28 Weeks

We have hit the third trimester!  I officially cannot see my toes unless I bend over a little bit.  I have also started having some sciatic nerve pain occasionally when walking around-usually after I have been moving around a lot cleaning the house or something.  Sleeping is still pretty good, although it got better once our Lamaze Coach said that if we are still comfortable sleeping on our backs that it should be okay.  Sleeping on my back is definitely more comfortable than using pillows and sleeping on my side. 

This week The Bean is about 2 1/4 pounds and 14 1/2 inches long.  His weight is compared to a Chinese Cabbage this week.  At the grocery store I was able to find a Napa Cabbage that weighed this amount so I snatched it up.

I think it is really neat to compare his weight because it helps me to know how much weight is actually in my stomach.  In a lot of ways, I can't believe he already weighs this much, it is a heavy cabbage!

We went to the local salon for a new 'do

The fantastic Hubbers took some awesome pics as well this week.

Baby's First Opinions

Its no secret that one of my biggest cravings in this pregnancy has been cinnamon rolls.  Well, when my parents were in town a week ago, we watched a show on the Cooking Channel that highlighted a bakery in Charlotte, NC where the most amazing cinnamon rolls were being baked.  This made me search the internets for "the best cinnamon roll in Houston".  The same bakery came up a few times and after further investigation, I found that they don't have a storefront, but they sell this baked deliciousness at a farmer's market in town.  This was a great find, because mixing a farmer's market and cinnamon rolls might just be two of my favorite things!  P and I went Saturday morning and found that these cinnamon rolls are, in fact, as big as my head.  We split one, and even then, we didn't finish it.  A few bites in, The Bean started kicking and moving around a lot.  I guess I can't assume this means that he liked it, but I choose to think that is the case.  Either way, I am sure he has an opinion on cinnamon rolls. 
While we walked around the market, we found some spicy goat cheese for P, some onion/cheese rolls, garlic chives (I had to try them because I'd never heard of them), and as we were leaving, we saw a vendor with Indian food!  Once we saw that he was selling samosas, we were in.  We decided on the vegetable ones since he didn't have beef, and decided to have those for lunch the next day.  Well, wouldn't you know, The Bean started kicking and moving around a lot again after I had the delicious samosas.  P was very excited that his baby boy seems to already enjoy samosas as much as he does. 

yum.

I generally notice The Bean's movement increase after I eat high sugar foods (what?  I can't help it lately!), but I must say, the samosas were the first savory dish that I really noticed this with.  We have tried to incorporate Indian food into our diets a little more during the pregnancy in case it will help him to like Indian food more.  Our main issue has been that we can't find an Indian food restaurant in town that we are wild about.  I guess we'll have to do some more searching.  Chicken Tikka is on the homemade menu for the week as well :)

My husband is a star!

  We now have all of our nursery furniture!  This was a big weekend for the nursery nook, we were already expecting the glider to be delivered on Friday, but we weren't expecting to find a great deal on a dresser and bring it home on Sunday. 

  A few weeks ago I saw that Babies R Us was having a sale on all of their gliders online for one day only, and seeing as I love a good deal, and after going to a not-so-close local store front to test out the gliders, P and I finally made a decision and ordered one.  Once the glider was in Houston, I scheduled the delivery for my half-day off.  This is where it got annoying.  The delivery entailed just one guy who couldn't really lift the box, and he just left it in the "entry way" of our house...I could barely get the front door to close once he put the box inside.  So I was stuck with a huge box on the first floor that belonged on the third floor of our place.  One of the downsides to living so far away from friends and family is that we didn't really have anyone we could call to help P bring the box up, so after a relaxing steak dinner at home and a movie, we decided to tackle the project.  The hubs definitely brought his A game and got the box all the way to the third floor before we realized the box would not fit through our bedroom door.  So, we took the door off of the wall and broke the box down enough that we could slide the chair in to our room.  Phwew. That was enough work for one night!

  On Sunday we decided we needed to do some more scouting for a dresser for The Bean.  We looked at some furniture stores, went by Babies R Us to look at the leader in the club house for durability, and then decided to go by USA Baby.  I totally wish we had gone there a week ago because they are going out of business and everything was marked waaay down...they had just sold almost everything by the time we got there.  We found a great quality dresser that was on sale for cheaper than the 'leader', so we snatched it up!  Only problem was, this meant P would have to haul it up to the third floor as well.  We had to move more junk out of the nursery nook to make room for the dresser and then P hauled it up the stairs.  He is going to be sore for a week from all of this hard labor...he is such a hoss!

  Finished product?  I knew the nook area was small, but now that it has all of the furniture in it, I am not sure that there is a great way to arrange the furniture.  Here is how we have it so far:

 Thanks mom and dad for the dresser, we are so excited about it!  Your Grandson is too, he told me ;)

26 Week Appointment

I had my 26 week OB appointment a week ago and got to take the fun glucose test for gestational diabetes.  The way that our OB practice works is to have us see a variety of their doctors so that we are familiar with other doctors if our primary doctor is not available for the delivery.  I have seen about 4 of the OBs that they have on staff, and I really enjoyed the OB I saw this time.

One thing that I have complained to P about is that I don't feel like our doctors keep me informed enough about the baby's progress and the pregnancy in general.  We seem to be operating under the "no news is good news" understanding.  This doctor took the time to go through a mini history of my visits with the practice and stated that everything looked normal or good at each milestone, which we had assumed, but never heard.  When I put my feet up on the patient bed for him to use the fetal heart monitor, he looked at my feet and ankles and said they had a little bit of swelling in them....that's right...26 weeks pregnant and I already have some swelling.  This does not seem to bode well for the rest of this pregnancy!  I guess I will just have to sit with my feet up more often than I thought, shucks.  The Bean's heartbeat was right on target as well as my tummy measurement. 


For the glucose test, I was given a drink that I had about 5 minutes to get down, and then wait an hour.  I have been warned by numerous people that it is absolutely disgusting, but I think they must have changed the flavor, or just have different flavors available at different times.  It just tasted like Orange Drink.  Now, I'm not usually a fan of orange flavored sodas, but my expectations were so low, that this was pretty easy to get down.  Until this pregnancy, I couldn't tell you the last time that I had blood drawn, so I was a little apprehensive about it at first, but it really is not that bad!  Maybe it is just because their technician is so fantastic that she doesn't have to prick me multiple times, but, it just isn't that bad! 

My results came back negative for diabetes, so that was a relief!  The blood test did show that my red blood count is a little low, but not enough for the doctors to be concerned.  P just made sure to take me out for a steak on our anniversary to increase my iron intake :) .  Nothing wrong with having to eat a few more steaks in life!! 

4 Years!

Four years ago today I married my bestie! 

We had a beautiful wedding,

celebrated with family and friends,

and then we flew off to Hawaii for a week...

Wishing we were back there!!

We have been through 2 years of medical school, 2 years of PhD work, 2 moves, acquiring a CPA license, visited Buenos Aires, Napa Valley, New Orleans, Costa Rica, Quebec, Vegas, and plenty more. 

Thank you for the last 4 years, hubs!!  I hear this next year should be interesting ;)  Love you!

26 Weeks

This week, the baby is likened to an english cucumber, but since those aren't easily accessible, we went with a different website's description for the whole sixth month, an eggplant.  Sadly, the grocery store didn't have any massive eggplants, so this one is technically shorter than the ear of corn from last week.  This week, The Bean is about 14 inches long and 1 2/3 pounds.  I just weighed the eggplant, and it weighs less than The Bean!  That is really crazy to us.  

We went on a family outing around our neighborhood to take these pictures and Jackson lead the charge.

The awesome thing about living in a historical neighborhood is that there are picturesque spots all over the place.  I think we will explore further next week for some different spots as well.

Three months to go!

P was out of the country for two weeks which is why I took the 24 week pics myself, and week 25 were taken a bit late.  It is so nice to have him back!  We spent the 4th of July weekend in Dallas with our friends and family and took some time out on Saturday to register at Babies R Us.  I've gotta tell you, registering for baby things is not nearly as fun/easy as it was to register for our wedding.  There are so many options, you never know if the baby will like or use all of the gear you pick, and the safety rankings are important to know as well.  We have been using a book called Baby Bargains when looking at baby things.

I purchased this book a month or two ago to help us rank different brands and determine what items are really necessary.  The book covers items from cribs to strollers and gives information about the reliability of the brands as well as the safety rankings/features.  The stroller and car seat options available are so daunting that we have yet to pick what we want.  These sections in the book are quite long and we just haven't taken the time to read all of it and form our opinions.  We made a real dent in our registry though, so we are happy to have that checked off of our list of things to do.

We still need to pick out the rest of the furniture for the nursery: the glider and the dresser.  I feel like we have seen all of the furniture available at the baby stores, so I am anxious to look at a few regular furniture stores just to compare prices and see if once it isn't labeled "baby" if the prices will be lower.  One thing we can't decide is if a 3 drawer dresser would provide enough space for The Bean's things, or if we need to go with a double dresser.  We think that the small space we are using for the nursery will fit either size, but of course, the smaller one would probably be a little better.

We have about three months (give our take, obviously) to get all of this figured out and finalized.  And, being the planner that I am, having most of it done the sooner the better will help me sleep at night!

25 Weeks

This post is extremely late, and the pictures were taken marginally late, but here they are...

The Bean (who's name is almost decided upon) was about 13 1/2 inches long and about 1 1/2 pounds in weight - about the length of an ear of corn.  His main goal for the rest of pregnancy is to bulk up, which i am guessing means I, too will be gaining weight at a faster pace.

Happy 25 weeks baby bean!