Week 29

I've been sick this week with a cold, and it's not fun. I started feeling bad last Wednesday, the 18th and it's been a long eight days since then. I'm at the end of it (the coughing stage) so hopefully I can rest and be back to my normal pregnant health soon.

The exciting news is that our stroller came in today! It's a chicco cortina travel system in case you want to look up professional pictures on the web. For now, here's some shots I took in the living room.

Updates

We have arrived at 28 weeks! This is the beginning of my third trimester, and today it was time to go through all my mostly borrowed clothes again. I guess it makes sense that the pants that fit in December are too small now, and the pants that I put away so quickly because they were so big, fit me just a few weeks later! So it's time to switch out the clothes in my closet again. Please don't be concerned about whether or not I have enough maternity clothes - I have lots of great options! Today I got to try on 8 different pairs of khaki capri pants and take my pick. Nice. But it'll probably take me another week to get all the bigger maternity clothes washed and put away.

Earlier this week we had a doctors appointment. The most interesting thing was that our doctor had a high school student shadowing him. Before the doctor came in, our nurse told us about the high school student and asked us if it would be alright. I'm all about education, internships and shadowing experiences (plus I figured there's no way that Curtis and I would know the student) so we agreed. As stories go, it was a student we both knew! This girl had visited ACU a few weeks before, and a few months ago we sat by her mom at a Wylie football game. It wasn't awkward, it was good. She helped the doctor measure my uterus - 27 cm. Our doctors appointments are going to be every 3 weeks for the next month or two, then we'll start going every 2 weeks, and eventually every week. Lots of doctors visits...

Thursday night I got to go to the Welcome Back Dinner for my Fall 2008 study abroad students. It was pretty fancy. We got to use the new Hunter Welcome Center building, and our dinner was served in Ballroom A. Awesome! It's nice to have a special night for the students. I have a nice boss and he gave me a pretty flowering plant in front of everyone since this is my last Welcome Back Dinner. I had to look up the name of the plant online, it's a cyclaman. You should check it out.

For Valentine's Day Curtis and I went to a relationship seminar at our church. It was good, but it was all day. They had lots of snacks, good games, and it's always good to talk about good communication skills, personality differences and all that. We were tired afterwards, so we didn't go out last night. We stayed home and watched Gladiators. I picked it, and I know it's a funny choice for Valentines.

Tomorrow is Presidents Day, but neither Curtis nor I have the day off, so it'll be a normal Monday.

Nursery Bedding

Here's a link to our bedding for the nursery:
http://glennajean.thebabybedding.com/DreamWithMe.php

We're borrowing this bedding from our friend, Whitney. I'm super excited about it because I've always loved stars and it's nice, calming colors.

25 weeks

Here we go, movin' towards the last trimester! I'm feeling fine, and the babyman moves around everyday, so I guess he's fine too. All our doctors appointments have gone well. We're starting to do uterus measurements (he uses a measuring tape to measure from my pubic bone to the top of my uterus) so that's new. I should be growing a cm a week. This month I also did the diabetes test and went to the anesthesiologist office to watch the epidural video from the 80's. The most enjoyable parts were the big mustaches and other hairstyles, but the needle parts made me squirm around a little.

I'm also realizing that these are the last months in my pre-delivery, pre-nursing, pre-mom body. These are the last weekends of sleeping late and free time for at least several years. SO... I want to make a list of things I like and maybe next year around my birthday I'll make another list and see how things worked out.

I like to eat chips and salsa, Blue Bell ice cream, coca-cola icees, sour patch kids and I have a cup of coffee every morning. (don't worry, those are mostly splurges, I usually eat lots of VEGETABLES!)

I love my job. I enjoy going to work every day, sitting in my office, emailing students about study abroad, talking with parents, being on campus, talking with people in my office, getting to know lots of students, and being helpful. I'm the study abroad coordinator at ACU and I send 200 students abroad every year. I memorize most of their names, can recognize them on campus, and for a few I recognize their parents' numbers on my caller ID. I manage 3 great student workers 30 hours a week. I regularly make presentations to visiting groups of 3-30 people (usually prospective students) and the past few semesters I've traveled around TX with admissions to attend events and help recruit students to ACU. I love to talk about study abroad, especially our semester programs, and really Montevideo is my favorite.

At home I do the dishes a couple times a week and Curtis helps me do all the laundry every two weeks. I'm a pro at making grocery lists, listing items in order of where they're found in the store and making a total price estimate within a couple dollars.

Weeknights we usually eat at home, watch Wheel of Fortune and one more show (I like NCIS, Chuck, The Office and the bachelor). Curtis plays a lot of Mario Kart and I like to watch. When I play, I run into walls, get stressed out and lose.

I like to go to bed at 10:30. I take a shower every day. If I have free time I usually call my mom.

And here's some pictures:

23 weeks

I feel good these days. I'm never nauseous, I don't have heartburn or headaches, and I can move around easily. But for the record, pregnancy is a little weird. Besides having a whole baby boy inside me (which is very weird to think about) there's lots of strange things that seem to be normal parts of pregnancy. Hormones have given me some little dots on my face, three small stretch marks, and sweaty palms and feet. I also have a stuffy nose. It's cool - right now I feel thankful and content.

There seems to be a very long semester in front of me, and after that, the unknown world of parenting. Right now I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning at 11:00 when my 56 Spring '09 study abroad students will have left Abilene for DFW and airports around the world.

Sonogram Pictures

Ok, here's the sonogram pictures. They're fuzzy and not super cute, so I wasn't in a hurry to get them on the blog. The top picture is a foot. The second picture shows the heart cavity and the heart beat, it was much cooler on the video. The bottom picture is the baby's face. I think there's some umbilical cord floating in front of his chest or something, because his body seems like it's a weird shape/size compared to his head. Oh well. The face picture grows on you. :-)




Baby's doing fine. He kicks around every day, which really is encouraging to me. Yesterday I had a stomach bug. We called our doctor after I vomited the first time, and they said to just rest and drink fluids, so I stayed on the couch all day. I was glad that Curtis had the day off to stay at home with me. I'm fine today.

Monday starts another semester of Study Abroad fun! I really do love my job. I'm super excited about the Welcome Back Dinner (later in January) because we get to have it in ACU's new Hunter Welcome Center! I also like the spring semester because we have our annual Photo Contest. I'm looking forward to being in the office, working on my computer, seeing the students and rescuing my wilted office plant from the long Christmas vacation.

It's a Boy!

AHH! We're having a boy! :-) Curtis and I have been smiling, laughing, and kissing all morning. We're so happy that our baby is healthy, and we're excited to have a little guy around the house. The sonogram appointment seemed to fly by. The Dr. said he's 100% sure, and it's definitely guaranteed that it's a boy. He even zoomed in on our baby's little boy parts and showed us. We won't be posting that picture on the blog. He also gave us a picture of the baby's "face" but Curtis and I have come up with several interpretations of which dark spots could be eyes, a nose and a mouth... We also got a fuzzy picture of a foot, and we got to watch our baby's heart muscle pump while we listened to his heartbeat. I thought that was awesome. We did take a video tape (We don't have a VCR anyways) but the recording machine was broken, so we don't have to worry about converting that. We'll get the sonogram pictures up here later.

For now, here's a picture of me, my belly, and the Christmas tree. I don't think I really look this big, it's some sort of optical illusion with the sun. But maybe I do. Anyways, Baby and I will just be getting bigger from here.

I'm also posting a picture of me and Tommy napping on the floor after we played in the backyard yesterday. Tommy likes to nap on the dining room floor by the sunny window. I had to wear the bandanna because the sun was in my eyes.