34 weeks

Our growing baby boy is about 5 pounds and about 20 inches long at this point.... about the size of a cantaloupe. His organs are almost fully matured, with the exception of his lungs- they will continue to develop until birth. His testicles are descending into his scrotum at this point, and his fingernails have grown to reach the tips of his fingers. It's nice to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks with no other health problems generally do just fine- they may need a short stay in the neonatal nursery and have a few short term health problems, but in the long run generally do well as full term babies.

I have been doing pretty well this week- went to the doctor again on Thursday for our bi-weekly appointment. He prescribed me some generic prilosec to help with the heartburn pains I have been having- earlier it was just acid reflux, and it seemed pretty bad, but Tums usually knocked it out temporarily, and it was nothing compared to what I have now! I am still just as hungry as I was throughout this pregnancy so far, but if I eat large portions of anything, there is no room for it so I normally throw it up, or it just hurts as I can feel it sitting in my rib cage- our baby is taking up the space where my stomach usually is. So I am forced to eat very small portions often throughout the day, and I can no longer enjoy anything spicy or too acidic. I have been having oranges, lime flavored things etc because I simply cannot cut those things out of my diet. But no more salsa, tomato sauce, etc until this clears up.

In other news, my good friend Katie, who was one of my preggo buddies, due January 10th, had her baby Luke on January 1st! He is a healthy 6 pounds, 1 ounce, and about 18.5 inches. He is a beautiful baby, and I got the pleasure of being able to hold him when he was less than 12 hours old! I am so excited for her and Carl, as we have been going through this pregnancy together, it's so exciting to know that her waiting has paid off! And it is reassuring to me to know that the end is in sight, and soon Mike and I will be celebrating the birth of our own baby boy : ) Luke and Sean I'm sure will be good friends, along with the other babies that our friends are due to be having in 2010. Now I am just a bit nervous- holding my friend's newborn baby makes everything seem so much more real, and I feel like there is so much left to do to prepare for the arrival of our little one, and not enough time to do it all!

33 weeks- Merry Christmas!!

At 33 weeks, our little growing baby boy is getting to be big! He now weighs about 4 1/2 - 5 lbs and his length ranges between 17.5-19 inches, about the size of a pineapple. According to thebump.com, he may grow up to a full inch alone this week! His body is still fattening up as he gains about a half a pound a week, and his bones are starting to harden. His skull will continue to remain soft and not fully fused together- this allows him to pass through the birth canal, and it will continue to be fairly soft after birth, to make room for his growing brain through childhood.

Mommy has been doing pretty good this week. My sweet husband has taken to sleeping on the couch, which has allowed me to get almost a full 8 hours of sleep each night (minus the bathroom break of course!) I guess our full sized bed is just running out of room with my humungous belly! My feet continue to swell, and sometimes I am having Braxton Hicks contractions, but not too often. I am definitely getting some stretch marks now, unfortunately, and my biggest complaint is usually that I am just plain uncomfortable and huge! But it was fun to think yesterday, as we woke up on Christmas morning, about 12 months from now when we will be pulling a 10 month old baby out of his crib to open the presents that Santa brought : )

Our baby room looks a bit more complete now, we have the crib put together, which is a huge eye opener to us first-time parents. Kinda helps to make it real! I am looking forward to the glider that the Skinner side of the family will be pitching in for- now we are looking for some sort of dresser and nightstand to put in the nursery as well. Here is a link to the facebook pics we have accumulated of Sean's room in progress.

Christmas was nice this year. Mike was home for it, which is always wonderful. I also appreciated it a lot, because I am very used to having a full house, and both of our roommates went to Seattle this year for Christmas, so I probably would have been a bit lonely and even jealous if Mike had not been here. We got up in the morning, opened the presents that my parents sent us, and went to making breakfast- stuffed french toast, yum! Then we showered and got ready to go see the movie Avatar. We got there early, to find out they were opening late for Christmas. So we went back to our house with our two couple friends that were hanging out with us for the day- Tiff and Dan, and Katie and Carl. We watched some movies, the boys played video games, and I made some crock pot chili to sit while we went back to catch the 3 o'clock showing of Avatar. After the movie we just came back to our house to relax and enjoy the rest of Christmas. I spent the end of my day watching Mike play his game on xbox as I fell asleep on the couch. It was a very relaxing day, just like it should be : )

Last week I made a gingerbread house with some friends over at Kylie's house. Mike was still offshore, so we unfortunately didn't make the 2 story plantation style home he was drawing up blueprints for : ) But we did have fun, and took some pictures while we were there- here is the link to my facebook album.

31 weeks

So at 31 weeks our countdown truly begins.... we're all single digits now! 9 weeks until our due date of February 13th, and 5 weeks until they'll consider us full term! If you remember last week, they estimated our baby at about 3 lbs, 8-9 oz at the ultrasound on 12/3. Well, according to all the baby sites I read about pregnancy, at 31 weeks our baby should be somewhere between 3.5-3.8 lbs. So he is ahead of the game! Which makes me happy, hopefully it means he is healthy! Babycenter.com says to compare his weight at this point to 4 navel oranges- so we'll call it 5 just to compare. I'll tell you, my belly feels a lot heavier than 5 oranges LOL! But there's a lot of fluids, etc. in there as well, so it's to be expected. At this point in pregnancy, he can turn his head back and forth, and all 5 senses are in working order, but he won't use smell until out of the womb. His brain is making connections with all those senses- tracking light, recognizing different voices, and (lucky for me) he is putting in normal sleeping periods. I notice he isn't quite as active allllllll day as he was for the last few weeks. He is still very active during the times that he is! But I actually get a break here and there, where he must be sleeping. I wonder what he dreams about?

This past week I have been bargain shopping. We had our baby shower last Sunday, and it was wonderful. We got lots of nice things, and I am sure we will still be receiving gifts here and there, but afterwards it made my nesting brain make a list of things we still need to get before his arrival. I have been accumulating coupons and shopping for the best deals I can, since we are broke as a joke, we need to save as much as we can, while still preparing for Sean to be here in possibly less than 2 months. We got our mattress last week with a 15% off coupon, and I ordered a breast pump online with a 20% off coupon. I also used a great deal suggested a long time ago by my friend Sarah at jilliansdrawers.com for cloth diapers. You buy a whole variety of newborn cloth diapers for $150, try them out for 21 days after baby arrives, and if you don't like them at all, you send them back and they refund you $140. You only have to pay that $10 difference plus shipping. It's an incredible deal, and eliminates the number one problem I have heard about moms trying out cloth diapers- they think they know what they want, so they buy a bunch of one kind of diaper, and they don't fit right or they don't like the way they work so they give up. I really want to try it out, and hope it works, but I am realistic in saying that I have never done it before, so we will see once it is a reality. I just think about 6 months from now, while all the other moms are still buying Pampers at $25 a box, I will be content with our cloth diapers that we already have, never needing to buy more unless I want a new color, etc. And that landfill of dirty diapers that I see in my head is lowly decreasing in size, which makes me feel oh so much better.

This week we will be getting our crib, and next week will be the stroller/car seat combo, with the help of Mike's parents and mine. I am so excited to think about getting everything ready, but man, who thought babies needed so much different stuff!! The good news..... Mike went offshore last night!!!! Woohoo!!! Now our fingers are crossed that he stays out there for several weeks LOL. He has no idea how long this job will last, so let's hope it's not just 1-2 days. Even that would be helpful at this point, but we'll still hope for the better.

Here is a link to my facebook album with shower pics (I didn't feel like uploading them all to Blogger...) and here is my belly pic for the week. Mike isn't here, so after several attempts at a good picture, this was the best I could take by myself LOL.

30 weeks

Just as a disclaimer, at this point in the pregnancy, the updates I have been doing may vary a lot more for each baby, as development can vary so much. But just for fun sake, I will keep doing them anyway: D

At 30 weeks, our baby is about the size of a cabbage (our very own cabbage patch kid!) weighing in at about 3 lbs and getting close to 16 inches long. His skin is becoming more smooth, but his brain is getting more wrinkly, increasing the surface area making more room for that essential brain tissue. Now that he can regulate his own body temperature, he is shedding the downy body hair called lanugo which was previously keeping him warm.

We went to the doc on Thursday, and had another ultrasound. No good pics, unfortunately- he is a bit too big to capture very much in one screen, which is a good thing! I was 29w5d at my appt., but he was measuring at 30w3d- about 3 lbs. 8-9 oz. So our little man is growing healthy and strong! His head is about as far down into my pelvic bone as he can get- I am starting to feel the results of that. They were trying to get a good look that the placenta and my cervix, and his big head was in the way most of the time! They did see that the placenta moved a bit since my 20w U/S, but not quite enough. Doc says he still considers it placenta previa, just meaning that the placenta partially covers my cervix. He recommended one more U/S at 36 weeks, since it is almost out of the way, and it if continues to be stubborn, it just means I have a scheduled c-section instead of a normal delivery. In the meantime, I am on light duty activities for the most part, but I can continue to work until 36 weeks since it's just a desk job.

My sleep schedule is constant now for the most part- I wake up about every 3 hours. I am guessing that will be Sean's schedule when he gets here, I can't see any other reason why I can't sleep more than 3 hour at a time without waking up! He kicks a lot now, to the point where my stomach looks like there is an alien trying to break out inside! I was even telling Mike that I think he has somehow bruised parts of me on the inside. He will kick, and at first it doesn't bother me, and then he will kick another spot and it feels so tender it hurts. But I am so happy and excited to think about meeting this little guy, in as little as 6 weeks, or hopefully no longer than 10 weeks!

In other news, Mike was sweet enough to cater to my needs of having Christmas decorations up soon after Thanksgiving. He hung the Christmas lights on the house on Monday night with Josh, and then we picked out a tree and put that up in the living room. I was too exhausted to do much on Monday (I actually stayed home from work that day because the exhaustion was too much to handle) but then when I went back to work on Tuesday he got the tree all decorated for me! Our living room is a little short on space now, but it's beautiful. I have been listening to a lot of Christmas music, especially instrumental (my favorite). I broke out the Tchaikovsky and the Nutcracker, and have been listening to that full blast in my car. They say having your baby listen to classical music helps with brain development- I don't know if it's true or not, but it calms me down and I like it, so that alone must be good for him.

Today Mike and I are off to Lamaze- I am so glad my friend Katie (who is 35 weeks tomorrow!) and her hubby will be there with us. Mike and I went to the hospital tour and birthing basics class on Tuesday, and it was waaaay too crowded for my liking, and I could feel the tension from Mike as he tried to not look like he wanted to run away screaming. So hopefully having some friends there will help make it more comfortable. Tomorrow is the baby shower and I am so excited! But the only problem is that it is at my house, and due to my extreme exhaustion, I have not been cleaning house much- and I am embarrassed to think about having so many people here unless I clean up a bit. I am going to see how much I can get done when I get home today, like a quick vacuum and tidying of the living room, and the rest will just have to wait.

29 weeks

11 weeks until the due date, 7 weeks until we're full term.... I am ready to be done with this pregnancy!! At 29 weeks, our baby is about 2.5 lbs or so, and longer than 15 inches (about the size of a butternut squash). He is almost at what his birth length will be, but he will at least double, if not triple his weight by the time he is due! His muscles and lungs are developing more and more, and his head is getting larger to make room for his growing brain.

This week mommy has been busy! For Thanksgiving, and we had about 20 people at our house for dinner! It was nice though- all we made was a baked 20 lb maple glazed turkey, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, pumpkin dessert bars, green bean casserole, apple cider, and stovetop stuffing. Everyone else made everything else! Mashed potatoes, fried turkey, more stuffing and yams, pecan pie, corn casserole, cranberry sauce.... all of it was so yummy! It was nice, because a lot of our friends are recent Louisiana transplants, so for most of them it was their first Thanksgiving away from their families... Mike and I, on the other hand, have celebrated 4 Thanksgivings here now, and are kind of used to the idea of doing it on our own. I am hoping next year we will be able to fly Sean to see some family for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, but we will see!

Mike also made some shelves to put in Sean's room- for books, toys, etc. They look very nice, I am very happy with them. It was hard to decide where to put them, since we have no furniture yet, but I think they will be fine where they are at, and we have our shower in a week, so hopefully we will have some things to put in his room at that point! I know it is a bit early for me to be "nesting" but I am so anxious to get everything done!! I am pretty sure that is why I am not sleeping well. I always feel like there is something more to do, not just in the nursery, but all over the house. It never feels clean enough, and there is always a project that needs to be finished. I am really trying not to overdo it, because my energy levels literally cannot handle it, but my brain can only take so much lying down!

Here's my 29 week belly shot. It's cold outside, so I feel like the layers make me look fatter than I really am, but oh well.

Baby is getting big now! I can feel his kicks (or punches, I guess) in my hip bones now, but he seems to stay away from my ribs so far. You can tell he is running out of room- when he is moving around a lot, my whole stomach moves like a wave, it's pretty neat looking. I am anxious for this upcoming week. We are doing a birthing basics class at the hospital, along with a tour, on Tuesday. Then on Thursday we have our appointment, where we will have another ultrasound to see if I still have placenta previa. Saturday is Lamaze for most of the day, and then Sunday is our baby shower!

I am hoping the Christmas lights get up on the house by the end of this weekend, and I can't wait to get a tree. Mike still hasn't been to work yet in about 6 weeks, so I am worried we may not be able to afford one, but we will see. Money is super tight now, with my decreased work schedule and waiting for offshore work, and of course baby on the way. I am trying with all of my heart to trust that things will all work out, just like they always do, but sometimes that seems highly unlikely, or even impossible.

That's all for now- next post will include ultrasound pictures, so look out for that!

28 weeks

Welcome to the third trimester!!! We are finally in the last leg of the pregnancy, and it's sure to be a doozy! Mommy is supposed to gain about 11 pounds this trimester (I gained more than that in both the first and second I think, so I am a little worried about the third- fingers crossed I don't gain too much!) and baby will probably gain 3-4 times his current weight by the end of it all!

This week baby is about 2.25-2.5 pounds, and about 15-16 inches long (about the size of a chinese cabbage). He is developing billions of neurons in the brain at this time, and his lungs are still getting stronger as the weeks go by. If I haven't mentioned it by now, his eyes now have eyelashes, and he has recently begun to experience REM, which means he may already be dreaming as he sleeps.

I went for my "28 week" checkup on Thursday, even though my weekly mark is always on Saturdays. I had my glucose screening then, which I assume went fine because I never got a call about my lab work, and no news is usually good news : ) The doc says everything is still great, his heartbeat was about 138, and after poking at my stomach a bit he said he is already moving into "position" which means his head at the bottom and his legs and booty are up top : D We scheduled an appointment for 2 weeks from Thursday (I will be going every two weeks from now until 36 weeks, then I will be going once a week until birth) and at my next appointment we will do another ultrasound! I am excited for that- we were only supposed to have the one routine ultrasound at 20 weeks, but since my placenta was partially covering my cervix at that appointment, they need to check it again and make sure it moves out of the way. Which means I get a few more snapshots of our precious baby boy!

When I posted my blog last week I got a little bit ahead of myself and may have been a bit too cocky- I mentioned how everyone around me (especially Mike) was getting sick and how proud I was that I avoided it.... Sunday night my throat was itchy, and my eyes watering, and my nose stuffy/runny- I ended up calling in sick to work Mon, Tues, and Wed : ( I am feeling much better now, but let me tell you, being sick while being pregnant is no fun at all!

This week my lovable husband finished painting Sean's room, I love it! I cannot wait to get the new carpeting, and get furniture in there, it will feel like a real bedroom! My friend Katie said the other day (she is 5 weeks ahead of me and just had her baby shower) that now that they have everything they need, technically they would be ready for their son to make his appearance any day now! And that just hit me- once we have everything we need to get started, and the bedroom put together, we should be ready for him to get here- all this time spent planning and anticipating, and the day is almost here! I can't quite grasp it yet.... But here are some pics of the room- one before, a few in progress, and then a few of the final product!

This is a pic of when our friend Doug was living in this room-

he was going for a "lounge" theme....

This is with the blue primer on top, and the first coat of the dark color on bottom, with trim still primed but not painted

Here we have all the trim and color complete, but the chair rail is not up yet, and the outlets are not the new ones.

These ones start the final product- Mike's mom and dad sent the picture on the wall, and the sailboat on the windowsill is Mike's, it's his first gift to his son : )

26 weeks

As baby Sean continues to grow, he is putting on the weight and inches. He is close to (if not already at) 2 lbs and measures about 14 inches in length from head to toes (about the length of an English hothouse cucumber). Eyes are starting to open, which means he may startle or react to light near my belly. And his nerves in his ears are more developed, which can also mean more activity in response to certain sounds. Also his testicles are starting to descend into his scrotum- it takes about 2-3 days for that process to complete.

This week mommy has been battling some swollen ankles (I know, again? But this time it is mainly ankles and not my entire feet!) and some major heartburn. The weight of the baby has really hit me harder than normal this week- my feet are exhausted, along with my hips. I've also been experiencing the belly taking up it's space- this morning I almost spilled my coffee because I bumped it with my belly while trying to sit at the kitchen table!

But this week has also been fun- I only had to work M-W this week, and then my parents flew into town Wednesday night, I have been vacationing with them here since Thursday. The are flying back home tomorrow, but we have enjoyed having them here. We celebrated my 26th birthday on Thursday, which was one of the best birthdays I have had in a long time- First, my husband made me breakfast (my favorite, french toast!) and then my mom and I went to get our nails done. Then we went to the mall, where I got a few fall maternity clothes and a new comfy bra from VS. Much needed, at this point, I will take what I can get to help with back pain. Then we went home, took a quick nap, and met up with a bunch of friends for dinner at the Olive Garden. It has been tradition every year in LA so far to have dinner there on my birthday, but up until this time it was always just me and Mike. The service there was great, and I got so much food and dessert it was almost too much to handle! My friends chipped in and bought me an ice cream cake too- not just any old ice cream cake, but they actually drove to the Dairy Queen in Rayne and got a real ice cream cake, with the yummy fudge chocolate center! I was ecstatic : ) Then we all just hung out and talked until it was late and went to bed. I felt so loved and special, it was a great day : D

Pumpkin Carving!!

We had a nice little fall get-together at our house yesterday. Autumn is my favorite time of the year- it's cool outside, and I love fall smells and flavors- pumpkin, cinnamon, apples, etc..... Yesterday we had good friends over, carved pumpkins, and made all sorts of goodies.... I made Mike's favorite slow-cooked chili. Annie made some yummy apple cider. Katie made apple crisp. Bec made some pumpkin bread. And everyone chipped in after carving pumpkins to make baked pumpkin seeds. Yummy : D The pumpkin carving was fun too, it was the first year where I didn't just do a basic jack-o-lantern face. I saw a maternity t-shirt I wanted to get at this link, and so we made it into a stencil to put on my pumpkin- it's a pregnant skeleton, in case you can't see the link. Mike of course did a Harley logo. Our friend Dan did a Jack Daniel's logo. Tiff's is a cat. Bec's is the "M" (for her last name). Katie's is "Trick or Treat." Mario did a basic smiley. And Annie's is a jack-o-lantern with a gigantic mouth- we are going to get some baby pumpkins and draw faces on them, for the monster pumpkin to eat : D

So now I feel fat after eating so much good food yesterday (and this morning!) and I spent a long time organizing these photos on Blogger in the order that made most sense, so I am tired of blogging.... here are some of the pics- enjoy!!