20 Weeks Pregnant: Halfway!!!!

I’M HALFWAY THERE!! J

These past couple of weeks have been absolutely amazing for me. The baby has been getting stronger and stronger, and I LOVE feeling it move. It is just the most incredible thing in the world. I have now been able to watch unidentifiable tiny body parts bulge out of my belly in bumps and waves, and I am in awe. Travis has felt the baby a handful of times, but usually it only moves for a few seconds and then settles down again, so it’s hard to catch it. He gets so excited – he always gasps in surprise when he feels it and then just beams. Usually the baby is more active at night and in the morning when I’m lying awake in bed, and sometimes I feel it when I wake up to roll over in the middle of the night.

Baby and I have both been growing quite a bit lately. From crown to rump, the baby is about 6.5 inches, or 10 from head to toe, and it weighs about 10.5 ounces. At my appointment today, we discovered that I have gained 5.5 pounds in the past four weeks, putting me at 121. I’m finally gaining some weight! Amy also said that my belly is measuring perfectly for 20 weeks (they measure fundal height, which is from the pelvic bone to the top of the uterus). I think I finally look pregnant! I’ve been saying the whole pregnancy that I don’t feel any different, so it’s really fun to feel like a real live pregnant person since I can feel the baby AND see my growing belly. J Also, the baby finally seems like a real live PERSON! It all feels real now.

I’m going to pretty much end the blog here, except to say that we had a wonderful Christmas. It’s been so great to have Travis home with me, and really nice to spend some time with our families. Besides all that, everyone gave us way more than we could ever wish for!! We got tons of practical gifts, money, plus some fun gifts too.

And now, here are some photos of what we’ve been up to lately:

Pensacola! We have lots more pictures on Travis’s phone, so I might post more later if I think of it. Also, as you can see, it was pretty overcast, but we had a great time anyway. It didn’t rain, and it was 60-65 degrees while we were there.

Travis's creepy apocalypse face. :-P This place looked so barren and desolate!

Our car seat, occupied by Raggedy Ann: J

Snow! It started snowing on Christmas Day, and the next day most of the churches in the area cancelled services. So we played outside!

This is Leonard, my favorite of our four cats, who is on my lap as I type this.

Have a Happy New Year!

19 Weeks Pregnant

I have a ton to talk about this week! I’m very sleepy though, so I hope it’s all coherent. J

I’m doing the blog a little earlier than usual because Travis and I are taking a little road trip! Tomorrow morning we’re heading down to Pensacola, Fl., just for kicks. :-P We’ll be back Wednesday night. We’ll be sure to take pictures!

Speaking of kicks, I’m feeling the baby more and more frequently, and the other night I felt it from the outside for the first time! It was very weird. The baby must’ve been doing a flip or something, because it sort of moved across my hand. Later I felt more of an actual kick on my hand. Travis still hasn’t felt it yet. Every time he puts his hand on my belly, the baby gets shy. J

The baby is now about 6 inches long and 7 to 8 ounces. Still not a whole lot new going on in terms of its development, but it’s becoming more and more likely that it can hear us! I’m so excited that one of the first things it will hear is the sound of Christmas music. It was actually moving around quite a bit at my brother Remy’s orchestra concert, and this morning at church while I was playing in the orchestra for the Christmas Oratorio. J

A random tidbit while I’m thinking of it: a week from today I will be 20 weeks (halfway!!!), and a month from today is our ultrasound! Can’t wait for that!!

We bought a couple of things this week that I’m very excited about! First, Travis always checks www.woot.com for their daily deals on random items. One day this week they had a great deal on a car seat! At first glance, I didn’t think I wanted it, just because I wasn’t crazy about the pattern, but after looking into it I realized that it was a Baby Trend, which is pretty much THE best car seat you can buy. It’s got very high safety ratings, plus a lot of cool features, like straps that adjust easily, etc. So, we decided to go ahead and buy it since it was such a great car seat and such an amazing deal ($60 down from $120)!! Then, I read that the cover is totally removable, so I wondered if we could buy a replacement cover that we liked better. Sure enough, someone was selling them on Ebay brand new for $18 (the cover and the canopy together). I even called Baby Trend, and it costs $32 to buy one directly from them. I don’t know where this person on Ebay got theirs from. I thought we could sell the cover that we don’t like, and then maybe we’ll break even on the new cover!

Here’s a photo of the car seat we ordered:

And here’s one of the replacement cover that we ordered from Ebay:

The car seat was delivered yesterday, and I wrapped it and put it next to the Christmas tree so we would have something exciting to open together. J You can see it in my belly shot. By the way, we finally just decorated the house yesterday!!! We got a small tree, but it doesn’t look that tiny in our little house. I like it.

The other fun thing we got was a Droid phone for Travis. He was looking into them since he was due for a new phone, and found them for $80 at AT&T. BUT, when we went in and talked to one of the salesmen, he basically told us that they could give it to us for FREE, if we could find someplace else that offered the same, and hinted that we should check out Radio Shack. He also said that since Travis is a teacher, he can get 15% off our monthly bill! No one ever told us that! Anyway, sure enough, Radio Shack had the same phone for free (with the plan we have), so we got it free from AT&T! I LOVE FREE STUFF! The phone is pretty cool too, because the plan includes some internet, which will be nice to check email and such, and it also has a GPS app., which we plan to use a lot in the next few days.

What else, what else? I finished those bibs JUST in time to deliver them to the teachers who ordered them, and so I’ve made back the money I’ve invested in materials so far. J Lots more teachers said they would probably order one later on, too.

Ok, I think I’ll wrap this up now! I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!!

18 Weeks Pregnant

I am ready for a break! We have been ridiculously busy lately. We haven’t had a free evening since last Wednesday, and we won’t have another till Friday. Needless to say, my Etsy store is in the same state as it was last week, and I’ve done no work on the bibs themselves either. I have to get the special orders done for Travis’s coworkers by the end of the week since Friday is their last day before Christmas break. Speaking of Christmas, we haven’t even decorated yet, and I’ve been wanting to for weeks. Anyway, this is going to be rather short since I need to work on those bibs.

The baby is now around 5 ½ inches long from crown to rump, and about 6 ½ ounces. This week I have been feeling kicks every day, mostly at night when I’m lying in bed. Baby seems to be a night owl like we are! It’s still not very noticeable, but getting stronger little by little. Can’t wait till Travis can feel it!

I have decided to get a flu shot, but I need to go do it before it’s too late! I think we have also made a decision on the gender question. We will probably find out, as we had planned, at the January 19^th ultrasound. Who was I kidding…I just want to know!

I’m finally getting back into my exercise routine after being sick. I’m glad my midwife stays on me about it…I feel guilty every time she asks me if I’ve been exercising! I’m still working on eating better, too. I do seem to be experiencing an increase in my appetite. The other night I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and had some leftover spinach spaghetti that I had made and a glass of milk, but I still wasn’t tired, and by the time I was ready to go back to bed I was hungry again, so I had a bowl of cereal with bananas in it… I still don’t eat a lot in one sitting, but I don’t stay full for long!

We finally had a house showing the other day. I think they ended up putting in an offer on another house, but at least someone looked at it. I have a lot of projects in mind that I haven’t had time for lately. Mainly I just want to organize the entire house and go through stuff to see what we can get rid of. That way if we move, we won’t be moving things we don’t even want.

Oops! I'm proofreading this a day later and realizing that I left out the sentence explaining that the following picture is of our changing table, which my niece Maddie cleaned up for us. :-) Still needs to be sanded, primed, painted... and all of that needs to be done outside, where it's WAY too COLD!

I almost forgot I wanted to show you these cute cupcakes we made to auction off at the Christmas play at Travis's school:

Ok, I better go work on those bibs…if I didn't like making them, this would be a lot of work!

17 Weeks Pregnant

Sorry I keep doing these late! I almost did it yesterday, but I was sort of grumpy, and I didn’t want that to be the tone of my blog. Now I’m listening to Christmas music, so I’m definitely happy. J

This week (as of this past Sunday) the baby should be just over 5 inches long, crown to rump, and nearly 5 ounces! Bone growth is going to start to slow down soon, but the baby is starting to accumulate some fat this week, so the weight will increase faster than the length. I mentioned a few weeks ago that the baby was starting to grow lanugo (fur), and now it is also forming a covering of vernix, which is a white substance made of skin cells. It protects the skin from the effects of being immersed in fluid for nine months. The eyes are fully functional now, though still fused shut. The facial muscles are developed too, so the baby is capable of all kinds of adorable facial expressions. J

Actual 4-D Ultrasound Photo of a 17 week fetus:

I think the baby can hear now, and I’ll explain why. As you know, I’ve been anxiously awaiting being able to feel it move. As of yesterday, I’m pretty sure I can feel it! I kept feeling things yesterday evening, first when I was sitting at the computer. I told Travis that I couldn’t tell if it was the baby or not, so he asked me if I had ever felt the same thing before, which I don’t think I have. He was so excited, and convinced that it must be the baby. I still wasn’t sure. A little while later I was sitting on the couch, and my stomach rumbled loudly, and then I felt a squirm in a completely different area (just about where the baby seems to be hiding out every time we try to listen to the heartbeat)! My interpretation is that the baby was startled by the sound of my rumbles, and it jumped, which made me jump! I think the mere fact that it was such a strange sensation to me that I was startled is enough to conclude that it was the baby. J I’m so excited! That was definitely the biggest movement I’ve felt so far. If I’m still and paying attention, I can feel little wiggles now and then.

Last week I bought a changing table from someone on Craigslist. It’s not pretty, but I think it will be cute enough after we paint it, put new hardware on it, etc. I’ll take a “before” picture of it before we fix it up. I like it because it has lots of storage. It has four drawers and a cabinet with three shelves. The lady I bought it from said she was able to fit all of the baby’s clothes in it.

I’ve sold four bibs so far! Three of them were custom orders from teachers at Travis’s school, so I still have to make those. Personalizing them with names is proving harder than I thought, without special equipment like a monogramming sewing machine or even die cut letters. I’ve posted two bibs in my Etsy store so far, but I might edit the listings, or totally redo them if I have to, because I don’t think I want to deal with personalizing them. I’ll tell you how to get to my store next week. It isn’t finished yet. I have tons more bibs partially done, so I’ll hopefully have them posted by then, too.

I have a couple more things I could talk about, but I have to go run some errands before my lessons today. Have a good week!