6/18/07 - I'm in my 2nd pg now. Miscarried on March 1st of 2007. I'm super excited and also very worried. I have a dr's appointment tomorrow, June 19th. I'm hoping to get as many tests done as possible, so that they can tell me something other than, yep you're pregnant. Also hoping for an early ultrasound to see the heartbeat as soon as possible.

6/20/07 - Had my appointment yesterday afternoon. The nurse was super nice. She immediately asked the doc how soon I could get an ultrasound. I'm scheduled for one on next Wednesday the 27th at 12:20. Am crossing fingers and praying that all goes well and we see a nice strong heartbeat!

Had my first real food craving last night. Wanted a taco salad from Steak and Shake so badly. I think I may have accidentaly growled at my husband when he didn't move quickly enough... I'm pretty sure I ate the whole thing in 4 bites...

6/21/07 - Morning sickness! I'm almost excited about it. I know that sounds silly, but it's a symptom that I didn't have last time, so deep down under the desperate urge to vomit, I'm thrilled!

6/27/07 - Today was the ultrasound. Great news! Everything looks great!!! Everything measured correctly for what we figured I was. Actually, measured a couple days larger and I guess that's good. We heard the heart beat, and it's 131 beats per minute. My best friend says that means it's a boy... I'm so happy and relieved, I don't think that I can keep my eyes open! I'm exhausted from being as stressed out as I was.

7/11/07- Nothing really exciting to add. Have been having lots of trouble with the damn vitamins. They've been making sick since the get go. Doc office recommends gummy Flintstones since the regular ones make me sick to smell them. Tried those last night and they seemed ok so far. Fingers crossed. I have noticed some weight gain across my middle, but I can't say that it's baby and not just me eating crap. Who knows!

7/19/07 - Had my doc appointment yesterday, everything seemed fine he said. It was really just a glorified pelvic exam, but he said he felt my uterus at the right size. Hubby wants to do the first trimester testing for Downs and something else, so we go for that on 8/9. I am kinda excited because it will essentially be an extra ultrasound. Of course what we would actually do if they said it was Down's, I don't know. Have an appointment on 8/6 to go into the doc for a check up and to hear the heart beat again, so that's something to look forward to. Everything seems to be going well other than the fact that I have acne worse than I ever thought of having it when I was in hs. Who knew?

7/27/07 Getting ready to go to my husband's family reunion tonight. It's a 3 day festival of about 250 Kramers. One of the most overwhelming events I have to go to every 3 years... This year I won't be able to hide since the news about the baby is out. I'm not finished with Harry Potter yet! I need to be reading the book, not making small talk with 3rd cousins!!! LOL, I'm mostly kidding...

We had gotten into the Magic Kingdom early for our ADR's at Crystal Palace. We went on the 9:30 Keys to the Kingdom tour. Rae was our tour guide and was awesome! We finished the tour just in time to catch the Dreams Come True Parade and head over to Fantasy Land. The event was planned to begin at 3:45 in Pooh's Thoughtful Shop. My only instruction was that the largest Eeyore in the store would have a sign on him with Eric's name on it. Eeyore being Eric's favorite character, of course. Naturally, it started to rain at about 3:30, but I knew the show would go on.

Since we are expecting our first baby and we are both Pooh fans, it wasn’t difficult to lure Eric into the shop. I had told him before we left home that I would like to get a giant Eeyore for the baby's room, so I took him straight to them and pulled down the one that a nice woman was standing next to (I assumed that person was Jane). Eric was SHOCKED! Why would a giant Eeyore have his name on it!?! He read the clue and realized that somehow, someone had set him up for a scavenger hunt!!! The clue lead us over to Pooh's playground where he had to find the next clue near Gopher's hole. Next he had to find the shovel near the mine at Snow White's ride.

From there he was truly confused, as he was directed to go to the Haunted Mansion and get into the DEAD center of the stretch room so that the ghosts could give him his next clue. Jane waved at me while we were in line, so I knew she was with us. She actually got close enough to us to comment on my pregnant belly and ask about the baby, lol! Eric was playing along, but clearly confused as to how this was being done for him. We stayed right in the middle of the stretch room as instructed and when the lights went out and I screamed for distraction purposes, Jane dropped the next clue right onto Eric's head!

From Haunted Mansion we were to go to Ye Old Christmas Shop and check in the Christmas trees. Sure enough, Eric went right to his next clue. We were lead to the cannons outside of the Swiss Family Tree House for the next clue. Eric's hand barely fit in the cannon to get it out! Then we were off to the Spanish Fountains outside of Pirates of the Caribbean. After some confusion as to what exactly a Spanish fountain looked like, I directed Eric toward where I knew his gift must be, as I had spotted Jane hovering near it.

In the end he discovered the Eeyore had gotten us a baby plush Eeyore, a super cute onsie for our new arrival and a shirt for Eric. Eric was as happy as I have ever seen him since our wedding day (we honeymooned at WDW, of course). It was truly a gift of a lifetime. We had dinner ADR's at Cindy's that night. I told him over dinner how the whole thing was planned. He said he wasn't going to ask me to tell him if I didn't want to. Talk about credit, he thought I managed to pull it all off by myself!!! How he thought I had gotten ahead of him to get everything planted, I have no idea!

So, after Eric's big adventure we had dinner at Cinderella's Royal Table.Then we bought the giant stuffed Eeyore and rode Buzz Lightyears Space Ranger Spin! That is our signature ride! Exhausted after a perfect, but LONG day, we went back to AKL.

Sunday we slept in some and hung out at the lodge. We went down to the pool but the water was a bit too cold for Eric's taste. Grabbed some lunch at Mara and went back to the room for a nap! After nap time we got dressed in our costumes and got on the bus for MGM. We had an ADR for Brown Derby at 7:30 and wanted to get there early. Well, I had no idea what was coming next! As we came in the gate dressed as Snow White and Price Charming we were accosted by guest services and told we weren't allowed to be in costume! WHAT!!!! We were taken "backstage" to a room and told that I wasn't allowed to be in a Disney costume in the parks. But it was the night of the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and come hell or high water, I was going in my costume. What ended up happening is that we could ONLY be in Magic Kingdom in costume. Disney paid for a t-shirt for me to wear to our dinner reservation, and feeling humiliated we ate dinner, changed back and headed to the MNSSHP. Once on the bus to Magic Kingdom no one paid any attention to my costume as tons of other people were in them as well.

The party was great! We made it in time to see the fireworks, ride Buzz Lightyear (in costume) and visit with Eeyore and Pooh before the parade. Parade was great! The grave diggers dance was wonderful! We missed the cut off for the line to have pictures taken with the Seven Dwarfs, but got lots of other great character pictures. It was midnight by the time we got on the bus for AKL. That's the longest I've been up since I've been pregnant!

Monday we decided to sleep in and skip breakfast at 1900 Park Fare. We'll go next time. Grabbed breakfast at Mara, packed up and got out of the room. We got checked into our flight in the lobby (best service ever!) and then went to spend a couple hours Downtown. We walked around, took some pictures, didn't find anything to spend $$ on for once! Had lunch and headed back to AKL. We grabbed our carry on bags, sat on the bench and waited to go home... Goes without saying that I wish I was still there and can't wait till we go back next year!!!

11/5/07 - Doc appointment, ultrasound and tour today. All went well! The u/s said he is measuring right on for dates! That's a good surprise because the docs expected him to show being small for dates by this point and to be showing signs of growth restriction. Amniotic fluid is good also! Huge sigh of relief! They estimate he weighs about 2lbs. now. As for me, I'm feeling really good. Just some trouble sleeping and pains I'm getting from laying on my left side all the time. Doc said I don't need to stick to the left, just not flat on my back. Also good news. I gained less than 5lbs since last time. All things considered it was a great appointment.

We took a tour that covered the labor and delivery rooms, the NICU and the rooms that I will be in after birth. All the rooms were really nice, even though there is an old section and a new section. The new ones are super cool, but the old ones are very nice as well.

We have most of my doctors appointments and tests scheduled. I'll go to the doc again in 3 weeks, have another u/s in 4 weeks. I'll do the glucose test at 28 weeks and start non-stress tests at 32 weeks. It's a lot of appointments, but at least it means that Ty will be watched so that he can be as healthy as possible!

Really I think it's wonderful that people are willing to spend an afternoon and their money to help us get ready for Ty to get here. That's all that matters!

11/15/07 - I wish there wasn't so much going on, that I felt the need to write it down... Well we had breastfeeding class last night. It was pretty interesting. I learned one very important thing. Eric is more ok with breastfeeding than I am! Am I a goober or what? The lactation consultant talked to me about how to handle the fact that Ty will have to be exclusively bottle feed. She basically said get a good pump and settle in for the long haul. I'm still not sure how long I want to do it. I guess we'll just see how it goes and take it day by day. When I say stuff like that, I feel like a 12 stepper.

11/16/07 - I've never been so happy to see Friday get here! Long ass week!
I went to the doc yesterday. They are changing my dose of thyroid meds AGAIN. And I'm pretty close to having high blood pressure and being put on bed rest. In one way I would welcome it, cause then I wouldn't have to worry about all the things I need to do. I would have a good reason to expect help getting things done. Don't get me wrong, Eric is awesome and does basically everything that I ask and more. It's just that I feel constantly overwhelmed with things I think I should be doing. For instance, after being warned to do as little as possible, I have the burning desire to put up the 11 foot Christmas tree and decorate it this weekend and finish the scrapbook, go grocery shopping, put away the shower gifts, etc.

11/20/07 - Last full day of work before a 4 day weekend! Yay! So let's see, I see that list of stuff I wanted to get done above this post... Well we did get the tree up and I did go grocery shopping, that's about all that was accomplished. Oh well. Last night I had to get new glasses. Peeka decided that my old pair looked like a nice chew toy and scratched the lenses all to hell. Got quite a bit of Christmas shopping done as well. Seemed like more when I was buying it vs when I laid to all out for Eric to look at. Sigh... Need to go get my nails done tonight. Then tomorrow I have to be in Louisville for work. Hoping to be able to wrap that up early and get home at a reasonable time. That way I'll have plenty of time to start cooking for Thanksgiving. Thursday morning Kmart has a sale that I'm planning on hitting. Then I'm going to join the horde on Friday morning. Never done that before! The plan is to get a bunch of things off the registry while they are on sale. I'll keep receipts and return anything that I end up getting as a shower gift. But at least this way I know I have everything I feel like we need to have. I'm going to try to avoid many other places, but I would like to have ALL the shopping done this weekend. How great would that be!

11/23/07 - Getting ready to go to a friend's wedding in an hour or so. The holiday was nice. I made the full dinner all by myself, sent all the leftovers home with my parent's. I've got about 95% of my Christmas shopping finished. I went out early on Black Friday and got quite a few things. Also purchased all the things off the registry that I feel like I would NEED to have for Ty to come home tomorrow. I feel better about having the nursery pretty well ready now because of that. People were fussing about my buying stuff since the family shower is in a week, but I can just return anything that we get duplicates of, no big deal. And because it was Black Friday, I was able to get stuff on a good sale. Anyhow, I've been enjoying the 4 days off and I don't want tomorrow to be Sunday!

11/28/07 - Doctors appointment this morning. It was short and sweet. He gave me suggestions to help with the constipation. So now I have to try to drink a GALLON of water every day. He's got to be kidding! Anyhow, everything else is good. measuring right on target, blood pressure is back down, Ty's heart beat stays at a strong 160. Had to do the glucose test today and have a bunch of blood drawn. I'm sure I'll hear back on all that in a couple days. Tonight is the last prenatal class. This one is actually about baby, so it should be fun. Next big thing is the 3D/4D ultrasound on Tuesday at 5. I'm inviting both sets of parent's if they would like to come and see it. This weekend is the big family baby shower! I'm pretty excited about that! Yippee!

12/6/07 - Well it's actually been a few days since I've updated this... Thursday the 29th I was in a bad car accident on my way home from work. I was sitting in traffic on the bridge and a guy slammed into me from behind. Hit me hard enough to push me into the car ahead of me and cause a 3 car pile up. Well he got out, knocked on my window to see if I was ok, then told me to move off the bridge so we were out of traffic. Went and told the girl ahead of me the same thing. So she and I moved up to the first exit. Guess what? He took off... Nice, huh? We had cops, an ambulance and a fire truck show up. EMT's told me I was ok enough to drive myself and that I might get charged for the ambulance, so I refused that. Cop was AWFUL! He cited me for expired tags, told me I was too close to the car ahead of me and made me feel like an idiot for moving off the bridge. Great. Then he told me my car was perfectly safe to drive... So I took myself to the hospital and was there for 5 hours of observation. Everything is fine, thank goodness. When I got back in my car, I realized the drivers seat was broken, laying back like I was trying to take a nap in it! But I got it home and into the body shop the next day. The guy at the body shop took one look at it and said I NEVER should have been driving it and that it would likely be totaled! So much for the cop knowing anything, on top of being a huge jerk!

Then on Saturday we had the family baby shower. It was really really great. We got a ton of nice things. My sister-in-law did a great job with everything. Only problem was I hadn't felt Ty move all day, so I was worried about that. Finally I called the doctor and was told to go back into the hospital for monitoring. So off we went back to triage for more monitoring. Everything is fine again, but never hurts to know that for a fact.

Yesterday I had an all day presentation to give to all of the owners, CEO's, managers, etc of my company at Belterra casino. I'm terrified of speaking to a group and I had to do it for 3 straight hours! Holy Crap! But it went well. I think everyone was just being polite, but everyone said I did a nice job. You really wouldn't expect them to insult the pregnant lady, would you?

I'm waiting to hear back from my insurance agent now about my car. Originally they came back and told me that they were going to fix the car. Well, I'm not ok with that. The frame of the car has been damaged. That means that even if you straighten it out, it will not be as strong as it was when I bought it new. So that means that if I were in another accident, me and Ty would stand a HUGE chance of being hurt much worse than I was this time... Nope, I'm not taking that car back, sorry insurance. Deal with it.

12/7/07 - Ok - Stressed myself out so much with the car stuff that Eric has taken over. It looks like they will be fixing it and then in a few months we are going to trade it in. I guess that's as good as it's gonna get. On a much better note, tomorrow is belly pictures day! Yay! Kim Long will be coming to the house to do some pix. I'm very excited. We have a great Christmas tree, Ty's room is pretty much ready and there are some other nice spots in the house to use too. I think it will be lots of fun. At least I hope so! Then afterwards, my mom wants me to take her Christmas shopping. Saturday night Eric and I are planning to go see a movie and then relax all day on Sunday. Sounds like a good plan, doesn't it? Let's hope it stays that way!

12/13/07 - Doctors appointment today went well. She answered all of the questions I asked. It seems that they will continue to monitor the extra urine on the left kidney and if it does not go away, then Ty will need to be checked out for kidney function when he is born. She said it's not really a big deal one way or another. Which is a relief to hear. She also said that he is measuring in the 75th percentile, which is large for a gastro baby. That's actually a good thing for us, since everything else on my end looks good. Means he might not be as early as we had thought. But no real way of knowing yet. I'll stay on doc appts every 2 wks till 36 wks, so I wonder if I'll even ever see the doc every week! We have another u/s scheduled on 12/31 to check him out and we start going for the 2x per week non-stress tests on 12/24. I'll basically be living at the hospital from Christmas eve on till we have this kiddo. What else? Well today is our work Christmas luncheon. I home that's good! We got our company gifts, this year it's a gray hoodie. Not too bad, but the gray isn't the best color. Oh well, it was free! Can't believe Christmas is only 11 days away! Holy cow!

12/17/07 - Can't believe it's this close to Christmas. Last year at this time we were getting our furniture and stuff delivered and were unpacking the new house. Crazy. We had a nice weekend for the most part. It snowed and sleeted on Saturday so all we ended up doing was going over to Eric's parent's for most of the day. Sunday we hung out and then went to see Enchanted. It was pretty good. Very cute, that's for sure. We came home, I made dinner and then watched most of the 3rd Die Hard movie. How's that for exciting? This week Eric has to go out and finish his Christmas shopping. I have a massage tonight, then tomorrow I need to go pick up a gift for him that we had to order. Thursday we have an appointment to meet the pediatrician. We need to talk to them about the gastroschisis and make sure that they are familiar with it and would be willing to be Ty's doctors. And I need them to write me a letter that says I should be off 3-4 wks after he comes home from the NICU. The obgyn won't do it because they say that's not my care, it's his care. Then we have Knepfle Christmas on Saturday. Oh joy... They just aren't a bunch that I enjoy spending time with and I know it will be a late night, always is. So I'm hoping that being BFP is a good excuse to be able to cut and run!

12/20/07 - Had an appointment to meet the pediatrician we picked this morning. The office was very nice, clean, bright colors, etc. There are 8 docs in this office, they have 3 locations. They have hours till 6pm and Saturday mornings. They will even see people on Sunday if needed. Now how's that for service? Anyhow, the one doc we met with was very nice and helpful. So I guess we're sticking with that office. Good to know that's done and over with. Otherwise I'm just getting things tiddy'd up at work and getting ready for all the family holiday stuff. Might get my car back tonight. It's been in the shop for almost 3 weeks now, so I'd be happy to see it back for a little while. Oh, work just told me that I'll be in charge of the safety program when I get back from leave. Guess that means job security if they are adding stuff to me before I leave!

12/21/07 - I'm waiting for Eric to pick me up at work now. I've had wetness today that doesn't smell like urine and seems to keep trickling out. So we are going into l&d to get checked out... Let's see what happens!

12/26/07 - Christmas has come and gone! We were at the hosp for about 5 hours on the 21st, turns out water didn't break. Nurse says I must have urinated on myself, I say I would know if that was the case... Oh well, all that matters is that I'm still preggo. Eric was so freaked out by the false alarm that we ended up opening presents that night. He got me all kinds of great pajamas and slippers and things of that sort. What really surprised me was the BIG gift certificate to Ann Taylor Loft! Yay! I'll be excited to be able to buy REAL clothes again! The 22nd we had Christmas with the Knepfle's. It went well, but I wasn't feeling so great, so I wanted to leave LONG before we actually went home. Then the 24th we had the big Kramer family Christmas. Also went well and went later than I wanted it to go. Yesterday my parent's came over, we had breakfast opened presents. Took a break for lunch and then finished with presents... Then it was time to go to Eric's parent's. We ate dinner and opened more presents! Yay! The big surprise of the night was Eric's dad giving Eric's mom a brand new car! I felt like we were on the Price Is Right or something! It was very cool!

Today my friend Jill is supposed to come over and hang out. I haven't seen her for a few years. She is living out in AZ now and going to school out there. I miss her a ton and can't wait to see her!

12/27/07 - Well today has been a big day! Had our 2nd nonstress test this morning and as the nurse was coming over to unhook me she asked if I could feel "that", to which I answered no... Well apparently I'm having regular contractions! And I can't even feel them! Who knew? So after being told to take it easy, drink lots of water and call if anything weird seems to happen I went into work. The group I always go to lunch with stopped in my door and told me it was time to go, so I grabbed my purse and headed out. Well everyone was waiting for me in the back conference room for my surprise baby shower! How cool! They all chipped in to get us the big bouncy play center I registered for, diapers, an Eddie Bauer seat protector and a Target gift card! It really made it a nice day. I wasn't expecting all that!

Eric and I went to Kohl's to do some returns/exchanges from Christmas and then had dinner at Steak and Shake. I'm not sure if I got a hold of something bad or what, but I've been itching like CRAZY all night. A bath and lotion didn't seem to help much... It's driving me nuts! It's all over itching, not just belly!!!

12/28/07 - Probably need to stop writing as much as I am.. Oh well. Friday, finally! And this is a 4 day weekend for me. Today we're supposed to be getting together with my step-sister, her husband and 2 kids with my parent's for dinner. That means I need to leave here early, go home, get myself and the house cleaned up so as to be presentable for the evening. Sunday Donna and her 2 girls will come up for the day to visit. NYE we have the next NST and another ultrasound. Then we have dinner reservations at the Tropicana. I guess we'll just go home and have a quiet evening alone for the rest of the night. Last one we'll have in a long time, I'm sure. Then I've got 3 days of work left and I'm off on leave! Yay!

12/31/07 - New Years Eve day... Finally! 2007 has been rough year for us, one of the only pluses has been this pregnancy. But let's not dwell on all the unpleasant things that this year has brought. Today we had another NST and Ultrasound. Both went well. Ty's measuring at the 56th percentile in terms of size. He's approximately 5.5lbs today. He was practice breathing and doing all kinds of cool stuff when we went for the u/s. Every time we have an nst, the nurse tells us he looks wonderful and that's such good news! Tonight we have dinner reservations for Tropicana at 6:45. I'm sure it will be our last big night out for a long time! We'll come home and hang out just us to watch the ball drop on 2007 and ring in 2008. We have my parent's dog for a few days since they are in Virginia visiting Scott, Satoko and Ian. I hope they are having a good time too. Here's looking atcha 2007...

1/2/08 - NYE was a nice night for us. Dinner was great and then we watched a movie and Dick Clark's NYE special. I have to admit that I cried with relief to see 2007 go out. Sad to say, but I think Ty is one of the only good things that happened last year. And I'm thrilled to see 2008 come in as this is the year of Mommy and Daddy. Talk about a big year! Anyhow, getting ready for my last day of work. I've only got 2 more to go! I will be working from home a few days next week, but no biggie. I get to do it from the couch in my pj's, now that's a good deal! Printed out a list to get the hospital bag packed. Planning on doing that tonight. I'm sure once I have that done it will mean that I won't go into labor and will have to be induced, lol. Have another NST tomorrow and then doc appointment next week along with NST's. I'll be busy, that's for sure!

1/4/08 - Well it's finally here! My official last day of work before maternity leave! I'm thrilled to pieces and also scared to death. I'm glad to not have to get up to an alarm clock again for a while and to be able to get some of the things done around the house that have been left undone. Not to mention doing a complete good will check of the house and getting rid of a bunch of crap... Can you say nesting? But at the same time, I'm afraid to leave work. I have quite a few things that are being left up in the air and I'm not really cool with that. Guess I'm a bit of a control freak... I'll be working from home some to get most things tiddied up and I'll be counting on other people to keep things together while I'm gone. I'm also afraid of being off for too long before Ty is born. I want to have all kinds of time with him later, but I'm not sure how that will work out. And let's be honest, I'm afraid I'll get really bored of cleaning, straightening, cooking and waiting. I'm not that good at those things. :) But would I rather work a couple more weeks? HELL NO! And there you have it folks!

I'm getting really anxious for Ty to get here. All these BH contractions or whatever they are, are only making me more anxious. He's already 5.5lbs, practice breathing, etc. I'm just ready to get him out and get going on making him well and getting him home! I keep hoping for my water to break or for the contractions to REALLY start. Bag is pretty much packed. We have all the stuff. I'm so ready to go ahead and do this! I'm hoping we get an induction date at the next doc visit. But I doubt they will see things my way...

1/8/08 - Ok so I know that no one reads this, and that's fine by me... Occasionally I feel a bit odd for writing where I know no one reads, but oh well. What I intended to say is that we had our doc appt yesterday and all is well. I asked for an induction date and Dr Marcotte called me back today to give me Feb 8th as the date. It's farther out than I wanted, but at least there is an end in site! He basically told me that he expects that I'll go on my own before then, but that he wanted to schedule it now to get it on the books. So we'll see what happens. Logically I know that Ty needs to be in there as long as possible, but boy am I ready to do this soon. Ready? Probably not really ready, but I'd like to get it over with anyhow.

I've just spent my first couple days of maternity leave posting stuff for sale on ebay. I'm hoping to make some decent $$ from some of the stuff. But in reality if I get anything for it, it's better than dropping off a bunch of expensive stuff at GoodWill. Eric isn't letting me keep the $$ though, has to go to savings. I understand, but it sure would be nice to have it for myself. Oh well. No biggie. Anything else? Not that I can think of right now!

1/16/08 - Yesterday was my last official work from home day. I worked some today to get the emails sent out of what still needs to be done, but that's it. I can't believe that I'm officially on real leave now! Went to Traget and got some yoga pants and hoodies to wear post-birth. I know I won't be able to stand the thought of wearing maternity clothes for very long after I'm not pg! Hopefully it will not be too teribbly long before I can force myself back into real clothes. But who knows... We've got all the stuff in the world we could have, now we're just waiting. All of the NST's have been perfect. No problems there. Which is great, but I'm really looking forward to him wanting to come early! I've had some seriously bad back/pelvic pain lately, hoping that means he's working his way down and is getting ready to do this soon! Other than the back pain, I'm feeling pretty good. Need to do some odds and ends around the house to get it cleaned up to the point that I'm happy, but it seems like I've got plenty of time to do that. One day at a time.. :)

1/28/08 - All updates will be on Ty's page now. Thanks to everyone who has bothered to read this and has sent us your wishes and prayers. We appreciate it!