Maternity Photo Shoot

Just reached 32 weeks (8 months) on Monday July 26. This past Sunday, my sister Tina (Tina Ammons Photography) took maternity pictures for Corey and I. She made me feel beautiful even though I am beginning to feel like a cow! These are just the sneak peaks she has given me, but they turned out so much better than I expected. Can't wait for Colten to be here and be Aunt Tina's new muse. Love you sister!

Baby Showers

Me with my FBCMB Family at my shower thrown by Tina and my mom at Caledonia

Tina, me and my Mom at my shower at Caledonia

Yummy "Rattle" cupcakes made by my sister Tina and my Mom for my shower at Caledonia

Melissa and I at the Burns family shower

Denise, Sarah and I at the Burns family shower

Corey's Grandmom (Mom Mom), his mother Teresa and I at the Burns family shower

Cake from the Burns family shower

Me with my work family at the couple's shower thrown by my boss Tracy

Cake from my work couple's shower

Just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who has attended my showers or sent us gifts! Thank you to Melissa, Denise, Tracy, Tina, and my mom for hosting showers for me. And also to my Aunt Kym and Grandmother who will be hosting my last shower in August. There are way too many pics from the showers to post but I did want to put some pics of the cakes/cupcakes from the showers as they were all so creative! Colten is being spoiled already with his gifts. Thankfully my mom is coming over this weekend to help me organize everything! Thank you cards have been written, I just keep forgetting to drop them in the mail!

31 weeks and belly pics!

The belly at 31 weeks

View of my belly looking down while sitting at dinner with friends. Thought this angle was funny...2 days shy of 31 weeks in this pic

I can't believe that I am only 1 week shy of being 8 months prego! This past weekend, we went out to dinner with some friends at Market Common. It was really nice to have a night out with everyone, since those might be few and far between pretty soon!

Monday - I had my 31 week checkup. My blood pressure was a little high (135/75) but I expected that. It has been a stressful few weeks at work. The attorney that I am the paralegal for has been out for about 3 weeks with health problems, and just last week had to have a brain tumor removed. Unfortunately, we have found out that she will be battling cancer for the 3rd time. She has had 2 bouts with breast cancer, and has been cancer free for almost 2 years. Her pathology showed that the breast cancer has metastasized to her brain. Thankfully the surgeons were able to remove all except for a small sliver too close to her spinal cord. She will undergo 10 radiation treatments over a 2 week period and will then have monthly scans to check for cancer popping up anywhere else. We have been very busy so it was shock to suddenly not have her here, plus now it looks like she will be out of work until I start my maternity leave. So....lots of pressure at work!

Colten's heartbeat was great, and then came the news that my uterus was measuring 4 weeks ahead! At my 28 week checkup, my uterus measured 29 cm. At this checkup (31 wks) it measured 35 cm! She felt my belly and said she thought Colten was heads down with his butt up on one side, and his feet on the other side (at least he isn't kicking me in the ribs!). She said he could just be in a position that is pushing my uterus up higher than normal, or he could be having a growth spurt and will even out. Either way, she scheduled me to come back in 2 weeks for a growth ultrasound to have him measured. If he is measuring larger than average, she said they will start checkin my cervix sooner for signs of thinning/dilation. If he measures normal, they will start checking my cervix at 36 weeks. Either way - they definitely won't let me go past 40 weeks, but may not want me to go past 38 or 39 if he is large.

Apparently my father in law was a 10 lb baby (thanks Teresa for never telling me this til now! haha) and Corey was almost 8lbs, but being born in Colorado with the altitude difference apparently may have been closer to 9 lbs had he been born here. The men in my family are of a large stature, not overweight just big boned and built like professional baseball and football players. So...we may have a big boy on our hands! I am just hoping that if I need to go earlier because of his size that my body is ready to go into labor on its own or be induced so that I can still deliver naturally and not have to have a c-section. Our plan is to try and get through as much of the early/mid labor as possible without pain medication (or possibly only Stadol) so that I can walk around and use the birthing ball to let gravity help him move down. If I can get through it completely great, but if not I would just like to labor as much as possible before getting the epidural. But - I have never been through anything like this, so if I go in and get the epidural at 2 cm I will feel no shame! :)

I go back August 2nd for my 33 week check up and the growth ultrasound.

Baby Burns has a name!

On July 10th, Corey and I took our childbirth class at Grand Strand Hospital. It was about 5 hours long. We watched many videos about going into labor, laboring without pain medication, laboring with pain medication/epidural, C-sections, after-birth, etc. After all of the videos, the nurse showed us the labor and delivery section in the hospital and explained their procedures and security. I thought the videos would freak us out, but they actually made Corey more excited. He kept telling me I would be superwoman after giving birth! Once we were in the delivery area, he kept saying "Lets just have him now while we are in the hospital."

It has been nice to see Corey get more and more excited about the impending arrival of our baby boy. I think the bigger I get, and the more Corey sees my belly being kicked around the more real everything seems. I think his turning point was definitely the 4D ultrasound and getting to see our sweet boy's face :)

After the class, we decided to take a shopping trip to Bass Pro. For the last week or so, we had been trying out using our top 3 baby names to see if any of them clicked. Well, we only did this with one name actually! When we arrived at Bass Pro, I asked Corey if he wanted to try out one of the other names for the day. He said not really, that he thought the other name was it. We just kind of dropped the conversation for the time being.

That evening, we went to Applebee's for dinner. Again, I asked Corey about using one of the other names, and he said he just felt like we had already named him. Surprisingly, we both agreed that we had finally picked his name without any arguing or compromising.

So....drumroll please....we are naming our son Colten Thomas Burns! Corey wanted a "C" name like him and we originally thought about using his middle name Allen because Corey liked the idea of him having the same initials. I really liked how Thomas sounde with Colten, and we both think he will be a lot like my dad (whose name is Thomas) so we felt like that fit better. Colten was just a name we both really liked.

We announced to my parents and sister the next day at lunch what his name would be, and then Corey called his family that evening to let them know. It feels great to finally have a name for the little guy constantly moving around inside of me!

4D Ultrasound

Corey and I had a great July 4th weekend. On Saturday the 3rd, our families joined us at Special Delivery Prenatal Imaging for our 3D/4D Ultrasound. Baby Burns cooperated and showed us his sweet face! He still likes his hands by his face but after jiggling my belly around we got him to move them. It was funny to watch him would I would jiggle my belly because he would grin. He likes to suck on his hands and his thumb and even opened his eyes once for us. We also double checked to make sure he was still a boy - and yes he is! That night, we had a cookout at my Grandmothers house for a bunch of family birthdays. My cousin Laura and her husband Brad were in town with their baby boy Camden. He is just a month old and so sweet! Our cousin Wendy, who is 3 weeks behind me in her pregnancy with a girl, was also there with her husband. It was great to spend time with our family. My mom even found some pictures of me right after I was born, and looks like our little boy has my nose and mouth. We will have to wait and see whether or not it stays that way!

Cysts are gone!

Things have been pretty busy lately so sorry for the lack of updates! Corey and I had our follow up ultrasound on June 28. When we arrived I drank the cherry flavored glucola mix for the 1 hr diabetes test and then went in for the U/S. Praise God that our baby's cysts had completely gone away on their own! Next I went back to the lab for the blood draw after letting the glucola sit for an hour and also had my antibodies tested again. Afterwards we had our check up and everything was normal. I had to go back 2 days later for my Rhogam shot since I am A-. I am assuming that my glucose test was normal since I was never called back to come back in.