26th Birthday

Well you haven't had an update in a while and even though I am closer to family now I still have some friends spread out across the states and some other family I'm not near so I thought I would give you an update. This past Sunday was my 26th birthday which turned out pretty nice even though I was missing my honey :) Saturday night I spent with the Murphy's and had Babe's Chicken which is the best chicken place in town and Sunday lunch I spent with my Mom and DJ and two of my sisters (Jo is still at school). Jonathan started my day off by calling before church and singing to me, my Aunt MB and Grandma and Grandpa Beck called throughout the day and my Dad finished up the night by calling me from Canada. I am now 30 weeks along and am REALLY starting to feel pregnant :) Hard to imagine I only have 10 weeks left but other days it's hard to imagine I STILL have 10 weeks left :) Jonathan is working on his plans to get here on Jan. 28th and the doc says we can induce if baby murphy hasn't made her appearance yet so Jonathan doesn't come all this way and still miss it! Look for more birthday pics in the slide show (click the picture of me and Jessica) and will send another update as the holidays approach. Watch out for my last sonogram sometime next month!

Presents

Most of the girls were gracious enough to get me gift cards so I won't have to move as much to Texas but here's a preview of some of the adorable gifts I did receive...


What every baby needs ... cowgirl boots! She may not be raised in Texas with all our moving but she'll be Texan born and that lives on forever :)

Neatest Diaper Caddy Ever

Not to mention Britney Suggs is my best friend and I love her more than any person, minus Jonathan, and I will miss her everyday! (she made me put that)



Reading the poem Jonathan wrote and put in a surprise present for me



Best present by far, Soccer shoes from her daddy!!!

VA Baby Shower

Well yesterday I had my first baby shower with some of my closest friends here in VA; it was also kind of a going away party since I won't see most of them before we hit the road in a few days. Our first game we played was the toilet paper game where everyone had to guess how much toilet paper it would take to go around my belly... some of my friends think I'm HUGE while others were right on target :)


Sally's guess



Dana's guess, 4 squares too many if I recall

In the end the two gals I spend the most time with got the closest, Erin only had two extra pieces while Brit was the winner with the EXACT amount, 10 squares... thanks girls for proving I'm still somewhat small! I guess it pays to see my growing belly everyday :)


Erin's guess, 2 squares too many



Brit's PERFECT guess!

Cord Blood Registry

Well hello everyone, I will be updating this again after my first shower/party on Sunday - yeah I am so excited!! I wanted to take a moment to tell everyone about a new registry I started. I want to tell everyone about it in case anyone would like to consider contributing to our registry but also to educate other friends/family and other expecting friends about cord blood banking. Jonathan and I have decided to bank our little ????'s cord blood through CBR. We both find the research into stem cells promising with the many diseases they already cure and the potential future diseases they'll cure. Please take a moment to view our registry and find out more about cord blood banking under our registry tab on the left. Oh, and all our registries are now reflecting TX instead of VA incase anyone else has problems looks us up. And if any expecting friends want to sign up for cord blood feel free to call me and I'll tell you about it and put you in touch with the same rep I am working with... plus I get a free year of banking :) Be in touch...

21 Weeks

So, I went to my check up last week and found out some interesting information. Apparently my placenta is anterior located, which basically means it needs to move before I try to give birth! If it doesn't and it blocks my birth canal then I'll have to have a c-section - no bueno. Oh, and so here's a picture of me today after working on the house.. this is sad, I am having to take my own pictures for everyone to see me... well not much else to report at the moment except that our little girl has been moving around alot today, feels kinda like popcorn popping in my stomach or something, oh and she's screwing up my back... i've been having to go to the OMT clinic. Jonathan is still traveling so please keep him in your prayers and i hope to get to TX soon. Please keep your ear to the ground for interior designers, architects, contractors and home builders. I am looking for these professionals to work with as a kitchen/bath design consultant. More to come...

20 Week Sonogram

Well hello everyone, today I had my 20 week sonogram where they measure everything and make sure it's all coming together right. Little ???? was moving around quite a bit but not cooperating for the technician. The tech actually called her a brat a few times, I think I heard her right?!? She didn't speak English very well. Hey, at least she has my spunk! :) She had her arms and feet crossed the whole time and when they went to make sure she had a nose and mouth, she covered her face and just would not budge :) This Thursday I have my 6 month check up where I hope to get the results from the quad screen and today's ultrasound. It's amazing to see how much she has grown and changed even from 2 weeks ago. The tech said she is 13 oz and when I asked if she was small or big for her "age", the tech said 80%...if anyone knows what that means... maybe you nurses in the family can help out :) Well in case you are wondering why I haven't said her name, Jonathan and I decided to keep it as something special between he and I since we aren't together during this special time and don't know if he'll be around for the birth. I am excited to report however that the night before he left, he got to feel her kick him and several mornings in a row she would be playing with him while his hand was on my belly, of course he slept right through it :)

As for other news, Jonathan is at Ft. Benning now where is he having oh so much fun going through "Anti Terrorism" Training. Today he had all his medical screenings and tomorrow he continues getting all his gear. Other than that, all I know is that he is stuck in classes most all day with little time to eat or relax, although he did sneak away for a movie last night with a Major from the SF... so at least we know he is still rubbing elbows, as he always does :) He hopes to get to an orthopedic doc in Afghanistan to check out his ankle and make sure everything is ok... it still swells up most days and with Selection coming up in April we want to make sure he will be healthy for it.

Our house should go on the market soon since we are now using a realtor and we hope that interest in the property will start back up quickly. My goal is to get to TX as soon as possible but with the looming idea of no job come October I am unsure I will make it there before the house sells. If I can line up a job in TX it would be helpful, but who wants to hire a prego? :) Still no word on when Jonathan leaves but I'll certainly pass along more info as I get it! Hope everyone is well and look for an update after Thursday's appointment. Thank you so much for all the thoughts and continued prayers. Several people, including family and friends, have called to check in on me... so many I can't keep up with the calls :) I am doing well, trying to stay busy with work, packing and school. Be in touch,
-A-

It's a ...

So today we went to have our ultrasound done only when we got there the technician said we had to reschedule for two more weeks from today because I wasn't 20 weeks. She went ahead and let us see the baby since Jonathan would not be here in two weeks and she said she would try to see the sex but that some organs may not be fully finished. Well, this was our very first shot...

What Jonathan and I thought was something else the technician said was 95% a girl. She continued to move around and check a few things out even though I would be back in two weeks and got this great shot of our new baby girl from the side...

It's a little confusing because the technician said her head is pointing downward which would explain some of my lower "pains" and hard spots I feel but the picture is of her sideways... who knows! What a cool thing to see how much the baby has grown since our first little picture! You can imagine how surprised we were to hear it was a girl only because girls don't really run in Jonathan's family but we are both very happy with a little girl and that so far she is healthy! We prayed right before we went in that God would give us a good clear image of what the sex was so Jonathan would get to know before deploying and I think he did pretty good at answering that prayer! He also answered another prayer of ours today of what will happen once Jonathan is back state side - today we got word that he has been accepted to the selection course for Special Forces, so as soon as he is back we'll have a short time to be together before he runs out to NC for a month to train and test for Special Forces. No word on the house yet, but please continue to pray that God will take care of our needs here in D.C. so I can get back home near all my great supporters! Thanks to all for your warm wishes, continual prayer and support. Look forward to reporting more in two weeks!