Third Trimester!

We are officially in the double digits- only 91 days until the due date! And I am now officially in my third trimester... hooray for the home-stretch!

My mom and sister threw a wonderful shower, and it was so nice to have so much family there. (I just got the pictures from my wonderful Auntie Dina, so I just need to scan them in!) I'm finally starting to feel (materially) prepared, as the nursery is more or less done with all the furniture set up, I have just about enough clothes (minus a few things in the newborn size) for the first few months and the things we have left to get we've got budgeted out over our next few paychecks. Whew! Mentally prepared- well, that's another story! But there's only so much you can do on that front until the little guy actually arrives. Sometimes I don't think I'll actually believe we're having a baby until he's here, no matter how many kicks and punches he gives me!

Health-wise, both the little man and I are doing well. The third trimester is treating me well- I'm feeling much less sick in the mornings and haven't thrown up in almost two weeks now! I'm still having a bit of abdominal and hip/pelvic pain, but the doctor's not worried and is sending me to a physical therapist just to relieve some of it. The baby is doing great though, and is continually moving around in there. He is definitely an active little guy!

It's a good thing a lot of my first and second trimester woes have started to disappear, because I've started back up at work again! So much for the lying around all summer. :) It's been an intense week, and we already have a concert next week. But I'm feeling pretty good with my singing, and our new chorus master seems pretty great so far, so I'm pretty happy to be in the swing of things again. I may be coming home exhausted and ready to drop, but I really do love my job so it's definitely worth it. :)

November is suddenly seeming so much closer, and I really can't wait to meet this little guy!


Baby Weekend!!!

I am officially off of bedrest, which I am extremely thankful for! As nice as it sounds to have to do nothing all day and not leave the house, it's REALLY boring. I'm also thankful that the pain is gone! I have to wear a maternity support belt from now on, which helps support both my back and belly. I hope it makes a difference! But all in all, I seem to be doing well! Here's my belly shot for the week:

I'm also super excited because my sister is coming into town! She's helping throw a baby shower for me and it sounds like it's going to be awesome. A lot of family/friends are coming from out of town that I didn't expect! I am SO EXCITED to see everyone! It's so overwhelming to see the love and support that people bring when something like a child coming into the world happens. I feel so blessed to have such wonderful people in my life. :)


Time for bed rest. :(

Turns out they mean it when they say to try not to be too active during your pregnancy!

After a long day of Vacation Church School, taking Ratbear to the vet, meeting up with Linden for a Chicago Opera Playhouse "business meeting" and then a lovely dinner date with my husband, I suddenly got a really strange pain on the lower right side of my abdomen. It was a kind of pain that made me feel like if I didn't sit or lie down ASAP my body might give out and make me do it anyway. Yikes! Needless to say, this scared the living daylights out of me. As soon as we got home I called the on-call doctor at my doc's office and she said to essentially sleep on it and call my doctor if I still had pain in the morning.

Well, the pain hadn't gone away this morning, so as soon as the office opened I gave my OB a call. She thinks I pulled one of my round ligaments (they are the muscles that support the uterus) and has put me on partial bed rest for the weekend. The good news is that this doesn't affect the baby- he's still happy and kicking away like crazy. I swear it's becoming non-stop lately! This only affects me, and means that if I don't watch myself I'm in a lot of pain. Yay. It's funny, because it's not like I was being super active- just walking around and standing for long periods of time, but apparently that's enough to cause problems! I'm glad it's just for the weekend though. :) And if it persists or gets worse I have to go in right away, but she seemed pretty confidant that things would resolve themselves with just a few days of rest.

So that means the rest of my week and my weekend will now consist of lying down in bed as much as possible and as many fluids as I can handle. I'm sad to be missing the rest of VCS, but at least I haven't started back at work yet and hadn't made too many plans. But if anyone feels like calling or visiting I'd love a break from the boredom!

23 weeks!

Well, I'm finally home in Chicago! I had a fantastic time in San Diego, and Masha's wedding was absolutely beautiful. I then got to see my brother in Phoenix, and he and his girlfriend and Philip and I all drove to Denver to visit my sister and her husband and we all went to a concert together at Red Rocks. It was so fun! Baby seemed to love rockin' out, although I was pretty exhausted by the time the concert was over. All in all, I had an amazing vacation, but I'm so happy to be home!

Philip and my mom painted the baby's room while I was gone, and my wonderful neighbor Marcia gave us her daughter's crib and changing table. And being who I am, I immediately got to work putting the basics of the baby's room together. After all the furniture was put into place, I made curtains, a teething rail cover, basket liners, a duvet cover (for the bed we're keeping in the baby's room) and then I dug out of storage the few stuffed animals/books/toys that Philip and I still had from when we were kids and washed them all for our little man to enjoy too. I love how everything is coming together!



I'm especially excited to get The Hobbit artwork that my sister has done. IT'S AMAZING. But you're all going to have to wait until she brings/sends it to see it!

Now that we've got all the basics in and ready, I'll have places to put the baby's things! Lots of empty drawers for cute clothes, bins for diapers/wipes/burp cloths/etc and an entire empty closet for storing any bigger things!  I can't wait for this baby to come!

On another cute note, Philip started reading The Hobbit to my belly yesterday. It was kind of hilarious because the baby was going crazy kicking pretty much the whole time he was reading. I, on the other hand, was starting to doze off, and when Philip stopped reading because I was falling asleep he immediately started kicking me harder as if to say "Wake up! I wanna know what happens to those trolls!" This is definitely Philip's son!