Baby Girl was the size of a head of cauliflower (which I think is an absolutely ridiculous comparison because babies are NOT cauliflower shaped).

This was a big week for our family! Our summer roommate moved in (we have an awesome couple moving into our house once Daniel and I are both in Cincinnati!) We picked our first zucchini out of the garden (and we also picked an ALMOST ripe tomato). We had a great “last” Lexington date night at School (mmmm grilled squid). We moved Daniel to Cincinnati and I quickly realized that having a baby belly makes moving things difficult. There were many trips to the gym and I got really sweaty on my walks to and from class because the temperature decided to spike this week.

I realized that having a baby in your belly makes you really hot, and I resort to fanning myself with pieces of paper during class. I took a few extra naps this week (because I wanted to and because my schedule allowed me to).  PS sorry for the crappy cell phone picture!

How I’m Feeling

Still going strong, although as I mentioned above, the heat is beginning to get to me a bit. There’s not much shade on my walk to class, and I might drive myself closer to campus once the temperatures get even higher. I’ve had a little bit of round ligament and general abdominal stretching pains this week, but what can you expect from carrying around a head of cauliflower plus a few extra pounds in your abdomen?

Big Changes

Well, I mentioned in the entry paragraph that we moved Daniel up to Cincinnati this week, he started his new “big boy” job. It’s a little weird for us to be living in two different places, but at the same time, it’s okay. We did the whole long distance dating deal for a long time. It sounds like Daniel will be pretty busy during these first few weeks at his new job, so I’m kind of thankful that he can just focus on that (instead of having to entertain me!) We’ll still see each other every weekend (or almost every weekend) and I can’t wait! I’m sure there will be a few nights spent in tears, but we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do!

Dear Baby Girl,
You’ve been so shy when I try to let other people feel your strong kicks and wiggles! I like to think that you “know” that it’s not my hand that’s trying to feel what you’re doing in there. Silas the dog has been sniffing my tummy lately. It might be because I keep dropping food on myself, but I also like to pretend that he’s saying “hello” to you! Your daddy told me how excited he is to meet you soon, and that made my heart melt! We’re still trying to think of names for you, sometimes we use a name when we’re talking about you, but nothing has sounded absolutely perfect yet. I think we’ll have a few names picked out, but we won’t know which one is for YOU until you arrive! Keep on growing and practice your snuggles because I’m sure we won’t want to put you down for a while
Love you,
Mommy and Daddy

Baby is the size of a cantaloupe! Baby’s face is now fully formed and she’s anywhere from 10.8 inches to 11.5 inches long and weighs a little over a pound!

I’ll say it again, time is flying by! Did you miss the post where I tell you about all of the silly things I’ve cried over?

We had our first baby shower this weekend! My lovely sisters Maggie and Catherine and my mom threw us a fantastic shower! We are so blessed to have received so many things for our little one! Here are a few pictures from the shower:

I had a great time hanging out with my aunts, cousins and grandmothers. I am the 28th grandchild on my mom’s side (she has 15 brothers and sisters!!!), and I was born on December 28th. Our little girl will be the 29th GREAT-grandchild (the 15th girl great-grandchild), wouldn’t it be neat if she surprised us a day early by arriving on September 29th?

(the view from above, I still have feet!)

How I’m Feeling

Still feeling good! My lower back gave me some grief this week and I did take a few naps over the weekend, but I still feel really good! We had a doctors appointment this week, here are some updated stats!

• Baby’s Heart Rate: 140bpm
• Total Weight Gain: 7lbs
• Nasty Glucose Test Drink: In my Fridge
• Doctor in Cincinnati: Appointment made

I can’t believe I’ll be moving up to Cincinnati in about 7 weeks! Daniel moves up in a week! I’m really looking forward to getting our “nursery” all set up, especially now that we have books, toys and lots of other baby things to use!

Week 16 vs Week 24

Keep on growing little girl!

Pregnancy is definitely changing me. I’m not a big crier. I did cry at our wedding, but it’s mostly because my dad said something sweet to me right before he and my mom walked me down the aisle.

I’ve made it 24.5 weeks into this pregnancy with very few emotional outbreaks. But, in the past few weeks, my baby belly has “popped” (I got asked for the first time if I was expecting!!) and my emotions have been on a roller-coaster ride.

• I cried at a commercial with a mommy and her little girl. I have no clue what the commercial was about, but it was sweet and I got overwhelmed with emotion about being a mommy to our little girl.
• I almost cried when I found my oatmeal had boiled over in the microwave one morning.
• I cried when Daniel and I were watching the 3rd part of Hatfield & McCoy on the History Channel. There is a lot of death/killing in the movie, but do you know what made that tear trickle down my cheek? When the dog died. I think I’m going to refrain from watching sad animal movies for a while.
• I almost cried yesterday when my car was getting towed. I lost the one key that we had to my Honda Fit, and the car had to get towed to the Honda dealership to get a replacement made. I just felt so bad that I had lost that key!
• Today I cried because we found out that our new landlord isn’t too crazy about tenants re-painting rooms in the house. (Fortunately, Daniel was around for this cry- and he did his best to comfort me. He said we can hang some colorful curtains. I have a wonderful husband!)
• A few minutes after the paint-crying, I accidentally turned off the kitchen light, which led to another wave of waterworks. Now, you might think that turning off a light isn’t something to cry over (it isn’t) but for some reason, when it’s really hot or really cold, our awesome fluorescent kitchen light likes to flicker. I had already done my “broom trick” to get the light to turn on, and then I accidentally turned it off. I think this crying episode only happened because it was on the heels of the no-painting cry session.

It’s kind of fun to look back on those events and laugh about them, but I’m scared to see what ridiculous thing I’m going to get emotional over next! In other “news”, yesterday was Daniel’s 24th Birthday, now we’re the same age!!! Lots of great things coming in this 24th year of life

Okay, I’m off to do some French homework!

Baby is the size of a grapefruit!

Today we hit 24 weeks, the beginning of the 6th month! Unbelievable!! But first, a 23 week recap (that is pretty much a pregnancy-workout recap because everything is still going GREAT!)

Workouts

I mentioned last week that I’m loving working out while pregnant! I walk to class 5 days a week, and that gets me in 40 minutes of walking per day! That’s pretty much the only form of “cardio” that I’m doing, and I still feel a little silly calling it cardio because it doesn’t feel quite the same as running, but it’s what feels good! Walking routes with HILLS is so fun yet challenging at the same. My walk to and from school is flat (thank goodness), but it is fun to visit the Arboretum or to walk in the hilly neighborhood when we go home to visit our families on weekends.

Aside from walking, I’ve been pretty good about getting in 2 weight lifting sessions per week! I learned a lot of great exercises when I did the LiveFit trainer, so it’s been pretty easy to make up an exercise routine!

When I do an upper body workout, I usually warm up a little bit on the treadmill (if we didn’t go to the gym right after I got home from class). Then, I usually do 3 sets of 12-15 reps of the following: Bicep Curls, Tricep Pushdowns, Bent Over Tricep Extensions, Rear Delt Fly (with resistance band), and Incline Chest Press. Sometimes I’ll add on a few Pilates-inspired moves or rows/lat pulldowns, but those are generally the exercises I go through on an upper body workout day. I only do legs once a week (if that), but I usually do squats, calf raises, abductor and adductor exercises and a bunch of SI Joint exercises (like the ones here: http://www.pilates-back-joint-exercise.com/si-joint-exercise.html). And I usually do 3 sets of 12-15 reps of each of those exercises as well. It just depends on the day and whatever weight I choose! I can assure you that my muscles are tired by the last few reps, but not overly so.

I’m also LOVING planks!!! I read on Fitnessista that you should do a combination for 10 second planks with a 3 second rest so that you’re really activating the muscles in your core. I like to vary the planks by doing some on elbows, some on my hands, and some on the bosu ball (elbows and hands). Depending on the day, I’ll do 10-20 planks (again, holding for 10 seconds with a 3 second rest).

The only body part I’m having trouble working out is my back. Most of the back exercises I know have you lie down on your belly, and I know baby girl doesn’t like being all smushed in there! I think I mentioned last week that bending over for more than a few seconds makes my lower back ache, so standing back extensions are out. I just need to do my research- I’ll report back!
Of course, if you’re pregnant- check with your doctor and do what your body is comfortable with. I’m fairly certain that a few months from now, my workout routine will not look the same, and I intend on doing whatever makes me (and baby girl) feel good!

So that probably wasn’t too exciting, but Daniel and I did see my family this weekend (and we ate a lot of ice cream!)

Baby is the size of a spaghetti squash! Baby weighs about 1 pound!

Time is FLYING! Daniel and I are trying to get in more one-on-one time, and we went to the movies on Saturday night! It hit me when we were at the movies how much more difficult it would be to go out for dates once our baby girl arrives! Not impossible, but certainly different.

How I’m Feeling

Still feeling great! I took this week’s picture in front of some boxes because we’re in the process of packing up non-essential items. Daniel starts his new job this month, and we want to get a jump start on packing! Bending over proves to be more difficult, even though there’s not that much belly in the way, my lower back says STOP if I’ve been bent over for more than just a couple of seconds! While I ‘m very thankful to feel normal, it’s a little annoying to not be able to bend over to sort through boxes of stuff!!!

Labor Class

We started our 3-week labor class this week- we’re taking a “Laboring the Natural Way” class through Central Baptist Hospital in Lexington. It was the only free class that works with the amount of time that Daniel is still in town, so we decided to get a jump start. I’m glad we’re taking the class, but labor and delivery still seems SO far away. I guess being prepared early is better than nothing, but I’m still hoping to find a class up in Cincinnati that we can take at whatever hospital we use.

I’m planning to have a natural childbirth, for a number of reasons. First of all, there’s an inner hippie/naturalist inside of me that wants to let my body do its thing, but I also believe that a natural childbirth is best for me and for our baby girl! I know that like 50% of labor/deliveries go “as planned”, so I’m not going to be super angry if for the health of the baby and myself, we have to go another direction with labor and delivery. Another reason I want to go natural is because I almost passed out when the teacher talked about the epidural in our first class. She went into pretty great detail how the epidural is placed and everything, and boy, that made me WOOZY! I really thought I was going to have to lay down on the floor in the middle of the class. It’s weird, I usually don’t get grossed out by medical stuff, but for some reason, that epidural talk was GROSS.

I won’t be ashamed if I do get an epidural (or other form of medication), but I’m telling myself now that those are things I really don’t want in my body when little baby girl comes into the world!!!

Well, that’s all for this week, I’ll write about my workouts next week- they’ve been going great! I feel like I’m in really good shape (NOT running shape or anything) and I’d love to share what has been making my body feel STRONG!