Richie McDonald, former lead singer of Lonestar, is coming to Bear Creek! He has written #1 hits such as "I'm Already There" and "My Front Porch Looking In." As one of best song writers in country music, Richie is now touring as a solo artist promoting his upcoming album "Slow Down." Join us Saturday, February 13 at 7pm. Tickets are $25 and in limited supply for this intimate setting. Proceeds from the concert will go directly to Bear Creek's Puerto Rico mission trip during Spring break. Tickets may be purchased by email (ethan@bearcreek.cc), by phone (817-396-4304), or stopping by the church office. You can also visit www.bearcreek.cc for more information!
Bath time with Claire is always so much fun! She LOVES the bath and loves to play! Someone (BB and Gigi) has taught her how to splash people while in the bathtub...we are trying to break that fun habit right now :)
Yesterday after school my back was hurting - which is totally normal for me. As I was getting ready to leave the pain started getting pretty intense and started traveling to my hip and around into my abdomen. At 17 weeks I had read, and remembered, that round ligament pain would start about then so I just figured that was what was causing the pain. Fast forward to church and the pain was so great that I was having trouble walking. Around 7:15 I went on my favorite baby information website and looked up round ligament pain to see how long it should last - they said no longer than 5 minutes at a time... Mine had been going on for 4 hours and was getting worse. I excused myself from youth and went and made a phone call to my doctor. My doctor wasn't on call so I was having to wait on an unknown doctor to call me back. Finally around 8:30 he called me back. I described my symptoms to him, he did tell me that sometimes round ligament pain can last longer than 5 minutes, but since Tylenol wasn't helping and my pain was getting worse, and I could barely walk that I should go ahead and go into the ER. He said it could be anything from my kidneys to something wrong with the baby - but he was hoping it was just muscle aches and pains. At this point Michael was still at church, so I called him and told him we needed to go into the hospital to get checked out. Luckily our friend Patti was sitting there when he asked me what we were going to do about Claire - Patti lovingly came to our house to "watch" Claire while she was asleep so we could go to the hospital. At the ER they got me checked in very quickly and in a room. They checked all my vitals and they looked good at that point. A nurse came in to take blood - she was too busy talking to us about Lost (ha ha) that she blew my vein...but we did finally get the blood. The doctor came in for 30 seconds and asked me 3 or 4 questions, ordered a sonogram and left. We sat there for about an hour before the sono tech came to get me. When she came, Michael stood up to come with us and she told him he wasn't aloud to go with me - I could see on Michael's face that he was not happy - at all!!! She took me in a dark room and explained to me that she could not show or tell me anything. That she would do a full sonogram measuring everything but I would know nothing until the doctor came to talk to me. I asked her if she could at least tell me if the baby's heart was beating and she said no. It was aweful! I just had to lay there and stare at the ceiling not knowing if my baby was ok. This lady had the most amazing poker face as well - I could not tell ANYTHING from her if the baby was ok or not ok. She said it would take about 20 minutes to read the results and the doctor would be with us. It was the longest 20 minutes of my life. I looked at Michael and said that I wasn't sure that I wanted some unknown doctor to come in and tell me there was something wrong with my baby and that I wished our doctor was there with us because he would have great compassion for the situation. I prayed so hard during that time, and cried out to God for everything to be ok. When the doctor finally came in my heart was racing. He litterally poked his head in the door and said - everything came back fine. The baby is healthy with a heart rate of 153. The baby is measuring exactly 17 weeks and you are just having muscle spasams. I'll get the nurse in here to check you out. Only take Tylenol and nothing else. Follow up with your regular doctor. And walked out. I was so relieved that we were both ok. I said to Michael - I would hate to see how he delivers bad news...he was quick to the point and out the door! We finally got home around 11:45 - thanked Patti and Brent for watching Claire for us. Before this point I was determined to go to work today - but seeing that my pain hadn't let up I decided that I should probably stay home rather than push myself into more pain. So all this to say - we have a very healthy baby! Heart beat is at 153 and strong! Some random sonogram tech knows if we are having a boy or girl, but she can't tell us - ha! I am at home resting and gearing up for work tomorrow!
We are 16 weeks along! I can not believe that I am this far along already! It is going by crazy fast! We went to the doctor today and heard the heart beat again - I literally could hear that sound everyday and it would never get old!
Morning sickness/ nausea- this has increased since my last post. However, it is still not as bad as my first pregnancy. The week we started back to school after Christmas was probably the worst week - and now the morning sickness seems to only come once a week or so.
Weight gain - 1 pound! I was very nervous since the last month contained the holidays but was very pleased to see that I had kept it under control!
Maternity Clothing - Pretty much everything I wear... I can still wear t-shirts and some tops, but all my pants are maternity pants.
Movement - I have started feeling the baby move! This happened a while back. I thought I was crazy when I thought I felt the baby move around week 13 into 14 but it was definitely baby. The baby is pretty still during the day - unless I am sitting. The baby is pretty active right before I go to sleep - which is exactly like Claire was. Gender - We found out today that we will be having our first sonogram on February 15th! We will also find out the gender of the baby at this time! I am so excited!!! I have started a poll to the right of this post for you to tell us what you think the baby will be! Boy? or Girl?? Let us know!!!
After several weeks of VERY cold weather we were blessed with 2 beautiful days of 70 degree weather! Today we asked Claire if she wanted to go outside and she almost hurt herself trying to get to the door. We haven't really had a chance to practice her tricycle, so that is what we started on. She is getting the hang of it - she can't go fast, and would much rather me push her around, but I think she is going to get it soon. She then started asking to slide - we don't have a slide so we were a little confused. She kept pointing over to the storage area on the porch and we finally realized that she wanted to swing. So, we asked her if she wanted to swing and she looked at us and said "Yeah mommy and daddy!" Like, thank goodness you finally figured it out! So we got to swing for a little while! I am so very ready for spring and to be able to get outside all the time and play!
Claire is 22 months old today! She changes so much each and everyday! She learns new words daily and usually surprises us with the songs that she knows! She can sing her ABC's, twinkle twinkle little star, Jesus Loves Me, You Are My Sunshine, Bingo, The Elmo song, tons of her songs from her MP3 player - and I know I am leaving some out. She is going through a "picky" eating stage - one day she will love a certain food and the next day she will hate it but give it a few days and she will like it again. She wants to be a big girl when she is eating and likes things whole - she cries when we cut up anything that mommy and daddy are eating whole. She has, randomly, learned that B says /b/ and Q says /q/ - that is all thanks to her fridge phonics! She can id some colors - she is really good at yellow and red. Purple and blue tend to mix her up. Her favorite activities right now are cooking in her kitchen and coloring - if she could color all day long I think she would! She LOVES the movie Nemo and asks if we can watch it about 20 times a day. For our sanity we try to limit it to once or twice a week. She loves talking to the baby in mommy's tummy! She will kiss it and "hug" it. The other night she was singing a song to it. She goes back and forth between if it is a girl or boy. She calls the baby by both names depending on what mood she is in. We do not ask her about the baby in public because she will want to lift up my shirt and show the world her baby :) We can not believe that she will be 2 in 2 months!! We have already started prep on her birthday party!!!
FYI - those of you with a Sam's card - the dress she has on is Carter's and they are on sale for $5! They have tons of different designs!!!
Claire got a horse for Christmas. She loves her horse. She feeds her horse, she pets her horse, she talks to her horse - the whole nine yards. However, she is terrified to sit on her horse. Grandma Suz told her that it is totally ok just to have a horse and never sit on it - that they make wonderful pets that way and they still love you! And we thought that was how Claire would be with her sweet little horse. Until last week! We asked her if she wanted to sit on her horse, which usually gets a big no, but this time she said yes! So we put her on it and she sat there for a while! She still looked a little scared but she kept saying - he's sweet! We think that she might actually come around to playing on her little horse!
