Go Redbirds!

Corey is now an Illinois State Redbird! He has been accepted into the sports administration masters program and will be moving to Bloomington, IL very soon to begin his job as the graduate assistant in the athletics ticket office. Hooray for getting paid to go to school. I am so proud of him! Who would have thought that my brother would be getting a masters degree?? Its kind of ironic that he will be in Bloomington because I have friends that moved there last year and Karl was a finalist for a job at one of the hospitals there just a few months ago. It would have been nice to be in the same city but two hours away is a lot better than five. I know quite a few people that work in the ISU athletics department and I really think he will like it there. Aside from the school work, working in the ticket office should be a really great opportunity for him and he will learn a lot. Hopefully it will open up some doors for him when its all over. He starts work in early June so I'm looking forward to helping him find a place to live and get settled well before the fall semester begins. Hopefully we can make a few trips there before the baby comes and after, the short drive means he can come spend a lot of time with his niece/nephew and my parents can visit us both in one trip. Way to go Corey, we are so proud of you!

18 Weeks

No news to report this week other than we had a very disappointing experience at the doctor on Monday. Its a long story but the hospital group that we are using (not the one that Karl works for) is going through some major changes related to their OB/GYN services. The doctor we had selected will be leaving in July along with several others so only two doctors will be left in this practice. We knew this a few weeks ago and wanted to wait until we were able to talk with our doctor and get his recommendations on where to go next. There are several options in town but leaving this particular practice would mean changing to Karl's hospital rather than the brand new one and would also mean that our pediatrician would not see the baby in the hospital because he doesn't have privileges there (another long story). After talking about our options and asking lots of questions we decided to test out the other male OB in the same practice for our May or June appointment... or so we thought. Apparently the doctors aren't aware that no patients are allowed to switch providers until after yours leaves and even then the two remaining OBs aren't open to new patients. Surprise...definitely not what we had been told for the last 30 minutes. The whole experience was very disappointing because the ladies at the scheduling desk were extremely rude and not helpful in any way, which is the total opposite of how our OB has been through all of this. It goes back to when my appointment was canceled in march and they were the same way. My OB was never informed that I wasn't seen at all and it turns out I didn't get all of the info I should have from that cancellation. Anyway, this actually helped make our decision easier because now we are forced to switch to the other hospital system in town. We had already gotten several recommendations on who to see so I called one later that day and was treated wonderfully so we will begin with a new smaller practice with three OBs at the end of May. Karl and I both really liked the doctor we had chosen and the idea of the new hospital but in the end, this will work out better I think. Karl already works with all of the nurses at the hospital where I will deliver and knows all of the ins and outs over there. Hopefully I feel comfortable with the new OBs and we wont have to deal with all of this stress again.

As for the player to be named later, he/she is growing and had a steady heartbeat at 140. According to babycenter.com he/she is the size of a bell pepper and weighs about half a pound. Not really feeling it move yet but I'm not sure I know what that feeling should feel like at this point. When my March appointment was canceled they failed to tell me that I had to schedule my ultrasound separate from my regular appointment so we didn't get to see anything this time. I will be going back on the 13th for the 20 week ultrasound where we will get to take home pictures and video of the baby. This will also be our last official activity before we make the switch so when the appointment is over I will have all of my records released and be on my way to a new doctor. While I was pretty unhappy on Monday, I am confident it will all work out for the best and we can't want to see our little guy/girl in a few weeks.

No new pictures to share this week. Not much has changed.... I look like I'm trying to smuggle a basketball out of the office under my shirt.

17 Weeks and Growing!

Its hard to believe that 3 months ago yesterday I was able to tell Karl our exciting news! I wouldn't say that the time has gone by fast but I think the next 5 months will soon become a blur. After about 9 weeks of some serious sickness, I seem to have finally turned the corner and am no longer hating life every morning and evening. I'm not all the way there yet but its a huge improvement. Things are finally slowing down at work for me so Karl and I are starting to plan our strategy for all of the things we need to do to get the house ready for a baby. We have some projects that we had in mind and now our list will include cleaning out the garage, the spare room closet and moving everything from the computer room to one of those locations. I think many trips to Goodwill are coming up considering some of the stuff in the garage and in the closets we haven't really touched since we moved in almost 3 years ago- school work/books, twirling costumes, stuffed animals, and other random things we each had in our own apartments . Out of sight, out of mind right? I'm really excited to get the baby room ready and have been spending time looking and bedding, paint and decor online when I don't feel like doing work. Who knew there were so many options? Its still a little unreal but as I grow and as we start to plan more for the next few months its becoming more of a reality that Ella wont be the only baby in the house soon.

I have my next OB appointment on Monday and we are really excited. When my March appointment was canceled I was disappointed so we are both really looking forward to seeing how the baby has grown and hopefully getting a good ultrasound picture that we can share. We are still undecided on finding out the sex, which we will most likely have the option of doing on Monday. All we want is healthy so right now we are leaning towards not knowing. I finally decided to get in front of the camera now that there is actually something to see. Enjoy and more to come after Mondays appointment.

Oklahoma... not quite OK

The trip to Oklahoma City for the women's sweet 16 and elite 8 games was quite an interesting trip. It was exciting for the team to get to continue their season but Oklahoma City was not exactly the most desirable of locations. We landed in a snow storm that threatened to dump 8 inches of snow on us but we were spared and had two days of snow flurries and freezing rain but nothing that stuck. Our hotel was located literally 10 steps from the arena but that's about all it was close to. The "popular" area of town everyone pointed us to was called Bricktown and consists of several bars and restaurants in big old brick buildings, a new movie theatre, and a baseball field. Unfortunately not too exciting.

The first game against Rutgers was just awesome! We jumped out to a big lead and weren't about to give it up no matter how hard they tried in the last minutes of the game. On the day off in between the sun finally came out and Corey and I walked to the Oklahoma City bombing memorial and ate lunch in an awesome restaurant inside the Bricktown Ballpark. The elite 8 game was a totally different story as it was basically a home game for the number one seeded Oklahoma Sooners. The crowd was deafening... honestly, I have never experienced anything so loud in an arena before. There were almost 12,000 fans there and 11,950 of them were cheering for OU. We played a great game but just couldn't stop the Paris sisters down the stretch. It was a tough loss but really they couldn't have done anything better. I always fear the flight home after losses but the whole team was taking it pretty well by the time we got on the plane (3 hours after the game ended). I was excited to have the chance to travel with the team and it was fun having Corey there to hang out with too. I would have loved to spend this weekend in St. Louis but being gone for almost 2 weeks has made me happy to be home. I'll just watch the Final Four action from my couch this weekend and hope that our teams can fare even better next year.

Big Ten Tournament Champs

Here are a few of the best shots from the men's Big Ten Championship game. It was our first event with the new camera so the pictures were kind of an experiment. It was my first men's tounament game ever and our first tournament title in a long time! Im so happy we were able to be there to see it live and I hope we can do it again next year.