Project Nursery: Day 3

I am SO excited right now! Hunter's furniture came in a whole six weeks early, and of course I begged and begged for Tim to pick it up as soon as possible!  It is even prettier and nicer than I remember, and I can't wait for more nursery goodies to arrive!

Here is a picture of the first thing to go up, the window cornice box and the curtains. We have had this up for a while, but I didn't want to put up a picture of just one tiny thing! Also notice that the crown moulding is all up, Tim and Jason did a wonderful job. It is amazing at how one little thing makes a huge difference in a room!

Tonight, we got the furniture assembled....

We also put the bedding in the crib...

And we (and here when I say 'we' I mean Tim...) moved the furniture around to all of the different configurations that the room would allow and decided where the furniture would go. I know that when he can stand in the crib, something needs to move, either the curtains or the crib, but for now this is where it is going...

On the wall across from the window is the door. To the right of the door is the nightstand (not pictured for some reason), and to the right of that, angled near the dresser/hutch will be the glider. We are waiting to order it because we are hoping for Babies R Us gift cards so that we can put it towards the glider/rocker. I know once we get it, I will probably sit in his room and imagine what life will be like in a matter of weeks, so it is probably good that it is not here yet, haha!

Now the question is... Where do I put the letters for his name? I ordered a set off of Etsy, and I am worried they are too large now. I am for sure thinking they are too large to center over the crib, which I already knew, but I was thinking they could be centered on the wall over his crib, but now that can't happen because the crib had to be a little closer to the window than I anticipated. I can put them over the hutch, centered on that wall, but that means I need something perfect to go above the crib since I have been thinking that area will have the name 'Hunter' sprawled across it for so long now.  Oh well, I guess that just means more Etsy shopping for me!

Also, I am totally aware that the wood on the window cornice box is many shades lighter than the furniture. I am thinking that when we get more wall decor up, it will look ok. I knew that it would be much darker, but the metal accents on the box almost match the furniture exactly so I thought it would flow.... Any thoughts?

26 weeks

Finally! On time for the first time in a month or so! I am 26 weeks today, and that means only one more week until I am in the third trimester and home stretch of this pregnancy! 

We had our 3-D ultrasound this week and heard, yet again, what a little stinker he is! He kept his head in the placenta the whole times, and when he wasn't doing that, he had his arms, hands, and sometimes legs in the way! He wasn't overly active which is usually the problem, but when he would move.... it was totally not what we wanted! Boy has some spunk! When I look at this picture, it is all totally obvious what body parts are which, but I was looking at the same picture upside down on the kitchen counter last night and I swore it was a picture of nothing. It's like one of those Magic Eye pictures, haha!  We did get to see him yawn once, and suck on his thumb for a bit. While I am still glad that we did it, I think that patience would have been a virtue in this case. Our package comes with two sessions, one earlier on and one at 30-36 weeks, so we scheduled ourselves for 32 weeks. Hopefully he will be a little less camera shy, and be able to show us smiles, yawns, stretches, and eyes opening!

As for symptoms, here are the updates:

• Sciatic Pain- after about two days sleeping on my side, with a pillow in between my knees on a firm mattress, my back and sciatic pain is gone! I am so relieved to have found something that works! A few nights ago, I tried sleeping on my back with a pillow under my knees and woke up at 2 with terrible pain again. That next night, I slept the 'tried and true' way, and felt 99% better!

• Heartburn- Tums are one of my best friends. I have a baggie in my purse, the bottle by my air mattress, and some in my classroom. Where ever I go, I am covered!

• Movement- He is moving a ton! Today I felt him all day and all over the place. Some kicks above my belly button, some way down low, Tim even felt something poking out (foot, hand, elbow, knee?). I am getting some sliding movement feelings, along with pressing motions, like his head is pushed across one side of my belly. I have even gotten multiple movements at once!

• Braxton Hicks- I am pretty sure that I have started to get these... I am feeling the whole front of my belly harden, tighten, and it just flat out feels different! It is either that, or he is pushing his entire back and head across my whole belly for about 20 second intervals. Either way, weird stuff is happening!

• Placement- At our ultrasound, we found out that he is head down, facing my belly (I believe this is called 'Frank Breech') and I have an anterior placenta which means that it is right across the front. I am surprised that I have been feeling so much movement when my placenta is kind of cushioning things in there. 

• Weight Gain/Belly Measurement- Measuring right at 36 inches and weighing in at +9 pounds. Still growing!!

• Swelling- So far, I have not had any swelling anywhere. I am a little surprised, but totally happy about this! Ok- wait, I wrote that, and then was thinking about how my face looks fat in all the pictures of myself lately, so maybe my face is swollen a little... Crossing my fingers that my nose doesn't spread or swell, as I have read that it can happen. There was too much money and time recovering spent on this sniffer to be stretched and widened with pregnancy swelling!

• Looking forward to? Setting up his nursery!!! We ordered our furniture around the beginning of the year, and were told it would take 12 weeks. I get a call this week-end (only 6 weeks later), and am told that it is already in! I am BEYOND excited! I have been saying that I am at a standstill until his furniture gets here, but that is not going to be the case much longer. After it is all set up, I can decide which drawers I want what things in, put away some clothes, put the bedding on, decide what color/size bins I am going to need to order for storage. 

No belly picture this week! I have a severe ear infection, it ruptured my eardrum :( , and I think Hunter's picture is cute enough to stand alone this week!

24 and 25 Weeks Pregnant!

Yes, late again, in fact... I am so late that I have to do two weeks together!

I have been feeling so sick this week that even coming to my blogger account seems daunting! It's not even pregnancy related, just a cold, but I am seriously wiped out! Normally, I would take off a day, SLEEP, and feel about 90% better the next day. Seriously, I have done this about once a year since I have been teaching and the day of sleep works wonders! That can't happen this week, though, because I am already low on days, and each appointment brings me half a day closer to my limit of ten days this year. 

Speaking of appointments, I was super happy with my appointment on Monday (the official 24 week mark)! I didn't have to wait too terribly long, and the parenting magazines were enough to keep me company. She actually asked me questions rather than the other way around. We talked about pediatricians,  Hunter's movements, Braxton Hicks, and next appointment's glucose test. She measured the uterus using the handy dandy measuring tape... exactly 24 centimeters which is what week I am on so he is smack dab in the middle of where he needs to be yet again. She also said that after the glucose test we will have an ultrasound to measure his growth. Also, that will put me in the third trimester, which means appointments every two weeks instead of four! I can't believe how fast this is all going, I am really enjoying pregnancy!

Since I have two weeks of updating to do, I have more things to talk about. 

• Movements- I am still feeling tons of movement, he kind of has a pattern, but every time I feel like I have it nailed down, he won't move at his 'scheduled' time and I get worried! This past week I have been feeling different movements which is really exciting for me! I have felt some sliding movements, where I am guessing his feet, hands, or possibly elbows are sliding across my belly. It's only for a couple of inch stretches, but totally different than jabs with kicks and punches. I am also feeling him push straight against my belly wall. The first time happened at night and I had just rolled to my left side. I felt the right half of my uterus get super tight feeling and I thought it may be a Braxton-Hicks contraction, but when I laid on my back and felt around I could feel a hard ball about the size of my fist smashed up against the side of my belly. I am guessing it was either his head or little tush, but I couldn't tell. Since that night, I have had that feeling multiple times and can feel the same fist sized ball up against my stomach. I am also having movements in multiple places at once, not at the exact same moment, but about a second apart. When the movement started, I could him kick in one place at a time pretty much, but now, I may feel some movements in the lower left side, then a second later feel some on the lower right side or even upper side. It makes me feel better to know that he is moving around a lot more in there!

• Heartburn- this is in full swing this week. I smuggled a little tupperware container of Tums from my parents house to see how well they worked for me. Well, they worked so well that when I ran out, Tim was making a late night run to CVS to get some more!

• Sciatic Pain- O. M.G. This is terrible! Backstory- when I was about 17 I flipped a four-wheeler and really messed up my back. About a year later, the pain started in my leg, I couldn't stretch it and I couldn't sit for long periods of time. This was right before I left for school, and as the first two years of college ticked away, the pain got worse and worse. During these two years, I had a few MRI's done, 5 cortizone injections, but in the end the only things that worked was to have back surgery. By the time I actually went in for the surgery, I could barely walk, my leg was always numb, and I was in severe pain all the time. I woke up and felt like a new person and it was AMAZING! Skip forward 6 years to being pregnant with a 'low-rider' baby, and I spent a few days in just as much pain as I had been in right before my surgery. (With the actual injury of slipped and ruptured disks, it got worse and worse. Now, I wake up one day and have a baby laying on my sciatic nerve so it started right away). I researched and researched found that may websites suggest sleeping on a firm mattress.... so while hubby snoozes away in our king sized bed, I am sleeping on an air mattress on the floor. It is a nice big one, and it gets super firm, but it still feels weird not to be sleeping in bed next to Tim. The bright side is that each day my sciatic pain in considerably less and less, and today (25 weeks, 2 days), I didn't have any pain at all!

• Hunger- I am still not one of those pregnant women who want to eat all the time. I can eat breakfast when I wake up, eat lunch at 10:30 (yes, kindergarten lunch is at 10:30...), then have a tiny snack (we're talking a few crackers) at about 2:00, and eat dinner when I get home. I am not eating excessively, and don't find myself needing a second dinner. I am noticing that when I do get a big plate in front of me with something I like, I tend to eat too much and before I realize it, it is backing up into my esophagus or something! The other day, I went to a movie with friends and had been so in the mood for popcorn. I ate half of the medium bag in about 10 minutes, and about 5 minutes after that, I felt miserable and like I was overfilled (literally) with popcorn. It happened again at my favorite restaurant, Pappasito's, and I didn't realize it until we were in the car on the way home from dinner. I am making sure to keep a better feel for when I am actually full!

• Headaches- I have not had any headaches in about a month and it is awesome! It feels so wonderful not to have a pounding head!

• Pee Breaks- I am definitely going pee much more than I ever did before. I am usually up at 2:00 in the morning to go, but luckily I am not up multiple times in the middle of the night! Embarrassing fact, today (25 weeks, 2 days) I accidentally sneeze-peed. Seriously, is this going to happen more and more? Do I need to keep an extra pair of pants in my classroom? 

• Sense of Smell- This has gotten out of control. The other day I made Tim take out the quarter full trash can, because I swore it just reeked. He had his face in the can and couldn't smell anything. I am also smelling dog food everywhere I go in the house. Granted, you never know where Sophie could have dragged a piece of food before she got around to eating it. 

• Looking Forward to- We have a 3D ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow!!! I am beyond excited!! 

• Belly Measurement/Weight Gain- I have started measuring my belly because I am really curious about the actual growth measurement. I started at 24 weeks 5 days in the evening, and got a measurement of just over 36 inches. The next morning I measured in at exactly 35. This pattern continued for a few days, so I have decided just to measure in the mornings! This morning I measured in at 36 inches! I have never been so excited to see waist growth! As for weight, I was up 7 pounds at 24 weeks, and up 8 pounds at 25 weeks. One pound a week is good for me!