26 weeks

Baby boy kicks and punches and rocks and rolls all day long.... and I get weird random hiccups... and he's already simultaneously pushing on my lungs and my bladder, if I hadn't mentioned that. Little scary since I'm not even in the third trimester - am I going to be able to breathe by month eight or nine?? My feet and ankles got way swollen yesterday too, I wasn't anticipating that happening for awhile yet. My total weight gain now is about ten pounds so far. And I found a maternity swim suit (at least, the top/tankini, still need bottoms), which was a challenge with this ridiculously oversized chest. Our pool is already over 70 degrees so I'm looking forward to being in it pretty soon, and probably daily during the summer months. :) I'm also looking forward to the baby shower coming up here in about a month. Plus we picked paint colors for the nursery (we are only going to do one wall though)... and we'll probably pick up the crib here in a couple weeks at IKEA while we are in Phoenix for a birthday party mid May.

25 weeks

I had a baby-mama doctor appointment yesterday. Nothing exciting - which is good. ;) I will be 25 weeks this weekend. We listened to the heartbeat, which was normal, in the 150s. My blood pressure and everything else was fine, and my doctor said my weight gain is "perfect." I will take her word for it, I feel like a cow. ;p My appetite is definitely back and then some. I'm still not sleeping great which isn't surprising. Other than being tired though I feel pretty good overall, just with the typical pregnancy complaints (heartburn, back pain, etc.). I feel baby boy move a lot, Sean can feel him all the time now too.

We are slowly starting to prepare the house for baby. We have moved the "office" into the breakfast nook, and will be getting rid of the extra dining table we had in there. We replaced Sean's desk with a smaller one and are working on selling his old desk. Once we have the room that was the office better cleared out, we will move the guest bedroom in there since it is a slightly bigger room. Then what is now the guest room will be baby's room. I have some art for baby's room, and the plan for furniture is coming together. The piece I'm most excited about is the rocking chair my brother is making for us - you can see the design in the photo below, but ours will be made of dark walnut so the color will be a little different.
Then we have chosen this IKEA crib and it's in stock in the Phoenix store, so we just have to go pick it up one of these days.

It converts into a toddler bed too, which is nice, and it's way more affordable than lots of cribs we looked at.

I just read a book that my sister-in-law Piper gave me called A Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy. It was a great read, fun and full of good information, definitely anwered a lot of questions that were floating around in my brain. Thanks Piper! There's not much else going on. I still need to register for child birth classes and a tour of the hospital. I do want to give props to my wonderful husband for taking such good care of me - i.e. lots of massages, cooks me dinner, buys me cocoa butter lotion for my itchy belly, just to name a few. He is an awesome husband and will be an amazing daddy! Only 15 weeks left! :)

22 weeks

My belly has definitely popped. People have started to think I am further along than I am - I blame being short. There's just not much room in there when you're 5'4". Plus he's probably a big baby. In addition to a big belly, this means that I still haven't had a break in the whole peeing constantly thing (and not likely to), and I already find myself short of breath on occasion from decreased lung capacity. I've also started to have some braxton hicks contractions. Woohoo! 4.5 months to go... at this rate, the third trimester should be interesting. ;) I'm feeling less fatigued though, which is nice, and my appetite is back with a vengeance so I finally got up above my pre-pregnancy weight in the past week or so. I'm taking a weekly yoga class and am enjoying the warmer, sunny weather. And we are all registered for the baby shower, and have narrowed down our name selection to three names. :) Oh, and baby boy is very active, turning somersaults and kicking me all day long, which is neat! Sean hasn't been able to feel him yet, but I don't think it will be very long before he can - it's more about timing than anything, it's hard to predict exactly when he'll kick hard in which spot. I think that's all in baby news! Sean's anniversary present to me was to get the windows tinted in my car, which we did today, so I won't roast this summer, and neither will baby boy once he's here... yay! (Don't mind the vacuum cleaner right behind me... we'll have to get better at this photography stuff once we have a cute little photo subject. ;)

It's a...

There's his hiney... leg on the right, leg on the left, boy parts in the middle!

The one above is his leg stretched out - foot on the far left side.

This last one starts with feet on the far left, then calves, knees in the middle, then you can kind of see his arms and then part of his head on far right.

The doc appt went well. The bloodwork (quad screening etc) all came back great and everything looked perfectly healthy for baby boy on the ultrasound. I was worried baby wouldn't cooperate and let us see the sex, but the very first view we got was a penis shot. ;p Dr Hutchison estimated he is about 13 ounces right now, which is a little bigger than average (10 ounces). He's going to be in the lbs before we know it! I am overall healthy and doing well; I'm still 2 or 3 pounds less than my pre-pregnancy weight. So I lost 7-8 lbs in the first trimester and have gained about 5 back in the second, which is pretty good. My blood pressure was a little high today, but I have no doubt it was just from the anxiety and anticipation I had all day leading up to the late afternoon appointment!

I was surprised it is a boy - we were all guessing girl. I'm just glad everything looks normal and healthy! Seeing him makes it all seem so much more real. The last ultrasound was at 8 weeks and all we could see was a tiny blob. Now there's an actual baby in there and I got to see the feet he has been kicking me with! I think it made it seem more real for Sean too - for all he knew I was just getting fat, moody, and whiny for no reason! (No, I haven't gained weight, but my belly is definitely expanding!) Now he knows I haven't been making it all up. ;-)

Next appt will be in another four weeks!

anniversary

Tomorrow is our one year wedding anniversary. In celebration, I scored us some basketball tickets for the last home game of the season tonight, UA v Stanford. I even got some pretty good seats - and it was a surprise for Sean since the game is sold out. :) (I tried to fool him by telling him I got us tickets to a play/musical, ha!) Afterwards we'll go to dinner at one of our favorites, Guadalajara Grill. Happy anniversary babe! I love you!

Our 20 week ultrasound is in 10 days. What does everyone think - boy or girl??

Oh yeah - go Cats!

Joining the Crowd

I have previously used Livejournal, Facebook, and Myspace... and I have finally been sucked in to the user friendliness and capabilities of this blog site as well. And I definitely want something user friendly to document this whole pregnancy/baby thing for myself as well as friends and family. :)

I'll be 18 weeks this weekend and finally took the first belly pic. Well, my helpful husband actually used the camera. The 20 week ultrasound will be on St Patrick's Day and I can't wait!