Tales from the Gym

I felt really good to get back in the gym last night. After 30 minutes of brisk hill walking on the treadmill, I felt jazzed enough to do 10 minutes on the recumbent bike, which stretched out my hips and thighs something wonderful. I had no idea how much I'd missed the feeling until I was back there again. I had to dial down my intensity just a hair about halfway through, but otherwise everything was fine. I looked like a beached whale, but at least that will keep me motivated for a while. Of course, none of that negates the chinese food I ordered when I got home. But I told myself this morning that I did better, diet-wise, yesterday than I had the day before -- salad and greek yogurt for lunch, very little sweets -- and today I would do better than yesterday. That's all you really can do, right?

Tonight we're supposed to be having mexican food with my mom for dinner. I'd better be careful during the day.

Vyla was kicking a lot this morning, from all angles. That was weird. I'm super exhausted and really glad that tomorrow is a holiday.

26 Weeks

I'm caving to the pressure of my original due date and going with Wednesdays instead of Fridays as my week markers. So today is 26 weeks, and below is the info from BabyCenter about what's going on in there:

   The network of nerves in your baby's ears is better developed and more sensitive than before. She may now be able to hear both your voice and your partner's as you chat with each other. She's inhaling and exhaling small amounts of amniotic fluid, which is essential for the development of her lungs. These so-called breathing movements are also good practice for when she's born and takes that first gulp of air. And she's continuing to put on baby fat. She now weighs about a pound and two-thirds and measures 14 inches (an English hothouse cucumber) from head to heel. 

Baby:

 Cucumber:

 Yesterday I went to Motherhood and bought a sackful of new maternity clothes. I love post-Christmas sales! I got three new pairs of pants, a dress, and 2 or 3 new tops, all for under $200. Plus a coupon for later and a restaurant gift card or something. So I sort of cleaned up! It's so nice to be wearing things that fit now. My pants were just getting way too tight. I feel stylish and cute again, and, especially with my newly done nails, I feel much better about myself, and that's way more important right now than I had realized.

Which reminds me, I'm finally going to the gym tonight. Brought a packed bag to work and all. No excuses, now.

Post Christmas News

Okay gang,
I'm taking a quick break from work to update everyone, as some exciting new developments have occurred. As many of you will already have heard, Mr. Duttera made our forever official on Christmas morning, when he got down on one knee and presented me with a beautiful diamond ring.

I have, of course, already started pouring through the magazines and making notes for things. No date yet, but I'll keep you all posted.

Meanwhile, Violet had the hiccups again this morning, and rather violently I must say. She's obviously opposed to me sneaking in 5 more minutes before dragging myself out of bed. I don't like the implications of that.

I'm at 25.5 weeks now, which is technically only 5.5 months, and somehow that count doesn't sound right to me, not if my due date is April 6th. That sound like I should be due sometime later in April. Hmm. I'll have to check those numbers. Here's what the BabyCenter email had to say about baby's development this week:

How your baby's growing

Head to heels, your baby now measures about 13 1/2 inches. Her weight — a pound and a half — isn't much more than an average rutabaga, but she's beginning to exchange her long, lean look for some baby fat. As she does, her wrinkled skin will begin to smooth out and she'll start to look more and more like a newborn. She's also growing more hair — and if you could see it, you'd now be able to discern its color and texture.

I wonder what color that hair will eventually be. There's a fair chance she could have some red in her hair -- Shawn has a lot of it.

As exciting as all the wedding stuff is, I feel like I need to refocus to baby, since I only have a few more months to enjoy being preggo and getting ready for her arrival. Then I can transition to wedding planning to my heart's content.

Waking Up

I don't know why I'm actually up this early. I took a shower last night so I don't need the extra time or anything. But I'm not overly exhausted, and going back to sleep would just mean having to rouse myself from semi-REM sleep again in a few minutes, and my hips are hurting already anyway. I slept on the other side of the bed last night, since I was trying to watch South Park on my laptop and it was easier to do that from the other side. But that side doesn't have my comfortable rut in it, and I spent most of the night trying to readjust myself so I didn't roll away. Now I'm sitting at the computer in the front room, having actually risen with the alarm, waking up slowing to the internet and pointing the water bottle at the cat every two minutes as he tries to get into Christmas decorations that are, in fact, not toys for him.

Shawn bought us a PS3 over the weekend, as well as a wireless router, and it finally feels like we're not just faking it as adults. I know, that's lame. But I can get online in any room of my house, I can stream my Netflix to the tv, which makes it feel like we have more than 10 channels to chose from, and Shawn feels like he has something nice, which is, sadly, a rarity for him these days.

I spent the weekend baking Christmas cookies with Megan, and managed not to eat too many of them in the process. Baby enjoyed the few I did have, though.

Tonight I must finish my Christmas shopping. Shawn is probably going to shop for the kids today, if he gets up in time to take me to work so he can use the car. It's so fun to have kids to shop for this year. And next year, I will have my kid!

You know, I've been hitting the place in this pregnancy in which I keep having feelings of, what the heck am I doing? Perhaps it's all finally settling in. I'm going to have an actual child to care for, not just a baby to play with. I don't doubt my ability, but it's just a big reality starting to sink in.

In any event, I hope to also hit the gym tonight for the first time in several weeks. I signed up again last week, and I just didn't have any time to myself after Wednesday night.

Also, I dreamed about Tim McGraw last night. Explain.

Belly Pop Pictures

I have been terribly remiss it posting to the blog, and I have a bunch of things to update on, but the notebook with all those notes is in the car, and that's not at home right now. So I'll make do with updating photos and inserting some info on week 24, which is where we've progressed to by now. 


First, from BabyCenter:

Your baby's growing steadily, having gained about 4 ounces since last week. That puts her at just over a pound. Since she's almost a foot long (picture an ear of corn), she cuts a pretty lean figure at this point, but her body is filling out proportionally and she'll soon start to plump up. Her brain is also growing quickly now, and her taste buds are continuing to develop. Her lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory "tree" as well as cells that produce surfactant, a substance that will help her air sacs inflate once she hits the outside world. Her skin is still thin and translucent, but that will start to change soon.


***
She certainly is kicking like a little demon. I can feel her more and more during the day now, and this morning it actually hurt when she kicked/punched me in the side while I was trying to sleep in. Here are some more pictures of the belly:

The top one is 22 weeks, and the bottom is 23 weeks. As you can see, it really popped out in a week. 24 week picture will be coming in a couple of days.

22 Weeks and New Doctor

My Kaiser appointment went well, I really liked the doc. She was very thorough and attentive, and fit us in at the end of her rotation since we were an hour late. We got lost on the way there and then couldn't find parking and it was super busy. She gave me a whole rundown of how my care would proceed for the weeks to come, what would be done in my next appointments. She asked Shawn and I a bunch of questions about our family medical history and so on, we listened to the baby again, and she answered all my questions. Right away I had a better feeling from her than I ever had from Farney. Even the medical assistants were so nice and helpful when scheduling my next appointments. I have an appointment coming up dedicated solely to having a nurse give me a rundown of questions about medical history and so on. A whole appointment dedicated to that. I can't even remember when/what Farney asked me about my medical history. My big ultrasound appointment is on Wednesday at 8am, when the radiology tech will do all the anatomy measurements and so on, and confirm the baby's gender.

Dr. Hayes also measured my tummy and said my belly size was right on target for where it should be, and told me about some other genetic tests that I might like to do (which Farney never mentioned, despite his two long speeches about how common miscarriage was in the beginning on the pregnancy -- he was awfully lax about some important tests and procedures later on).

When we were listening to the baby, we kept hearing these little pops on the doppler machine -- baby was kicking at the wand where it was pressing on her(him) in my tummy. Hehe, silly baby.

Confirmation of gender and other interesting news to come on Wednesday.

22 Weeks: