sweet nothings

Gender Predictions...how accurate will they be??

My first two pregnancies I really didn't try any of the tests to see if we were having a "boy or girl". I just went by the chinese calendar. It was right both times. I had a ton of sonograms with both of my girls so I pretty much new for sure and pretty quickly well...except with Madelynn.

With Nora we were going to wait for a surprise. At the 20 week sono we told Dr. Rose not to tell us. W few weeks later I had a dream...remember the mel brooks movie spaceballs? and the alien that comes out dancing?? If not...here is a video of that scene. btw i hate that movie!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVZUVeMtYXc  In the dream instead of an alien my sister came out and let's just say it was disturbing. At my 24 week appointment I cried and asked Dr Rose to do a sono and please tell me that I wasn't having a girl...yeah there were obvious 3 little lines. It's a girl. I only told my sister because Tim didn't want to know. So Sister and I kept the sex of the baby a secret until Nora arrived!

With Madelynn I was dead set on finding out because Nora wanted to know. She wanted a baby brother so badly. Yeah...they told us a couple of times that she was really a he...My gut said it was another girl. So I had another sono and sure enough...3 little lines. Definitely a girl! I even did two layouts...one for a boy and one for a girl. You can see them in this post.  Pretty funny. 

Here we are again...We all want to know. It seems the consensus around here...we want a girl. Except Maddie and she wants a boy named LuLu. ummm...ok. We even have a girl name chosen and I absolutely LOVE it!! We don't have a boy name. We always said if we had a boy we'd name him Henry after my grandfather but I'm having issues with that because it's become so popular. Yes, I know we have 26 weeks to name the baby but once we find out in 2 weeks what this peanut is I'm going to want to sew and monogram stuff and I'll need a name!!

Tuesday I had an appointment with Dr. Auers and got to have a sonogram (#5 already!) to check the twin sac to make sure it's shrinking. It is. My placenta is a bit low so let's pray it picks itself up and gets in the right spot!

Most sono techs usually won't guess about the sex until at least 16 or 18 weeks and the one that did the sono on Tuesday did NOT make a guess at all... But we got a pretty good profile shot of the baby. The first thing Tim said when he saw the pic...look it's a boy! 

So far I've had a dr and a sono tech give me their guess...one said boy and one said girl. I won't tell you which said what because personally I'd say the dr would be more accurate than the tech but that's just my opinion...sorry to all you sono techs out there! I posted the pic on an gender ultrasound forum and the opinions are divided evenly.

Here is the pic of Tuesday's (13 weeks 4 days) sono...Make a guess cause I'd love to know what you think it is...

I found numerous online tests you can do with the results telling you whether it's a boy or a girl...

disclaimer...Just an FYI - I used plastic disposable cups for my pee. :D and this is all silliness...I'm not responsible for your results if you try this at home! :D

Red Cabbage Test. You boil half a red cabbage. Then put two parts red cabbage juice and urine together...if it turns purple/blue it's a girl. if it turns pink/red it's a boy. 

Here are my results. The liquid A is what it looked like after it was boiled. The liquid B in the cup is after I added the pee. Looks like Girl.

Baking Soda Test.  Put enough baking soda to fill cover the bottom of a cup. Add pee...if it fizzes it's a boy and if it doesn't react it's a girl. Here are my results...no fizz so Girl results.

Intelligender. Goodness this one wasn't cheap :D But I figured what the heck we'll give it a try. My friend Emily has two boys and a girl. She did the intelligender with all three kids and each time her results were for a boy even the time she had a girl! The results of this one...BOY!

and for the record the other side...

Chinese Calendar. I've gotten two different results on this. On this calendar version http://www.babycenter.com/chinese-gender-predictor  I got BOY results. But if I use the one I used with the girls (which was right both times) I get GIRL.

Drano Test. This is a test I decided to avoid. Just seems a little unsafe to use drano. You can go here to learn about that test if you are willing to try it! http://www.fortunebaby.com/drano-gender-test.html

Gender Quiz. I did this one and the results were 70% chance of a GIRL. http://www.babygenderprediction.com/old-wives-tales-gender-prediction-method.html

Needle or wedding ring test.  Tie a needle or wedding ring to string. Hang it over the mother's belly while she's laying down. If it swings in a circular motion...girl. If it swings left to right...boy.  My wedding ring chose a circular motion...result. GIRL.

Heart rate theory. If the heart rate stays over 140 beats per minute...girl. If it stays under 140...boy. So far this baby's heart rate has stayed between 163 and 169. Result for far...GIRL.

 So there you have it...let's tally. 

sono tech & doctor              boy                girl

cabbage test                                            girl

baking soda                                             girl

intelligender                        boy

chinese calendar                  boy                girl

gender quiz                                              girl

ring test                                                   girl

heart rate                                                 girl

 

Looks like girl is in the lead...my gut thinks it's a girl. But my head is causing total chaos with me because I keep thinking it is a boy and really, I don't want a boy. Nora said she'd be really disappointed if it's a boy. Tim said another girl would be best since we already know how to handle girls. He said either way he doesn't care but girl seems more plausible. I really want another little girl. I know everybody that has a boy swears they are awesome and oh they love their mamas. That's great but I'm a girl mama and I love them like nothing else! I love pretty dresses and tutus and hairbows and sparkly shoes...yes, I'm getting a little less of that with Maddie but she's still all girl sporting her sequin purse and hot pink shoes with her darth vadar shirt! I've looked at boy stuff and it just doesn't hold the appeal. 

Plus boys play sports and they are loud and rowdy and stinky and dirty. I know. I have a brother. 

If we are in fact having a boy...it might take us a little time to adjust. Ironically when we were told that Maddie was actually a girl and not a boy...Nora cried uncontrollably in the sono room. I told her the other day that if we are having a boy this time that we will all love him and he will be just as important to us as the girls are...Luckily we'll have 24 weeks to adjust to the news it's a boy before he actually gets here. 

And please don't take my wrambling the wrong way...I'll honestly love a boy because I already love this baby completely!!

Looks like we'll possibly know mid March...I'll keep you posted!

until next time...
S 

 

 

 

 

The Michals family is growing...by a peanut!

It's official...Baby #3 aka Peanut is due to arrive in August!

In mid December I found out I was pregnant. The week of Christmas I had blood drawn and the numbers were very low. For some reason they asked me to come back the next day to repeat the blood draw which was only about 24 hours later. (HCG levels should double every 48-72 hours) Anyway, the results weren't much better and had only increased by a few. I was told by the nurse/midwife who I was seeing at the time that I should prepare for a miscarriage and then went on to give me details of what to expect. She then said that if nothing happened over Christmas (we were leaving town for about a week) to call after we got back to town.

I kept this all to myself. I didn't want to upset Tim or to have hushed conversations in front of the girls and honestly I didn't want to upset everybody at Christmas. Probably wasn't the best idea I've ever had but it made sense at the time. Over Christmas I prepared myself for what was to come...a miscarriage. I've had a tubal/ectopic pregnancy before but not a miscarriage and that ectopic was horrific. The anticipation was not fun. Knowing what was to come...very sad. I enjoyed Christmas with my family. The knowledge of how blessed I am kept me sane! And in my mind/heart I knew that my sweet unborn baby would go to Heaven to be with my mom...which gave me peace. 

Over the week leading up to Christmas and the week following I continued to expect to start bleeding or cramping...but nothing happened and quite the opposite did...I began to feel more and more pregnant. We came back home on Thursday after Christmas so I went in on Friday for another blood draw. I wanted to know what was going on. I told Tim over the weekend and so we waited for the Tuesday after New Year's to hear the results. He and I laughed and cried. I think he was literally in shock. I'm thinking it was probably a good idea he didn't know over Christmas because all weekend he was in an odd state of shock. The call was funny and the phone nurse said "you are Definitely pregnant and we need to schedule your first appointment" wow...after that i was pretty much in shock. how do you go from "you will probably miscarry" to "let's schedule your first appt" it's not easy to adjust to that.

Fast forward 2 more weeks...first appointment and sonogram. I saw that precious little "thing" and heard a beautiful heartbeat going 169 beats a minute. Estimated due date August 24th. That night I prepared a note "from baby" to big sisters and put it in a box with the sono picture and a pair of little white baby booties.

We shared the good news with Nora and Madelynn...Nora was really excited and Mads had no clue! It was funny! 

Fast forward two more weeks and I started having light pink spotting with awful cramps. Saw a doctor in the practice...she did a sono and said everything looked fine. If it got worse we'd go from there. That was a Wednesday.

On Saturday Feb 4th I was walking into Hobby Lobby with Nora to purchase a child's art kit for a birthday party Nora was attending that afternoon. As we walked in I felt a gush that just didn't feel normal at all. We went to the restroom and I was bleeding A LOT. I had Nora grab an art kit, we checked out and headed for the car. I explained to Nora that something was wrong and I wanted her to understand because I was going to call the doctor and I didn't want her to be scared by what was said. The on-call doctor called within a minute of me leaving my voicemail. She suggested I head to the ER.

I took Nora home and changed clothes. I told Tim to take the girls to the party (instead of going to the ER) and I'd be fine going to the ER on my own. The on-call dr had called ahead so they took me back very quickly. I had a pelvic exam, blood work and a sonogram. As the sonographer was leaving my room, Tim got there to sit with me. Our friends Emily and Nathan had picked up our girls and taken the girls home with them. It was nice to have Tim with me! Although I will say this...everyone at the ER was awesome and super friendly and attentive...but I was reading the first Hunger Games book and it was honestly quite nice to have some quiet time to read! :D 

The results...threatened miscarriage. In other words a possible tear between the sac and uterus. Go home and rest. Call your dr on Monday.

To be perfectly honest with you...at this point I really didn't know what to think about my pregnancy anymore. I had gone from shock to hopeful to miscarriage preparation to joy and shock of pregnancy excitement to pure fear ...an absolute emotional roller coaster. I was beginning to not know how to feel or what to expect. But after three sonograms I had seen a precious baby jumping around with an amazingly strong heartbeat. But that day leaving the ER I realized that I could only be cautiously optimistic and truly I just wanted to be excited!

I rested all weekend. Tim was wonderful. The girls were excellent! On Monday I called the doctor...I requested an appointment with the doctor that had been on call. I mentioned in this POST about my OB/GYN dying. I saw the nurse/midwife after him because we didn't think we'd have anymore babies. But after the messed up "you are going to miscarry" situation with the nurse/midwife then having the next doctor that had no softness and was too brisk for me...I felt like I needed something more from the person who I'll be spending time with over the next 6 months and who would deliver my baby. I liked the way the on-call doctor spoke to me. I decided to take a chance with her and it was a great chance! She was wonderful.

She did a pelvic and said the cervix is all closed up. She listened to the heartbeat and it was beautiful! I'm seeing her again on the 28th. Dr. Auers and I will be in the delivery room together once again only this time I won't be photographing a birth but giving birth!

For Valentine's day today I went to see a perinatologist. It would seem that when you are over 35 (I'm 37) they think you are high risk for all sorts of things! So I had an NTS or nuchal translucency screening. It's a detailed sono in which they measure the baby's neck for a pad or thickness. Those results, in correlation with bloodwork, allow you to know the risk of a chomosonal problem. (i probably didn't explain that well but if you click on NTS it will take you to a website with a real explanation.) 

I loved the perinatologist. She is great. I will be seeing her over the next few months. We will do a full body scan of the baby at 17 weeks, a heart sono at 23 weeks and then a few more throughout to monitor my placenta due to placenta accreta when I had Madelynn. We want to keep track and hopefully that won't happen again or at least be prepared if it does.

Dr. Abbassi asked me if we had seen a twin in the other sonos that I have had...um no. There on the screen today was an obvious empy sac with what she called "old placenta". Without seeing my prior scans, she truly feels that I didn't have a tear when all that bleeding was going on but that I instead lost a twin. Holy crap...can you imagine us having twins? Yeesh. That actually made me feel a bit better about the bleed I had and it really made more sense than the explanations of "threatened miscarriage or tear in the uterus) Although it did make me sad to think we lost a baby.

Dr. Abbassi said the baby looks good and she even gave me an 80% guess as to the sex of the baby...but my lips are sealed. I'm taking the girls over spring break to find out what the baby is and they can share the news at that time. 

So...here we are at 12 weeks and we are beginning to finally accept this pregnancy and enjoying everything about it...you know - bloating, nausea, peeing a lot, fatigue...no those are silly things...Honestly after seeing that sweet baby today I feel absolute joy. I'm truly excited about this baby. God has surprised us and he is blessing us yet again. We are most thankful!!

It's the final installment. The final addition to our family. We don't care whether it is a boy or a girl as long as it is healthy. The girls are calling the baby "peanut". Nora loves when I find the heartbeat with the doppler. Maddie prays for "peanut butter" when she says her prayers each night.

A slight downfall is that the due date is the Friday before Nora returns to school. So I'm pretty certain we'll have the baby a week in advance...so mid to late August.

We've had a rocky start and a scary start to this pregnancy. We are praying for a healthy mama and a healthy baby. I hope you will add us to your prayers! I look forward to sharing our journey over the next 6 months with you!

until next time...
S 

 

 

 

Stocking Hangers

Once we finally got our mantle hung, I immediately started holiday decorating! I wanted new hangers and new stockings. I had already purchased fabric to make our stockings (which i actually didn't get enough to make Wina's which is why her stocking ended up being houndstooth :D ) 

THe one problem I found was that because I had waited so late to start looking for stocking hangers...there wasn't really much of a selection left in the stores. So what's a girl to do? Make her own!

Hobby lobby had knobs on sale. So I picked up 5 glass and metal knobs. 

I also purchased 5 wood plaques that are about 4 in square. At lowe's I picked up brackets and 1x2 piece of wood. I also picked up commando velco removable hanging tabs.

I cut the wood into 3 inch pieces. I screwed the wood piece to the plaque using 1x3/4" brackets. 

yes...I should've taken the price stickers off, but they were not coming off easily and leaving a sticky residue so I left them on...nobody will see them anyway. Then I spray painted the entire thing black.

I drilled a hole in the center of the square and inserted the the knob. After I put the knobs I put velrco sticky on the bottom on the brace.

Put it on the mantle where you want it to rest. With the removable velcro I can take it off the shelf after Christmas and it won't leave a mess...well at least that's why the product promises!

I think they turned out so cute! The stockings were sewn up last night...procrastinate much? But I really love how it all turned out. 

until next time...

S

 

Our New Mantle

We have a super massice fireplace. Literally it's floor to ceiling with a 2 foot hearth and the entire thing is about 15 ft wide. Two problems i've had with the fireplace - no mantle and brass cover on the front. The brass cover is currently being hidden by old shutters. For now that is working. I have priced a 48" fireplace door set and it's not cheap. We are trying to decide what we are going to do about that. The mantle seemed to be the easiest solution. I bought this at lowes...

I painted it the same color as the trim in the house. TIm hung it a couple of weeks ago..instant love! It really made a huge difference to the fireplace. I immediately started decorating it!

(a quick side note...I used red glitter clothespins to hang our christmas cards (ok some of them since i ran out of clothespins) on the shutters for display! I like!)

I love the way it all turned out...the black and silver and red and white. yummy! (ok so it's not really yummy but it works well with the living room decor!)

Stay tuned and I'll post how I made the stocking hangers!

until next time...
S 

 

December Daily 1 - 5

I started doing this in 2008. I blanked out last year and didn't finish but I'm back on this year! 

New curtains

I finally finished these silly things! Let me just say...I hate making curtains! But now I've learned I hate making striped curtains even more!

When we started doing the living room project (new floors, furniture, paint etc) I found these curtains on a blog called the Yellow Cape Cod.  (this is her picture and her blog is linked below)

http://www.theyellowcapecod.com/2011/01/bold-striped-diy-drapes.html

I loved the curtains the moment I saw them! She posted instructions on how she did hers...I did mine a bit differently. First of all I went to IKEA and bought inexpensive white panels. Another difference is that my stripes are 13.5 inches wide versus her 14 (not that big of a deal i'm just saying what mine are!)

Another thing I did...I pinned my stripes down( i was real technical with my measurements...ha! ) and then I did a basting stitch with the sewing machine. I think she chose to use the heat and bond so that she could remove the stripes later...but since I used inexpensive curtains that I wouldn't hang without the stripes, I wasn't concerned about removing the stripes later. The basting stitch just made it easy for me to iron on the ribbon to cover the unfinished stripe edge.

She uses her tabs to hang her curtains and I chose not to. I already had rings with clips and I wanted to hang my curtains that way. So i cut the tabs off. Then I took black quilt binding and covered the unfinished edge. I hemmed the bottom stripe with heat and bond.

These weren't hard to do. They were just time consuming and I'm not good at keeping things straight so that was a challenge! :D

Anyway, here is a pick of them at night since I finished them late last night. I need to get a pick of them in the daylight. I really love how the turned out! 

Plus I like this picture since it includes my pretty Christmas tree!

until next time...S

 

 

Peace Bunting/Banner

I got a crafty itch this weekend...I had purchased on a whim a jar of tinsel glitter. I wanted a banner for the dining room hutch but I didn't want it to have any color but instead to match the rest of the dining rooms major accent color - black but still look Christmas-y.

This is what I came up with...

i think it turned out so cute! I used chipboard triangles. I covered them with some old Christmas sheet music. I also covered the chipboard stars in the same.

I stamped the letters on with foam stamps. I glued around the edges and dipped in the tinsel glitter. Tinsel glitter is not for the faint of heart. It's very clingy even more so than glitter. It was every where! I think everything in my craft room will have tinsel glitter for a while...

I attached the stars with those double sided sticky foam thingies...you know what i'm talking about right? the sticky things for scrapbooking! :D

Anyway. I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out!

until next time...

S

Headboard Bench

Two years ago I found this headboard at a yard sale for $5.

Much to my husband's unhappiness it's been just one more thing cluttering his side of the garage for way too long. Sunday after Thanksgiving was a perfect day to do something about that sad little headboard...

I dug through our scrap wood and other than going to lowe's for two front legs and the decorative wood piece on the front ($15 total at lowe's)...I bought nothing new! With a little paint and some light sanding...I have a lovely bench for our front porch! Grand total $20 (sorry in advance for the yucky pics. it's rainy and cold here in Texas)

The pillows I made this weekend...Burlap and red/white ticking. (just a side note...i don't like burlap. i know it's a hot craft staple but it's dusty and not straight and just bleh! this is probably the last burlap project i'll ever do! :D ) I stenciled the "merry" and "christmas" on the fronts of both pillows. The "christmas" was actually white but after the rain it's looking a little pink...oh well. As for the pot. I spray painted a clay pot red. With a 1 3/4" inch punch and some white contact paper it's now a polka dotted pot! And i won't even lie...that's a $4 fake poinsettia. I kill the real ones so I figured if I put a fake one out there it'd last a bit longer! :D

I think the bench and the pillows (pot too) turned out pretty festive! The bench will be fun to change up for different holidays and seasons!

until next time...

S

 

 

 

Brownies with Salted Caramel Frosting

There are tons of recipes for salted caramel frosting. There are also recipes for just salted caramel. I spent two hours this morning reading and comparing recipes. I found a recipe on a blog for salted caramel brownies. I made the brownies last night and did not like them so I didn't even go forward with her frosting.

SO...since I had a box of brownie mix in the pantry I got started making my own version!

I mixed up a batch of Duncan Hines chewy fudge brownies using 2 eggs instead of three. Then in mini cupcake tins I put a teaspoon of batter then half of a Werther's Original Caramelts. Then I added one more teaspoon of batter. Bake as directed on the box...about 24 minutes on 350.

In my double boiler I melted about 15 Kraft Caramels. Added about 4 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream. Melted together with about a teaspoon or so of sea salt. Once that is melted I took it off of the stove and let it cool and added 1 tsp of vanilla...while it was cooling I beat two sticks of salted butter with 2 cups of confectioners sugar. 

Once the caramal was cooler...slightly warm. I drizzled it into the butter/sugar and beat it again. Then added about 2 more cups of confectioners sugar.

Back in the double boiler I melted more caramels and whipping cream. 

I used the extra caramel as drizzle.

...Make some and Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

Taylor Swift with my Nora

A few months ago when the tickets went on sale, I bought Nora and I tickets to see Taylor Swift. I didn't tell Nora at the time because I figured it'd be better mentally not to have her ask about it every other day and plus I thought it'd be a fun surprise.

The week of Nora's birthday (september) we were listening to the Speak Now cd in the car and Nora said "can we please listen to something else?" I was a little surprised because she loves TS. Well, I asked her why she wanted it turned off and she said it was just she wanted to listen to something else. I asked if she could go see TS in concert would she want to do that and she said...No.

oh. wow. well. alrighty then.

Total heartbreak for me and disappointment.

So I told her that I had tickets for us to go see TS in October and would she want to go...she said "um no find somebody else. maybe you could take miss emily"

awww. ok...sniff sniff.

I said that was fine and ok no problem i'd find somebody else to take with me.

As the weeks have passed we have talked about the concert and who I might take. Two weeks before the concert Nora started listening to her TS cds a lot. Like daily. That's when I decided to go ahead and ask one more time if she wanted to go...this time she said YES!

The day of the concert we went to Justice and bought Nora a new outfit. Picked up take out to eat with Tim and Maddie and then off we went to the concert. 

IT WAS AMAZING! Taylor Swift is awesome. Her band is awesome. Her dancers are great too! The opening bands/singers were good too. It was just a great show!!

We left home at 5:30. We were at Cowboys Stadium and in our seats by 6:40.  Her face was so cute when Taylor came on stage!

Towards the end of the show Nora's excitement started to slip.

She leaned her head against me and dozed off for a couple of songs. 

She woke up for another couple of songs and then she said her tummy was hurting. Might have something to do with her eating like 2 bags of skittles.

I gave her half of an immodium and her tummy was still hurting...so by the next to last song she was flat out crying so we left. I wanted to stay for the final song Love Story but oh well. :D

We did miss all the traffic by leaving a bit early. Nora was sound asleep within two minutes of buckling into her seat.

I look forward to many more concerts! Nora and I have gone to some great shows like Cirque de Soleil OVO and Mary Poppins (totally amazing!) and the Wiggles (with my mom) and Disney on Ice...but this was the most exciting so far...I think...

anyway, I can't wait until we go to another one! Wicked (tim and i must go see that) and the Lion King are coming next year for the Dallas Summer Musicals and I'm for sure taking Nora to the Lion King. Maybe even Maddie. We'll see.

until next time...Stacey

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