Week 26

Let's see... in week 26 JR definitely felt her move. I asked him what it feels like and he said it's just like I moved my stomach.
Last night she was rolling all over the place so I told him to feel and she stopped as soon as he put his hand on her. Then when he gave up and took his hand away she kicked one last time. It was pretty hilarious.
I was a lot less tired this week, my upper back pain is gone, and my stomach doesn't feel like it's stretching all the time. So I'm going to guess we were having a growth spurt for a while there. I'm glad she doesn't grow like that all the time.

My belly button is still an innie. No stretch marks. And I think I've gained about 14 pounds. But that depends on what time of day I weigh myself.
I've been taking my engagement ring off when it gets hot and today I didn't wear it at all since it was already hot when we woke up. The wedding band still fits fine since it doesn't have the extra sizing nubs, it's a plain 4 and 1/2.
Last night my ankles looked a little puffy. JR couldn't tell (he thought my knees looked puffy, I told him that's just fat) and they seem better today. I'm going to try to sit with my feet up on the battery backup while I'm at work

This weekend JR's parents are coming in. Mom and I are going to paint the nursery and the boys are going to do some boy stuff around the house. Randy will be the first guest to stay in the new fourth bedroom!

So on to Spud's stats.
14 inches, 1 and 2/3 pounds. Or 1 pound 10.5 ounces. She's getting fatter and gaining a lot more ounces per inch now than in the beginning. She's practice breathing by inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid (this reminds me of abyss where they have to breathe the liquid oxygen when they go out to walk on the ocean floor)and that's helping to develop her lungs. Her hearing is better developed now so she can hear our conversations, not just loud noises.

The calendar the doctor gave me said that today I started the third trimester. The countdown on the blog says 98 days to go. I'm starting to fall behind on knitting the baby blanket (we've been busy). If I keep going at 2 rows a day from here on out I'll be done a little less than a month ahead of her due date. I used to have more than a month of wiggle room.

I'm sure we'll be ready for her when she comes, like I say, all she needs is a dress, some diapers, a blanket, and a drawer to sleep in. She's already got way more than that so I don't think there will be a problem.
We seem to have a lot of big plans for the rest of the house too. I'm not sure we'll get to all of those though.

14 weeks to go!

Busy, busy, busy!

We had a pretty busy weekend.

I asked my dad to come in to take a look at the nursery wall. So he could tell us if we needed to tear out the whole thing and re-drywall or if we just needed to repaint. Turns out it was somewhere in between.

So he came prepared to tackle one big project or several smaller projects depending on what actually needed to be done.

My mom and I ended up scraping, sanding, and priming the wall and window in the nursery and the wall in the second bedroom (where the paint started to peel for some unknown reason.)

Meanwhile my Dad and JR investigated the upstairs bathroom floor. We've had a little stain spreading out from under the toilet. Over the past nine months it's become a big stain. They ended up tearing out two layers of flooring and replacing the vinyl. We're pretty sure the leak is gone, so now Spud won't have to learn how to use the potty in a rotting mold infested bathroom.

After my parents left, JR fixed the closet door in the nursery that's been broken since we moved in. It took a half hour. So that's awesome. That JR, he's a wiz with the chisel.

I bought the crib and dresser/changing table online today. I've abandoned my idea for making the dresser from the office work. I noticed the crib I wanted was on sale again so we just went for it.

Here's the crib


And the dresser.


I think all that's left in the nursery is painting, maybe some new trim, a new door knob, frames for the pictures, curtains, a rug, and caulking around the window frame.
That seems doable.
Oh, and a baby, but I'm still working on that one.

Picture Time!

Here's the 24 week picture I never posted.


The prints for her nursery came last Friday. The 3 sleeping dragons in the middle will go together on one wall and the pirate and night and day dragons will go together on another wall. I'm thinking gold frames but I'm not completely decided yet.


Here's my naked bump at 25 weeks. I figured I should take at least one naked bump picture before I get a bunch of scary stretch marks. Also, I'm documenting my navel now, but you don't have to see those pictures. Anyway, I took this one myself so it's a super close up.


We got some great gifts this week!

This is a playmat from Grammy and Poppy. It's good for tummy time, laying on your back, and crawling through!


Aunt Manda got her this super soft thumbie and rattle. They're pale pink, I think it's hard to see in the picture.


Grandmom sent us this super adorable diaper. It's black and gold.


I can't get over how tiny it is, so I took a picture with my hand on it for comparison.








Thank you for all the wonderful gifts!

25 weeks

So the e-mail actually got specific this week.
They say she's 13.6 inches and a pound and a half. Which "isn't much more than an average rutabaga." Yeah, I have no idea what that is. Here's google's image. Looks super appealing!

They say she's starting to get a little bit fatter and if we could see her hair we could tell what color it is. But that's all they have to say this week. Not super exciting.

We're getting close to a name. We have a first name picked, we just need to find her middle name now. Once that's all set we think we'll let everyone know. I definitely slipped to my mom and called her by her name rather than Spud but I was on the cell phone and she said she didn't hear what I said anyway. So the secret is still safe.
But, prepare yourselves. It's probably not a name you've heard before.

I need a nap.

I'm still pretty tired.
Had my 1 hour glucose test while I was at the doctor on Friday. I mentioned how tired I am and she said that they check your iron when they check for everything else. My levels all came back fine. So I guess I can't blame low iron for being tired. Just pregnant. (not that I'm blaming low iron for being pregnant, I'm blaming being pregnant for the tiredness)

My upper back and across my shoulders has been feeling tight and sore the last couple days.
And pretty much every time I eat something my belly feels like it's trying to break out through my skin.
I'm not sure if the growing belly is related to the sore back but I'd guess it is.

So far no stretch marks, and my belly button is still fighting the good fight. I'm not sure we can win the war but my belly button will be remembered as a hero either way. Forget bump pictures. We should have been taking navel pictures this whole time. I'm fascinated by it.

Next appointment I'll go on a Monday afternoon. I think she said I'll see Dr. Hurt. Which doesn't sound good, people named Hurt should not become doctors. But I can't find this person's name on their card or the webpage at all. So maybe I heard it wrong.

Spud's good. This morning she woke up after I sent JR to the shower so I couldn't go back to sleep. Then once I was good and awake she went to sleep for another 2 hours. Funny Spud, real funny.

Week 24

Last night when I went to bed Spud was moving around and her movements felt very big. I imagine that when I feel big movements at one end that's her feet and the little movements at the other end are her hands. It could actually be her head is the big end and her feet are the little end. Or one end is butt and the other is head but I don't know for sure.

Anyway last night I was laying on my left side and it felt like she was walking up the inside of my uterus. She started with the big movements right on top of my left hip and the small movements up on my right side. Then they started to rotate. The left hand movements moved further up my side and the right hand movments moved lower down toward my hip. It was funny to imagine her taking a stroll in there.

I think I've grown a lot this week. My abs hurt and feel stretched out. I'm really tired. And I keep being shocked every time I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The other day I said "whoa" after catching one of those glimpses. JR said "Did you forget you were pregnant?" It's almost like that. More like, I didn't realize I was that big.
I've noticed some pink marks on my stomach but I'm not sure if they're just pajama lines or the beginning of stretch marks. I guess that's a wait and see sort of thing.

Going to church was my Mother's Day gift. I got a rose at church too! Dr. Ruby had all the moms stand up and he gave a rose to the woman who was a mother the longest. Then to the woman who was the newest mother. And then to another woman who is expecting and me. It's a very pretty rose too.
After church we went out to breakfast. We've been craving breakfast out for a couple weekends now and since we were actually dressed before noon we figured we should take advantage.

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. And I'm supposed to do my glucose test while I'm there. Then I have a hair cut at a new place. My goal is a pony tail since I hear showering and hair styling tend to have a lower priority after a new baby. Hopefully she can make it look not awful until I reach my goal.

Week 24
So the e-mail says she gained 4 ounces this week (which could explain the ouchy abs) but they're still saying she's just over a pound. I guess from here on out it's not going to be too specific. Every baby is different. They also say she's almost a foot long. So, like a heavy foot long hot dog! They compare her to an ear of corn. Sounds like there's a cookout going on in there!
Taste buds and lungs are still developing and her skin is still translucent.
The top of my uterus is now above my belly button and it's the size of a soccer ball. I definitely believe that, but maybe a size 3 soccer ball.
The e-mail thinks we should tackle home improvement projects this week and start by making a list. We're already ahead of the game on this one. Woo-hoo!

Nursery Progress?

So I guess we've made the first steps toward getting the nursery ready.

We're still going with Dragons as the theme (just in the nursery, we're not going to dress her as a dragon, except maybe at halloween). We like this series of prints so we're going to choose a few from there to hang on the wall rather than trying to paint dragons.
Getting that hammered out really helped. Now we can start implementing our plan of attack.

This weekend we painted the 4th bedroom. It's a bedroom now and not an exercise room anymore. That was the first step in getting the nursery ready.
The color we painted the 4th bedroom is called Parakeet Pete (#402-4) and I really like it. We were going to do the office Parakeet Pete and the exercise room light purple. But now that the nursery will be purple we thought the 4th bedroom should be some other color. Luckily we had all that paint we bought a while ago to choose from!

We moved the bed and dresser from the nursery into the fourth bedroom. So now the nursery is empty except for a box of Spud's stuff. She already has so much stuff I had to pack it up in a box and store it in the closet.

I guess next we need to repair the water damage on the wall. Then we can start painting. I have some furniture I'm planning to refinish that will go in the nursery, so that can be done pretty much at any time.

So, it's definitely progress but there's still a lot to be done.

Pretty clothes

So I've started buying ahead. Clearance items from this season that she can wear next year. These were too cute too pass up. And super cheap!

Hopefully she'll be able to wear the fancy one as her Easter Dress. We'll see!


The dress with the polka dots is cute, but it was the butterfly on the diaper cover/baby panties that won me over.

Dragons and Pirates, Oh My!

My mom got us a few things for the baby.

She got us this pirate book ages ago, but I forgot it in Buffalo. Now it's happy living in the nursery. I guess we're going to need a bookshelf in there.



She also got Spud this adorable stuffed dragon. He's super cute.



JR and I saw this little color-it-yourself dragon sculpture at the office supply store. He had a lot of potential, unfotunately the markers they provide don't really interact well with the plastic. It was kind of a mess. She'll never be allowed to touch it 'cause I'm sure it's a toxic mess but he's done. We'll see if he stays around.

Week 23

I'm starting to get a little more tired again. I keep trying to push my bed time a little earlier but it's only kind of worked.

JR thinks he may have felt her this weekend. Yay! Hopefully we'll catch her at a time when she's really active so he can feel a bunch of her movements. She's been kicking down a lot lately, not out, so it's hard to feel or see from the outside.

We were supposed to have our first class this week, it's really an info session, about cord blood. But it was cancelled. They'll be holding it in June. But I got some useful info about donating cord blood from my weekly e-mail.
Cord Blood Donation info
I assumed you could donate it but I wasn't sure and hadn't heard anything about it. The e-mail also mentions how much private banking costs (about $2,000, plus a yearly storage fee) which none of the pamphlets the private companies have been sending us seem to mention.

I used my new stance the whole time at shuffleboard this week. It definitely worked, no back pain! And I scored 9 points which everyone was impressed with! I guess that's good.

I had my first belly touchers at the Cinco de Mayo party. Aunt B. and Sandy both couldn't help themselves. But I'm adorable, so I don't blame them. :-P
So Tara saw me on Saturday at the party and I was wearing a kind of big t-shirt that doesn't really hug the belly. Then on Sunday I wore a tank that shows the whole belly. When she saw me she asked Grammy if the baby wasn't ready to come out now. Grammy told her not yet.
And on Sunday I sneezed really hard and Mom said that I shouldn't sneeze like that when I'm 9 months pregnant or the baby will just pop right out. I don't think that sounds so bad. Skip the whole labor part of labor and delivery. Would have to be a really big sneeze though.

On to week 23.
They say I should dance with her. Although my groove isn't quite as groove-alicious as it used to be I think I'll give it a try. Spud is more than 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound. The blood vessels in her lungs are developing in preparation for breathing. I've been kind of wondering why babies don't cry in utero since I know sound can travel through liquid but I guess there's no air in there for her to force a sound out. See what you can figure out when you actually think about something!
They also said that she can hear what goes on outside so she'll be used to sounds like the vacuum cleaner once she's born. I thought that was funny. Maybe we should start running the vacuum.

I'd say I'm right about at 10 pounds gained now.

I also think we need a baby book already. We have these ultrasound pictures and the DVD, not to mention the gifts we've already gotten. I don't want to forget any of it.

My Bladder

So I guess Spud thinks it's funny to kick my bladder. And it is kind of funny, now. But she only weighs a pound. Hopefully she gets it out of her system before she can actually put some weight behind it.

On Friday morning I think she was just sitting on it 'cause I felt like I had to pee constantly but it was definitely empty. Now she's started giving it little jabs every so often.

If I'm driving in the car I might miss a couple kicks because of the bumps in the road etc. But not when she's kicking my bladder. Even if I don't feel the kick, the urge to pee that comes and goes in a second let's me know what she's up to in there.

I going to try to keep my bladder pretty empty to avoid any possible incidents. And poking her. Maybe she'll move and kick something else.