Pregnancy Week 21 Update

Happy Memorial Day!  This weekend disappeared before I knew it, but it was a good one!  We celebrated a wedding with family friends, celebrated my golden birthday, and enjoyed time with friends and family.  This weekend also marked the end of the 21st week of this pregnancy.

After finding out we were having a girl, I ordered the quilt I first took a liking to when we found out we were expecting.  It arrived on Tuesday, and I couldn't wait to pick out paint colors once it arrived.  We settled on our nursery colors, and thanks to Memorial Day sales at Home Depot, the paint for the nursery has been purchased.

 

 The colors for the main part of the room. 

 The accent wall in the closet. 

I'm excited to get to work on the nursery, but we still have some demo work to do first.  This coming week, we are having the attic insulated better.  Hopefully, that will help with some of our temperature regulation issues we have on the top floor.  Andrew also has to work on tearing out the rest of the closet.  Once the closet is done being cleaned out, we will go through and patch everything up and prepare the room to paint.  Other than the quilt, I haven't purchased anything for the nursery. 

During the early part of the week, little miss was pretty quiet.  However, over this past weekend, she has been quite active.  I mostly notice her moving around at night.  Last night, Andrew was actually able to feel slight movements.  No big kicking going on yet, but I can certainly tell she is on the move!  Along with the increased movement this week, my bump seems to be quickly expanding.  

 This pregnancy seems to be moving right along now!  We still have quite a long list of projects for the summer, and I know the summer is going to be here and gone before we know it.  This week, I'm looking forward to our meeting with our doula.  I'm also going to do some shopping for a new pair of shoes and a few pairs of pants.  I started off week 21 with swelling feet and ankles.  A few days this past week, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get my shoes on.  I didn't think the swelling was supposed to start until the third trimester. 

Weeks 19 and 20

Sorry for the later post this week, life has been a bit crazy.  I'm happy to report that our first baby, Buddy, is doing much better this week.  We have had several good days with him and he seems to have some of his normal spark back.  I'm not sure if it was the cocktail of meds he has been on for several weeks, the acupuncture, or good old time that has helped the most.  I'm sure if was a combination of all three.  While we aren't in the clear completely, we take his improvements this week as a good sign.  I'm glad he wasn't ready to give up on us just as we weren't ready to give up on him!

Week 19 was rather uneventful.  I spent most of the week trying to distract myself from thinking about the gender of the little one happily growing away inside me.  Again, I'm noticing more discomfort with normal activities.  Standing for longer periods of time causes some back pain and ankle swelling.  Both thing I know are only going to increase as I go along.  On Friday, I went with a good friend of mine who is due any day now with her baby girl to get a pedicure!  We took one last belly photo before her baby makes her debut into the world.  I'm so excited for our little ones to grow up together!

Monday morning finally came around; time for us to find out if this bean is a boy or a girl.  We honestly had no guesses.  Last week, I had a dream about it being a boy, but I wasn't counting on that for anything.  I wasn't being pulled one way or the other.  I surprised myself with how calm I was going into the ultrasound.  I have an anxious stomach for things like this, but I think I realized getting worked up wasn't going to change the outcome.  Of course, isn't that true with most things?  They didn't make it easy on us in the ultrasound.  I thought we would get straight down to it and find out the gender as soon as we got in the room.  Nope!  I didn't realize they were going to measure EVERYTHING.  I'm happy to report everything looked good.  Baby has all 10 fingers and all 10 toes.  The heart looks excellent, and we even got to see the heart pumping and blood flowing through.  What an amazing thing to see this beautiful thing happily growing away. 

Finally, the moment came for us to find out what this bean is.  We are happy to announce we are having a baby GIRL!  For the second time during an ultrasound, I cried.  It wasn't because I wanted a girl more than a boy, it was more that this tiny creation now has an identity rather than being called it. 

Baby girl was actually measuring about 20 weeks and 5 days on Monday, but I'm not going to put too much stock in that.  She will come when it is time and not a minute sooner.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying feeling her move around quite a bit more these days.  It was awesome to feel her move while watching on the ultrasound! 

Since finding out on Monday, I have picked up a few cute clothing items I found on end of season sales.  My favorite?  This adorable Christmas dress.  It's crazy to think we will have a new family member joining us for Christmas this year. 

On our agenda now?  Working on the nursery.  Andrew took the doors off the closet last weekend, and we have taken the existing storage out to prepare for painting in the coming months.  Never a dull moment in our house when it comes to home improvement projects! 

18 Weeks

Things with the growing baby are moving along nicely .  Week 18 was fairly uneventful from a pregnancy standpoint.  Life in general last week was crazy!  These last few weeks I seem to have found the appetite I lost during my first trimester.  My go to snacks these days are bananas, apples and grapes.  I realized today I should probably be including a few veggies as well; something to work on.  During my first trimester, my sweet tooth disappeared.  I thought it was a blessing in disguise that I wasn't craving sweets and might be able to keep the weight off easier.  That was short lived, my sweet tooth is back with a vengeance these days.

This past week I have also been feeling a lot more movement out of baby.  A few weeks ago, I felt some light flutters every now and then.  Last week, I started feeling full movements.  I can tell baby is active during certain times; especially right after I eat a meal.  Feeling the baby move is such a strange feeling.  I have tried explaining it to Andrew, but I'm sure if just sounds crazy to him.

This last week was not an easy week. We continue to battle with Buddy's neck pain.  He has now had five acupuncture treatments.  He has done excellent with the last two, even falling asleep during treatment.

This week, we are trying him on a higher dose of gabapentin and hope that it might kick him over the current hump.  He has some good moments here and there, mostly in the evenings.  We still feel terrible for him because it is obvious he is in pain.  He has been a trooper through all of this, and we hope he can hang in there a little bit longer and keeping fighting. 

This week, I have been thinking more about the nursery as we get closer to finding out the gender.  We have thrown around some different ideas for the nursery, but we are waiting to find out the gender before we commit to anything. Before we start in on the nursery, we want to get the closet organized.  Right now, the closet is our upstairs overflow.  We need to rethink some storage situations.

This last weekend, I was able to celebrate Mother's Day with my mom by going to the greenhouse to pick out our flowers for flower pots this year.  It's something we do every year, and I'm looking forward to having an extra helper with us next year!  Andrew and I also made the rounds across the state last week to help some family members celebrate their college graduations.

To round out the week, I finally made the decision to leave my part time job at Kirkland's; my last day will be June 1st.  With the summer quickly approaching, I decided it was time.  We have a long list of projects we would like to get done before the baby comes in October, and I know how fast this summer will fly by.  I will miss the people I work with at Kirkland's, and have had such a good time working there.

Finally, to start off week 19, I decided to indulge my sweet tooth!

 

Week 17 Update

Monday marked the beginning of week eighteen of this pregnancy, so week seventeen is in the books.  We had our midwife appointment last Friday.  We got to hear the heartbeat again, and make sure everything was measuring on schedule.  We opted not to do the additional testing that was offered for spina bifida, etc.  We will check everything again at week 20 when we also find out the gender.  In only two short weeks we will find out if we are having a boy or a girl.  Neither of us have any hunches as to what it is.  I haven't had any crazy dreams, and haven't tried out any of the old wives' tales I have seen floating around on Pinterest.

This picture isn't from week 17, it is actually from today.  But, I feel like I'm starting to show a little more now.  I am feeling a few more pulls with certain movements and sleeping continues to be fun!  This week we took a four hour road trip and by the end of the four hours, I was ready to be out of the car; not a fan of sitting that long.  We didn't buy anything else exciting for the baby this last week, although the dresser did arrive last Monday!  We still need to unpack it and make sure it wasn't damaged during shipping.  Apparently, I'm banking on this baby arriving on time or even past our due date.  I heard early last week one of our favorite comedians, Lewis Black was going to be in town on September 23rd.  We both love Lewis Black, and couldn't pass up the opportunity to see him while he was in town (we have skipped concerts/shows in the past thinking we would catch them the next time they were in town and then they don't actually return).  So, with less than two weeks to my due date, we will be spending the evening laughing away with Lewis Black as part of our 5th anniversary celebration!    

I enjoyed going to our appointment on Friday, but the week was clouded with worry about our poor old man, Buddy.  He is having some neck issues right now.  Unfortunately, beagles are prone to invertebral disc disease.  He is on a pretty big cocktail of muscle relaxers, steroids, pain meds, and meds for nerve pain.  We have started him with a couple rounds of acupuncture after our vet recommended it to us as a treatment option, and he has another one scheduled tomorrow.  Some days he seems to be doing better, and some days not so much.  It's so hard to watch our poor old  guy in pain, but I still believe he can get better.  We aren't willing to throw in our chips on him yet. 

This week, I have been thinking more about the nursery and how we will decorate.  We have thrown some ideas around, but we are waiting to make the final decision until we find out the gender.  For some reason, I have also been thinking a lot about the holidays this week, and am looking forward to having a new member of our family to celebrate with!