30 weeks

no internet...

...that is my excuse for not blogging in a while. That and we have had just a few things keeping us busy :). Well we are all moved into the new house! Our first night there was Thursday of last week. We LOVE it. Things are slowly getting un-packed and put in their place. The guest room has become the room to put all the crap we don't know what to do with...so that is the next obstacle to tackle in the un-packing process. That and actually making our garage a use-able two car garage, since one side is filled with box's and furniture. I can only say we have gotten as much done as we have because of all of the help we have had. Our family has been wonderful. Thank you so much to everyone who helped us. I will take some pictures of each room and put them up in the next couple days.

The internet guy is coming tomorrow morning. I will not feel so disconnected from the world! I will also take a more recent belly picture to put up. My belly button is about to pop! If only that meant I were done! I know I am only starting to get to the miserable part of the pregnancy...and I know it will only get worse from here (which everyone feels the desire to keep telling me), but here is my list of complaints. I will list them once, and then try not to complain about them again.
...Sleeping at night...not so much happening...or at least not continuous sleep.
...My hips hurt...mostly why I can't sleep.
...My cyatic nerve pain is getting worse, and will continue to as the baby gets bigger.
...New development! Cankles! Yes, that is when your ankles blend into your calves, which mine
do. The past couple of evenings that I have gotten home from work they have been pretty
swollen. Not so bad on my days off...not on my feet near as much.
...Lower back pain...big surprise I know.
...Contractions...usually only when I am at work. They are a bit distracting while I am trying to
work, but once I get home and get off my feet they ease up.

Ok...I think I am done complaining. Overall these are minor things to be dealing with. It could be much worse. I usually take care of people around my due date everyday that are there with way worse conditions than mine! So I will suck it up. The baby is still moving constantly, and now we like to play a little game. It will stick a foot up at the top part of my belly and I will push it back down, and we will do that a few times before it quits playing...sore loser :).

Here is a link to some more pictures of us finishing up the painting and moving everything in!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=45449&l=3e1e4&id=510530691

we love our families...

Jeremy and I decided on the way home tonight that we are so grateful for the families that we have. They are always so willing to jump in and help when we need it. We started painting the new house today! We had Rosann (Jeremy's mom), grandma and grandpa Thiessen, my dad, Hillary, me and Jeremy. Between those of us, we were able to get so much done! My grandma and grandpa Butch brought by lunch for us. Mom also helped with lunch, but she was not able to be there today because she is sick. So we got all three bedrooms completely finished and painted. The living/dining area is primed and painted with the first coat. It just needs the second coat. The bathroom wont take long to finish. The only room we have not started yet is the kitchen. So I think we are making much better progress than we all expected.

So obviously from my last post, things have started going better :). We did get closed on the house and I slowly started to de-stress. Now I think I have finally entered the excitement stage. Once we get done painting, we will start moving in. We are hoping to have most moved in by the end of the weekend. So we will see how that time frame works out for me :). That might be pushing it a little.

Here is a link to some pictures from today and yesterday...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=44107&l=60907&id=510530691

stressing...

Well I think that there is officially too much stuff going on in one week's time. I am trying really hard to not stress about the minor details of everything. Well this past weekend I packed up pretty much our whole house, and then I worked all day yesterday. Today we had our walk-thru at our new house at 11:30 and that went well. All day today I have been communicating with our lender about finalizations for tomorrow morning at our closing. The bank closes at 6 tonight and we have to have a cashiers check tomorrow morning by 9, and they cannot seem to give us the final number that we need to take. I was going to go and get that check before I went to work today, but now Jeremy is going to have to go and get it because I have to be to work by 3. They say we are waiting on the title company at this point. I just had to e-mail him our savings and checking account statements as of today so that can see all of our money. They need to see exactly where the money that we were putting in savings was coming from (Jeremy's paychecks). It all seems kind of ridiculous to me, but whatever. Now they know exactly what we have where up to the hour! Seriously. I guess that is necessary. So then tomorrow morning we will go and close at 9 am, and I will work from 11am-11pm and then early Thursday morning we had to Sioux City to the girls' national tournament for two days. We will come back from that early Saturday morning so I can make it to work by 3, and then work for the next three days....then the painting and moving will begin. I think this post was supposed to serve as a venting/de-stresser for me. I don't know if it really did that...hopefully it didn't make anyone else stressed in the process! I will be so glad when all of this is over. I definitely felt the effects of working so hard over the weekend while I was at work yesterday, so hopefully work is kind to me today!

27 Weeks

Well I have not put a pregnancy update on here in quite a while, so I figured it was about time! We are now 27 weeks pregnant, and the baby is growing very rapidly. Everyone at work continues to give me a hard time about how much bigger I am than our average 27 week patient, and the twins joke is starting to get a little old :). Things are going very very well. The baby moves constantly now, and that is actually starting to become a little uncomfortable at times... I love that feeling, except when my bladder is full :).
Some new things....
...I have this new found love for Sonic (I am there almost every day)
...The baby does not like it when I use my belly as a shelf for things, and when I do it kicks until I move whatever was there.
...The dog is becoming more and more aware that something is different. The baby kicked him
the other day while he was laying on my belly, and he did not like that so much :)
...I am quickly growing out of my maternity clothes! (what exactly are you supposed to do when
that happens?!)
...The baby seems to like the hour of about 7:30 am when I am still trying to sleep
...Oh, and I definitely cannot bend over anymore...I keep trying and I keep reminding myself
that I must squat down to pick things up now. No more bending at the waist.
...And the thing I think I hate most is putting on my shoes. That is proving to be more and
more difficult as each day passes. It is definitely time for flip-flop weather!
...One of Jeremy and I's favorite things to do now is to just sit and watch my stomach move. It
is quite the active child!

I couldn't decide which picture was a better representation of my belly so I am posting two. That t-shirt I am wearing in the pictures used to be pretty big on me!
So a couple days ago at work I asked one of the Dr's to sono me so that we could do measurements of the baby and see how it is growing. Basically we found out that it is growing alright...maybe a little ahead of schedule. There are three measurements that you take when measuring a baby and then combine those three into one. They measure the head circumference, the abdomen circumference and the femur length. The day I had the sonogram I was 26 weeks and 5 days pregnant. This baby came out with an overall measurement of 29 weeks and 4 days...yes...three weeks ahead. Each part of the baby was measuring very consistently around that gestation. The sonogram said the baby weighs 3 pounds and 0 ounces. Now that weight is not totally accurate, but if this kid is anywhere around 3 pounds that is quite large. (Hopefully that all made sense to everyone). I am hoping that if the baby is really this big, then it just decides to go ahead and make its appearance a few weeks early! That would be perfectly fine with me. The sonogram put my due date at May 18th (that is not my actual due date, it is just what the computer thought it should be according to the measurements).

I think that is about all! I will try to be better about putting more frequent updates on here. Jeremy and I close on our new house this coming Wednesday, and then we have possession the following Saturday. We are really excited to get into our new place!! A week from this coming week is mom and dad's spring break, so we are going to be doing a lot of painting and moving during that week so that we can take advantage of their help :).

(This picture is the best picture we got out of the sonogram. The picture is from the knees down, and the baby has its ankles crossed)

KCAC CHAMPS!!

Not very often can a team say they clenched their tournament championship and their overall conference championship. Sterling Lady Warriors did it last night, in their match-up again Southwestern. This has only been done four times in Sterling's history. The girls did an amazing job!! They worked so so hard this season, it was great to see them win...they definitely deserved it. I took our video camera and caught some of the highlights...hope you enjoy the videos! (These are the rough videos, not edited. Jeremy is going to edit them and make them nicer, but we have not done that yet. I apologize for some of the shaky shots, I got a little excited! :)

This video is the starting line up for the Lady Warriors...girls to watch for...Erin number 11, and Hillary number 33.


There was less than a minute to play when I took this video. Erin got a steal and then got fouled and went to the line. She missed her two free throws, but got HER OWN rebound (obviously to just up her stats :), and got fouled again. That put her back at the line and she made both of these free throws, and put them four points ahead. The very beginning of this video is Erin scoring her 4th free throw.


This video is the very end of the game, when they won!!


This video is Erin and Ashley Kraft getting recognized for making the all defensive team in the conference. Only 5 girls get picked for this team. Erin was the only player picked unanimously!


This video shows the players picked for First Team All Conference. Hillary was chosen for this team, as well as Ashley Kraft.


This is the girls celebrate by jumping in the pool. And if you watch, I pan over to get the mom's getting in this time also!




This video is the girls receiving their award for the KCAC Title!


This last video is of some of the girls cutting down the net!


Here are a couple articles from the Hutch newspaper, the Wichita Eagle and the Sterling website if anybody is interested. They had some really nice things to say about Erin and Hillary.
http://www.kansas.com/sports/colleges/story/330633.html
http://www.hutchnews.com/Sports/sterling2008-03-03T22-14-35
http://sterling.edu/athletics/release.cfm?ID=808

Birkey time!

We were lucky to get some good quality Birkey time in this past weekend! They had a family wedding on Saturday, and now that Justin lives here, and Jodi is here until Thursday the kids got a chance to spend some time together! Monday evening me, Jeremy, Justin, Jodi and Melisa took a road trip up to Sterling to see Erin, and go out to dinner with her. It was great for ALL of us to be together at the same time!! That has not happened in a very very long time. Now that exactly half of the Birkey family is living in Wichita (including Justin and Amy after they get married), it is our goal to convince Lowell and Dianne and Jodi to move here. Then we can all be together again for good!
Well this is definitely the most exciting this that has gone on around here in the past couple weeks. I have not had much to update about. But I am putting pictures on here of us and the Birkey's, so those should be good pregnancy pictures for those who want them :).

DR

Well I have been back for one week now, and it feels great to be back. We had a great time, and definitely accomplished our goal in going. People in the town of Monte Plata got necessary surgical procedures and heard the gospel. And then people in little nearby villages were served by our medical team and pharmacy staff. The need here was very great, and by the end of the two weeks it was great to look back and see all that was accomplished. It is definitely great to be back in the states. It was much harder being gone this time than it was four years ago, which I didn't necessarily anticipate because I was going with my two good friends Tessia and Jessica...it is a lot harder being gone when you have a husband here, and have a baby on the way! But God was faithful and he provided us safety while we were there, and brought us back safely! I want everyone to have a chance to see my pictures. So I have uploaded them to facebook, and I am going to put the links on here to all 6 albums! :)

Album 1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40320&l=32146&id=510530691
Album 2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40330&l=18aef&id=510530691
Album 3: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40387&l=25a42&id=510530691
Album 4: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40391&l=f37b4&id=510530691
Album 5: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40576&l=74fcc&id=510530691
Album 6: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40594&l=ef67e&id=510530691

Enjoy!

Hola!

Just wanted to write a quick note and tell everyone (now that I have been here over one week), that we are here and doing really well! We set up our surgical equipment the Sunday after we got here and started operating on Monday. We operated this whole past week, and we have had the weekend off. We went to the beach yesterday, and today is a just going to be a very relaxing day. We are planning on operating Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning of this next week, and then packing up our surgical supplies Wedendsay afternoon, and will be leaving our camp here in Monte Plata Thursday morning. We will then go into the capitol (Santo Domingo) and stay at a resort Thursday and Friday night, and we will fly back to the states Saturday morning. Some days it seems like the end of the day could not come soon enough, but we are having a very good time, and God has definitely been faithful in the services that we have been able to provide.

The internet is very limited here, so this is probably the only time I will update this. It is partially so limited because there are rolling blackouts here about about 8 hours, because people do not pay their electricity bills. Luckily our camp has a generator, so we are not ever out very long, but these little internet cafe`s don´t have generators so then the internet is down for a while. My cell phone actually gets a full signal here! I have been able to call Jeremy a few times, but it is costing more, so I need to try to limit that as much as possible.

I will have to give everyone a better update once, I am back, but I am not sure how much it costs to use the internet here, so I better not stay on too long. Everyone is really taking good care of me, and watching out for me since I am pregnant. I keep reminding them that I am pregnant, not disabled, but I know they are just watching out for me...and evidently I need it, since I fell walking home yesterday and scrapped up my knees :). That sure got me more attention than I was wanting :). The baby seems like it moves all the time now, and actually kept me up last night for a little while because it was kicking me so hard. But I am not complaning, it is a great feeling.

As far as prayer requests I think the main thing is our health. Most of us have been sick at least one day here due to the food. So just pray that we can continue to be strong and healthy so we can finish out our surgeries with a lot of energy. Safe travel would be another prayer request, beacuse it is quite amazing how the people drive here. I would just prefer to close my eyes and hope we get to our destination safely. You never see any accidents so evidently they are all used to driving really crazy :).

I wish I could put a couple of pictures up on here but I can`t, so those will have to wait until I get home. I cannot wait to get to see and talk to everyone again. It has been a lot harder for me to be here than I thought it would be, I do really miss home...but we will be there soon! I love you all so much, and can`t wait to see you!!

House update!

The extent of the update is that, we made an offer and they accepted! We wrote up our contract Sunday afternoon and made the offer at that time, and by that evening they had come back and said they would like to sell it to us under our terms! Then I started thinking, man we should have asked for more! :) So the house is pretty much ours...except that they live in it. Very minor detail. We are supposed to get their written contract sometime this evening, so far we just have a verbal agreement. We offered them their asking price, have them pay the closing costs and leave the refrigerator, and they are all for it! So we are really excited. Once we get their contract we will meet with our lender and lock in an interest rate and get our loan going. We are probably going to close sometime in March. The closing date also ended up working out really well, because I was worried the sellers would want to close right away, and we would still be stuck in our lease until April 30....but they actually have not even started looking for a house, and love the idea of not closing until mid March! So that was a real blessing also.
Not going to lie...it has stressed me out the past couple of days...the idea that we pretty much just bought a house...are having a baby...and in 4 days I am leaving the country for 2 weeks. That seemed like a lot to take in all at once, but I think I am ok with it now :)
We can't wait to get into the house, and start making it our own...decorating the baby's nursery, specifically. Once we move in, we will only have a couple of months to do that! Can't wait to have everyone come and see it!! I wish that it was already vacant so people could start seeing it now, but we will have to wait a couple months. Another great highlight of this house is that it happens to be four houses down from my good friend Jessica's house. She works with me at Wesley, and we are going to the DR together. It is nice to have a neighbor that we already know!
All thats left is the inspection, and as long as that goes off pretty well we should probably start slowly getting stuff packed!

a house?

So Jeremy and I are really hoping that maybe we have found the house we are going to buy!! We have looked at about 20 houses so far, and only 2 had really stuck out....until today. This one, definitely out weighs all of the others, and pretty much seems perfect, as far as what we want and need. So I wanted to show some of the pictures. I am going to take my camera tomorrow to our second showing, and get some better ones, these are just the ones off the website.
This is a 3 bedroom 1 1/2 bath. With a new furnace, hot water heater, ac, and roof, all within the past 5 years. Which is something we really wanted. A 2 car attached garage, fenced in backyard, lots of storage. It is right on Maus street (behind Peterson elementary). If you remember where my parents used to live on Valleyview, it is actually in that neighborhood just further south. We love the neighborhood and the school district that it is in.
So I could name off a bunch of other reasons why we think this is the perfect house for us, but I will spare you :). The price is amazing!! If you all just wouldn't mind praying about it with us. We really like it, and hope that everything goes as planned. We are looking at it a second time, tomorrow with mom and dad, and we are going to be ready to fill out a contract at that time and put down earnest money. I love how this is all happening exactly one week before I leave the country for two weeks!! :) Our realtor is really excited about this opportunity for us. We have really loved working with him, so if anyone needs a recommendation we would definitely recommend him. Let us know what you think!

18 weeks and 4 days

Why does everything I want to post about happen at the same time? So be sure to look at the post below! So Jeremy and I had our official ultrasound yesterday. Everything went well! We are having a healthy baby.....oh yeah, we don't know what we are having because of Jeremy!! :) But the point is we are having a very healthy baby!! The sono tech said that we are able to rule out any major defects. She showed us the brain, the spine, the stomach, the abdomen, the heart and lots of other things. They all look normal and perfect! So that is a huge relief and blessing. Really the only problem is that the baby is measuring large, and that really is not a problem. It looks like this kiddo has a Thiessen head. I really am not looking forward to that! The head is measuring in the 98th percentile. The day of our sonogram we were 18 weeks and 3 days, and the head was measuring 20 weeks and 2 days! The abdomen and femur were both also measuring about a week ahead (in the 19th week). So I think overall we just have a very large baby, with an even larger head. The sono tech told us our baby weighs 10 oz (300 grams), when the average weight for an 18 week baby is 6.7 oz (190 grams). So there is the update! We are really excited. It was great to see the little guy or girl again. I am convinced it is a girl, but we will see soon enough! The sono tech said she knew what it was...which really made me want to know even more!! But Jeremy stood strong, and I was not happy with him at first, but I am getting over it :). These are the pictures from our ultrasound, and the one off to the side is a belly picture of me taken today.





There is the big kiddo!













That is the back of the head and on the
upper side is the ear.













The face. Not the best pic











This is a better one of the face. I think
babies faces look kind of creepy on ultrasound.
But it is still cool!











Ok the baby kind of looks like Spok in this
picture. It is once again the back of the head,
and you can see the ears on both sides.













Poor kid is destined to have big feet.













The arm and the hand!

our adorable cousins

I have a few videos to share with everyone! I went to Chloe and Mason's first basketball games on Saturday. They were both so adorable!! So I took some video of both of them playing ball. Then that evening Jeremy and I got to watch Sophie and Lilian. We LOVE doing that...they are the most precious babies. So I took a few videos of Sophie...Lilian is not quite as entertaining yet :)
I love watching the video of Mason playing ball. He just can't hold still! He is always jumping around in place...he definitely got more into playing in the 3rd and 4th quarters. Chloe is a really good ball handler, and you can tell she really enjoys the competition. She did great!
In the first video of Sophie she is riding a little zebra that Michele's mom gave her. I think part way into the video she is asking "this way, or this way?" As in which way we want her to spin it. She was pretty cute...as always. In the second video she was saying "I'm two!" And then right after that she tripped on the thing Lilian was laying in, and sat on her legs. That is why she says "Oh gosh!" And then the third video was just for me. Because Jeremy was reading her, her bedtime story and I thought it was so cute. He is going to be such a great dad!! I had so much fun watching him with those girls that night. He plays so well with them, and even took Lilian when she was fussy and tried to calm her down. Ok...enough of my rambling..I don't know why I feel the need to explain every video in detail that I post :)

all the rest...

one christmas down...three to go!

This Christmas, out at grandma and grandpa Butch's house was a little more eventful than we all would have hoped, but it was great none the less. We went out Saturday morning, because I was supposed to be to work by three that afternoon. It started snowing pretty much right when we got there...and it never stopped! It was a beautiful day to have Christmas with the family, but then it got to the point of, are we going to be able to get out of here? It was so windy and snowing so hard there were very high drifts. And out in the country there is no one to clear the roads?!? :) So around 1:30 dad, and uncle Joel went out in Joel's truck to scope the roads out, and came back and decided we all needed to leave and we would caravan home. Otherwise we might not be able to get out of grandma and grandpa's. So Joel led, and made a path with his truck and we all tried to follow in that path. A drive that would normally take 15 minutes from grandma and grandpa's to mom and dad's house in Valley Center, took us well over one hour. It was definitely by the grace of God that our car never got stuck somewhere along the way. We couldn't even see but 30 feet in front of us the whole drive home. Well by the time we got back to mom and dads I was already almost one hour late to work, and they told me not to worry about coming in. So I got the evening off, and Jeremy and I stayed snowed in at mom and dad's!! We had a great time, playing games most of the evening (after we got mom's car un-stuck right outside the driveway). We are now looking forward to three more Christmas celebrations!

Sophie and Lili

Just wanted to put up the pictures I took of Sophie and Lili last night. Jeremy and I were at Matt and Michele's, and we gave the girls their Christmas presents. One of Sophie's being the really awesome sunglasses she is wearing :)

Our babys first video!

So I want to share a couple of videos with everyone. We did a quick sonogram at work the other night, and I happened to have Jeremy and I's video camera with me, so I recorded a couple different things. In this first video you cannot actually see much until around 30 seconds into the video. If you watch closely around that time the baby has the hiccups! It is such a rhythmic motion, we are sure that is what it is. I know it is really hard to tell what you are looking at...I had the camera zoomed in too far. But the head is down, and the baby is actually kind of laying on its neck..ouch! The big white circle toward the bottom is the head, and everything above that is the abdomen and legs. Just to trying to give you a little bit of a viewpoint. So around 45 seconds, if you see what looks like a black hole in the chest, and you can see a white thing flapping, that is the heartbeat. Then around 1:00 the baby actually brings its right hand up, so you can see it! And finally, around 1:40, the baby kind of looks like it is flexing its right arm, with its hand up by its head. Sorry, I know that is a lot, I just want people to know what they are looking at, but I know it is hard.

Ok, I have one more video. This one is not as long, but Jeremy thinks you can see things better...you probably can :). Baby's head it still down with the body above it. Around 23 seconds you can see the baby in a perfect fetal position. You can actually see both legs and feet. Then around 37 seconds, it stretches its legs all the way out, then curls back up. Ok, so I know these are not as exciting to everyone else, but I had to post them. The way the second video is frozen, before you hit play, is a really good still shot of the baby in the fetal position. You can see both feet!

Be sure to look at the post below this if you have not seen it yet, and look at our new little cousin!