Last blog post??

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving 2012 is already here and gone. Before we know it, Christmas will be here and then New Years...and then Brooklyn not too long after that! Wow!

We've had an exciting and fun week so far. Monday, we had a 4D ultrasound done before my regular appointment. I was so excited to get a sneak peek of what Brooklyn actually looks like! She's still got some fattening up to do, but we can tell who she's going to look like! The consensus is that she either has my nose or my sister's nose, so everyone has been saying she looks "just like me." I'm horrible at looking at babies and deciding who they look like, so I'm just going with everyone else's opinion. Guess we'll find out soon enough anyway! During the ultrasound, Brooklyn put her thumb in her mouth, smiled several times, stretched her head back, and put her hands in front of her face. So cool! I forgot to ask how big she was, but I'm assuming she's right around 2 lbs. Here are some of the best pictures we got. The whole time, she was nestled up close to the placenta, so we couldn't get a great shot of her whole face, but the pictures are still good...

Having sweet dreams :)

Long fingers!! She got that from both of us...

I'm glad we ended up doing the 4D ultrasound. It's not covered by insurance, so we had to pay for it, but it was definitely worth it! Knowing that I had the chance to see what she looks like was too hard to pass up :)

Tuesday, I had the pleasure of doing a 2 hour glucose tolerance test. They test everyone between 24 and 28 weeks for gestational diabetes, so this was the time! The morning started off badly when I got there at 7 AM, and I was already #26 in line for lab work. That meant I got to wait for over an hour just to get started. Basically, they drew my blood and made me drink this nasty sugary gatorade-type drink. Then I had to have blood drawn again in an hour and more blood drawn another hour after that. This was a fasting test, so I couldn't eat breakfast or anything else until I was completely finished. By about 10 AM, it was almost time for the last blood draw, but I was feeling horrible by then. It had been like 14 hours since I'd eaten anything and had nothing to drink but that sugary drink. Recipe for disaster! I finally left around 10:30 AM and ate something, but the whole rest of the day I had a headache and just felt terrible. I'd heard that if you fail the test, you have to do a 3 hour test the next time with an even MORE sugary drink, so I was hoping and hoping for good results. Luckily, they called Wednesday morning and told me I passed!! Glad to have that behind me :)

Yesterday, of course, was Thanksgiving, and it also marked 27 weeks along! This year, I have so much to be thankful for. We have the best church family, physical family, and friends. We have a baby on the way, and I've had a smooth, easy pregnancy so far. We have a comfortable house to live in and good jobs. God has really blessed us!

I wish I could post my 27 week picture and some of our Thanksgiving pictures from yesterday, but unfortunately Blogger is not my friend anymore. Actually, I guess it's Google. Apparently, I've used up my 1 GB of storage for pictures on my blog, and you have to pay for additional storage. Boo! I'm too cheap to do that, and I don't want to delete any old pictures, so I may be creating a new blog soon. I guess it's a fitting time to make a new blog since it soon won't just be "Trav + Erin" anymore! :)

Stay tuned for the latest! If I have to create a new blog, I'll link to it from here :)

Baby has a name!

Since I've been MIA for a while, I guess I need to do a 2-week catchup!

Last Week
This was a CRAZY week! I worked 40 hours, which I rarely do...thankfully. It made me appreciate what Travis does every week much more! Somehow I survived, but it left little time for blogging. I pretty much spent the week working, sleeping, and eating. Last Thursday marked 25 weeks. We had to move our weekly picture taking session inside because Travis isn't making it home before dark anymore. Sad day! Saturday, we made a quick trip to Birmingham to hang out with Aimee and Gary for Gary's birthday. We watched the A&M game while we were there, and it was a heartbreaker. I guess we didn't deserve to win the game because we played horrible, but they got my hopes up by making it SO close at the end!!

25 weeks

This Week
This week has been much more low-key...I've actually had a couple of days off from work! Monday, Travis was off for Veterans Day, so we spent most of the afternoon hanging a new ceiling fan in our bedroom. Bye bye, ugly white and brassy gold fan!! We won't miss you at all! I haven't gotten to take a picture of it yet, but our bedroom is a work in progress at this point. Two weekends ago, we moved Travis's desk into our room from the study (which will soon be the NURSERY!). So, now we need to hang a few pictures in our room, and then our room will finally be finished! Travis has adjusted really well to his desk's new home...haha...I guess this is just the start of making sacrifices for our little girl! :)

Speaking of our baby, Sunday was a new milestone. We not only felt her kicking....we could SEE it by my belly twitching! Really cool! She has gotten to be really active the past few weeks. Today marks 26 weeks, and right now, she is probably around 14 inches long and 1 2/3 lbs. I'm still jogging a couple of times a week. I've cut back to about a mile at a time. I can tell that my lungs don't have as much room as they used to...which makes it much harder to run! Our next appointment is Monday afternoon, and we are doing the 4D ultrasound then! I hope we get some great pictures!!!! :)

26 weeks

The cats are loving the new "nursery". It qualifies as a nursery because it has a changing table in it, right? Haha...I guess we'll get it done by February. Turns out that a changing table makes the perfect kitty bed. Felix and Gabby think we bought it just for them! Look who I caught up there the other day...

"It's the perfect size for a kitty!"

"You mean this isn't for ME, Mom???"

We've also caught Gabby up there, so it's not just Felix who's claiming it. What are we going to do with those kitties?? They're just too cute!

Gabby's favorite way to be held

The biggest news of the week is that Baby Grant now has a name!!!!!! I cannot even count the number of times we've been asked whether she had a name yet....I feel like it has been thousands of times :) So, now we can finally say yes! Travis and I hadn't been disagreeing about names; we honestly just hadn't sat down and talked about it yet. So, Tuesday was the night! Here's the play-by-play...

How An Engineer Names His Baby

Step 1 - Look at websites for possible names. Don't forget the Social Security website...it even tells you the most popular names by state! Have your wife make her own list. Do this separately so you don't influence each other! Your lists should have a minimum of 25 names each.

Step 2 - Rank your list of names in order. Put your most favorite names at the top and least favorite ones at the bottom. Make sure your wife ranks her list also. And, this is KEY....put each list into an Excel spreadsheet. Anything worth doing well must involve a spreadsheet. Amen.

Step 3 - Now, it's time to compile your lists into ONE spreadsheet. Beside each name, make a column for your own ranking and your wife's ranking. If a certain name is on BOTH of your lists, put each person's ranking out beside it. If a name only appears on one of your lists, the ranking from the other spouse should be designated "26". Once all the names are on the list, you will sort them by ranking from top to bottom. This new order will include the individual rankings from both spouses.

Step 4 - Eliminate any names from the list that either you or your spouse cannot stand. But, DON'T delete them from the spreadsheet....you simply need to "hide" them in the spreadsheet. This will simplify the list down to only names that both of you like. At this point, you probably will have narrowed your list down to about 15 or so names.

Step 5 - Now, using the new, shortened list, you should re-rank the names in order from most favorite to least favorite. Your wife should do this separately...on her own laptop. Email her the new list so she can accomplish this task.

Step 6 - Now, in a single spreadsheet, re-sort the list of names using each of your individual rankings. Sort the list from most favorite to least favorite.

Step 7 - At this point, the spreadsheet has done its duty. You must discuss the final list of names, and decide on one. Your preferred name will probably be one of the top two or three in the list. It's NUMBERS, remember??? :)

I do love my engineer husband...I just like to poke fun at his spreadsheet love :) So, that's what our Tuesday night looked like. It really didn't take as long as it might seem like it would. We were finished in maybe 1 1/2 or 2 hours I think. We finally narrowed down our favorites to three of them, so I guess we'll have other options if we have another girl in the future. Oh, by the way, that's another step....don't throw away your spreadsheet! Save it for the next time around :)

Our little girl's name is going to be...Brooklyn Reese Grant!!! Back in college, one of my clinical instructors had a daughter named Brooklyn, and I have LOVED that name ever since then. And....we just liked "Reese" with "Brooklyn"....no family names or anything. Now, apparently I biased Travis toward the name "Brooklyn" because I mentioned it as a possibility several weeks ago. Oops :) He does like it though!

We're excited to be able to call her something other than Baby Grant!!!

Latest Baby News + Mystery Plumbing Problems!?

Yesterday, we made it to 24 weeks along! I'm still feeling great; the only thing I've noticed lately is that I wake up a lot during the night. I guess it's because I don't like sleeping on my side, but sleeping on my stomach right now is definitely out! Jenn got me a Boppy full body pillow for my birthday, so that has really helped a lot. I may even keep using it after February! :) This week, Baby Grant is apparently close to a foot long and weighs over a pound. You'd think she's even bigger than that judging by the size of my belly!

24 weeks

We found out some interesting news this week. I don't think I mentioned that at our last appointment, Travis did the same genetic test that I did several months ago. You know...spit into a test tube and mail it off to California. Well, we got the results a few days ago. He's a carrier for Factor V Leiden Thrombophilia also!!! That was the only thing that came back positive, and of course, it would be the same thing I'm a carrier for too. Apparently, our awesome blood clotting abilities attracted us to each other :) Knowing that doesn't really change much, but it does mean that our kids could not just be carriers of Factor V, but they could have the full blown thing. That would increase their risk of a blood clot by 18 to 80 times in 1000, whereas a carrier's risk is 4 to 8 times in 1000. Just something to be aware of, I guess, especially as Baby Grant gets older. Factor V rarely causes problems in kids, but the risk goes up as you get older.

 We had a fun weekend in Trussville and Tuscaloosa! Thanks to my parents and grandparents, I now have all of the bedding and accessories for the nursery. That was my birthday present this year :) Can't wait to set it all up. We also went to the Alabama game on Saturday, and that was a lot of fun. It was a little cold, but not too bad once we got in the stadium. After not getting back from the game until 1:15 AM though, I was exhausted on Sunday!

I think I'm just about finished with my registries at Target and Babies-R-Us. Travis left it all up to me, so hopefully I picked out some good stuff. I'm sure I'll tweak it a little bit over the next couple of months, but at least I'm mostly finished :) While at BRU, I decided to go ahead and buy a baby book. I found one with an elephant on it, and since the nursery bedding has elephants, I couldn't pass it up. It is really cute! It's pretty detailed, so hopefully I will stick with it and fill out all the pages. I need to get started with the first few pages already!

We also got the neatest gift in the mail on Wednesday from Jennifer Baxter, a friend from Tuscaloosa. She made us the cutest tissue box holder and piggy bank. She patterned the tissue box holder after the nursery bedding, and it looks awesome! Thanks again Jennifer! :)

Changing the subject, yesterday we woke up with no hot water in the house. It wasn't just coming out cold; it was barely trickling out. The cold water faucets worked fine though. We both worked all day, and when we got home last night, there was still no hot water. When we turned the hot water faucet on, cool water just barely came out like it did yesterday morning. Travis checked the hot water heater, and when he pulled the drain, no water came out at all. We thought it had quit working. Then, around 10:30 PM, we magically had hot water again just like normal. Are we going crazy? I have no idea how the problem fixed itself, but hopefully it will keep working and we won't have to call any plumbers this weekend! Any plumbers out there know what was wrong??? Maybe someone was playing a late Halloween prank on us...

I'm looking forward to resting and relaxing some this weekend. Tomorrow, we're following tradition and making gumbo for the LSU game. Hope we win!

Enjoy your weekend! :)