Happy Birthday, Neck Scar!!

Yesterday was my neck scar's 1st birthday.

Last year, I headed to OHSU to get some nodules removed.  I was TERRIFIED to have surgery.  Beyond scared.  And it ended up being fine.  I remember waking up from the surgery feeling ABSOLUTELY relieved.  Incredibly grateful.  And extremely happy.  Even if the nodules were cancerous, they were GONE, out of my body, and we were one our way to knowing for sure if it was cancer.

It was the beginning of a crazy year.  I am SO GLAD it is behind us.

And to celebrate the fact the fact that the neck scar has been with us for an entire year, Phil and I took it out for dinner (after a celebratory 6-month blood draw).

{I've got a thing for salads with beets}

We didn't get the neck scar any gifts or anything.  And I could get super deep about all of the things I have learned from the neck scar (or rather the cancer that came out of the neck scar), but I won't.  Ok maybe I will say one thing...

It is unfortunate that it takes big things happening to us for us to put things into perspective and realize how wonderful our lives really are.  Many people realize that fact too late.  If you're healthy, you need to stop stressing so much, let the small stuff go, take off your blinders and look around.  Love your life.  Hug your family.  Help those who are hurting.

There.  Those words are my neck scar's gift to you.

Happy Birthday, Neck Scar!  Stay healthy!

An Older Brother

I always wanted to have a boy first.

I LOVED having an older brother growing up (well sometimes I didn't love it, but for the most part I did).  Ok... I loved having ONE older brother.  The other brother was kind of mean to me growing up.  He and my older sister (she's the oldest, he's next in line) would gang up on the other brother and I.

My brother is 6 years older than I am.  When I was in kindergarten, they accidentally let us out for recess at the same time as the sixth graders.  I went to get on the "big toy" and a 6th grader yelled at me that little kids couldn't get on the toy.  My brother came up right behind him and said, "Leave her alone! That's my sister!"  And the boy left me alone.

And he'd comfort me when my sister made multiple threats to do bad things (it's a long story).

Sure, he wouldn't open the door for me when I broke my finger.  But that was just once.

He did help motivate me to learn math as soon as possible because I got tired of him saying "Natalie... Do YOU know how to do Algebra?  I do!"

And he used to let me build a LEGO house when he did lego towns.

He'd let me play on his SEGA with him.  And because of him, I know ALL of the words to Wayne's World and "Bohemian Rhapsody". ("I don't even own A gun, let along many guns that would necessitate an entire rack.  What am I going to do with a gun rack?")

Eventually he started dating a really nice girl (who I didn't like at the time because I NEVER got to see my brother anymore) and they got married.  After they were married, they would let me spend the night with them occasionally and I thought that was the COOLEST thing EVER!!

He's always been a great example of being responsible, financially independent, motivated, a caring spouse, and a great parent.  And I think having him and my dad in my life are a main reasons why I ended up with such a great husband, because I knew that men like that existed and I shouldn't settle for any less.

And now I have an awesome sister-in-law (who is basically my sister since she's been in my life since I was 12) and two awesome nephews and they have Phil and I over every month to play cards and hang out.

I LOVED having an older brother.

Hopefully Baby Janney is that kind of an older brother.

PS - Don't get me wrong, I love my other brother too.  :)  But this brother and I were MUCH closer growing up.

Boy or Girl? Spilling the beans

Because we're super cruel, we decided we didn't want to just tell our families if Baby Janney was a he or a she.  They needed to work for it.

Phil took the little jar to Virginia for his parents.  The big jar was for my family.

The only way to find out... figure out if there are more pink or blue jelly beans.

They each contain 5 more of whatever color Baby Janney is (blue for boy, pink for girl).

It went over real well.  Phil's mom kept telling him he was evil.

And we made the little boys figure it out at my parents' house.

Since you all can't count beans, I will just go ahead and show you the extra 5 beans.

Ready?

Are you sure?

Baby Janney is a BOY!!

He was quite cooperative during the ultrasound and made sure we had several excellent peeks at his junk.  Hopefully we can teach him a little more modesty when he's actually ex-utero.

We are SO EXCITED!  As cheesy as it sound, it didn't matter to us either way as long as the babe was healthy.  But I think Phil is already figuring out which fishing pole he wants to get the little guy.  :)

Now if we could only figure out a name...

Christmas Bump

Merry Christmas Eve!!  My gift to you on the wonderful day before we celebrate the birth of Jesus... \

a picture of me!

You probably should have done a Christmas List.

{18 weeks and 1 day}

Once again, I am very timely in my bump picture posts.  This picture is from last week.  And I just realized since I did do a little editing of this picture, I should have added text on it to indicate the number of weeks.  Live and learn.

My last bump picture post was actually quite liberating.  I appreciated all of your comments and words of encouragement.  I have decided to give myself a definite body break.  However, I did crop out my butt.  :)  It's not totally because my butt is big (which is has always kind of been) but more because for some reason I was WAY arching my back in these pictures and stickin' it WAY out.  Not attractive.  Neither is the second chin... or the hunchback (hi bad posture) but whatevs.  I like to have room for improvement.

I think the back arching caused my bump to stick out a little more than it really does.  False advertising.

If you wanted pictorial proof of the back arching, here ya go:

It's a little blurry. But gives the general idea.  At least I only have one chin in that picture.  And quite the pleased expression.


You get the jist.

Yes this is an entire post about my bump again.  Deal.

Phil and I did MUCH better taking the pictures this time.  I was pretty proud of us.  But we did get in a little tift later that night... totally unrelated to the photo taking and more related to my commenting on his driving.  He doesn't like a backseat driver.  Go figure.

Anyway... I read this past week that one of the reasons I have been able to feel Baby Janney move so much is because I have such lax ab muscles...  Like I needed another reminder I am out of shape.  I got that message yesterday when I worked out for the first time in too long.  I managed to survive 30 minutes on the elliptical, but haven't been as eager to return.  Maybe later today.  Maybe.

Christmas Cookies

Maybe I mentioned in before, but a couple of weekends ago I got the hankering for some Christmas cookies.

So I made some.

Actually I made like 70.

I used this Sugar Cookie Recipe and this Sugar Cookie Frosting Recipe.  Of course the frosting recipe had to be multiplied by 5 to work with that many cookies (probably could have just multiplied it by 4).

We made quite a mess.

And in case you were wondering, we did not eat them all.  Between cards at my brother's house (who knew little boys could eat so many cookies) and the office, I honestly probably only had like 6.  No exaggeration.  But they were SO GOOD!!

So if you are looking for a good sugar cookie recipe, I'd go with those.

Hormones

The beginning of this week was rough.

Let me explain...

I have so many things to be happy about right now.  We know the gender of our baby and we found out that everything else with the baby is alright (which reminds me that I need to do a post about what happens when you ACCIDENTALLY expose your unborn child to radioactive iodine).  I am so SO excited to be pregnant and feel incredibly blessed.

But I've been feeling a little off.  Hopefully this helps explain my lack of posting and almost COMPLETE lack of pictures.

Tired.  Unmotivated.  A little blue.

People keep saying, "Well you're supposed to feel BETTER in your second trimester!" which really just makes me feel worse about how I've been feeling.

Do I have more energy than I did during the first trimester?  I must.  I can stay awake past 8:30 which is a huge improvement.  But I definitely don't feel energetic.

Then Phil reminded me that this is how I was after my second surgery, before they had my thyroid medicine figured out.  And then everything made perfect sense.  Every 4 weeks, my thyroid dose gets adjusted.  It's partially because I don't have a thyroid of my own to help regulate things and partially because increased hormones and weight gain.

But I think the constant change in my lady hormones plus thyroid hormones has me a little... off.

Thankfully, my husband understands.  Thankfully he recognized it.  I'm lucky to have a husband that is observant and can put those things together.  And I'm lucky that my husband is understanding enough to make me dinner, let me go to bed at 9 o'clock at night because he knows I need a good night's rest, and be ok with the fact that the laundry is still sitting in the baskets unfolded.  He also brings me Shock Tarts and lets me watch Sister Wives because he knows they cheer me up.

I'm hoping that as my body adjusts to the newer thyroid dose, my energy levels will pick back up.  Most likely just in time to adjust my dose again.  :)

PS - If you know someone with chronic thyroid issues, be nice to them.  You don't really realize how important thyroid hormones are (at the right levels) until they aren't right anymore.  And from my experience, most people aren't super empathetic when it comes to thyroid issues.  They suck.

Ultrasounds

I like to have my insides looked at.  All at once.  All in the same month.

Or at least that would be how it seems the last couple of weeks.  My neck ultrasound was last week and the baby's anatomy ultrasound was yesterday.  One of those was definitely more enjoyable than the other.  Any guesses?

Honestly... I've yet to have a FUN experience with a diagnostic ultrasound.  I kind of wish my first experience with ultrasound would have been pregnancy because diagnostic ultrasounds are kind of terrifying.  And because that had been my primary experience with ultrasonography, it made the first couple baby ultrasounds kind of nerve racking for me.

But I am happy to report that Tuesday, I found out that my neck ultrasound was fine!  No sign of anything weird growing up in my neck.  That's what I like to hear.

And yesterday, we found out the baby's anatomy looked good!  They couldn't get one picture they needed, so we didn't get totally an all-clear for the anatomy.  But we'll get that looked at when we go back for the growth ultrasound in 4 weeks.

From here on out, we will have ultrasounds done every 4 weeks.  This is to make sure the baby is growing properly, since I accidentally exposed the baby to radiation (via radioactive iodine).

Oh... and we found out the baby's gender.  :)

So far I think Baby Janney is still pretty cute.  But I may be biased.