28 Weeks (Belly Shots)

Happy 28 weeks, and according to some sources, start of the 3rd trimester to me! I can not believe how quickly time is flying by. Something happened the other night and I've been saving it to share in this post - we feel and see body parts!! What parts exactly, I'm not sure yet, but it's not just internal kicks and rolls. With my hand on my belly - typical - I've felt and seen "pitches" like he has his arm bent and his elbow is sticking out and then it slowly goes away. I'm also able to see what looks like his butt or head because my belly looks lopsided. So fun! Here's me at 28 weeks!

I was actually surprised because it doesn't look as big as I feel. Maybe it's just me. It is the morning though - at night it's a whole different story.

Also, a little nursery teaser - here's the rug. Hoping to get some furniture painted and some sewing done this week/weekend, so I can share more.

Birthday Part II

Here's a quick recap from Saturday and Sunday. First up was downtown for yummy dinner + dessert!

Birthday Girls

Bananas Foster & S'Mores (with open flame)

Sunday I laid around all day which was wonderful and then Jimmy and I met Kevin and Stefanie at my mom's condo for a birthday dinner of steak, salad, twice baked potatoes and...

...this (half eaten) slice of the coconut cake I've been craving!

Mom and her b-day girl with her awesome new diaper bag

What a wonderful birthday it's been! Thanks to everyone for the love. xoxox.

Birthday Part I & New Neighbors

Today is my 28th birthday and I'm blogging from bed as Jimmy makes me scrambled eggs and baby O does somersaults - life is good! Borrowing a page from my mom's book, I'm milking my b-day for all it's worth this year.

The celebrating started with sweet cards from my family. Then Thursday I went out to dinner and movie with Jenny and Brittany from work. We saw The Vow, which was pretty disappointing, but dinner and company was great. It's always nice to get out with the girls!

"Dessert"

I came into work on Friday to one of these and a gift card for Michaels (for all my DIY projects) on my desk from Brittany. If you've never had Chocolove before, you must try! Thanks Brittany!

I then met my mom and Jan for lunch at the Brasserie. After a busy day at work, I stopped by our house quickly to pick up Jimmy before heading over to Kevin's place to see he and Stef's new digs. Yes, you heard me right, Kevin's place. He up and decided it was time to leave property management and the Virginia Beach area, so here he is! He got a job at Castle Branch, an awesome rental with a pool and BOTH ocean and marsh views and Stefanie is close behind him setting up interviews left and right. I'll post a pic of their views a little later today - we're jealous. So happy to have them as neighbors!

Post dinner belly rub

Before heading home for the night, Stef pulled this giant box from Kelly out of her car. Much to my amazement, it was filled to the brim with cute clothes for baby O, a bumbo and breast pump. Thank you, thank you, thank you Ms. Kelly (and Connor)!!

If that wasn't enough, I awoke this morning to these super cute Van's from Jimmy - perfect for skinnys now and shorts in the summer, as though I'll have time to think about what I look like. Though a pair of shoes is a plenty wonderful gift, Jimmy has also agreed to let me pick out some things for my itch to redecorate our bedroom. If only "pinner" on Pinterest could be a job...

Now it's a quick jog with Stefanie to show her the island by foot and then pedicures. Did I mention yesterday was Stef's 24th birthday??  Tonight we have reason to celebrate! Happy birthday to us!

27 Weeks Wednesday

Maybe it's weird that I share so much personal info with the world wide web, but I'm not keeping track of my pregnancy experiences anywhere else and I want it documented for Baby O, so TMI or not, details you'll get!

27 weeks is a special one in that it's also my birthday week! Woo hoo! My last one as just me, not me as a mommy. So exciting! I haven't talked about cravings much lately, so I thought I'd spend this post documenting what the belly wants these days. 

Constant Cravings (started in the first trimester): peanut butter, apples, oranges, french fries, fruity & chewy candy (think Starbursts)
New Cravings: cinnamon raisin bread (one whiff in the breakroom at work this week and I HAD to have some!), coconut (think Girl Scout samosas, Almond Joys and the cake below from Indochine), chicken salad (friend at work had some for lunch and now I want some...BAD)

I want you as my birthday cake

Movement has gotten very intense. It's extremely distracting at times and, of course, very fun. Feels like he's throwing elbows in there. I've also felt some daily "kicks" in my lower obliques, near my hip bones almost, that give me the chills. Those ones feel sooo strange! The right rib pain persists and continues to be annoying all day and usually pretty painful in the evenings. I really can't complain though, and I don't want to anyways, because I know it only gets more uncomfortable from here on out. So I just focus on how good I've had it thus far. Now without further adieu, a quick shot from this morning...

I finally "get" the pregnant pose - must have in this shapeless maxi dress

Update

Here's an update from my routine check-up this morning.

• My blood pressure and iron and baby O's heartbeat are "perfect" - the swooshing sound will never get old.
  
• Fundus is measuring 26 cm - right on track.
• Pain under my right rib cage is just muscular soreness from expansion. Nothing I can do about it besides take regular strength Tylenol.
• Passed the glucose test with flying colors! Note: the glucola doesn't taste that bad, but the spike and then drop-off in blood sugar did made me feel pretty awful. 
• Triple confirmed that my exercise routine is healthy for both of us. In fact, doctor said he "loves" that I'm still doing interval running (since I ran prior to pregnancy) and doing pregnancy-friendly abs. Just supposed to keep workouts to less than an hour, drink plenty of water and don't exert myself to the point of not being able to talk/catch my breath. We'll see how it goes as I move into the 3rd trimester...

And because what's a post without a picture, here's me quickly sneaking an awkward shot in the bathroom at work. Not great, but it's something...

Happy Friday!

26 Weeks Wednesday

Week 26 will go down in history as the week of "power moves". Planning the nursery is something that I have taken very serious. I love decorating and I've dreamed of designing a nursery for my baby basically my entire life, so I didn't want to just throw something together. If you ask my mom or Jimmy, I'm a little psycho, but I say I'm just a woman who knows what she wants! So here's what I accomplished in week 26...

• After much research (we're talking hours and hours over multiple days people), we finally bought a crib and crib mattress! I decided on the highly rated, but economical DaVinci Emily crib and the Colgate Classica I foam mattress. Quick thought - I know the mattress is supposed to be firm, but this sucker is stiff as a board.
• Ordered the rug and it arrived today! Pics to come.
• My mom and I bought the sewing pattern for the crib skirt. 
• I bought a great $60 long dresser/changing table from Craigslist that I can now refinish and/or paint!
• I completed my nursery inspiration collage which included nailing down the color scheme - I'd share during this post, but that would be no fun. I must spread the love to other posts. 
• I bought the materials to start two decorative DIY projects.

Looks good done, but Daddy did not enjoy assembly

Now I just need to find my fabric. What to do this weekend, what to do? I'm soooo happy to be past the inspiration search/research phase and to finally start working on some projects.

In pregnancy news, only one thing to report. It has just occurred to me over the last week or so that the "heartburn" I've mentioned before has been solely localized to under my right rib cage, which has made me question whether it's really heartburn at all. After a call to the OB this week, I'm working on some trouble-shooting. I have a scheduled appointment on Friday AM, so I hope to find out more then.

Happy Valentine's Day!

What a Valentine's Day it's been with my three men (well actually 1 man, 1 pooch and 1 fetus)! First came snoozing a little extra this morning, followed by a card exchange. Then it was flowers at work and an early dinner at The Kitchen. Baby O has even shown his mama some extra love with some increased movement.  I am one lucky lady! Hope everyone has had an equally fabulous day.

My Spoils

Lobster + Mac & Cheese + S'mores Sundae

This Valentine's Day also marks two key milestones in our recent journeys. Last night Jimmy completed his third to last class in Business school. Just one more traditional class and an executive challenge course to go! Also, baby O and I dropped to double digits in our countdown, going from 100 days left yesterday to just 99 today.

In closing, sending love and support to my Grandma. I know she is missing her sweetheart on this Valentine's Day...

25 Weeks Wednesday

Good Morning! Happy hump day to all! I'm loving the round stats this morning - 25 weeks/day 175 with 15 weeks/105 days to go. According to my Baby Bump app, baby O is the size of a rutabaga. Jimmy asked, "what's a rutabaga?" And to that I said, "it's a winter root vegetable and it looks something like this..."

For my entertainment, if not for yours, I'm breaking the rules this morning and sharing a belly pic. Everything is going great at 25 weeks. Even the back pain and heartburn I've been talking about of late has gone away...for the time being. A couple more weeks and it's into the third, and final, trimester for this mama.

Baby O's First Superbowl

This weekend consisted of thrift store shopping for the nursery with my mom and going out on the town with Jimmy and Kevin, in for the weekend from Virginia Beach. Now I'm watching the Superbowl and it's pretty boring. I haven't even enjoyed the commercials this year. Anti-climatic for baby's O's first Superbowl...

Re: thrift store shopping, I was looking for a dresser to use as a changing table and found a few contenders, but I couldn't spring for any of them just yet. I did walk home with this "beauty" though. It needs to be reupholstered and painted, but I liked the shape. I plan to use this with a rocker in the nursery. 

For a late dinner we decided to try this new, as of last year, restaurant in downtown Wilmington called Crow Hill. Turns out it's quite a scene. They had a fun bluegrass band playing and the food was great, southern eclectic. 

Bad iPhone picture, but cute nonetheless...

24 Weeks Wednesday (Belly shots)

I'm 24 weeks today, so that means belly shot time! But first, some updates.

1. Last night marked the most active we've ever felt baby O. He was kicking, jabbing and rolling up a storm. Pow! Pow! Pow! 
2. I accidentally ate some salami in an Italian salad before remembering that I'm not supposed to have deli meats, so now I'm deathly afraid of listeria. 
3. I wore Amie's hand-me-down maternity jeans for the first time last Saturday and they felt amazing. I was between wearing my skinny jeans with the belly band and Amie's jeans for our excursion to Bald Head and thought, today's going to be a long day, rock the maternity jeans. I couldn't have been happier. I'd wear them everyday if I didn't feel the need to dress up at work...
4. As I'm writing this, I'm feeling the first noticeable bout of hiccups. Pregnancy is so fun.

5 weeks

20 Weeks

Now, drum roll please...

Ta-da! P.S. I need less frumpy PJs

3/4 Angle

And then because I'm sure everyone gets sick of seeing me half naked, here are a couple clothed shots. Weird or not, I'm a pretty picky "model", so I prefer to shoot myself sometimes.

Thoughts? Bigger, smaller or exactly what you'd expect? It feels more substantial to me than it comes across in these pictures, especially when he finagles himself into a ball. One conclusion I've come to as my body changes shape - I'm pretty sure I have a short torso. I feel like I'm already expanding in the upper torso area, not just the lower belly, which makes me wonder where baby O will go when he's really big??? Something, maybe the fact that the female body was made for carrying babies, tells me it'll work out :)