21 Weeks Pregnant

Not a whole lot is new this week! We’re just getting back into our regular routines, which is no fun, but I’m looking forward to resuming my bib-making and other things I haven’t had much time for lately.

Baby should now be about 10.5 inches long from head to toe, and around 13 ounces. It also has a new trick: it now gets some of its nourishment from the amniotic fluid, since it is developed enough to swallow and digest it. Also, the “bone marrow spaces” (is that a technical term?) are producing red blood cells now, whereas before they were produced in the spleen and liver.

This is a photo of a baby that was reportedly born at 21 weeks gestation.

The open eyes make me think it might be a little older than that, since the eyes are normally still fused shut according to what I’ve read. I’ve also read that 22 weeks is the absolute earliest a baby could be born and survive. Anyway, even if the baby in the picture is a week or two older, it’s amazing how well developed it is!

Well, that’s about all I’ve got for this week! I hope 2011 is treating you well so far!

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!

16 Weeks Pregnant

Hello! Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving! Ours was great! We went over to Dad and Jen’s house and brought Travis’s parents and brother with us. It was nice to have members of both of our families there!

I have been sick with a cold since last Monday! I’m finally just about over it, but still coughing some. I had a fever that, as far as I know, got as high as 100.2, and I was a little worried because I read that it’s dangerous for a pregnant woman to have a fever over 101, so I took some Tylenol (that’s all I’m allowed to take as far as a fever reducer) to try to bring it down. Anyway, like I said, I’m doing better now, finally!

Speaking of viruses, at my midwife appointment yesterday, I asked Amy (the midwife) if I should get a flu shot. I was assuming she would just confirm that, yes, I should get one, so I was surprised when she said she is wary of them. She said she comes from a “non-vaccinating” family, though. She wants me to do some research and decide whether I feel that it’s riskier to have the shot or not to have it. Everything I’ve read so far is completely pro-flu shot for pregnant women, so I don’t even know what risks she is referring to. I’ll probably end up getting it.

This week, baby is about 4.5 inches from crown to rump, so if it were lying flat it would probably be about the same length as my hand! I just can’t believe how big it’s getting! I keep looking down at my belly and thinking, “Where did this come from?!” The baby’s ears are completely formed now, so it should be able to hear soon. I asked Rachel (Travis’s sister, who is a nurse) about that, and I think she said that even after the ears are physically formed, the brain connections that allow the baby to process the sounds are not yet in place. (Is that right, Rachel?) It’s been a few weeks since she explained it to me, so I’m not completely sure.

Travis’s mom, Faye, came to the appointment with us yesterday. We managed to get the heartbeat on tape this time! We still need to get the right cord to hook up the camera to the computer, though, so we can upload videos. The baby seems to have a favorite spot right underneath my left artery, so it was still really hard for Amy to get the Doppler pointed at an angle that it would pick up the baby’s little heartbeat over the loud swishing in my artery. It took probably 15 minutes and three different Doppler devices.

Other appointment stuff: my hemoglobin is on the low side of normal, and it normally drops by two points during pregnancy, so I have to try to eat a lot of dark leafy greens. If it drops below where it should be, I’ll have to take some type of supplement. The rest of my blood test stuff looked great! J

Amy said I should be feeling the baby move daily within the next couple of weeks! I thought I might have felt it the other night, but I haven’t felt anything since, so I’m not sure if that was the baby or not.

This week I’ve been busy sewing, sewing, sewing! I didn’t get a ton of time to work on the bibs because, well, I was sick, and I decided to make a set of scrubs for Rachel’s birthday! It took me about two and a half days to complete those…it’s ridiculous how long it takes just to cut out all the pieces!!! Travis and I picked out the fabric together, and I think they turned out really cute!

On to the bibs. Here’s the first one I made:

I think I’m going to hold on to this one because it’s not perfect, and I like it, and it was the first one I did… J

And here are some almost finished ones. I still have to cut out and appliqué an animal onto these, and I have a few more ready to sew together.

Fronts:

Folded over so you can see the backs:

To personalize them, I’m just going to cut letters out of the solid colored flannel fabric and iron them on with “Heat ‘n Bond Ultrahold.” They’d be too hard to sew on, and I don’t have a fancy sewing machine that can do monograms. Anyway, I think these turned out really cute, and I’m going to get more fabric soon! I’m hoping to make my Etsy page tonight!

15 Weeks Pregnant

I feel like this week has flown by! And Thanksgiving really snuck up on me this year. We’re spending it at my dad’s house, and Travis’s parents are coming too!

This week the baby is about 4 inches long and over 2 ounces. The legs are now longer than the arms, and the bones are ossifying. Taste buds are forming, and the ears are almost finished, but the baby probably won’t be able to hear until around 20 to 25 weeks gestation. I’m still just waiting to be able to feel it move!

Travis and I are rethinking whether we want to find out the baby’s gender. We mainly wanted to know so that we could have fun decorating the nursery, but since we might not be doing that anyway, is there a point in finding out? Let us consider the following points:

Reasons to find out:

To get to know the baby better while still in utero

To buy gender specific clothing and other items ahead of time

To only have to worry about coming up with one name

Reasons not to find out:

Part of the fun of the birth of the baby is announcing the gender. If everyone knows already, all you get to tell people is the length, weight, etc.

We plan to buy mostly gender neutral stuff anyway, so we can use it with our next child

We already have two names picked out J

Occasionally, ultrasound techs make mistakes. They’re only human. We wouldn’t want to prepare ourselves for a girl and then find out it’s a boy, or vice versa.

I think that’s all I can come up with at the moment. So it looks like the scale is tipping toward not finding out. We might not decide for sure until closer to the ultrasound date (January 19^th).

I have started clearing out the closet in the piano room, but I need to put away all the stuff that’s strewn about the room before my students start arriving at 3:30!

I got my blood test results back already. By the way, when I went back on Wednesday after drinking tons of water for 24 hours, I was worried that she still wouldn’t be able to get any blood out of me because my veins still looked tiny, but luckily she had no trouble. She said, “I knew it was going to work today because I prayed for you!” She was sweet, and she must be good at what she does because I had no lingering soreness like I usually do.

Anyway, as far as I am able to interpret the results, everything looks good! I’m immune to Rubella, I have no diseases (big surprise), and my blood type is O+. The “+” is referring to Rh factor, which, if present in the baby but not in the mother, can cause the mother’s blood to make antibodies against the baby’s blood, which can be fatal to the baby. So I’m glad it’s positive so we won’t have to worry about that! It is a fairly easily treatable problem nowadays, but still…

My students played well in last Thursdays’ recital, but after all the practicing I did to accompany for that voice student with two days’ notice, she came down with the flu that day. Oh well.

My church wants me to play for all sorts of things this month and next, which is fine I guess, but they usually don’t pay me anything. I just have to count it as good experience performing.

I have decided to make some things and set up an Etsy store. I have some ideas for personalizable (Is that a word? I can’t get spell check to leave it alone, no matter how I spell it…) bibs and animal shaped pillows, and eventually maybe a few other things. I’m going to start with the easiest things first so I can build up an inventory fast and start selling. I already made a bib pattern and looked through my fabric to decide what I can use. I only have enough fabric for two or three bibs right now, so I’m planning a trip to the fabric store probably tomorrow. I have everything planned out exactly, I just have to do it. I’m going to see how many bibs I can make in a week, and then have Travis help me set up my Etsy page. I want to do it right away because I think people would buy them as Christmas presents. I think they’ll be really cute!

Way back in one of my pre-pregnancy blog posts, I mentioned that I couldn’t wait to make baby things. That week, I made a diaper bag! I found the pattern on a website called http://www.make-baby-stuff.com/. I love it. It was fun to make, but sort of difficult, and it took a total of about 15 hours. Here are some pictures:

Front:

Back:

Inside of back outside pocket, with velcro:

Snap Closure:

Inside of bag, with bottle holders and zippered pocket:

Same zipper, shown zipped:

If I can come up with my own pattern that I can put together faster, I might eventually try to sell those, too. I would have to charge something like $65 for it to be worth my time, though.

Lastly, I have been doing better with exercising! I need to make sure I keep at it. I want to keep you guys updated on my progress so you can keep me accountable. Travis actually ran a 5K on Saturday! It was with a program called Girls On The Run. One of his 4^th grade students asked him to be her sponsor and running buddy, and she was a fast runner, so he had to keep up! They did really well and I think were among the first ten to finish, out of too many to count!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!