23 Weeks

Four more months to go!  I seem to be doing very well on my Lenten sacrifice - no chocolate or desserts.  It is definitely hard, but I know it is for the better.  Despite giving up desserts, I find my weight is accumulating much faster now.  My body seems to be holding on to whatever I consume.

I've been up late each night watching the olympics, but seem to still be getting enough sleep.  Luckily I have the privilege of working from home.  It definitely makes it so much easier when I can be flexible with my sleep schedule.

My 4th prenatal visit was on Thursday.  I checked out pretty well.  My only downfall was my weight gain.  I gained 8 pounds in the last 4 weeks!  Now I am up a total of 18 pounds from my prepregnancy weight.  I was hoping to be no more than 15 pounds over at this point.  My blood pressure was 108/68.  The nurse said I have a rowdy little one in my tummy because the baby was never still enough to get a consistent reading of the heartbeat.  The heartbeat kept jumping between 155 and 163.  I do feel the nudges a lot more frequent now and they are becoming stronger.  A couple times, I've even been able to have my hand on my belly and actually feel the kicks.  My next prenatal appointment is my glucose test!  I can't believe how far into this pregnancy I've gotten now.

With the baby's sense of movement well developed by now, I am told that I should start swaying to music. And now that he's/she's more than 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound, I may be able to see some squirming underneath my clothes. Blood vessels in the lungs are developing to prepare for breathing, and the sounds that the baby's increasingly keen ears pick up are preparing them for their entry into the outside world. Loud noises that become familiar now — such as our dog barking or the roar of the vacuum cleaner — probably won't faze him/her when they hear them outside the womb.

Below is a picture of me at 23:

23 Weeks

22 Weeks

I am 5 months pregnant, which is hard to believe.  I have just over 4 more months left before the baby is expected to make their entrance. 

Thursday, I went to Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia, MD with my parents and some of their friends to see the musical "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change".  It was a pretty hilarious show about dating, marriage, and of course it wouldn't be complete without the baby!  I wish Craig was able to go.  He would have liked to see it.

Last night I had a girls' evening and chowed down on chinese take out and watched the Olympics with my friends Gina and Jenny.  It's so nice to be able to get out much more since being couped up lately from all the snow.  And it's even better to be able to spend time with friends you rarely get to see anymore. 

Today I'm leaving on my first annual mommy getaway.  Our friend Victoria and I are heading to Cambridge, MD on the Eastern Shore to the Hyatt Regency to enjoy a day of pampering.  She has a one year old and since I'm carrying in utero, I'm technically a mommy too!  We'll grab lunch together before we begin our pampering.  We'll start off with a 60 minute massage sometime after 3PM.  I'm getting the "Baby on Board" massage.  Then later in the evening, we'll be back to get an intense pedicure and a 60 minute facial which mine will be a "Baby on Board" facial.  I'm really looking foward to it!!  Craig will have his own little freedom by having the evening without me.  Just him and the two Baileys (cat and dog).

My parents are pretty much done with painting their nursery.  Craig has only the walls to do now in ours.  Everything else is complete as far as painting goes.  Once all the snow and ice is gone, he can finally move our guest room furniture over to my parents' house to store (one day we hope to buy a bigger house so we can reincorporate the guest room).

So, I am attempting to tackle something huge.  And I mean huge as in tough.  I LOVE chocolate and desserts.  However, being pregnant, I know it's not the best thing for our little one.  Soooo, starting this past Wednesday (which was the beginning of the Lenten season), I am giving up all chocolate and sweets.  I have never been able to give this stuff up for Lent before, so you can imagine how tough it's going to be while pregnant!!!  Now, I'll allow myself to have snacks, like apples and peanut butter, baked chips, crackers and cheese, yogurt, or what not, but no more cookies, cakes, brownies, M&Ms, etc.  Please wish me luck, as I will need ALL the luck in the world!

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

Here are pictures of Craig and me posing in the nursery with the "Baby" graffiti Craig painted on the wall.

Here's Craig painting the nursery into our keylime green color.  What a difference in color from the lilac purple shown above!

Below are some pictures of my belly at 22 weeks.

22 Weeks

21 Weeks

We can technically say we are OVER halfway there now!  Due to the two major snow storms we had this past week (totalling over 40" of snow all together), it took a week before I left the house!  The cabin fever was settling in.  Poor Craig had to do all the shoveling by himself.  I wish I could've helped him!  We did start a fire in our fireplace down in the basement so I can go through some storage items and get rid of some things.  Craig and I stripped the wall paper border off of the nursery walls and he painted the trim in the room.  He's finishing up the doors and will probably do the walls next weekend.  My parents are almost done painting their nursery.  They are waiting for Craig to paint the edge at the top of the wall that meets the ceiling.  They are trading his services for a nice home cooked meal for us.

Yesterday (Saturday) we ventured down to Great Beginnings and ordered the nursery furniture.  And since I like to save a buck or two, I sang kareoke to the song Hokey Pokey in front of the store customers in order to save $90 off of the purchase price.  And, yes, Craig HAD to videotape it.  I felt SOOOO red in the face out of embarrassment.  But apparently, I was able to get a little girl to dance.  And if you get to see the video, laugh all you want.  Just remember that I was the one who stepped up to the plate and someone else wanted to hide behind the video camera and take all the credit!  The furniture is going to take approxiamately 10-14 weeks before it arrives.  We opted to have them deliver and install it all.  I can't wait!

Today is Valentine's Day and Craig made up for videotaping my embarrassment just the day before by making me breakfast in bed this morning.  He made my favorite breakfast item - Eggs Benedict!  MMMM  mmm Good!!!  It was fantastic.  He even made the hallondaise sauce from scratch.  Tomorrow I am making him one of his favorites - Banana Chocolate Chip waffles.  Due to all the snow we've received, Craig's Valentine gifts had not arrived yet.  He gave my Valentine gift early and it is absolutely gorgeous!  He splurged on a Pottery Barn Wine hutch for our dining room.  I love it!  If only I can drink wine now!  We are going to dinner tonight at one of our favorite restaurants, the Red Parrot, for one of our favorite cuisines - SUSHI!!!  Don't worry, there are plenty of cooked fish items I can eat while pregnant.

Our baby now weighs about three-quarters of a pound and is approximately 10 1/2 inches long — the length of a carrot. The fluttering I've been feeling should soon turn into full-fledged kicks and nudges.  The baby's eyebrows and lids are present now, and if we're having a girl, her vagina has begun to form as well.

While watching the olympics over the weekend, I felt some good nudges that kind of tickeled, so I can already sense the kicks are getting stronger.

Below is a picture of me at 21 weeks.

21 Weeks

20 Weeks - Halfway there!

We have accomplished a major milestone today - we have reached the halfway mark!  June will be here before we know it! 

Our baby weighs about 10 1/2 ounces now and is 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, a baby's legs are curled up against their torso which makes it hard to measure.  Therefore, measurements during this time are taken from the top of his head to his bottom — the "crown to rump" measurement. After 20 weeks, they are measured from head to toe.  Going forward, I will only be stating the "head to toe" measurements.

The baby is swallowing more these days, which is good practice for their digestive system. He/she is also producing meconium, a black, sticky by-product of digestion. This gooey substance will accumulate in their bowels, and we may see it in the first soiled diaper (some babies pass meconium in the womb or during delivery - oh my!).

We were going to order our furniture at Great Beginnings this past Sunday; however, due to the snow the day before, we decided to put it off a week.  So instead, we stayed more local and decided to take a trip to Babies R Us and start our registry.  Craig held up pretty well, quite surprisingly!  We were overwhelmed like any first time parent probably would be, but thanks to my Baby Bargains book (which I call my baby bible), I was more prepared than probably the average first time parent.  And what do you know - as we were walking out of the store, our friends Mike and Eileen were working there way into the store!  And yes, Eileen had her Baby Bargains book too!  It is a fantastic book!  Now that we have been hit with yet ANOTHER snow storm, we will have to wait another week to order our furniture.  Poor Craig - we chose a very snowy winter to be pregnant.  It seems he is shoveling snow every other day!!  And could you imagine - we were originally due a week from now if it weren't for the miscarriage back in July.  How scary would that be having a baby during a storm like this??!!

We had dinner at Mike and Eileen's on Tuesday (which was planned before we made our surprise encounter in front of Babies R Us!).  As you may recall, she is about 3 weeks ahead of me.  She has such a cute little round belly!  Our friends Victoria and Jason were there as well with their 1 year old which gave Eileen and I something to look forward to having one day.  He was such a happy baby and behaved and played so well.  I was truly amazed.  They seem to be such great parents - something I hope Craig and I will turn out to be.

Thursday was the big ultrasound.  They had a nice flat screen monitor on the wall so it was easier for us to watch.  Everything checked out great!  The baby's heart beat was about 148 and the weight was estimated at 10 ounces.  The baby seemed to be a squirmer at times, but managed to allow the doctor to get all of the needed shots.  It was amazing how detailed everything was, especially the ribs and spine!  They were able to determine the sex of the baby during the visit, but we looked away during that portion.  However, the technician did still print us the gender pic and put it in a sealed envelope for me to have as a keepsake.  Whether a boy or a girl, the baby looked precious on the monitor!

Below is a picture of me at 20 weeks along with some ultrasound pictures of the precious baby within!

20 Weeks

Ultrasound pics

Profile picture - soooo sooo cute!  Just look at that button nose!

Face picture - can anyone make this out???  I sure can't!!

"Hi mommy and daddy!" - baby is waving

Full leg and foot picture

Happy feet!