Monday Monday

I have finally updated my belly pictures, but so far they're only on Facebook, so you'll have to find them in the Oh Baby! album there until I get around to posting them in the blog. We missed a week of pictures while Shawn was at NAMM, but it's still a pretty good slide show. It's so funny looking back at some of the earlier pics when I thought I was showing so much, compared to now when I really am. I was so much smaller then. Well, I will be again, someday. By September, I hope, when my Mom gets married. I'd like to have most of the weight worked off by then.

I spent some time with Lila last night, who's due date was just moved back to February 5th from January 28th. She's jolly and round like Santa, hehe. We checked out her nursery, which is darling, and ate cheesecake and tea and talked about weddings and babies and life changes. It was nice to have some quality time. She's still working on remodeling the house with her hubby, and hopefully they can have it mostly finished in a week.

My shower is in two weeks, and the more I see that gifts are being bought from the registry, the more excited I get. Not in a greedy way, but because I'm finally and actually going to have her things in the house, and I can start getting ready for her for real. I'm pretty close to chucking out a lot of the stuff in the house, like half of what is stuffed into the closet. I just don't think I need it all, especially the two boxes that were never unpacked from the move... Shawn is going to disassemble the changing table before the shower, so that I can send it home with Vicki to paint all pretty. And it looks like someone purchased my bassinet, so I'll have that to set up, and acclimatize the cats to its forbidden status.

The baby is kicking and I have a bit of something in my contact lense. I want a venti iced latte...

30 Weeks

Hello! We're at 30 weeks now, and the kicking has increased in its urgency and violence. I swear she's doing gymnastics in there all day long, but it's kind of fun to feel her so much. I'm finding myself referring to her as my daughter instead of the baby, which is a slight mental shift, but an important one. "The baby" was a more detached way of viewing her, as a thing separate from me. "My daughter" gives her the ownership that was lacking before, and really drives home just how crazy a life shift is on the way. As a wise man once said, "it's about to get real up in here."


Our next doctor's appointment is on Valentine's Day, when I will turn in my hospital pre-admission paperwork and birth plan, and they will doubtless give me a kick card and ask me to pee in a cup...again. After that appointment, the appointments will increase in frequency. I'll probably go in again two weeks later, and then once a week in March until she shows her little face.

Her middle name is still up for debate. We'd liked Jane for a while, but now I think we're leaning towards Elizabeth. It has a nice musical sound to it, all rolled together.


I'm a little frustrated that I can't bother to go try on wedding dresses for several months, but I think that, combined with my mom's wedding in September, will be a very good thing -- if I lacked motivation to get back in shape before, I definitely have it now.

Transitions and Milestones

I had a dream last night that I was babysitting my cousins again, and somehow I was completely neglecting their welfare, and like, having a really hard time juggling caring for the one over the other. I woke up with this sense of having done something wrong that I would have to deal with and make right in some way.

It's been hitting me more and more frequently that "pregnant" is going to end much sooner than I'd realized, and "baby" is going to be invading in a very real way. So far I've been consumed with eating the right things, taking the pills, reading the books, seeing the doctor; but having an actual baby to care for is something else altogether, and that transition, mentally, is starting to slowly take place.

I bought her some baby clothes at TJ Maxx over the weekend, and it was the first time that I'd been shopping for things for my own child -- not for a fantasy, some-day kid, or for someone else's kid that I was living vicariously through, but my own real, soon to be on the outside, flesh and blood child. It was kind of like a milestone in its own right.

Third Trimester Pending

Oh my gosh, I haven't updated in so long. Baby is getting bigger and bigger. Tomorrow is going to be my 28 week mark, which, prior to what I'd originally thought, is the start of my third trimester. This belly is starting to get in the way of doing stuff. I can't bend over to pick things up very well any more, and sitting forward is becoming less comfortable. I've been getting headaches and pain in my leg muscles from not stretching out. And I find that I get out of breath going up stairs and stuff. The books said that it gets harder to breath as you go on and the baby starts pushing against your ribs and stuff.

She's been pretty quiet the last couple of days. Today she was moving more than yesterday. I was starting to get paranoid that she wasn't moving enough, but today she's been back to her old dance moves.

I got a notice in my email that someone bought my bedding set from the registry -- it didn't say who so I'll still be surprised. But I'm super glad that I'm getting it, yay!

New Development Info

Good morning, all. Just a quick dip into the blogosphere to share the baby updates that came from various reliable sources this morning. I'm coming up on 27 weeks, so here's the important info, first from BabyCenter, and then from Kaiser:

  This week, your baby weighs almost 2 pounds (like a head of cauliflower) and is about 14 1/2 inches long with her legs extended. She's sleeping and waking at regular intervals, opening and closing her eyes, and perhaps even sucking her fingers. With more brain tissue developing, your baby's brain is very active now. While her lungs are still immature, they would be capable of functioning — with a lot of medical help — if she were born now. Chalk up any tiny rhythmic movements you may be feeling to a case of baby hiccups, which may be common from now on. Each episode usually lasts only a few moments, and they don't bother her, so just relax and enjoy the tickle.

This info from Kaiser is a little bit early, as, according to them, I won't be entering my third trimester until next week. But it's still some good info about what to expect. So if I start complaining about any of these things, you've been forewarned:

Your Third Trimester

The third trimester of pregnancy spans from week 28 to the birth. Although your due date marks the end of your 40th week, a full-term pregnancy can deliver between the 37th and 42nd weeks of pregnancy. During this final trimester, your fetus grows larger and the body organs mature. The fetus moves frequently, especially between the 27th and 32nd weeks.

In the final 2 months of pregnancy, a fetus becomes too big to move around easily inside the uterus and may seem to move less. At the end of the third trimester, a fetus usually settles into a head-down position in the uterus. You will likely feel some discomfort as you get close to delivery.

See pictures of the fetus at 32 and 40 weeks of development .

Normal symptoms you may experience during the third trimester of pregnancy include:

• Braxton Hicks contractions, which are "warm-up" contractions that do not thin and open the cervix (do not lead to labor).
• Fatigue.
• Back pain.
• Pelvic ache and hip pain.
• Hemorrhoids and constipation.
• Heartburn (a symptom of gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD).
• Hand pain, numbness, or weakness (carpal tunnel syndrome).
• Breathing difficulty, since your uterus is now just below your rib cage, and your lungs have less room to expand.
• Mild swelling of your feet and ankles (edema). Pregnancy causes more fluid to build up in your body. This, plus the extra pressure that your uterus places on your legs, can lead to swelling in your feet and ankles.
• Difficulty sleeping and finding a comfortable position. Lying on your back interferes with blood circulation, and lying on your stomach isn't possible. Sleep on your side, using pillows to support your belly and between your knees. Later in your pregnancy, it is best to lie on your left side. When you lie on your right side or on your back, the increasing weight of your uterus can partly block the large blood vessel in front of your backbone.
• Frequent urination, caused by your enlarged uterus and the pressure of the fetus's head on your bladder.

Signs that labor is not far off include the following:

• The fetus settles into your pelvis. Although this is called dropping, or lightening, you may not feel it.
• Your cervix begins to thin and open (cervical effacement and dilatation). Your health professional checks for this during your prenatal exams.
• Braxton Hicks contractions become more frequent and stronger, perhaps a little painful. You may also feel cramping in the groin or rectum or a persistent ache low in your back.
• Your "water" may break (rupture of the membranes). In most cases, rupture of the membranes occurs after labor has already started. In some women, this happens before labor starts. Call your health professional immediately or go to the hospital if you think your membranes have ruptured. 

Finally, I'm going to try to cut out as much sugar from my diet as possible. One day at a time of course, but I'm pretty sure I consume too much of it, so any little bit less is a good thing.

Holidays are Over...Sad

Some new pics tonight before I take my week 26 photos. These are from week 25:

With the turning of the new year it has finally hit me that a baby is about to be here. It hasn't seemed real, or, at least, impending, until now, when it's the year it will happen -- it doesn't seem so far away now. In fact, it's stressing me out to think that it's really only right around the corner. Of course, I'm also super excited that my showers are coming up soon, and once I have baby stuff in the house I'm sure I'll feel more prepared.

Speaking of New Years, I didn't really make any resolutions this year. I have so much I'm trying to get a handle on that I just didn't even consider it. I know that I'm trying to get back in the habit of working out, while I still can, and I have made it my goal to get into better shape after baby than I was in before. I have my mom's wedding in September, and I'll want to be as trimmed down as I can by then. So, eating healthy and getting into healthy habits. But mostly I'm still just nesting a bit and reading my newborn and nursing books, and trying to prepare for baby as much as I can.

I still need to go in and have my sugars tested. These last two weekends have been so busy that I just haven't even remembered or had the time. Plus, on Thursday night I came down with some kind of nasty stomach bug, and I was up for a good part of the night just heaving. It was yucky. Baby seems fine though, she's still kicking away and doing her thing. And after a day of rest and re-hydration, I was back to normal as well.