Catching up

For those of you who haven't been following me as Citysaur on the Pregosaur blog, I thought it would be nice to have a little update over here on how things have been going.

On the pregnancy front, I am now safely ensconced in the 2nd trimester. Today marks 15 weeks of pregnancy. Our little one is now 4 inches long, and has reflexes, facial movements (like frowning and squinting) and is sensitive to light (they say if you shine a light on the belly, baby will move away from it). I'm not showing much yet, though I can definitely tell I'm getting bigger. My regular pants are all but obsolete now. And it will probably still be a while before I can feel little baby movements (it generally takes longer if you have a little more "padding", shall we say!). As far as I can tell, everything is going well in there. We had an appointment with the Birth and Women's Center, where we will be delivering, on September 14. It was a great appointment - we got to hear baby's heartbeat, which was a healthy 166 BPM. Things seem to be going along swimmingly so far! And we'll find out on October 26 whether it's a little girl or a little boy in there!

Branden's still doing quite well in school - he even got a scholarship award this year! He's taking 12 graduate hours this fall (4 classes - one on Monday, one on Wednesday, and two on Thursday), so that keeps him pretty busy. A month ago, he was cleared to do half days on bike, and that helped his morale at work quite a bit. He should be good to go full days whenever he's ready - the doc said October, which starts tomorrow! I know that will be a big relief for him - the 9 months he spent doing dispatch all day really wore on him.

In other family news, my stepdad is still hanging in there. He has ups and downs, good days and bad days, and it's all guesswork as to how long he'll be around. He's still hoping to be around to see the baby in the Spring, and I know I'd love it if that were to happen! He's been battling edema for several weeks, mostly in his legs and feet, and he still has over 20 lbs of water weight on him. He went into hospice care several weeks ago, and it did make a huge difference in his comfort level almost immediately. They put him on a medication regiment that helped control his coughing, which had been his biggest source of discomfort. He gave us quite a scare yesterday morning - I happened to have taken the day off to go spend time with him, and his breathing was labored, and he wasn't acting like himself at all. By the dinner time, he was much more himself, and I'm hoping he continues to improve. Still no idea what caused this, and care for hospice patients is a little different anyway, so the doctors don't seem to be in as big a rush to get to the bottom of it.

So as you can see, life's been full of ups and downs lately. I'm going to try to be more faithful in my blog updates from now on. Love to you all!