29 weeks-Pregnancy & Produce...& a Shower!

What a day! Today we reached the 29th week in our pregnancy and I had my first shower!


My mom talked to Matt's mom and they put together a little "Mother/Daughter Shower" for today-we met everyone in Longmont at the Egg & I and had a great time all together. It was nice to have all the women in the family all together. The only people we were missing were my sister Maegan and Matt's Aunt Nancy.


It was really nice and this little one got some super cute things-everyone spoiled us!

Our update this week:

"Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. His muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and his head is growing bigger to make room for his developing brain. To meet his increasing nutritional demands, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because his bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby's hardening skeleton each day."

I need my Mommy...

and I'm going to get a whole weekend with her starting tomorrow!! : ) Mom's flight comes in tomorrow morning and she'll be here all weekend-we'll be shopping, eating yummy food, catching up and enjoying every minute of it!

Matt will be having a boys weekend with his brother Nate and some friends from college-he'll be in Steamboat skiing for the weekend.

It will be a good weekend for both of us-Matt totally deserves some guy time, he's been busting his booty at work the past month working TONS of hours. I will miss him something fierce...but am so glad he can have this time to let off some steam and relax.

Today we're 28 weeks 5 days pregnant...leaving 79 days left until our due date....

Um...WOW

28 wks - Pregnancy & Produce

We are in the 3rd trimester people - can you believe it?!?!?

Where did the past 27 weeks go?? It seems like just yesterday it was August 16th and we were just finding out we were pregnant!! So much has happened since then-a scary first trimester with a lot of uncertainty followed by lots of Dr's appointments, ultrasounds, tests, etc...to now, getting ready to go pick out paint for the nursery. Everything is going great and we couldn't be happier or more excited!

This week our update from www.babycenter.com tells us:
"By this week, your baby weighs two and a quarter pounds (like a Chinese cabbage) and measures 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. She can blink her eyes, which now sport lashes. With her eyesight developing, she may be able to see the light that filters in through your womb. She's also developing billions of neurons in her brain and adding more body fat in preparation for life in the outside world."

As far as how I'm actually feeling and what's really going on with me...sleeping has become a bit more challenging, and that's putting it mildly. There's barely any room for Matt in the bed now-he's been pushed to the edge of the bed by tons of pillows! We've also had to switch sides of the bed-based on me needing to sleep more on my left side and needing all the pillows. Rolling over from one side to the other has become probably the biggest challenge-it's not easy, and it's sure as heck isn't pretty.

I do wake up now at night, but haven't needed to go to the bathroom-just waking up to wake up. Nice...great...helpful...NOT. I wake up, get back into my left-side sleeping position...and then go back to sleep until the next wake up, reposition shift.

This past week was another very busy week with doing trainings for another police department, requiring me to wake up at 4am and get home at 10:30pm...OH MY GOSH-what was I thinking? Did I mention this went on for 3 days? Yeah...brilliant, I know. Other than very sleepy...I am feeling pretty good.

We have 84 days to go before we reach the 40 week mark-OH MY GOSH!! We finally have the room that will become the nursery emptied, but that's about all the progress we've made. We'll be heading out today to go try and pick out paint colors and then hopefully getting started!

My Mom is coming out next weekend and I can't wait! Matt will be heading to Steamboat for skiing so while he's have a "boys weekend" with his brother and college buddies Mom and I will be here for a "girls weekend"-really looking forward to it. We're getting together with some of the women in Matt's family for a little "Mother / Daughter shower" in Longmont-that will be fun and I'm really looking forward to us all being together. Sadly my sister won't be able to make this trip but she'll be heading out in March for a week so I suppose I can wait until then to see her! : )

So much to do...this little one will be here before we know it!
Melissa

"Roger or Cutie-that's what you should name the baby"

So my 8 y/o nephew Keeton tells me this week that he thinks that I should name the baby "Roger or Cutie"-even spelling "Cutie" for me so I could be sure to get it right. I asked him where he got the names and he said "My friend Riley's dad is named Roger and he's a nice man and Cutie because little baby girls are cute.

So there you have it, Keeton has spoken.

We're now 27 weeks pregnant!! This is our last week of the 2nd trimester-where have the last 28 weeks gone??

"This week, your baby weighs almost 2 pounds (like a head of cauliflower) and is about 14 1/2 inches long with her legs extended. She's sleeping and waking at regular intervals, opening and closing her eyes, and perhaps even sucking her fingers. With more brain tissue developing, your baby's brain is very active now. While her lungs are still immature, they would be capable of functioning — with a lot of medical help — if she were to be born now. Chalk up any tiny rhythmic movements you may be feeling to a case of baby hiccups, which may be common from now on. Each episode usually lasts only a few moments, and they don't bother her, so just relax and enjoy the tickle."

Matt felt the baby kick this week-he's "kind of" felt it before but wasn't really sure. Normally when I tell him to come over and put his hand on my stomach the baby stops moving-much to Matt's dismay. One night this week we were laying in bed and our baby must have been practicing up on their tumbling and kick boxing-tons of movement. So I grabbed Matt's hand and put it right on my stomach where most of the movement was happening-pretty soon this nice hard kick happened-Matt's face was priceless! I'm not sure who had the bigger smile-Matt feeling the kick or me seeing Matt's expression. Either way...I'll never forget it.

Um...make that 26 weeks!?!?!?!

So we went to our Dr's apt yesterday thinking we were 25 weeks pregnant...and the size of a rutabaga, remember? Turns out we're wrong. We're 26 weeks and our baby is the length of an English hothouse cucumber!! Not sure where we got off track but the Dr looked at all of our ultrasounds and yep...we're measuring right around 26 weeks.

It's not really that big of a deal but hearing that you have 14 weeks left vs 15 weeks left...sure does make it feel like someone pushed fast forward on you!!

Here's what the 26 week update has to say:

"How your baby's growing:The network of nerves in your baby's ears is better developed and more sensitive than before. He may now be able to hear both your voice and your partner's as you chat with each other. He's inhaling and exhaling small amounts of amniotic fluid, which is essential for the development of his lungs. These so-called breathing movements are also good practice for when he's born and takes that first gulp of air. And he's continuing to put on baby fat. He now weighs about a pound and two-thirds and measures 14 inches (an English hothouse cucumber) from head to heel. If you're having a boy, his testicles are beginning to descend into his scrotum — a trip that will take about two to three days."

Our little green bean is doing great and the heartbeat was at 156 BPM-according to the Dr that's just great-yeah! She says everything is still measuring good and seems to be going well.

We have our next appointment in about 3 weeks and will be doing the glucose test for Gestational Diabetes-freaks me out a little so we're really hoping we don't have that issue. Keep your fingers crossed and the juju flowing!

Today I'm spending the day scrap booking with the girls while Matt goes hiking with Maddie. The rest of our weekend will be spent clearing out what will be the baby's room and finishing taking down all the Christmas decorations-neither task is all that fun I'm afraid. We're definitely looking forward to starting work on the nursery, just not all the work leading up to it! : )

Happy Saturday Everyone!

~Melissa

Pregnancy & Produce - 25 weeks

Rutabaga? What is that? I have no idea, I've heard of it before but no clue what it is-but I do know that this week's update tells us that our baby weighs about as much as "the average rutabaga." So there you go!

"Head to heels, your baby now measures about 13 1/2 inches. Her weight — a pound and a half — isn't much more than an average rutabaga, but she's beginning to exchange her long, lean look for some baby fat. As she does, her wrinkled skin will begin to smooth out and she'll start to look more and more like a newborn. She's also growing more hair — and if you could see it, you'd now be able to discern its color and texture."

Today I'm exhausted-Matt and I went to the Nuggets game last night and then I had an early meeting before work this morning. So, I'm kinda draggin' today, to put it mildly.

Our little Jayhawk moves so much these days-yes you read that right, this baby will be a Jayhawk, no question about it.

I joke with everyone that Matt and I had a pre-nup, and that we agreed that our children would be raised Jayhawk and Bronco, and I'm not, really, kidding. About the pre-nup-yes, the part about raising my child to be a Jayhawk-no. So despite the fact that Matt is a Colorado Buffs fan and I'm a Kansas City Chief's fan (you can laugh here, feel free-it's all about loyalty people) ...we've agreed that we each get a team, no confusing our kiddos with outfits from multiple NCAA schools or NFL teams.

So anyway, back to my/our little Jayhawk...pretty sure that this past week we had some kickboxing classes going on in there and the past couple of days maybe even a tumbling class. The most bizarre feeling is when the baby is rolling around or rolling over-or at least that's what I think is going on in there. It's hard to explain, but it's like a wave, inside you, that you can feel, and then it settles. I love it...whatever it is.

In other news, we signed up for our Birthing class at the hospital. We'll be taking a 4 week course-3 hours a week for 4 weeks. Please God don't let it totally be boring as it's at night after work...and please God don't let it freak me out as up until this point I've been totally calm and relaxed.

FAQ's: (Frequently Asked Questions for those acronym challenged folks)

"Are you getting an epidural or going natural"
-Good question! Here's what I know...I've never done this before so I have no idea what to expect, but I do hear that labor pains and pushing a baby is most of the time, a little painful, just a little. I also know that the thought of me losing all control, being forced to stay in a bed for hours on end makes me feel like I can't breathe just thinking about it. Drugs freak me out...Pain isn't something I'm a huge fan of...Trapped in a bed for hours on end terrifies me. So put that all together and the real answer is...I don't know yet. Pretty sure that I'll keep an open mind and at the very least try to go as long as possible without an epidural-that's the best I've got for now.

"If hospitals freak you out so much why aren't you going to a Birthing Center?"
~Ah, another good question. Having spent quite a bit of time in the hospital at my friends side as she passed away forced me to release some of my hospital anxiety. I'm not near as freaked by them as I used to be. As to why I'm choosing a hospital vs a birthing center-I need to make sure that everything and anything is available to both me and my baby the minute we need it. I am just not comfortable that I can have that assurance at a birthing center. If there was a birthing center attached to the hospital I'd be more than happy to deliver my child there, but since there's not...no thanks.

"Are you seriously going to cloth diaper?"
~Yep. That's the plan anyway. By all means I give myself permission to change my mind...at anytime. For now though, that's the plan. I watched a video a couple of years ago showing how long a single disposable diaper takes to break down and "disappear" in a landfill...freaked me out big time. I started thinking of how many diapers a new born goes through each day, picturing me digging a hole for each one of those in my backyard, and realized how many days it would take before my ENTIRE backyard was full...full of diapers that weren't going away anytime soon...as in not for years...and THAT was enough to freak me into looking into cloth diapering. Luckily I have great resources in friends that CD (cloth diaper) so I'm really hopeful that we can make this work-having Matt 100% on board really helps. Wish us luck!!

Ok...gotta run! That's all for now....stay tuned! : )

24 weeks-Pregnancy & Produce

I can't believe that we're 6 months pregnant-6 months?!?!? So much is happening now and it's all so exciting!

The baby moves all the time now-as I'm sitting here typing this little green bean is kicking away. I can't believe how strong these kicks/punches are now...I can feel them "on the outside" now.

This past week at work was pretty rough, really, really rough. The thing that kept me going was putting my hand on my stomach and feeling this little one...it made all the rough spots seem not so rough.

The crib arrived last week and we went and picked it up-whee!! Of course we're still not anywhere near getting that room cleared out and so for now the crib is in the basement. The dresser should be here soon too.

We also started our registry-that was overwhelming. We're really kind of minimalists so we don't want just a bunch of "cool stuff" that takes up space and serves no purpose. The real issue was we really have no idea what the difference between the two is! HA! Thankfully we have great friends who've been there done that...so they've been a HUGE help!

Matt and I have joked that the one good thing about doing this when you're "older" is that so many of our friends have had their children and are done. That means we're being very blessed with all kinds of things being given to us by our friends!

Last night our good friends Val & Jay gave us tons of blankets and towels that their son Logan has "outgrown" and they also gave us a baby carrier and their highchair!! How amazing is that?!?!?!

We definitely don't have an issue with used items-in fact it actually makes us feel better. I can't believe how many things are used for such a short period of time, and if we all bought them brand new, can you imagine all the waste? Blech! We've been to a couple of the MOPS and MOM's sales and have gotten some great deals-some of which still have tags on them!!

Ok, I've rambled enough and have tons to do. Matt's parents and brother are coming tomorrow for our belated Christmas celebration. We're looking forward to seeing them all!

Gotta run, the baby is currently using my bladder as a trampoline...you know what that means!!


Here's this week's update from http://www.babycenter.com/ :

"Your baby's growing steadily, having gained about 4 ounces since last week. That puts him at just over a pound. Since he's almost a foot long (picture an ear of corn), he cuts a pretty lean figure at this point, but his body is filling out proportionally and he'll soon start to plump up. His brain is also growing quickly now, and his taste buds are continuing to develop. His lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory "tree" as well as cells that produce surfactant, a substance that will help his air sacs inflate once he hits the outside world. His skin is still thin and translucent, but that will start to change soon."