remember to forget

33 weeks: 9-10-11

this week has fairly gone by pretty quickly. I have a feeling this will be a theme for these last 7 weeks :)

had my baby check up on tuesday. gained 3 lbs :/ (I was hoping for just 2) but what could you do :) I'm up 21lbs now which just sounds crazy but there are a lot of uncontrollable reasons that cause weight gain other than just what you eat so I'm not too worried. I was measuring a bit small for dr. ghandi so we had a quick ultrasound again—yay! little miss was measuring in the 58th% percentile (about 4.5 lbs), fluids looked good and still head down. so again, she's just helping momma out to not feel any bigger than she has to :) also, I guess my original due date wasn't calculated correctly so dr. ghandi said her actual due date (not that she really will be born that day) is 9-10-11 rather than a day later! fine with me!

mom and dad prather are in town this week so it's been fun seeing them and can't wait for the wedding tonight and baby shower on sunday!

other than that the heat and humidity has been awful in chicago. ugh. so glad it finally rained a good amount to cool everything off a bit. staying hydrated on my walks to work is key, but I'm really avoiding the outdoors as much as I can. still haven't heard back about the ultrasound on my abdomen, my only guess that whatever it is is a non-emergency since it's been a week and I haven't heard anything.

painting the baby's girls room next weekend! can't wait to have her room ready :)

cravings: with all this hot weather water seems to be the only satisfying thing.
aversions:

what's baby up to?
baby’s senses are continuing to improve—when light peeks in through my (extremely) stretched belly, those tiny eyelids and irises blink and dilate. and, baby can now recognize and react to simple songs… time to start practicing our lullabies! growth (at least inside my womb) is starting to slow, and I may notice baby descend into my pelvis at the end of this month.

our mantra

32 weeks: ready for this

mark and I had our childbirth education and lamaze class this weekend and it was quite good and reassuring. i've been reading several books over the course of this pregnancy (mayo clinic guide to a healthy pregnancy and the baby bump guide are my faves) so a lot of the information was review but I still got a lot out of it. obviously breathing techniques, what to look for when you think you may be labor, when to call the doc are very good to know and training dad to help with that when labor comes. :) mark also has been reading be prepared and really likes it—it's written perfectly for a guy! having this class definitely helped prepare both mark and I for what's to come even though at times I felt overwhelmed and anxious. as long as mark is there coaching me on I know I'll do just fine!

overall, we both just want her here. and from the videos we viewed we'd like her here healthy and hope with no emergency situations. so say a prayer for us as we reach month 8 :)

now although we are very ready for her to be here we've went back to square one on naming her. we want the perfect name and I don't think mark was 100% sold on the last one—so we've been going through and making a list again... I told him she needs to have a name (or two) by week 35. I don't want to get in the situation where I'm in labor and then we have to decide because by then I'm sure I'll name her pickle or rocky road and we'll just have to live with it! haha kidddddding. and if she comes out and we need to decide then that's ok too, but I need the list to be a lot more narrow and my husband to not over think it too much :)

had the ultrasound test done friday to my abdomen but don't have any news yet. the tech at the hospital was new so she did everything from my gall bladder to my liver to my kidneys. she had to have the other tech look everything over and they said these would be sent to the doctor to look over. I don't know for sure whether it is my gall bladder but the new tech may have slipped and said she didn't see anything there—while the other tech said technically she's not supposed to say anything until the doc reviews. so still waiting to hear about that. for the most part I didn't feel anything painful all week—a bit on monday when I was walking but I got relief the rest of the week. now saturday it slowly was coming back and sunday it hurt a lot of the day. so overall, it's a bizarre unexplainable pain right now.

tomorrow I have another OB checkup with dr. ghandi (dr. perlis is on vacay this week) and mark and I will be looking into pediatricans to interview this week. other than that looking forward to a fun weekend that includes our first baby shower with the prathers :)

cravings: i love chocolate... too bad my husband regulates me. :)
aversions: tuna casserole served at good shepherd.

what's baby up to?
by now, our baby weighs 3.75 pounds (like a large jicama) and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in my uterus. i'm gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to our baby. she'll gain a third to half of her birth weight during the next 7 weeks as she fattens up for survival outside the womb. she now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). her skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up in preparation for birth.

you get what you need

31 weeks: side pain and prego brain

so another week has gone by... about 8 weeks to go!

so my check-up last tuesday went well. baby was measuring 31 weeks, blood pressure was normal, and gained another 3 lbs. I brought up to dr. perlis this pain i've been having on my right side. I first felt it when we were in maine at 25 weeks, but it went away after a few days so I didn't want to sound the alarms then. but in the past two weeks it's been flaring up again—the one thing I do notice that each time it happens i'm either walking slowly for a while or standing more than usual.

at first I kept switching the side my purse was on—definitely not the problem. then I tried just putting pressure on it by holding my side, but that didn't help either. getting off my feet for a while by laying down or just sitting comfortably did eleviate the pain though. the pain is felt only on my right side about half-way down my rib cage and I could feel it from the front through the back. sometimes it is a dull pain other times it feels like i'm getting jabbed with a knife. unpleasant.

so when i mentioned to dr. perlis she immediately thought it's my gall bladder and asked if it hurt more when I've had greasy food. I honestly could not say yes/no to that because I haven't caught that pattern. I'm not perfect with my eating habits but for the most part I try to incorporate more fruit and veggies vs greasy fried foods. so, she said whatever it is I'll just have to cut it out of my diet. so wrote me a referral for an ultrasound of that area so once I get that scheduled we'll know more. sunday it was really bad, i bent down to plug something in and literally was brought to tears so I got a second opinion from susanne. she agreed it could be that, baby's jabbing me/running out of room, or I need to get my blood taken to make sure my liver is functioning correctly.

since sunday I've avoided anything with high fat. monday for breakfast I had a vegan muffin and ff milk, lunch a blackbean vegan burger (gross) and side salad (light vinagrette) and dinner was a roasted veggie lasagna from trader joes. and yesterday I felt pain in the morning on my walk to work and then again when I was taking madi out after work... not as bad as sunday but still feeling it. I had the same for breakfast today and was feeling it on my walk again. sitting for a while has made it go away. we'll see what the ultrasound shows, but for now I'll do my best to avoid anything high in fat.

on to funnier things... I have prego brain. it's hard to admit because I usually pride myself on remembering things and thinking clearly but there have been quite a couple instances where I have no explanation of how I possibly have done the things I did.

the first one happened a while back. I was coming back from picking up groceries and parked my car, dropped my keys in my purse (or so I thought) and locked my door with the button on the side before closing the door. my door lock quickly popped back up and I was like great my door is broken so I clicked it again same thing happened, so then I manually pushed down my door lock. then i went to pop my trunk with my keys only to realize I left them in the ignition! seriously, my brain is not functioning correctly. my dad still has our spare key so he came to save the day. second instance is a dumb thing on both mark and I's part. I went to take the dog out for a walk before bed and asked mark to come with since it was a really nice night. so i grabbed the dog and said I'd meet him outside. as he walked out our second door he's like do you have keys? I'm like no just go get them... so he runs back up only to realize he's locked our front door. ugh. wally to the rescue again. I don't know why I didn't grab my keys I guess I assumed mark would... again never has happened in the two years living there but happens now.

third instance... I was in a bit of a hurry but mark needed something from target so I volunteered to go since I like that store :) I grab my green bags and coupons and am on my way. as I pull in to target I realize I forget one pretty important thing... my purse and wallet. seriously again I have never done this. last thing happened this past week. mark and I were having turkey meatball subs and I went to clean up the counter afterward and put everything away. the next day we were going to have the same thing and we could not find the mozarrella cheese... wasn't in the drawer it should have been in or anywhere else. I'm like I swear I put it away! well yes I did... in the bread basket! seriously embarrassing and dumb experiences that usually don't happen to me... but I'm just going to say it's PREGO BRAIN and laugh about it in the mean time. :)

we finished up painting our room this week, so now we just have baby girl's nursery to do! it's a relief to have another one done. other than that we have our childbirth education classes this weekend—it'll be a jammed packed session of info. can't wait to have more anxiety of whats to come!

baby's weight is about
three navel oranges.

cravings: i like chocolate and blts.
aversions: none.

what's baby up to?
this week, our baby measures over 16 inches long. she weighs about 3.3 pounds and is heading into a growth spurt. she can turn her head from side to side, and her arms, legs, and body are beginning to plump out as needed fat accumulates underneath her skin. she's probably moving a lot, too, so I may have trouble sleeping because our baby's kicks and somersaults can keep me up. all this moving is a sign that our baby is active and healthy.

30 weeks: fireworks in my belly

happy birthday aubbie and happy 4th of july!

had a great fourth of july weekend with friends and family. mark and I just watched about 30 firework displays all at once on palatine hill—it was so fun. good thing I got my fill after 10 mins because the mosquitoes were incredibly getting after us. next year we'll remember the bug spray :)

saw all of the bradley crew at b&t's and it was nice catching up with the girls and everyone :) everyone was drawn to the belly and rubbing it—it was kinda funny but of course I didn't mind it just made me smile. then sunday was a relaxing day ending with s'mores by the fire.

back tracking a bit to monday I slightly started freaking out a bit. right as I was about to leave work the thought just popped into my head that hmmm haven't really felt baby today. then I tried to remember the last time that day when I felt her and I just couldn't. I didn't want to think the worst but all I could think about is please kick please kick please kick. and at that time I was walking so it would be hard to notice. on the train I kinda felt a light tap, but still wasn't satisfied :)

so when I got home I ate and laid down on my left side and started counting. it took 14 minutes to feel 10 movements, which is not as quick as she normally is but still normal. so my panic subsided, but I wasn't completely ok. mark convinced me enough not to worry—but it's the first thing I thought of when I woke up the next day. she wasn't super active so I texted susanne (mark's sis-in-law) to just ask her if this is normal. she reassured me, but said if I was worried to go in and be monitored. since I was in chicago already and on my way to work, I was just going to see how the morning went. around 10:00am she started jabbing me and phew felt such relief and it continued all day. so lil miss was just sleepy or I was just too busy to notice her yesterday.

ever since then she been really active and there have been a couple times her kicks have completely moved me. so funny how strong she is—our lil firecracker. :) i love looking down at my belly and seeing her taps since they are so much more prominent.

the prathers too are having a baby shower for us toward the end of this month :) can't wait to see everyone!

tomorrow I have another check-up with dr. perlis. hopefully she's measuring 30 weeks—or if she isn't it'll be fun to see her on the ultrasound again. :)

cravings: everything I probably should avoid. but I love chocolate.
aversions: psh. nothing.

what's baby up to?
our baby's about 15.7 inches long now, and she weighs almost 3 pounds (like a head of cabbage). a pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds her, but that volume will decrease as she gets bigger and takes up more room in my uterus. her eyesight continues to develop, though it's not very keen; even after she's born, she'll keep her eyes closed for a good part of the day. when she does open them, she'll respond to changes in light but will have 20/400 vision—which means she can only make out objects a few inches from her face. (normal adult vision is 20/20.)