31-36 Weeks Plus Nursery Pics!

Well, I’ll be 37 weeks tomorrow, which is actually full term.  Third trimester has definitely been challenging.  I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes.  On top of that, I wasn’t able to control it with diet alone, so my doctor put me on insulin.  Therefore in addition to pricking my finger 4 times per day, I have to give myself insulin shots 3 times per day.  The shots are actually really easy.  And insulin is magical!  My blood sugar numbers have been pretty much spot on ever since adding insulin.  Of course constantly thinking about what I’m eating and how it’ll affect my blood sugar is no fun!  I can’t wait to be able to eat whatever I want.  I have been able to enjoy some treats at my showers, just have to watch it.

Anyway, in other “side effect news”, did you know that pregnancy can cause carpal tunnel syndrome?  A few weeks ago, I started waking up with really sore wrists and couldn’t grab things.  Now I get to wear wrist splints while sleeping to help with that.  The number of random things that are “pregnancy related” just blow my mind!  Don’t get me started on the size of my feet . . .

With three weeks left until the Little One’s arrival, we have now finished setting up the nursery!  Here are some progression photos taking the room from our office full of random junk to a functional nursery:

BEFORE (full of junk)

Cleaned!

Painted! (Matt did that while I was out of town one weekend, how sweet!!)

Full of shower presents

Now organized and fully set up:

And here are some bump progression pics.  I definitely feel very large these days.

Rounding Third!

And heading for home!  Hard to believe that I’m 3/4 of the way through pregnancy!  When did that happen!?!

The last month has been busy with cleaning up the house and going to childbirth class.  I have the best husband, who willingly woke up early for 5+ hours at the hospital on two Saturdays to learn all about “how to have a baby”.  The topics varied from relaxation techniques to epidurals (bring on the drugs) to learning the stages of labor and about different options we may have.  My selling point for getting him to wake up was that he could eat lunch at the hospital cafeteria.  Unfortunately not all of the fun stations were open, so it wasn’t quite the draw I was expecting.  During our last session, we had to take cards with options and choose which ones we preferred.  Then we had to slowly whittle them down to what was the most important.  As it should be, all of the couples chose “healthy baby” as the number one outcome we would like in regards to childbirth.  Below are what we started with:

We whittled our preferences down to: healthy baby, doctor, hospital, and epidural.

I hit third trimester about 27 weeks, and my “feeling good” body immediately went away.  At the moment, my worst “symptom” is back pain.  Specifically in my middle back when I’m sitting hunched over in certain chairs (like during my 1.25 hr math class), and it’s exacerbated by chairs that have inadequate back support.  Once I get sore, it usually doesn’t subside until the next morning.

My other big development is that I’ve developed gestational diabetes.  I failed my 1 hour glucose test, and then failed my 3 hour glucose test, both in spectacular fashion.  So now I’m trying to control it with diet and monitoring my blood sugar.  I’m two days in, and it hasn’t been going well, so it’s rather frustrating.  Hopefully my body is just adjusting to the new diet, and I won’t have to start taking insulin or other drugs.

Here’s a progression of recent bump pictures.  I feel like my long torso made the bump not so big until recently.  It’s definitely been commented on by colleagues and strangers now.

So, we have about 9.5 weeks left.  We have a few more things to finish up the nursery (at least until baby comes) like getting a ceiling fan and a glider.  Other big “adult” things include finding a pediatrician, writing a will, and looking into life insurance.  So boring, yet completely necessary.  Just 4 weeks left in the semester, too!!  April is going to be a busy month!

Happy V-Day!

Yes, Valentine’s Day is coming up, but I’m talking about Viability Day!  At 24 weeks, babies are considered viable meaning doctors will take extensive medical measures to help the baby survive outside the womb.  A baby born at 24 weeks has a 39% chance of survival.  Of course, we’d love for the Little One to stay cooking for another four months.

Highlights from Weeks 21-24:

• I’ve been feeling the baby since about week 19ish.  Matt has now officially felt it, too!!  At 23 weeks, I was laying on the couch and realized that I could finally feel the baby from the outside.  Not wanting to startle the kid, I whispered for Matt to come over and put his hand on my stomach.  When the baby finally kicked, Matt was like “Is that it?”  He thought that I might be tricking him and just making a muscle twitch.  Nope!  That was it!  I’ve always thought that feeling a baby inside would be creepy, like the alien in Alien.  But so far it’s been kind of neat, also reassuring to keep feeling it.  Of course, I’m still not so excited about other people feeling it.  I really don’t want strangers to be all up in my business!
• I got to visit with friends and see my high school friend, Jeff, as an Angel (Drag Queen) in the National Tour of Kinky Boots!  It was awesome!  And my friends got to see the bump!!  So much fun in Nashville!  Friend is the guy still in drag makeup in the middle.  I’m the obviously pregnant one on the left.  Actually Jeff and I “dated” in high school.  Someone joked about how funny it is going to see your ex-boyfriend’s show while you’re knocked up with someone else’s kid. 😛  Love you, Jeffy!

• Not much else is going on.  We’ve started our registry.  I’m taking it slow just doing a few big things at a time.  I think Matt is sick of our weekend trips to Babies R Us though.

Bump Pictures!  I feel like the bump didn’t grow from Weeks 18-23, then this week it’s considerably bigger.  I’m wearing the same shirt in the 21 Weeks and 24 Weeks picture, and I think the difference is noticeable! Also, I have no idea what my finger is doing in the 22 Weeks picture.  Perhaps I subconsciously think that the Little One is a boy.

We’re Having a Baby! Half Baked Little One

So . . . about this blog thing.  Maybe I’ll start it up again to document the pregnancy.  Although I’ve missed half of it.  Here goes nothing.

Baby T is due in June!  Which means that he/she is already half baked!  Highlights from the first half of pregnancy:

• Finding out.  DUH!  I POAS (peed on a stick) using a cheap Wondfo pregnancy test a few days before my period was due.  The line was super faint, but as those who have gone through the TTC (trying to conceive) journey will know, a line is a line.  It was a Tuesday morning, and I had to sit through math class before racing home to POAS with an First Response Early Response.
• Telling Matt.  No it wasn’t fun or romantic.  I was flipping out that Tuesday morning/afternoon.  Called/texted him throughout that time.  When I left school to go test more, he responded “How are you going to survive 9 months if you’re already this excited!?!”
• Telling our parents:  Nope, nothing fun either.  Just a phone call to my mom and dad over the weekend.  Told Matt’s parents in person, since they live in town.-
• Going to Disney World with my girlfriends (one of whom was also pregnant!)  Not going to lie.  Not being able to drink at the Wine & Food Festival and not being able to ride all the fun rides were bummers, but I loved having a great time with my gal pals and chatting about baby stuff.

• Our first appointment:  We had to wait until 9 weeks to go to the doctor.  As they say “Nine weeks is a long time put all your faith in a pink line.”  I teared up when we finally saw our little blob on screen.  You can totally tell it’s a baby, right? 😛
• Telling our friends and extended families:  After the 12 week appointment, I started calling friends.  It was so much fun.  Especially when another one of my friends sent me a message informing me that she was pregnant.  I had to call her and laugh while saying “I was just about to tell you the same thing!”  We’re only 3 weeks apart, which is nuts!!  We told my extended family at Thanksgiving.  Trying to tell my “hard of hearing” grandma was hilarious.  I was literally shouting into the phone.  Finally she figured it out.
• Sharing it with other pregnant friends and family.  As I’ve mentioned two of my very close friends are also due this spring/summer.  I don’t know if I’m just noticing it more or what, but I swear there are so many friends and family that are pregnant right now.  I’m sure our age has something to do with as well, but it’s so nice to share this experience with all of them!  I get to learn from friends who are on their second or third kid, and then share in the new excitement with those who are pregnant with their first kid like I am.
• Posting it on Facebook.  Ah, yes, the days of social media.  Nothing is official until we put it on facebook.  Once our close friends and family (and my advisor) knew, I decided to finally put it on the book of face.  I wanted something fun, but wasn’t sure how to approach it.  I tossed around ideas involving the dog but figured it’d be easiest to use some baby pictures of Matt and me that I already had on the computer.  Plus who doesn’t like a good math problem?  The entire Photoshop endeavor took about 1.5 hours.  Well with another few minutes, because at first I said that the baby was due June 2013.  Can I chalk that up to pregnancy brain?

• Taking a “babymoon” to Florida:  Matt really needed a vacation, so we spent 5 days in Clearwater Beach, Florida.  The biggest highlight was going to Orlando for an evening to cheer on Clemson as they annihilated Oklahoma!

• The 20 week ultrasound:  This is the big one where you get to find out the sex of the baby if you want to.  We don’t.  Well really, I don’t, and my opinion counts the most.  😉  We had to look away during the appointment, and it was so strange knowing that a person in the room knew, but we didn’t!  Here’s a straight on pic of the little one.  You can see his/her hands up by their face.  During the ultrasound, Little One was waving at us.

So when you announce that you’re pregnant, you get a lot of the same questions.  Here’s some answers:

How are you feeling? My first symptom was (TMI) sore boobs.  I didn’t get nausea until I was 7 weeks, which just happened to be the weekend in Disney World.  Mostly my nausea would coincide with being too hungry or too full.  I never threw up . . . until my strong gag reflex kicked in weeks 12-14.  It was only when brushing my teeth, but it was awful.  I’m so glad that passed.  I was also really sleepy during the first trimester.  Traveling takes a lot out of me.  The weekend at Disney practically killed me, like I thought I’d been run over by a truck.  Luckily, I’m a student with a “flexible schedule” who could take naps in the middle of the day.  My only other major symptom has been acid reflux.  I’ve never had it before, so I feel like a big baby.  But I learned to take Zantac if necessary and avoid certain triggers (e.g. dark chocolate, fruit juices, soda, fried foods).

Any cravings? For awhile there in the early second trimester, I was craving red meat.  I am not a red meat person, so it was weird.  But I found this place that had filet bites with a horseradish dipping sauce and basically found heaven.  In the first trimester, I was just really influenced by foods people would talk about.  I’d see an Olive Garden commercial and want pasta.  Oh and cereal.  Lots of cereal.  I swear from listening to all my other pregnant friends, cereal is like the #1 pregnancy food.  Most of us can put away a box of cereal in a few days.

What will April think? Honestly, she’s going to be annoyed that she’s not an only child any more.  We hope that she will love her new brother or sister and cover them with kisses and white dog hair (like much of our house).  And try not to steal their stuffed animals.  Seriously, she has been wonderful with all the young children she’s been around so far, so we hope she’ll be just as great around the new baby.

Are you finding out the sex? See above.  NOPE!   I am a big “Team Green”-er.  I’ve always been someone who doesn’t want to find out.  Part of my reasoning was due to the fact that the technician could be wrong.  Of course, this day and age that doesn’t happen, right?  Well at a baby shower last summer, THREE DIFFERENT PEOPLE told stories of the technician being wrong.  Usually they say it’s a girl, and the baby ends up being a boy.  Much easier to see a verify seeing a certain appendage that accidentally not seeing it.  Anyway, I also like the surprise of it all.

Those are pretty much the questions that I got over and over again as the news spread.  Basically could have typed up a response card and handed it out to people.

I’ll leave you with a bump progression.  Since it’s my first baby, it took a while for the bump to show up.  Plus, I have a ridiculously long torso, so I think I hide it pretty well.  I don’t have any pictures before 14 weeks, because I just looked normal.

 

 

Two Year Anniversary

Can you believe it’s been 2 years since we said “I Do”?  I took the day off to run some errands and such before our anniversary date.  April let me sleep in before going on a long walk.  It’s gotten pretty hot and humid down here in Knoxville, so April gets tired during her walk.  She actually sat down and panted heavily today, making our walk about 10 minutes longer than usual.

After our walk, we came home and heard a knock on the door.  At first, I thought that April had knocked something over upstairs.  But no, there was a box of flowers from my awesome husband.

I ran some errands and then came home just before Matt got home for work.  We lost power for 45 minutes due to severe thunderstorms in the area.  It got pretty stuff in the house, but luckily we didn’t lose anything in the fridge.  We went down to Market Square for dinner. It is my favorite part of Knoxville.  We ate at Bella Luna, which appears to be the only Italian restaurant in town that serves gnocchi.  It was pretty good.  Nothing to write home about, but good food and good service.  After dinner, we headed to Café 4, since I had a BOGO on their cupcakes.  YAY CUPCAKES!  We came home for cupcakes and champagne to celebrate our second anniversary, like we did at our reception.

The cupcakes were actually pretty good.  I’ve been underwhelmed by them so far, but these were moist and great frosting!

We settled in to watch a video of our reception.  It’s pretty special to us, made more so recently by the passing of my stepdad’s brother, who was the cameraman for us.  Matt doesn’t love watching himself on television, but it’s fun to see our family and friends.  It was a great Second Anniversary.  YAY!  Matt’s the best.

6 Months

Yup, it’s been over 6 months, since I’ve updated.  In that time, we’ve moved into a house, and I’ve finished the first two semesters as a PhD student.  All A’s!!  Oh yeah!

Well, I think I might try to this blogging thing again, so let’s start with a tour of the house including what we’ve been up to with decorating it.

DINING ROOM:

Before (lots of unpacked boxes)

After

UPDATE:  Here’s a photo with pictures on the wall!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We painted it (Valspar Motor City Blue) and added picture frame wainscoting.  That beautiful corner china hutch was a hand-me-down from Matt’s grandmother.  I love it!  For the wainscoting, I followed this tutorial.  My only words of wisdom are: we nailed in the top of the box, then put glue on the other three pieces and moved them around until they fit.  Then we nailed them in place.  This helped when the pieces weren’t 100% exactly cut correctly.  I love the way it all turned out!

KITCHEN:

Before

After

We painted the kitchen (and living room) Cincinnatian Hotel Lindner Blue.  The hallway was already painted Cincinnatian Hotel Nichols Taupe (as a Cincinnatian, I took that as a sign from God), so we kept with the same collection.  As I was painting, I was really worried that the color was too purple.  I couldn’t even sleep the night after I did it, sick with worry.  Luckily, the more I look at it, the more I love it.  Thank goodness, because taping the kitchen took 6 hours.  I don’t ever want to do that again!!  I love how the wall color goes perfectly with the countertops.

LIVING ROOM:

Before

After

I love the way that the wall color looks with the white plantation shutters!

HALF BATH:

Before

After

YUCK!  This was our first room to paint.  What a horrible faux finish!?!  We just painted it the same color as the hall way (Valspar Cincinnatian Hotel Nichols Taupe).  And that picture is something that I bought about 7 years ago, and I finally found a great place to hang it up.  YAY!

READING ROOM:

Before:

After

I apologize for the mess.  BUT WHO PAINTS A ROOM THAT HORRIBLE ORANGE!?!  The only excuse is if you’re a Texas Longhorns Fan.  YUCK!  Again, since the room is really open to the foyer and hallway, we painted the room Nichols taupe.

MASTER BEDROOM:

Before

After

Not too much here.  We hung up some pictures and then BOUGHT NEW FURNITURE!!  We’re trying to be adults and stuff.  Both of us have been using the same dressers since college, so we splurged on some Amish solid wood dressers.  We hope to add matching nightstands and a bedframe, soon.

MASTER BATH

We truly haven’t done much other than add some towel bars.  I’m hanging up some new pictures as we speak.  Stay tuned!

GUEST ROOM

A need to update the picture, but  just a full size bed.  This quilt (and the one in our bedroom) were both made by my mom.

GUEST BATH

DUCKS EVERY WHERE!!

OFFICE

Pretty blah.

LAUNDRY

In Tennessee, not many houses have basements, which I believe is due to the rock profile beneath the soil.  So our laundry is on the second floor. Hella convenient!

BACKYARD

April’s favorite part.  She spends most of her time out there.  It’s not big, but big enough.  The holly trees give privacy from the neighbors.  We hope to get some patio furniture and enjoy summer evenings out there, soon.

So that’s the house.  We painted most of the first floor and none of the second (aside from patching holes).  Now that it’s nicer, we’re working a lot in the yard.

What have y’all been up to?  Fun house projects?

Wreathing

With our impending home ownership (closing in 3 days!), I’ve been itching to do some DIY.  Since we haven’t moved in yet, I have to focus on “non-painting the walls” activities.  After Purdue’s epic collapse against Ohio State last week (don’t even get me started on our failures this week), I decided to channel my anger into crafting.  I made an 8pm trip to Michaels for some wreath-making supplies.

Of course Pinterest is the source for all crafting inspiration these days.  My inspiration for a autumn wreath was from this pin:

So I purchased a grapevine wreath, some shiny ornaments, smaller little sparkly balls (AKA festive vase filler), and leaves.  I even found some sparkly pumpkins and gourds which were on clearance from Halloween!

When I first started to glue the ornaments on the wreath, Matt was skeptical.

That’s his skeptical face.  Or it could have been his “Anne, it’s midnight!  I’m tired!  Football is over!” face.  April just likes to use her dad’s bum as a pillow.

Anyway, after a bunch of hot gluing, here’s the final product!

I’m so pleased with it!  And even though you can’t see it very well, I love the sparkly orangey ribbon that I now have a giant spool of.  Just need to figure out what to do with it.

While I was getting my crafting on, I also made a Christmas wreath.  This one is based off of this pin:

I bought a bunch of sparkly Christmas ribbon (there’s just something about sparkles) and a foam wreath.

First I wrapped the wreath in the red sparkle ribbon for a background and made a bunch of little fabric loops.

Then came gluing, gluing, and more gluing.  Voila!

It turned out a little bit more regular than I wanted it to.  But considering I had a glue gun in one hand and a glass of wine in the other (Hey, I was mourning the loss of my football dignity), I think it looks superb!

Of course, I actually had a bunch of little fabric loops left.  So on Friday, I stopped by Joann’s to find a small wreath or something.  That’s where I found  them.  FOAM TREES!

Wouldn’t these guys look perfect with sparkly Christmas fabric loops?  Unfortunately, I only had enough to cover the small two.  But I think they look pretty festive (if not a bit chubby).

In lieu of an awkward point at the top of the tree that looked strange, I decided to abscond two of our Christmas ball ornaments to use as tree toppers.

There’s my adventure into crafting.   WOO HOO!  We’re ready to decorate our new house for the upcoming holidays!

Made anything fun lately?  Do you do crafts at midnight and then take pictures with awful lighting?

The Good Runs

Today we had one of those runs.  One of the good ones.  The kind that make the other horrible, crappy runs worth it.  Thank goodness!  I’ll be honest; our training for the half-marathon hasn’t been the greatest.  Our September was absolutely insane.  Between our weird schedules (Matt’s long days, my late classes), our living situation (being out in east bu-fu), and LOOKING FOR A HOUSE TO BUY!!, we have been crazy busy.  So we’ve done about 2/3 of the runs that we were supposed to do.  Our first runs were terrible.  I think I’m not built for running in the heat and humidity of east Tennessee.  At least, I’m not acclimated to it.  I mean, the last time I was training was January in Boston.  So our runs haven’t been the greatest, but we’ve been doing the miles (mostly). 

Anyway, yay for finally a good run!  They’ve been few and far between these days.

So about that buying a house thing, it took use about a month (and one losing out on a house) to find one that we liked.  We put an offer on it; they accepted.  We just had our inspection last week, and everything went pretty well.  We’re looking at closing in four weeks.  That’s Halloween!  I’m wondering if it’ll be a great way to meet our new neighbors.  “Hey kids!  Take a candy bar!  But first, carry this box into the house.  Thanks!”  We’re so excited to be moving in four weeks.  Four weeks left of doing our dishes by hand.  Four weeks left of doing the laundry in the garage with Matt’s car in the way.  Four weeks left of having to drive April to a place to go walking.  Four weeks left until we can unpack our boxes and find all of our kitchen utensils.  Don’t get me wrong, our situation has been convenient, but we’re so excited to be moving into our own home!  Our first home!

April is excited, too.  Her September was a bit stressful.  She’s not so happy about her short walks.  Although she loves our neighbors’ horses.  She even gave herself a hot spot and had to wear a cone for a little bit.

But now she is excited for fall (and her own backyard, that she doesn’t know about despite us telling her everyday).

That is her excited face.

How was your September?  Exciting things happening in October? Any good runs?

The Great Outdoors

Well, it’s definitely been an adjustment moving to Tennessee from Boston.  At the moment we are staying at a family house in the country while we look for a house to buy (an adventure unto itself).  While we are incredibly grateful for this opportunity, it means that walking April is a bit trickier.  See there’s not much of a road for our house (although there are horses to visit), so we have to drive about 15 minutes to find a decent path to give her a long walk.  However, five minutes down the road is a beautiful natural area.  The hike is pretty intense.  It’s 0.8 miles up to the overlook, and you gain 1000 feet in elevation.  The trail is pretty steep at points and then incredibly rocky.  April does pretty well at it for a short legged doggy!

My first two attempts at the hike, the bugs bothered me too much.  Two weeks ago, April and I made it to the top (thanks to Off bug spray).  Our trip up took about 1 hour and then 45 minutes on the way down.  It was definitely warmer that day.  Today, with the wonderful fall weather, Matt and I took April up to the top in 45 minutes!!  And we remembered a camera!

I feel like there should be a Lion King reference here.  “Everything the light touches is yours!”

Matt and April at the overlook!  It’s 2100 feet above sea level.

HAPPY TIRED PUPPY!!

On the way back down, there were lots of people on the trail.  April decided to jump up on a rock to get out of the way.

I feel as if she’s looking down at her subjects in this picture.

The hike is really challenging, but it tuckers the puppy out!  I wish that I had more time on weekdays to take her up there more often.  Maybe we’d even condition ourselves to get faster.  It’s seriously like nature’s stairmaster at some points.

What did you do on your Sunday?

Running Shorts Sunday!

So, Matt and I will be running the Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon in Savannah at the beginning of November.  We are two weeks into our training (two ugly weeks), and I have a dilemma.  A clothing dilemma.  See, I’ve only run in pants or capris.  If I wear shorts, the inseam of the shorts creeps up, and I get what I lovingly to refer to as “chub rub”.  It’s chafing of my inner thighs.  I’d like to blame my slender hips for this phenomenon.  The thighs just have no where to go.  My running friends that I asked for advice apparently discussed my issue on Friday night and back up my slender hip claim.

Anyway, now that we’re in Tennessee which is so humid and feels like the face of the sun at the moment, I thought that I might try shorts to keep cooler.  So I went out on a $17 limb and bought a pair of running shorts.

(source)

I maybe should have tried them on in the store, but I had to get to class.  They have a 2 1/2” inseam and felt like they had a lower waist than I am used to.  Not going to lie, I like to pull my pants up like Urkel.

So I took these babies on a test run this afternoon, and NO GO!  I only did 3 miles, before I had to cry uncle from the chub rub.  Granted I didn’t use any body glide, which might have helped, but I’m not sure.  One of my friends has recommended to me some $50 lululemon shorts.  I’m not sure if I should take the plunge, although if I buy another pair of shorts that don’t work, I might as well have spent the $50.

(source)

Does anybody else have issues with chafing?  Any suggestions for clothing?  Should I just get laser fat removal from my inner thighs?  Either that or birth a child in order to widen my hips?  Thoughts?