22 weeks today...

22 weeks today.  Or as my husband mentioned the other night, 18 weeks to go.  YIKES!

It's kinda neat what our little guy has been up to this week.  Here's what babycenter.com says:

At 11 inches (the length of a spaghetti squash) and almost 1 pound, your baby is starting to look like a miniature newborn. His lips, eyelids, and eyebrows are becoming more distinct, and he's even developing tiny tooth buds beneath his gums. His eyes have formed, but his irises (the colored part of the eye) still lack pigment. If you could see inside your womb, you'd be able to spot the fine hair (lanugo) that covers his body and the deep wrinkles on his skin, which he'll sport until he adds a padding of fat to fill them in. Inside his belly, his pancreas — essential for the production of some important hormones — is developing steadily.

And whattoexpect.com had this to say:

This week, your baby weighs in at a whopping pound and measures nearly eight inches (a bit of a discrepancy from the other website), about the size of a small doll. But your little doll (who now has eyebrows, eyelashes, and maybe even some hair on that little head) is a living one who can now perceive light and dark. He can also hear your voice, your heartbeat, your gurgling stomach, and the whoosh-whoosh of blood circulating through your body. And as his brain and nerve endings develop, he may reach for his face (or whatever he can reach) just to experiment with his newfound sense of touch.

Pretty neat, huh?  Um, a spaghetti squash is kinda big...

I guess that's why I look like this at 22 weeks:

Definitely a bump there now!  I've had folks telling me this week that they can see a bump ("finally").  I've been trying to tell them it's been there for awhile.  They say you all of a sudden "pop out" overnight it seems, so that must be what's happened, though I feel like I "popped out" a long time ago!

You know when we take these photos of my progress every other Sunday, my husband thinks he's doing me a favor by taking tons of photos -- says he's giving me "lots of options" to choose from.  Uh, yeah.  Well, this one that he took cracked me up and gave me a vision of what I might look like as a mommy in the future (excuse the blurry-ness; we weren't using flash):

That's my "mommy pose" -- "What did I JUST tell you, Deacon?  What did mommy JUST say?!"

slight change of plans...

Okay, so we've made a slight change in our plans for the nursery decor.

In this post, I mentioned that I had picked out the crib bedding/nursery decor -- Paisley Splash.  Well, that has actually changed and there's a story behind it (I'll try to keep it short & simple :).

Early on, before we even knew we were having a boy, I found a set/collection that I absolutely fell in love with called Spa Baby.  It was not exactly my colors but close -- as close as I thought I'd get to my colors.  Plus, Jeff really, really liked it, too.

Well, then we saw the price tag.  OUCH.  My goal is to have the crib bedding plus 2 window valances (since we have 2 windows in that room) and a diaper stacker to tie everything in the room together.  Well, the crib bedding alone was WAY out of our price range, even with help from family or whatever.  Without even LOOKING at the valances and diaper stacker.  So.  My dream of having this particular collection for our baby's nursery pretty much died right there.  So I moved on and kept looking.  And found the Paisley Splash.  And kinda felt like I was "settling" but not really, because the more I looked at it the more I liked it.  And then loved it.  And was totally fine with it for our baby's nursery.

Fast forward to last Sunday, when I get a text from my sweet friend, Steph, and she's attached a photo of the bedding she had for her youngest son, with a message saying that she heard we were looking for bedding.  She said she remembered me saying how much I liked this bedding when I saw it at her house and wanted to offer it to us if we wanted it.

Well, guess what bedding it was??

I couldn't believe that she was willing to give.it.to.us. (FOR FREE, peeps!).  She had everything for the crib, including a couple of pillows and the mobile (which I NEVER envisioned being able to have), except the sheet.  And she had the diaper stacker.  So I would still need to get my valances and a sheet but that's it!

It was kind of a no-brainer.  And still I struggled.  You know how you get your heart set on something, even if it's not what you originally wanted?  Well, I had resigned myself to thinking we'd have that Paisley Splash bedding and it was hard for me to switch gears.  But switch I did!  I mean, really?  I would be a REEE-tard not to accept this HUGE blessing that Stephanie was offering.

And I'm SO GLAD I did!  We picked the stuff up from them the other night and it is sooo pretty!  And so soft!  And just perfect.  Jeff said, "This will look awesome in my crib."  Love that man.  :)

Here's what it looks like (factory photo -- NOT what our crib/nursery will look like):

One thing about this decor, too, is that you wouldn't BELIEVE how well it matches our travel system*!  I mean, until we got it home and in the same room, I had no idea.  They're almost the exact same colors and both have the circles.  I'm just increasingly more and more glad that we made this decision to change.  It has been a God-send and we are so thankful to the Moshers for their kindness and huge generosity!

*Yes, we have our travel system now.  It arrived at the office last Friday and we put it all together when we got home from my mom & dad's Saturday night.  It was pretty easy and kind of a milestone, for me anyway, to have this first piece of our baby gear in hand.

doctor's appt #7...

I had another doctor's appt today -- my 2nd one at Wilmington Maternal Fetal Medicine.  Remember in this post I mentioned that they referred me there due to my blood pressure issues?  So basically, the point of these appts is to do an ultrasound and make sure the baby is growing at a healthy rate, etc.

And he is.  :)

I had the same lady bring me back and take my blood pressure (which was perfectly normal, by the way).  She asked if we had a name picked out and I told her.  She really liked Deacon's name.  Thought Deacon Josiah was "cool and wholesome".  :)  

And then Molly came in to do the ultrasound part of the appt.  She was really nice.  She went to work, taking all her measurements and checking everything out.  I guess Deacon was sitting pretty low so she had to tilt me back pretty far (I mean, like "blood-rushing-to-my-head" tilted) for just a minute to get him to *slide* up a little bit.  Hee, hee.  Anyway, she found him a little bit better after that and printed me a few photos of his profile, a footprint (his feet look quite a bit bigger than the last time we saw them -- and more defined, too) and another one that assures us he's "still a boy".  :)  She said everything was looking good -- his growth, my fluid levels, everything is progressing just as it should.

Here's my fave profile shot:

Isn't he cute??

doctor's appt #6...

I had a routine check up today with my OB.  Everything went well.  I got to hear the heartbeat and meet Dr. Voegel.  He's really nice which is what I'd already heard about him.  He had a PA student following him today (her name was Lindsey!) and she was nice, too. 

She did all the preliminary questioning -- "how are you feeling?", "have any swelling?", "are you eating well?", "do you have any concerns?"  Then Dr. Voegel came in and pretty much asked me the same things.  He had Lindsey listen for the heartbeat and also measure me, while laying down.  That's the first time they've measured me.  They didn't share the number or what it meant and I didn't ask.

I think I've mentioned that my blood pressure has been a little elevated at each doc appt and at my last one, they asked me to keep a log of BP readings *sigh*, taking one each day, at different times of the day.  Each one that I took, even at home, seemed higher than it should be (in the 130s over 70-80) so I was worried that they would give me grief over it.  But Dr. Voegel actually explained to me that the numbers I was getting were pretty normal for someone who is pregnant.  He said that for a person who wasn't pregnant, they wouldn't be ideal numbers but that pregnancy increases BP a little just due to the placenta creating extra vascular pressure (or some medical-sounding thing like that).  That made me feel A LOT better about things.

My next appt with them is in a month and I have "the dreaded" glucose test then.  :]  Dr. Voegel said not to fast but not to eat anything real sugary before the test.  10-4.

I have my 2nd appt with Wilmington Maternal Fetal Medicine Thursday where I think they will do another ultrasound to check everything out from a visual perspective.  We'll see.  Maybe I'll have an updated photo to post!

21 weeks today...

I'm 21 weeks today.  And here's what babycenter.com has to say about what that means:

Your baby now weighs about three-quarters of a pound and is approximately 10 1/2 inches long — the length of a carrot. You may soon feel like she's practicing martial arts as her initial fluttering movements turn into full-fledged kicks and nudges. You may also discover a pattern to her activity as you get to know her better. In other developments, your baby's eyebrows and lids are present now...

As far as the "flutters" go, I have been feeling what I think could be some movements.   Starting last Sunday, I felt a few things that I could only describe as the "flip of a deck of cards".  Just here and there, on both sides of my belly.  Some days I would feel it a lot, and other days I would hardly feel anything.  That trend has continued throughout the week.  I'm not sure if it's him or not, but I'm sure it won't be long before I'm feeling things that can't be mistaken!

I wanted to post this video of what's been happening with our little guy for the last 6 weeks, from week 15-20 -- I love these visuals!

Today is Father's day and I'd like to wish my dads -- mine and Jeff's -- a very happy one!  We were able to go visit with my family this weekend so we got to see my daddy open his Father's day present:

It looks good on him, right?  And the shirt looks good on him, too.  :)  Happy Father's Day to you both, Daddy & Duane!  Love you guys bunches!

**UPDATE**  I found a photo of Jeff's dad in HIS father's day gift and wanted to post it here:

Another proud Grandpa!

Also?  Jeff and I are celebrating 12 years of marriage today.  :)  Love that boy to pieces and am so excited to do this parenting thing with him.  We're gonna be a great team, just as we always have been.  Love you, babe!

decisions...

Jeff and I have been making some big decisions in the past few weeks.

The first decision was which travel system to get.  For those who aren't familiar with the terminology (times have changed!), a travel system is a stroller/car seat combo that includes a car seat base.  I'm a big fan of making purchases that will grow with my kids, instead of buying one thing at this stage, another at the next stage, yet another at the next stage.  A travel system gives me the infant car seat/carrier until they're 40-50 lbs and it fits inside the stroller until they're old enough to be able to sit in the stroller by themselves.  A twofer.  I like it.  :)

With that being said, I have to be honest here: I look at pattern/colors over anything else first.  Of course, the safety of my child is a close second, followed by how easy the thing is to  use/maneuver.  I have always wanted a turquoise/lime green/brown color combo for my boy.  Do you know how hard turquoise is to find on baby gear??  Pretty tough.  So I had to settle a little bit on the travel system, but we found one that we both like and perhaps, with a little "girly glitz", we can use it for the next one, even if she happens to be a pretty little girl.  :)

It's a Graco Passage Travel System in Lowery (the pattern) and this is what it looks like:

After making this decision, we found a matching pack 'n' play:

This is what Deacon will be sleeping in for awhile, in our bedroom, until he makes the big move to the nursery.  It comes with a changing station and a little napper.  Not sure how much we'll use that but it's there.  This is another twofer because he can sleep in it before he moves to the crib and then we have it for him to play in, nap in or just when we need to corral him for a little while.  :)

Another big decision (HUGE decision for ME) was the crib bedding/decor for the nursery.  Oh, my word -- I thought I would be looking at crib bedding until Jesus came back!  Remember how I said turquoise is just NOT a color they choose to use in baby gear?  Well, that was the case in trying to find crib bedding, etc.  I thought I was going to have to settle there, too, but then I found THIS:

Isn't it cute??!  It's called Paisley Splash in Lime by My Baby Sam.  It has my turquoise, my lime green and my brown in it and I think it will be perfect.  I had a list of about 5 different ones, this one being my top pick.  Jeff put the list in order of his preferences, and this one was #2 for him so he let me go with this one, bless his sweet heart.  :)  It makes me so very happy to have this decision made.

Now, as I said, these are decisions we've made -- we don't have any of this yet.  At our shower in IL last week, we received enough money for the travel system so I ordered that Friday.  It's not here yet but we do have it coming.  The pack 'n' play will go on our registry, I'm sure.  I'm still searching all over to find the best price on the bedding, etc. and I think my family may be planning to help with that.

It's such an exciting thing to be making these decisions and seeing plans fulfilled.  The best part is knowing it's all for our baby boy.  :)

One last decision we made was to have a doula attend our birth.  We have a precious friend, Kelley, who is about as passionate as one person can be about "all things baby".  And she's a doula.  Which makes for a great combination when you're having a baby.  :)  We met with her last week just to find out what her being our doula would mean for us, and with all the knowledge she has and how comfortable she is with the whole thing, we were sold almost immediately.  It will be wonderful to have someone there who has a great rapport with the doctors/nurses at the hospital where we'll give birth (we have several friends who've had Kelley with them) and who just knows what she's doing.  That's the bottom line.  She has 4 kids of her own and she's witnessed/worked tons of births since then.  The girl knows what she's doing.  I think we'll feel more comfortable & confident having her with us.

20 weeks today...

We are HALFWAY there!  I can't believe I've already made it through half of this pregnancy.  It's incredible how fast the time has passed.

Some interesting tidbits in our update from babycenter.com this week:

Your baby weighs about 10 1/2 ounces now. He's also around 6 1/2 inches long from head to bottom and about 10 inches from head to heel — the length of a banana. (For the first 20 weeks, when a baby's legs are curled up against his torso and hard to measure, measurements are taken from the top of his head to his bottom — the "crown to rump" measurement. After 20 weeks, he's measured from head to toe.)  **whattoexpect.com says from "crown to rump", he's the size of a canteloupe.**

He's swallowing more these days, which is good practice for his digestive system. He's also producing meconium, a black, sticky by-product of digestion. This gooey substance will accumulate in his bowels, and you'll see it in his first soiled diaper (some babies pass meconium in the womb or during delivery).

 

How interesting that they'll be measuring TRULY how long he is from now on!

Since we're halfway through, I thought I would show you the last 4 photos of my progress -- at 12, 14, 16 and 18 weeks -- all together, before I show you my 20 week photo.

You can see a little bit of progress there.  And here's my 20 week photo:

I feel like I'm popped out more than the photos show -- maybe these pink pants just hold me in well.  :)  Either way, you can definitely see a "bump".  I've seen photos in different books I'm reading of different ways that women can carry.  I'm not sure what the actual term is, but I seem to be carrying from my just under my boobs (sorry, guys) all the way down.  None of this "basketball in my tummy" stuff.

It's kind of exciting to really begin showing.  :)  People are starting to notice, too -- I think mostly cuz I'm starting to wear more maternity tops, etc.  These are exciting times!

Showers 1 & 2

While we were up in IL last week, Jeff's family threw us two showers (it was a CRAZY week, peeps!).  It was so sweet of them to do that for us with everything else that was going on that week (Jeff's cousin got married last Saturday -- that's why we went up).

The first shower was at my mother-in-law's house and it was just lovely.  We got to see several family members we haven't seen in a while so that was nice.  Sherry made a wonderful mushroom lasagna with garlic bread, and then we had green salad and fruit salad that was scrumptious!  And of course, cake!  It was such a cute cake, too (wait til you see!).

We played a couple of really fun games -- lots of laughs.  It was really a lot of fun.  Here are a few photos to show you what I mean:

What is IN there??  (This game had about 13 different bags filled with a baby item and we had to feel through the bag and try to guess what the item was.  I actually did A LOT better at this game than I thought I would. :)

Little Sam liked my cute corsage -- Sherry made it from an elephant finger puppet, some ribbon and a couple pacifiers.  How ingenious!

Aunt Stephanie (left) knows how I love photos so she gathered a bunch of older photos of Jeff and others in the family and we had a great time looking at them.  Here, Sherry is schooling me on who's who.

The main thing they all did for us was to collect cash as our gift since we had to fly back and didn't have a lot of extra room.  It was a perfect gift because with what they gave us we'll be able to afford one of the bigger items on our list of things to get -- our travel system!  Yay!

Is that not the cutest?  But here's the best part: THIS is my color scheme.  Turquoise, lime green and brown are the colors I've always had in mind for our little boy's nursery (whenever he came along) and they didn't even KNOW that when they ordered the cake!  How fantastic is that!

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The 2nd shower was at my sister-in-law Jill's house and she went to so much trouble for us!  Oh, my word, it was right up my alley because she had done all these little extra things to make it so special.  Things like little baby bottles with "it's a boy" ribbon tied around them, water bottles (for us to drink out of) with Deacon's name on them and the ribbon tied around them, little picks (to put in cookies/brownies, etc.) with Deacon's name on them, a sweet little frame with his first ultrasound and a beautiful poem, a diaper cake...  All of these things that were just so special.

Here are a few photos from that shower:

Jill hung these on the blinds above her back patio door.  What a neat idea!

I absolutely fell in LOVE with this little onsie!

This is the sweet little frame that I described above.  It's hard to see in this photo, I know, but it was so special.  She read the poem out loud at the shower.

We played a game with candy bar descriptions -- it was HARD!  But lots of fun, too.  :)

I don't have a photo of it but Jeff's brother Daniel and his wife, Kristin, came for the shower and they gave each of us a legacy journal -- one for mommy, one for daddy -- to write about ourselves in to give to our son one day.  I was very excited about this gift!  They also gave us a cute-as-pie-and-soft-too giraffe & blanket.  :)

Whew!  I know this is a long post but I wanted to share these moments with you guys.  We are feeling so much love from all our friends and family during this exciting time in our lives.  We love you all so much!

19 weeks today...

19 weeks...almost halfway there.  Say WHAAAT???

A lot of neat things have been happening with our little guy this week.  Here's what babycenter.com has to say about it:

Your baby's sensory development is exploding! Her brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. Some research suggests that she may be able to hear your voice now, so don't be shy about reading aloud, talking to her, or singing a happy tune if the mood strikes you.

Your baby weighs about 8 1/2 ounces and measures 6 inches, head to bottom — about the size of a large heirloom tomato. Her arms and legs are in the right proportions to each other and the rest of her body now. Her kidneys continue to make urine and the hair on her scalp is sprouting. A waxy protective coating called the vernix caseosa is forming on her skin to prevent it from pickling in the amniotic fluid.

And whattoexpect.com adds:

Your little action figure is able to choreograph Matrix-like moves at 19 weeks pregnant. Arms and legs are finally in proportion, neurons are now connected between the brain and muscles, and cartilage throughout the body is turning to bone. All these upgrades combine to give your baby more control over limb movements. Which explains all that kicking, stretching, and bodysurfing (or rather bellysurfing) you've possibly started feeling by now.

Something else going on this week: Your baby is getting a cheesy varnish. Say what? Yup — a protective substance called vernix caseosa (vernix is the Latin word for varnish; caseosa is cheese) now covers your baby's skin. It's greasy and white and is made up of lanugo (that downy hair), oil from your baby's glands, and dead skin cells. This waxy "cheese" may not sound too appetizing or attractive, but it's there for good reason: Vernix protects your baby's sensitive skin from the surrounding amniotic fluid. Without it, your baby would look very wrinkled at birth (sort of what you'd look like if you soaked in a bath for nine months). Some babies — especially those born early — will still be covered with vernix at the delivery, so you might get a look at your baby's first anti-wrinkle cream.

Quite a bit of development, huh?  I haven't started feeling anything yet -- no movements or anything.  I haven't even really had anything going on that I thought to myself, "Hey!  Was that...?"  Nothing like that.  But that's okay.  I'm sure I'll be feeling all kinds of stuff in due time.

I know I'm getting this posted late (though I'm post-dating it so it falls on the right date -- my OCD kicking in, sorry.).  We were in IL from last Wed to Mon so I wasn't where I could post this Sunday when I wanted.  I think I mentioned that they were going to throw us a couple of showers while we were there -- and they did -- so once I get my photos off my camera and have a chance to sort through them, I'll post about the showers.  We had a nice time with Jeff's family.  It's nice to be home, too, though.  :)