28 weeks-Third Trimester!

Third trimester; I remember peeing on a stick like it was just yesterday! I can't believe how fast these weeks have flown by. I thought 40 weeks sounded like FOR-EV-ER (The Sandlot pronunciation), but now I find myself looking for more weeks to steal before this baby shows up. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to meet my son, but there is just so much to do before then! We, meaning AJ, is still working on our guest bathroom. He's almost gutted the entire room. Once he's torn up the last of the floor, he'll lay new sub floor down and start measuring for the new plumbing. We are going back and forth on the design of the new bathroom. We've tossed around the idea of re-purposing a vintage dresser and making it a vanity, but a nice dresser is still pretty expensive and it will require more work on our (AJ's) part. We battled over wainscoting (AJ's vote) or no wainscoting (mine) and finally settled on doing the recessed-panel wainscoting. I can't wait until it's time to pick paint and finally install the beauty of a tub we got! 

Pieces are all inspected and perfect!

On to a more serious topic, AJ and I got to experience a dry run of heading to the ER and checking into Labor and Delivery. I'll start by letting you all know that both Emerson and I are perfectly healthy and it will be another 11 weeks (fingers crossed) before we will be heading back to the hospital. Now into the horror story of what was my fall. Last night when I got home from running errands I walked in to all the dogs barking (pretty standard) and AJ nowhere to be found. I noticed that AJ had put up the dog gate in the hallway doorway, blocking the dogs from being in the back of the house. I figured he was doing something in the bathroom or our room that he didn't want the dogs to get into. I put all my groceries down, grabbed a snack, and headed towards the back of the house. We've had dog gates up in the house for the last 4 years and I've never had an issue with stepping over them, but apparently my ever-expanding belly is making my balance a little off. When I stepped over the gate my sandal caught the top of it and I went tumbling forward. It was like a scene out of a movie when the person is trying to stop themselves from falling by continuing to run forward. I eventually lost my balance and went slamming into the hardwood. I tried to catch my fall with my hands, but they slipped out from under me and I landed directly on my stomach. As my body is telling me today, this fall really hurt, but my first reaction was sheer panic, not pain. I instantly went into hysterics and started screaming and crying. My stomach started cramping immediately and every worst case scenario started running through my mind. Screaming and clutching my stomach, I walked into the backyard and found AJ with the music blaring. He didn't hear me over the music and only saw my face. He said at first it looked like I was bent over, laughing, but then he realized I was crying. Through the tears and panic I tried to explain what happened and he instantly went into amazing husband mode. He ran in the house and put all the dogs away and grabbed the keys and calmly rushed me to the car. We don't have our Dr's direct line so I was trying to get through the automated system while AJ drove to the ER. Since we only live 2 mins away from the hospital we got to the ER before I got through to someone on the phone. AJ was so good at trying to keep me from stressing out and making the situation worse. He kept his cool the entire time while he was internally freaking out. We went into the ER and a very nice and very pregnant woman let me go in front of her to check in. Now that I look back she was probably in labor; what a wonderful person. We explained what had happened and were checked in and seeing the Charge Nurse within 10 mins. While we were waiting we called our parents. My mom and sister came and met us at the hospital as we were being wheeled down to Labor and Delivery.        

I was put in a room and given a hospital gown. The nurse strapped the fetal heart monitors to my belly and started watching the print out. My heart skipped a beat while we were waiting to hear his little heartbeat. For the next ten minutes our nurse didn't say much related to Emerson's health, but she provided a lot of distraction with all the standard Q&As. Turns out she was waiting for Emerson's heart to establish a base line on the print out. Once she established a base line we heard the wonderful news that our little man was not just healthy, but an over-achiever. Apparently his heartbeat is stronger than the average 28 week-old fetus'. Knowing his heart was beating strong gave us a lot of relief, but we knew we weren't in the clear. The nurse called our Dr. and he ordered an ultrasound to make sure that the placenta hadn't detached. The ultrasound tech came in about two hours after we had checked in and performed the same ultrasound we had at 20 weeks. The bonus to this terrible night was getting a chance to see our little Emerson again! Again, the tech couldn't tell us anything other than Emerson was still a boy! Our Dr. came in and saw us later in the night and said everything looked just fine, but he wanted to keep me for a total of four hours, which is standard care. At this point AJ and I were mentally exhausted and I was physically exhausted and uncomfortable. We both had to work the next day and our normal bed time is between 8:30 and 9:30 (yep, we're an old married couple). Since I couldn't move around to get comfortable, it was impossible to try and get some sleep why we waited out the four hours. Finally we were given the okay to check out. We both were absolutely starving so we grabbed a quick bite and finally crashed around 11:15. We both slept pretty hard, which made it that much harder to wake up today. 

Other than feeling like I was beat up, everything is back to normal. I have loved every little kick and punch from Emerson, but today's movement meant so much more to me. I'm so happy my clumsy fall did nothing to hurt my son. I know this is just the first of many panic moments that AJ and I are bound to face with this little guy, but it will all be worth it just to call him our son.

Sorry for any stress or grey hairs I may have given you all! AJ found three while we were at the hospital! It was not the way I wanted to learn about Labor and Delivery, but I'm happy we got a feel for it. The nurses were amazing. They made a very stressful situation manageable for us. I'm very excited to know that I'll be delivering in such great company!

Only 12 more weeks!

How Far Along: 28 Weeks

Weight gain: 33 lbs 
Maternity clothes? Yep Yep
Stretch marks? Still none
Sleep: I think I'm peeing more than sleeping at night! 
Best Moment of the Week: Knowing that my little Emerson was a healthy boy.
Miss Anything? My balance
Movement?: All day! AJ still hasn't felt them, but he saw him give me a couple crazy kicks.

Food cravings: Strawberries

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope
Gender: Baby Boy
Labor Signs: None, thank goodness.

Symptoms: Peeing every half hour, heartburn is a mother,  lot more gassy, scatter-brained, and no balance.
Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? Off
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy!
Looking Forward To: AJ's birthday celebrations!

Can't.Stop.Laughing.

Another great blog I try to read every now and then is Pregnant Chicken. I don't read this one as religiously as I do my others, but I do check it out here and there. Apparently I missed the best post of all time and only came across it through another pregnant friend (THANK YOU). This is a must read for all the moms and dads out there. Heck, it's so funny you'll enjoy it whether you're a mom/dad too! 

You're Welcome:

Pregnant Woman Porn

P.S. It's SAFE to open at home or work!

27 weeks

You can officially say that AJ and I are three shades of crazy! At one week shy of being in my third trimester, we've decided to gut and remodel our guest bathroom. Most of you have been to our home, but for those that haven't, let me give you the back story. We bought our home four years ago this June. It was a foreclosure and was in need of a LOT of elbow grease and TLC. The only reasons we felt confident that we could fix up this fixer upper was because I qualified for the First-Time Home Buyers credit of $8000 and I knew my wonderful future-hubby, friends, and family would be cheap labor-just pizza and beer! As we thought, all our friends and whole family pitched in and helped us remodel our kitchen, paint every room, replace base boards, and clean the layers of dirt off the walls and floors. When we moved in, the guest bathroom was in working order with a separate shower and tub. Our original plan was to gut the existing shower and tub, which looked more like dark dungeons and replace them with a glass-enclosed shower stall and separate tub. Since we had so much help from family and friends, we didn't just start one project at a time. At the time we thought this was a great time saver idea, but as first time home buyers we had to make a few mistakes along the way and this turned out to be a BIG one! Within the first week of owning our home, our shower and tub were gutted. We decided to remodel the kitchen (or lack there of) before we started on the bath and whad'ya know that ate up all our moola. So, since 2009 we have been living with a partially gutted guest bathroom. Every year we told ourselves that was our next project, but then something else always came up; I'm pretty sure that's how life works. The only modifications we did make to the bathroom was lovely blood splatter paint that AJ SWORE would come off after our Halloween party was over. So not only was half our bathroom gutted for the last four years, it's also looked like a crime scene!  

With Emerson on his way we knew that we'd have to get that bathroom fixed up so that we could have a bathtub for him to play with rubber duckies in. When we got our tax return we vowed to buy our bathtub and not let anything else eat up that money. To save to money and time, we decided to purchase a claw foot tub that had the shower accessories. If we don't install a shower stall we save money on tile, glass walls, and additional plumbing work. After doing some research, we ended up ordering this tub/shower combo.

Our new, beautiful bathtub is expected to arrive on Thursday! Since we finally sucked it up and made our purchase, AJ figured he better start getting the bathroom ready. This weekend was the beginning (or 2nd attempt) at demoing the whole space. We didn't anticipate having to tear down all the walls, but like any other home reno project, there are surprises behind every wall! There isn't a way to cleanly tear down just the wall around the existing tub/shower area so we'll be spending a lot more time and money on dry-walling this room. This is a huge project to take on 13 weeks before Emerson is expected to join us, but we both know if we don't do it now, it won't get done once he's here. Hoping that we'll (AJ and his helpers) will be able to knock out the whole reno in just a few long weekends. 

Before: The dungeon, aka shower stall.

Before: Existing tub made to only come up to your belly button and again with a dungeon feel.

Before: shower/bath combo

During Reno: no more dungeon!

We (AJ) have some plumbing to move around.

Our master bedroom is on the other side of this concrete wall, but it was added on so the bathroom walls are all exterior walls. 

In the meantime, I'll be working on the finishing touches on the paint job in the nursery and do my best to help strip the many years and layers of paint on the chifferobe and start painting that. Things are coming together! We have a new window on it's way so that our little Emerson is nice and warm or cool in his room and very secure with new locks!

Sanding down the edges to give it that antique finish.

Cheese!

In pregnancy news, I had my glucose tolerance test on Saturday and I was very nervous about not passing it. The actual drink wasn't too bad, just tasted like flat orange soda, but all the needle pricks and hours of waiting was no bueno. After two hours in the waiting room and three needle pricks later, I learned that I passed with FLYING colors! It's such a relief that I have one less thing to stress over!

Next week marks our THIRD TRIMESTER! I can't believe we are coming to an end in this pregnancy. If my family history plays any part in my pregnancy, I'll be at least a week late, but knowing that at this point Emerson could come at any time makes me so anxious! I just can't wait to meet him, but until then I'll keep looking forward to the baby showers coming my way! I can't wait to start nesting and organizing all our new goodies!

Only 13 more weeks!

How Far Along: 27 Weeks

Weight gain: 27 lbs, but probably more once I see the Dr next week 
Maternity clothes? Of course!
Stretch marks? None-keeping an eye out for them everyday.
Sleep: I'm sleeping off and on every night. Some nights are better than others.
Best Moment of the Week: Passing my glucose test!
Miss Anything? Being able to bend over without losing my breath.
Movement?: All day! He is starting to do some big rolls and/or kicks that move my whole body!

Food cravings: Strawberries and Dole Whip Pineapple fro-yo

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope
Gender: Baby Boy
Labor Signs: None yet

Symptoms: Peeing every half hour, starting to get a little restless leg syndrom going on at night,  and sore hips
Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? Off
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy!
Looking Forward To: Starting our last trimester!

26 Weeks

Holy goodness, these weeks are just blending together! I can't believe how quick week 26 came and went. It flew by so fast that I didn't even get my belly picture-sorry! In case you were wondering what I'm looking like this week, here's an idea:

Yep, at week 26, Emerson is roughly the size of a head of lettuce. I remember when he was just a poppy seed! I also remember when my body only reflected a little poppy seed. Ugh, I'm so over this fatness. I've been reading a lot of blogs and talking with my fitness mommy friend to try and pre-set a list of work outs I can do easily at home, you know in between being a new parent, poopy diapers, breast feeding, laundry, dinner, cleaning the house and all those other minor things. I know I won't bounce back because if my body reacts like it has every other time I've tried dieting and working out, it's going to be a long process, but I am committed to getting back in shape. Just 7 months ago I was complaining about not being in the shape I wanted to for the wedding and now I look at my pictures and think what the heck was my problem?! I guess it's pretty standard to never be completely satisfied with your body, but I really hope to change that mind set and just be happy at every stage. I want to always promote a positive attitude for Emerson and our future kiddos because life is tough enough as it is without adding your own negative critiques. 

Welp, I'm at that point in my pregnancy where all I think about are the what ifs. Since I'm brand new to this pregnancy thing, I had no idea how truly easy the 2nd trimester would be. I've taken advantage of the last worry-free 13 weeks and I didn't even know it. The first 12 weeks was spent thinking of the chances of miscarriage and now all I'm thinking about is pre-term labor, problems arising during labor, and will my child be healthy? I don't consider myself a negative person, but I'm also not naive to all that could go wrong during pregnancy. So far I've been good about not letting these thoughts stress me out because ultimately whatever happens is going to happen, but I'm very aware of all the new symptoms coming with the approaching 3rd trimester. 

In my last post I was talking about all the discomfort that was already starting, but I didn't go into too much detail as to what was bothering me. Saturday I started feeling a lot of pain and pressure in my nether regions-my hoohah. I immediately was concerned that the pressure was from Emerson trying to come out too early. AJ and I googled "pain in your hoohah" (not a great idea) and ended up reading that it was normal in your later weeks of pregnancy. I slapped a heating pad down there and the night went on. Sunday Monday day was fine, but Monday night the pain/pressure was back. The pain last through the night and was gone by morning. This lasted through Wed night, but the pain was not gone on Thursday morning. The pain/pressure was so intense all night so I emailed my Dr first thing. Through out the morning the pain was just getting worse. It hurt to sit, stand, and walk. Finally my Dr got in touch with me and asked that I see him that afternoon. I had to take the rest of the afternoon off-so sad. The doc was happy I had emailed because at this stage of pregnancy you just can't be too careful. The Dr did a full check up on me and my cervix is still intact-thank goodness! My Dr assumes this is pain related to the pressure of my uterus getting heavier and resting on my groin. He asked that I take Friday off to just relax, again, ah shucks! I laid in bed most of the morning and then moved to the couch and relaxed some more. All the relaxing really helped with the pain. 

We headed out to the A's game on Saturday where I thought I could do some more relaxing, but attending a ball game is a lot more work than I stopped to think about. Just walking up and down those stairs three times to tinkle really took a toll on my body. Needless to say, Sunday I was a little sore so I did some more relaxing at my parent's house. The pain had subsided by Sunday night and was completely gone on Monday morning. BUT then I woke up with a kink in my neck. I've been in pretty intense pain and there's really nothing I can do about it. I did go to Urgent Care Monday night just to make sure it was only a tweaked muscle and not meningitis (told you I was starting to think of all the worst case scenarios). The Dr was basically pointless and I should have kept my $20 co-pay, but he did give me a great idea. He suggested I get a massage so Dr's orders, I have one scheduled for Friday!

As much as I don't want to deal with the hoohah pain, it would be nice if the Dr. thought it necessary to take me off work a little earlier than 4 weeks! Let's see what happens!

Some pictures from the week:

Picked out a new fabric for the Aunt's to make us second crib set! 

Finally picked up our other dresser-now it's time to paint!

Our painted changing table-we are going to sand the edges to antique it. Still trying to pick out knobs.

Aunty Birdie sent Emerson a package all the way from TN! He's so excited to meet her!

He won't use it for a few years, but here's Emerson's first camping chair!

Only 14 more weeks!

How Far Along: 26 Weeks

Weight gain: 27 lbs 
Maternity clothes? Yep and all the cute spring and summer clothes are finally coming out!
Stretch marks? None
Sleep: What does that even mean anymore? Between the 2-3 times I have to get up and pee and the constant rolling over to adjust the big-o-belly, I'm only getting like 5 hours of good sleep.
Best Moment of the Week: NOT working on Friday!
Miss Anything? Seeing my feet
Movement?: All the time, except when anyone else wants to feel him.

Food cravings: Fruit

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nothing now
Gender: Baby Boy
Labor Signs: Still none, but going to keep checking with the Dr. and paying close attention

Symptoms: Peeing every half hour, pressure in my hoohah, and gas that I can no longer control
Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? Off
Happy or Moody most of the time: Staying happy so that I don't stress myself out
Looking Forward To: My prenatal massage!

YIKES

According to my mom, this is what I'm in store for. I really, really hope this is a problem that can somewhat be fixed with better parenting. I don't think I can handle this 24/7.

Any advice?


 

25 Weeks

I can't believe we only have 15 weeks left! It's just insane how quickly this pregnancy has gone by. Before we know it, it's we're going to be in single digits. This week brought a few new pregnancy related symptoms and paranoid thoughts. As I'm reading along in my pregnancy books all the chapters are now mentioning the signs of pre-term labor. I'm pretty sure that I'll be the pregnant chick getting induced because I'm a week late, but I can't help but worry about the realness of pre-term labor. I'm hoping that this pregnancy will continue to run smoothly, but there are just so many stories out there of babies being delivered around this point in pregnancy. I'm trying not to over think things and stress myself out because ultimately I can't control what happens, but I am extra aware of my ever expanding list of symptoms.

I've had moments of discomfort during my pregnancy, but week 25 brought the scary reality of what's in store for these next few months. Saturday I was ab-so-lute-ly miserable! I'm not sure if Emerson was having a growth spurt, but every inch of my body was uncomfortable. The simplest tasks like breathing and sitting up required the amount of energy it takes to run a mile. My hips hurt, my back ached, my stomached was stretched to the limits, and my lungs were over-crowded. I was trying to convince myself that it was all mental, but my body just laughed at me while it put me through hell. I think what made the whole day worse was knowing I had just started to grow and I had a lot more growing to do. I'm dreading what's in store for these last couple of months.

After a terrible Saturday, I thought for sure Sunday would promise the same discomfort. So when I woke up energized and feeling normal (I wouldn't say good), I figured it was the perfect day to start painting the nursery. My mom had been offering to help us paint so I took full advantage of her generosity and called her up. Thank goodness she was free (or at least pretended to be free for me) because we were able to start and finish the painting! Our original plans included painting an ombre chevron pattern on the lower half of the walls. Once we thought about it, we realized our extremely textured walls would make it too difficult to work with the chevron pattern and we tossed the idea. The next great idea was to just paint an ombre fade effect on the walls. My mom tested the idea out on some plywood in the garage and both her and I liked it, but AJ wasn't a fan. We started looking around online and using Pinterest for more ideas. I knew I wanted to stick with the idea of using an ombre effect because we had picked out the perfect color already. I'm not sure if it was my mom or AJ who thought of it, but one of them had the great idea of painting multi-width, vertical stripes with the different color options we had picked. Mine and AJ's OCD kicked in and made us both a little nervous or anxious about this idea, but we went with it. We decided it would just be too difficult to have exact measurements for each stripe so my mom and I just started taping up the walls. The blue painters tape really helped me visualize what the final product would look like so we decided to go for it. I'm so happy we did because we just love it!! Thanks to my amazing mom, we painted to entire room while AJ finished sanding and painting our changing table. What we got done in a day between the three of us would have probably taken AJ and I a long weekend to finish.  

With all the worry of pre-term labor, it feels so great to have this huge project checked off our list! Now it's time to move onto remodeling the bathroom, but I think we'll take the time to enjoy this accomplishment for a bit!

Safety First!

Painting the top half a light grey color

Top half complete

Let the taping begin!

Before the final reveal

 

Ta-Da!

AJ practicing in the nursery

Working on the changing table

We'll be sanding down the edges to give it an antique finish


 It turned out to be a great week even with the preview of the soon-to-be constant discomfort!

Only 15 more weeks! And in honor of baseball starting...

How Far Along: 25 Weeks

Weight gain: 27 lbs
Maternity clothes? All day, everyday
Stretch marks? None
Sleep: Oh, it's miserable!
Best Moment of the Week: Basking in the glory of painting the whole nursery!
Miss Anything? Breathing like a normal person and not like an 80 year old on a breathing machine
Movement?: All the time! Still not strong enough for someone else to fill him.

Food cravings: Jamba Juice

Anything making you queasy or sick: Peanut Butter
Gender: Baby Boy
Labor Signs: None-but paying close attention to my symptoms

Symptoms: Peeing every half hour, lots of pressure in my pelvic region, and just all over discomfort
Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? Off
Happy or Moody most of the time: Trying to put on a happy face while being uncomfortable
Looking Forward To: Picking up our wedding album, finally sending out all our wedding Thank you notes, and our next A's game!

24 Weeks

Baseball is officially here! For the last three years, AJ and I have been debating on buying season tickets to the Oakland A's. We were always set to place our order and then something would come up and the money would just disappear. So this year we took advantage of having the extra money from our wedding gifts and bought our first pair of season tickets! We picked our 24 games before we started trying, but little did we know that I'd be a fertile Myrtle and get pregnant right away! We are going to do a little swapping, but I think we'll be just fine all season long! 

On Saturday we went to the preseason interleague game between the A's and the Giants. The day was fantastic for many reasons-first off, the A's won (WOOT WOOT) and the second was that I was surrounded by my husband and great friends! We got to tailgate with the Beefy, her sister, niece, and Mom. These are some of the most amazing people in my life and I couldn't have been happier with our day! When you combine friends, family, and baseball, nothing can be bad!

One of the things AJ and I noticed was that there were pregnant women and babies everywhere at the game! A couple with a 6-week old baby sat in our row and both AJ and I were watching them throughout the game to see if we could pick up any tips. I think we are going to do just fine when we bring Emerson to the games. At least he'll be the cutest one there in all his A's gear!!

The rest of our weekend was spent with family doing all sorts of Easter activities. Emerson got his first Easter basket from his Grandma. I had the hardest time NOT buying everything to make Emerson a basket this year. I cannot wait for all the fun holidays next year! 

Monday night we went to the home opener for the A's. They may have lost, but the atmosphere was so great! The A's have some amazing fans including my future fan, Emerson!

A small note to the week was our 24-week appointment. Boring! Like the Dr. said, these weeks are the boring part of pregnancy, but they are still flying by! I had to schedule my glucose tolerance test, which I'm a tad nervous for and I learned I gained again....ugh! I'm just excited to know that at our next appointment I'll be in my third trimester!

We finally ordered, received, and put together our crib! Well, I should say AJ put together the crib! We are obsessed with it! We ended up picking out a different style than the one I posted before, but we love this one even more!

Only 14 more weeks!



















How Far Along: 24 Weeks

Weight gain: 27 lbs 
Maternity clothes? Rocking them everyday
Stretch marks? None 
Sleep: Getting more comfortable with my prego pillow, but still switching sides all night.

Best Moment of the Week: Going to the first baseball game of the season!
Miss Anything? Sipping a beer at the ballpark
Movement?: Getting stronger each day-still trying to get AJ to feel a few kicks, but no such luck.

Food cravings: Sweets-hence the reason I'm nervous for my glucose test

Anything making you queasy or sick: Peanut Butter
Gender: Baby Boy
Labor Signs: None

Symptoms: Back to peeing all the time again
Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? Off
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy
Looking Forward To: Having a free weekend to hopefully work on the nursery.