4D Ultrasound - 32 Weeks

We had a 4D ultrasound yesterday. It was so very cool. It was like having a little window into my belly watching our little one. I can now stop wondering what she is doing in there. Here are a few pics. Here is what we first saw and the way most of her movie debut went. For some reason she is playing with her toes and resting her foot on top of her head. She was very obstinate and would not move her hand or foot away from her face so we could get a good look at her. So the technician had me get up and shake her to try and move her around. Yes, I was told to shake my baby. I did the "Twist" dance move with ultrasound goo on my belly. Quite an interesting experience. She did move her limbs for a little while.

Here she is posing for us. You would think that by her right eye would be her right hand but I think it is still her foot.
There is a smile at the camera. "Okay I will be good and give you some pretty pictures of me even though I am all squished up in here with nothing but my toes to play with."
" Mmmm, speaking of my toes, yummy toes." We watched her grab her toes and shove all 5 of them into her mouth. I am not sure what this means when she is born so we will have to see. I am glad we live in Hawaii because I have a feeling it is going to be hard to keep socks on her little feet.
Here is a great picture that the technician cleaned up for us. This was the most amazing experience. She did doctor the photo up a little bit by removing the placenta and the umbilical cord that was blocking some of her face. We watched as she spun the image around every dimension and removed the shadows and extra stuff in the way of the picture.
So here is a clue that we have a smart and sassy baby coming into our lives. Here is the Hawaiian Shakra hand position that she is throwing to the camera. I think we will have to get a baby surf board for this one.
The technician gave us some information on how she was doing. She said that there is a lot of fluid in her little sac, which is a good thing. The baby is laying head down on my left side facing my back. We got some pictures with her squishing her nose up against the wall so she is not really using all of her space very well. She is cuddling up against my back. She has both hands and feet up by her head. Lastly she is definitely still a girl. I can't wait to see her in real life but for now this is the next best thing. We will see how much she plays with her feet as she grows.

I am 32 weeks now so we are about 2 months away but in reality she can come in as little as one month. She is definitely getting heavier. My walking is definitely a waddle and I am having some difficulty breathing at times. She is still moving around like crazy.

I have a baby shower to go to today for a friend who is due a few days after me. Her husband is on the boat with Brad. It has been nice having her around because we compare what is going on each week. She is having a boy. It was kind of funny when we found out what we were having; we each were hoping for the opposite of what we are having. Funny how life works out. We both are very happy with what we are having. It will be a match made in heaven and we now have built in play dates. It is very comforting to know that someone else is going to be going through exactly what I am at the exact same time, especially once they are born. Yes, I know that there are babies born each day but none more close to us than this. Now we just have to see who will be born first.

Alright, I have to go do laundry so I have something to wear today.

Update - I know you have been waiting for them

So I have been remiss in my blogging since we moved into the house. There are many excuses that I can give but I won't. I will just pick up where I left off.

31 Weeks -

I have definitely grown over this pregnancy. Here are some pictures that I have taken. I have not taken pictures each week like I had wanted, but you can still see the progress. I have kept my weight gain to a minimum but I have a feeling that I will start to gain weight pretty rapidly in the last few weeks of this journey.

So the front view has not changed too much from what I can tell. Yes, I did grow out of the striped shirt. It was not a maternity shirt so I am amazed it lasted as long as it did.
Here is the side view and yes there is some major change seen here.
Here is a picture of my belly. The shirt I am wearing did not really show the true size of the baby incubator. Yup, there is a place to rest a plate, and yes, the belly has gotten in the way a lot. I have a nice bruise on my ribs from where I tried to dodge the belly and hit my side instead. I can only imagine how much bigger it is going to get.

I had a dr's appt on Monday that went really well. I am measuring right on track and baby is about 3 1/2 to 4 pounds. She is sitting head down and on my left side. She is definitely a hula dancer because she is moving pretty much all the time. I feel these really weird rolling sensations and sometimes she kicks so hard I think she is making a break for it through my getting-to-be-non-existent belly button. You know you are blessed to be a baby incubator when you lose your belly button. Brad has been making fun of this fun pregnancy trait for a few weeks now. It is really weird looking and I really hope that it returns to the nice inny that it was before. The baby had hiccups a few days ago. Truly a neat but weird experience. I can understand why people get annoyed with them when they happen. It is really a rhythmic thumping that is not as hard as a kick and definitely not as random. They did not last too long, but I have read that they can occur pretty regularly and for long periods of time. I can't believe that I only have about 8 weeks left.

We did the labor and delivery tour at the hospital. We saw the rooms baby will be born in and then the rooms that we will stay in for the duration of our stay in the hospital. Very nice and very large. Some of these rooms are big enough to have about 20 people along with the medical teams needed. There are some rooms that have whirlpool tubs and others with showers. There is no nursery, so once baby comes out she will be with us. We will all get special bracelets and baby will get an ankle monitor to wear as she will be in house arrest for all the trouble she caused me during her incubation.

Now is the time that we are getting down to the wire getting all the accoutrements ready for the little one. Do you know how much stuff a little one needs??? And on top of that, have you seen all the extra crap that is marketed as being a true necessity??? I am pretty sure that neither Brad nor I had some of these things and we turned out just fine. Some things will be nice to have because of technology, but some things are just ridiculous. For example, I am loving the video monitoring systems that are out. We will be able to see what baby is doing via a night vision camera and TV. Two friends of ours have a system that they love. I am going to be one of those voyeuristic parents that likes to watch their kid sleep, but I will do it from afar so as not to wake baby up. Yes, I will watch her up close but I hope not to wake her up by opening her door all the time. I think this is a great advance in technology that is well worth it. One thing that we will not be spending the money on is a vibrating mattress. What baby really needs this feature that pretty much doubles the cost of the mattress? Are we really going to raise our baby with this feature that years ago cost a quarter in a motel??? No I don't think we need that. The list of money grubbing contraptions that you really don't need goes on.

Okay enough about the little one that is not here yet. We do have two other kiddos that run the house right now. Here are some pictures of the girls newest napping place. Ruby was helping me unpack the linen closet this past weekend. The girls love blankies like no other dog I have ever had. I don't know what it is but you can pretty much cover them up with anything, even a dry washcloth and they will curl up and be quite content. So below here she is in the linen closet. She is up on the second shelf from the bottom. She had to climb her little way up the shelf with the help of the stuff below and then crouch down to get in between the shelves. It took her about 2 seconds to get comfy and relax.

I actually walked away for a few minutes and I came back to see that she had taught her sister how to use the linen closet as well. Rika being a taller dog did not stay as long as Ruby. Rika would rather be on the recliner in the other room, but she doesn't like to share with Ruby so that forces Ruby into the closet. Crazy little dogs!!!

Other than that everything is going really well here in Hawaii. We are getting pretty much settled and finding places for the things that we need to and actually purging those items that we don't need. There is still a storage issue but for the most part we know how we are going to handle them. I have some more pictures that I want to share but that will have to wait for another day.

Pretty pictures of a pretty ugly day

Here are some pretty cool pictures that I took on New Year's Eve. The weather over the holiday break was pretty rainy as it is the rainy winter here. I took Brad to work because I needed some work done to my car. On the way to work I noticed that the waterfalls were in the mountains. On my way home, I decided to stop and take some pictures. For anyone who knows me, I love waterfalls. Whenever we go hiking in the mountains, I will try to find a trail that has a waterfall on it. When it rains here whether really hard for a long period of time or for shorter rains over several days, there are waterfalls that appear in the Ko'olau Mountains on our side of the island. This mountain range is the one that runs up the center of the island. Brad crosses them everyday through the tunnel. They are really neat because the east side looks completely different from the west side. The East side is very jagged and has a lot of hard coves and inclines, while the west side is more of a gradual incline and rolling hills. This is due to the winds and the rains. These were all taken on the H-3 going towards Pearl Harbor away from our house. Yes, this means that I made an extra trip through the tunnel to get these pictures.



The mountains are very lush and green right now because of all the rain. The picture below is of Brad and I, in my signature pose, at Turtle Bay Resort on the North Shore on New Year's Day. My sister gave me a massage gift certificate for Christmas and I thought it would be a great way to start the new year, birth year.

We headed north on Kamehameha Highway for the day. We stopped at a shrimp truck and had lunch, then went to the resort to relax. It was very peaceful. The waves were much bigger than I have seen them before, and we were not even at the true north shore. I enjoyed my massage and Brad did too; I thought I would treat him since he would have just waited around for me otherwise. Afterward, he took advantage of the steam room and showers. I felt that it was best for me not to hard boil my incubating egg so I just waited for him in the outdoor lanai that faced out onto the ocean. Thank you very much Missy for the great relaxing present!!!

Mele Kalikimaka

Merry Christmas from Hawaii!! Here are some pictures of Santa at the end of his tour around the world after a very long night. He and the Mrs enjoy a very nice vacation here in paradise.




We have been MIA from blogging since our last post. Sorry if I caused any worry to anyone and thank you for those who questioned our whereabouts. We are doing great. Since moving in to the house, it has been hard to stop and rest. We have been very busy getting unpacked and settled. Brad's work has picked up pace and they are pushing to get the boat back into the water. Anyway, we wake up to beautiful blue skies and warm weather. The temperature is a toasty 74 degrees. I hope everyone else is staying warm and toasty wherever you are. I will update some more soon. Wishing everyone a happy holiday! Mele Kalikimaka!

We are no longer homeless in paradise!!!

So we are closing on our house Friday, Nov 9th!!! What a birthday present, right??? Anyway, after a very long road here in Hawaii and living in a hotel forever, we are finally getting the keys to our new house. The other great birthday present is that we get to bring the dogs home. The kennel called me today to verify that they were going home tomorrow and they even gave us a discount since the girls have been there for 55 days. Now the moving starts. We won't get our stuff for another week because Brad is in class for the next week, which means he can't take a day off to help me receive it. Yes, I have received our stuff before, but I have a bad feeling about this one. I am sure that everything is okay, but I was sick when they packed it up, so I did not make sure everything was done like it should have been. It traveled such a long way that I just want some extra help if something is wrong. Besides, my pregnant head has been so foggy lately, there is no telling what I will have them do or not do.

Here are some pictures of the house with the seller's stuff in it. I will take some new pictures once we scrape the ceiling of the popcorn and we paint.


I will start upstairs since this is how the pictures loaded. This is the upstairs bathroom. I am not sure where the cabinet doors are but they were not sold to us when we bought the house.

This is the upstairs hallway from the master bedroom looking into what will be the nursery.

This is the nursery. The blue in here is really loud; the pictures don't show the electricness of it. I am not sure if we are going to paint it the same color as the rest of the house or if we will do a nursery color. It will all depend on the bedding that we find for the kiddo. I think this is a queen sized bed in here to give you an idea of the size of the room.

This is the closet in the nursery. All of the closets have really nice built ins so they are much more usable than just a single or double bar.


This is the view from the nursery window. If you look past the telephone wires you will see the ocean.

This is the master bedroom. This is a king sized bed, for room size. It has a wall of closets opposite the bed. There is also a crawl space/attic in the corner of the room on the right hand wall.


Here is the living room and dining room. This picture really shows the back porch and back side of the house. It is really open and has windows along the whole back wall. There are no overhead lights but until it gets dark you don't really need any. I will be untying the curtains during the day though. I just have something about people being able to see into my house.
Here is the living room from the dining room. It is pretty big and will house our tv very nicely. I miss our tv very much. I am hoping that it made the trip unscathed.


Here is the living room from the back corner of the room. It looks into the kitchen and the stairs.

Here is the hall leading from the office to the living room. There is a neat shelving unit built in that I will use to display the little knick knacks that we have.


Here is the office. It is painted a bright yellow orange color. It is horrible. It will be the first room to be painted. It is a very large room that looks out on to the lanai. Since I expect to spend most of my time in this room I know that the girls will be outside on the deck in the sun for most of the day.

Here is the entry way. The owners before the people that we are buying from enclosed this area. It is kind of hard to explain how it was before. I really like it because it opened up everything inside. It also gives an inside place to take your shoes off. We learned this custom very early on while looking at houses. In Hawaii, you take your shoes off when you enter a home. I plan to put a bench in here so that if needed you can sit down to take off or put on your shoes when you visit.


Here is the other side of that door and the outside of the house.

Here is the back porch. I will probably spend a lot of time out here with the girls on a long leash in the yard.

So that is the house. We are very excited to get back into our own house. I love being able to have color on the walls and a sense of ownership. If you notice there are no pictures of the kitchen. Oh the lovely green kitchen. If you scroll down to October 13, What Next?? post, you will see pictures of the kitchen. My battery died before I could get the pictures. I saved it for last because the house inspector was in there doing his inspection. Anyway, I will snap some better ones and post them once we get settled.

So since we are moving in tomorrow, we will be out of touch via email and blogging for a little while. I set up internet for the new house to be turned on tomorrow so hopefully it won't be too long, but there is no telling. I will post as soon as I can get back on. I hope everyone has a great Veteran's holiday weekend. I know that we will; Brad has Monday off and we have lots of stuff planned for the weekend (mostly painting and scraping). We will also be attending the New Baby and Kids Expo here. We will be going with a few other families from the wardroom. I am hoping to get some great information about the new addition to our family and the stuff that she will need once she gets here. Time to get some sleep and enjoy our last night in the hotel.

Leave us a message telling us what you think about the house. Check back often so you can see the updating that we are going to do as well. Much love to all-

Brad and Lauren

Pictures of Lauren Preggo!!

Here are some updated pictures of Lauren's belly.













Here is a view of several weeks apart.












Week 22 - Things are going well. I have had some really bad pain in my hands. I am learning how to sleep to minimize the pain, but most nights I am up every few hours. I was hoping to be able to have some good sleep before the baby came, but I guess those nights are over. My hands are also going to sleep while I am awake now, too. I am having trouble doing things with my hands for periods of time. The dr gave me some braces, but they seem to be making things worse because they are restricting and tight. I am hoping that once we get into the house and change our diet to a healthier one that I will not have so much water retention. The dr said it could be a pinched nerve in my back too because of my scoliosis. Who knows why or how but it is really annoying!! I changed my doctor at the hospital. I found a very knowledgeable and personable dr who has been doing ob work for 25 years. My other dr was nice but he was very young and did not have the experience that I wanted. Since this is my first kiddo, I don't know what questions I should be asking. My last visit with him was very rushed and impersonal. We will see how this new dr is.

Sorry for the delay . . .

So I know that I wanted to write every week but this past two weeks have been very crazy. Let me recap for everyone:

Week 20 - We had the big dr's appointment where we found out we are having a little girl. It is very nice to be able to put a pronoun to this growth. She is moving around a lot and everything seems to be going normal with her.

Week 21 - The baby is about the size of a large banana. There are some great fruit references that are made to put into perspective how big the baby is during the pregnancy. She started out as a grain of rice, a pinto bean, a lima bean, a medium olive, a ripe grape, a small plum, a large lime, a peach, a grapefruit, and now a banana. I looked ahead and there are no more fruit references for this little one. It has been really funny looking forward to what fruit is coming this next week. Now all I can think about is a banana with little arms a legs that are flailing about in there. Now for how I have been feeling. This is supposed to be the best time of the pregnancy, well not for me. I have been having some problems with my hands. I am waking up at night due to my hands falling asleep and causing pretty severe pain. So much so that I can't get back to sleep for a few hours. I have been told that there is not much I can do about this; it is pregnancy induced carpal tunnel. Because pregnancy makes you retain so much water, your wrists swell causing a pinching of the nerves. You can wear wrist splints to keep you hands in a neutral position, but mostly you just have to adjust the way you are sleeping. For me that is not too bad, I usually sleep on my left side anyway. Unfrotunately, my left hand is the one that is going to sleep the most. So I am having to learn how to sleep on my right side, or sleep in a recliner to keep my head above my heart and let the blood flow down to my lower body. I am not sure that I can take another 18 weeks of this because it is starting to happen during the day as well. Ughh!!! There is a good note to this, it is supposed to go away by itself after the baby is born. We will see about that. I forgot to take pictures this week so I will post a new picture of me at 22 weeks this weekend.

We had a change of command with Brad's boat. There were several evenings of festivities for both the new CO and the old CO. For those who are not Navy, the CO is the Commanding Officer of the boat. He is basically the boss of the whole boat and is responsible for everything that happens to it. Brad will be a CO, one of these days, but right now he is the low man on the totem pole working his way up to the top. There is a special ceremony that the Navy does where the orders are read for both the incoming and outgoing CO's with a lot of pomp and circumstance. There are guest speakers and even the Navy band plays. The whole boat is there to witness the ceremony and there is a reception afterwards. This ceremony really made me realize that we are a part of a truly awesome organization. Of course, I cried during several parts of the ceremony. I have been to a lot of ceremonies but this one really hit home. It is the start of a new begining with the boat and with us as well.

The last part of the week has been dealing with our home purchase. We have been in escrow on a property since the middle of October. We were scheduled to close October 31st. So, are we in a new home yet????? Nope, we aren't. Why you may ask??? The seller's have asked for 2 extensions on the closing date. So it looks like we are finally going to close on Nov 9th. A great birthday present for me!!! We will let you know as the date gets closer if this date is going to hold or not. We are really tired of being homeless.

So that has been to story for the last few weeks. I have been very frustrated with the house situation. We have been in the hotel for almost 2 months now, but it looks like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully we will make it to the end this time.

I hope everyone is doing well. We miss everyone terribly. Leave us a comment and let us know that you were here. You can do this by clicking on the comment count at the bottom of this post. Much love and baby kicks to everyone!!!

We are Expecting a . . .

We went to our 20 week anatomy ultrasound and found out that we are having a little girl. Here are the pictures of the ultrasound.







We are going to have an obstinate one on our hands. She kept her hands over her face towards the end so the ultrasound tech could not get a look at her mouth. We tricked her into moving by having me lay on my side instead of my back, Ha ha!! She is measuring 14 ozs. I also had a doctor's appointment this morning. Everything is doing fine.

We are looking forward to our new little princess. I hope that you all enjoy looking at her grow as much as we are. Please click on the comments and let us know that you were here.

Happy 5th Anniversary to the Foster's!!!

Well on October 6th of this year we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. It was really cool that we could celebrate it in Hawaii.

So what did we do that day???

10:00 am - We had a special vow renewal ceremony on the beach with a Hawaiian Minister at the Waialae Beach Park. It was truly special. The minister and his wife sang a beautiful Hawaiian song, then the ceremony was closed with a Hawaiian prayer. There was a photographer taking pictures during the ceremony as well as some pictures afterwards. I will post pictures as soon as we get them. Here are pictures of the leis that we got at the ceremony.

11:00 am - We went walking along the boardwalk of Waikiki near the aquarium and zoo. We saw some really cool fish in a reef right off the boardwalk. This is a picture are of a fish that came out to eat Fruit Loops that a little girl was throwing into the water.

12:00 pm - We had a special lunch at Costco, $1.50 hot dogs and soda. We laugh because we did a beautiful ceramony then go get a cheap lunch at Costco. We were meeting the realtor at 1pm so we needed something quick and easy. Not know any other places along the way, we knew that Costco had something that we liked.

1:00 pm - We had an appointment with the realtor to see some additional houses including re-looking at the one that we ended up buying.

4:00 pm - We headed down to Waikiki to Duke's Canoe Club on the beach for our anniversary dinner. We sat right on the front row of seating so we could see the sunset perfectly. We had a wonderful dinner with a band playing and gorgeous surroundings. These pictures are of the sunset off of Waikiki and one of us after dinner.

Then, we went back to the room and watched tv, then fell asleep kind of early. It was kind of an anti-climatic end to our evening, but we had a very long day.

To another 5 years with my best friend. I love you, Brad!!