26 Weeks

I have reached the 6 1/2 month mark. Only 3 1/2 months to go. It is a little scary, but exciting at the same time. I am torn between wanting to have the baby out so I can finally meet her and enjoying the last few months of it just being Greg, Mable, and I. We will soon be a family of 3 (4, really).

I am pretty sure that the baby had hiccups the other day. My belly would shake a little at fairly regular intervals for about 3 or 4 minutes. It felt different than the kicks that I have become used to (and actually love because they are reassuring!). I have not noticed any feet or hands sticking out, but I can tell when my belly changes shape as the baby re-adjusts.

I realize that there are positives and negatives to my long torso and relatively small baby bump.
Positive - nobody and looks at me and says "You are about to pop any day now" - to which I would have to respond "No, I have 3.5 more months."
Negative - I do not look like I am pregnant. Rather, I look like I have a good sized beer belly going.
2nd Positive - I am not huge and uncomfortable.
I am trying to enjoy things as they are.

In other news, Greg and I finished the new artwork for our living room. We got the pictures hung last night and I think that they make such a difference. We no longer have a huge, blank wall on one side of the living room. The wall is so tall that we would have to rent scaffolding to paint it, so we opted for an alternative way to bring color in. Not too bad for two people who have ZERO artistic skill. I love the little sail boat that Greg added!

Update

I have finally gotten the chance to lay out the gifts I received at the lakehouse baby shower for pictures. I love all of it!!


Greg began his major project of painting the furniture for the baby's room this weekend. It was the hottest weekend of the year and he was out in the garage, drenched in sweat, painting away. The fist dresser has been completed and moved back inside. It looks really good and the paint seems to match the crib perfectly. I am very lucky to be married to a skilled painter. I try to hurry through it too much and make a mess of everything. Two more pieces to go! Then we will need to start on preparing the actual room to put it all in.



My doctor's appointment last Tuesday went well. The baby appears to be right on schedule. I was reprimanded about my weight gain over the last month. It seems that I have now gained almost all of the weight that they wanted me to for the ENTIRE pregnancy. I had really hoped to stay within the 25 to 30 pound range, but it looks like I might surpass that. Awesome. I am trying very hard to cut back on the sweets that have become a staple in my diet. Gone are the ice cream desserts after dinner. Sadness.

I have an appointment on Friday for my 1 hour Glucose Tolerance Test. The results will indicate whether I have developed gestational diabetes. I guess that this is as good of a time as any to cut back on the sweets. I am expecting (hoping) to pass, but you never know.

I will end with a picture of a sweet bunny sent to me by my mom. I was a bunny girl growing up, so it is very appropriate that my little girl with also have a bunny.

Suprise Shower

I had a wonderful weekend with my friends at Lake Burton in North Georgia. A great big THANK YOU to the Smith's for letting us enjoy their house and all the amenities. The only downside of the weekend was that Lauren had to deal with a myriad of canceled and delayed flights and did not arrive at the lake until Friday night (approximately 15 hours later than planned).

My amazing friends surprised me on Saturday with a baby shower. Brooke, Lauren, Melissa, and Jennifer - you guys rock! I want to especially thank Brooke because she did almost all of the preparations - including the decorations, favors, and food. Everything was so darn cute! and tasty!

I noticed that Brooke was preparing some food that was a bit fancier than what we had purchased at the store, but I assumed she was just making us a nicer lunch. When I came up to the house to use the bathroom (one of many times), everything was decorated in pink! We sat down in our bathing suits to a yummy lunch of crabby toast, shrimp salad on baguettes, asparagus wrapped in prosciutto, veggies and dip, and sausage balls. For dessert, we had our choice of white chocolate and raspberry or strawberry cupcakes (I had a little of each). Brooke made the table decorations by rolling up baby socks and attaching them to pipe cleaners to form flowers. They were adorable.



I received the sweetest gifts from all the girls! I will post a picture of all of them together soon. (Lauren, if you are reading this - your gift was waiting for me when I got back to Gainesville - Thanks!) Here are a few shots of me opening gifts - lots of bathtime accessories!



I have a short video of the decorations and some of the preparations before we sat down to lunch.

24 Weeks

Since I will be out of town starting tomorrow - here is the latest shot of my expanding mid-section. It was taken just shy of the 24 Week mark, but I think that it still counts. I also added it to the group shot below. As I mentioned previously, you can click on the image to see it larger.

Have a good weekend - I plan to!

Update

I am having trouble getting the website that the image to the right links to working. Here is a progression picture that I made on another website. If you click on the image, you can see it larger. I will try to make it a little clearer next time. The pictures do not show a whole lot, but my pants sure don't fit anymore!

23 1/2 Weeks

Greg and I were busy this past week/weekend with various projects. We (Greg) finished up painting the downstairs hallway and bathroom and the Adirondack chairs on the pool deck. Everything turned out great (see picture below)! I will post pictures next week of our current (not completed) project - artwork for living room.

After we ordered the crib last Tuesday, they called on Friday to let us know that it had arrived. We were shocked, to say the least. We expected it to take 4 to 6 weeks to arrive. The rails to convert it into a bed should arrive in the next couple of weeks. We were really nervous about picking the crib up because I had heard that the boxes were huge and that you usually needed a full size truck. Luckily, it fit like a glove into the Pathfinder. We were even able to slide it out onto a hand truck for Greg to move it inside by himself. Our foyer is now completely full of baby room furniture. We took the first step to cleaning out the bedroom that will be the nursery by clearing out (almost) everything in the closet. We just need to move the bed and dresser out of there before we can have the carpet replaced and start painting.

We met with a nurse practitioner today in the pediatrician's practice that we will be using. We were very impressed by their organization and timeliness. She spent about 45 minutes going over their policies and so forth. We were able to meet two of the 5 doctors (all women) in the practice. They have the practice set up so that 2 to 3 doctors are always available for office visits, one doctor is available for hospital visits, and a doctor is on call on nights and weekends to answer any questions. We did not have to ask very many questions because she covered far more than we would ever think to ask.

Funny story - we had to fill out a form when we arrived for our appointment. One of the questions asked for the mother's name. My first thought was "why would they need to know my mother's name?" I am still getting used to all of this.

The nurse did comment on how small my tummy seemed for being 6 months along. I have just assumed that it did not poke out much yet because I am tall with a long torso. I got a little more concerned when I spoke with a guy at work, whose significant other is shaped very similar to myself, and he said that her stomach was a bit larger than mine at this point. I have an appointment with my ob/gyn next week, so I will find out then if there is a problem. She (the baby) is certainly still kicking around in there!

I am packing up the car with my non-alcoholic beer and headed to north Georgia for a girl's weekend on Thursday. Five of us are spending the weekend at my friend Lauren's (parent's) house on Lake Burton. I am planning to skip the water skiing this year, but just floating sounds like my kind of fun. Greg, as usual, is planning to get some fishing in while I am gone.

22 Weeks

This picture is a little deceptive. I think that I am becoming more house-like everyday. Only loose dresses and maternity pants from here on out. People think that I actually "look" pregnant now.

I noticed recently that Greg was telling EVERYONE we saw that I am pregnant. This includes total strangers - the guy behind the paint counter a Lowes, everyone sitting at the bar at restaurants, all of our neighbors (even the ones we do not know), clerks at the pool store, etc. I finally asked him why he is doing this, thinking that he might say that he wanted everyone to know why I look so fat or that he is so excited about being a father-to-be. Instead, he smiled and said "I just want everyone to know that my boys can swim." Nice.

Whew! We have gotten quite a bit accomplished in the last 2 days. We picked out paint for the baby's room over the weekend. We have only gotten the light pink color that will go on part of the wall. We still need to pick out a second color.

Yesterday, I set up an appointment to meet with a pediatrician. She comes HIGHLY recommended from a friend. We will go in next Tuesday and hopefully she will be the ONE, so we will not have to meet with anymore. I am not quite sure which questions we will ask yet, much less what answers we expect. I will have to check one (of 10) of my baby books for advice.

I also signed us up for some classes at the hospital. We will go for 5 hours on a Saturday and Sunday in August for a childbirth class (yes, both days). Hopefully we can learn what we need to in 10 hours! We (or I) will also attend classes in breastfeeding and newborn care. All of these classes are inside of a week, so I am hoping that Greg holds up.

Last night, we were able to get a great buy off of Craigslist. We purchased a bedroom set (minus the bed) from a 14 year old girl that was ready for "older" girl furniture. I fell in love as soon as I saw it listed. Despite the heat and just finishing a long day at work, Greg generously agreed to go along with me to look at the set. The family had taken fantastic care of the furniture and even loaded one of the dressers into their own car and brought it over to our house (the parents were both sheriff's deputies, so no worries there). We plan to paint the white parts of the furniture to match the color of the crib. Here are the pictures that were put on craigslist:



After some hassling over the phone with Babies R Us, Greg and I went into the local Toys R Us store and ordered our crib and the bed conversion kit today. Both items have been discontinued, so we had to track down stores that still had them in stock. The crib should arrive in several weeks, with the rails following a little later. We are set, furniture-wise. Now comes the fun part - decorating!!

Next on the list: set up appointments to look at several daycares.