Six Weeks Left

So, Kelli is getting pretty big at this point.  She is carrying Jacob lower than before, causing many people to tell her she’s dropped.  We are getting pretty excited and cannot wait to meet this little guy. 

I am not sure if I posted some of the issues that we were having with our insurance company, but we’ve got that all figured out.  Because of all of the insurance confusion, we haven’t taken any birthing classes yet.  However, we are scheduled for a class in 2 weekends.  The class takes place over 2 days and will be a total of 10 hours. 

We already took the tour of the UC Davis maternity wing.  Plus, we’ve been there for two births already and feel like we could lead the tour.  That is a good thing because when the time comes to deliver, I probably won’t be thinking straight. 

We’ve got Jacob’s room almost completely put together.  We really only need a crib, and that’s it.  The little guy has more clothes than I do, and he hasn’t even been born yet.  We are going to try and finish the room (except, maybe, the crib) by next weekend. 

The closer we get, the more excited I am.  I think my focus is on Jacob as a baby.  Changing diapers, bathing, etc, is not that tough.  It’s hard to mess up those things.  However, when he starts to get older, that is when things get a little more important.  I am excited and nervous for the challenge. 

That’s it for now.  I’ll try and post again once I’ve got an update on Jacob’s room or after the birthing classes.

We Have A Name

Well, we have 8 weeks to go and we are getting very excited.  We had a check-up today and everything looks fine.  We received the results back from Kelli’s 3-hour glucose test and they were normal.  We’ll be going to the doctor every 2 weeks for the next month, and then every week for the last month.
 
We have finally come up with a name for Baby Rossman….. Jacob Nathaniel Rossman.  Nathaniel was a name that we’d already planned on using.  It is the name of my grandfather (dad’s dad).  Jacob is a name that we’ve thought about for a while.  At one time we took it off our “list” only to put it back on after Kelli had a dream about the name.  Then, last weekend, when we saw Kelli’s sister, she said, “You have to name your baby Jacob.”  This was crazy because we hadn’t told her that we were considering “Jacob” as a name.  So, Jacob it is.
 
Kelli and I have been making great strides in getting our back room ready for Jacob.  I assembled an Ikea dresser yesterday (guys, you know how fun that is) and we only need to buy a crib.  We were blessed financially from a baby shower we recently had in Southern California, so that will be a huge help in getting the crib.  We’ve re-arranged some furniture in our room to make room for a bassinet for the first month or so. 
 
Having that back room open is such a relief.  However, now we have to find room for all of the other junk from the back room.  The dumpster is an appropriate place for most of it.  We are getting very excited.  I cannot wait for the 6 weeks I’ll have to bond with him!

The closer it gets, the more real it gets.  I am always willing to listen to advice.  I may not always follow it, but I am open to ideas.  Feel free to leave comments.

2 Down, 1 To Go

Well, we are just now entering the third trimester.  It is very weird to think that we only have 3 months left.  The baby is moving quite a bit.  He seems ready to come out.  We can’t wait to meet the little guy.  Kelli and I have narrowed down the name search.  We are just trying to decide between 2 or 3 names.  We may wait until he is born to decide.  Or we may decide before then.  Or we may not name him.  Either way, it will be a surprise for a time.

I have always claimed that I am glad I’m not a woman.  This has been reinforced by my experience with a preganant woman.  Kelli is now going through the back pain and feeling like her skin is stretching (which, from what I can tell, is not a desirable feeling).  She is doing so well.  I am doing my best to help make it a little easier, but I know she is still uncomfortable.  Still, she is loving this experience and is doing a great job.

I am trying to get everything finalized for the birth: My time off at work, making sure I’m communicating with our insurance company, and other things.  We are going to research birthing classes, which I’m sure we’ll start in the next month.  We still need to go on a tour of our hospital, so we aren’t completely lost on D-Day (Delivery Day).  Most of that stuff is fun.  As the time draws nearer, the more excited I get.  It will be like getting to see a long-lost friend, but for the first time.  And this “friend” is going to cry a lot and I’ll have to clean up after him all the time.  I just can’t wait to meet him and see what he looks like.

Kelli will be finishing work sooner than later.  Our goal was to have her work until early May.  However, due to the physical nature of her job, she will probably only be working another week or two at her physical job.  Her other job (Curves) is a little more easy on her body, so she may try to increase her hours there until May.

For a while, I was worried about my job.  We are directly affected by the stock market, and my employer let go about 3% of its workforce a couple of months back.  However, we’ve gotten quite busy, which is great for job-security.  We’ll see what happens, but we haven’t heard any rumors lately.  This next month will be one of the busiest that we’ll experience all year (end of tax season).  Just keep us in your prayers, because you never know.

That is about all that is new with me.  I just pray that the Lord continues to prepare me to be a father.  From what I understand, you can never really be prepared.  With only 13 weeks left, I am not sure how much more prepared I can get.  The closer we get to the due date, the more doctor’s appointments we’ll have.  Therefore, expect more updates.  I know I haven’t kept up on the “blogging every 10 days” thing, but I try.  Leave me alone. 

As always, please leave comments.  Please leave advice.  Please leave. 

Kelli at 27 weeks

Sir Kicks-A Lot

Well, baby is kicking a lot now.  Tonight I tried to listen to his heartbeat by putting my ear to Kelli’s belly (a website we saw said I may be able to hear it).  However, he kept kicking me in the head.  Plus I didn’t get to hear his heartbeat anyway. 

Also, as you can tell from the first paragraph, we still don’t have  a name.  Does this make us bad parents?  Maybe.  But at least we haven’t given him some crazy name… yet.  We have a few names that we really like, so I expect us to have a name in the not-too-distant future.  But don’t expect us to tell you what it is.  We don’t like you very much.

Kelli is currently sick.  She has flu-like symptoms.  I would say I’ve done a good job so far of taking care of my pregnant wife.  Now she is sick on top of being pregnant.  It is tough, because I just want her to feel better.  But she should be better in a day or two.  Being pregnant, she’s had no loss of appetite, but during this sickness, she has.  I guess she gets a small taste of what so many women deal with throughout their pregnancy (nausia and body aches). 

I am eagerly awaiting baseball season.  This is the last Spring Training that I’ll watch without a child.  My poor son will be  a Red Sox fan through and through.  One of our friends  sent us a great little Red Sox hat for the baby.  It is of great quality and says “My First Cap” on it with the Boston “B” in the middle of it.  I tried to fit it on my head, but I wear ”medium” and the hat is “infant.” 

Kelli just had blood drawn for a glucose test to check for diabetes.  She had that done 2 days ago and we haven’t heard back yet.  The employee told Kelli that ‘no news is good news,’ so if we hear nothing, we are happy. 

I have a test next Thursday for my Series 6 license.  It is for my new position.  It is a 100 question test about mutual funds and variable insurance products (plus some rules and regulations about the SEC and FINRA).  I am pretty confident that I’ll pass.  The only reason I am getting it is because this position that I am in requires it.  Not much else will change.

Ok, well that’s it for now.  I’ll be writing again in a week or two.  Hopefully you learn to read by then.

Mid-February

So, Kelli and I are at 23 weeks tomorrow.  The baby has been kicking a lot lately.  I always love it when Kelli says, “Your son is kicking a lot right now.”  By now the baby is talking and mowing the grass.  But seriously, he can hear what we are saying and his face is fully formed.
 
Our next appointment isn’t for a few weeks.  It should be just a routine checkup.  Kelli needs to have a blood test done during the next week for some sort of testing (I can’t remember what it is for).  She has also been getting some terrible leg cramps in her calves.  They only seem to come in the middle of the night.  They are like regular leg cramps but are concentrated right next to the bone.  Therefore, they are harder to massage or to stretch.  Sometimes they last for several minutes, which makes me feel very bad for Kelli.  I guess if this is the worst she’s had to suffer, that is a good thing.
 
We are still coming up with baby names.  We haven’t decided on one yet.  We’ll probably keep it as a secret for a while.  We are also blessed to be receiving some baby supplies from Kelli’s friend, Stacey.  We feel so blessed by this.  It will save a lot of time and money.
 
One funny, side note: We will probably be getting some sort of TV programming (either satellite or cable) so Kelli doesn’t have to watch dirty soap operas and stupid judge shows in the afternoon, once she starts staying home.  This will also benefit me as baseball season is just around the corner.  Plus, we’d get DVR (digital video recorder) which is SO much nicer than VCR (Video Crap Recorder).
 
We’ll update more later.  We are in the “duldrums” of the pregnancy now.  Another month or two and things will get exciting.  We should be starting birthing classes and the baby will be growing very quickly.  Right now, the baby is about a pound.  We are about 4 months away and the baby will probably be around 7-8 pounds at delivery.  Time to start packing on the weight, baby!

Halfway There

Well, we are over halfway there.  We are at 21 weeks out of 40.  It is crazy to think that it has been 21 weeks already (although we didn’t find out until we were 5 or 6 weeks along).  The baby is up to so much.  He is about the size of a banana this week (in length, not shape). 

We had an appointment recently and found out that he is healthy.  Things are progressing nicely and we are very excited.  It doesn’t feel like June is ever going to get here, but I’m sure it’ll get here quickly.

He is moving around and I am able to feel him quite a bit.  He kicks very hard at certain times.  I can’t imagine what my poor wife will go through when he is 5 times the size he is now and kicking her liver and bladder and brain.  It is nice to know that he is in there and moving around.

I am trying to talk to him as much as possible and read to him.  He gets to hear Kelli talk all the time, every day.  He doesn’t get to hear me as much, so I try to read to him often.  He often moves around a bit when I am reading to him.  He knows his daddy’s voice already… maybe.

We are currently thinking of names.  We’ve thrown some out already due to the way they sound with our last name.  There is one name that we would never be cruel enough to name our son, but is awesome!  We found the name Kendrew on a website.  It’s awesome because it is a combination of KElli and aNDREW.  It also means “son of Andrew.”  How perfect is that?  I know my son will want to disown me later in life, but I don’t want it to be because of his name.

Well, that’s all I have for now.  Another update will come in a week or so.  I’ve tried very hard to stick to blogging every 10 days, so stay up to date.  You don’t want to miss a post, and then go to work the next day and not be able to talk to your co-workers about the recent post on the coolest blog ever.  No, but seriously, if you are talking about my blog at work… stop it.  How about you work instead?

It’s a BOY!

Well, Kelli and I spent 2 hours at the Radiology Department so we could get our Sonagram done.  Kelli had to drink 32 oz of water.  She drank 3 bottles of water (at my suggestion, since I thought each bottle was 12 oz).  Each bottle had 17 oz.  She drank too much water.  She had to pee 4 times during the sonagram appointment.  I may not be the best husband. 

We found out that our baby is a healthy baby BOY!  We obviously weren’t going to complain one way or the other, but we were secretly hoping for a boy for the first child.  Another little Andrew running around out there. 

I feel sorry for Kelli, that she’ll have to put up with another Rossman boy.  Oh well.  I’ve already got plans of teaching my son how to fish, change the oil in the car, and weld.  Now, I just need to learn how to do all of those things.  No problem.

When we left the sonagram appointment, the doctors were still looking at the pictures.  Everything looked good so far, but they said they’d call us in a couple days with the “official” results. 

Now we get to start thinking of baby boy names.  And we get to start fixing up the baby’s room.  I suggest an all Red Sox and ’24′ themed room (24 is a TV show featuring THE MAN, Jack Bauer, for those of you Amish people). 

Combine this with feeling the baby move and it really feels like this is going to happen!  I pray that God continues to build me up into the father he wants me to be.

 

19 Weeks, 2 Days

My Beautiful Wife at 19 weeks.

Kicks and Giggles

So, we felt the first kicks, or other such movements, from our baby yesterday.  Kelli first noticed it during the newest 007 movie we saw at the cheap theaters.  Later, last night, I was able to feel the baby move.  I could actually feel the baby make contact with my hand through Kelli’s stomach.

The timing was perfect, as Kelli was beginning to get worried.  She hadn’t felt the baby move yet.  Even though I kept reminding her that it was normal to not feel the movements until week 22, she was still worried.  She also thought that she’d plateaued, as far as her belly size had gone.

I guess Baby Rossman is just lazy.  He/She must take after his/her father.  It was absolutely amazing to feel the baby move.  Yes, I’ve seen the ultrasounds and heard the heartbeat.  Those things were awesome.  But to feel the baby move is beyond words.  I can’t wait until it is a much more common occurance.

Stay tuned this week.  We hope to find out what the gender is on Wednesday, January 21.  I’ll certainly be posting a blog about that as soon as I can.  Keep praying for the baby to grow strong.

Appointment Change

Well, our sonagram which was scheduled for January 20 will now be on January 21.  I was not able to get the 20th of of work and I HAVE to be there.  We are hoping to find out the gender of the baby.

Kelli and I are ready to start feeling the baby.  Within the next couple of weeks, she is supposed to be able to feel the baby moving.  Also, we have a device at home that allows us to listen to the baby (like a modified stethescope).  It isn’t supposed to work that well until the 3rd trimester (which we are a couple months away from).  So, we may just have to wait.

Tomorrow with be 18 weeks.  The baby is about the size of a sweet potato.  It is about 5.6 inches long and weighs about 6.7 oz.  The baby is supposedly moving quite a bit this week. 

More later.