The week of my favorite number! 17!

I started this blog entry yesterday but never got around to publishing.  Now that's its Tuesday, I'll fill you in on the baby appointment we had today!  It went very well.  We finally met the OB we chose, Dr. Erin Gross.  We liked her a lot!  She seemed very calm, didn't act rushed at all, and actually seemed to care about the things I was telling her.  All good signs for the rest of our appointments.  Baby is doing well by all appearances/sounds.  My uterus is in the right place, just starting to raise up towards my belly button and baby's heartbeat was a strong 160.  What a rush it still is to hear that quick swishing sound!  It made me all the more excited for our anatomy scan next week.  Eeee!  I weighed in at 164 again this appointment which reinforces my thought that my weight at the last appointment wasn't correct (because I know I've actually gained a few pounds this time).  But whatever, as long as I'm tracking it on my own I feel pretty good about it.  I would like to avoid becoming a total blimp during this pregnancy!

Here's the entry I wrote yesterday.  Keep on scrolling for the pictures!  :)

Written Monday, October 14:

Week 17, friends!!  And what an exciting week it is!  The next 9 days are going to be awesome.  Tomorrow we have our baby check-up, on Friday we get the keys to our new house, next Monday the movers come, and next Tuesday is our anatomy scan!!  For some reason, I'm nervous for tomorrow's appointment but just plain excited for next Tuesday, which makes no sense.  I should be nervous for both at this point!  Only nervous because the past week has again been a totally chill one, filled with lots of activities and going out.  This can't be normal!!  Haha.  I can't wait to hear baby's heartbeat tomorrow to be reassured that we made it safe and sound through another month.  It's hard to believe it's been 4 weeks since our last appointment and 8 weeks since our first ultrasound.  On days like today I feel like the time has flown by.

This past weekend I got to hang out with THREE of my pregnant friends!  One of whom is due this Saturday!  After we ate out, we went back to her place so she could show me her nursery.  It's ADORABLE and really made me hope for a girl!  Of course a boy's nursery could be adorable as well, but girls have the edge there I think.  Hers was done in white furniture with purple and butterfly accents.  So pretty.  I think we're leaning towards darker furniture, but we aren't too particular which is good because we're getting a lot of items loaned to us!  I can tie anything together with cute bedding and decor. :)  My weekend was also filled with baby shower bliss and gave me lots of good ideas for either my shower if I get to help or for the first shower I host for one of my friends.

Speaking of gender things, I've been doing some gender predictions online!  The gender prediction quiz on parents.com says we're having a girl.  The chinese predictor says we're also having a girl.  The quiz on babymed.com says girl.  Should I stop while I'm 3 for 3 and keep hoping for a girl?  No, it's too fun!  The quiz on childbirth.org says girl!  Common themes that point to a girl so far are spreading horizontally instead of more in front, craving sweets, feet feeling warmer than usual, no nose change, baby's heart beat is over 140, my skin has gotten worse, I'm not extra hairy, and my urine is brightly colored even when hydrated (tmi?).  There are a few "boy" signs though, like craving cheese and the old wives tale about the husband/partner gaining weight along with the woman (sorry, babe!).  And I feel like I'll carry my baby low, but I can't really tell yet.

We're still behind in posting photos, so here's week 16.  Baby is the size of an avocado!  I tried to find an avocado bigger than the apple from last week.  Doing these produce pictures really brings home the fact that there is a HUMAN this actual size inside my belly (or fairly close to this size).  Some days I just have to say "seriously?! I'm making a PERSON?!"  It continues to amaze me.

The cats are in box heaven while we get ready for the move! They'll be so sad when they no longer have entire obstacle courses in the living room.

The puppies were just plain uncooperative for their avocado baby pictures!  Neither would sit still; Diva had to be perched on the cat tower, where she immediately freezes because she's afraid of heights.  And then we accidentally forgot about her up there for about 5 minutes.  My god, how are we going to be parents?! 

My pets are the cutest pets!  The baby is gonna have to be super cute to compete with all this going on!

I forgot to post this pic a few weeks ago.  My sister got us this adorable frame for our ultrasound picture!!  That's Little Baby Lum in the frame!  I just packed up all of our frames so baby had to go away for a week.  The nice thing about procrastinating most of our packing until this past weekend is only having to go one week without our things.  Well, depending on how long it takes us to unpack at the new place.  Only a few more days until big house, tons of storage, real garage, fenced-in yard bliss!!

More week 16 fun!

I've had a thought in my head all day that I've wanted to get down in the blog, and as soon as I opened the new entry, the thought flew away!  Can I blame baby brain yet?  :)  Since I can't remember what I wanted to write about, I'll just post some pictures!  These are from last week, when baby was the size of an apple.  Once again, when I'm pregnant, everyone's pregnant!

 

Rory and Hank! I don't know how long they're going to put up with these fruit shenanagins but they're both pretty darn cute!

Stripes and Diva!  Our big kitty and little puppy.  Stripes has the funniest face!  It's cracking me up how tiny Diva is behind the apple.

I like to think my skin looks better and my hair is bouncier in this photo!  Something is definitely happening with my hair.  It's almost becoming coarser, which I think is giving it some volume.  Can't complain about that!  But it's also frizzier, so I've been experimenting with different types of hair products (all of which I've always had because I'm a beauty product junkie!).  The skin part has been a bit of a battle.  For the first 6 weeks (basically the entire first trimester) after finding out I was pregnant I stayed away from all of my acne products except benzoyl peroxide, which was the only one on my doctor's "approved" list of topical creams.  After staying consistent with that and my TimeWise moisturizer, my face skin cleared up quite nicely.  However, my chest and back have been another story.  I've always struggled with body acne and in my mid-20's I finally discovered the perfect balance of products that kept my skin clear.  One of these things was salicylic acid toner.  I cut it out of my regimen per my orders, and my skin freaked out.  It has stayed freaked out ever since so last week I finally caved and started using the toner again.  10 days later, already better!  I did a bunch of reading and while there's definitely some controversy, a lot of sites deem it safe for topical use once or twice a day.  I'm only using it once a day, and fairly sparingly...so hang in there, baby!!  Once I get all cleared up I'll go off it again and wait until my skin freaks out the second time around.  I also have a call in to my derm to see about getting my prescription for clindamycin renewed.  This is safe for pregnancy use, although I'm not entirely sure it'll work this time around since I'm sure the problems are more hormonal/internal rather than bacterial/external.  Worth a shot though!

Ok, long paragraph about my skin!  But everyone knows how much I love to talk about skin and skin problems and skin solutions.  There's a reason I became a Mary Kay consultant!

These are my week 16 clothed-belly photos.  I'm slightly angled forward because let's be honest, my belly isn't ALL baby.  Ha!  I've had a little bit of the preggo bump going for the past year. :-p  But I do think the lower part is starting to protrude a teensy bit more and my belly is starting to feel a lot harder.  Which is very bizarre!  Less flab and more solid stretch I guess.  I can't wait for it to really start taking shape in the next few weeks.  Then I can break out the maternity tops that have been loaned to me!

Here I am in the same tank top as the first pictures I took .  I think it'll be fun to keep this one going the whole time.  This is a tank top from Target and they're super soft and stretchy, so I'm sure it'll be around the whole 9 months.

Same day as above (10/9), I wore this sweater dress to work.  Because it was raining and finally felt like fall!  Today it's back in the 70's and sunny. Pfft.  Anyways, it's very nice to be pregnant and not have to suck in when wearing form-fitting outfits.  In this outfit I got a few comments like "aww you're starting to show!" which I enthusiastically agreed to.  Today I'm back to a flowy printed top, which is very high in the comfy ratings like this dress was.  I'm gonna be all about comfort!  BUT I've promised myself I will be in heels until at least December, unless my balance issues/clumsiness really get a hold of me.  I managed heels 4 out of 5 work days last week, but I'm only 2 for 4 so far this week.  Tomorrow I'm planning to wear heeled boots with my Friday casual outfit.  I love Fridays!!!

New pregnancy symptoms to welcome Week 16

Today is Week 16, Day 3.  So hard to believe!  Friday I got my very first heartburn.  Is that how you would say it?  I've never had heartburn before in my life so I wasn't sure what was happening.  Achy pain in the top of my chest, constantly feeling like I needed to burp.  I took a few Tums and it seemed to help.  Even though it was annoying I was also excited!  More pregnancy symptoms!  As this week has been pretty devoid of "pregnancy" things I was happy to have the chest pain.  I'm starting to love all these little pain-type things that come with being pregnant.  Like when I jump up and get a stabbing pain in my right side and I think "ow! Oh! Round ligament pain! Fun!"  I mean, of course I've done all the research on the random aches and pains, and once I've determined everything is quite common, then I'm secretly happy about them.  Somehow all the little bumps in the road make me feel connected to all the other women who have ever been pregnant.  Of course there's those women who sail through all 9 months without a hiccup, but I don't need to connect with them.  Just envy and admire them from afar!

Aron is making me laugh on a daily basis when he jokes about the pregnancy and the future baby.  I was going to write about a few funny stories but I think they're all "guess you had to be there" moments.  Suffice it to say that I'm so very thankful I have the funniest husband in the world!  I love that nothing is off limits between us so we can laugh about everything, inappropriate or not. :)

A few people have left work early this week feeling "flu-y."  I hope I don't get sick!  I was actually battling a cold a few weeks ago, which I blame on getting my flu shot and having a weakened immune system for a few days.  The cold never got too bad and I only missed a few hours of work when I was really rundown.  I should be safe from the flu since I got my shot.  I'm glad the nurse asked me if I wanted it at our last appointment, rather than waiting until October 15.

Tonight I'm headed to my Mary Kay meeting for the first time in a few weeks.  I'm happy to see my girlfriends again!  I've bailed out on any evening activities for the past 3 weeks to make sure I was rested for my day job, but now I have the energy to go out at night again.  The black pencil skirt I always wear still fits, although its a bit snug.  Luckily my red jacket has a bit of peplum flair so any bulges are fairly covered.  :) In a few more weeks it might be time to find a stretchy skirt I can wear to work and MK.  Tomorrow night I'm going to a Passion Party that Joelle is hosting.  Time for some fun with my friends again!  Too bad I won't be able to participate in the "wine Wednesday" part of the evening.

What else can I share from preggo land...not too much happening these days, but every day is still a new experience!

Baby Name picked

It's almost 100% certain that we're going to have a boy since Cassie keeps using "she" and "her" when talking about our child's future.  So we've recently been going through baby boy names and we found a winner.  Can't wait to welcome him to the world!  There's nothing wrong with naming your kid Wolfie, right? We could go with Wolfgang, but everyone's going to call him Wolfie anyways.  Cool?  cool.

Week 15 (am I still pregnant?)

Hello blog world!  We're about to make this blog public, so now it will actually feel like I'm writing for all of our friends and family.  So far it's just been for us and the animals.  The pets pretend like they've been reading the blog, but I know they haven't been.  They've shown no interest since we broke the big news!  Although I'm pretty sure Diva knows something is up in my belly because she zeroes right in for my stomach when jumping on top of me when I'm in bed or laying on the couch.  I can't tell if she's trying to comfort me and baby or trying to ensure she stays the baby in the family by eliminating any threats to her status!

The past week and a half I can't say that I've really felt "pregnant."  It's a very strange phase to be in.  I'm not getting nauseous or sick (although I have puked a handful of times over the last 2 weeks) and I'm not really showing yet.  I almost feel like my old normal self!  Although I am super tired by 8 pm still.  Almost every night I fall asleep on the couch watching TV.  All of our programs are back this fall (Revolution! Nashville! New girl!) along with some good new ones (Hostages, The Blacklist) so I've been trying to watch one a night but sometimes its pretty hopeless.  Usually my dear husband will notice I've fallen asleep and he'll stop and save the show and then attempt to rouse me and get me to bed.  He's been getting a lot of quality time with the internet in the evenings!  Luckily he hasn't seemed to mind...yet.  Pretty soon it will start to dawn on him how little he's seen me and how little he's gotten lucky over the past few weeks.  Crossing my fingers my energy is back before he starts to notice!

We had our second appointment, and first appointment with the OB (although this was just a fill-in OB, the one we chose was unavailable, but we'll have her for the next gazillion appointments), on September 17.  It was a very quick appointment but we did get to hear the baby's heartbeat again!  I wasn't expecting to hear that, so I got pretty emotional again.  It's just so freakin' incredible that there is a baby inside of me!  There are times when I'll get teary eyed just thinking about all that's been happening and what's yet to come.  Happy tears, mind you.  I'm so excited to be a mother.  It's something I've wanted for a long time and it's amazing that my time is finally here.

Our next appointment is October 15th...13 days away.  I wish these first few appointments weren't 4 weeks apart!  I feel like now is when I most need reassurance.  On Sunday I took another pregnancy test, after all the "not feeling pregnant" for a week.  And of course, still pregnant.  I need to calm down and enjoy this phase!  When I can eat, go to work, walk the dogs, and see friends like a normal person.  Although late-night activities are still pretty hard since I get so tired.

So far our scale at home is telling me I've gained 4.3 lbs.  Not that much, but not surprising since I spent so much of the first trimester getting sick and not eating any real meals.  I might have gained a bit more according to my OB's chart, since the nurse said I'd gained 4 lbs. just between our appointments on August 19 and September 17.  I'm more confident in my at-home numbers though since I weigh in at the same time each week and I'm always in the nude.  At our next appointment I'll wear a light, floaty dress to see if my number and the Dr's number come a little closer.  With the weight gain, that puts me at 163.4.  I was told to gain the recommended amount of 20-25ish pounds putting me at 179/184ish by the end of the pregnancy.  That means about a pound a week from here on out, so I better keep my sugar cravings under control!  And keep up with the walking and swimming.  My goal is to start incorporating a lot of arm exercises, because there's no way I'll be able to carry a baby around all the time with my currently very weak arms!

Although probably not obvious to everyone, I've definitely gained the weight around my middle (although I'm pretty sure its just my love handles growing for now!).  I can no longer button my dress pants, but I still fit into my jeans and all my stretchy workout pants.  I had to go out and buy one of these sweet belly bands (see pic below) to wear with my work pants.  I was wearing it folded in half the past few weeks but this week I've been leaving it up because it already feels too tight when folded down.  The awesome thing is that this band is super smoothing...like a very comfortable spanx for my back fat!

Now that I'm keeping food down, I've been better about my fruits and veggies.  I'm still not eating quite enough veggies, but I'm working on that.  I've also been better about getting in my full 80 ounces of water every day.  I've never been very good at drinking water, so this has been a huge adjustment for me.  I'm letting myself have a diet coke a few times a week, as well as V8 juice and OJ, to break up the boring task of drinking water all day.  I've also been big on lemonade.  I know it's packed with sugar, but the payoff of getting extra "water" ounces in makes it okay with me.  Speaking of fruit and veggies...here is my first produce picture!  Week 14, baby is the size of a lemon.  This week baby is the size of an apple; I'll be taking that picture soon.

Just for laughs, Aron took pictures of the lemon with all the pets too.


Hanky's pregnant! "Why do I put up with this?!"

Diva's pregnant! And also more interested in getting to the camera than posing with the lemon.

 Stripey's pregnant! And cute as a button.

Rory's pregnant! Sitting on top of one of our packed boxes. The cats love their boxes!

I've been getting told a lot to take belly pictures during the whole pregnancy, so I may start up again with some good profile shots.  All of my friends and lots of random people have been offering me great advice for the pregnancy!  Some women are very hesitant to share, but I want to hear it all.  I might not take all advice to heart, but I like hearing how everyone handled their different symptoms and any good tips they've gleaned from their pregnancies.  I've also been sneaking in a lot of baby-blog reading while at work.  Next up on my to-do list is to buy a good body pillow.  I have a tough time staying on my left side (I sleep most comfortably on my back, in mummy position), so I want to get one of those pillows that wraps around the back to keep me propped on my side.

I also want to get our baby registry started!  But I'll refrain for a bit longer...we get to find out the gender in 3 weeks!  If I remember to book that ultrasound appointment...I guess that's up next on my to-do list. :)