything is going as well as can be expected or hoped for pregnancy wise.

Me at 20 weeks

In other news, my folks came to visit back at the beginning of August. Bean has a nice stock to diapers started, and I'm sure there will be more to follow from her loving grandparents. We spent the afternoon over at Moody Gardens touring the "new" rain forest pyramid and the Bodies exhibit in the discovery pyramid. Next weekend we are headed up to Wisconsin to visit with Beau's family. By the end of this pregnancy, Bean will be pretty well traveled (Vegas, Wisconsin and Michigan). Busy times ahead!

Bean - week 18

At week 18 we had our anatomy ultrasound. This is where we got a comprehensive look at our growing bean, including finding out gender. It was an earlier morning than we are used to. As the tech started getting shots of Bean's profile, we could see her yawning (tired like her momma). 

Here's her profile shot. Everything looked well during this appointment, nothing that tipped the tech or doctor off to any potential problems. However, due to her position, we will have to make a return trip at the end of the month. Hopefully we'll get a few more pictures of her. In case you haven't caught on from all the pronouns - yes, we are having a girl!

The 4th of July

A mid week holiday is really hard. Unless you can take a long weekend on either side, it's just a pain. Because of VBS, we really couldn't take any extra time off. However, we were able to make the most of the day. Early in the afternoon, we went up to Webster to see a movie. I have found that the movie theater there is more comfortable than the one of the island.


That evening we headed up to Seawall to watch the parade. Not surprisingly, it was like a mini-mardi gras parade with lots of people campaigning. Gotta love an election year. Here are some pics from the event.

Gotta have the fire truck pic ;) Since we had some time between the two events, we walked home to wait for the fireworks to start. Once the sun went down, it got much more comfortable. The fireworks were really wonderful and our camera did a stellar job of capturing it, both stills and videos.

Not a bad way to end a mid-week holiday.

Beau's 30th Birthday

Planning a surprise party is never easy. Any one who has ever planned and executed one probably knows that. I believe I encountered every possible obstacle when it came to seeing that this party went well. Two or three times I thought I'd never get it pulled off.


Despite potential problems, we some how made it all come together. The day of beau was supposed to go out with a friend in the morning, so I could decorate and prep. Everyone would come down and be here for when they got back. At the last minute he changed his mind and I panicked. Thankfully I have some good partners in crime. They decided to head down here and Zack kept J upstairs til we were ready. Somehow he didn't have any clue as to what was going on.

J's gift from CW, Connor picked it out

We had an 80's rock theme, complete with karaoke. It was quite fun and I think ended up being more of a sing-a-long though. Everyone seemed to know the choruses, but not the verses to the 80's songs we picked.

Zack and J singing to Tainted Love 

Jessica rocks out

All in all I think it was a great party and J had a lot of fun.

Bean Update - 14 weeks

Here we are, at week 14. We've made it successfully through the first trimester with very little problems. Yesterday was my monthly check up to see that all is progressing well. Sorry to say that I have no pictures to show of bean's growth. I will say that it's quite significant. While still no larger than a coke can, I was able to see a head, arms and hands on the sonogram. It was quite shocking! Still can't hear the heart beat, but I could see it on the monitor.


The next appointment is at the end of July. That's our anatomy check, make sure bean's developing well and to find out if our little bean is a boy or girl. I have several friends wanting us to do a gender reveal party. Still haven't made any decisions about that yet. Will let everyone know how we'll share the news.

Update: here's a pic of me at the end of week 14, with my tiny bump

Our big news!

It's been hard keeping this a secret this long. During the trip to Vegas, I started to get a little suspicious. So when I came home, I decided that it would be wise to take a pregnancy test.

Wouldn't you know, it came up positive! Boy were we shocked. Not because we didn't think it would happen, just not this quickly. Especially 2 weeks away from our move. It certainly made things interesting.


Our first appointment was at 7 weeks. My doctor was a little surprised to be seeing me again so soon. Found out about our bean a week after seeing her. Along with the myriad of testing they did that day, we also got to see our little bean for the first time.

Little bean (on the very right of the picture) measured 7 weeks and 3 days in size. The next appointment was at 10 weeks. Got great reports back about all the tests. We were able to see the bean with the belly sonogram (which wasn't the greatest resolution). The next appointment is later this month, and at the end of July we'll find out what we're having. We'll keep you posted on all the latest bean news.

Moving to the new house

Well, I've slacked. There's not much been going on though. Moving day came and went, but not without it's troubles. The movers got most of the big stuff: furniture, boxes, etc. However, we realized a bit too late that we wouldn't have enough boxes for all our stuff. So we had to do some unpacking before we could go finish packing up the other little things.


Cleaning also proved to be quite a challenge. Who knew that a 1,900 square foot apartment would take so much work to clean. Next time we move, I want more than a weekend to do it in. More like a month.


Since we moved, we are now settling in to our new place. To account for all our lost storage space, we had to get a storage unit. We've moved several things over there to declutter the house. Our living room is actually mostly functional now, hopefully the dining room will follow (and soon).


There's not much going on otherwise going on. Work is keeping both us busy. I'm getting ready to do some Sea Camp programs. Hopefully life will pick up here and we'll have more to post on.

Matt & Alex's Wedding

Saturday evening was Matt & Alex's wedding just south of Austin, the reason for our trip. It was a lovely service, very intimate and lovely. The weather was perfect for early April. Not too warm, not too humid.

Playing with our new camera's lenses & settings

Alex reading her vows, with a little friend

Enjoying the grounds

We had a fantastic time, but unfortunately had to leave early. The wedding being on Easter weekend made it difficult since I had to be back to work on Sunday. It was a long, but fun, weekend. Congrats to the happy couple!!

A Weekend in San Antonio

This past weekend we had a chance to get away for a few days. Part of our trip we spent some time in San Antonio. Beau had never been to The Alamo so we included that as part of our trip.

Six flags over Texas

On Friday night we stayed at Mosheim Mansion in Seguin. It was a lovely bed & breakfast and we had the most delicious breakfast on Saturday morning. We had a German pancake (amazing) and a mix of duck and chicken eggs (surprisingly good). Then on Saturday morning we headed back into San Antonio to see the Darwin exhibit at the Witte Museum.

Reading about the Galapagos part of the exhibit

There were a lot of cool artifacts on display, including diary entries and actual samples Darwin collected. I was super excited that we were able to see it, since this is the only museum in Texas that the exhibit is coming to. Definitely appeased the biologist in me :)

New House

At the beginning of March we began to serious start house hunting, with a target move date at the end of April. We decided to use our Realtor who helped us last time. It wasn't looking to promising after our first round; however, the second round produced what turned out to be our winner.

Shot from the living room, through the dining room to the kitchen

The master bath, with gorgeous tub

Master bed, with balcony

Master "sitting room", most likely our office

Outside of the house

We are very excited that we found this place and are excited to move in in less than 3 weeks. Now to get everything packed up between now and then!

Aggie Baseball

I'm a little behind with my posts, but I was waiting on some pictures to post. At the end of spring break we headed to College Station to spend a few days with Mom and Dad. It gave us a chance to exchange some items and spend time with the folks.


While there, we introduced J to Aggie baseball. We watched two of the three games of the K-State series, which went 1-1. The new park is nice, and brought back many fond memories for me of years past.

It was a great weekend all around. We not only enjoyed some baseball, but got to look at some options for new furniture and got our thumb tree to the framer. I can't wait to get it back and added to our collection.

Mid-winter happenings

Seeing as how I'm struck with insomnia tonight, I figured I'd post an update to our life. Let's see if I can come up with enough information from the past couple of weeks.


At the end of February, we hosted dinner for some friends of ours that we've gotten rather close to in the past six or so months. It's funny the things your don't think about until faced with certain scenarios. For example, our home is currently not very kid friendly. Understandable since we don't currently have kids, but something to think about because many of our friends are starting to have kids.


March started off with J in New York City on business, followed by me going to Conclaves with the youth. Our first long stint away from each other since getting married (5 days). As you can tell, we survived. J got the chance to go see Rock of Ages while there. I'm extremely jealous; both about him seeing the show without me and on Broadway to boot. However, I can't fault him for it.


This past Friday, I had a girls' night with some of my closest gal pals. Shana got tickets to see Reba at the Rodeo (courtesy of her folks) and invited me as part of the group. A fantastic show if I may say so! Many of the songs were her old classics that we all knew well, and sang right along with. After, we enjoyed some deep fried goodness while waiting on traffic to die down. Saturday, J and I headed to the Bed, Bath & Beyond registry round-up. We got most of the items left on our registry, with a few substitutions due to discontinued items. I think all that's left will be our good china which will come with time.

New Camera

During the honeymoon, we found that our current camera doesn't really do what we'd like for getting pictures. So when we got back, J decided to start looking into getting a better camera. After looking at all the point and shoot cameras and looking at spending several hundred to get closer to what we wanted, he decided to go into the dSLR. We're having a lot of fun learning all that we can do with it now. Once I have some better pictures, I'll put them up here. So far, nothing noteworthy.

Life since the wedding and honeymoon

Getting back into the swing of things took a bit of time. I'm glad we gave ourselves a day to readjust. We tried to have a get together for young adults at FPC, but it was only us. Perhaps next time.


We got some unhappy news the Thursday after we got back. The realtor who has been working with us on switching apartments got in touch with us to let us know that we would not be moving. Our landlord decided to do something else. While we are allowed to stay until the apartment sells, we are going to look into other options. So at the moment we have two different realtors working to find us our next home. Hopefully in the next month we will have more information on where we will be moving. I can say with certainty that we will be staying on the island.


Mardi Gras is in full swing here in downtown Galveston. Last weekend was the first weekend. Since we didn't have to worry about packing we met Shana for the Krewe of Aquarius Kick-Off Parade, which has become a yearly tradition.

It was cold, but sunny. This weekend, some of my college friends are coming down. I don't know if we'll go into the Strand district (we would have to pay), or not. We'll just have to see. For now, life is busy but continuing as usual. It's so nice to be home on the island once again :)

Our Honeymoon - Day 6

Our last day we went back to Hollywood Studios to ride some rides one last time, or two. We did Tower of Terror, Rockin' Roller Coaster and Toy Story Mania (which we got fastpassed on half way through the line). This time I did a lot better.

I was only 20,000 points behind J this time. We didn't take as many pictures ourselves, we let PhotoPass people take them for us. But I did grab a pictures of the Sorcerer Mickey topiary outside Hollywood Studios.

Due to the way Magical Express works, we got picked up fairly early from the resort. So we were only got to stay about 2 hours at the park. We had a fantastic time on our honeymoon. I'm so glad that we decided to go to Disney for our honeymoon. If we had to do it again, we'd do it the same. The weather was fantastic, I don't think we could have planned it better. Hopefully it won't be 14 years between this visit and the next.

Our Honeymoon - Day 5

On day five, we headed over to Animal Kingdom. Knowing that the animals would be more active in the morning, we decided to go on the Safari first thing. It's set up to look like a tradition African Wildlife Preserve, with a little fun twist. Below is a reticulated giraffe (left) and masai giraffe (right).

There was also a lion and lioness in the safari. They actually seemed pretty awake in the morning.

They had both white rhinos and black rhinos in the safari. Below is a photo of one of the white rhinos.

We went on some of the rides again before grabbing lunch. In the afternoon we did the Backstage Safari. During the tour we saw the nutrition center, veterinary area and night barns for the hippos, rhinos and elephants. While in the night barns we even got to pet one of the black rhinos! To round out the tour we got to do our own little private safari ride again. I'm glad we did the tour, but I don't think it's one we'll do again. Perhaps it's the biologist in me that has a hard time doing backstage tours, I know too much.

After we got done with the tour we had to race back over to Magic Kingdom to have dinner. We decided to do a character buffet at the Crystal Palace. It was the characters from Winnie the Pooh. Most of which we had seen, except Piglet.

After dinner, we had hoped to catch the night parade. Sadly it was cancelled :( So we found a better spot to watch the other evening shows: The Magic, the Memories and You, and Wishes: Nighttime Spectacular. 

I must say that by day five we were pretty worn out. Five days of non-stop going takes it's toll on the body. But we had a blast!