• 25 weeks! 15 to go! I had a Doctors appointment this week and everything is going great. I am measuring right on schedule. The heartbeat sounds beautiful. I told the doctor that Mark and a couple other people have already felt her move a couple times for the last couple weeks and she said that that is somewhat early for others to be able to feel her so we must be having an athlete! My guess is a soccer player, by some of the kicks I’m getting. All I need now is a minivan and we’ll be good to go….well…maybe we’ll skip the minivan part. Mark is always barking about what terrible drivers women in caravans are. So I’ll just stick with my little Honda. Other than that, everything is going great. We had our Miller Family mini vacation at WI Dells last weekend, and had a lot of fun. Except for the part where I had to put on a swimming suit J. Terri was here from Hollywood, so the WHOLE family was together! I have pictures posted on another page. Todd and Barbie gave us a huge box of baby clothes. It was like Christmas when we came home. I had to pull out every piece of clothing and look at it and show Mark. It was great! Everything is so cute! I can’t wait to see her in all of them.

Mark and I booked a vacation this week. We are actually doing another cruise to the Caribbean. We leave on 4/16 and will be gone for a week. We don’t plan on doing many excursions, just a lot of kicking back and just relaxing. We got a room with a balcony, so I’m sure I’ll spend a lot quiet time there reading. It's the last vacation where we won’t be thinking/worrying/taking care of our baby or kid (Yay!!!!!). It’s a little scary to think about. But I love it. Now we will have an excuse to go to all the fun places like Disney! But we are definitely making this a week of just relaxing. I can hardly wait.

We got a call this week from the place that we ordered furniture from. They told us that all of our furniture is in, except the crib. Obviously the most important part. But that is fine. We have no plans to pick it up until the baby’s room is done. We still have almost 4 months to go and haven’t started that room at all yet! That is on the top of my list of ‘things to do for May’. We are going to start seriously thinking about what we are going to do with that room, once we get back from vacation.

• March 27th - Happy Easter!  It is strange to think that next Easter I will be feeding my 8 month old baby!  But I can't wait.  Terri came to town this weekend and we spent most of the day together on Saturday.  We went shopping and had a lot of fun looking at all the baby stuff.  I was hoping she would be able to see my tummy move, but the baby was being stubborn (can you imagine a child of Marks being stubborn??), so maybe next weekend when we are all in WI Dells she might cooperate :).  We had lunch in Fon Du Lac with mom and we tried there to get my tummy to move, but she wouldn't there either!.  I think I might be starting that 'nesting' thing.  We had Steve and Doris over for Easter dinner today, and 50 minutes before they came, I just HAD to clean the entire kitchen floor on my hands and knee's.  It was driving me nuts and I couldn't go another minute without cleaning it.  So it is either nesting, or we just had a really dirty floor.  Could be either one I guess.  But I have been thinking alot this past week about getting the baby's room done.  There is soooo much that we want to do before this kid comes!!  We want to redo the floors in the baby's room, we have to fix the closet, paint and all that stuff. Plus we are probably going to be remodeing our kitchen before she arrives.  There is too much to do and not enough time!!  But I am sure it will all get taken care of. 

• March 16th, 2005 - Finally the website is back up.  I am almost 22 weeks now.  A lot has happend since the last time I wrote in here.  As I type I can feel our little GIRL kicking!! Yup.  It's a girl!  We had our ultrasound a couple weeks ago.   We were going to wait but just couldn't.  Once we saw it on the screen, we just had to know what it was.  She was waving and opening her mouth and moving all over the place. It was amazing and we instantly fell in love.  And the best part is that everything is healthy and just where it is supposed to be.  I actually SAW my belly move for the first time just two days ago.  I felt her kicking, and looked at my belly and all of a sudden a little bulge pushed my tummy up.  It was and is the craziest thing ever.  I love it.  I have been feeling great.  I am gaining weight everywhere, not just my tummy, which is really frustrating, but thats okay.  I am trying to eat healthy and not give in to EVERY indulgance.  Other than that, nothing else is new.   

• Wednesday, February 9th - Had a Dr. Appointment today.  It is so nerve-racking building up to it, then the actual appointment only lasts 10 minutes!  Everything went great though.  We heard that little heartbeat just-a thump'n away.  It is by far the most amazing sound I have ever heard.  I have a huge sigh of relief when I hear it and thank God for this little miracle growing inside me.  It is so amazing.  I wish our Dr. would let us take that doppler thing home with us so I could listen to it all the time.  But no such luck.  I've read that you can hear the heartbeat later in pregnancy with just a stethoscope.  I work in the same office as our Employee Health here at the hospital, and all the nurses are great, so maybe they will let me borrow one sometime.  Not much else happened.  She said I am measuring fine, the heart beat is fine, everything is fine!  We scheduled our BIG ultrasound for March 9th at 9:30.  So everyone keep your fingers crossed and prayers going that everything is good & healthy!  We are not going to find out if it is a boy or girl.  We will just have to wait and see....in July!
  

• Saturday February 5th - 16 weeks! Finally.  This week went really slow, but we have 2, milestone.  One - I definetely see a little baby belly popping out.  I am pretty much wearing all maternity pants.  The shirts I can still get away with, but the pants I can't. I even had someone rub my belly at work on Thursday.  It was very exciting :) and Two - as much as I hate to admit it, I am developing c-ankles!  Whenever I would see the swollen ankles of another pregnant person, I always said that if I were ever pregnant, 'that' would never happen to me.  Well, at the end of the work day yesterday, I look down at my ankles and they were HUGE!  I never realized a regular pair of socks could put such indentations in your skin! But, I went home and went for a long walk and put my feet up for a bit, and they seem to be back to their normal size.  At least for the time being!  I still am not sure if I have felt the baby move or not.  There has been a couple times that I have felt a little 'zinger' or something, and wondered if that is what is was, but I don't know for sure.  I lay in bed at night real still, and just wait, hoping I'll feel something difinitive.  All the stuff I've read said between 16 and 20 weeks for 1st time moms, so probably in the next few weeks.  I had a very vivid "baby dream" last night.  It was very strange.  I dreamed all about the labor (it didn't hurt a bit :)and then had a baby girl! The wierd thing is that the entire Miller family was in the room.  Parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles....EVERYONE!  And the other weird thing is the baby was already talking and had TONS, and TONS of thick black hair!  She actually looked like Todd and Barbie's baby when she was born.  It was strange.