33 Weeks

7 Weeks to go!

Our daughter is just over 17 inches long and weighs around 4.5 pounds. There's not much left for her to do, just grow fat and brain cells.

She's getting stronger every day, and starting to run out of room to move around like she used to. I can tell she's packing on the pounds by how tired she makes me. My center of gravity is really off and I'm getting a bit clumsy. The scatterbrained pregnancy thing is starting too. I can hardly keep a thought in my head some days. Not that it's much different from normal, I just have an excuse now.

32 Weeks

8 Weeks to Go!

Our little girl is just over 4 pounds and is around 16.5 inches long. Her growth is slowing down in the height department and is going into overdrive on weight gain. She's getting a lot harder to carry around all day, so my back just aches constantly. Breathing is becoming a bit more challenging as well, as my diaphragm is slowly being mushed by my uterus and intestines. It's really odd to me that all my internal organs are currently squished up into my rib cage. Really uncomfortable too.

My skin is doing really well, no stretch marks so far. My belly button is getting really flat and isn't far from poking out entirely. Kelly loves to point that out. That and how big my belly is. He says he just loves it and doesn't seem to mind that I look like I swallowed a volleyball.

The baby can sense changes in temperature now. Don't tell Kelly or I'll wake up with an ice cube on my belly so he can watch her kick and squirm. Also, 90% of the babies born after the 32nd week survive without major complications, so she's getting pretty close to done.

I think it's really amazing how quickly my belly is growing. Here's a once a month snapshot of the past 8 months.

5 weeks

9 weeks

13 weeks

17 weeks

21 weeks

25 weeks

29 weeks

32 weeks

8 Month OB Visit

As usual, yesterday's visit was very quick and easy. The baby is right on track. She's still head down, thankfully. The amniotic fluid content is right on and the size of my uterus is right for 32 weeks.

I asked him why I've started throwing up again, and he says it's just from my sinuses being congested from hay fever and from the baby. I've only got a few more of the two week visits and then we get to the once a week checkups. I'm not looking forward to those ones.

31 Weeks

9 weeks to go!

Our baby is somewhere between 3.75 and 4 pounds of cute baby fat and is just over 16 inches long. She's going to start gaining a little less than a half a pound every week from now until the end of July. This is the last week of my 7th month.

She's got enough muscle control to turn her head from side to side now. Her taste buds have developed completely too. I'm still not sure exactly how much there is to taste in there though.

There's not a whole lot of development going on now. She's just packing on pounds and growing brain cells. It's starting to feel real for me and it scares me to death. I'm so glad I have Kelly, he's so supportive, usually. Our families are both so helpful, we are really lucky to have so much love and support coming in from everyone. Love you all!

Our Little Soccer Star

Mei Mei has been incredibly active the past week, so I took advantage of it and got a good video of her moving around. If you wondered why my belly is sore or why I'm always so tired, I think this explains it pretty well.

I'm just breathing, all the side to side stuff, lumps, and bumps are her.

30 Weeks, 7.5 Month OB Visit

We're in the home stretch now.

Our baby is right around 3 pounds and is 15.7 inches from head to heel. Tell you what, if three pounds of baby on your bladder doesn't make you sprint for the bathroom, I don't know what will. It's frustrating because I won't have to go, then she'll shift and it's suddenly and EMERGENCY, then by the time I get there, she's moved again and I don't have to go anymore. I usually just hang around for a minute or two, because I know she's gonna move right back onto it.

She's supposed to be sleeping most of the time now, but she's been more active the past week than ever before, which is making sleeping very difficult. She's gotten to the point where she sticks her feet in my ribs and up against my diaphragm a lot. It's hard to focus on work or to move plants when you can't breathe.

We're getting her room set up now. We've got a changing table from Ryan and Meg and a dresser that was Dad's. Kelly wants to make her a dresser, but that's gonna wait until I get back to work and we have a little more money coming in.

I went to see my OB on Thursday. Everything is still right on track, and the baby is doing really well. He says that we're going to stick with the August 3rd due date, but that realistically she could come anytime between the 1st and the 15th and he wouldn't be concerned. I'm leaning toward the 1st week of August so that Ryan and Megan get to see her before Christmas 2009. We'll see how it goes as it gets closer.

Colors Shmolors

So, maybe 6 hours after announcing on my last post that our colors were pink and brown, we went shopping with Mom and Dad and came home with this: and this: I don't really care if this matches anything, it was free.

Mom and Dad bought us the stroller/car seat combo as an early baby shower gift. Grandma and Grandpa Spiers got us a matching pack and play that we'll use as a crib. We aren't allowed to have that one until the shower. Which I'm not sure when will be. Sometime in the next 3 months.

There were brown car seats, pink ones, and neutral ones, but the orange was on sale and we really liked it. The matching pack and play was on sale too. It clashes horribly with pink and some browns, but I don't care. We're still going to dress her in lots of pink and brown, because those are our favorites, and we'll just try to get some of the decor for her room in brown, cream, and orange.

This is the darling blanket that Sid's Grandma Walker made for Mei Mei. It's really soft and really warm. I'm gonna have a hard time getting it away from Kelly.

This is the adorable dress that LaRae (Sid's Mom) made for her. We didn't have any lavender clothes yet. It's gonna be one that we'll have to hand wash, so it's going to be a special occasion dress. That or a "I feel like dressing her up" dress.

This is the awesome onsie that Sid got for us. I forgot to post a picture of it then. It was the very first article of clothing we had for her.