Tyler and Me in our skeleton costumes. They
turned out pretty good if I do say so myself!

Fetus up close and personal!

What a busy day at work!  Today Tyler and I wore our skeleton shirts to work to make it more festive and since we didn’t have much other occasion to wear them and show off my hard work! Unfortunately I didn’t really see many people, let alone anyone that knew me except for a few people and none of which were all that impressed with my shirt… oh well.  I will have to come up with another reason to wear it in the near future!

So backing up a bit, this weekend we did some fun Halloween activities. Friday, Tyler and I stayed in and watched movies.  Saturday we had a bit more going on. Glory got groomed by our neighbor who owns her own mobile grooming business, Dig Grooming, and Glory looked fabulous!  I stayed home to clean and Tyler went to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner and snacks.  We had Tony, Katie, Brandon and the kiddos over for dinner and pumpkin carving (and painting).  It was a fun time.  Tyler, Glory, Lu and I wore our skeleton costumes just for the heck of it.

Skeleton Lu

Skeleton Glory

Tyler, Me, Tony, Marlee, Brandon with Carmen and Katie with Rogan and our expertly carved pumpkins!

Sunday Tyler and I went to a few places to look for nursery furniture.  We found a lot of good options but are going to wait for the Black Friday sales.  It’s a good thing we started looking now though because it takes 8 - 12 weeks for delivery!!! That is a whole trimester!!!  After shopping around, we headed home and stopped to grab some dinner on the way. Once we got home, we pretty much zonked out.  At about 6:30pm we climbed into bed and watched TV until we fell asleep.  Talk about the exact definition of “Lazy Sunday”! It was wonderful… even though Tyler somehow managed to get my mind off of measuring out the nursery and figuring out furniture locations as was the original plan!

As for tonight, Halloween, I came home after work and saw quite a few kids running around the neighborhood so in hopes that I could somehow entice a few back to our house in the dark private road, I turned on all of our lights and put our pumpkins out in all their carved and lighted glory… but to no avail, we went trick-or-treat-less.  I suppose the Microsoft sponsored trick-or-treating will have to be enough since we live down a dark and scary private road! Scratch that! Just as I typed that I got a whole slew of kids (ok, so about 5-7 kids, but still)! YAY! My lighting and jack-o-lanterns worked!  It’s just enough and not quite as much as my mom used to do every once in a while with lining the road with twinkle lights (but I’m not going to lie, the thought of doing that ran through my head).  Now if I was actually more prepared, I’d have put Glory in her Thundershirt, but since I really didn’t think we’d get anyone, the thought didn’t cross my mind and Glory barked at the two times the door got knocked on.  Next year!

Tonight Tyler and I stayed in and relaxed watching movies.  After our movies were over, I was catching up on reading blogs and the baby started kicking.  I had my hands on my tummy and actually could feel it externally! So I called Tyler over quickly and he got to feel the baby kicking for the very first time.  His face lit up and he started immediately talking to the baby.  I can’t wait till that is a consistent thing for us!

Happy Friday!

Here’s the rundown on pregnancy at week 19:

19 Weeks - Pretty sure that my
bump is obvious now - I think it
popped this week!

More proof of the pop! (and not
to mention my cute outfit and
new boots)

• Size of baby: About the size of a mango (aka 6 inches from head to rump and about 8.5 ounces - a half pound!!!)
• Weight gain: I blame it on the travel and poor/over eating but this week I gained 3.5 lbs for a grand total gain of 18.4 lbs. At least now I feel like I can see the gain in my baby bump! Maybe this gain is so much also since I didn’t gain much last week and it’s supposed to be about 1-2 lbs per week from here on out, or so I hear.
• Symptoms experienced: Seeing stars and cramping when I get up too fast and nearly constant pressure in my abdomen.  Also twinge/pressure when readjusting myself sometimes. Oh, and the acne… oi the acne… damn zits in the middle of my forehead are the worst!!!
• How I feel: I feeeeel gooood, let’s go big blue! Ok, so if you went to high school with me you will probably get that, otherwise just ignore me! Really though, I do.  My stomach is definitely growing and is feeling a lot more solid. I actually look pregnant now. In fact the baby got it’s first rubs by TSA at the airport during my time through security since I opted out of the x-ray machine and needed the pat-down.  All the TSA women were a little perplexed on how to search the waistband of my full panel maternity pants that went up to my chest.  Luckily I am a chipper pregnant lady!
• What I’ve been craving: Nothing really.  I’m just hungry in general. I even had the odd experience of waking up at 2 in the morning to go to the bathroom but I also awoke in a cold sweat and slightly shaking like I had a blood sugar drop.  So after I went to the bathroom I laid back down but when I closed my eyes I was seeing stars so I knew I had to trudge to the fridge and get something to eat.  Very odd but at least my body is very clearly telling me what I need to do.
• What I miss: The window seat.  I am unable to endure the minimum five hour flight cross-country without requiring the isle seat so I can take frequent potty breaks during the flight.  Although I have gotten lucky a few times with getting an empty row - no one wants to sit in the back by the toilet except me! Also, I miss not having to wake up with a charlie horse after a flight. I now get them when I travel home and my first night in my bed is awakened by the horrible calf pain in one or both legs.
• Items purchased: Nothing! But my previous purchases are starting to arrive!  We got our first cloth diaper (a FuzziBunz) and the closet dividers and the most exciting - the crib set and looks wonderful in the nursery :) So I have a feeling the nursery furniture will not be a far off purchase!

Here’s the promised summary of my weekend and week!

On Friday I got to fly to Michigan to visit my family for the weekend before heading to Washington DC for a work conference.  My flight was delayed an hour, but other than that it went pretty well.  I even had a whole row to myself and got to lay down and curl up for a short nap.  Upon arrival, my mom was ready and in line to pick me up from the airport to take me to visit Nana where James and my dad were meeting us.

Nana, Me, Mom and James (dad took the picture)

We had a nice visit with Nana and caught up on all of our lives.  After quite a while, all of our stomachs started growling so dad, mom, James and I headed to dinner.  It’s been a long time since we had a family dinner with the four of us and it was nice to relax and catch up over delicious food.  After dinner we went back home and watched some TV and continued talking for a while until Gloria and Ray stopped over to chit chat. It was a nice night and I was exhausted by the time we all headed up to bed.

On Saturday I woke up early (8:30am but think 5:30am PST) and went to see Jesse’s new house and to catch up with her over breakfast.  Her fiancé, Adam, was so sweet and while she was giving me the grand tour, he made breakfast for us before heading to work and boy was it a delicious smörgåsbord! After eating and chatting for a while, I finally left so that Jesse could get some sleep after working her long night shift nursing.

When I got back home, Mom got a call from Nana’s rehab facility letting her know that Nana was just taken to the hospital for heart pains. So our afternoon plans changed from putzing around shopping to heading to the hospital and see what was going on with Nana.  Luckily she was fine but was going to be staying for 24 hour observation.  Mom and I stayed for quite some time visiting and making sure mom was getting the full story on what exactly was going on.

Our afternoon was almost over by that point but we were able to hit up a few stores and at one I found some boots which I had been wanting, so the little bit of shopping was definitely worth while!  At 7pm mom and I met dad and headed to dinner to meet my brother- and sister-in-law, Nick and Sarah, for dinner.  Another night of catching up over food and good conversation was had and when dinner was done, we headed home to watch the amazing Michigan State football game!  We won in the very last second - literally - and it was all very exciting.

Sunday was the end of my Michigan visit and mom drove me back to the airport for my 10am flight to Washington DC. It was quick but very worthwhile trip :)

Now on the work portion of the trip there was a lot less to report.  I arrived around noon on Sunday and once I was settled into my hotel, took a very much needed nap. I slept through the day and woke up for dinner then went back to bed shortly after dinner.  I was exhausted after all the early mornings and late nights on a different time zone, unfortunately they were going to continue (at least the early morning part) for the duration of the trip.

I am not normally a caffeine consumer but at these types of conferences, I drink coffee like the best of ‘em.  However, this time around I couldn’t do that because I am pretty sure the high amounts of caffeine necessary to make a difference would hurt the baby.  So instead, I worked through the burning eyes and long lectures caffeine-less. I just kept telling myself, it’s only three days! I’d have been even worse off if I didn’t come to the eastern time zone early!  To try and help the situation, I made sure to get to bed by 10pm, but it didn’t seem to help much.

The days blurred by and I am now happy to be sitting at the airport on my way home! What a long first half of the week.  I just hope this travel all goes smoothly and to plan.  See ya back in Seattle!

Missing home right now.  Tonight is my last night in Washington D.C. and I am exhausted and want to be home with Tyler, Glory and Lu.  Tomorrow I will write about my wonderful trip to Michigan and the work week here in D.C, but until then I will just go to bed and prepare for another long day even though we finish at 3pm (thank God).

I had my first oddly vivid dream last week on Thursday night (I’ve been too busy to write it down, but it has stuck with me). It was short and sweet and made no sense.

I was getting on a bus - but it must really have been a boat because we went into water - with a bunch of tourists. We were driving/floating alongside Orca whales. Then next thing I know, I am on the back of one of the whales and we are jumping in and out of the water swimming fast and away from the others who are still on the boat. The whale and I turn around to go against the current of the river (yea I don’t know what whales swim in a river either) and we see another whale with its two calves swimming happily the other way. So we turn back around to swim closer to the little family and I wake up.

What on earth could that even begin to mean? It was a very peaceful dream whatever the meaning.  Since I’ve been traveling, I haven’t had any other memorable dreams.

Sumersault Geo Brights
Crib Bedding Set

I gave in. I bought the crib bedding set.  I fell in love with a very cute (and gender neutral) set at Target (click to see more images of this fun set) that will look fabulous in our yellow nursery for our little boy or girl.  The fun colors and bright contrast will be just what our baby needs to develop too (one of Tyler’s main focuses lately). Now we just need to figure out what crib furniture we are going to purchase… all in good time.

Anyway, the main reason I was posting was not to bring up my baby shopping addiction, but rather to show a new baby bump picture!  I thought I would try and limit the pregnancy posts, but it turns out I am depriving all of you… or so a few have told me ;)  So I guess I will do it every week but not necessarily with pictures in my “timeline” outfit… because lets be honest, I’m lazy and don’t want to change just for a picture every week!  But I will give some sort of weekly bump picture because I love you all and also love documenting everything!

So here’s the rundown on pregnancy at week 18:

• Size of baby: About the size of a sweet potato or bell pepper (aka 5.5 inches from head to rump and about 6 ounces)
• Weight gain: a little over half a pound since last week, now a total of 14.9 lbs gained - please don’t audit me, I may have lied a teensy bit last week… but I swear, I will be honest from this point on!
• Symptoms experienced: Not much change from last week.  Lots of pressure in my abdomen and twinges from the round ligaments stretching.
• How I feel: Energized most days. I even went to Zumba this week and let’s just say that I was not the worst one there even being pregnant so I was happy.  Then I got sick and feel like a blob and I want to sleep but can’t get comfortable.
• What I’ve been craving: Still enjoying cream cheese and I finally did get a bagel and cream cheese and our fridge is now stocked with extra for whenever that desire pops up! I’ve also been trying to eat more fruits and veggies again now that I can stomach it and it doesn’t sound God awful. Avocados were on sale finally so I got a few of those :)
• What I miss: Buckling my seat belt without having to adjust it when it gets just tight enough to put too much pressure on my abdomen.
• Best moment: Now knowing I can feel the baby for sure and realizing it in the morning, night and even after eating sometimes!
• Items purchased: I had to add this to the stats because it has become apparent that I cannot help myself! This week besides the crib bedding set mentioned above, I also ordered some cute onesies and blankets from Zulily - they are green and have stars on some (go figure). Previously, I also ordered some other stuff from Zulily that is yet to arrive including closet organizers/labels, a Bumkins cloth diaper with inserts and a FuzziBunz cloth diaper (if you didn’t guess, we are going to give cloth diapering a shot but I want to sample some different brands).

My sore throat is still here but luckily not seeming to be any worse!  So as I work from home today, I had this conversation with Tyler shortly after eating my lunch.

me: wow little baby was just drumming up a storm! i should soooo go get the ear things [I meant stethoscope but pregnancy brain had the best of me]
its so funny to feel him after i eat now
you would totally be able to hear this if u were home

Tyler: really?? can you hear it??
why is he so active?
he must love or hate cottage cheese [my lunch of choice for today because it would be expiring while I was out of town]

me: it sounds just like gurgles but it is totally the baby
he just gets active after i eat
the nutrients go straight to him

Tyler: just like lu!

me: hahahaha

Tyler: as soon as he eats, he runs around like a mad man

me: yep exactly what the baby must be doing
our little cat baby
wow i just got a REAL thump

Tyler: awwww

me: not just flutters but a pow!
he prolly knows we are talking about him

Tyler: lol

me: yep, confirmed, he knows. i’ve gotten 3 thumps now!
ok, lunch fun over, now time for a meeting!
love you!

tyler: love u <3

Today at lunch when I posted my conversation with Tyler I never imagined that would be the beginning of a very exciting time.  At lunch, the baby was clearly just testing the waters because man oh man has he started thumping all over the place since the first thumps at lunch!  It’s so obvious that he’s having a wonderful time stretching his limbs and flipping around and now reminding me constantly that he is in there thriving.

Before feeling any movement there was always the question of if the baby was growing and was really truly in there, and that this is really truly happening, but there is no question about it now and I love that! It’s so reassuring and exciting :) Another amazing thing is how much love Tyler and I already feel for this barely visible little being inside of me.  This upcoming year is going to be wonderful!

Why is it that sickness sneaks up on you overnight?  You go to bed perfectly fine and then wake up in agony!  The “why” aside, that is what happened this morning.  My throat was on fire.  That’s what I get for venturing out of the house too much this week.  On Monday Tyler and I (along with Tony and Jess) went on a tour of the birthing center at Overlake Hospital.  There was clearly a couple who both were fighting off a cold and hacking their germs all over the place.  Then yesterday I went into the office with some more sickly folk coughing their germs and in the evening I went to Zumba with Kari where I didn’t see anyone sick or coughing, but I probably worked my body hard enough that my immune system was like WTF!?!

Who knows. Whatever the cause was, I know the outcome - sore throat and painful swallowing.  First thing I did this morning was take my prenatal vitamin and down a huge glass of orange juice.  Needless to say, I will be working from home today and listening to my body on when to rest so that it stays a sore throat and doesn’t progress into anything else.  The last thing I want is to be sick this weekend when I go to Michigan.

That’s right! Did I forget to mention that I am popping in for a very quick trip this weekend?!?!  So any of my Michiganders who read this, if you are around on Saturday morning, I’d love to get breakfast!  I’ll be getting in on Friday night and leaving Sunday morning.