Bell pepper photo shoot.

Baby Veale is 5.5 inches long this week, that's the length of this pepper including the stem. The pups wanted their pictures taken this week too and Fenway was very interested in the pepper!

Things to appreciate while I can...

I got this post idea from another pregnant blogger (expecting twins!!!!!!) at Red Fish Blue Fish .

Here's a list of things I am really appreciating while I still can...

1.  Dangling earrings; once Baby starts getting grabby I certainly won't want to be wearing anything he or she can pull out of my ears!  So I'm making sure I get plenty of wear out of them while I can!

2.  Loving my belly; I've never had a super body image.  I know I was a healthy weight but I just never felt incredibly comfortable with my midsection.  Right now I'm loving my bigger belly.  I still think I tend to look overweight instead of pregnant in clothing, but I love the way my bare belly looks.  I stop to check it out in the full length mirror every morning and night and it makes me smile. 

3.  Sleeping for more than 2 hours at a time;  Newborns feed every 2 hours!?!  I didn't know this one until I started reading my pregnancy books.  Yeah I knew I'd be getting way less sleep but didn't realize it would only be in 2 hour intervals!

4.  Puppy snuggle time; I am smothering Wally and Fenway now because once Baby Veale arrives it will all be Baby snuggle time!

Wally thinks I bought the pregnancy pillow for him.

5.  Long showers; I am enjoying showering on my own schedule.  It won't be long before I'll be hopping in for a super quick shower when I can get Baby entertained or asleep.

6.  Dessert;  I surprisingly don't want it as often as I thought I would, but when I do I'm not feeling guilty about indulging in dessert :-)

7.  Non-baby proofed house; It will still be quite a while before we have to worry about Baby getting into outlets or cabinets but I will enjoy not having to press extra buttons or levers in order to get something out of a cabinet!

If you can think of anything else I should be taking full advantage of now while I can, let me know!

18 Week Update

This week Baby Veale is the length of a bell pepper;  5.5 inches long and weighs in at 7 ounces.  He or she is busy flexing arms and legs, which I should be able to feel soon!  And the boy or girl parts should all be in place by now so all Baby Veale has to do on July 9^th is show us the goods!  Hopefully there’s not a shy baby in there.

HUNGER has been my biggest change this week.  I went from having to force myself to eat to getting incredibly hungry throughout the day.  I’m not constantly hungry which is good, but when I get hungry, it’s a savage kind of hunger.  No one better get in the way of me and my meal of choice! 

This morning I took Baby Veale out for their very first run.  I was on pelvic rest for the entire first trimester and then had been too nervous to do much until now.  The weekly pilates classes have been great and leave me sore, but you know me, I need more!  I hit the track at 0600 (yup, breaking out the military time) and got in a nice easy mile and a half.  I started out too fast and realized I wasn’t in the conversation zone (all the outdated textbooks say you should always be able to hold a conversation while working out to ensure your heart rate is not too high, and since I’m being an overly cautious pregnant woman, I’ll stick to that guidance for now) so I stopped to walk for a minute after the first lap.  But then I finished the rest of the workout without any breaks.  It felt great and it was a beautiful sunny 70 degree morning so I could have gone further but I figured I’d see how my body handles the workout before I do that.  So far, so good; I’m still feeling great and energized and excited to do it again.

New pregnancy symptoms of the week have been carpal tunnel and back pain, woo hoo!  I’ve had issues with carpal tunnel in the past, mostly just numbness /tingling in my hands but now it’s that and wrist pain.  The back pain is due to my organs moving around and the baby/uterus moving up and out which throws off my posture.  Poor hubby who has back issues said “now you know what I feel like” and I may have turned into crazy pregnant Kristen and replied with something along the lines of “YEAH, TRY ADDING 20 OTHER SYMPTOMS TO THAT, I’M PREGNANT, YEAH, IT’S JUST LIKE HOW YOU FEEL.”  Sorry, hubby!  He never knows when the switch will be flipped from normal Kristen to crazy pregnant Kristen.  In reality I do empathize with his back pain now, I’ll have to be sure to tell him that today.

I don’t think I’ve shared my most amusing pregnancy brain moment that happened a few weeks ago.  I was at work and wanted to ask Dan if he had Thursday off.  So I proceeded to open up Google and type in “Do you have next Thursday off?”  Turns out Google can’t answer everything.

How far along? 18 weeks

Total weight gain/loss:  down 3.5 lbs overall…but a .5 lb increase from last week, yes I’m counting that half a pound, don’t judge!

Maternity clothes?  No, only because I haven’t gotten the time/motivation to go buy some!  I’m living in dresses.

Stretch marks? No

Sleep: Better!  Still waking up every couple of hours but I think that’s something I just have to get used to. 

Best moment this week:  Going for my first run in four months this morning then coming into work to free ice cream (at 8am); for research purposes of course.

Miss Anything?  Not being a picky eater. 

Movement: No :-( Come on Baby, start letting me know you are there!

Food cravings: Baked potato soup with cheese from La Madeleine!  Debating whether it's worth it to drive out there at lunch time...I'd have to stay at work later since it would take longer than a normal lunch break.  hhhmmmm.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Everything except for baked potato soup from La Madeleine, raw veggies, fruit, or pasta.

Have you started to show yet: I’ve started to look overweight but not really pregnant.

Gender prediction: July 9^th can’t come soon enough.  I referred to the baby by the name we have picked out for a boy the other day, I’m wondering if my instincts are telling me something.

Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? On.

Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy!  Still easily annoyed though, just be super nice to me and we won’t have any problems, haha.

Looking forward to: July 9^th! 

10 months??

Whenever anyone asks how far along I am I answer in weeks.  I know that they don't really care about how many weeks and that they really want an answer in months...there's always a moment where I can see them doing the math in their heads or sometimes they just come right out and ask, "how many months is that?"  This question is not as easy to answer as one might think.

Doctors and all of the books, apps, and information websites out there start the timeline before you are even pregnant.  The earliest you even find out you are pregnant (I'm talking naturally here, not the fancy early response tests) is 4 weeks!  So one month is down before you even knew it!  So there are nine months left after that point. But those doctors and books all say 40 weeks, that's 10 MONTHS!!!  So as I hit 18 weeks tomorrow, I am not quite halfway yet.  Halfway in the counting weeks world is 20 weeks. 

So when I'm asked how many months I am, I'm not quite sure how to answer.  Technically at 18 weeks I'm 4.5 months.  But then people would assume that I'm due in 4.5 months when in reality I'm due in 5 months.  I guess I'll have to just start giving a swag, I mean no one would really expect me to say 4.5 months, so I'll just go with 4 months for now.  And when I spend an extra week telling people I'm a certain month, hopefully they won't notice!  :-)

I guess we can't complain about being pregnant for 10 months though when elephants are pregnant for 22 MONTHS!  Eeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkkkkkkkk, no thanks!

 

Nesting???

I am overwhelmed with home "to-do's" and I have been patiently waiting for the nesting phase of pregnancy to kick in.  I have been so tired and unmotivated that all I want to do during my time off is lay in bed!  Well we have a family friend coming to move in with us in a week and a half...so I guess I don't have time to wait for the nesting phase to kick in, it's time to get my butt in gear!

Normally having a guest wouldn't be a problem, except we are going to need a nursery before he is due to move out.  So we are turning the guest room into a nursery since it's on the same level as our room and then turning the gym into a guest room.  Not to mention, my brother is moving in 3 months before our other tenant is scheduled to move out so we will also be converting the office into a living space for him.  How much of this had we started as of last week?  Almost none!  We moved out the gym equipment but quickly replaced it with things being displaced from other storage places around the house that we are now losing.  Hubby built a closet in the soon to be guest room where the entrance to the laundry room had been which meant he had to turn the den closet into an entrance to the laundry room.  Other than that, nothing has been done!  Here's what the new guest room looked like on Saturday:

I spent all day Saturday clearing things out and finding new homes for everything.  Although lack of motivation wasn't my only problem, boy do I get tired out and thirsty quickly!  I had to stop about every 20 minutes to put my feet up and drink some water!  But here's the end result:

Okay, it still doesn't look like a guest room, but the rest is up to Hubby since moving furniture is not on my pregnancy comfort list.

Sunday I had to attack some closet space.  We lost a closet in the den, the extra storage space we had in the gym, and the closet in the nursery since that will now belong to Baby Veale.  Here's the mess I had to start with:

After a trip to Goodwill and lots of garbage bags brought to the curb, I got it down to this:

Look, there's even room for more stuff!!!  

Okay, now that I've bored you to death with this post, if you even made it this far, I will promise to post similar before and after pictures of the NURSERY!  Now that will not be boring!

Woe is me...

There are a lot of daily activities that have gotten much harder for me since becoming pregnant and I'm sure the list will get longer as my body changes more.  So here's my moment of being a cry baby (pretend I look this cute while doing so!) 

1.  Getting out of bed in the morning.  It's not difficult to wake up, that I have no problem with, but the physical act of lifting my head off the pillow and putting my feet on the floor has gotten to be a big struggle.  I generally wake up to use the restroom...for the second time...between 3:30 and 4 am so when the alarm goes off at 5:30 I feel like I just got into bed.  I also feel heavier.  Even though the scale hasn't changed much I feel like my skin is full of sand and it's so hard to move!

2.  Brushing my teeth.  This has gotten much better since the first trimester but the increased gag reflex and the increased congestion means dry heaving into the sink between scrubbing teeth.  Probably more than you wanted to know, but I'm being honest here!

3.  Getting dressed.  Since I'm still in the in-between my normal clothes and maternity clothes stage, I generally have to nix the first hundred outfits I try on in the morning either because they feel too tight and uncomfortable or they legitimately will not zipper anymore. 

4.  Getting to work on time.  See 1, 2, and 3.

5.  Remembering anything.  Where was I going with this post?

6.  Deciding what I want for lunch/dinner.  There are so many cravings and aversions that I can't seem to keep my tummy and Baby's tummy happy.

7.  Saving money.  Even though I know it's more important than ever to start really saving money I want to buy myself new comfortable clothes and shoes and I want to buy baby stuff and I want to buy things just because that's what I do when I'm moody.  Luckily Dan still has his head on straight and has already started a college fund and some other investments.

8.  Drive.  Those seat belts are not made with pregnant women in mind!  Eventually when the belly gets bigger I guess I'll be able to situate the belt below it.  But right now it just adds more pressure to places that don't need any more!  AND with the increased hormones, everyone's driving annoys me beyond no end.

9.  Fall Asleep.  There's so much to thing about and plan for!  My mind is always racing when it needs to be settling down to go to sleep.  On top of that I cannot get comfortable and like I've mentioned before, I hate sleeping on my side.  I've learned a few tricks to keep myself in slightly more comfortable positions but it's still a challenge.

Despite all this, I am enjoying being pregnant.  I also know that this list is nothing compared to the things that will be difficult to do with a baby in the house so I'm just preparing myself.  :-)  I am just so excited for November!!!
 

Onion Bump!

I was nervous to take a picture with an onion because they've been high on my list of aversions, but here I am with a smile on my face!  Excuse the outfit but the combination of the fitted clothes and having just eaten a nice big dinner helped emphasize my baby bump! 

And here's the bump!  It's still looking more like a bag of donuts than a nice round baby bump, but either way there's a growing baby in there!!