23 Week Pictures (Shh... I'm actually 27 weeks)

So I'm late with sharing pictures again - so sorry! But once again, I'll do a comparision of what I looked like with Emily at that point, and what I look like now:

With Emily, in 2008, at 23 weeks pregnant:

In 2010, with Baby Boy Rogers at 23 Weeks (yes, I wore the same shirt on purpose!):

Today, I hit 27 weeks - my due date is 3 months from today! Woohoo! Home stretch, here I come!

Gourmet Grilled Cheese

So I made a grilled cheese sandwich today for lunch that was soooo good, and way healthier than the regular white-bread-american-cheese version I am used to dipping in tomato soup. In fact, I need to share it with you it was that good! To give kudos where kudos are due, it is a variation of a sandwich I saw in a Family Circle magazine (not sure what edition).

Ingredients (For one sandwich):

2 slices whole wheat bread
2 TBSP honey mustard
2 thin slices cheddar cheese
1/4 granny smith apple, sliced thin (save the rest to munch with your sandwich!)

1. Spread the inside of each slice of bread with honey mustard
2. Layer the filling - cheese, apple, and then cheese again
3. Spray a frying pan with cooking spray and cook sandwich on each side until toasted brown and cheese is melted.
4. Enjoy!

Seriously, try it! Even my husband, who loathes grilled cheese, wanted seconds with this one!

18 Week Pregnancy Pictures

So I'm finally getting around to posting my 18 weeks pregnancy pictures from this pregnancy. However, to compare, here is the same picture from when I was expecting Emily in 2008:





What I looked like 3 weeks ago at 18 weeks with Baby #2:


No, I really haven't started showing much! Some of that is because I haven't gained any weight with the pregnancy (I lost at the beginning, and am just now back up to my pre-pregnancy weight).

Next set of pictures in 2 weeks! :-)

Finally - A Good (And Normal) Visit!

It was such a joy to finally have an OB visit that went off without a single hitch. Yeah!

So after full and partial bedrest from 15 weeks to 20 weeks (it has been a long month), I am offically back on my feet again.

No more bedrest? Check.

Can start exercising again? Check.

Get back to my normal life? Double check!

But it is not all fun and games - I do have a few limitations. Like no hard exercise: just walking, yoga, etc. No heavy lifting. Drink lots and lots of water. And rest when I am tired - that is a big one. We are praying that this past month will have been
our glitch for this pregnancy.

I only had one piece of upcoming anxiety - my sugar levels were high, again (they were at my last visit, too), but he is very pleased with my weight gain - I'm finally back up to my pre-pregnancy weight. So in two weeks I'll do a glucose fasting to check for gestational diabetes. It's 4-6 weeks early than this is usually tested, but he is seeing some early indicators. So bummer on that, but I'll let you know how it goes.

Well, I'm off to go make jello for tonight's dessert (sugar-free, of course!). Have a good day!

Potty Training Week - Day 1

It's potty-training time at the Rogers' house!

It's been awhile in coming; Emily, now 2, has been ready for this for quite awhile. However, Mommy has not! Bedrest put a kink in my potty plans for her, but I decided that this week, it needed to be done.

So last night we prepped: we talked about it a lot, ready potty books before bed, and even picked out which dress and undies she wanted to wear the following day. Needless to say, we were ready to go!

Of course, the little one had to get up at six o'clock. I don't think I hardly noticed her curled up next to me until seven, but when I got up and pulled her into the bathroom, she went! And she continued to go throughout the day, sometimes with undies on and a lot of time going commando. What is it about toddlers liking nakedness?

But how many accidents, you ask? Only 3, but one of those was a near miss - we didn't quite make it and she wet on the rug in front of the potty. I even took the risk of not putting her back in a diaper for her nap (yes, I did put a liner on her bed!), and she stayed dry for her full three hour nap. If I can keep her down to just a diaper at bedtime, I will be thrilled, and so will our checkbook. :-)

Bedrest is Boring

Well, I spoke too soon in my last post. A lot too soon!

What happened, do you ask?

Well, about ten minutes after I posted that last post, I started having some pregnancy-related bleeding. Since my OB's office was closed, my doctor sent me to the emergency room as I started having bad cramping with the bleeding. Our local hospital did an excellent job with me, but besides telling me that the baby was fine and they could find nothing obviously wrong with me via fetal monitoring and an ultrasound, I was sent home on bedrest for the weekend. However, Monday at my doctor's office proved a bit different. An internal ultrasound revealed that a section of the placenta had detached, which was causing the pain and bleeding. So on bedrest I stayed.

And have continued to stay, for the most part.

Can we say boring?

At least I've moved from complete bedrest to partial bedrest in the past week, and am slowly getting back on my feet again. If I do too much, it lands me back into bed with cramping, so I'm trying to take it easy. If you know me, I don't take to not doing much very well, especially when the house needs picked up or laundry needs done. But Jonathan has been an incredible husband! He has cleaned, cooked, done dishes, watched Emily, and so much more. I've been very blessed to have him home during this time! I am one lucky woman! :-)

One good that that has come out of all the monitoring at the doctor's is that we now know that we are having a little boy! Yeah! But the name is a secret until he is born! :-)

Time is Flying!

I remember where I was at this point two years ago. I was as big as a whale and sick as a dog while struggling with preeclampsia at the very end of my pregnancy with Emily. In fact, by now, I was just shy of being admitted into the hospital.

Is it ironic that I'm pregnant while that little bundle of joy turns two?

We aren't planning a huge party for her - just the family and a few friends in Columbia, SC. And no, we don't live there. Emily's grandmother does. We decided to do it at her house because I just can't physically deal with the stress of tons of people coming in and crashing at our house (don't ask me how I'm going to handle 15+ people for the family reunion over the 4th of July). We'll clean it, and do the cooking, and the clean-up. My biggest thing is the cake, which I'm actually very excited about making. But it's a secret for now, but hopefully there will be pictures posted afterwards!

In the meantime, my pregnancy is slowing getting better. I still have bad days, where I'm sick an exhausted, but I'm having more good days than I used to, which is a huge plus. And we're hoping that at my end of the month ultrasound, we will know if we are having a boy or a girl, but that's only if this little one decides to cooperate. We are also praying that the small concern of having placenta previa will have righted itself by this point; my OB isn't too worried about it right now, as it usually takes care of itself.

Emily, on the other hand, has a vocabulary that is growing by leaps and bounds. She is now learning her colors and shapes, but her favorite phrase right now is "I don't want to". Can we say she is are almost two? Potty-training isn't going great, as this incredibly stubborn girl will hold it for hours and hours instead of going on the potty, so we've stopped pushing it for awhile with a fear that she's going to give herself a UTI. After her birthday, though, we hope to start up again, exspecially now that we are often finding her baby doll sitting on her potty with the toilet paper.

But speaking of Emily, she's being needy, so I need to get off the computer. I'll try to post pictures of her party after next weekend.