My Big Fat Belly - 30 Weeks

I can’t believe I’m 30 weeks pregnant…well, I’m actually a couple of days away from 30 weeks but I know I won’t have time to do a post during the week this week so it was today or never :)

I’m a mere 10 weeks away from having our son.  Possibly even less.  That is unbelievable to me.  It really feels like I just got pregnant yesterday!!  So much is about to start happening.  Our 4D ultrasound is on Friday.  I can’t even vocalize how excited I am about it.  I haven’t seen Carter since we found out he was a boy at 18 weeks.  I’m dying to know so many things!  Is he really 3lbs. like he should be?  Or is he measuring bigger still?  Is he still in the breech position or has he turned head down (I think he’s turned, but this is my first rodeo so I have no idea)?  Is he around 16 inches like he should be?  What does his sweet face look like?  So many questions…

And then my maternity pictures are Sunday with my sister.  She’s coming up to Birmingham and we’re doing them on the trails in Ross Bridge.  It’s so gorgeous back there and every time I’ve gone, it’s been swarmed with photographers doing photos for families, engagements, maternity, etc.  I’m a little upset that Justin won’t be in them, but as long as he’s present for the newborn photos, I’m good.  Since this is his busy season it was too difficult to nail down a date that both Lindsey was available (this is also her busy season because everyone is taking family photos for Christmas cards now) and that he was available since he usually comes in town on Friday and leaves on Sundays.  So we had to just pick a date and hope for the best, but unfortunately Justin is flying out before our pictures on Sunday, so he can’t be in them.

So now for changes I’ve noticed….

HELLO AGAIN FREQUENT URINATION…it’s been a while.  Mother of all that is holy, I pee every hour.  Momma ain’t getting any sleep these days because I’m up to pee at least 4 to 5 times.  Not to mention the last couple of weeks I’ve been waking up way earlier than normal and haven’t been able to go back to sleep for some reason.  I used to be able to make it through the night and not even have to pee and if I did, it was only once.  Bye bye to those days….because apparently this is my body’s way of preparing me for the lack of sleep that I will soon be experiencing.

Belly button is still tucked away and I actually had dinner with several girls that live on my street (have I mentioned how much I LOVE living in our new neighborhood?) and most of them said their belly buttons never popped at all.  Maybe mine won’t.  We’ll see.  The belly has definitely grown as you can see in the pic below.  I’m still having trouble eating full meals.  My eyes are ALWAYS  bigger than my stomach.  Back pain isn’t too bad, but breathing is.  There were times before where Carter would position himself on my right lung and it would take the breath out of me when he was in that position.  Now, however, he’s so big that I am permanently out of breath. 

I’m still exercising, but I wonder if I’m going to have to start going to a gym to walk on the treadmill instead of walking outside.  I hate that because it’s starting to get cooler outside and I LOVE being in the cold.  But now that he’s so big, anytime I even walk, he’s bouncing up and down on my bladder and I have to pee even more than I normally do.  It’s difficult to walk outside when there’s not a bathroom every half mile :)

I finally got my hair cut and highlighted by the way.  It was in desperate need!  Also, I’m up to 22 pounds now.  I’ve said it before, but I knew I wouldn’t gain just 25.  I’m more or less expecting between 30-35, but we’ll see how it goes.  As long as I’m not gaining any weight any where else on my body I’m fine, and I don’t think I have.  To me, my face and arms and legs still look the same, but maybe I’m bias.  I know certain areas will get swollen as I get closer to D-Day, but swelling goes down after the baby is born, it’s not actual “weight” I’ll have to lose.

Hope everyone has a fabulous week!!!

My Big Fat Belly - 28 Weeks

Bye bye second trimester, hello THIRD!!!  I’m in the final leg of this journey and so ready for it to be over!!  Not too much has changed since week 27.  My back has started to hurt a little more, but it’s nothing that a sweet little heating pad or hot bubble bath can’t fix.  No swelling yet, thankfully.  Belly button is still tucked in and I am obviously not good at estimating when it will start poking out so I won’t even try.  Sleep is still pretty good and it’s awesome that it’s as good as it is UNMEDICATED.   For a while I was having to take Tylenol PM to be able to sleep through back pain and sometimes I would just take Unisom (no pain reliever in it, just a sleep aid) on nights that I couldn’t sleep.   But in the last probably month or so, I’ve been able to sleep just fine without anything.  I know that won’t last so I’m soaking it in while I can. 

It’s starting to get difficult to eat full meals.  I get full pretty quickly because I’m running out of room.  I can snack on foods with the best of em’, but I can rarely sit down and eat a whole dinner.  I’m still keeping up my exercise routine, though I haven’t done as much this week as the past several.  Weekends are the best days for me to exercise because I can do it in the morning.  I’ve been so busy with work that I’m not getting home until 6pm or later and by then I’m starving and have to eat and after I eat, I’m so full and too tired to do anything.  So I’ve been slacking a little this week, but that’s not because of pregnancy, it’s just because I’m busy.  I still plan to walk about 10 miles before Sunday.

Justin gets a kick out of watching my stomach move when Carter kicks.  He’ll just stare at it and say “BAM” every time he sees it move.  It’s quite hilarious.  The other night, while he was “BAM”-ing, he looked straight at me as if he’d seen a ghost and said “Babe…have you seen your stomach lately?”  Immediately I wanted to laugh at him…yes thank you, I see it every second of every day because it’s gigantic.  Anyway, he said “oh my gosh there’s a huge line going down the center of it!!!”  He hadn’t seen the line yet and had never even heard of it and the surprise and shock in his voice made me laugh.  I explained what the line was to him and he said “well….I love you and all, but will that go away when he’s born?”.  Gotta love my husband.

And Carter is kicking all the time now.  He’s running out of room just like I am and now I can feel most of his movements instead of just the ones that happened to be hitting the uterine wall.  He’s gotten big enough where I can feel most anything now.  My strapping young lad is about 2 1/2 pounds and can open and close his eyes (which are sporting eyelashes apparently).  Because he can now open his eyes, they say he is sensitive to light.  Some moms shine a flashlight on their stomachs to get the baby to move because the light will cause the baby to move away from it out of reflex.  For some reason this little test just seems kind of morbid to me and I just want him to be comfy, so I haven’t done the whole “shine a flashlight on your belly and watch him move” thing yet.  Not to say I won’t later, I just can’t get over the thought that it seems kind of mean right now.  But I’m sure if there’s ever a day where I haven’t felt him move at all and I get worried, I’ll be whipping out a flashlight like it’s no one’s business making sure he’s okay.   

For my 28 weeks picture….(and in case you’re curious, the TV in the picture isn’t the main TV in the living room and it doesn’t normally go there.  We brought in two extra TV’s into the living room for football season so that we could keep up with all the SEC games since most of them are on at the same time).

The invitations for my first shower went out this week.  I haven’t actually gotten mine yet because they forgot our address changed, so I’ll probably get it today.  But my sister got hers and sent me a picture of it.  It’s so cute!!!

LOVE IT!!!  The ladies hosting the shower for me are so awesome and crafty.  I know I’m going to have a blast at this shower and I’m really glad it’s my first one!  I think this will be the shower where I get most of my gifts because of the number of people invited to it. 

I’m so ready to do more in his room, but honestly, a lot of the decorative things I want to do can’t be done until after he’s born.  There’s going to be a collage of organic bloom frames with his newborn pictures in them above his crib, but obviously he has to get here first for us to do that.  Also, my sister is going to paint a canvas to hang above his dresser that will have his full name, birth date, weight, height, etc.  Again, kind of need him here to be able to know those things.  I’m sure his room will look more full once we start getting gifts and putting them in his room though.

That’s about it for now.  Until next week….or maybe the next week….

My Big Fat Belly-27 Weeks

This one is a day early, but I’m going to be pretty slammed this week with a  few things so I thought I’d go ahead and post it…that, and I haven’t posted on pregnancy in almost a month.  Bad blogger…I know.

I’m changing up my preggo posts.  I’m tired of doing the different categories that everyone does because they take so long to fill out and some of them don’t even apply so instead I’m just going to write about whatever I want and what’s going on with me.

This time I’ll start with my 27 weeks pic…photographer out of town again, apologies.

The picture is awful, I’m sorry.  But it’s all I can do for now.  Yes, this is the new bathroom.  I’ll post pics on the new house hopefully this week or this weekend.  I’ve been meaning to do it for a while since we’ve finally gotten almost everything set up, I just haven’t had time.

So what’s going on now?  Well, I went to my 26 week appointment on Friday and finally got to see my actual doctor.  I’ve been passed around the practice the past 6 months because they want me to see all the doctors that could possibly deliver Carter, which I greatly appreciate.  I haven’t seen Hudson since the first appointment at week 5 so I was glad to see him and his nurse again.  Everything is great.  Weight, belly growth, and baby are all on track.  That appointment was also my glucose screening.  I had to get there earlier than normal, a 7:45am appointment.  I wasn’t allowed to eat anything up until then, which is comparable to the apocalypse for a pregnant woman. 

When I got there, I had to drink 5 oz. of the infamous orange drink.  I honestly don’t know why so many women have complained about this drink.  The after taste isn’t wonderful of course, but it sort of tasted and smelled like Sunkist, one of my personal favorite soft drinks.  And 5 oz. is barely anything at all, almost like a really big shot.  The way I’ve heard horror stories of this test made me think I had to drink a liter of this stuff, so I was pleasantly surprised it was only 5 oz. 

After drinking the fun juice, we had to go to my normal doctor appointment.  This took longer than normal for some reason.  The waiting room was jam-packed so tight that people were standing outside because there wasn’t a seat.  The receptionists all looked frazzled so it looked like they forgot a bunch of patients had appointments that day.  I finally got called back to do a finger stick and then they put me in my room to wait to see my doctor.  By the way, since it’s really only females that read this, I don’t mind being blunt….it’s really difficult to pee in a cup when you can no longer see your va-jay-jay.  Just some fun FYI.  Sorry if it produced a mental picture.

It seemed like an eternity that we had to wait on my doctor to show up.  Of course this is probably because I had been awake for 3 hours with no food and 30 seconds seemed like 20 minutes to me.  Nurse finally came in and took my blood pressure and we heard the heart beat, both of which were fine.  The doctor finally came in after her and measured my belly.  I talked to him briefly about an issue I’ve noticed lately.  In the middle of my stomach, I keep getting this stiffness that really hurts when I touch it.  I’ve had friends say that it could be Carter’s butt since their butts tend to be the hardest body part.  However, doc said it was probably his heel jabbing my stomach.  Not that he was kicking, but he would stick his heel in this one position and leave it there all day, leaving me quite uncomfortable.  I’m ok with this though, because if this is true, it means that Carter has started to turn out of the breech position and into the head down position.

We scheduled my next appointment which is at 30 weeks and is on October 21st.  This is the appointment where we will have the 4D ultrasound.  I CAN’T WAIT!!!!  I haven’t seen Carter since I was 18 weeks pregnant and it’ll be another 4 weeks before I get to see him again, so I am very ready to see how much bigger he’s gotten, and to see him in 4D so that I can make out his facial features better.  27 weeks marks the beginning of month 7 and at 28 weeks, I will officially be 2/3 of the way done with this little thing called pregnancy.  I’ll finally be in trimester number 3.  I can’t believe this is all flying by so fast.  So anyway, after leaving my normal doctor appointment, I went back to the lab to give blood so they could do the sugar test.  My husband, God bless him, can’t be in hospitals or even look at needles or he’ll pass out.  I’m starting to wonder if he’ll be able to make it through the labor to see our son or if he’ll be face down on the floor when he finally comes out.  Only time will tell.  Justin couldn’t watch them take my blood so he had to wait outside.  The nurse said that if I don’t hear anything by Monday (today) that I passed the test and don’t have gestational diabetes.  I’m praying that I don’t get a phone call today.

As far as how I’m doing….I’m pretty good.  Carter kicks pretty frequently, but unfortunately, he doesn’t do it when I’m trying to get other people to feel it.  Justin is the only person that has been able to feel him kick and he’s only felt it a handful of times.  Anytime I try to get anyone else to feel it, he stops.  It’s like he doesn’t want anyone but his momma to experience it….and I’m ok with that!  The linea nigra has started to form, but I was apparently way off on the time line of when my belly button would pop out, because she’s still nicely tucked away in there.

Still no cravings of any kind really, I’m ok with all the same foods I was ok with before pregnancy.  My working out schedule rocks.  I usually walk the Giz around the neighborhood (2 miles) about 3 times a week and then do a pregnancy toning dvd afterwards.  Those 3 times are usually during the week.  On the weekends, I like long walks by myself, completing about 4 miles on both Saturday and Sunday either on the Mountain Brook trail or the trail that goes from James Hill into Ross Bridge.  Last week alone I burned 2,044 calories.  I’m not real sure I’m supposed to be burning that much though…maybe I should ask if that’s ok.  But it hasn’t affected us yet, so I figure it’s good for me and for Carter.

While driving home the other day Justin said “I wonder if Giz will try to take Carter’s toys”.  Ummmm…holy crap.  Didn’t even think of that.  Anyone else have a dog that tried to play with the kids toys??  How do we keep her away from Carter’s things?  That may be a trial and error type thing to figure out.  Carter’s bedding came in and so did most of the furniture, so his room is close to being set up, but we’re still waiting on some things.  The glider hasn’t been delivered yet and we also still need to get a night stand along with a few décor related items.  Because of this, I probably won’t put up pictures of the nursery when I make the post on the new house, because I really want a lot more to be done first.

Lots of dates are coming up quickly.  On October 4th, I’ll be in my third trimester.  October 21st is the 30 week appointment and 4D ultrasound (this also marks the last appointment in a 4 week series…after this appointment, all appointments will be every two weeks and eventually every week until he’s here).  October 23rd are my maternity pictures that my sister Lindsey is doing on the Ross Bridge trails.  October 30th is my first baby shower, hosted by some fabulous ladies at our church.  The very next weekend is my second baby shower, hosted by three of my best friends, Lindsey Owens, Tiffany Lobdell and Carina Sanchez.  The week after that, November 10th, is my third shower from my co-workers.  Also some time in November, Justin’s friends are throwing him a baby shower.  I have NEVER heard of this before, but apparently, some guys throw “Beer for Diapers” showers.  Trevor Lobdell and Justin Yarbrough are hosting and inviting all of Justin’s good friends and everyone has to bring diapers and the hosts will provide beer.  Genius.

So we’re about to get REALLY busy.  I’m hoping it won’t be another 3 weeks before my next belly post, but honestly there’s just no telling.  Oh and the worst part of it all….I was waiting on someone at the doctors office to tell me to sign up for classes.  When I called and asked about it, they said the information was in the packet they gave me when they confirmed my pregnancy (literally haven’t looked at this packet since that day).  Turns out, I was supposed to sign up for childbirth and breastfeeding classes no later than month 5.   I’m in month 7 now.  Oops.