Here’s a quick photo of Elsa and I soon after she was born, I love this so so so so much, words can’t describe. And yes, I had messy eyes – I cried a little I know I think at the beginning of pushing cause I was scared, and I know I cried a lot when Elsa came out and was laying on my chest crying, the feeling of looking at my baby for the first time was so incredible, and of having Jody kissing me and telling me how proud he was of me, and of him telling me she was a girl – oh all too much to handle and the tears were flowing!

Elsa is 2 1/2 weeks old now and she’s seriously so perfect, I sometimes still stare in amazement at every perfect little part of her and am in amazement that we made her and I grew her inside me. It gets me really teary just thinking about the miracle of it all. I’m doing well, much better actually than I thought I would be doing at this point. But every day is different and I never know what that day will be like, and some days I’m up and some days down, just depending on how the day is going. I’m sure every mom can relate and I feel like I’m very much in the norm of what probably most women go through when they first become moms.

Emotionally I’m pretty stable, of course some days I cry from this or that, but I thought I’d be much more fragile right now. And I’m getting used to being a mom and some days feel like I’m doing really good, and other days when Elsa is really fussy I feel like a failure. I still am not comfortable going out by myself with Elsa – either driving with little her alone in the backseat (I think I’ll stop a bunch of times the first time I go out with her) or with trusting that I’ll remain calm and in control if she has a breakdown when we’re out. So I do feel a little stuck here at the house some days, and miss being able to just go get in the car and drive. I know I’m in the adjustment phase, learning to fit into my new life as a mom. I’m so in love with little Elsa, she’s sweet and adorable and makes so many wonderfully silly little faces and even her cry is (usually) cute! And yet I also have self-doubt some days, loneliness some days, guilt some days for not spending enough time with my kitten babies, and occasionally sadness from missing my old life. So it’s very up and down. But I’m happy!!! And in love with my little girl!!! And also I have to say, and I’ll elaborate on this much more in the big post – Jody has been and continues to be absolutely amazing. He’s my rock and my supporter and my best friend through all of this, and I feel like we’re such a team which I love, and he’s so encouraging and understanding and supportive and takes care of all the cooking and on days when I’m stressed and feeling bad for not being able to get anything else done besides care for Elsa, he tells me that’s all I need to do. He’s seriously so amazing and has been so much better than I even ever dreamed, I’m so thankful. And he was beyond amazing at the hospital, too, which I’ll write more about in that post!

I’m happy to report that I’ve lost 25 pounds already, and have 20 left to lose. My belly is actually pretty tiny now, just a little buddha belly, and it doesn’t have nearly as much loose skin and I had feared, it actually doesn’t look too bad at all (and I never got stretch marks – yay!)! I think 15 of the 20 pounds that I still need to lose is all in my butt and some in my upper legs, that’s kinda depressing cause I know that will be harder to lose. And about 5 days ago when I was in the shower I suddenly realized my ankles were back!!!! Yay!!!! It took almost 2 weeks for the swelling to fully go down, but now my ankles and calves and even upper legs look so skinny to me, it’s fabulous!!! I’m very happy with how quickly my body is going back to normal, I feel like I look really good for just having had a baby! And I’m feeling probably 75% better from the episiotomy now. The first week was awful, so hard to move, so sore, often painful, it wasn’t something I was expecting. The second week was half the time feeling somewhat better, half the time feeling really bad still. Now it’s feeling mostly better but still not 100%. I feel so much better though!

Okay here’s my last weekly update from my pregnancy. (That just got me really sad to write that last sentence, part of me really misses being pregnant and the wonderful anticipation and feeling the baby move inside me and watching my belly grow and reading all about what’s happening each week.) I wrote this a day and half before I went into labor and had Elsa, so in many ways it’s some of my last thoughts during my pregnancy. It’s cool and poignant and emotional to look back on all these updates right now, and on my weekly photos and all that. And it’s also so amazing to now know that little Elsa was the little person growing inside me the whole time!

I’ll post my birth story and lots of photos soon!!!

WEEK: 39

MONTH: 9

TRIMESTER: 3

GENDER GUESS: Still boy. Slight possibility of a girl of course, but I really think it’s a boy. And this past we finally picked names – yayyyyyy I feel soooooo much better!!!! I LOVE our boy name, love it love it love it! And that’s huge for me cause I hardly loved any names, and the couple that I did had to be taken off the list for one reason or another (either Jody didn’t like it or friends just named their son something similar). I was really worried that I would never find a boy’s name that I loved. But now we have one and I’m so so so happy about it!!! We have a girl’s name, too – I’m still not 100% sure about it. It’s my suggestion and I’ve had it on my list for years, and like that it’s not super common but is easy enough and recognizable enough. Sometimes I like it a lot, other times it sounds a little too boring for me so I’m unsure still. It’s still at the top of the list cause Jody won’t like any of my other top choices, but I keep looking for other girls names just in case.

BABY’S HOMEWORK THIS WEEK: Still just gaining weight, losing the last of the white stuff that was covering its skin, and hopefully ready to come out soon and meet us!!!

BABY’S SIZE: Baby is just about fully cooked!! Hopefully it’s not a huge baby and is nice and petite and easy to push out!

BABY LOOKS LIKE: I can’t believe there’s a little person inside me, it seriously is almost unbelievable.

BELLY PHOTO: My wonderful friend Dorian just did a maternity shoot with Jody and I a couple nights ago!! She posted some teasers on her blog, I love them!!! My belly looks so big!! My legs do too unfortunately but I know that will go away, it’s just hard to see sometimes. But I LOVE my belly!!!! And I LOVE that Jody and I have sweet photos now of this amazing time!!!

WEIGHT GAIN: I’m at right about 45 pounds I think. Yuck, that’s so much more than I wanted! I look like a porker right now, and I think half of the weight is in my butt and upper legs. I actually had a breakdown a couple days ago about how huge I am, and I’m really starting to want my old body back (part of me still loves being pregnant and doesn’t want to lose my belly, but part of me is about ready to go back to myself – I know I’ll miss my belly afterward though).

SYMPTOMS: I’m feeling pretty uncomfortable now. I was before but it just keeps getting a little bit more every week, and now a couple days ago I passed from being very happy still being pregnant despite all the symptoms to kind of ready to have the baby, even though I still don’t feel totally prepared and still have things to do and still am nervous about labor.

My acid reflux is still very much there, although when I think about it, it hasn’t been quite as bad for the past couple days. My legs are humongous walruses from all the water retention, the skin is stretched so tight from it and my feet and ankles are of course massive. My feet get cold really easily (always have) so I usually always wear socks and slippers in the house. I hate that every single sock, even Jody’s looser-top socks, leave a huge indentation on my ankles/calves. So sometimes I just wear slippers if I can unless my feet get too cold. My legs are really bothering me right now though, cause I look at myself and they look massive and sooooooooooo unattractive. I look huge and fat from the waist down. Jody tells me I just look pregnant and that I have no control over how my body has responded to pregnancy – and I know he’s right, I know all this water retention is just what my body decided to do – but it still doesn’t make it any easier, I feel so ugly with it. I know my face is bigger too, and even my neck I think is bigger. I’m definitely looking forward to getting my old body back – hugely looking forward to it right now!

Movement is still hard. When I roll over in bed at night from one side to the other, I feel like a beached whale. I have to huff and puff and do it in about 3 steps, it’s partly really funny and partly frustrating. And getting out of bed is still hard, getting up from sitting is still hard, etc. etc. I’ve had some occasional cramping that feels like menstrual cramps which I see as a good sign. And for a couple days I had some soreness-type feeling in my middle back on the left side that came and went. But now nothing like that for the last day plus. I read on the October 2010 moms’ forum every day and read about some people who’ve had their babies and their birth stories, and read all the posts from women who want to have their babies and haven’t yet – so I’m becoming familiar with all the huge range of possible things at this stage – braxton hicks, losing (sorry for those who don’t know these quite graphic-sounding terms) the mucus plug, having bloody show, etc. I remember during the whole first trimester of my pregnancy, every time I went to the bathroom I’d look at my underwear to make sure there was no spotting. Now every time I go to the bathroom I’m looking at my underwear to see if the two above things have happened, it’s kind of funny how it’s all come around!

A week ago at my doctor appointment, he did an internal exam and I was soooooooo excited to find out that I was 75% effaced (cervix thinned out). But there was no dilation yet. It’s crazy reading on the forum, cause some women are partially effaced and dilated for weeks before going into labor, others hardly at all and go into labor just fine. So these numbers don’t necessarily mean that labor is imminent at all but it’s still so promising to hear! I have my next appointment tomorrow (Thursday) and I sooooooo hope to hear that there’s been more progress over the past week and that dilation has at least started! I won’t be posting this until sometime tomorrow anyway (I’m typing right now on Wednesday night) so I’ll add in what I found out at the doctor’s. [Note: on Thursday morning I was 80% effaced and only a dimple dilated - not enough for the doctor to get his finger in to help things move along. But then about 16 hours later my water broke - yay!!]

CURRENT MOOD: It’s crazy how different my mood and feelings are now compared to even three days ago! Then I was starting to think I may be ready to have the baby, mostly just to get my old body back and my old energy and range of movement and all that. But I was also still loving being pregnant and not in any rush at all. Now I’m thinking much more about having the baby and getting more excited about the imminence of it, although I still have all the same fears about being a new mom and how hard it will be and I still don’t feel ready cause I haven’t had time to read all the books I want to read, I’m now so much more focused on what’s soon going to happen rather than holding onto being pregnant. I think maybe a part of the change started last week when I found out I was 75% effaced, that really hit home then that we could potentially have the baby any day. And that’s when I started checking out the forum every day as well just to see what other women with due dates around me were experiencing, and I think all their talk about new babies being born, birth stories, frustration with labor not starting, etc. really has put me in a different mindframe from before.

I’m still pretty terrified of labor when I think about it. But for some reason I haven’t been focused on the scariness of it over the past few days – instead I’m apprehensive but more thinking about the outcome instead of the during part. Which may mean that when I do go into labor I completely freak out cause I haven’t processed all the scary stuff yet, but hopefully I’ll just take it one step at a time and hopefully Jody will be a big help to keep me relaxed and feeling not alone in it. It does feel good to not be constantly worrying about labor right now, that’s a nice change from before!

My parents are coming tomorrow night to visit for a few days and I’m sooooooooo excited!!!!!! I’m so happy they get to see me at the end of my pregnany with my waddle and big belly and huffing and puffing and everything!! And I’m so happy for especially my mom to be able to help me with lots of last-minute little things!! And just to hang out with them!! And I could go into labor while they’re here and they could be the first people, besides Jody and I of course, to meet our new little baby and their second grandchild!! Anyway I’m just so excited and happy about them coming and the next few days will be so fun!!!

Okay that’s it for now, I may add on tomorrow a bit after my OB appointment! It’s pretty amazing though to realize how different my mindframe is now from a week ago, then I was very nervous about lots of things, now I’m excited and anxious for the baby to come and to start this journey (scared as well still, but the excitement part is starting to take over!)! And I’m REALLY excited for my legs to stop retaining water after the baby is born so I’ll feel so skinny, even though I know it will be a few months before my body really gets back to normal.

And yes, I WILL miss being pregnant, I already know that. I LOVE my belly, I love how round it is, how hard it is, how perfect it feels, I love feeling the little feet kicking out, I love walking around with this perfect belly, going shopping with this perfect belly, seeing friends with this perfect belly, etc. I have loved this whole experience so much with all it’s various stages and changing symptoms and growing belly and new experiences. It’s something I’ve looked forward to literally for years – my first experience being pregnant! It’s so magical and so wonderful, despite all the not-so-fun symptoms, and honestly it’s also so fun having a lot of extra attention and well-wishes focused on me during this time. And it’s so fun planning, and looking forward to the next set of changes and reading what the baby is developing each week. It’s so wonderful and has been so wonderful. So while I’m now finally looking forward to having my body back and meeting this little baby and starting our new journey together as a family, I know there will also be moments when I cry from missing being pregnant, and from mourning that this special time is over. I’ll never again be pregnant for the first time and that really does make me sad when I think about it. Was my experience everything I dreamed it would be? No, it could have been better and I could have done more and could have been preparing more and could have been more organized throughout. I wish Jody hadn’t have been so busy with work during the entire summer so he would have been more present and excited with me and I wouldn’t have felt so alone during those times. But at least at the end, for the past month or so, it’s been really good – we’ve been getting things done, Jody has been excited and around, we’ve been decorating, we’ve gotten the baby’s room ready together, it’s been really good. So that makes me happy. So to summarize this big paragraph, I’m going to be partly really sad when it’s all over and I’m going to miss being pregnant, and will probably feel an emptiness for a couple days (I’ll be very cognizant of and paying attention to whether my sadness is ongoing or too strong of course). I know it will be a hard transition, and I fully expect the first couple months to be really trying and hard and exhausting and emotional as we learn to be new parents, so I’m so excited to get started with that and to meet our new little baby, but I also recognize that it’s not going to be all rainbows and butterflies. And yet I’m still mentally about at that point where I’m ready for the next step to start and ready to end the pregnancy part and start the family and being a mother part. I’m a little sad even hearing myself say that though, I do love this belly of mine and this whole experience! But also am pretty ready to meet this little boy or girl!

CURRENT FAVORITE FOOD OR CRAVING: I craved homemade macaroni and cheese last week, something fierce. I texted Jody the ingredients to get on his way home and made it as soon as he got home, and it was fabulous!!! And I’m still craving apple cider – my parents are bringing up a few gallons of it for me, I’ll get to drink yummy apple cider tomorrow night, yay!!!!

Just about 2 weeks left (as of tomorrow) until my due date! I feel like it’s gone really fast these last few months! I posted a bunch of photos at the bottom of the progress of the baby’s room so far! We still have a lot of decorating to do in there, and the new window will be coming in sometime in the next week so Jody will install that, put molding around the window, and then we can hang curtains – that will make it look much more complete (and we’ll get some decorations and pictures on the walls, and we’ll get a bigger dresser sometime, and Jody’s going to make a white side table for by the chair, etc.). But it’s a baby’s room, and we have enough things ready to go now that I feel mostly no stress about any of that. Of course, I do want the baby to stay in my belly until close to its due date so I have time to 100% finish everything business-wise, and also time to read a couple books on newborn care and sleeping and such, so I feel not just like we’re physically ready to care for a baby, but also like I’m mentally ready and have a plan!

WEEK: 37

MONTH: 9

TRIMESTER: 3

GENDER GUESS: I’m still pretty sure it’s a little boy in my belly! In fact, I get more and more sure each day I think (I’ll honestly be so shocked if a girl comes out at this point cause I’m so sure it’s a boy!)! And because I’m so sure, I’ve really super warmed up to the idea of a boy – I was at Babies R Us one day this past week and I barely even looked at the little girl stuff, I was very focused on the cute little boy outfits they had (not that I bought anything, just in case)!

BABY’S HOMEWORK THIS WEEK: The baby is pretty much just putting on weight at this point, getting itself all fattened up for the outside world (and its first Winnipeg winter – yuck!). So baby can keep gaining weight, but hopefully not too much since I have to push it out (oh so scary!)! And the big news for baby (and us) is that it’s now considered full term (as of the beginning of Week 37)!! If I went into labor now the baby’s organs would most likely be fully developed, and I could be in regular Labor & Delivery at the hospital now instead of high risk – yay (those rooms and that whole area are much nicer I hear!)!

BABY’S SIZE: Baby likely weighs somewhere in the 6-pound range, so more than 6 lbs. but less than 7.

BABY LOOKS LIKE: Here’s the diagram for week 37, it’s a total real complete baby in there, so crazy! ::

BELLY PHOTO:

WEIGHT GAIN: I’m pretty much hovering around 40 pounds. I just make myself feel better knowing that probably 8 pounds or so is water retention so that’ll go away within a few days of the baby being born. So then I’m not too far off-course from the ideal 30 lb. max. And I just measured my belly this morning and I’ve added probably around 10-11 inches from pre-pregnancy – I have no idea what the “norm” is, but I still think my belly is on the small side compared to many (which I’m happy about right now cause I’m suddenly now not looking forward to the blob of extra skin that will be there after the baby is born, yuck, so the less extra skin the better and the faster it can shrink back to its normal size!)!

SYMPTOMS: Still just feeling very preggers these days. Still lots of acid reflux, still super swollen ankles and feet (with a nice, pretty crease at my ankles). Still very swollen legs from water retention. Huffing and puffing when I stand up or sit up from laying down. Feeling very awkward when doing lots of normal things, even getting in and out of the car! Very awkward if I’m ever sitting on the floor and need to stand up, that’s a pretty graceful sight! It’s so hard getting dressed on the bottom half. I was thinking the other day that this is what it’ll feel like when I’m old – really I have all the symptoms of being old! I need to walk really slowly, get random aches and pains, swollen feet and ankles, water retention, hard time standing up, hard time walking up stairs, uncomfortable sleeping, achy body sometimes. Luckily it’ll go away for me in a few weeks! I still get aches where my legs meet my body and in my very lower abdomen when I stand up sometimes, and sometimes when I’m walking.

I’m assuming I’m still having Braxton Hicks contractions to prepare myself for labor, but I never notice or feel them, or maybe I don’t know what they are so don’t know what to feel for. I know a couple months ago I was apparently having one at my doctor’s office and he could feel it but I couldn’t, so that makes me feel a little better that hopefully they’re happening and I just don’t know.

I feel the baby more than ever now! Some of it’s little kicks/pushes out with its feet are really uncomfortable, it’s getting strong!!! I don’t really feel any movements down low, I’m sure cause of the anterior placenta and it’s legs and bum are on the top of my uterus so that’s what I feel all the time. And it’s SOOOOOOO super cool when the baby is so active that I can see it moving through my belly, I can’t get over how amazing that is – even though a part of me still can’t believe it’s a baby in there! And it’s still getting the hiccups a lot, it’s both cool and feels really weird cause of being so rhythmic.

CURRENT MOOD: I’m feeling a lot more relaxed in many ways than I was two weeks ago, because now we’re so much more prepared. The baby’s room is mostly done and looking sooooooooo wonderful!!! In the past two weeks, Jody finished the closet and put lots of shelving and a clothes bar in there, he stained the floors in the room (and re-stained all the hardwood floors upstairs and it looks AMAZING up there now)! He put together the crib, spray-painted an old dresser I had white so we can use that for now until we get a big dresser like I want, and in the past few days we’ve gotten a big area rug and a gliding chair and ottoman! It’s so pretty in there!!!!

Things we still need to do in there: replace the window when it comes in next week, then put the molding around the window, and I need to get a curtain rod and curtains still; Jody is going to make two long shelves to hang on the wall by the chair and ottoman and I’ll put little stuffed animals, books, pictures frames, etc. on there – lots of cute decorations; we need to hang some things on the other walls – we have a serious lack of decor going on in there and that will make it look much more complete (that and the window stuff); I’m going to find some baskets I like and Jody’s going to build a square cubby-hole thing for me (they sell one like it at Ikea but of course we don’t have an Ikea here yet) with 4 cubby holes and I’ll use that for putting books and toys in; I want a small white side-table for next to the chair (Jody may build that, along with about 5 other identical side tables for various places in our house); I want to get a much longer dresser sometime as soon as possible, so it can fit the changing pad and a diaper caddy and still have extra room on it – and of course for the extra drawer space!; and I need to get a pail for the dirty cloth diapers, and a trash can as well. It seems like a long list, but at least when I look in the room it’s a baby’s room and we could make do just fine as of right now!

The rest of our house is also starting to look better again. Tonight we’ll finally be sleeping upstairs again after a week of sleeping downstairs, and we’re moving the mattress that we’ve had in our living room for the past week into my office on the first floor, which will also double as a guest room for at least the next few months. The new bathroom downstairs is mostly done – well tiles, heated floor, paint, lighting and toilet are all in, and the washer and dryer are in there now (and I LOVE having that on the main floor now!). Jody needs to finish the vanity – we’re using an old vanity (the frame part) for now, but we need to get a new countertop and sink for it and get that hooked up. We’ll eventually, a couple or few months down the road, have a clawfoot tub in there as well, but that’s way down the list in priorities right now. Jody will in the next few days be finishing installing all the random molding that needs to be put back or newly put in around the house, and I think tonight he’s going to move most of his tools back to the workshop so we can move our dining room back to its normal positioning. And then I can clean too and get rid of some of the dust covering our floors downstairs! So anyway, things are looking so good and feeling so much more complete and our house would be mostly ready to have a baby in it right now! And all the baby’s clothes and blankets and sheets and everything have been washed and put away, so I love that!

On the emotional and mental side, I’m kind of all over the place and sometimes feel one way and sometimes another way. I love to go look at the baby’s room, and now go in there and sit in the chair and imagine that in a few weeks I’ll be sitting in that exact same spot with a baby in my arms. It still doesn’t seem real to me though. I’m doing all this preparation and it still hasn’t even remotely REALLY hit me that we’re really going to have a baby, a real baby coming home with us. I’m pretty sure it won’t seem real until I’m holding this baby in my arms – I hope I bond right away, I’m sometimes worried about that since it doesn’t seem real to me yet.

I also have lots of conflicting thoughts and worries and emotions, which I’m pretty sure are completely normal – after all, my life is about to so hugely change. Sometimes I’m so excited, I think about loving this little being and helping it grow into a good person, and I think so much about ways to be a good parent (I want to be consistent, I want to (as I heard recently on a radio program) provide our child with high levels of love and warmth and affection and also a high level of structure, oh so many other things). Then there are other times when I worry – whether this is what I want, whether I’ll like being a mom, whether I’ll be good at being a mom. I worry that I’ll lose my own dreams and hopes and lose any independence and only see myself as a mom, I worry I’ll forget what was important to me before, that I’ll become boring because all I’ll have to talk about is kids, I worry that I’ll become too mom-ish and not fun or sexy or any of that. I worry about whether this will bring Jody and I closer together or whether it will do the opposite (as so many people have told me happens when the children are older), and all the ways it will affect our relationship. I worry about the baby not being healthy in some way and that affecting our lives and stress levels. I worry about the baby being allergic to animals (one of my WORST nightmares) and then I end up weeping all over the place – and I would really resent this baby if I had to give up James and Emma (I can’t write more, I’m already starting to cry at the thought). I worry about not getting back in shape fast enough and feeling awful about myself and my body and being depressed. I’m worried about all the things I need to do to be a good parent and raise a good human being. I’m worried about Jody and I not getting any couple time. I’m sure there are other things I’m missing, sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the things and all the fears and all the wonderings. Other times I’m so excited for this new adventure and excited for myself and excited for Jody and I to go through this together.

Besides all the emotional worries listed in the paragraph above though, I just feel better and better with each thing we get crossed off the list. At least I feel like I have a little more control then – and that feels so good when I have no control over when the baby will come, no control over what labor will be like (and that’s a whole other set of fears, I watched a little video of labor and it was partially the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen when the whole nether regions were spreading and a monster-looking head was appearing, and then it was the most miraculous thing once the whole baby came out and the couple got to see it – then I was weeping all over the place at the miracle of it), no control over how I’ll handle labor, and we have no idea what kind of personality our baby will have and if it will be an easygoing baby or not so much, and of course just the whole being a new mom to a newborn thing – I read, I listen to audiobooks while editing, I talk to people, but I know I can’t be completely prepared and will just have to largely learn when this baby comes. So, crossing things off the list feels really, really, really good. Also, my parents are coming in a week to visit and bringing with them tons of baby gear that they bought for us (much of it when we were visiting them in August but we couldn’t take it back on the plane with us), and I’m so excited for my mom to help me get all the last things completed and to set up all they are bringing and I think then I’ll really feel like we’re very physically ready for a baby in our house!

CURRENT FAVORITE FOOD OR CRAVING: Nothing really that I can think of. Oh – yes, I’ve been sort of, so not like I need to run out and get it or have Jody go get it for me but if I’m out I’ll get it – craving apple cider. I went to Grand Forks a couple weeks ago for an afternoon and got a half-gallon at a grocery store (I’ve still never seen it sold here!!) and I drank that so fast, it was fabulous!!!! I’m a Michigan girl so grew up drinking so much apple cider in the fall, so it’s partially for the taste and partially for the feeling and emotional aspect of it. I found that Tim Horton’s sells a hot apple cider so I get that a lot these days. It’s not the same, it’s a little too spiced and definitely doesn’t have the fresh taste that cold out of a gallon has, but it makes me happy, smells amazing and tastes pretty fabulous!

Tomorrow (today really, according to when I’m publishing this post!) I have my next OB appointment, and I’m excited about him doing an internal exam to see if I’m effacing or dilating at all yet. And if I’m not, I think he’s going to get things started a little by “sweeping the membrane”. I’ve heard it hurts quite a bit, so I really hope my body has already started on its own. Now this doesn’t mean I’ll be having the baby right away at all, just that it will get things started which is good! I really want this baby to come sometime around its due date, and I don’t want to be waiting a week after or two weeks after, never knowing if it will come on its own or if I’ll have to get induced (which scares me cause you go from 0 to 90 all at once!)! So, I’m very excited about tomorrow just to find out what’s going on!

It’s also weird to me to know that I could have the baby any time now – but somehow I don’t really think about that too much, I just don’t think it’s going to happen because I’m not ready for it to come yet, I have way too much to do and finish and I’ve more often heard about 1) first babies being late rather than early, and 2) babies coming when the moms are ready but when the moms are rushing to finish things the babies don’t come. So I fully anticipate and plan on being able to write another probably two weekly updates at least!

Okay, here are some photos of our wonderful little baby’s room so far! And yes, it will look a lot more complete and decorated by the time the baby arrives, but even saying that, Jody and I are so so so in love with it right now and think it’s so warm and sweet and inviting and happy and bright and all sorts of good adjectives!!!

I missed weeks 33 and 34, so will make up for it hopefully now! Tomorrow I’ll be 36 weeks so I figured I needed to get a quick update post up ASAP!

WEEK: 35

MONTH: 8

TRIMESTER: 3

GENDER GUESS: I think it’s a boy now. I had an OB appointment last week and the heart rate was 145 beats/minute, and when I left I for the first time had such a certainty about it being a boy, almost like I was finally accepting what I’ve always known. Yes, I’ve held out hope for a girl because ever since I was a little girl myself I’ve dreamed of having a little daughter, but there’s always the second child! I really feel now though that this is a little boy moving around and hiccuping inside me, and really I’m just so excited to meet this little person and will be so in love with every little thing about this baby!

BABY’S HOMEWORK THIS WEEK: Baby’s main job right now is to keep putting on weight – mostly fat – to help it keep warm once it’s born. In one more week and one day, I’ll be 37 weeks and that’s considered full term, so it’s lungs will be fully developed then and we could be in the normal delivery area (as opposed to higher-risk area). One more week and this baby in my belly will be full term, that’s an unbelievable thought! It’s so crazy to think about, I’m partially so excited and partially so in denial that it’s really real!

BABY’S SIZE: Being that I’m ALMOST at 36 weeks, I’ll give the current size, not what it was at the beginning of 35 weeks! So – baby is probably around 6 pounds and is a little over 18 inches in length! 6 pounds!!! That’s crazy!! I look at my belly from the side and I seriously don’t know how this baby is fitting in there, my belly doesn’t seem big enough! I do feel a lot of its movements now though, and can pretty much feel where it’s little bum sticks out and where it’s feet are pressing out (and often see lumps there, too)!

BABY LOOKS LIKE: I’m going to put both Week 35 and Week 36 here, cause by the time anyone reads this I’ll be 36 weeks so you can all see the current baby diagram!

BELLY PHOTO: I forgot to take a photo when I was 33 weeks, I have two photos from 34 weeks – one with our new car (yay!) and I look huge in that photo, I really don’t think I’m that big all over, and one belly photo. And I just took a couple photos really quick in our downstairs mirror on my last day of Week 35, but it’s very dark in here and they look awful so I’m going to have to make up for it next week for sure!!!

WEIGHT GAIN: I’ve gained a total of about 35 pounds (at least) right now, according to the scale. I’ve actually been quite distressed cause I was doing so good with gaining a pound a week for almost my whole pregnancy (at least 2nd trimester on), and suddenly over the last month the scale kept going up more and more! BUT, there’s some very good news here!!! I asked my OB about it last week, and also about my swollen and puffy and much larger legs, and he felt just my calves (not even above the knee which is also very puffy) and he told me SUCH GOOD NEWS – that each of my legs has 3-4 pounds of water retention in it! Yay!!! So that’s weight on the scale and currently in my legs, but it’s not fat and will go away within just a few days of me having the baby! And it also in my mind reduces my total weight gain so I’m much closer to being on track for only gaining a total of around 30 pounds or so. I know I’ll go a little over since I still have about 4 weeks left, but I’m okay now that I know I’m not on track to gain over 40 pounds!

SYMPTOMS: Well I’m feeling a lot more pregnant now and more so with every single day that passes it seems! My belly button is now officially an outie – it’s still small but definitely an outie. And I have a waddle a lot of the time (probably most of the time), especially right after I stand up after sitting, the very bottom of my belly will feel so tight and I feel like I need to be hunched over a little, and there’s also a lot of pressure between my legs it feels like so yes I have a bit of a waddle. It’s pretty and sexy, really – ha! I get out of breath walking up the stairs, or sometimes even just walking around. And my feet and ankles are SO SWOLLEN, I actually have an ugly crease where my foot meets my ankle! I don’t think they could swell more or my skin would split! And nothing helps, not laying down, not even sleeping for hours. So it’s just something that has been here since the beginning of July and will continue until baby arrives. At least it’s fall weather now so I can hide my feet in socks and sexy crocs (they’re pretty much the only shoe I can get on anymore)! Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and my ankles were so hot – not even my feet so much but my ankle area, it was so uncomfortable. I ended up getting up and running cold water over them in the bathtub for a long time and that helped enough to get me back to sleep – it’s funny cause that’s SO a first for me, running COLD water over my feet! In the winter there’s many times when my feet get so cold and I sit at the edge of the tub running hot water over them, but now my first experience needing cold water! Oh, another separate little symptom – when I’m asleep my nose gets really stuffed up, I remember reading that the blood vessels in your nose expand so it makes it harder to breathe and I’ve been having that happen for awhile, luckily just mostly when I’m sleeping though.

The baby has the hiccups right now! It’s been getting them a lot lately, probably has before that as well but I’m just feeling it all the time now! It’s so funny, numerous times each day I feel these little rhythmic bubbly pop feelings very down low and I tell the baby it has the hiccups! The baby is also moving its little feet around right now and it’s getting more uncomfortable for me when it does that. It’s head is down very low, it’s facing mostly toward my back, it’s little back is along the right side of my belly, bum probably at the top right side of my belly, and it’s little feet are at the top left side – and that’s where I often have a bump sticking out and where it’s actually uncomfortable at times like this exact moment when it’s pushing out, there’s such a strong pressure there and every once in awhile the baby actually hurts me with how hard it’s pressing out with its feet! Despite that though, it’s definitely pretty cool to see the bump, and to see my belly move as a little foot passes by – I love that Jody gets to see it and feel it sometimes and his reaction of “cool!!” makes it so worth it to me, I love love love being able to share it with him! (The baby is so awake right now as I’m writing this, it’s moving a lot, especially where it’s feet are, and I have a huge bump on the top left side of my belly, and I’m just feeling so much in there right now, it’s so incredible!)

I’m getting more little aches and pains all the time now, too. My back hurts when I sleep on my left side so I’m mostly relegated to sleeping on my right side, with brief little turns to my left side until my back starts hurting. I get little cramps sometimes way down low, like where menstrual cramps are. I think the ligaments where my legs join my body are starting to do their loosening now too, cause sometimes when I’m walking it actually hurts or is uncomfortable, and sometimes even just aches in both of my inner thighs when I’m sitting. I’ve been getting a lot of sinus headaches in the last two weeks, too, always on my left side right along my nose, sometimes over the eye, and sometimes behind the ear. My doctor didn’t seem to think much of it and just told me I could take Tylenol no problem (which is what I have to do cause it gets so bad that I couldn’t do much of anything if I didn’t take Tylenol). My acid reflux is still the same, which is to say a very very very frequent thing. And my gums are bleeding more than ever, often gushing blood as soon as I barely start brushing my teeth. I just today talked to a girl at a dentist’s office about my worries of periodontal disease (one night last week I suddenly was sure I had it and was freaked out and imagining all the most terrible things from an awful-looking smile for the rest of my life to preterm labor to heart disease) and she really calmed me down – she’s had two babies in the last few years and talked to me about how natural this is and that after breast feeding my body will go back to normal and the bleeding will stop and then I can be checked and she’s sure it will be fine. I feel sooooooo much better after talking to her!

CURRENT MOOD: Excited, in some disbelief – it doesn’t seem real sometimes, happy we’re finally making progress on getting ready for the baby, working like mad to finish all my photos and sessions so I can really 100% focus on getting ready for baby and nesting, happy with my progress over the last week +, excited that in the next week I should be 100% finished.

A week and a half ago Jody and I bought a new car – a Dodge Journey SXT! That was a HUGE thing off our list, to get a new family car, and in the two weeks prior to us buying it we’d visited many lots in the evenings, test driven a number of cars, researched much more online, it was stressful. We were all over the map on what to get, starting out thinking a used 5+ year-old vehicle that we could pay cash for, then moving to something a little more money and a little newer, and finally, with the fabulous offers of financing on new cars, to looking at a brand new vehicle. Also we debated on the kind of car to get, with Jody liking the practicality of a minivan and me hating that idea and wanting a smaller SUV or crossover, and ideally one with a third row of seats so we could grow with it. Our new car satisfies all our requirements and will be a fabulous vehicle for us for the next few years, we’re so so so so so so happy!! And it’s so fun to drive, too!!! I still need to work on the parking thing cause it’s much longer than I’m used to so going into and getting out of parking spots is still not comfortable for me. But I love it!!!

We also have my dream stroller now and also the cutest car seat ever thanks to Jody’s mom and step-dad, who visited us a couple weekends ago!! We had such a good time with them, and it made us feel so much more prepared now having the car seat and stroller!! I’ll post some photos of these things, and other things we have, soon! And last week we had some carpenters come for 4 days, and they 1) drywalled our new first-floor bathroom, 2) upstairs – covered a door to the hallway and made a new door into our bedroom for the very small room we use as our master closet, so now it’s officially a master bedroom closet, and 3) covered the doorway to a small closet in the master bedroom, then knocked out the wall between that closet and the small closet in the baby’s room and drywalled that to make a fabulous walk-in closet in the baby’s room. Jody is doing all the mudding and sanding now, and he’ll be able to paint everything by the end of this week! And last night he put the heated floor mat and tile down in the new bathroom, so so so exciting!!! We also ordered a new window for the baby’s room so that should be here in the next two weeks and Jody will install that. Such amazing and fast progress, I LOVE it!!! This Sunday we’re (probably) driving down to Grand Forks and Fargo to get some carpet for the baby’s room and hopefully a rocking chair and ottoman, and some other little things as well. So next week we can put down the carpet, build the crib, hopefully we’ll have the rocking chair in there, and hopefully we’ll be getting a dresser very soon, and then I can start washing baby clothes and diapers and blankets and washcloths and putting everything away! And then getting wall decor for the baby’s room! I’m sooooooooooo happy that it’s finally all starting to come together! We still have to work on names, and have some other things to get, and I need to pack the hospital bags (ASAP I know, I could go into labor anytime and I’d be freaking out if I had nothing prepared!), and we need to cook and freeze some meals, and I need to read more on labor and newborn care, but I feel like we’ve made such progress in the last two weeks so I’m so happy!!!!

I’m happy that it’s finally starting to feel more real to me, really this week. We have less than a month to go now until the baby’s due date, I’ll be full-term in a week, and we (well really Jody) are making good progress on the house. I have all the cloth diapers I’ve ordered now, too, so that’s so cool! So yes, it’s starting to sink in. But at the same time, every time I see photos of a brand new baby just born (like tonight I saw some photos on facebook of a brand new little baby with his parents) it seems so unbelievable to me that it’s a real and complete little person who comes out, and that right now one of those, although slightly smaller, is inside me – complete with little face and nose and lips and hair and fingers and arms and feet and little legs and everything! I know I sound so odd, but it almost doesn’t seem real or possible that there’s a complete human being in my belly at this moment, and it’s going to come out as a complete little human being in the next couple or few weeks!! I feel its movements, I know its positioning inside, but it still somehow seems not possible and unbelievable to me and not real. And I look at my belly and although it’s much bigger than it used to be (and I honestly think it’s so beautiful and such a perfect size that looks definitely pregnant but not huge) I still can’t believe a 6-pound baby is fitting in there, I feel like my belly should be double its size! So part of this whole thing feels unreal, and really its the whole idea of there being a complete human being in my belly that’s unreal to me, but also it’s finally starting to feel more real as we get more and more prepared. I think when we put together the room, and when I have a place to put little clothes and diapers and blankets so I can wash them and put them away, then it will start to sink in more and more. But part of me thinks it won’t really hit me until either I’m in labor or more likely until they put a little baby in my arms and I look at it – and then I think I won’t be able to stop staring at that little being ever as the realizations finally hit me for real!

CURRENT FAVORITE FOOD OR CRAVING: Nothing really. I’ve a pretty craving-free pregnancy for the most part, which is fine with me!

I think that’s everything for now! 4 weeks left! And so strange to not know when the baby may really decide to come – it could be in two weeks (holy crap!!!!) or the doctors could have to force it out through induction in 6 weeks. It’s so weird having a 4-week window in my mind in which the baby could be born and having no control over or knowledge of when it may decide to happen! Okay so next week, I promise better photos!!! I want some much better photos of me anyway – I mean I know I’m bigger all over, and especially my legs, and some days I feel so ungainly and unattractive, but other days I feel so gorgeously pregnant and love my body and belly for all it’s doing and I get so overwhelmed with the whole miracle of growing a baby!! It’s really amazing!!!

Yes, I missed 30 and 31 weeks. It’s summer, and even though it takes me just a little while to type out these weekly updates I still feel bad when I’m behind on blogging people’s photos so I keep putting it off! But I figured that since tomorrow I’ll be 33 weeks, I should post an update – and I have a lot on my mind so it will be good to get it out!

WEEK: 32

MONTH: 7

TRIMESTER: 3

GENDER GUESS: Probably boy, but really I have no idea. I was analyzing my belly the other day trying to determine whether it looked more like a basketball (which supposedly means boy) or watermelon (which supposedly means girl). I can’t tell! Of course, Dr. Oz in the book I’m reading said that little old wives’ tale is silly cause it’s all about our individual shapes, the strength of our stomach muscles, and the shape of our uterus. Still, these old wives’ tales are all I have to base my guesses on! 7 weeks till baby’s due date and then we’ll know – eeeeeeeee!!!

BABY’S HOMEWORK THIS WEEK: The baby’s bones are hardening lots, and it keeps gaining more fat and is looking more and more like a baby and less like a wrinkled little thing, and it’s skin is turning more pink. It also has fingernails and toenails, and likely at least some hair! And it’s gaining about a half pound per week, and its lungs keep maturing!

BABY’S SIZE: The baby weighs probably about 4 pounds now and is about 17 inches long. I stare at belly from the side sometimes and wonder how it’s fitting in there, I feel like my belly should be sticking out twice what it is now!

BABY LOOKS LIKE: I think the baby is positioned exactly like this for the most part, and those little feet kick out when it’s awake cause I feel the most movements and pushes and such right at the very top of my belly, and can often feel a little bump pushing out (and sometimes a big bump which I think is the bum pushing out!)!

BELLY PHOTO: From the last three weeks…

WEIGHT GAIN: I’ve been really bad with weighing myself lately, so I have no idea how much I’ve gained! Tomorrow I have an OB appointment so I’ll make sure to weigh myself in the morning (the doctor’s scale always shows a different weight than our scale, and since I started weighing myself at the beginning of the pregnancy on my own scale that’s the only way I know to tell just how much I’ve gained). I’m a little nervous though about how much it’ll say I’ve gained in the last two weeks (between doctor appointments) cause I’ve eaten quite a lot of skittles and some cookies – I realize I need to cut back on all the sugary foods so this baby doesn’t gain tons of weight in the last few weeks and become really hard to push out. Oh, but I do know one measurement – I measured my belly at my belly button a couple days ago, and since May 6 (at 15 weeks – which was the first time I thought to measure my waist), I’ve added 8 inches!!

SYMPTOMS: The big three are still:

1) swelling feet and ankles, and possibly my whole legs – I think I must be retaining water in my legs, at least I’m hoping that’s what it is and not just pure pregnancy fat gain which would take much longer to get rid of. My feet and ankles are pretty much constantly swollen, they don’t go down at night, don’t go down when I have my feet up, I’m pretty much used to it. I’m having trouble with socks and shoes now that the weather is changing. Even my loose socks end up so tight around my ankles or lower legs and leave a huge indentation. I tried wearing Jody’s loose socks and it’s the same thing – like I said, my lower extremities are huge! And as far as shoes, none of them fit well and all feel really tight and uncomfortable. I can wear my tennis shoes way loosened up okay, but they still feel tight. My croc slippers are often really hard to get on and I always wore them with socks cause otherwise my feet sweat, but I sometimes can’t get my feet in them when I’m wearing socks. And then there are my flipflops which still work, but it’s getting colder out so my feet are cold! So long story short, I still don’t have a solid shoe option that I’m happy with right now. And I need to buy some kind of socks that have no tightness at all around the top!

2) acid reflux – which is seriously almost constant too, and some days really awful. I suddenly feel the feeling and then feel the stuff rising in my throat. I eat lots of Tums. I’ve tried eating carrots and that doesn’t help. Unfortunately I’ve noticed that whenever I eat anything with chocolate in it, the reflux gets worse – and this sucks huge cause I love chocolate!!! And I don’t have the best willpower at all so I still eat it. I read that this symptom is due to the Relaxin going through my body, which is there literally to relax everything having to do with growing a baby and getting out, but it also then affects many other things including the muscle that holds down acid.

3) bleeding gums. They’re getting worse, and in two places on my top front gums, the gums themselves are a little swollen and in both places it bleeds soooo easily and a lot. I’m going to see a dentist cause now I’m freaked out – I read in a book the other day that half of women get gingivitis during pregnancy (the symptoms are bleeding and swelling of gums, so yes I definitely have it) but the worry is that it would go into periodontal disease, which can cause preterm labor and a bunch of other stuff. So that really scared me. I don’t know if a dentist could even clean my teeth with the way they bleed – they’d have to have the water and suction thing constantly going to be able to see the teeth – but at least I want to be checked and hopefully told that I don’t have any signs of periodontal disease.

Other than that, let’s see…it’s getting harder to sleep sometimes – my back seems to hurt when I sleep on my left side, but I can only sleep on my right side for so long before getting sore. And sometimes, depending on where the baby is (which side it seems to be on), if I lay on that side the baby suddenly starts moving all around right by where my belly touches the bed so I guess it doesn’t like feeling suddenly pressed in on! A couple weeks ago my left foot was sometimes getting numb-feeling, the doctor said that was normal cause sometimes the baby will be pressed against the nerves that run into one leg or the other. And speaking of baby’s position, I’m going to ask the doctor tomorrow if the baby has “dropped” – I read that sometimes babies drop really early (doesn’t effect when I’ll go into labor, just some babies drop earlier than others) and sometimes I feel such pressure down there and feel the need to do the pregnant waddle – walking v.e.r.y. slowly and with much wider stance cause it feels like there’s something right there! Other than that I think it’s just getting used to the big belly still, and being uncomfortable when bending, leaning, getting down onto the floor to pet my cats, and getting back up again. And I also get out of breath much easier even if I’m walking up the stairs or pacing around the house when I’m talking on the phone (I have to make myself sit down or else it sounds like I’m exercising when I’m talking)!

Oh – I’ve also been having Braxton-Hicks contractions now! I almost forgot cause I haven’t felt any for the past couple nights. I have a feeling that I often have them without knowing I’m having them – at my last OB visit, for example, he could feel my uterus contracting when he put his hand on my stomach but I didn’t know anything was happening. Possibly sometimes when I’m feeling a tightening/contraction, I probably think it’s the baby pushing out instead. I have had a few times though where it feels like cramps – so when there’s pain then I pay close attention. A few times I’ve just felt little cramping feelings very low, like where I’d get normal menstrual cramps. But also a few times I felt a pain throughout my whole belly – and honestly I had to make myself breath through it even though it was, I’m sure, absolutely nothing compared to what real labor contractions will feel like – still it’s kind of shocking to suddenly feel this kind of painful cramp across your whole belly. I usually will feel the painful ones at night. Once I must have even been having them while I was sleeping cause I remember being half awake and moving around some cause it hurt, and Jody happened to be awake and asked me if I was okay (which I only remembered in the morning) so I must have been quite uncomfortable in my sleep. I haven’t had any painful ones for a few days now though, which I guess I like, but I hope I’m still having the unpainful ones that I don’t know about so my uterus is doing the necessary exercises to get it all ready for the big day!

CURRENT MOOD: A little stressed, a little nervous, feeling disorganized and not ready and getting very very terrified about labor. The stressed part – Jody and I have both been really busy this summer, especially over the past month, so we basically haven’t done anything (except I ordered some of my cloth diapers online). Now we’re looking at 7 weeks until the due date, I have at least 2 solid weeks of work to finish photos, probably more, and Jody is finishing up a couple really big jobs with his work. And time is ticking away, and the baby could always come early which really freaks me out. We have to still have the closet redone in the baby’s room before we can do anything – put a carpet in, paint the walls, etc. We need to find and buy a dresser, a rocking/gliding chair, a little side table, some little bookshelves for the floor, and of course all the wall decor and curtains. Jody is going to build the crib, that will probably be in October. I need to order the rest of our cloth diapers (I’ll do that tomorrow!), and I have a list of smaller items that we’re missing and need to start buying some of those. Oh and we still need to buy the car seat and decide on a stroller. And that’s just baby stuff. I also sooooooooo want to make our whole house look nicer and more like a home. Jody’s going to start on the kitchen first, next week when he’ll have some time off from his job. And I’d really love to get a new area rug for our dining room, but I’m so indecisive and rugs are so expensive so I’d really want to buy that with Jody. And we need to buy curtains for the dining room windows. And all new photos and wall art ordered. And another small lamp for our living room, and a side table, and a table thing to hold our electronic equipment. And some cute little decorations to make it seem more homey. And I want to make our master bedroom look much nicer (Jody built us a GORGEOUS bedframe a couple weekends ago and I’m so in love with it!!!) – I want a new duvet and need to buy nightstands for us, and little lamps for on the nightstands, and curtains, and stuff for our walls, and some dresser thing or lower table thing for against the far wall. And the guest bedroom – Jody’s going to build another bed frame for that bed, I want new duvet and sheets, and one nightstand, and a couple big photos printed for the walls, and a little table. And then there’s the bathroom we’re putting in off the dining room downstairs, it still needs to be framed and finished and everything bought for it, I don’t think now that we’ll get that done by the time the baby comes – hopefully we’ll just at least get it all finished with walls and flooring and we can bring the washer and dryer up to put in there. So yes, this is a huge list and I have more. And I need to start compiling recipes for casseroles I can make and freeze, too. I have so many lists made with regard to all the above, and I’m going to make yet another one in a couple weeks when I’m ready to start tackling some of this – a priority list so I can decide what to focus on, and a shopping list for all the things I need/want to buy – and also divide them up by “need” and “want” so I don’t go crazy.

Okay and now labor. It’s 7 weeks away! Or it could be 4 weeks away, or 5 or 6, or of course 8 or 9. It’s so scary not knowing! And until a week ago I’d been nervous but also relaxed, with my thinking always being that I’d try to do natural for as long as I could take the pain, and then I’d get the epidural. I don’t deal well with pain, really I don’t. And supposedly redheads feel pain more than blonds or brunettes. Last week we had our first of two prenatal classes, taught by a wonderful nurse who came to our house and was so full of energy and excitement and vitality and I loved her! She went through all the stages of labor and what happens, things Jody and I should be doing, just the whole process. It was really good to hear and learn and especially for starting to really envision how it will go and how Jody can help me and what I need to do and all that. But I also realized through her presentation that by far it’s best to be up and moving around during early and middle labor – walking, sitting on the ball, showering, swaying with Jody during contractions – it all helps the baby move downward, and helps my body be opening up faster, and if the baby is faced the wrong way and I’m having back labor, being up and leaning forward can actually cause the baby to turn. And then during active pushing labor, until the very end when I’ll be on my back, it’s best to be in positions like kneeling and leaning forward. Now, if I have an epidural, I’ll be lying on my back and that’s the worst position for opening up your birthing passage and helping baby squeeze under the pelvic bone and such. So now I see the physical reasons why I should try to be strong and not have an epidural, but really I don’t know if I can do it – I have no idea what the pain will be like but obviously it’s not fun and not easy and hurts awfully. But now my thinking and emotions have changed, at least they have right now until I can relax and come to terms with this more, and now I’m feeling this huge pressure that if I can’t take the pain and have an epidural, it will be a huge failure on my part and will make labor longer and harder as a result. I don’t want to feel this kind of pressure and be putting this kind of pressure on myself, really I don’t! I know TONS of women who have had epidurals and their babies still come out the same and everything is fine, so I don’t know why I suddenly am being so hard on myself – and I always said I’d never be one of those women who think they have to try to tough it out and do it naturally! I need to read more, and talk with Jody more to make a plan, and come back to my original thinking that when and if I can’t take the pain I’ll get the epidural and there will be absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I’m also really nervous about the pushing part. I hear some women have to push for 2 hours, or 3 hours, or even 4 hours. First there’s the vanity part. The pushing face is an awful face to make, it’s so unattractive. I logically know that when I’m in the situation and feel the need to push I probably won’t be thinking about how stupid I look, but yet that’s kind of how I am and it will probably cross my mind a few times and knowing me, I’ll be trying to push while making the least amount of pushing face that I can. Yes I know this is all so silly sounding but it’s on my mind a lot!!! And then second, that’s going to be SO hard – to be pushing for hours and making just the tiniest bit of progress with each push! It’s boggling my mind at the thought – it’s like sitting on the toilet for a good 2 hours trying to push out a #2 – I can’t even imagine pushing for 2 hours!!!

And finally, I’m just nervous about the whole entire experience, what to expect, what it will be like, whether labor will progress easily or whether it will be complicated, whether I’ll need to have a c-section if something isn’t going right, what the pain will feel like, how bad it will be, how Jody will handle it all, how I’ll handle it all, whether I’ll be able to stay calm (and not release stress hormones which would not help with labor progressing) or whether I’ll have a cry from frustration and fear and all that (I’ll probably have a cry). I’m so nervous and it seems to grow every single day. I know the only way to stop the nervousness from growing and to start calming myself down is 1) to read more so I feel more prepared, and 2) to talk a lot with Jody about it so I feel like we’re in it together and have a plan and that he’ll be there for me and supportive – so we need to actually make a time to sit down and do that since we’ve both been so busy.

This got long! But all this stuff has been swimming in my head for the past especially week and I needed to get it out. I’m sure I could write more and go on for longer about what I’m feeling, too, but I won’t right now. It’s starting to feel overwhelming some days though, between my labor worries and my massive list of things we still need to do to get ready for the baby, and getting our house ready as well, and also learning how to care for a newborn and feeling emotionally ready and relaxed and prepared – right now I feel like I’ll never get there and that when I’m in labor we’ll still be trying to finish things up and what I really want is to reach a point of feeling READY a couple weeks before the baby comes, so I can be happy and relaxed and get in a good mindframe and feel very zen and organized and cook casseroles to freeze and have the baby’s room all decorated and just be relaxed. That would feel so good right now, but I’m so scared I won’t get to have any quiet and relaxed time before the baby comes and I don’t want to start out the baby’s life already feeling on edge and not relaxed, that wouldn’t be good for either of us. This baby better not decide to come very early, it needs to stay in there until at least 39 weeks just to give its mom and dad time to finish everything and then a little downtime to be emotionally ready for it to come!

Just to clarify though, I’m not constantly walking around in a state of stress. Just when I start thinking about all we have to do, so a couple or a few times each day. But I’m pretty good about also taking things one at a time, and right now I know I need to finish all my editing so when I’m sitting at my computer concentrating and getting photos done, I’m very relaxed and focused. And often when worries start creeping in about the list of stuff, I push it aside cause it’s not yet time to do that stuff, first comes the photo stuff on my list, then can come the next things. And I will make sure that in the next couple weeks, I take one day each week, or half a day each week, to go out and do some baby stuff or do some home stuff, just so I feel a little less chaotic with those things and like I have a tiny bit of control still. And I’ll make sure to take a couple breaks each day to lay on the couch or in bed (so my feet are raised) and read one of my books about labor so I start feeling more in control with that whole thing as well. So there’s my plan! But I really do manage to keep myself relaxed most of the time!

Oh and lastly, one more little funny thing! As my belly has grown over the past few weeks, my boobs keep looking so much smaller to me! It’s crazy! Sometimes in some shirts I turn to the side and it almost looks like I have no boobs to me or like they’re little and saggy and thus very scary-looking. It’s all cause the belly looks so big now, it overpowers them! I often end up pulling up my shirt just to remind myself that they’re the same boobs and the same size and really they look just the same as before, and definitely haven’t shrunk!! But still – even in the one photo from this week that shows them they look so tiny, it’s so weird!!!

CURRENT FAVORITE FOOD OR CRAVING: Chocolate and skittles. Not healthy for me I know. Sometimes I really want fruit, so that’s good. And I drink lots of water. And of course take my vitamins and fish oil!

Yes, I haven’t posted a weekly update since 23 weeks. I know, I’m so bad! Summer is pretty busy, that’s my excuse! I’ve taken at least an iPhone photo most weeks at least though! And I have SO MANY posts coming up this week, this weekend, next week, I’ve been busy. Okay now onto the fun update – I was just glancing through my update from week 23 and a lot has changed!

WEEK: 29

MONTH: 6

TRIMESTER: 3

GENDER GUESS: Totally 50/50. On the one hand the baby has huge feet, which seem more like a boy (and it kind of looked like a boy in the 3D ultrasound photos). On the other hand, my skin is smooth and my hair is generally pretty and my pregnancy has been pretty good and I feel like that sort of favors a girl.

BABY’S HOMEWORK THIS WEEK: Right now the baby’s head keeps growing bigger and bigger to make more room for its brain growing (and that’s why I keep having to go to the bathroom more and more often, too!)! The baby’s skeleton keeps hardening more each day during this whole trimester, and to help with that, at least 250 mg of calcium are deposited in the baby’s bones each day! The baby is working on developing its eyesight more and more all the time, too. (via babycenter.com) Baby also is getting more and more active (this I can feel!), and is practicing breathing movements by rhythmically moving its diaphram. And the baby’s brain is now able to regulate its temperature, so it starts losing the fine hair that’s been covering its body to keep it warm. (via StrongMoms).

BABY’S SIZE: Baby weighs between 2.5 and 3 pounds, and measures between 15 and 17 inches long! Holy crap, how is that baby fitting inside me, my belly doesn’t look big enough to be holding that!

BABY LOOKS LIKE: A little person

BELLY PHOTO: Here are photos from last week, Week 28, at my parents’ cottage (with my hubby!), and then an iPhone photo from this week, Week 29, which very nicely shows the perfect round shape of the belly!

WEIGHT GAIN: 21 pounds. Wow, it seems like a lot! But my doctor says it’s perfect, and at my appointment last week I’d gained 4.5 pounds in 4.5 weeks, so that’s exactly as it should be. Still, I’m on schedule to gain more than what I wanted – my ideal max was 30 pounds – so I don’t love that. But I guess what’s the difference between 30 and 33 pounds, not so much, I’ll still have to exercise and it will still come off in the long run.

SYMPTOMS: My belly feels big to me now. I know I’m still smaller than most women at 29 weeks, and I know I’ll be growing a lot more, but it feels big and is always there now (a few times I’ve even opened the refrigerator door and forgotten to take that extra half step back and had the door skim my belly, which kinda hurts around my belly button when that happens!). I have a hard time sitting down on the ground, which I’ve been doing a lot with my cats lately. And I have a hard time getting back up. And a hard time leaning over. And a hard time getting out of bed in the morning (our mattresses are still on the floor cause queen box springs won’t fit up the stairs, one of Jody’s imminent tasks is building bed frames for our and the guest room beds). And I realized today as I was getting dressed that putting on underwear and pants is now a little bit of a struggle. And I still have 11 weeks of growing, holy crap! This week my belly also feels really tight. I keep assuming it’s the skin so I’m moisturizing lots, but maybe it’s the muscles too now that my belly seems to be really growing a lot. When I stand up from sitting down I feel almost like I have to hunch over just a tiny bit at first cause the belly feels so tight. And the skin right around my belly button looks stretched and weird – the belly button is still an innie but I’m on BB (belly button) watch every day now cause I’m certain it will be popping to an outie very soon (and it’s pretty sensitive right around there right now, too). The belly looks cute and perfect though, and I love touching it (and LOVE feeling the baby move with my hand as well as with my belly)!!! I also need to go get some normal underwear now, I finally admitted, cause the baby is head-down right now (more on that in a bit) and anytime I’m standing up and I sneeze, yes some pee escapes, not a lot, but just enough that I have to go change my pants – so it’s time for bikini underwear and those annoying little panty shield things. Oh, and I was just taking a shower and shaving my legs and suddenly thought, “my legs look huge!” I don’t know if I’ve suddenly gained more weight (which totally could be the case, I saw a couple photos of me from my parents’ cottage and I think I’ve indeed gained weight now all over, including my face – boohoo!!!), or if my whole legs are swollen – cause my feet and ankles are definitely swollen today, so maybe it’s just spread up my legs a little? I don’t know which I prefer, cause I don’t think my whole legs are supposed to get swollen so that would make me worry, but I also hate the idea of having visibly gained weight on my legs so they look fat. Oh well, 10.5 more weeks!

I had an OB appointment this past Friday and everything looks good!! As I mentioned above, the baby is now head-down, and the doctor said it’s likely to stay that way now – yay! I had suspected that it was head-down now, well really I was pretty certain of it. For the past couple weeks, whenever I walk any distance, even in the grocery store, I will at some point feel A LOT of pressure down there and I have to walk really, really slowly to be comfortable, so I figured that was the baby’s head doing that. And I now finally have to pee A LOT, sometimes numerous times each night, and many times during the day. The worst part of that is this – I have a big bladder, so my whole life I’ve never had to pee a lot and when I do, I get a wonderful relief from going from full to completely empty – but now, I feel like I’m full and have to really go and all that comes out is a little “tinkle tinkle” and I’m done and there’s no sense of relief there! So not fair! Now after the baby is born I can’t wait to 1) sleep on my stomach (oh it will feel like heaven!), 2) eat hot dogs at Costco (they have the best ones!), and 3) have good pees again! Oh and another reason I knew the baby was head down is cause I feel little feet (well pushes, but I assumed and now know it was feet) pressing out at the top of my uterus at various times each day now, and for the past couple weeks! I often lift my shirt up and look to see if I can see any shapes, but usually it’s just a faint bump even though it feels like it should be a very big bump pushing out!! I know one of these days I’ll be able to see the shape of a foot there! So I think how right now, the baby weighs about 3 pounds and I’m feeling the pressures below and feet kicking up high, and I wonder what it will be like at 38, 39 and 40 weeks when the baby weighs a hopefully nice 7 pounds and is bigger and stronger!

I’ve also noticed a big difference already between the 2nd and 3rd trimesters. Once I passed into the third trimester it seemed to happen almost immediately that I felt more tired (and need naps again sometimes), more uncomfortable, and it’s harder to move around. I cleaned the bathroom today and it was a hassle going from my knees to standing. And when I’m sitting I need to be reclining more, but then have to switch my weight from one side to the other if I’m sitting too long. Oh and sleeping! Knock on wood, I don’t seem to be having insomnia lately and that makes me so happy, but if I sleep on one side too long then I wake up with a massive muscle cramp in that thigh that I was sleeping on. I also thought today, both when I was struggling to get dressed, and when I was kneeling down and getting back up again, that I’m going to have a pregnant waddle soon – the baby’s head down there seems to make everything more uncomfortable, including sometimes walking right after I get up after sitting for awhile – so yes, I know I’ll have the pregnant lady waddle by the end. And it’s getting harder walking up the stairs every time I need to go to the bathroom now, too; no more running up, it’s more like a very slow clump, clump, clump.

CURRENT MOOD: In love with my perfect round belly!! And loving that I keep feeling the baby move more and more all the time, and it’s so incredible to think that it’s a little person in there, it could be born right now and survive (with lots of help of course). I wonder how aware it is when it’s awake, what it sees, what it feels like in there. I also right now, because of how tight and stretched my belly feels even now, think this baby will be more likely to come early than late. I hope I don’t eat those words! But really, my body is having a hard time making room already – I feel like it’s going to expel this baby before 40 weeks! And it’s okay if it’s maybe up to two weeks early, we’ll be ready for it (by the beginning of October I want us to be 90% ready!) and then the baby wouldn’t be huge coming out (I’m starting to get nervous about labor now that it’s coming up in the very near future and I can’t put off thinking about it any longer!)! But I want the baby to stay in there and keep growing and developing until at least 38 weeks!

CURRENT FAVORITE FOOD OR CRAVING: I would have to say Skittles. Right now I love those things. I even went out to the drug store tonight partly to get cat food, partly to get Skittles. And sometimes I have a small craving/desire for fruit of some kind as well.

When I was at my parents’ cottage in Michigan last week, my family threw us a little baby shower!!! It was SO wonderful and so much fun, and I can’t stop looking at all the cute and soft and cuddly and fun and wonderful little presents we got! We now have lots of cute baby toys and books, sleep sacks, little shirts and onsies, super soft blankets, stuffed animals, some newborn diapers, a thermometer, baby wash and lotion and diaper rash cream, a soft snowsuit, a couple adorable little outfits, burp cloths, washcloths, pajamas, stuffed animals – oh so much and so many wonderful things, I’m so so so thankful for all their help and thoughtful gifts!! And my mom found the baby the cutest and most perfect first teddy bear ever, too! I also went shopping with my mom a couple times, it was so much fun being at Babies R Us with her, whereas whenever I’d go by myself I’d get completely overwhelmed and almost start crying numerous times (well I got overwhelmed once with my mom and started crying, but that’s way better than I’d been on my own!). My parents (and grandma, too!) were so wonderful and got us so many things – the cutest swing ever, a bouncer, a jumperoo, a play gym, bedding (yes, I found some bedding I liked enough and it has many wonderful colors in it that I can do lots with, so while it isn’t my ideal expensive set, or homemade set based off the expensive set, I’ve fallen in love with our new bedding!), bottles (3 brands so baby can choose which it likes best, once I start pumping), changing pad and covers, a tub and little water pourer, adorable little pacifiers, a mirror for the car, oh so many wonderful things! I feel so good now cause I feel like we have a start, and I was able to cross many things off the list of what we need to get, and I just feel so much more in control now and like we’re on our way! Oh and I also found the perfect and cutest little newborn sweater EVER!!! It’s going to be part of the baby’s take-home outfit, along with a onsie underneath, and I need to find soft little pants to go with it and some little socks! I love it!!! I’ll post a quick photo of the little sweater, it’s so tiny but looks so big in the photo!

So I think that’s all with the baby for now! Last week James had really bad diarrhea so I took him to the vet after a couple days, and a few hours after I brought him home he started going crazy, like he was possessed – licking himself, running like crazy, twitching, hiding, even involuntarily hissing, it was so awful to see and I was absolutely terrified. He ended up hiding in a closet for much of 24 hours, but one of these “episodes” would come now and then and he was so scared and so bothered and it was torture for me. It ended up being a severe itch probably in his little butt, and I’m thinking probably the result of the vet taking his temperature rectally (when his little butt was already so irritated from the diarrhea). About 24 hours after it first started, he started acting much more normal and came out of hiding and mostly out and around me, he’d still have some times when he’d start licking his little butt or tail like crazy and then he’d run and hide under a chair for awhile and I’d console him and also try to distract him with a toy. He kept getting better a little at a time, and had fewer compulsions to lick and seemed more like himself, I was soooooooo relieved. I’m still so relieved and so full of joy seeing him be himself, or having him cuddle with me. He still has the diarrhea, hopefully the antibiotics will start working soon. It was a really really really really really hard couple of days. I love my cats so much, I can’t possibly put it into words – they are my babies. It’s been a hard month pet-wise for me (Emma also had bad diarrhea at the beginning of last week, but hers went away by itself after a couple days, and one night last week Ferd ate a third of store-bought brownie that I left by the couch when I went to go the bathroom, so I was terrified that he’d start showing signs of chocolate poisoning and stayed awake most of the night watching him – luckily he was fine). I hope James’ diarrhea goes away soon and we have smooth sailing with our babies after this, it’s so mentally and emotionally all-encompassing for me when something is wrong with them.

p.s. Just as I finished writing this, I sneezed while sitting down and a little pee came out, hopefully not enough that I have to change my pants, but definitely my underwear. I’ll be getting the panty liner things this week. Sorry if TMI, but this is my update about my pregnancy, and that’s a part of it!

This past weekend Jody and I went to Kenora to a friend’s cottage, it was a wonderful weekend away and a fabulous way to celebrate my birthday!! And now this week I’m headed home to see my family in Michigan for a long-planned little reunion, I’m leaving on Tuesday morning, and on Thursday both Jody and my brother and his family arrive. It will be the first time we’ve all been together and the first time my brother and my husband will meet – yes, for real, they haven’t met yet! I’m so looking forward to it!!! And we’ll all also be celebrating my grandparents’ 90th birthdays together! My uncle, aunt and cousins from Chicago are driving over for a day as well, and I hear from a little birdy that there will be a small little family baby shower for us – yay!!

Jody and I this past Saturday in Kenora, on my birthday!

I had planned to bring my laptop along to Michigan with me, and although I knew I wouldn’t have much time, I figured I could do some work in the evenings, at least at the beginning of the week. Then on Monday it appeared that my laptop’s hard drive died. We can’t be certain until we take it to visit the Apple store, but it’s not turning on or doing much of anything. So frustrating!!! I do most of my work on my iMac (and have multiple backups of course!), but of course I can’t take the iMac with me!

So anyway, this will be a bit of a hodge-podge post, and will have the sneak peeks and also a couple personal updates!

First an update on my James! As many of you know, and as I talked about at the beginning of my last post, little James had a blockage in his urethra two weeks ago and spent 24 hours in the emergency vet. It happened three years ago as well so I knew really early on that 1) something was wrong, and 2) it was probably this. So we caught it extremely early but my poor little guy was in pain when he finally did try to go pee and couldn’t, and he jumped out of his litter box and started wailing, I can’t forget it, it was so awful. Anyway, it took him a good 5 days to get back to normal and start seeming like himself again, and I was so worried the whole time both that he would block again and also just that he didn’t feel well – he’s my baby, I want him to be happy and healthy and having him other than that was so so so awful! James and Emma had a vet appointment last week, as both a follow-up for James, and just a general checkup. James needs to lose 2 pounds, and they want him on a special diet. Unfortunately he and Emma both hate the prescription food, even when I mix in their old Fancy Feast (and honestly, after a couple hours the food smells really bad so I can see why they don’t like it). So I’ll give it a little longer and then look for something else. No more dry food either, and I mix water in with their wet food to give them extra hydration. Yesterday, when we came home from Kenora, James seemed like he was mad at me – probably for going away, but also for not giving him tasty food! It was awful, he was avoiding me! Today he’s been more cuddly so I feel a little better. I’m trying to find a good balance though, between health and taste, because I want him to be healthy and don’t want this to happen again, but he also loves his food and I hate taking away any joy he had with eating. So bottom line is I don’t know yet exactly what I’ll do there. I may end up ditching the prescription stuff and just feeding them high protein wet foods only. We’ll see.

Here are photos of James and Emma at their vet appointment last week! James was first really curious and explored the room and counters and then hid under a chair but was still looking all around so cutely and curiously. And little Emma was not happy at all and cocooned her little self into her blanket and was barely peeking out, she was so adorable and pitiful!

And my scared little Emma!

I wanted to share a few photos from this past weekend in Kenora as well! All these (and all above photos as well) were taken with my iPhone, I’m soooo loving that and the fun apps for personal and fun photos!!

Ferd sunning himself and wanting to sleep

It was a wonderful and beautiful visit! I’d really love to explore the whole area much more, too! Anyway, one more personal thing and then I’ll get to sneak peek photos! So I’m sure some people have noticed that I’ve slacked in my weekly pregnancy updates. Yes, I’ve been bad. I’m now in Week 27 so almost to the third trimester, which seems so crazy cause 1) I feel so good, and 2) it seems like there’s still so much time left (which really there’s almost three whole months left, so it’s not like it’s right around the corner!)! So this obviously isn’t a weekly update, but I’ll do a mini update, and I promise next week, during Week 28, I’ll get back on track with my regular weekly posts!

Week 27
My belly has gotten nice and round and perfect over the past 3-4 weeks! I love it, I feel like it’s so pretty and perfect!! I finally look really pregnant but it’s not yet too big that it’s causing any problems. I do now get uncomfortable when I’m leaning over while sitting up or when I’m bending down, and I can’t just bend down and pet our babies for long anymore, I need to actually sit on the floor. My hips have started to get sore while I’m sleeping now, too, cause I can only sleep in two positions – on one side and then on the other side. Sometimes I put a pillow between my legs, it doesn’t really help with the hip soreness but feels good. My feet and ankles are still regularly swelling and looking gross! I feel the baby move many times a day, still not any super strong kicks (probably cause of the anterior placenta) but I can see my belly move a little during some of them, which is so cool and weird at the same time! I read that this week, the amniotic fluid reduces by half so I’ll be able to feel more movements and also see and/or feel individual body parts more – and I think this may have already started cause this morning when I woke up, it felt like there was a foot or elbow sticking out in one place! Oh, one thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes when I’m sitting up straight, like when I’m driving, it feels like the uterus (or really the baby in the uterus) is being pushed up under my ribs on one or the other side and it’s quite uncomfortable, I definitely feel better when I’m reclined a little more. Hmmm, anything else? Other than that I feel good, my weight gain is supposedly perfect, I’m still not having any strong cravings, and (knock on wood) everything is going well! Oh – two weeks ago I had the amazing experience of seeing our baby in 3D! A friend of mine is training to become an ultrasound tech and needed guinea pigs, and I was so happy to volunteer both to help her and to see our baby again! It was so cool, and I loved hearing them tell me that everything looked healthy and normal! The 3D was surreal – it was so amazing and cool and I can’t stop looking at the photos, and yet it’s also a little weird cause the baby looks like a little old man and not so much like a baby, so of course it worries me a tiny bit and I’ll be so happy when it comes out and (hopefully!) looks like a wonderful little baby!

So here are a couple photos from Week 25, and a couple photos from the ultrasound, and then a photo from this past weekend of me during Week 27!

Okay and now for a few sneak peeks! When I get back next Monday, I’ll be working on getting the posts up for all three of these wonderful weddings!!

WEEK: 23

MONTH: 6 – yes, we’ve officially passed into the sixth month! Originally I was counting by the calendar, but then I saw that What to Expect does it differently so I won’t be saying “month 10″ during the last month, so I changed to this type of counting and now we’re in month 6!

TRIMESTER: 2

GENDER GUESS: I’m thinking probably boy, but really have no strong feelings either way.

BABY’S HOMEWORK THIS WEEK: The baby is busy putting on weight this week, about 6 oz now every week! It’s slowly putting on more fat, and it’s organs, bones and muscles keep growing. The baby has eyelashes and eyebrows now, too, and probably some hair – although all the hair is white because the pigment hasn’t come in yet, so we wouldn’t be able to know yet what color hair it will have. (via What to Expect). Also, this week the baby is really working to prepare itself for breathing after its born. It’s lungs are producing something called surfactant that keeps the lungs from collapsing or sticking together when breathing, and blood vessels in the lungs are growing and developing more as well. And the baby is even making breathing-like movements and inhaling amniotic fluid in and out of its lungs! (via StrongMoms).

BABY’S SIZE: Baby is around 8 inches long and weights a little over a pound!!

BABY LOOKS LIKE: Baby is getting bigger and looks so much like a little miniature baby now!!

BELLY PHOTO: I hate this photo of me, but it’s the only one I have and was taken on Canada Day, when I was exactly 23 weeks. Jody and I drove to Grand Beach to visit friends at their cottage for a couple hours, and then went to take a quick peek at the actual Grand Beach, it was such a wonderful and fun day! If you look at my bottom hand, you can see a glimpse of the little roundness now!

WEIGHT GAIN: About 16 pounds. It seems to be right on schedule so that’s good!

SYMPTOMS: I’ve been feeling the baby so much more this past week, and at various times during the day now and not just in the evening!! I also have started feeling it a little more in the middle of my belly, although still the majority is low down. I’m thinking the baby is head up right now, and all the feelings down low in my belly are it’s little feet and knees kicking around, and then the slightly less frequent feelings in the middle of my belly are from the hands and elbows – at least that’s what I picture! And I LOVE whenever I feel the baby move, it makes me so happy!!!!!

I also had an unfortunate symptom pop up this past weekend – swollen feet and ankles – they look so gross to me!! It was an incredibly, awfully hot weekend, and I had weddings on both Friday and Saturday. On Friday night as I was about to go to bed I thought to put lotion on my feet cause they hurt so much, and hopefully to help soothe them for Saturday’s wedding (and on the feet all day). When I sat down and started putting lotion on, and then looked at my foot, I did such a huge scary double-take cause that foot and ankle looked like it belonged to someone 150 pounds heavier than me!!! It was so scary and freaky!!! Both feet looked like it, yuck yuck yuck, I had kankles (calves that become feet without taking an ankle break). I remembered reading that swollen feet and ankles were a possible symptom of pregnancy, but of course I had to google it in bed to make sure there was nothing wrong with me. I read that usually, if it happens, it comes in the third trimester – and I’m not quite there yet, I think that starts at 27 weeks? But it also said summertime heat can help it come on, which there was plenty of on Friday. And combined with me being on my feet all day, and of course the ultimate culprit being my uterus putting weight on the return blood vessels and such – well I have fat feet and ankles now. At least it doesn’t seem to be nearly as bad when I’m not on my feet all day, and when I’m at my computer I get up occasionally and walk around or take a little break to put my feet up (which it says to do). But yes, I’m not happy with my ankles and feet looking a little fat. I wanted to get a couple cute summer maternity dresses and now I’m wondering if I can wear cute boots with them?!

My belly button is also starting to get much bigger now and spreading out a little. Normally I have a very tiny little belly button, so seeing it already spreading out is a little scary. I feel like it doesn’t have much further it can go before it pops out to an outie. And that’s a little scary for me, too – I don’t want it to look icky, and although I know this doesn’t make logical sense cause I’ve never heard of it ever happening, I have this tiny little irrational fear that it might burst open if stretched too far. So I’m keeping a close watch on the belly button now this week cause it’s definitely starting to look a little different!

CURRENT MOOD: Pretty happy! I LOVE feeling my belly now that there’s some substantial roundness there! And I LOVE LOVE LOVE feeling little movements from the baby at various times during the day, it’s such an amazing feeling that I can’t get over!! I’m pretty stressed by work this week, and have a lot to get done so I’m trying to be really productive during the days, take occasional breaks to put my feet up and read, and hopefully in a week I’ll have most of it done and feel so much lighter!

CURRENT FAVORITE FOOD OR CRAVING: Nada still, my appetite hasn’t really changed much at all. Hmmm, but I could go for a really good spinach salad with strawberries on it and poppy seed dressing (I had that at a recent wedding and it was sooooooooo fabulous!!!)! But overall I just eat normally and pretty much like I did before.

WEEK: 22

MONTH: 5

TRIMESTER: 2

GENDER GUESS: 50/50 – I basically have no idea. Many women say they just “have a feeling”. I really don’t, other than trying to use old wives’ tales to guess, or use logic about ovulation date vs. trying dates. So I’m torn this week!

BABY’S HOMEWORK THIS WEEK: Baby’s skin is a bit saggy and hanging from its body, cause the skin grows faster than the fat can fill it in – but starting this week the baby starts to really put on more weight (it weighs a whole pound right now!!!)! And this is kind of strange and I didn’t realize this, but the baby’s skin is translucent right now still – so all the organs and bones can be seen through it. When the baby starts putting on more fat the organs will be less visible (via What to Expect). Baby’s sense of movement is now well-developed, so it will be able to feel me dance and move around! And this week the blood vessels in the lungs are developing to start prepare the baby for breathing, and its sense of hearing and touch are getting much more refined! (via babycenter.com).

BABY’S SIZE: The baby weighs a whole pound now!!!! I’m so excited, I feel like this is a big milestone, passing into the world of pounds after all these weeks in just the ounces!!! And it’s about 8 inches from head to bum!!

BABY LOOKS LIKE: Baby is getting so big now!!! It’s still hard to believe it’s that big inside my little belly, but my belly definitely looks pregnant now!!!

BELLY PHOTO: I haven’t had any time to take a belly photo this week! I’ve been so busy! I’ll try to have Jody take a quick shot of it tonight when I get back from a shoot, as long as it isn’t already too dark. But it really is bigger, I swear! And round and perfect right now, I feel pregnant! And if I don’t have time then I promise I’ll take a photo for next week (and after all, I’m almost 23 weeks now anyway so I kind of missed my window already for 22 weeks)!

WEIGHT GAIN: I actually forgot to weigh myself all week, I know so bad! I was busy, that’s my excuse! Next week!

SYMPTOMS: I can feel the baby now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee I’m sooooooo excited about it!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s one of the most exciting things ever and something I’ve looked forward to since I was a teenager and would sometimes dream of when I’d be married, in love and expecting a baby! So far the feelings aren’t very strong, and definitely not strong enough for Jody to feel from the outside, but they’re getting stronger by the day I feel like! I actually just 20 minutes ago felt movement for the first time in the middle of my belly – before that it had only been very very low in my belly (I’m sure underneath where the placenta is attached). So I think this actually started a little over a week ago, but I really did think it was gas for the first few days, even though I also wondered if it was the baby. I felt the little pop/bubble-like feelings when I’d be lying in bed about to fall asleep. Then in the middle of last week, after feeling that for 3 or 4 days, I also felt a couple other little sensations, almost like a tiny foot was softly kicking across from underneath a few layers of blankets – that’s the only way I can describe it cause it definitely wasn’t like a pop or bubble but felt like actual contact movement. I was sooooooooo excited cause then I knew FOR SURE that I was feeling the baby!!! And since then, I’ve felt a bunch of those little movements almost every night, and a couple times earlier in the evening when I’d recline a little on the couch, and then just now for the first time in the middle of the day!!!!! Yay!!!! And that means baby is getting more active and stronger, too, since I keep feeling it more and more! And I LOVE that I just felt it in the middle of my belly cause that means for the first time I’m feeling it through the placenta!!! So these little moments during the day, when I feel the baby move, are now my favorite times of the whole day! I love it now, and I also so look forward to when I feel stronger movements, and also especially to when Jody will be able to feel the movements through my belly!! I’m so happy!!!!

(OMG, update 45 minutes after I finished writing the above paragraph: I can feel some movement in my belly with my hand on top of my belly!!!!! I just read in What to Expect that when I stroke or rub my belly the baby may be able to feel it now, so I was just rubbing lightly on my belly and I keep feeling a jerky little movement of some kind even from the outside!! I happened about 5-6 times, and it was in the middle of my belly, toward the right side. I just felt it again! It almost feels like a hiccup, I know babies can get them by this age, I just don’t know if I can feel them already through my belly or if it’s some other movement! Soooo exciting, now next time I feel this I’ll see if Jody can, too!!)

And other than that, my symptoms of last week aren’t quite so bad this week. Still bleeding of the gums, still instances of insomnia many nights, sore back, and sometimes sore hips when sleeping. The acid reflux hasn’t been as bad this week (although last night Jody made some slightly spicy pasta and I got bad heartburn for the first time during the pregnancy). And I haven’t had any ligament pain this week, well maybe late Friday night I did, but luckily it was gone on Saturday morning (I had a wonderful wedding that day, and I actually woke up during the night a few times very nervous that the pain would be really bad all Saturday, but there was no pain, yay!). So I think that’s all! I’m just sooooooooooo excited that I’m starting to feel the baby move a little now!!!!!! It’s the coolest thing EVER!!!!!

CURRENT MOOD: Very happy (because of feeling baby movement!)! And also happy and excited that the baby weighs a whole pound now!!! It keeps seeming more and more real and more and more exciting!!! And I’m happy too that my belly is really showing now and definitely round, that makes me so happy! I bought a few cute summer shirts on Friday too so I’m excited to wear them. It was actually a little cold on Sunday and today so I’ll have to wait a few days until it warms up a bit more, and then I’ll be sporting my new cute maternity shirts!

CURRENT FAVORITE FOOD OR CRAVING: Nothing much, I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever have really strong cravings during this pregnancy. I think I have the same appetite as I did before I was pregnant, although sometimes now I get a hungry feeling before bed or in the middle of the night and need to eat a snack. And of course I still love my sweets (chocolate especially) but that’s no different from how I was before!

Here are a bunch of my favorite photos from my visit!!! I fall in love with Ethan all over again when I look at these! I also took a ton of iPhone videos and I need to download those off my phone so I can look at them and make a little video! Also, if you want to see many more photos from my visit, you can CLICK HERE, and the password is “ethan”. Enjoy my little nephew’s most adorable cuteness!!!

I love this one so much, he’s so cute!

This is now one of my all-time favorite kid photos, I love it’s magical quality and how to it speaks to the joy of discovery and joy of life!

Look at that laugh, I love it so much!!!

Ethan loved “blowing bubbles”, sometimes he’d get so into it and be doing it for a few minutes straight. This was a lucky shot, that my camera refocused on the spit coming out! He looks so happy, and now Mark and Jamie have a photographic memory of him loving to do this!

I LOVE this!!!!

Daddy and son!

Mommy and son!!

Jamie with Sammy and Mark with Lacey

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this!!!! Look at those little eyebrows!!!! So hilarious!!!!

I love this one too, cause he was holding onto me wanting to be picked up and I love soooooo much – he loves his aunty!!!

The family!

And here are a few of me with my little nephew (and brother!)!!!

]]> http://rebeccawhitneyphotographyblog.com/2010/06/ethan-my-little-nephew/feed/ 0 http://rebeccawhitneyphotographyblog.com/2010/06/weekly-update-21-weeks/ http://rebeccawhitneyphotographyblog.com/2010/06/weekly-update-21-weeks/#comments Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:43:24 +0000 Rebecca Whitney http://rebeccawhitneyphotographyblog.com/?p=4963 June 9, 2010 – I had to start with this image again even though it was from almost two weeks ago, it just makes me so happy and I look at it all the time!!!

WEEK: 21

MONTH: 5

TRIMESTER: 2

GENDER GUESS: Boy. I really do wish for a girl, yes it’s true, but I feel like this is probably a little boy growing in there and I’ll be overjoyed and completely in love either way!

BABY’S HOMEWORK THIS WEEK: This coming week, the baby’s lips, eyelids and eyebrows are becoming more distinct, and little tiny tooth buds are developing beneath the gums. The baby is covered with fine hair now, and it’s working on developing its pancreas! (via babycenter.com). It may be practicing its touch and gripping skills by grabbing onto the umbilical chord, and it hears my voice, loud outside voices, my heart beating, my blood pumping, my stomach making noises, and also any loud sounds outside as well! (via What to Expect When Expecting).

BABY’S SIZE: The baby is probably about 7.5 inches long now (head to rump), and weighs between 11 and 14 oz!

BABY LOOKS LIKE: The weekly diagrams now just show the baby in the belly, instead of having to do a closeup shot as well. I still can hardly believe that our baby is that big inside my belly, but my belly DID grow a lot this past week!!! (picture via babycenter.com) ::

BELLY PHOTO: Taken on June 19 – at 21 weeks, 2 days (my due date has officially been changed from October 26 to October 28, yes I know, a whole two days, but I had to change all the weekly dates on my calendar so I’ll be accurate!) ::

WEIGHT GAIN: About 13-14 pounds, and my belly has grown 2 inches in circumference since two weeks ago!

SYMPTOMS: This past week I’ve suddenly gotten a lot of new symptoms! While I don’t particularly like any of them, I guess it makes me feel like I’m really pregnant now (along with having an actual round belly now!!!) so that part is okay I guess! I still kinda wish though that they would go away so I could have a mostly easy and symptomless pregnancy. So first, I still have the bleeding gums every single time I brush my teeth, that’s so normal now so I hardly even notice it, just have to rinse with cold water for longer to make it stop bleeding. And I still sometimes can’t fall back asleep when I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and also two nights this past week I couldn’t fall asleep at all, until 3:30 and 4:30 a.m. respectively, that sucked! – and then I sleep in too long in the morning, for some reason I get my deepest and best sleep after 5 a.m. so I sleep long sometimes.

Now to the new symptoms!

1) Acid reflux. Almost every evening this past week+ I’ve been getting acid reflux, starting early in the evening. I’ve been popping Tums like it’s my new job. So far no painful heartburn to go along with it, but the reflux is really annoying and bothersome. My friend told me to try eating carrots to help, and I have a whole bag of baby carrots in the fridge so I’ll try that to see if it helps.

2) Round ligament pain. I’d felt this a little before at various times throughout my pregnancy, but this past week it was really strong and sharply painful at times as opposed to just the slight stretching feeling that I’d feel before. The first couple times it happened was I think in the morning (a little over a week ago), and when I’d get up I’d feel a seering pain very very low on my right side, and it actually got worse when I went to the bathroom, but then it went away so I sort of forgot about it. On Monday morning last week I had my OB appointment, and it happened again when I woke up, but then stayed and kept hurting, especially when I would stand up to walk. And when I was walking to the OB appointment it was actually worse and also going up my whole right side. I told my doctor and he said it was the round ligament pain (as the ligaments stretch out to support my growing uterus), and when I was lying on the table he traced the pattern of the round ligaments down the right side of my belly and where he traced was EXACTLY where the pain was – so I’m so glad I had that appointment that morning so I know what it is and am not worrying about it at all! I was walking like an old lady most of Monday, and it was there about half the time on Tuesday through Thursday, usually when I would stand up to walk and occasionally it made me feel like I had to double over it was so strong. It seemed to be the worst when I would go from laying down to standing up.

3) Leg cramps at night. I’ve been having some slight muscle cramps in my legs during the middle of the night, or sometimes when I’m just trying to fall asleep. I’ve heard that some women wake up with extreme cramps in their legs and thankfully I haven’t had that yet, I warned Jody that it may happen and if so, I may need to wake him up to help him work out the kinks. But so far it’s just been uncomfortable, I don’t know if it’s from me sleeping too long on one side or if it’s from the actual pregnancy, but I wake up to go to the bathroom and one leg (or often it’s one hip) will be very uncomfortable and I stretch it every way and it just won’t loosen up enough for me to be comfortable again for awhile. It kinda sucks. But I know it’s better than the severe cramping so I’m trying not to complain too much to myself!

4) Sore middle and lower back. This one worries me, cause I still hardly have a belly and what’s it going to be like when I’m 8 and 9 months pregnant and have a much bigger belly and much more weight in that belly?!?! I feel like my back is always a little achy right now, and I reach back and try to massage the tight spots, and I try to do bends different ways to loosen it up, but it still remains partially tight. It’s probably the worst when we’re sitting on the couch, I have to keep adjusting myself to sit in different ways, and sometimes even go lay on the floor. And when I’m driving now my back gets all knotted up as well.

That’s a big symptom update for one week! I went from basically nothing to having a bunch of them! While they haven’t been fun, I still feel lucky that they aren’t worse and I still feel like I’m having a really good pregnancy so far and overall I feel good. And I hope I have no new symptoms to report on next week!!!

CURRENT MOOD: Mostly happy (the non-happy part is in the next paragraph)! I feel pregnant!!! Not so much because of all the new symptoms that I just listed above (but a little because of those I guess), but mostly cause I have an actual belly now all of a sudden!!! It looks round (still not as round as many, but definitely round), it looks bigger, and when I touch it is really really feels round now! And I still look at baby’s profile picture all the time!!!! And last Tuesday I went in for the second quick re-ultrasound so they could get a good view of the heart and she saw it immediately and got great photos and she said it looked great, so I’m happy! I’m feeling now, because I finally am looking and feeling pregnant, like I can officially join “the club” of pregnant women! I feel secure in this pregnancy, and happy and comfortable with it and happy the baby is growing and looking forward to these next few months as the baby keeps getting bigger, my belly keeps getting bigger, and having fun planning for its wonderful arrival!

Now to the not-so-happy part of my mood. Like most girls, I’ve for years dreamed of when it would be my time to be pregnant, and be so excited about having a baby and going through the whole process and all the excitement and everything! And whenever I would think of it, I would always dream and hope that I would be one of the lucky ones and only gain weight in my belly – so I’d be a HOT pregnant lady and not get plump and fat at all! This was a big thing for me. I’m terrified of being fat and all that (which goes back years). Anyway, for the past couple months I’d been looking at my butt (bum for all the Canadians!) and wondering whether it was actually getting bigger or whether it was an optical illusion cause my belly was getting bigger, and desperately hoping that it was just the second option. And I’d look at my arms in the mirror sometimes and think they looked more plump, but I’d push those thoughts aside. Last night I finally admitted to myself that I’m looking quite plump, I think my butt has grown in proportion to my belly, my arms look big, my legs are looking bigger, and I wouldn’t be surprised if my face is looking a little plumper cause everything else is, but I just can’t see it cause I look at my face every day. This is all very distressing. I had quite a cry last night about it. Jody told me it’s no big deal, women gain weight when they’re pregnant and no one cares if I’m gaining weight cause it’s what I’m supposed to be doing – but as I cried to him, “I care!!!!” For the first time ever I wish I were pregnant in the winter so I could cover myself up with layers, and wear long sleeve shirts and scarves and all that, instead of it being hot outside and all my plumpness being on display. I’m very self-conscious now that I’ve finally acknowledged the unwanted body changes. I need to go shopping for more maternity shirts (since I wear my one shirt every single time I leave my house now!), and I’m going to try on everything I can and try to find the things that make me look least overweight. I hope just my belly keeps growing from now on, and the extra weight I need to gain will leave the rest of me alone. Otherwise I’ll be a very self-conscious and sometimes very unhappy pregnant lady in the latter months. This part is no fun. But I do LOVE that my belly is looking pregnant and round now, that’s the one part of me that I’m super happy to see getting bigger! Still, I want the rest of me to stop! I’ll still keep eating what I need to, and I know that really, the baby’s health is all that matters and I’ll work my literal big bum off to lose the excess weight after the baby comes, so I’m trying to remind myself that me gaining weight in other places shouldn’t matter and it’s temporary and the baby is all that matters, but I think because the realization and admission is so new that right now I’m just so bothered that I can’t see the big picture enough – that will come in the next few days probably and I’ll come to terms with my gaining weight and not being as attractive and somehow deal with it okay, but I’ll probably cry a few more times over this.

CURRENT FAVORITE FOOD OR CRAVING: Still no super strong cravings. I’m not even very hungry very often, although I make sure I eat. I made brownies the other day cause I was craving chocolate and they were good (and the small pan lasted a couple days so I didn’t eat the whole thing at once!). And I don’t know what else, I can’t think of any other cravings or odd or foods or anything. But I am kind of hungry for something right now, I just don’t know what.

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So to summarize, I’m very happy, feeling pregnant and looking more pregnant, all of which makes me very happy! And I’m not happy about the added girth to my bum and arms and legs and probably everywhere else, and crying about that and wishing it would be a cold summer so I could cover up, but I know I’ll come to terms with it soon, too. And I’m very happy baby is doing well, and I still look at its photo all the time and it makes me so happy!!!

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