27 Weeks = Third Trimester!

Here we go with the third trimester!  Two-thirds of the way down and coming down the home-stretch!  And speaking of stretch - good lord will my body make it these last 3 months?!?!  I'm continuing to marvel at how big my belly is and the knowledge that it's going to get bigger still.  Continuing to marvel at how such a small (relatively) little being inside there can wreak such havoc on my digestive system, my comfort level, and all of my joints.

Other than my whining about intense reflux despite my daily meds and various other discomfort, things are continuing along just fine.  The midwife appointment I had on Thursday 2/25 showed our little jelly bean is measuring exactly where she should be - despite how much bigger I look than other people in the same place as me.  She said it was just due to the length of your torso, how you're carrying, and baby's position.  Weight gain is up 28lbs so far (!!) but they're happy with where I am and said that they like to see people gain between 25-35lbs and that you usually don't gain quite as steadily through the last 4-6 weeks.  so that's something I guess.  But it sure explains why I'm huffing and puffing when attempting to do anything!  The added weight plus decreased lung function is all the explanation I need!  I also had my 1hr gestational diabetes test (GD test).  So far I haven't heard anything on the results - they said they'd call if there was anything abnormal and expected results on Friday or Monday so hopefully tomorrow goes by without a phone call.  I felt like there was more glucola this time than the first one they made me do at my first appointment, but Jeff thinks that I just forgot how much I had to drink that first time.  Yick.  And it's definitely NOT any better the second time around when you're burping it up.  Just fyi.  bleh.

Our first shower is coming up quickly as well.  While I'm still adding and deleting things from the registry from time to time, both the Amazon and Babies R'Us registries are essentially done.  The invites for the first shower have gone out including the registry info.  We went shopping for an outfit for the shower as I realized that including this one, I only had 2 more shopping weekends left! 

Which brings me to my next rant: maternity dresses.  Okay so you see the pictures online of maternity dresses and they look cute.  In general, I like dresses so figured it'd be a good way to go.  HA!  Let me tell you, the two dresses I tried on made me look like a HOUSE!  And normally I know my belly's fairly big and am fine with it - but i felt like a grandma in a muumuu or something just because the dress comes up over the bump but then just drops down and keeps going.  There's no shaping at the bottom like you get with pants and tops.  So needless to say, I'll be wearing pants and a cute, flattering top for my shower.  Bonus for not needing to shave anyway, right?  :-)

Oh and for anyone that's wondering - belly button is still in!  Woo!  Looks friggin WEIRD but fingers crossed it can make it the next 3 months..  Only time will tell.  :-)

26 Weeks and Less than 99 Days to go!!

26 weeks - 2 weeks left of the second trimester and I've hit double digits.  That is, double digit days left to go till my due date!  Not much else is going on and this will be brief as I lagged in posting this update almost a full week (oops).

Baby continues to push her way further into the ever increasingly valuable real estate of my abdominal cavity.  Right about now I'd put the value of my abdominal space in the category of super luxury home because there is so very very little of it left and its previous inhabitants (i.e. my ORGANS) are not pleased with their cramped quarters.

At least I continue to feel her movements throughout the day.  I've begun to notice patterns and can expect to feel her move about at specific times during the day and notice if I don't which is kind of neat.  It's almost like I'm able to keep track of what she's doing already!

25 Weeks and Finished Nursery!

Well the walls are finished that is.  lol. 

So 25 weeks and still growing.  Still loving my belly though - even though I notice more and more that I'm having difficulty moving around, getting up, etc.  I did have one random morning of sickness but it was apparently a freak occurrence and I've been fine since then.  So overall I'm feeling good - getting more and more excited to meet her and hold my little bundle in my arms instead of my belly!!

One interesting thing I've read is that around this time, babies begin to prefer their right or left hands.  It seems crazy that this starts before birth let alone so far before birth.  I remember mom telling me that when I was really little I would use both my right and left hands for things often and Babci would freak out saying that she was supposed to force me to use my right hand because left handed-ness was some sign of the devil or something (and yes she was crazy.  Clearly!).  But baby is also getting more dexterous and the ability to really make fists and grab for her feet, etc is improving.  So she'll have plenty of time to practice before getting to the outside!!

So - onto the nursery pics as I know those are everyone's favorites.  First pic is showing the finished paint job with the white chair rail installed.  I really like how the chair rail ties in the white stripes and works with the design.  I had my doubts that I could pull off a white chair rail with the stained woodwork in that room unless one of our stripes was also white to tie into it.  Looks like my hunch paid off, huh?

Next is the finished walls with the crib put together.  Have I mentioned how much I love this crib?  Cuz I really really do.  :-)  The angle I took this pic you can totally see how it will make a gorgeous headboard and footboard for a full sized bed someday too, right?!  Definitely a good choice.  :-)  Still no mattress or bedding in it, obviously, so I'll post another pic once we get that bit all set up.

We probably should have cleaned up the tools from the install before taking pictures, but this is the dresser.  It was apparently the heaviest furniture that Jeff and his dad had ever had to move (up two flights of stairs no less!!).  The drawers don't even come out - must be some kind of safety feature - and the whole thing was already put together in one piece in the box.  I'm glad we didn't have to put it together, and I'm glad it's clearly a solid, good piece of furniture, but man is it heavy!!!  hahaha..  Very pretty though and plenty big enough to put a changing pad on and still have room which is great.

And the last pic is just a close-up of the final paint job with the chair rail in place so you can really see the stripes.  They are definitely not perfect, and we did have a few issues that we want to touch up, but I'm really really happy with how it finally turned out.  :-)

We've so far gone to 3 of the 12 birthing classes, and are really enjoying it.  There are definitely some sorta 'hokey' bits to it - as there are with most things like that - but it's been great to get information and different exercises to do to strengthen the muscles that will help the most with labor and birth.  It's also fun to have the things I've previously mentioned to Jeff validated by having someone else say them as well.  :-)

24 Weeks: V is for VIABILITY!

24 weeks = "V-day" in the pregnancy world.  And that's a whole different V-day than most people think of.  We're not talking Valentine's Day people, we're talking viability!  At 24 weeks baby has a greater than 50/50 shot if she were born early and chances just get better from here.  It's a really good spot to get to for a mama.  :-)

Movement has also kicked up a notch - I still can't tell hands from feet from general moving around, but Jeff did finally feel his first kick on the 28th!  I finally made him sit down with his hand on my belly until he felt her - there's no way for me to know when she'll move and she doesn't always KEEP moving after the first bump so it was hard to otherwise make sure he was there at the right time.  Way cute - I had to tell  him when she kicked because he couldn't believe what he felt wasn't just my tummy in normal status.  hahaha..

We've also begun work on the nursery - all the previous 'spare bedroom' furniture is gone and we started painting.  Here is a photo timeline of what we have so far starting with the 'before'  picture.  We did the top half of the wall first, then started working on the stripes.  Because of how the stripes are laid out we were able to tape and paint two of the four colors of stripes at once which was nice.

I also got the call from Babies R Us that our dresser has arrived and is ready for pickup.  Thankfully we have 15 days to get it so can wait a week to go pick it up.  I'm hopeful the shape of the box will allow us to get it INSIDE my SUV - the crib was a no-go in that department and we had to ride it on my roof rack tied down.  That was...not the plan at the get-go.  I mean everything always fits in my truck!  But no - not the box for this crib.  Ah well.

I also ordered our crib bedding because the site was showing it as suddenly discontinued and since we spent such a long time deliberating on the 'right' set to get, I definitely wanted to be sure that we were able to get that one!  Particularly as I based my paint color choices off of it - so it was important that our decor actually match the paint job we're spending so much time in creating here!

Ignore my super cool 'painting' outfit here.  One thing I've learned about maternity wear is that it definitely puts you in a sticky situation when it comes to 'crap clothes' for things like painting.  So I have a pair of maternity pj pants and one of Jeff's too-small t-shirts on.  they did the job and I only caused minimal damage to them, so that's all that matters right?  lol..  Cuteness was definitely not a factor here.

In the end, we found we did have some trouble with the paint bleeding under our tape in some places.  This may be a problem where it happened on stripes that are going to be painted white in the next stage, but the other stripe color is dark purple so that should cover anything - the white is the only issue.  I've gotten some tips since discovering our problem as well on 'burnishing' the tape with a credit card or something to ensure full contact with the wall all the way down, and we also plan to pay close attention to the amount of paint we're using towards the tape to hopefully prevent bleeding again.

And last but not least, is a pic of the bedding we're getting.  We're mixing and matching from this set (Kids Line: Lilac Garden) and the Carter's: Garden Party set.  The bedding is all Lilac Garden but we're taking some of the ancillary pieces of the Garden Party set and using them instead because there are some things I just liked better and most of their stuff will match the Lilac Garden stuff anyway.  I can't wait to get the crib built and the bedding all set up!  All we need now is to build the crib and get the mattress!