Confirmed!

Yes, I do believe that I have started having Braxton-Hicks contractions. In fact I just had one a couple minutes ago. Sometimes I don't think that I even notice I'm having them. But today I felt one on the way home from my aunt's house and it almost made me a bit nauseous. (That couldn't be because of all the crap I ate at an engagement party this afternoon and then a huge piece of cake at my aunt's.)

Side note, we're watching the MTV movie awards because Andy Samberg is hosting and he's hysterical. Well, I just saw a girl I went to high school with sitting right next to Cameron Diaz! Someone told me that she was her assistant, but I didn't believe it... I guess she is! Props to her, and props to Cameron Diaz for bringing her personal assistant as her date! Awesome!

Progress

My husband always chooses exactly the best and safe words to use... how did I get so lucky?! He describes the picture comparison below with weeks 27 and 17 as "Progress."

I think I've started having Braxton-Hicks contractions this week. But.. I'm not sure, I'll have to do some research. My tummy gets very hard all over and super round. It doesn't hurt, or feel like anything really... so who knows.

Our childbirth classes are half over. They really haven't been that bad, but there are two Parnters that I'd like to call out.

The first is the husband of one of the women in the class. We'll call him DB for short... yes, that acronym suits him. Last week our instructor was trying to get the Partners to discuss how labor may make the moms act. So he pipes up and says "she's going to OVER react, just like she always does." I would hire I doula if I were her. Who says that?!?! What a jerk!

The second is the boyfriend of about 17 or 18 years old. And his age may or may not have anything to do with it, but he's clearly not the most intelligent person in the class. When we were doing some more relaxation techniques on the floor she was quietly walking us through envisioning a place that makes us relaxed and calm. She then tells the partners to then think of where the place the Mom is relaxing and he shouts out "somewhere relaxing!" Well thanks buddy, we were relaxed but not anymore, thanks. And to top it all off, he was sitting with his legs wide open and his fly down... classy!

Dear Instructor Deb, I can't handle many more weeks of hearing you "bearing down" complete with grunts... yes - we get what the final part of stage 2 labor is going to be like. PLEASE PLEASE Debbie, Please stop grunting and growning.

I don't really have much else to write about. I think the last 3 months are going to go by far slower then the last 6.5. At least the next two weekends are booked with friends' weddings, so after those we'll be to another milestone - 30 weeks!

Third Trimester!!!

Great Memorial Day weekend. Couple BBQs and first kayaking of the summer. Baby's first day out on one of the lakes in the county. My lifejacket no longer fits so I can zip it up, and if you look closely enough, you can see the grey belly as I'm paddling. Here's Chip and I.

Some of the books say that the 3rd trimester starts at 26 weeks while others say 28, so I'm just going to split the difference and say that this week starts the 3rd trimester... WOW... seriously, where has the time gone?

How far along? 27 weeks

Total weight gain/loss: Total net + 10 -- double digits now.
Stretch marks? Not yet.
Sleep: Better last week.
Best moment this week: Three day weekend!!!!
Movement: All the time :-)
Food cravings: Still avocados and made a HUGE salad tonight to satisfy.
Gender: Still thinking boy. Chip still thinks baby is a girl.
Labor Signs: Nothing. I refuse to change this answer for at least another 10-13 weeks.
Belly Button in or out? Still in.
What I miss: Not much this week.
What I am looking forward to: Molly's wedding next weekend :-)
Weekly Wisdom: Again, nothing this week.
Milestones: Baby is about 2 lbs and almost 14'' long head to toe!!

Shout outs to new followers: No new followers this week.
Random belly rubs: Baby must have an inherant fear of strangers already. Baby will only move for Daddy and I... on 3 separate occasions Baby has decided to stop moving as soon as a "stranger" goes to touch, s/he pretends that s/he's sleeping. But Baby LOVESS LOVES when Daddy talks to him/her and dances all over the place.

Baby Brain Moment of the Week: Nothing that I can remember this week, perhaps that's my Baby Brain though.
Weekly Belly Pic: Without further ado - us at 27 weeks in the baby's room, which is full of stuff right now, again!!!! I really feel like I'm really starting to get big.

Week 26 and we have furniture!!!

We got the nursery furniture all put together last night and tonight. Here are some pictures of the progress from moving the guest room into the office, and then building the furniture and the final 2 pieces. We're not going to keep those two close together like that, but we need to move a few more pieces out of the room before we can call it done.

The guest room (soon to be nursery) before:

In Progress:

Office mess and then with the guest bed, still some work needed here:

Crib and dresser/changer complete!!!

Proud Daddy and Momma... we're done... for now:

Now, onto the survey.

How far along? 26 weeks
Total weight gain/loss: Total net + 9 -- 1 lb last week.

Stretch marks? Not yet.

Sleep: Okay, could be better, could be worse. Crazy, obscenity shouting neighbor, Norman Bates, woke me up at 400 am today. Thank god he's moving. He moves out shopping sized bags from his house, one by one from 4am - 530am each Monday. I'm calling the cops next week if he's out there screaming again - what's weirdest is that we live in a nice neighborhood.

Best moment this week: We just finished putting the baby's furniture tonight!!!!

Movement: All the time :-) Though baby did not want to move when Aunt Tilley and Aunt Jodi were trying to feel some karate chops.

Food cravings: Nothing, except for avocados... still!

Gender: Still thinking boy. Chip still thinks baby is a girl.

Labor Signs: Nothing. I refuse to change this answer for at least another 11-14 weeks.

Belly Button in or out? Still in.

What I miss: Not having to sleep with pillows on all sides of me.

What I am looking forward to: Getting the remainder of the non-nursery furniture out of baby's room and calling it almost done!

Weekly Wisdom: I've got none this week.

Milestones: This week was the first week I could clearly feel the baby on one side of my belly without the baby moving. Baby's bones are getting nice and strong and hard! :-) ALSO... less then 100 days until baby!!!! Where has the time gone???

Shout outs to new followers: No new followers this week.

Random belly rubs: No strangers, but lots of love from the usual suspects and of course Aunts Tilley and Jodi.

Baby Brain Moment of the Week: Update on last week's work faux paux - my work booboo wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. New BBMotW - I went to take a sip of hot cocoa this afternoon and dribbled on my navy shirt. I wasn't too worried about it staining the shirt but knew I had a white bra on. So I quickly checked my bra, yepp chocolate on it, so I wiped it off (good thing the office was quiet). I get back to work, take another sip, and do it AGAIN!!!

Weekly Belly Pic:

And without further ado - us at 26 weeks in the baby's room!!!!

Child birth class update

Thank goodness we had no more painful memories from the "Cagey Vet" this week, her and her daughter left after the first hour. Which brings me to this painful thought.... holy metric system Batman. Being in the only country that doesn't use the metric system, I am sure I'm not the only one who had a bit of reality slapped in her face this week at class. 10 centimeters is a really wide diameter!!! I looked around the room as the instructor showed the chart showing the progression of this - I'm not the only one who relearned how wide 10cm actually is! Those charts topped with with our instructor GRUNTING whenever she'd point to 10 centimeters... hello reality!! Owie! And is it really necessary for our instructor to pretend to push?!?! For some reason those sounds really grossed me out.
After our break we practiced some labor positions. I really enjoyed this because I got almost an hour long back rub from Chipper. He's going to be such a great coach during labor. I just know it and am sooooo lucky to have him there to experience this together.

25 down... 15 to go.

I'm a day late with my update. Here' goes....
How far along? 25 weeks 1 day
Total weight gain/loss: Total net + 8. No weight gain last week. According to my Dr appt last week, I only put on 2 lbs last month. I'm sure it will come on pretty heavy in the next 3 months!
Stretch marks? Not yet, but above my belly button is getting very smooth/soft... I hope that doesn't mean stretch mark.
Sleep: Still pretty good, as long as our crazy neighbor, Norman Bates, doesn't wake me up at 430 am!!
Best moment this week: Hmmm... well we ordered the crib and dresser/changer for baby's room last Wednesday, and they arrived on Saturday!!!!
Movement: Got woken up for the first time to a dance party happening on my bladder. That was pretty unexpected. THAT is an odd feeling!
Food cravings: Hmm nothing right now, grateful to have an appetite still.
Gender: Still thinking boy. Chip still thinks baby is a girl.
Labor Signs: Nothing. I refuse to change this answer for at least another 12-15 weeks.
Belly Button in or out? Still in... getting very wide and shallow.
What I miss: I went out with the girls on Saturday night and everyone had beautiful martinis, I just wanted a quick taste, but resisted.
What I am looking forward to: Getting the office cleaned out and converted into the office/guest room... we've got baby furniture to put together and get set up!!!!! ALSO... this weekend's visit at Tilley's and seeing Jodi too!!!
Weekly Wisdom: Don't expect a prenatal massage to be as amazing as a regular Swedish massage... you will come out disappointed.
Milestones: I can't believe it only took 4 short days for our baby furniture to come in!!! Crazy. Also, baby is starting to be able to open his/her eyes... AND his/her vocal cords are getting some exercises... whenever he or she hiccups :-) Lastly, I have all my appointments set up... with the last one being 3 days past our due date!!!
Shout outs to new followers: 2 new fellow Mommy-to-be bloggers: Shandell and Keliann.
Random belly rubs: I've yet to have a stranger touch my belly, but baby gets lots of love from friends and family each week!
Baby Brain Moment of the Week: I made a stupid/hopefully minor error at work last week. I was a bit distracted by my hip/sciatica pain, so I hope, I hope it's something I can fix tomorrow.
And without further ado - us at 25 weeks:






I've decided to post some pictures from the front now too since it's pretty obvious I've started to lose my waist, it's only about 1 inch wide now! (wow, you can really tell how much taller then me Chip is in the picture to the right.)

And if you're wondering where in the house these pics are taken, I'm in front of what will be Baby's room... As soon as the room is ready, we'll reveal and post the weekly belly pics from in there :-)

Mother's day, furniture, baby names....

Happy Mother's Day Mom and to my MIL Chris.

Today I got a lovely text from Allyssa, one of my college roomies, who is due 12 days before us, saying "Happy Mommy to be day!!!" I loved it!! Same to you, Allys!

Chip gave a very sweet card today for being a mommy-to-be. He always has the best words to say.

Another random thought this weekend, 6 years ago we graduated from school - wow! We are O-L-D! Feels like yesterday, I miss you gals, and congrats on 6 years out.

Some of you may not know, but we're keeping the Baby's name a secret, which at this time is partly a secret to us too. We have a girl's first name picked out, but no middle name. For a boy, we have a middle name, but no first. Some hints to keep some of you satisfied:
Girl's name:
1. Is a gender neutral name and more popular in recent years as a boys name.
2. In the last 8 years, it has increased in popularity as a girls name by 253 spots. But it's still over ranking 500.

Feel free to make some suggestions. Here's the 2008 popular baby name listing that was released last week - thanks for sending it along, Dana: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/

Ooooh and Baby's crib and dresser/changer came this weekend! THAT WAS SO QUICK!!! So now we just have to get the office cleaned out, move the guest room furniture into the office and then we can put the crib and dresser together. I thought we were going to have to wait a couple weeks for the crib to come, but we're both so anxious already, I bet we'll have the office cleaned out before week's end.

Well, Baby is saying hiiii-ya (get it..? Karate Kid) to you all by karate chopping my bladder, so I am going to end this post before it push my luck and the capacity of my bladder.

Good night and happy mother's day to all the mothers. Happy Mommy to be day to those of you who are "building your little ones" as Chipper says.

1st class & 24 week appt this week

This one's a tad long...

I'll start with the excitement of another gold star appointment this week. It makes it very hard for me to whine about my sciatica knowing that we're having a very healthy pregnancy and baby is just as great! But... it does hurt and it must be amusing to try to see me get out of bed in the morning without pinching the nerve ;-)


So, the appointment. My mother just moved back from Texas, so I asked her to come to the appointment with me so she could hear her first grandbaby's heartbeat! I saw one of the Drs in the practice that I hadn't seen yet, he was good and I felt very comfortable with him. My BP was good, and I according to the Dr's office scale, I've only gained 2 lbs this month! Yay, I'm A-W-E-S-O-M-E! I had previously been a bit nervous about my size, getting a lot of comments that I was too tiny, so, that's made me a bit paranoid that my belly wasn't big enough compared to other women who are as far along. Well my "fundal measurement" the measurement of the height/length of the uterus, and it was right on, @ 24cm!

Next - onto Captain Hook:
One of the receptionists at the office set up the remainder of my appointments, even one past our due date. The woman who set up our appointments is not Captain Hook, however, there is another receptionist, who's an idiot, and looks just like Mr. Dustin Hoffman below. She's so classy she also has a saggy tattoo on one of her boobs. I'm surprised she's not required to cover that decaying rose tat. I'm not kidding - her hair looks JUST LIKE Captain Hook!!!! Credit given where credit is due - Chip is the one who identified her as his stunt double at our very first appointment.

Now, onto our 1st childbirth class. It's rather large, 11 couples. Well 1 girl I believe might be a singleton with her mother, she looked a tad young, but I was happy to see there weren't any teen moms. (Perhaps that's not a good thing, maybe they just aren't informed enough to know that they may benefit from taking a class... hmm) Anyway, we'll call the mother of the young-potentially single, the "Cagey Vet."


Let me back up - We were grouped together with another couple and given a question to discuss, then we would talk about it briefly with the whole class, basically an icebreaker for us to get to know eachother. We went around the room reading the questions by due date.


We finally get halfway through the due dates and Cagey Vet and her daughter were next, their question went something like "Confidence is boosted for expectant mothers though education about the birth process" Something about empowerment, blah blah. So Cagey Vet says that she didn't go to childbirth class when she had her daughter but that it was the worst pain she'd ever experienced in her life and went on and on and on... Really, Cagey Vet, that's what you'd like to say to 11 new mommy-to-be's? Really? Do you not realize that the only reason we're here is because of the fear of the unknown????? And she just wouldn't shut up! Let's hope her vast intelligence didn't rub off onto her daughter.


Why am I being so nasty towards these people tonight??? I must think I'm something else... well, on to the next topic, I do not get any nicer.


This now brings me to one of the things I was wondering about before we went to our first class, what if there are some complete idiots who shouldn't be reproducing. Ding ding, we have a winner in this category! I believe one question she had was "How do we know when we need to go to the hospital so they won't send us home until we're more ready?" Or something like that. Hmmm, here's an idea... talk to your doctor and READ A FREAKING BOOK... oooh what's it called "What to Expect when you're Expecting," are you unaware of this thing called the internet and a popular site called Google?? I'm pretty sure there are some common guidelines that you can find, my dear, please don't sound so panicked... and please, please do some research. I'm not saying I know the answer to that right now, but I do know where to find it.


I observed some other interesting personalities - remember, there are 22 people in the class, this could get interesting. I asked Chip to help me write this post, but he feels like he needs to "get to know" some of these couples a bit more before he can have some witty things to add. So, I'll leave you with Cagey Vet and Idiot Couple.

This is getting seriously real...

... we ordered a crib and dresser/changer combo tonight. Oh my goodness... as if it weren't too late to turn back 24 weeks ago, now it seems even more real! Here's a picture of the crib we ordered and then what it'll look like as a toddler bed:

We ordered the finish in Cherry, which is supposed to be pictured on the left...

We also registered (or should I say, began registering) this weekend.

AND... we have our first birthing class tomorrow night. I wonder if we'll have any interesting people in our class... perhaps some idiots who know nothing and make me fear for their unborn child, or some other mom to be who answers all the questions instead of the instructor. I wonder if there will be any single teens with their mom or friend as their coach... Will we be the oldest couple there at 28 years old?!?! Or will we feel like we're too young and have no business entering this club of "older" more "mature" people called "Parents?" Hopefully I'll have some funny stories for you all after the class :-).

Viability Day!

I didn't post pics or do my weekly survey last week - oops. Oh well, lots of people have been telling me I'm tiny for how far along I am and I don't think the bell has grown too much, I guess I'm okay with that as long as baby is healthy. We have our 24 week appointment Thursday morning, which I feel pretty good about.

Speaking of 24 weeks, many women mark this as an important milestone of their pregnancy called V-Day or "viability day." Basically, most mark this as the week when there is a great chance that the fetus would survive if born. I just did some quick google searches and many of the references seem to point to Roe v. Wade and other abortion decisions.... So... without heading down that sticky path, we'll just say, that each day is closer to a healthy baby, and Momma and Daddy will happily acknowledge this milestone but request that baby stays put for some time to come.

How far along? 24 weeks :-)
Total weight gain/loss: Total net + 8. If I maintain this rate, I'll be within 2 lbs of my 25 lb. weight goal.

Maternity Clothes: Yes, I'm going to retire this next week - until after baby is born at least.
Stretch marks? Not yet, being very religious about my lotion - let's hope it's not false advertising.

Sleep: Still pretty good!!
Best moment this week: Surprising Mom in Tennessee to help her finish her drive home from Texas!

Movement: Getting VERY strong each day... I suspect I'm in the last few weeks of enjoying the little bugger not being in my ribs. In the last 3 days, s/he has discovered where my bladder is resulting in emergency potty trips :-)
Food cravings: Avocado

Gender: Still thinking boy... and I had a dream last night confirming this - guess we need to get more serious about a boys first name.

Labor Signs: Nothing. I refuse to change this answer for at least another 13 weeks.

Belly Button in or out? Still in, thank you to the one person who voted on week 33 for my belly button to pop on "Belly Button Watch 2009."

What I miss: Not having sciatic nerve pain.

What I am looking forward to: Finding out the result of team green after baby is born. Will we be buying cute velvet dresses for Christmas, or fun little guy sweater vests with Turkey's on them for Thanksgiving?

Weekly Wisdom: Did you know that when you're pregnant, your ligaments are loosening all over your body due to changing hormones? Well it makes sense, but unfortunately, the ligaments in your feet loosen too... My wisdom achieved - do not live in flipflops, as my high arches NEED arch support. (I'll take this moment to thank Vanessa and Allyssa for their educated diagnosis of early symptoms of planter fasciitis... I've been living in my sneaks over the last week and my feet feel SOOOO much better - thanks ladies!! I love having PTs as friends!)

Milestones: Baby developing obvious patterns for being awake and sleeping. Momma can feel every little movement now, inside and out.
Random Belly Touches: Lots of loving touches from friends and family. Grandma Lil felt baby right away last week when she first saw me, 2nd cousin Taylor also felt baby moving, my friend Kate nearly jumped out of her shoes when she felt a kick last week and this evening we saw baby's friend Evie at the store with her parents Melissa and Brian, Melissa gave baby a warm pat too. I'm sure I've missed others in there as well - especially since I didn't comment on week 23.

Shout outs to new followers: Amy from The Screaming Deal blog! Welcome Amy!

Baby Brain Moment of the Week: When I flew down to TN to meet mom to drive back with her, I planned on doing some work in evenings. So I packed up my laptop and my network token so I could get into the work network remotely. However, I have an older laptop and forgot to pack the charger, so lugging this thing down to the mid-west and back was about as useful as an electronic frisbee!

And without further ado - us at 24 weeks:

Baby's Eye Color

I came across this eye color predictor on another blogger's page. Here's the link http://museum.thetech.org/ugenetics/eyeCalc/eyecalculator.html

I've assumed that hazel = green in this little test... so if I've put in Chip's parent's eye colors correctly, here are our results:

50% Blue, 50% Green! FUN!!!

Hiccups

I believe that "Danielson" has gotten a serious case of hiccups this week. Seems like everyday I get about 5 "kicks" in the same spot on my belly. It's pretty funny because the whole thing shakes, so since they're so rhythmic, I'm going to assume they're hiccups. Which I have to admit, is pretty darn cute!! :-)