Holy Baloney - 31 Weeks

Baby

• Baby's going through major brain and nerve development.
• Eye development too. Irises now react to light!
• All five of baby's senses are in working order.

Mama

• Out of breath, since baby keeps squishing your lungs. Yup, hard to carry Nolan up stairs too, especially from the basement!
• Dry, brittle nails, thanks to all that extra nail growth. Not really, they're long, strong, and tend to get the friction on.
• Braxton Hicks contractions. Be sure you're drinking plenty of water and changing positions often. I don't think I really got these with Nolan but I'm definitely getting these with this baby!
• Leaky boobs. That's baby's first food, called colostrum. Ummm, no comment. 
• Frequent urination. Your bladder's just as crowded as your lungs. Yes. Ugh. Yes. And it's never a significant amount, although it feels like I'm bursting!
• Backaches. Be sure to keep stretching. So much yes to this. Rib pain too. 
• Difficulty sleeping. Aches and pains, your big belly, pregnancy hormones, heartburn and anxiety are probably all contributing. Sometimes, I've been good on the nap front especially on weekends!

Total Weight Gain: I actually lost a pound from my 28 week appt to my 30 week appt. Which was great seeing as how the midwife was like "ohhh, you gained 4 pounds from week 24-28". I'm going to call her Judgey Mc'Midwife if I need to bring her up again. At my last appointment with her she dismissed my rib pain and projected symptoms onto me regarding the pain I was feeling. Example: Oh is the pain really deep? she asks... no it's actually at the surface as if something is bulgeing out for my ribcage. Oh, it's probably your stomach then... she says. K... but I HEARD my stomach growl on my right ribcage. I dunno, she's fine for the most part but I'm just not thrilled with the way that she just came up with the whole stomach theory and all.

Maternity Clothes: Sometimes! I actually can still fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans which is nothing short of a miracle. I also have some work pants I fit into pretty easily. I must be carrying high or something.

Symptoms: Mostly I am just feeling back and rib pain. It gets really intense at the end of the day. I've been putting ice packs on the painful areas and that helps temporarily. Usually the best fix is sleeping and then in the morning it feels better(ish).

Sleep: I'm doing fine on the sleeping front. Yesterday I took a 3.5 hour nap and still went to bed before 10pm.

Food Cravings: I think I know what sounds good when I see or smell it. Usually pizza hits the spot. I'm not too fond of leftovers. The smell of cold food makes me not hungry.

Anything making you queasy or sick:  Sometimes when I brush my teeth I'll gag, but that's about it.

Movement:  This is my favorite. I have an anterior placenta which in layman's terms means that there's a cushion between my stomach and the baby (the cushion being the placenta). That means that I'm not feeling as intense of kicks as I did with Nolan, so when I do feel stuff it's really pretty cool. I miss that I can't watch my belly move with little feet sticking out. With Nolan, I had several times where he'd just jut out his foot and draaaaaag it along my stomach. Very "Alien" of him to be honest, but it was really neat!

Stretch Marks: None, and I don't have the linea negra either thank goodness. I'm sure that'll come.

Labor Signs: Just BH every once in a while.

Belly Button In or Out?: Medium. And this is where I get gross. I've had this... growth thing... in my belly button for as long as I can remember. This happened with Nolan last time too where I could see the "growth" and tug on it. Honestly it's like a dark skin tag. I want nothing more than to take a scissors to it and cut it off. This would be the time to do it.

Wedding Rings on or off?: On

Happy or Moody?: Mostly happy with some exceptions.

Purchases for baby: I've been pretty good about this. I think I've spent maybe like $50 or so on some new clothes for baby, but since we're having a boy we have most of the clothes we'll need. I think we might buy a new mattress because of something I read about SIDS in the past and a slight increase of the risk of SIDS with a used mattress... the last thing I want or need is another reason to have anxiety after this baby is born!

Purchases for Mama: Yes, actually. I spent too much money at A Pea In The Pod on 3 dresses. I look freaking cute in them, if I do say so myself.

Miss anything?: Oh yes, a super cold beer at the end of a hard work day/week!

Looking forward to: I'm looking forward to the fact that I'm on the 2 week plan for appointments with the midwives now, so I think my next thing is looking forward to the every week appointments! Then of course baby coming. I can't believe I'm down to 9 weeks left!

The Happenings

Photo dump blog!

We are moving Nolan into the guest room on the top floor and keeping his current room as the nursery. I wanted a fresh look for his new room so he picked out his own paint color (seriously) and we agreed to it! It's called Elf Shoe Green, it's like super duper green. Perfect for a kids room. I gave him a slightly damp with paint sponge to work with and he helped. 

Nolan "helping"

 Seattle Pictures!

Went to The Crab Pot, Rachael and Mom

Evan with the selfie stick

Had a dance party on the dock!

Our cupcake gender reveal at The Troll!

Nolan got to listen to some street music

Sitting on the pig at Pikes Market

Puzzle time at the house

Checking out the zoo!

Lion!

On top of the space needle people were walking around the perimeter with harnesses... NOPE

Playing with Daddy!

 Christian's Wedding!
These are just a few photos from the evening. Long story short, I didn't take enough photos but I'm hoping to just piece the evening together with my memory and C's professional photographer. The night was so much fun! They had a bubble machine that went off semi-randomly and every time it did Nolan just screamed BUBBBBBLEEEEEEEEES!

Nolan was the ultimate stinker during the wedding itself where he wouldn't sit still and wanted to walk freely in the church. Even The Lego Movie couldn't keep him still. So I had to walk him out of the church during the reading of the vows when he promptly smacked me in the face as we were leaving.

Me and the groom, my lil bro!

Family Photo

Happy guy!

Couldn't get one with him smiling... so yeah

23ish weeks?

Don't worry, it's chocolate. 

My little daredevil!

 Pumpkin patch!

Petting the cow

Can't keep this kid still!

Little bouncy horse

24 week appointment, Nolan in attendance

Little farmer boy. It doesn't get more Iowa than this. 

With Daddy on the combine

OMG I FOUND A BINKY!

COWS... MOOO!!!

Daddy, Nolan, and cows!

Exhausted on the way home he promptly fell asleep.  He's so stinkin' cute when he's sleepy!

Bought a fun toy... bath crayons!

 

25 Weeks!

Sit here, mama!

Ok, I'll sit down with you, you little cheese!

Namegate

I'm officially 25 weeks now and unfortunately Brian and I are 100% at a loss for what to name our baby.

We're so completely split on the matter it's unreal. I have a few names I like (but don't love) and he keeps pressing on a few names that are ok (but I don't love). We're spinning our wheels!

This isn't an invite to start chiming in with your name options, because flying spaghetti monster knows I can't handle more cooks in this kitchen. But this is more of a post on how naming this child is proving to be quite difficult.

Our ground rules:

• No "N" names - I come from a family where everyone was named with either a C or K name... and I don't like the matchy sounds... seriously: Carson, Karmin, Katie, Cooper, Kyhl, Connie, Kenny, Kevin, Kurt, Cary, Karl, Casey - and honestly I know there's more but I'm not going to rack my brain trying to remember them all... this is the biggest reason I have the hardest time remembering even my own cousin's names when I haven't seen them in a while. 
• Name should be somewhat traditional - in both spelling and familiarity among the people
• Name should not be in the top 50 of the popular baby names for 2014 (or any preliminary lists for 2015)
• Name should be special for both of us and we need to agree on it. This is my Everest.

So Brian and I are having a constant struggle of naming our child. It was SO EASY when it came to naming Nolan. We knew before our anatomy scan, before we were even sure he was a boy, that we both loved the name "Nolan" for a boy. Now we're constantly thinking about it. We are listening extra hard to the names of the characters on TV, athletes, whatever we can get our hands on. 

Why is this so much harder this time around? 

ULTRASOUND PHOTOS!!

It's been darn near a month and I'm just now posting pictures about our ANATOMY SCAN! I haven't formally said anything on my blog about how great it all went!

Everything is healthy as you could ask for. Baby is measuring right on track for my due date and everything looks perfect! Perfect kidneys, heart, brain, bones, spine, no cleft palate, no sign of any other abnormalities at all. I'm so thankful that we're having another healthy baby. 

Of course baby was shy for a while with legs crossed and we weren't sure if we were even going to be able to tell what we were having. But eventually we finally got a good shot and we're having a BOY! Ultrasound pictures that prove this were removed because it's really weird to post baby "parts" on facebook. But Nolan is going to have a baby brother and we couldn't be more excited!

Yesterday with Nolan I went through his old clothes and sorted stuff that would work for a winter baby. Of course everything that I sorted through was so freaking adorable and I got excited for baby boy to wear it too - even just the short sleeved newborn stuff. I did buy some new stuff for the baby to keep him warm in the cold... I even bought just a few newborn things even though I'm fairly certain we'll have another 8+ pound baby who will quickly be in 3 month sized clothing before I know it.

So without further ado, here's pictures of our newest little man!