32 Weeks and a Birthday!

32 Weeks down!

I'm still feeling great! I thought for sure that the last 8 weeks were going to be miserable. Why did I think this? Well, one day last week, I had every single "pregnancy symptom" that I never had before. All in one day. I didn't feel good, was extremely tired and uncomfortable, got HORRIBLE heartburn which lasted all day AND night, and leg cramps. This lasted for two days, and then disappeared!

We have now graduated to doctor appointments every two weeks which will be the case until 36 weeks when I get the pleasure of going weekly. I saw Dr. Mernitz this time, who is quickly becoming one of my favorites. So, if my regular doctor is not back from maternity leave by the time this baby decides to come, I am praying that Dr. Mernitz is on-call that day. He checked to see what position she was in, and just as I suspected, she is sideways. I guess the technical term is transverse. I can feel her hands move on the lower left side of my abdomen and her feet always kick me on my right side. He said that there is still plenty of time for her to get in the correct position and they really don't start getting too concerned with it until 34 weeks or so, but they probably won't attempt to do anything about it until 36 weeks if she hasn't moved by then.

I passed my glucose screening test with flying colors! Thank goodness for that, because if I had to give up sugar and carbs I was going to be in serious trouble. All of the other blood work came back normal as well. As of last week, my weight gain is 13 pounds. They tell me I'm supposed to gain about a pound a week from now until the end, so hopefully I'm looking at right around 20 pounds. Also, Dr. Mernitz said that I am just very blessed to have a super long abdomen. I swear that people give me dirty looks and are thinking that I'm not eating enough or something because they think I should be bigger. Well, the doctors say she is doing just fine. And I eat... A LOT.

On another note, Rocco is one year old today! I stopped at Walgreens on the way home to get a birthday hat, but they don't sell any! I was so disappointed! So, Kevin went to the basement and came out with a sombrero! Doesn't he look thrilled?
Eventually he gave in and wore it long enough for me to get a decent picture :)
Rocco has not had any "people food" yet, and we are trying to hold off on that. At least until this baby is old enough to feed him her food... So, we went to Petsmart to find him something special for his birthday. They make canned Turducken dog food. I think that is crazy enough that people make Turducken, but to put it in dog food form? Seriously? But Kevin insisted that we get it, so here it is.

Rocco got two new toys for his birthday. He was very excited about them. He has been chewing on the bone since we gave it to him about 90 minutes ago, and it's just about finished. He is so out of breath and desperately needs a drink of water, but he just won't quit until it's completely gone!

Since Rocco got Turducken for dinner, we decided to give the cats some canned food too. We don't give it to them often, but it's the Fnacy Feast with gravy, and as you can see, Oscar goes nuts for the stuff... make sure you turn your volume up for the full effect!

Hello Third Trimester

I am 28 weeks today which marks the start of the third trimester. Third trimester? How the heck did that happen? It is crazy how fast time is going! I guess I shouldn't be surprised. We have such busy schedules that the weeks seems to fly by anyhow. When we found out I was pregnant I was afraid that the time would drag on and on and that June would never get here. That has certainly not been the case and there is only 84 more days or so to go. That is, 84 more days until my due date. But, if this baby is anything like her mother she will prefer to arrive early which is more than OK with us!

There is really nothing new to report even though I haven't posted in a few weeks. Everyone asks me if I'm having a boy because baby is so low in my belly. She has been low from the start and has not shown any intention of moving anytime soon. I have had no kicks or movement of any sort above my belly button. At least I'm not getting feet shoved into my ribs! She also likes to hang out on the left side. I don't know how active she is during the day, mostly because I'm constantly running around and don't really notice the movement. But, every night around 8:30 or so she decides to do somersaults or something. It's like clockwork.

Baby Hall is a.....

GIRL! And thank goodness for that, because between Kevin and the animals, I am outnumbered 4 to 1!

I know you are all saying "But I thought you weren't going to find out?" Well, we were not going to find out, but we couldn't resist the temptation any longer! I was tired of buying gender neutral clothes because there really isn't a huge selection of green, yellow, and white. I think I own everything there is in those colors already. Although, you will definitely NOT find a closet full of pink clothes here. Pink is not really my thing... I did not have a preference either way, but I have known all along that it is a girl. Kevin was holding out hope for a boy, but he is excited about a girl too. At least that is what he tells me! :)

We had our ultrasound on Thursday but I have had the worst cold I have ever had, and really have just been sleeping since Tuesday, so I've had zero energy to talk to anyone or post online, except for the occasional Facebook post about how poorly I was feeling. Anyway, we had a good doctor appointment after the ultrasound. I will be 22 weeks on Monday, and baby is right on track. Based on her measurements, the due date is June 18, although they will keep my due date as June 20 because it's not a significant difference. Everything looked normal on the scan and there was nothing concerning. She has now passed the one pound mark, and is about 1.1 pounds, somewhere in the 50th percentile. I'm hoping for a nice size 6 pound baby who preferably makes her appearance before her due date... ha! We will see how that works out...

I have been concerned about my weight gain, because I'm actually only at a gain of about two pounds since I lost some weight early on. The doctor said that he is not concerned about it because baby's measurements are exactly where they need to be. He is confident that I will start gaining more soon...

Here are some ultrasound photos - we have SO many, but a lot of them are confusing to tell what I'm supposed to be looking at, so I decided not to post those :)

She is apparently VERY much like her mother and is a bit stubborn and doesn't really like her picture taken. She kept her arms in front of her face during most of the ultrasound and would never give us a full look at her face. But, we did get a glimpse for a split second. And no, she doesn't have any deformities, that is an arm and a hand in front of her face. It's a bit hard to tell still, but I think she's cute!

Another brief glimpse at her face, but a bit blurry.
It cracks me up because in the normal ultrasound her face makes me think of an alien face with the big black blobs where the eye sockets are. And yes, she was upside down the entire time.
Here you can see her head on the right with her arm up above it.
And more with her arms in front of her face. There was a pattern!
That object toward the top right is one of her feet. The feet are a little over an inch long, so about the size of the tip of your thumb.
I don't remember what this is of, but I think it's of her hands.
And here is one of her lower legs - she's really flexible at this point!
And here is one of her legs completely stretched out. Both the ultrasound tech and the doctor said "Wow, she has some long legs". I think we will have a tall one on our hands!
And here she is waving - you can see her fingers defined.

20 Weeks Down... 20 Weeks To Go!

It seems like it hasn't been that long! I don't have a picture this week, but I don't think much has changed anyhow. We are still doing great!

This week, baby will grow to 10.5 inches and 12.7 ounces. They say that is the size of a banana. Last week they said baby was the size of a small cantaloupe... I don't know how we went from cantaloupe to banana because that doesn't make much sense to me!

I have noticed that my appetite comes and goes. Some days I can't seem to get enough food, and other days I have to remind myself to eat. The one thing that I have struggled with this whole pregnancy is making sure I drink enough water. I have never been good about drinking water - it's just so bland and boring! I have been on a soda kick lately. I am allowed to have a certain amount of caffeine each day, so I have switched to decaf coffee so I can have a Coke every now and then. I do miss my Diet Coke, and that will most likely be one of the first things I have after baby is born!

We did manage to get to Babies R Us to register, so if you are interested, you can check out our registry here: Registry I know that not everyone has a Babies R Us near them, but I didn't want to register in different places. It's much easier to keep track of everything when it's all at the same place. The nice thing is that they have almost everything online and offer free shipping most of the time.

19 Weeks

19 weeks 2 days. That leaves 146 more days :) This week, Baby Hall will grow to 6.5 inches and 10.6 ounces. Roughly the size of a small cantaloupe.

I was able to feel the baby move this past week. Honestly, I think I felt the baby the week before, but it's hard to tell what is baby and what isn't! We have even gotten some strong kicks that Kevin was able to feel too. I have noticed that Baby Hall likes it when I eat because he or she moves around a lot then. Baby is also very active when I'm trying to sleep which makes falling asleep a bit difficult.

18 weeks

18 weeks. Only 153 more days to go. According to the books, Baby Hall is 6 inches and 8.5 ounces. Apparently that is the size of a heirloom tomato - who knew? We went to the doctor last week and all is still going well. Though my belly size is roughly the same as last week, I've gained 4 pounds so far. The doctor seems fine with that number, so that's good.

Yes, we are still undecided about if we are going to find out the gender or not :)

17 Weeks

17 weeks down, 23 weeks to go.

Nothing much different from last week, including my size :)

My cravings in the past few weeks include ANYTHING fried and pickles. I try to limit the fried food, but sometimes you really just need an onion blossom. Or fried chicken. Or fried pickles, which covers both cravings!

Have you noticed how Rocco has to be in every picture of me? I try to rush and get the picture taken before he follows me, but he's always there! At least this time he was looking at the camera :)

16 Weeks

I'm going to have to teach Kevin how to take better pictures :)

15 Weeks

We have made it to 15 weeks. I can still fit into my normal pants, but they just aren't comfortable anymore :) The baby bump is not this big all the time yet. This photo was taken at the very end of the day, after a very large dinner, so it appears larger than it actually is. At the beginning of the day, it's barely there, but I'm never ready to go in the morning for Kevin to take a picture. My goal is to take a photo once a week. We will see if I can keep this up...

Baby Hall

I am sure that most everyone knows by now, but we are expecting our first baby in June 2011! We are 13 weeks pregnant and our estimated due date at this point is June 20. Even though a lot of people suspected, we managed to only tell our parents and siblings until this week when we left the first trimester. It was a very long time to keep it in!

Everyone has been asking, so here is the scoop:

I have felt GREAT the whole time. I have had absolutely no morning sickness which has been a blessing. I have noticed that I've been more tired, but that's about it. I am no showing yet, but I'm sure that will change soon :) I haven't really had any cravings, except for hot sauce and breakfast foods. But not breakfast for breakfast - only for dinner. We are also not planning to find out the gender of the baby and prefer to be surprised! (At least that is the plan for now... it could change!)

One of probably eight tests that I took. I didn't believe the ones with the lines, but there is no denying the one with the words!

We had our first ultrasound at 8 weeks. The baby still looks a bit "alien like" but was very healthy. We won't have another ultrasound until somewhere around 21 weeks or so.