ABC's of Stephanie

I saw this on my friend's blog and decided to do it :) Thanks Amy Lynn!

Age: 28
Best Date: My first date with Joseph. I still remember how excited I was when I got home. I couldn't believe I could ever have that great of a first date :)
Chore That I Hate:  Dusting
Dogs: Golden Retrievers. Especially my sweet Sammy!
Essential To Starting My Day: I have a routine. Bathroom, wash face, brush teeth, go down stairs, feed Sammy and give him his treat, have a glass of water. The cold water wakes up my baby :)
Favorite Color: Purple. I'm hoping for a February baby so she'll have a purple amethyst birth stone! 
Gold or Silver: Silver
Height: 5′ 4″
Instruments I play: NONE! I'm very musically challenged. I do love listening to music though!
Job Title: Academic Counselor and soon to be MOM!
Kids: A little girl hopefully any day now!
Live: Maricopa, AZ
Milkshakes: Strawberry
Nicknames: Steph, Steph-Honey
Outfits: Jeans, a cotton tee shirt, and the same pair of flip flops that I've worn everyday for 5 months.
Pet Peeves: Having a messy kitchen... but right now I have no motivation to clean it. 
Quote: "Sometimes we need to let go of the life that we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." Joseph Conrad
Right or Left Handed: Right
Siblings: 2 younger brothers. 3 step sisters, 1 step brother
Top Five Chick Flicks: In no particular order: 1. PS I love you 2. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3. 17 Again 4. Sense and Sensibility 5. I can't really think of a 5th one so I'll just say Hairspray
Unique Thing Most People Don't Know About You: I wear a mouth guard all the time except when I'm eating. 
Vegetables I Hate: Asparagus
What Makes Me Run Late: Mostly only if I don't calculate enough time to get ready.                                                                        
X-Rays I’ve Had: Teeth, hips (when being diagnosed with fibromyalgia), jaw ( for TMJ), and lungs (when I had pneumonia in the 6th grade). 
Yummy Desert I Make: Butterfinger Cake
Zoo Animal: Not really a zoo animal, but I love seeing the whales and dolphins at Sea World


Let me know if you decide to do this as well! I'd love to read it!

37 Weeks!

I made it to 37 weeks!!!! My baby is full term!!! On Monday we went into the doctor's for a follow up to my 24 hour urine test and blood tests. The good news is that the blood tests came back negative for HELP syndrome, but the not so good news is that I was officially diagnosed with preeclampsia due to my consistent high blood pressure and the amount of protein in my urine (I'm sure you all wanted to read that :) ) and then all of the symptoms that I listed in my last post. Now I am on moderate bedrest with no more working. I don't have to lay down all day (because preeclampsia can cause blood clots) but I have to rest a lot. No complaining about that! I'm excited to have a lot of rest before she comes. The next step is for me to come into the office 2x a week, both of those appointments will have me hooked up to the baby heart rate monitor and one appointment will have an ultrasound. Then I will also have to do a 24 hour urine test 1x a week and also more blood tests 1x a week. Then if I don't have my baby by the time I'm 39 weeks we are going to induce due to the issues that can come if they let me go all the way to 40 weeks. So my baby will have a birthday of March 1st or March 2nd! It all depends on how long the labor will be.

I am really glad that my office is taking such precautions. I've heard too many stories lately of women losing their babies at 38 weeks and it's freaking me out! I make sure to count my baby's kicks several times a day. I'm so glad that I have an active baby! When you count your baby kicks your baby is supposed to get 10 kicks in within 2 hours. Depending on the day, my baby will get that in anywhere from 5 minutes to 25 minutes.

We had an appointment today and little Adelyn is doing really well which is such a relief. For a long time I was measuring exactly to the week, but now I'm measuring about 1-2 cm smaller. They said that's fine, so I guess I just trust them. We had an ultrasound today and my amniotic fluid is great, we can see her practicing breathing, and she's moving well. At first she was sleeping so they took this little buzzer and put it up to my stomach. She jumped so high!!! I felt so bad that they scared my baby! But they needed to do it to make sure she would move around. They didn't measure her this week, but last week she was 5 pounds 13 oz.

I finish the rest of my tests for this week tomorrow and then I guess I'll find out the results at my appointment on Monday unless there are some concerns.

Almost There

So yesterday was my 2nd 24 hour urine test. I've had a lot of preeclampsia symptoms such as a horrible headache for 3 weeks that won't go away no matter what I do, lots of swelling in my feet and hands, started seeing shooting stars, and high blood pressure. (PS. The shooting stars thing was one of the weirdest things I've ever experienced! I was sitting in the middle of a meeting and all of a sudden it looked like tiny shooting stars were going every where. Almost like little fireworks.) We went to the hospital last night to have my urine tested and it came back in the levels that they said we would probably induce. We were a little surprised when they sent us home, but they do want us to come in to the doctors office on Monday to discuss options on what to do next. The nurse said it's probably because she's still technically premature. As of today I'm 36 weeks and 3 days. 37 weeks is considered to be full term. It will be interesting to see what the doctor says on Monday. For now I'm on modified bed rest. This means I can get up and do stuff, but then I have to go rest for a while. I can't stay super busy which is hard when all I want to do is finish getting my house ready! I just have to keep telling myself "I'm almost there. It's almost time to hold my baby in my arms". The nurse last night said I won't be making it to my due date so that means I may only have about 2 weeks left. I can make it another 2 weeks of preeclampsia symptoms and regular pregnancy stuff... right? Joseph will just get to see me cry a whole lot! That has become a common occurrence over the past few days. I have a really great husband who is willing to listen to me and even to tell me it's ok to cry when I need to. I'm really lucky to have him! I just have to remember the longer my baby stays inside of me, the better off she'll be. But then I start freaking out because what if the preeclampsia stuff hurts her? I just have to put my trust in the doctors.

The Finished Nursery!

I'm so glad that the nursery is done! I calculated that I spent about 24 hours working on the nursery... and I didn't even do the painting! I made the crib sheet, dust ruffle, valances and butterflies. Joseph put together all of the furniture and hung up the valances. The cherry tree is a decal I bought from Amazon. You can't really tell from the pictures but the crib sheet is white with tiny apple green dots. The dust ruffle looks the same as the valances..minus the rosettes. I'm so happy it's done and I love it!

31 Week Appointment

We had our 31 week appointment today and it went really well! Some of you may know that at 25 weeks I started having contractions and was starting to dilate but only about a 1/2 centimeter. I'm still having contractions and I can tell the difference between braxton  hicks contractions and real contractions. Since I'm still having real contractions my midwife decided to check me and do another FFN test. The good news is that I haven't dilated anymore. I'm still waiting to hear back about the FFN test but I'm pretty sure it will come back negative. This test will predict whether or not I will go into labor within the next 2 weeks.

My blood pressure was a little high so they checked my urine sample and that came back negative as well. I just have to keep an eye on my feet swelling. I've been pretty swollen in my feet and hands but she said the swelling I have now is normal pregnancy swelling and that I should contact her if my skin starts to indent when I press on it.

I did have to take the 3 hour glucose test because my first test came back elevated. I didn't know how much elevated it was. Turns out I was only elevated by 1mg! Oh well, it's better to be safe than sorry. Even though the 3 hour test is tough, I'm still glad that I did it and it came back normal.

I'm really excited that I start going to the doctor every other week now. I think this will help the last 9 weeks go a lot faster!

We are so excited to see our little girl!

2011 in Review

2011 was a pretty good year for the Cooper family. Everything started happening around June of this year which happened to be the time when I was finally back to normal after my jaw surgery. During June both Joseph and I were offered new positions at work. I started working on the new re-entry team and Joseph became a Network Security Analyst. My position is pretty similar to the old one but I do like this one a lot better. I feel like I'm making a big difference in our student's lives. Joseph's job is a big change from tech support and he is so happy with it! He is learning a lot. The only hard thing about Joseph's new job is that we work opposite schedules. I work from 6am-3pm(Mon-Fri) and Joseph works 2pm-12am (Wed-Sat). We make it work.

On July 4th we received the best news possible. That's when we found out we were pregnant! I woke up at 3:30am and had to use the restroom. I figured, if I don't take the test now I'll be wondering what the results would be and wouldn't go back to sleep. My sister-in-law Kacey bought a 2 pack test the week before and found out she was pregnant with the first test. So I had a test sitting in my bathroom just waiting for me. I decided to take it and right away it turned positive! I couldn't believe it! I went back to Joseph and told him. His response was "You ARE!!!". It was a really happy and excited response :)

On September 28th we found out we were having a little girl!! Joseph was convinced we were having a boy, so we were a little surprised when we found out it was a girl. We weren't disappointed, just surprised. After we made a few phone calls to family the shock wore off and the excitement kicked in.

We decided to name our daughter Adelyn. Joseph thought of the name right after we got married. Then one day we were in the temple and I had a really strong feeling that we should name our daughter Adelyn. Two years later, we are finally having our little girl!

Now all we have to do is wait for our little girl to be here! Just 11 more weeks until our due date, March 8th. Today we cleaned up all of the paint stuff in her nursery and put most of the furniture in place. The only thing we (meaning Joseph) need to put together is the changing table and the furniture will be done. After that we just need to hang the curtains (that I made!) and add some wall decals.

Since Joseph's job needs to be open 24/7 he does have to work tonight. Luckily he doesn't have to work Christmas Day. Since I also have Monday off we get to spend 2 full days together! We don't get that often so we are really excited. Then next weekend he was able to take New Year's Eve off so we'll have 3 full days together. We don't have any big plans except to go see the Muppet Movie (FINALLY!).

We wish that everyone will have a wonderful and safe Christmas and New Year's!

Love,

Joseph and Stephanie

Feeling Very Pregnant!

I am 26 weeks and 6 days along and I feel very pregnant today! I can really tell that I'm on my way out of my 2nd trimester and into my 3rd. This heartburn is out of control. The one good thing about it is my appetite is down so hopefully I'll stop gaining so much weight if this keeps up! LOL

We had a bit of a stressful week with a pregnancy scare at 25 weeks, but things seem to be going a bit better now. We had an appointment with the midwife last night and she said not to worry.

Good news is that my baby bedding is completely done and I really love it! I'm so happy that I decided to make my own baby bedding because now I have exactly what I want. Our crib is all set up and the color of the crib looks beautiful up against the pale lilac color walls. I will post pictures once the room is all done! We set up (correction... JOSEPH set up) our glider a few nights ago. Now the only thing left to set up is our changing table. Once that is done I'm going to add a few vinyl decals to the room and call it good!

I love this little girl so much! Joseph and I can't wait to see her. I think she is starting to recognize Joseph's voice. On Sunday morning she wasn't moving around very much when I was downstairs by myself. I went upstairs to wake him up about an hour later. Once he started talking she started moving tons! It was really cute. She wasn't just shifting around, she was full on kicking hard. Joseph felt almost every movement. It was such a fun experience.