Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!!

 

Dee and I had a great time carving pumpkins this year! We have carved pumpkins for the last 5 years since living in Greenville and we look forward to it every year along with watching Hocus Pocus! (Well, maybe I'm the only one excited about watching Hocus Pocus, but it is a Halloween MUST!)

 

Typically we will use just standard stencils, but this year we wanted to make them a little more personal. Dee decided on a pirate, and I found a stencil for the pregnant baby belly! If you can't tell what my pumpkin is on the right, it's a baby head down in the my pregnant belly with "It's a Boy" carved in the side! I did mine freehanded which I'm pretty proud of, haha!

 

 

Dee's Pirate pumpkin

 

 

My pregnant belly pumpkin

 

 

Here are a few pictures from Week 25! This week I've been enjoying pregnancy still, but just ready to meet our little boy. Watching TLC's A Baby Story and Baby's First Day isn't helping either, because it just makes me long for our baby's birth day! I know it will be here so soon, but the excitement grows as my patience whithers away! Haha!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I realized I have posted alot of pictures showing off the belly, but none in actual clothes! Here are some pictures before one of our walks this week : )

 

 

Showing off the "E" flag that Amanda and Brian got me and the mum that Dee's dad and stepmom got me for my birthday and our cute lil punkins : )

Whoa, Baby - 24 Weeks!

Baby's size:

Baby is the size of a cantaloupe! Holy cow!! Weighing in at 1-1/2 lbs., Lucas is growing at rapid speed! And this is obvious by my large and in charge belly : )

Total weight gain:  

17 lbs. That's all I have to say about that right now. Haha!

Maternity Clothes:

I have found little bits and pieces of maternity clothes at Target and Old Navy. I may have to talk Dr. Carlson into letting me wear yoga pants and tennis shoes to work, though!

Food cravings:

Well, amazingly enough, this week I have actually craved something healthy: Fiber One Nutty Clusters & Almonds cereal! I wanted to try a new cereal (I still love you though Cinnamon Toast Crunch!) and this cereal is amazing! It fills me up and lasts me until lunchtime and has just the right amount of sweetness!

Movement:

I'm continuing to feel Lucas move around and I know he's getting bigger because his movements are more definite and pronounced! My insides are taking a beating! But no complaints here!

Best moment of the week:

The best moment of the week has to be getting the nursery painted! Mallie, who has painted the rest of our home, came over this past Saturday and painted a gorgeous nursery for Lucas to come home to! There will be pictures of that to come, but Dee wants me to wait to post pictures so that you guys can see the "finished product" Haha!

What I'm looking forward to:
 I am looking forward to the labor. JUST KIDDING!!!! As I get further in the pregnancy I have been thinking about the labor more and I am a little nervous, so I have chosen to occupy my mind with more positive thoughts: I am looking forward to the end result which is a healthy, happy, lovable little punkin for the whole family the love on!

What I miss:
I miss my back not aching! Despite yoga, stretching, better posture, and heating pads, my lower back continues to ache. It's not unbearable, just troublesome at times.
Symptoms:

I have started having Braxton Hicks contractions which is...well, interesting to say the least! What I thought was the baby moving is now definitely contractions. These are painless and harmless and will continue on until labor. I have increased my water intake and have had to start lying on my left side while sleeping to keep them from occurring. I have had them anywhere from 10-15 times a day to just 3-5 times a day. I told the midwives that I would prefer to call them "tightenings" instead of "contractions" because that word is a little overwhelming at this point! Haha!

Picture time! Enjoy!

23 Weeks

A week behind, but here are pictures of me at 23 weeks! I had a great week last week and baby Lucas is still kicking right away!

Here are a couple of pictures from the clothes that Mom and Dad got us! The top picture is a little sleeper that Mom ordered off of Etsy with the cross and the babe's name on it! By far, my favorite piece! The bottom two pieces are some clothes that she bought off of Craigslist! What little man doesn't have a Hawaiian shirt to sport?!!

22 Weeks and Counting...

Well well well, we have reached 22 weeks!! Only 18 weeks to go, can you believe it???

Here are some stats for ya to enjoy!

Baby's size:

Real estate is getting a little tight in my belly!!

Lucas is now 11 inches long and weighs 12-13 ounces!

Total weight gain:

Moving on up! Now at 12lbs.

Maternity Clothes:
Well, I must say I do love my maternity clothes, but this week I am MOST excited about my new Frye Melissa Button boots!! These boots were a whopper of a purchase, but I convinced myself that I'm doing a pretty good job of sustaining another life, and that DEFINITELY deserves some sort of reward!! I just had to show you a picture of the new kicks that I am just in love with!

Food cravings:
Move over butter pecan ice cream, you've had your share of me -- rice crispy treats have my heart now!! We are officially finishing up our second batch of them as we speak! Dee has played a big hand in helping those treats disappear too, don't let his lean frame fool ya! ; )

Movement:
The baby is most active around 12:30pm after lunch and around 10:30pm when we lay down to go to bed. It's such a comfort to fall asleep with Dee's hand on my belly feeling the little boy move in there.

Best moment of the week:
One of the greatest moments of the week would be going home for the day this past Sunday! Being able to spend time with family is so crucial right now. They are my backbone and I wouldn't want to ever go through any of this without them. And, as a plus, Mom and Dad bought us a HUGE bag full of baby boy's clothes as well as a little sleeper with a blue and white cross with "Lucas" embroidered below it! We cannot wait to get the little one in it!! There will be pictures of these cute outfits to come soon in another blog.

What I'm looking forward to:
I'm looking forward to actually being able to go to an ECU game this weekend! Unfortunately we have missed the first two games because of other commitments, but we cannot wait to tailgate with our good friends - Brad, Erika, Bobbie and Bryan! Bryan is an amazing cook, and this week I plan to give him a "menu" of what I would like him to bring me for the tailgate! Hahaha!!

What I miss:
I miss not having to sneak in a nap every afternoon around 5 o'clock!
Wait, who am I kidding, I love having an excuse to take a nap every afternoon at 5 o'clock! Haha!!

Symptoms:
I did have some abdominal pain at the end of last week/beginning of this week. I talked with the midwife about this and she said this is typical "round ligament pain." This type of pain occurs when the ligaments connecting the front part of the womb to my groin tightens and relaxes in efforts to stretch to accomodate the ever-growing belly. Just comes with the territory, but when you roll over in the middle of the night and feel a quick jab in your stomach, it is definitely no fun!

 Lastly, I wanted to show you a picture of a special gift I got from my coworker Cyndi! She went to New York this past weekend with a group of girls and brought back a onesie for Lucas and a baseball cap for me! She said she knew I'd want to pull my hair up and out of the way in the coming months, and of course we all love the pink!

The onesie says, "Someone who loves me very much went to New York and got me this t-shirt!" How cute is that!?!

Pictures of the little one (growing to be a big one!) in my belly : )

21 Weeks & A Friend's Gender Reveal!

At the bottom of this blog I uploaded some pictures that I took of my 21 week belly last week! I will do a little more updating later this week with my 22 week stats! I did start using the bella bands thanks to a suggestion of a recently-pregnant friend (Jamie Kelso, thank you!) 

I also wanted to give a shout out to my friend Deanne Labriola from Wilmington who is also pregnant and is due only 3 weeks after me! Her and her husband had their gender reveal party this past Friday night and found out that she, too, is having a little boy! She thought for sure she was having a girl - she even went as far as ordering girl crib bedding! Suprise!! : ) Deanne and I lived on the same floor freshman year of college at UNC-Wilmington. She is from Wilmington and her family welcomed me many times into their home for family dinners and such to help me transition from home life to dorm life a little easier. We still keep in touch and are happy to be able to share this time together despite being 2 hours away from one another!

Here are pictures of Deanne and her husband Brent at their gender reveal party!

Follow-up at Greenville OB-GYN

We had our follow up today at Greenville OBGYN and we were able to meet Freida who is another one of the midwives that could potentially be on call when we deliver our baby! She was just as wonderful as Michelle was at our first visit which is so refreshing and reassuring! We got to hear the baby's heart beat - 140bpm : ) and she just answered any questions or concerns that we may have. I was right on target with my weight gain and my blood pressure and heartrate were both normal.

 

We scheduled my glucose tolerance test for November 5th and I am so looking forward to that! Yeah right! I left with an orange-flavored drink that I have to drink the morning of the visit. I have to chug the bottle within 5 minutes and will undergo labwork about an hour after drinking it. This checks for the proper response of my glucose in order to rule out gestational diabetes as a complication during the pregnancy.

 

We are so blessed to be trucking right along in this pregnancy and are hopefully going to continue on an easy, fun, and exciting path. It would not be possible without the support and prayers of our family and friends! It has been a real eye-opening experience to have everyone so interested in how the baby, Dee, and I are doing, and I just thank God every night for everyone that thinks of us and cares for us. We could not ask for anything better!

Nursery Update!

We were so excited to come back from Charleston to be able to pick up our glider and ottoman and dresser from H. Stadium! You can't see the pattern of the chair in this picture, but it is little swirls and it makes the room even cuter! The throw pillow matches the crib bedding, too!

 

We were so blessed to have my parents and grandparents buy us a dresser to match our crib for the nursery! We LOVE the dresser and already have all of the baby's many, MANY clothes in it!

 

 

 

Crib bedding - not completely finished, but you get the idea as of right now. We need to take it back off and wash and iron everything, but this just gave us a mental image of what it will look like as a finished project!

 

Again, the bumper is not tied down, but we love the patterns!

 

 

And next on the agenda, getting some painting done by our favorite painter, Mallie!

Charleston Weekend

Dee and I headed down to Charleston this past Friday for the American College of Cardiology confererence held at the Wild Dunes Resort!

 

It was good to have a little get-away and we definitely enjoyed ourselves! On Friday night we had a welcome reception and enjoyed dinner with Dr. Carlson and Mandy and her husband Chris.

 

 

Yummy white chocolate cheesecake dessert that I politely

shared with Dee although I did not want to!

 

Then Saturday Dee and I headed downtown to look around and see the city!

 

 

 

 

That night we had an Low Country Boil and Oyster Roast!