Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Morning Sickness?

33 Weeks So much for skating through this pregnancy with no nausea! For the past week, almost every day, I've been extremely nauseous. My appetite has decreased and I've just felt sort of blah. Almost flu like...my face gets hot, my stomach sort of turns, it's super fun! I gotta say though, it's not unbearable and most women have it much worse so I'm thankful! I've also started having headaches quite a bit. Not quite bad enough to need meds so again, thankful! The stretch marks are awful! I may never be able to wear a 2 piece swim suit ever again! I'm going to try Mederma to see if that helps. I've read a lot of reviews that say it even helps with scars from acne on your face! My belly is hard as a rock most of the time! Sometimes I think it's from Braxton Hicks (which really I can't feel other than my belly just being hard) but it's like that the majority of the time. Still extremely tired!! Little man has started rolling more than kicking so sometimes it's more intense than a kick. He was up early this morning keeping me awake :). He's gotten shy too! He finally let my dad/Pat feel him move over the weekend in Wichita. But now, he'll move when I'm sitting or laying down, but as soon as I get up to show someone, he stops. The only person he keeps moving for is Nick. He loves his daddy already! It's pretty hard to get the motivation to get ready for work every day. Today was a 'curly hair' day because I just could not get myself out of bed in time to do the full blow dry/straighten routine. Everything just feels like it takes longer and definitely requires more energy. Luckily I have my 'back up' plan for those days when I just can't force myself to do it all. We start our childbirth prep classes tomorrow night! We have so many classes coming up in the next month that should hopefully help us be as prepared as possible for when he's actually here! The rug came in for the nursery and it's PERFECT! It matches perfectly and is the perfect size!

Monday, March 21, 2011

'Tis the Season

32 weeks

Yesterday was the first day of Spring, which means, Baby B will be here THIS season! We are now in the single digits for weeks left to go before we meet our little man!! The next 6 weeks may be the busiest 6 weeks of my life (showers, weddings, birthdays, etc) but I'm hoping that will just help the time go by faster to meet him!

I'm still having the chocolate cravings and today I just randomly started craving strawberries. Totally out of the blue! It wasn't overwhelming, but they still sound really good! A trip to the store for some fresh ones may be in order tonight! I have noticed that the hunger has started to go away. I don't need my afternoon snack hardly at all anymore. Yesterday we had a fairly big breakfast and I just had a little snack (fries and a milkshake - lol) for lunch. But, surprisingly, I wasn't STARVING for dinner.

Every week that passes, it seems the more tired I am getting. Yesterday Nick woke up early, usually the time I wake up, and I could barely open my eyes. Finally I was hungry enough that I got up to make breakfast. We ran a couple of errands and my plan was to come home and take a nap. I was so tired and my eyes felt so heavy. It was absolutely gorgeous outside, but I just wanted a little nap. Of course I couldn't fall asleep and finally got up and ran to the grocery store. Well, the tiredness combined with the heat (it wasn't really hot as much as beautiful, but for me it felt overwhelmingly warm), didn't help matters. We were having Drew/Erin over for dinner and the KU game later and I felt like there were a million things to do.

By the time I got home, I just couldn't even take it anymore. I put the groceries away and went to lay down. That's when the Jessie Spano 'Hot Sundae' meltdown began. As I laid down, I just started sobbing. I was grumpy and tired and hot, but it was so gorgeous outside and Nick was trying to take care of everything for dinner. I felt so guilty that I couldn't be enjoying the weather with him, and getting all the things done that I wanted. I'm very much the work then play personality type, but in this case, I couldn't work because I was so exhausted! Nick was wonderful and just told me to get some rest, which I finally was able to get a bit of a nap in and felt much better when I woke up!

I am so used to being go go go, even pregnant. I've been able so far to pretty much still handle everything around the house. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, getting the baby's room together, etc. I feel like I'm reaching a point where I just can't do it all anymore. I'm terrible at asking for help because that means admitting I can't do it myself. Luckily I have a wonderful husband who just wants to make things easier for me in whatever way he can. I feel blessed to have him and blessed that we've gotten this far with me still being able to keep up my normal routine. I think staying active is part of what has helped me to this point.

I finally broke down and ordered some 'warmer weather' maternity clothes that will hopefully be here this week. As mild and really goregous as it's been, it's been a little too warm for me and long sleeved shirts. Let's hope they fit and are cute enough for work so I can get some relief!!

Friday, March 18, 2011

Chubby Cheeks

31 weeks

We've got some chubby cheeks on our hands!! We had our sonogram this week to see how big Baby B is and like the little model he is, he gave us lots of great looks at his face!! The first thing we could see were his chubby cheeks!! They are so cute and we just want to kiss and pinch them already. He is head down, and hopefully stays that way! Seeing how he's positioned confirmed the little round ball I've been feeling under the right side of my ribs is definitely his little butt! He's definitely a little mover! I drank some Diet Dr Pepper before the sono to get him moving and he even had little hiccups! It was so cute!!

He's definitely a big boy...but not big enough to be concerned. At this stage, he should weigh about 3lbs and he's coming in at a whopping 4 lbs 4 oz! He is in the 78% percentile right now and the doctor said everything looks good and healthy. One thing we also learned was that I just happen to have lots of amniotic fluid around the little guy. Sometimes this can be a sign of gestational diabetes or other issues, but everything with him checks out great and no cause for concern! They like to see a range of 5 to 25 cm of fluid and I had 25cm!! Which explains why I'm measuring ahead of schedule and why I've gained more weight. The good thing is, a lot of it will come out at the birth!! We have another ultrasound in 4 weeks so we'll get another look at him!

The weather has finally started to warm up here and it's been gorgeous all week long! Nick and I have been taking Oscar for a walk every night possible after work. Not only does Oscar love it, but it's good for me and the baby and it's great for Nick and I. We have time to ourselves, no tv or distractions, to just talk about our day. It's been a great way for us to stay connected. We talk about everything and it's great because it gives us the chance to make sure we're on the same page about big ticket stuff, but also we have fun talking about the little stuff too! It's not always all about Baby B, but we are both so excited to meet him that he usually comes up at least once or twice.

I've started getting stretchmarks pretty badly and am just hoping they don't get too deep before he gets here. I use Basq cream to minimize the effects of them. I am a LOT more tired now. Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day and I was asleep on the couch by 8!! LOL! Sleeping has become more difficult as the belly has gotten a lot bigger. It's harder to sit up/change positions, etc. Luckily I haven't been hit too badly with the bathroom bug yet. I do still have to go quite often, but not constantly yet like some women talk about. That could all change soon. I'm also hot ALL THE TIME! My feet sweat, my armpits, everything just feels hot!!

Time has started to creep by, or at least it feels that way. Even though the weeks go by fast, it feels like the time to meet the baby has slowed down. We only have 9 weeks left which seems crazy! When I look back on it, it's flown by. But now it seems like eternity until he's here. I'm sure it'll fly by and pretty soon we'll look back and miss the anticipation of getting to meet him. I have to remind myself you only get to be pregnant for the first time once, so I want to soak it in and enjoy it. I've lucked out in the comfort department. Other than sleeping, I really don't feel that uncomfortable during the day. Very little back pain so far. My legs/feet cramp, but other than that, I feel really good. While I'd have gone through much worse to have the opportunity to experience this and meet our son, he's been so easy on his mama, it makes me love him even more!

Monday, March 7, 2011

Shower time!!

30 weeks
We had another amazing baby shower this weekend. This one was thrown by Mia, Erin and my fabulous friends - Jessi, Tracy and Kristin! Again, Baby B and I were totally spoiled! We have pretty much everything we could possibly need for him!! We also found out that he's not only getting 1 girlfriend (Tracy's having a girl) but 2!! Kristin found out last week that she is having a girl as well!! I'm so excited to start shopping for baby girl clothes!!
The nursery is about 95% DONE!! I'm so happy with the way it turned out. It looks awesome. Pictures are below, and we've added a few things since then. I'll try and post a final pic when it's 100% finished! Here is a before pic looking into the room from the doorway:
And a couple of 'after' pics:



Here's a before pic in the door to the left:


And the after:



All that is missing now is a rug, his name on the wall and the baby!! Nick took these pictures and didn't clean up some of the clutter so I'll have to take some pictures when it's nice and clean!! It's all starting to feel so much more real now. We've gone from having almost nothing to almost everything in a matter of a couple weeks!! Now that the nursery is pretty much done, we've just got to start making room in the kitchen and bathroom for all his stuff there!
He is moving all over the place now! It's a lot of fun feeling him all the time. It's started to get to a point where sometimes his little jabs are almost painful, but not terrible. He's really active in the mornings and when I lay down at night. I do my kick counts when I wake up and when I go to bed. You are supposed to count 10 kicks in an hour, I usually don't even make it to 10 minutes! LOL! He's pretty active!!
I'm still feeling really pretty good. I'm getting more tired now, but really no serious back pain or anything yet. I think I've started to notice the dreaded stretch marks!! EW!! I was hoping to avoid them, but it looks like they are inevitable. I'm so short so my belly is just sticking straight out in front of me! He's sitting pretty low, he has pretty much the whole time, so he's living up to the wives' tale that you carry boys lower.
I've started finally having a few cravings. And it's for things I never really ate much of when I wasn't pregnant. Ice cream and chocolate. Both things I don't mind, but never really ever HAD to have before. Now it just sounds so good! Especially ice cream!
We get to get another look at him next week! The doctor said at our last appointment that I'm measuring a little bigger than I should be, but she thinks it's due to my height. Just to be safe, she wants to take a look at him and see how he's measuring now. So we can make any necessary decisions if for some reason he's going to be big. I'm so glad there's nothing terribly wrong that we're looking at, but also excited to get to see him again! I bet he's changed so much since the last time we saw him!!
I'm definitely starting to get little fears here and there that something may be wrong with him that we don't know about yet. I've done a pretty good job of trying to push those thoughts out of my mind and not focus on them, but it is something that worries me. Since we didn't do any of the prenatal testing, there is a chance something could be wrong that we don't know about. I'm just trusting God that everything will be ok. We've been so blessed and lucky up to this point, no reason to start doubting things now!