26w5d

This is what Evie does every single morning.


















Same exact spot.
And it's not just the patch of sun she likes... we have a patch of sun in the living room too.
But ever since we've painted and put the crib in, if we can't find her... that's where she's gone to.



This morning in the car the baby kicked/scraped my insides so hard that I yelled out loud. Twice. I hope it never does that when I'm in public.

Also-I am in the last three boxes of my ticker! YAY!

26w4d

When I wrote yesterday about the baby being positioned so funny.... oh boy, that was just the start of it.

Till about 7 last night the baby kept moving and trying to flip around... and goodness, today my belly is SORE from it. I don't know if it's sore from the internal acrobatics, or because it's growing more, or because it's getting heavier and heavier... or a combination of the three... but getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom every hour was hard and very sore to do (note to self-put the milk crate back so you can actually get up into bed) and I was so tired and sore when Patrick got up this morning that I just made him take a frozen stir fry with him to work instead of getting up and making him his lunch. I felt bad... but I just couldn't do it.

And I really wish these lidocaine patches wouldn't have reacted with me so terribly. I go back next Tuesday for my next visit and my glucose test (which = sick Mandi for the day) and so I'll ask them about the patches then... my midwife said that I could take my Tylenol 3 every once in awhile if my back gets bad enough, but I'm still scared and nervous to do it.

Don't get me wrong at all though-I LOVE being pregnant. I love being able to feel the different parts of my kiddo when they are sticking out of my belly. I love that I am so close to meeting him or her... but goodness I hope these next few months fly by.

26w3d

Ahhhhh strangest thing ever... I got up from sitting at the kitchen table and I can feel the baby laying straight across! Head and butt each on one side of my belly, though I can't tell which is which... and then the body is going across.

Now its moved, and the bulk of it is right in my middle, where my belly button is, and I can't feel the head/butt lumps anymore, but I can feel something, a bulge, right underneath my right rib, and I'm pretty sure that's a foot-that's where I get most of my kicks at.

So crazy...

25w6d

99 days to go!

Double digits finally!

25w5d

I want:
Hot Dog Spaghetti-os.
Celery and vegetable dip (where did that one come from?).
KFC.
Meatballs.
Or a meatball sub... mmmmm.
Crackers with cheese and summer sausage. MMMMMM.


Of course I have three different kinds of cookies sitting on my dining room table that I spent all day baking for Family Day tomorrow, but I have absolutely no interest in those...

25w4d

Dear baby:

OW
OW
OW
OW
OW

25w1d

Yesterday we added a bookshelf to the baby's room. It's already completely filled with books... we are going to end up needing another one when I get the rest of my books from home! Not sure if this is where it will end up-we didn't mount it to the wall yet-we'll decide once we get the dresser and glider in there.











































Also, baby has been quite the flipper lately. I played with the little one for quite a bit last night-a shoulder or an elbow would poke out, and I would kind of move it... this is the part I have been waiting for :)

25w

Only 15-ish weeks to go! Woohoo!

Belly shots of the day (including a front shot for Grama, you can see my belly button is going to pop soon, and you can see the ring that I have to wear now because my fingers get swollen and make me nervous wearing my wedding set):








































I've been feeling super pregnant lately... heartburn got me twice yesterday really bad (once at like 10pm, but after an hour of misery and tums not doing anything an apple did the trick) and then once again at 3am but I was so tired that I slept through it.

I got up every single hour last night to go to the bathroom. Thank you, little baby, for being perched right on my bladder. The past week wasn't too bad with it, I think baby moved for a little while, but it's back in the same position its been in since the beginning of pregnancy. We seriously go through like a roll of TP every single day.

I can't turn over at night without a lot of groans and work. It hurts to try and do, really... and then sometimes I just get stuck. So usually I just switch sides after I'm up for my hourly bathroom run. The bed is getting increasingly difficult to hop into.

I think we're going to get the bookshelves for the baby's room from Target today... I'm super excited to get one more thing in there!

24w5d

Here's the wall color! It's called Spanish Chestnut. It's really kind of hard to tell in the picture that it's anything other than white-but trust me, in person, it's a huge difference. I'm sure once we have a curtain on the window it'll dim some of the sunshine so there's not as much of a glare (it's really really bright in that room) ...but I need to figure out what kind of curtains I want. Any suggestions?

Evie loves just sitting in there. I think it may be her new favorite spot. I know it will be mine once we get a glider in there!

24w4d

My body apparently doesn't like my productiveness. I've been trying to get lots done lately while my energy is still at a somewhat normal level.

I've been on my feet all day doing things like painting, baking cookies, washing dishes, and I am about to go make some broccoli cheese soup (Panera style).

In turn, my stubby toes are little sausages, and my swollen feet burn like they've never burned before.

24w3d

Appointment today... finally, after not having one for 9 weeks! (But that's a different story.)

I am measuring at 25 weeks now, so about 4 days ahead.
I've gained 14lbs so far... and that was after lunch and a massive glass of water. So I'm a little on the shallow end.
As soon as the midwife put the microphone up to my belly to hear the heartbeat, the little punk punched it. All you could hear was this big 'whop'. Heartbeat is good though, somewhere between 150-160bpm.

She gave me some lidocaine patches for my back... I was really excited about them, I was looking forward to the little bit of relief, but it's been on for a good 2 hours now and hasn't done anything-actually my back has gotten worse. I'm hoping it's just because I've been busy painting and stuff this evening. Hopefully when I go to hop in bed it'll settle down... or maybe I'll layer a few more on. It says I can have up to 3 on at a time. Tempting.

That's pretty much it... my CF and the other screenings from last time came back negative. I have my next appointment 3 weeks from today, at that time I'll go in for my glucose test-awesome. I can't waaaait for that one... I'm down to 3-4 weeks in between appointments, so that means we're making some progress! Only a little over 15 weeks to go... it's so crazy to think about!



We painted the baby's room today (minus a little edging I need to do tomorrow-and YES I wore a mask, and we were only in there for about 25 minutes, so have no worries!) but I will post pictures when it's done. It's a pretty cream color, and I am way too tired at this point to get up and see what it's called. So use your imaginations once again :)

24w2d

Ultrasound pictures!

They're not the best, but it's the little one anyway, so they are sweet...

Here it was in the middle of licking... didn't know till today that they drink this way!


















This one it had its little hand up by its chin, you can see its cute little nose and mouth... and an ear on the side




































and one a little further away.


















The little snot was moving around a lot (of course) so we couldn't get great pictures ...but really it wasn't anything compared to its nightly antics (thankfully)! It was cool to watch little baby on the screen, nonetheless.

The heart was going nice and strong at 160bpm, and every single one of the organs looked great. It's head down right now, which surprises me-I would have thought the other way around! Now I know where to position my iPod tonight :) Weight is a healthy 1lb 7oz at the moment, and I'm still measuring at about 4 days early-which I expected.

Stay tuned for more baby news tomorrow... I have an OB appointment at noon!

24w1d

We picked up our crib yesterday!

But... not without a little hassle, of course.

So we head up to Raleigh and get to Babies R Us. It's a 2.5 hour drive, mind you... so we go in, go to the furniture counter and tell them we were there, and they said sorry we know you made an appointment to come pick it up but we have to pull it from the back (no problem, really...) and we'll meet you up in the front in like 10 minutes, just pull your vehicle up, what are you driving?

We told them we were driving a Nissan Pathfinder... the two people we were talking to kind of looked at us like we were dumb and were like oh that's not going to fit. I said yeah, it's a big vehicle, they said oh no I bet it won't.

So the dude goes to pull it and Patrick is livid because we told them many times that we were coming all the way from Jacksonville... and if it's an exceptionally big crib, why the heck don't you warn people that you might want to make sure and bring a truck or something?!

Patrick pulls up on the curb, we wait forever for the guy and then he gets it out there and they try to fit it in the back-sure enough, it is WAY too big. OHHHH my gosh we were both so mad that they didn't warn us about this (we ordered it without seeing it in person-they don't have it set up in our store, so how should we know) and Patrick said told the dude how unhappy it was that we weren't warned about this in the first place... so the guy offers to give us some TWINE to tie it to the top-I said noooooo way am I tying a $450 CRIB to the top of the vehicle and just hope and pray it doesn't slip off the back-and break-or ram into someone's car-you get my drift. So we ended up taking it out of the box and seeing if it would fit piece by piece and very very thankfully it did-just baaaarely. We had to really shimmy it to get it in. It was fun taking it out too, just Patrick and I, when we got home last night.

But we put it together this morning and it's absolutely gorgeous... and it goes really really well with the bedding we picked out, so we are going to go ahead with that crib set and those colors (NO it is not a themed room... so if you are reading this to get ideas, please don't take ideas from the stars... just the colors!)

We grabbed a gallon of cream-colored paint this afternoon, too, and will paint the room sometime this week. I am excited to get that done and then to get the rest of the furniture in here, slowly, piece by piece... and start decorating it!

Here's a little progression so far. Here's the wreck of the room before, not even nearly as bad as it once was:


















Here it is all cleaned out, with the pieces of the crib not yet put together:


















The milk crates back there are filled with books-and then the stacks are books too-we have a ton of them, I know! They will go on two of these bookshelves, which are the same as the set we have out in the living room, from Target:















And then here is a small progression of our gorgeous, gorgeous crib!








































































Lots yet to do... but it's a lovely start!

23w5d

A few good things to report:

The crib is in! Since it's a 2+ hour drive each way to go get it, antsy me set the appointment to pick it up for Saturday at noon... we could have gotten it yesterday, today, or tomorrow after Patrick gets out of work but we'd be exhausted and fighting rush hour traffic in the Capitol city. Not gonna go there. So Saturday's plan of action is to get up, hit up farmer's market (it's on our way), go to Raleigh-where we'll pick up the crib at Babies R Us and then drive the few minutes up to Durham to go to our favorite mall around, where we'll grab some lunch and walk around a bit. I'm super excited-I love going up there. And with all that we should still be home before dark.

Then this is where my patience needs to kick in really good-all we're doing Saturday night is checking out the color of the crib and deciding if we like the crib set we bought together. If not, the crib set gets sold and we get a new one. And we have to pick out paint-so we'll do that Saturday or Sunday, depending on the bedding situation, and hopefully our maintenance dude will have time to come trim everything so we can get the rest of the room painted and set up. And then we can buy the bookshelves and pretty much everything will be straightened out from there... I am so eager to get it done that this next week is really going to crawl. I am all for just doing it all in one night, but to get it done the right way we really shouldn't.

Also, miracle upon miracles, I called the appointment lady at the Naval Hospital and there was an ultrasound appointment open for Monday-so we get to see kiddo then instead of it still being over a week from now! For those of you who didn't notice, I added a little list up top on the right hand side of upcoming stuff-since a lot of you (*cough* Grama) don't remember when my next appointments and things are. So check it out and see the exciting things that are ahead.

23w4d

Reasons I wake up in the middle of the night:

1. My back muscles burning with the fire of a thousand suns
2. Patrick snoring (usually a quick fix of getting him to roll onto his side)
3. Heartburn making my insides feel like they are eating themselves
4. Having to go to the bathroom (every single hour)
5. Patrick's night sweats
6. The baby practicing its taekwando moves

Usually it's any one of these things... not necessarily together, they like to obnoxiously space themselves out, but last night throughout the night I had every single one of these at some point.

We've been going to bed really early because Patrick has to get up at 3:15am for the rifle range. So we're in bed by 9. Well last night my back was really bothering me, so I didn't get comfortable and drift off till almost 11. Between then and 3am I woke up a number of times to tell Patrick to roll over and stop snoring, to use the bathroom, and then once he woke up to use the bathroom and when he got up I noticed the sheets (and half my pillow, conveniently) were SOAKING wet-he has these strange night sweats, and when I try and rip the covers off him he says he's cold. So then I had to roll to the edge of the bed to be not on the wet sweaty part.

Then at 3am I was awoken by THE worst heartburn epedemic ever-and I know I say that every time but before this I've never had heartburn, so it's new to me, and last night it lasted for an hour and a half. I tried everything. I ate 2 tums, then 2 more. Baking soda and water. The only relief I had was by lying on my back, which I desperately didn't want to do, I am more comfortable on my sides, but that made it waaayyy worse. Finally I got my medical book thing out and it said to try drinking milk, so I gulped some, and it said to elevate yourself... so I grabbed another pillow and fell asleep-thankfully-soon after that... after the baby stopped kicking and moving around. Though I had a crazy neckache when I woke up.

But still, it makes up for it when I feel the little bugger moving around in there, and knowing I will get to meet it in just a few short months.

23w2d

I had a dream the other night that I had that baby. And it was a boy. And he was cute and smiley and just plain perfect from the beginning (which I'm SURE of course is going to be the case anyway). It made me really want this last three or so months to speed by... although I'm sure I'll miss it when it's gone. I'm sad that I can't really slow down and enjoy this time, because all I can really think about and all I honestly care about is seeing our little one and being parents FINALLY... I'm sure the next pregnancy, if I am blessed with one, will be completely different as I will be able to enjoy every single second. Well, mostly.

I am getting to that point already where I feel the negatives coming on... I still do feel great, most of the time, don't get me wrong... but when my back hurts its like fire, and there is no relieving it... I can't wait till my next OB appointment to see if they can do anything for me (readers, do understand that this isn't just normal pregnancy back stuff-I've had problems upon problems since high school, usually resulting in a series of cortisone shots down my spine or physical therapy, so don't just say "it's normal it will go away" because in my case, it's elevated and it won't just go away. I wish). Unfortunately my OB appointment is STILL over a week away... never ever ever again will I let them make me go two full calendar months in between.

In other news, the crib is ordered and on its way from Maryland... we have to go pick it up from Raleigh this weekend or the next. I can't wait!!

23w

The other night the babe was kicking so hard that my belly was moving all over the place.

This morning was the oddest thing ever-I don't know if it's flipping around or what, but I got a few thumps at the top of my belly. Maybe that's another arm... who knows, because I am feeling kicks back where I usually do now. I can't wait till the ultrasound to see how it is sitting, still over 2 weeks to go till that though :(

This morning I finally ordered the little flip flops I have been looking at for a couple of months now at Baby Gap... I was going to get them in a girls' color too, but all of the pink ones were sold out. So I just got these ones... $4.99! Then I got a few onesies and shirts too... the sale was just too good to pass up. I can't wait to get the stuff!

22w4d

I've noticed quite a few little quirks about this little one already.

-It absolutely HATES when I am trying to sleep on my right side. HATES. Throws a fit kicking and punching me. Even though it's a dumb thought it crosses my mind every time that maybe I'm squishing it...

-It's a music lover. At least I hope the kicks when I play it songs from my iPod are of approval. I play it Coldplay every night!

-It gets up at 5am every morning with its daddy. And kicks and moves so mornings like this one I can't get back to sleep after Patrick's left.

-I swear it knows when ice cream is near (this may be more of a funny ha-ha). Last night we picked up some ice cream from Sonic, and I had gotten a Sonic Blast (like a flurry or blizzard) and didn't want to open it so my little Reese's cups wouldn't fall off and the ice cream wouldn't melt all over me. So it was sitting in front of my belly and the kiddo went nuts. Almost like it was saying "OK MOM I want that ice cream NOW!" If that was really the case and it wasn't all in my head I'd say that it's sooo its mother's child already.