Almost 3…

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Mdfrisco

Yes, I know I am on a blogging roll! So much to share these days! We had our follow up appointment today and I am now almost 3 cm dilated! I am still having a few mini contractions a day, but they are random and nothing to really keep track of. Everything else looks great, he is in position still and she guessed him to be about 7 to 7.5 lbs. She basically told me it could be any day. So we wait…There are things that I heard about pregnancy and always thought they would never been an issue with me, now that I am 38 weeks, I can say that I was wrong. Here are the things that surprised me the most.

Tying my shoes…
Pssshh…I’ll always be able to tie my shoes, or bend over to pick something up…yeah right. For the most part during my pregnancy, I wore flip-flops or slip-ons which made taking my shoes on and off so easy, I never thought twice about the difficulty of this simple task. Now that it has been so cold (yes I know I am in Southern California, but it has been really cold by Southern California’s standards) I’ve been breaking out my uggs, boots and tennis shoes and the simple task of putting on my shoes has now been transferred over to my husband. I just can’t do it anymore.

Preggo brain…
Throughout the years while all my friends were pregnant, I kept hearing them talk about “preggo brain” and I never really thought much about it or took it seriously. If you know me well you know that I have a pretty good memory and am able to recall things with specific detail. I am the one that my friends turn to to when they can’t remember something. I can remember things like street names, birthdays, wedding anniversaries, I am great with directions, recalling what someone was wearing, what year something happened, etc… you get the point. On the day I took my pregnancy test, I had blood work done at my doctors office in the morning, my mom was in town and after my appointment we went to breakfast, did some shopping and ran some errands while we waited for the phone call with the results. That day I can’t tell you how many wrong turns I took, forgetting to go somewhere we needed to go, I almost felt like a stranger driving in my own town, I didn’t know where I was going, and that is really unusual for me, Justin would be the first to tell you that I am a backseat driver and am constantly telling him where to go. I figured I was distracted since I was waiting for my test results, besides at 4 weeks pregnant, preggo brain is not really that much of a problem, right?

One morning earlier in my pregnancy, Justin and I were getting ready for work and I said something about him taking the dog out for a walk before he left, he looked at me and said “I have my morning meeting today, remember” meaning it was my turn to walk the dog. I said “No, it’s Tuesday, you have your meetings on Wednesday, you always walk the dog on Tuesday mornings”, again he looked at me and this time had kind of a funny look on his face and said “No my meetings have been on Tuesday mornings, for a long time” and I was so adamant that he was wrong and his meeting was on Wednesday, that I actually made him second guess himself and he reached for his iPhone to check his calendar, of course he had his meeting on Tuesday AM. He kissed me good bye and I took the dog for a walk. While I was walking the Apollo I was still mulling things over in my head and feeling really confused, but it eventually did hit me that his meetings really were on Tuesdays (in my defense, about 2 years ago they used to be on Wednesdays, so I guess I was traveling back in time?) It doesn’t end there…after walking & feeding the dog I finished getting ready for work and left for the day. When I was halfway to my office I was thinking about something I saw on the news while I was getting ready (don’t ask me what, I don’t remember!) and I was thinking about the TV and couldn’t remember if I had turned it off before I left. But I was not too worried, leaving the TV on would at least provide Apollo with some kind of entertainment. But then I started wondering what else I didn’t do before I left and remembered that I had curled my hair, so I started wondering if I unplugged the curling iron and for the life of me could not remember if I did. In fear or burning down my house, I texted a friend at work and told her I would be late, and turned around. Sure enough, I got home the TV was blaring, curling iron plugged in and to top it off I had left the downstairs window open, which is like an invitation for someone to remove the screen and come into our house (although Apollo would probably bite their leg off). After I turned off the TV, unplugged the curling iron & closed the window, I started my drive back to work laughing at myself and realized that this was truly my first official preggo brain day. So to all my friends, I believe you now, preggo brain is a legitimate thing.

And I am sorry I don’t have a 38 week belly shot to show you. I just simply don’t have the energy right now to put something on that I don’t mind being photographed in and then downloading it to my computer to post on the blog, it’s the little things these days. But here’s a picture of my first baby, he’s absorbing all the love he can get before the little one comes.

Thanks for checking in and will keep you posted 🙂

Showers of love

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Mdfrisco

We always talk about how blessed we are to have such an amazing support group of family and friends. We both come from big families that truly enjoy being together and celebrating together. We have some fantastic friends from college and church who have become our San Diego family. We both also work with some pretty awesome people which is great since we spend all day with them during the week. Plus our childhood friends, clients turned friends and others who we have created friendships with along the way. When we announced that we were pregnant I knew there would be plenty of people who would be so happy for us, but I never imagined the outpouring of love that came from everyone or all the people who wanted to celebrate with us. It has really been special. These people came together and gave baby Frisco 4 baby showers, they’ve sent gifts from all over and they can’t wait to meet him and welcome him into our circle of family and friends. I intended to get a group photo at each of my showers and take lots of pictures along the way…but that didn’t really happen. I’ve learned there are times when I am in the photography mode and want to document everything, but there are also times when I just want to kick back and enjoy it all. Thankfully there were others who took on the job of photographer so I do have a few pictures to share.

First up was Justin’s office. It is not very common that an office that consists of mostly men would get together for a baby shower, but with the wonderful planning of the (female) office administrative assistant they gave us a fun shower! We played baby Pictionary, where everyone agreed that hopefully baby Frisco will not inherit our drawing skills, although I have to say that Justin does have a pretty good artistic side to him, but he wasn’t showing it off that day. We had lots of snacks and yummy cupcakes. We opened gifts and received lots of well wishes and a personalized poem for baby Frisco. Then it was time for family. My aunt hosted both sides of our family at her house. Most of our family lives in Southern California so almost everyone was able to come. We played some games, including one where we all had the name of some famous baby, group of kids, real or cartoon on our backs and we had to ask people yes or no questions to try and figure out who we were. It was a great way to get the party started. Lunch and lots of yummy treats were served. While opening gifts we had the person whose gift I was opening tell a funny story about Justin or I when we were a baby, which brought on some laughs! Everyone brought books along with their gifts to build a library for baby Frisco and I had them all write a note to him on the inside of the books so we can think of them as we read along. I am so excited about the library he has now! Since it was November and we are having a little man, we had a moustache theme in honor of Movember.

Next we celebrated with my girlfriends. One of my San Diego girlfriends paired up with my best childhood friend and threw us another shower. I love all these women and the fact that they are all currently moms to one or two little ones makes for a wonderful resource/support group. This is the group where I soak up the stories and advice and am so thankful that I have them to turn to and lean on when needed. The day was filled with lots of personal touches and crafty Pinterest ideas. The girls who threw the shower are some pretty serious San Diego Charger fans and they did have a little bit of Charger touches here and there…but as hard as it was for them, they did respect Justin’s team and decorated with the Pittsburg Steelers in mind.
This was the one shower that I did get a group shot

And remember these girls…they now have their little girls cradled in their arms!
Last but not least was my office. Opposite of Justin my office consists of mostly women, and with women a baby is definitely a cause for celebration! Two of the girls got together and threw a shower filled with lots of yummy food and champagne cocktails (virgin for me of course)! It is so great to work with people who enjoy being together even after we have worked together all day long. Almost everyone in the office was able to come and baby Frisco got so many fantastic gifts. Sadly we didn’t take any pictures at that shower, but we did get a picture of the adorable Little Prince cake!

Outside of the showers, we’ve had friends take us out to dinner or brunch to celebrate, we get phone calls, emails and texts from people asking if there is anything we need and we are getting gifts from our parents friends. It really has been overwhelming how awesome people are. The bottom line is, it’s really not about the parties and gifts but all the love that everyone has for this little boy. Who knew he would be so popular before he was even born, he is a pretty lucky guy!

Thank you everyone for all your support, we can’t wait for you to meet our little boy!

Twenty Twelve

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Mdfrisco

Yesterday morning at church our pastor asked us to stop and think about the best year of our lives…This was a hard question. There are so many milestones, accomplishments, vacations and fun things we’ve done over the years it is hard to pick just one. I was thinking about when I graduated college, all the fantastic vacations we’ve taken, the year we planned our wedding and got married, etc… But then I started thinking about what I’ve learned in those years and how they have changed me as a person, it was really a thought provoking question. After a few minutes, he asked us to raise our hand if our best year was 20+ years ago, within the past 10 years, 5 years or this last year. As he was asking I was still deep in thought and then both Justin and I raised our hands when he asked if it was this last year. We looked at each other, smiled and Justin put his hand on my belly.

As you know from our story, 2009-2011 were some pretty rough times for us. Sure we took some vacations, celebrated some milestones and had lots of fun along the way, but there was another part of our lives where we were struggling to start a family and it was pretty dark and really hard. 2012 started off pretty hard as well, with some unexpected surprises, surgeries and the stress of going through IVF. But it worked, and it was all worth it. Other than the obvious reason that we are pregnant, I also choose this last year as one of the best years of my life because of what I learned about myself, my husband and our relationship. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t all fun and games, and we didn’t take any wonderful vacations. But I know that I married a wonderful man, our relationship is solid and I know that we can survive the hard times hand in hand. The reconfirmation of that in this past year is also what made 2012 a wonderful year.

I love it when people ask you questions that really make you stop and think. Usually this time of year, we are busy making plans for our New Year’s Eve celebration. It becomes more about staying up past midnight, champagne, noisemakers, dressing up and dancing the night away or watching the ball drop on TV, which is great and I don’t see anything wrong with that. But maybe we should take just a few minutes to stop and reflect back on the year no matter how great or how difficult it was and think about not only what you did, but what you learned about yourself and others, it can really open your eyes and maybe it will help us to make some more realistic resolutions for the new year!

I have a feeling at the end of 2013 I’m going to say that was my best year since we will actually have our little boy in our lives and I know that we have lots of struggles, fun times and learning experiences to look forward to.

Since I cannot do a post without a picture…I’ve waited years to be able to park in the expectant mother parking spaces, and this year I was finally able to do that 🙂

Happy New Year!

Almost 2

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Mdfrisco

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! I can’t believe how fast it flew by! We had our parents, Justin’s grandma and my brother and family over for a traditional German feast on Christmas Eve,
followed by a great service at our church and then back to our house for dessert and game playing. Christmas morning it was our parents, Justin’s grandma and Justin’s sister Stacey and Sue, we had our usual Quiche and homemade sweet rolls. We opened presents

New golf shoes for the daddy to be

and I got the MommaRoo I wanted 🙂

Apollo played Santa
and Molly helped shred the wrapping paper

We had a lot of laughs, played more games and settled down for Christmas dinner. It was a wonderful time with family.

Now that Christmas is over, we’ve spent the last 2 days putting away decorations and finishing up the piles of laundry for baby Frisco. My hospital bag is packed and the car seat is installed. I had an OB appointment this afternoon and all is well, we heard his strong heartbeat and she measured my belly. My blood pressure is good, she also noted that I’ve lost weight since my last appointment, I reminded her that it was actually because I had quite the splurge the day of my last appointment, I learned my lesson not to do that the day I have to weigh in 🙂 And the most exciting thing is she determined after an exam that I’ve started thinning and am almost 2 cm dilated!!! She said what I thought were Braxton Hicks I’ve been feeling actually could be mini contractions, or both. So it could be any day…or a few weeks…we shall see…

Here’s my 37 week belly – Merry Christmas!

Smile

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Mdfrisco

When I was looking for a photographer to do a maternity session, I was trying to find a reasonably priced one. Photographers are not cheap, and with good reason, since I’ve been exploring the world of photography I have a much better appreciation for what goes on to achieve that perfect photo. Especially all the work that is done on the computer after the photo shoot. After researching many photographers I was sitting in the waiting room at my doctors office and they have these gorgeous photos of one of my OB’s kids on the wall and the photographer’s business cards readily available. So I grabbed a card, looked at her website and decided to contact her. There was a discount if you were a patient of my doctor, so we scheduled a session. I was wanting something outdoors that was more of a natural setting rather than a perfectly manicured photo. I was asking her if she knew of any wooded area in San Diego that wouldn’t require us to drive an hour to Julian or somewhere in the mountains. She said there was such a spot she has always wanted to try and was wondering if we would be up for it. Turns out it was exactly what I wanted!

There was a forest of trees and a pathway going through

We took our time trying out all different kinds of angles and poses

Turns out the path was a jogging path, so we had to jump out of the way for a few joggers

But it was perfect, just what I had in mind…

The lighting coming through the trees was beautiful

An outfit change and location change later we found ourselves at the top of Torrey Pines

Looking forward to this picture in the future only replacing the stuffed elephant with a little boy

I love the pop of blue with this neutral setting

This is Justin’s favorite one, he calls this my sassy pose. I have this same picture 6 years earlier, only I’m in my wedding dress

Another outfit change and we headed down the hill to Torrey Pines State Beach

Just in time for the sunset!

San Diego is such an amazing place to live!

15 Minutes of Fame

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Mdfrisco

Yesterday I had an OB appointment. Overall everything is good. My belly measured normal, we heard the heartbeat, and she was feeling around trying to find out where his head was and couldn’t feel it so she got out the ultrasound machine. Which means I got a quick peek at our little guy! Sorry I don’t have any pictures to share, she didn’t print any up. It was just a brief look to see where he was positioned and he is head down, his torso is on the left side of my belly and his feet and hands are stretching out towards the right side of my belly. Same position as the last ultrasound. She predicted that he is probably 5 lbs right now and said we most likely will not have a small baby, which is what we’ve been told from the beginning and is normal for my height. All is well…

We talked about my weight, since it did jump a bit since my last appointment. I was honest and admitted that my diet has been absolutely horrible these last few weeks. I have been so careful and eating really healthy all throughout this pregnancy but this past month has been pretty bad. Mainly because we are so busy that we are rarely ever home for dinner which means eating take out on the go, or when we are home, we’re too exhausted to cook so we order a pizza, or pick up some more bad take out. Plus I’ve developed a sweet tooth that I never had before which is not so helpful. I know all that needs to stop, it’s been bugging me in the back of my mind. She was not too worried, but just told me to keep an eye on it. I also told her that my wedding ring has become uncomfortable to wear due to my fingers swelling and yesterday was the first day that I didn’t wear my ring, she checked my legs and noted that I do have a little bit of swelling which also contributes to the extra weight gain. So it begins…

She also asked me if I was feeling any contractions. I haven’t felt any contractions yet, but definitely braxton hicks. In fact I felt several of them yesterday. She told me if I have more than 6 in 1 hour to go to triage and get checked out to be sure I am not in early labor. Then she proceeded to tell me that I need to slow down…and rest…That is really hard for a person like me to do. I am not the kind of person who will ask for help nor do I feel comfortable resting while someone else is working around me. On top of that as I mentioned before our schedules are kind of insane right now, just like everyone else this time of year and I am trying to wrap things up at work so I feel comfortable starting my maternity leave which has been a big added stress. She kept repeating herself telling me to slow down and r.e.l.a.x. so I need to find a way to do just that, I don’t know how, but I’ll try. I’m afraid if I don’t she’ll put me on bed rest and that will be even worse!

On my way out of the office I didn’t stop to make my next appointment since I have all my appointments already booked until my due date, so I smiled and waved good bye at the receptionist and she stopped me. I went over to talk to her and she asked me if I had professional maternity photos taken (Side note: I found our photographer by the pictures she has on display in the office) I said yes, I did. She grabbed the stack of the photographers business cards from the counter and pulled out a bunch that that had our picture on them. She said I thought that was you…we all love the pictures! So we are famous, at least in my doctors office 🙂

Here’s the front and back of the business/referral card:

Baby Morpher

Posted on December 9, 2012 by Mdfrisco

We’ve had a lot going on since our last update… December is in full swing and we have been busy with baby showers, holiday parties, childbirth preparation classes, fundraisers, etc…I ordered my Christmas cards and did all my Christmas shopping online this year, I love Amazon! I really enjoy going to the stores during the holiday season, it is a great way to get in the Christmas spirit. But this year we really, truly do not have a free day to do that. It makes me a little sad, but I also feel good that everything is ordered and all I have to do is wrap it when it arrives, hopefully they will all arrive before December 24th as promised!

On the baby front, there’s not much new to report. He is active as always and with the help of my mom we’ve been putting the final touches on the nursery, washing the clothes, blankets and putting everything together. You may have noticed that the blog header has changed as well as some of the pictures in about us, we got our maternity photos! I love the way they came out, I will do another post later and show you all of them.

One thing that Justin and I often talk about is what we think our baby will look like. I got an email from TheBump.com that introduced the Baby Morpher tool on their website. So for fun I uploaded a picture of us and it showed us what our baby will look like according to them. Here are the results:

PLUS

EQUALS

Hmmmm, what do you think?

It’s a cute baby but I’m sure baby Frisco will be cuter!

Hiccups

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Mdfrisco

For a few months I’ve been feeling some rhythmic movement in my lower abdomen and never quite knew what it was, I guess I assumed that baby Frisco already had his coordination down and was practicing some kind of tap dance routine for his big debut??? Until a while back someone asked me if I started feeling hiccups yet? Ah ha! It dawned on me, that’s what it is. There are some times when there is no movement except for the hiccups and other times he is squirming the entire time he has the hiccups, I don’t blame him I squirm when I have the hiccups too, it is kind of annoying.

Last night I was wide awake as usual and when I finally lied down to go to sleep, the hiccups started. Really…the entire time we were watching a movie earlier he was still, while I was getting ready for bed, he was napping, while I sat in bed talking to Justin watching TV and waiting for sleep to take over he didn’t move at all. Once I turned out the light and snuggled under the sheets, he woke up…with the hiccups. Guess it wasn’t time for me to go to bed yet. So I started thinking, there are so many remedies for getting rid of hiccups like holding your breath, scaring them out of you, drinking water from the opposite side of the cup while bending over, etc…which led me to thinking, how do you get rid of hiccups while the baby is in the womb? I am sure if you asked Google they would give you all kinds of suggestions, but I actually think it is cute and don’t mind it (even if it keeps me up at night). It gives me reassurance that all is well. Even Justin gets a kick out of feeling the rhythmic movements and seeing my belly jump every few seconds. It’s a whole new world we are exploring these days!

I had an OB appointment today and all is well. She measured my belly and we listened to his heartbeat and everything measures/sounds great! We chatted for a few minutes and she sent me on my way. I go back in 2 weeks. It’s kind of crazy that I wait 30-45 minutes to see the doctor for a quick 5-10 minute visit. But I guess when you are a normal boring pregnant patient that is the norm, and I’ll take normal and boring over complicated and interesting when it comes to this pregnancy!

And here’s a 32 week 5 day belly shot from my point of view!

Dog Thanksgiving

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Mdfrisco

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone…I love the fall season and time spent with family, all the yummy food and laughter around the dinner table. We are very blessed in many ways and I have so much to be thankful for. Most importantly, I am so thankful for my husband, there is no such thing as a perfect marriage, or a perfect person, but I do think we are perfect for each other. Yes, there are times when he frustrates me and I know I frustrate him…but what trumps those times are all the wonderful things that he does. The supportive man that he is. The way he makes me laugh and always tries to make me smile when I am in a bad mood. He takes care of me. He listens (sometimes). He understands my stubbornness (or maybe he just tolerates it). He is compassionate and caring and I know he will be a fantastic role model for our son. Of course I am so thankful for our baby boy growing inside of me, I am thankful for an easy pregnancy, and I can’t wait to meet him!

We headed to Palm Desert for Thanksgiving. The warm holiday (it was 85 degrees) was spread out over 3 days of celebrating with friends and family and…our dogs. We are a dog loving family. I didn’t get a single picture of people over the 3 days, but I did take pictures of the dogs. We were trying to get them all together for one picture, but that didn’t really happen, so here they are in a few pictures.

First up we have Joyce feeding her grand dogs – Callie, Pichu & Apollo

Then there is little Leo who is blind, so he stayed safely away from the chaos.
The star of the day was 11 week old Molly. She played, and played and played…
She even fell in the pool, we now know that she can swim…
After all the excitement she takes a nap in the comfortable hose coil
Here is one of the group attempts that includes Bogey
It appears that we have a black/white and tan/white theme with our dogs. Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

It moved!

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Mdfrisco

Last week I made my first after hours call to my OB. I was having lots of pain on my ‘outer’ belly. It started while I was at work shortly after lunchtime, I tried standing, sitting, walking around and nothing was helping. I wasn’t too worried because I know general aches and pains are normal and I wanted to give it some time to see if it went away before I started to worry. When I got home I took the dog for a walk and I started getting some cramps, shooting pains and my belly got really hard. So I started wondering if this was Braxton Hicks? I Googled the symptoms and Google told me that my symptoms could have been a wide variety of things. Plus I’ve never been pregnant before so how am I supposed to know if I am having “upper uterine pain,” what does that feel like?? I decided to just sit down and relax for a bit and see if it stopped. I called Justin and he was stuck in traffic on the way home, so we talked while he inched his way on the freeway. After about 5 hours of the pain, I finally called my OB. She said that if I continued to have the cramps and 4-6 of them in an hour timeframe then I should go to triage to get checked out. And the pain on my outer belly was most likely just intense growing pains and the outer layer of my belly was just stretching. Great…Justin’s response to that was, “well if you wake up in the morning with stretch marks you know why”…thanks babe. By the time I went to bed that night the pain was subsiding and I was able to fall asleep. The next day I woke up and all the pain was gone, and I haven’t felt it again since. It was just weird because I haven’t had any kind of pain like that all this time, then all of a sudden this intense pain came and then it was gone the next day like it was never there. Weird. Anyway, other than that day, I’m still feeling good! The only frustrating thing is not being able to get comfortable sleeping. It’s not so much that I am not getting a full nights sleep anymore (I’ve pretty much given up on that for the next 18 years) it is just when I am ‘sleeping’ it is uncomfortable and I am constantly shifting and moving to try and get comfortable, not to mention getting up to go to the bathroom. Oh well…it’s all worth it.

On to the point of this post, I had my follow up appointment today and all looks well! My blood pressure is good, baby’s heartbeat was 145, I asked about the decrease in the heart rate since it is usually around 150 and she said it is perfectly normal, they do want the baby’s heartbeat to start slowing down as he gets bigger. She also said she could hear some fluctuation in his heartbeat which is also good since it is a sign of activity. She confirmed again that my glucose test was well within the normal range. She did mention that I gained 6 pounds this last month instead of 4 (they recommend you gain 1 pound a week)…she said it is fine, I am still within the healthy range, she just doesn’t want the baby to get too big. I have a feeling he is going to be big anyway since my IVF doctor told me we had a big healthy embryo to start with. So how am I supposed to get through this holiday season and only gain 1 pound a week?? Hmmm I don’t think this is going to work out well. And the big news that we have been waiting for….my placenta moved!! So no C-Section for me!! Yay!! Now I can start worrying about my water breaking in public and the whole labor and delivery process 🙂

My OB visits will now be every 2 weeks until I get to 36 weeks then I start going every week. These weeks are going to fly by faster and faster! My baby project these days have been finding a pediatrician, with input from my friends and my boss (who is a doctor himself) I think I have a plan figured out, but still need to call my insurance company to make sure everything is covered. Thanks for checking in!

Here’s my 30 week 5 day belly.

The Frisco Project

Adventures in life, pregnancy, friendships, family & a little photography

Author Archives: Mdfrisco