Baby K - 29 Weeks!

May 23

Baby K is getting quite large! It's now the size of a New England cottontail rabbit. Baby should be weighing in at around 3 lbs and is approximately 16 inches long! Baby kicks are definitely getting stronger! It's getting much easier to see my belly move and feel movements from the outside. Baby is quite active these days, but it does seem to get stage fright if we're around lots of unfamiliar noises. Our MD friends were not able to feel a wiggle because of this. :-/

This week has been particularly hard on me in terms of sleep. It's becoming more common to wake up several times a night to pee rather than just one. A few nights, I woke up at 3:45 am WIDE AWAKE. This is not good. One morning, I decided to just stay up and get some things done. That wasn't a very good idea. I was ready to crash at 6:00 am and the alarm had already gone off, so it was too late to go back to bed. The same thing happened the next night and I forced myself to go back to bed after eating a bowl of cereal. I was still awake at 5:45. Josh woke up and told me to come snuggle at that point (but he doesn't remember doing it). I fell asleep shortly after. We had gotten to bed a little later the night before, so we were sleeping in until 6:30. I didn't hear the alarm go off, so Josh let me sleep until 7. I guess this was a little better than just staying up at 3:45, but I was still completely exhausted! Swelling has also become more common. We had a wedding this past weekend on a hot day. Hot day + being on my feet a lot = serious cankles!

I was pretty productive during the evenings this week, despite being so tired. I guess the instinct to nest is really kicking in. I shampooed the carpet in the sitting area of our bedroom (this is where the baby will sleep until it moves into its room - it is now organized and ready for a pack n play!), washed up a bunch of diapers, washed some baby clothes, assembled a cart we got for diaper organization and put drawer organizers together and put them in the baby's dresser. Not directly baby related, I organized our coat closet downstairs! This has been on my to-do list for months, so I was very glad to get that one checked off!

Highs - Surprise flowers from hubby! Having a productive week!

Lows - Lack of sleep and increased discomfort in general. Shopping - I already dislike clothes shopping. I LOVE having new clothes. I hate finding them. Being pregnant, it's much worse.

Baby K - 28 Weeks!

May 16, 2016

Well, hello, third trimester! I can't believe how fast these first 2 trimesters have gone!!! 28 weeks isn't as long as it sounds!

Baby K is the size of an echidna this week - about 16 inches long and 2.5 pounds! Baby is starting to be able to regulate its own body temperature now, which is very important and increases its chances of survival if we were to deliver prematurely (which are pretty good now). Baby now coughs and dreams. It even has little eyelashes! Baby is producing hormones that will signal my body to start lactating, so that should be fun.

I'm doing really well this week. Emotionally, I'm SO much better than I have been the past few weeks. I've accepted the fact that I'm officially in the last trimester of pregnancy and come to terms to the fact that this baby will be coming out eventually, so that has helped. Haha. I'm still tired and at this point, I'm assuming this will not be improving. I've had a little bit of swelling, but it usually goes back down pretty quickly. I can still wear my rings, but I'm not sure how much longer that will last. Heartburn is picking up, but I know that's normal. Tums are my friend.

Josh is feeling the baby move SO much these days. Each night at bed time, they have their time and I love it. He can put his head on my belly and baby will kick him. He talks to the baby every night at bed time and the baby usually responds to his voice. He will poke at the baby a little and the baby will kick back at him. It's like they have their own play time. It's so precious and I think I will miss this once the little one arrives.

We had our 28 week prenatal appointment and all looks good! I passed my glucose test with no problem! Yay! Baby K is head down, so that's also great news! Baby's fundal height is measuring slightly ahead, but the midwife was not concerned about this. She said it's not unusual to measure a week or so ahead or behind. It could mean we have a big baby, but it doesn't necessarily mean that. My blood pressure was a little higher this time, but still in the normal range.

I wish I would have done this before, but I think I'll start including highs and lows of my week in each update. Here goes for this week!

Lows: Heartburn. I'm getting it most days now at some point or another.

Highs: Good prenatal appointment, got to hear heartbeat again, lots of baby/daddy interaction these days!

Diaper Bag!

Y'all, it might be kind of silly, but I'm super excited about my diaper bag! I haven't had a chance to put it into practice yet, but I did SO much research and looking around online before deciding on this one. I mean, it's basically going to be my purse for the next several years, so I had to find one I knew I would love! I found this one on Amazon a while back and I loved all the pockets and such that it had (I mean, just watch the video)! I did NOT love the colors and patterns. I was on the hunt for a super cute bag that was just as practical. 

We're going to cloth diaper, so a small diaper bag just won't do. I needed something that I could pack enough cloth diapers for 2 kids in and still have room for an overnight trip. I needed something that was cute enough to replace my purse. Obviously since I didn't want to carry a purse and a diaper bag, I needed something with my own compartment. I didn't want anything with animals or whatnot on it. It needed to be easy to clean.

I found one. It was more than double the price though. The Ju-Ju-Be Be Preapared in Duchess. I justified it by thinking it would literally serve 2 purposes for the next...I don't even know...4 years? So of course, I needed to love it. I loved this one. But the price tag hurt. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm going to be putting clothes with spit up and wet bags full of dirty diapers in this thing. Did I really want to spend that much on it? And it didn't even come with stroller straps, so you're talking another $20. No, I didn't want to spend that much on it (and I didn't want Josh to either), but I put it on the registry anyway, you know, in case I didn't find anything else I liked or if it went on sale for like 75% off or something.

Well, fast forward to when we were working on our registry at Babies R Us and I saw the Skip Hop Grand Central in a print I hadn't seen before! And I loved it! (Extra plus, Josh didn't hate it). They had a print called French Stripe that I liked SO much more than the other prints! No black on brown! AND it's Gray! It comes with the stroller straps, so it's ready to go and a much better deal than the Ju-Ju-Be. I added this one to our registry too! 

Now I was stuck between the 2. The one thing I really liked better about the JuJuBe was the way it opened. Most other differences weighed each other out to me. But was that worth over $100? No, probably not. I watched so many YouTube videos of people comparing these 2 bags and that didn't make the decision any easier. So on the registry they both stayed. I talked to Josh about the pros and cons of each bag, but so typical of me, I basically refused to make a decision.

As I mentioned in my 27 week update - Josh bought this for me for Mother's Day! He made the decision for me and I'm thankful for that. He read a bunch of reviews and while there are some that mention some of the threads not holding up (I had read the same ones), Skip Hop's customer service is supposed to be great and it should be no problem getting it replaced if that does happen. This one is also lighter weight than the JuJuBe and is supposed to fit on and under the stroller quite a bit better, so those are pluses as well! I don't have the JuJu Be one to compare it to, but this one fits on and our stroller great,without being too bulky.  Of course, the price definitely won on this one. Thanks babe for buying my purse for the next few years!!! I can't wait to stuff it full of all the baby things!

Baby K - 27 Weeks!

May 9, 2016

We're 27 weeks pregnant, Our little one is the size of a Fennec Fox (minus the tail) - about 15 inches and over 2 lbs! Baby K's lungs have developed so much over the past 2 weeks and we've hit our second viability milestone! My app says baby can smell and I believe it! This little one definitely knows when I'm about to eat! Maybe there are other hints that baby gets that I don't realize, but it knows! I notice LOTS of movement right when I'm about to eat, especially when I feel really hungry. As far as baby's development is going, most organ systems are fully developed! There's a lot going on with baby's brain development these days, though! 

I'm much better emotionally than I was last week, even though a big part of me is sad that our 2nd trimester is coming to a close. I've been feeling this way for a couple weeks and it kind of surprised me. I'm excited to meet the baby at the end of our 3rd trimester for sure, but I'm sad that this part of pregnancy is ending, because overall, it's been great! Physically, I've been pretty good. It is getting harder to stay on my feet for longer periods of time though. Last Friday, I felt really nauseous out of nowhere for a couple hours. We had been at my favorite park in Greenville, SC and I started to feel sick as we were just hanging out on our blanket. I was hydrated, I wasn't very hungry and I wasn't too hot, so I'm not sure what came over me. I thought I was going to get sick on the way back to the car, but I hung in there. I had some salted almonds and drank a bunch of water. It didn't seem to help immediately, but eventually it went away. 

We traveled this past weekend and it was tough on me. We made sure we stopped about every 2 hours for a bathroom break and a stretch. On the way down, it wasn't so bad, but on the way back, I got really swollen, got a headache and felt a little nauseous. I had been on my feet all day the day before and I may have overdone it a little. I was really tired, so I'm sure those things didn't help. We have a trip just as long coming up next week, so I'm definitely not looking forward to the traveling part of it. I will try to be mindful and rest more on this trip. Josh decided we should drive the Explorer on any upcoming trips since it's more comfortable; hopefully that will help.

This past Sunday was Mother's Day. We were on the road for the majority of the day, and I already said that was tough. We had to go to the grocery store and I felt awful while we were there, so we made it quick. Things were pretty awesome once we got home though! We went to pick up Bailey and Carter. She was so excited to see us! That perked me up a little of course. We dropped Carter off at home and came home. I kind of ruined the surprise for my Mother's Day gift. I was looking on our Babies R Us registry because I was going to purchase something from it and I saw that my diaper bag had been purchased. I tried to un-see it, but that never works. Friday morning, I was cleaning out the car while Josh was working and I went to put some things in the trunk. There was my diaper bag! I shut the trunk and pretended I didn't see anything. Josh realized what had happened once he went to put the suitcase in. He had forgotten the bag was in there. He felt bad, so I told him I had already ruined the surprise for myself anyway. So, yea, I already had my diaper bag. Once we got home Sunday, Josh sent me upstairs to relax and take a bubble bath (which was MUCH needed and appreciated) while he cooked dinner for me. I know after driving all day, there's nothing he wanted more than to pick up a pizza and eat on the couch while watching TV, but he made dinner, set the table and cleaned the kitchen. So sweet!

Josh has been able to feel baby a lot more this week and that has him even more excited for the baby's arrival! We're starting to learn baby's routine, which is pretty much dance like crazy any time there is food (especially ice cream) or sleep. lol. Bed time is probably the easiest time for Josh to feel baby since I'm still and baby is very active.

Baby K - 26 Weeks!

May 2, 2016

Ummm, we're 26 weeks pregnant. That means in approximately 14 weeks, we'll actually be parents to a 2 legged child! That is so hard for me to wrap my mind around! 14 weeks will be here in no time!

Anyway, Baby K is the size of a slow loris - or a butternut squash since no one really knows how big a loris is! It's about 14 inches long and weighs around 2 lbs! We happen to have a butternut squash in our pantry, so I showed Josh how big it was and I put it up to my belly. It's hard to imagine something that size could possibly be inside me! Baby is still putting on some baby fat. Baby's eyes are opening and closing again and it should be able to detect light through my belly! Movements are getting more and more noticeable, so that's fun!

For me, this week was pretty easy physically, but the most difficult emotionally so far. I think it's a combination of things. Hormones, of course. The realization that my second trimester is ending soon. Me being able to experience things with the baby that Josh can't - for whatever reason, that made me feel really lonely this week. I had a pretty rough Sunday night/Monday morning leading into my 26th week. Josh was super sweet and he worked from home on Monday so I wouldn't be alone. I told him to go to work, we both had to get work done whether we were at home or in the office. I didn't want to be a needy wife. He left and came back like 5 minutes later, saying traffic was "too bad". So sweet. He took me to lunch at a little diner we've been wanting to visit and we had the best time. The people there were so sweet. I went to the bathroom before we left and the owner turned around and said "Whoa! Your bump is so cute! I saw you sitting over there and I didn't even realize you were pregnant!" Then she asked me about my due date and told me how much fun I was going to have being pregnant during the hottest time of the year. Wished us luck and congratulated us, etc. It made me smile, so I told Josh we could definitely go back there. lol. We finished work when we came home and just had a low key night. I was super tired since I didn't sleep well Sunday night, so we were in bed by 8:30. I had read this article when I was 25 weeks and I told Josh about it. He decided to give it a shot and he put his ear up to my belly when I told him baby was kicking. Our little munchkin kicked Daddy right in the face! Josh said he heard a little thump sort of sound when it happened, so that was really cool! He heard some swooshing around as well, but who knows if that was baby moving or just digestive juices. Either way, it's pretty cool and it made me feel much better!

I may have experienced some Braxton Hicks contractions, but I'm not positive that's what it was. They were kind of like tightened cramps. I'll see as I get closer and have them more often if that's what it was.

Crazy Pregnancy Dreams

Everyone has heard about crazy pregnancy dreams. How vivid they are and how little sense they make. For whatever reason, I haven't included any of these in my weekly posts, so I figured I would do a separate post about them. 

I've had a few, but there are 3 that stand out that I don't think I'll ever forget. 

The first one was the pedicure dream. I was with some friends (no clue who) and we were going to get pedicures. I was not super obviously pregnant in the dream, but you could tell if you paid attention. I picked out a color and the salon employee looked and me with the most cheerful face and said - "That's a great color to wear for your miscarriage!" Ummm...WHAT?!? In real life, I probably would have just walked out of the place. In the dream, I didn't know what to say and I just went along with it.

The next dream is a little better - the cruise dream. I had this one shortly after we decided to go on a cruise. In the dream, I was right before the cutoff date of when I could cruise (24 weeks), so I would say around 22-23 weeks pregnant, and I delivered the baby! The baby was fine, but tiny. We were able to go home the next day (yea, right), so we decided to go ahead and go on our cruise with the baby. Obviously, there were lots of baby items that we didn't own yet, so we had to improvise and make our own. We didn't have any clothes that would fit, so I basically just swaddled the baby in tiny cloth pieces. We got our stuff together the best we could and headed off for our cruise. With all that was going on, what stuck out in my mind most was that I forgot my nursing cover at home, so I had to figure out a way to nurse the baby so it could eat and get stronger and bigger. Weird. 

The happiest, but possibly weirdest dream was the baby face dream - Josh and I were laying in bed, just watching my belly move and such. At some point, this knot just formed in the side of my belly. We decided the knot had to be the head. So cool, right!?! Well, the head started to move upward and outward and we could start to make out the facial features! For whatever reason, we were not weirded out by this at all, we were just so excited. This continued on until the baby was all but out of me. It was kind of attached to my torso like a little infant Siamese twin. We just kept laying in bed, talking to the baby and snuggling with it like this was completely normal. 

It's so weird how these dreams happen. I saw the baby clearly in both of these dreams, but I don't remember how it looked at all.

Iceland - Day 1

I never finished posting about our Iceland trip! You can see the first post here.

We flew in to the Keflavik airport at 6:30am. There's a 5 hour time difference, so our internal clocks said it was actually 1:30am. We each only got a little sleep on the plane, so we planned to head toward our room to take a nap. Our check in time wasn't until 2:00pm, but our awesome host said we could check in early! We had a couple stops to make on the way.

First, we needed to get gas. SadCars does things a little different. You get a car with very little gas and you return it the same way. We stopped at a gas station, filled up and racked up on some snacks since we knew we wouldn't find anything open for breakfast for a while and we were both hungry.

Here are our snacks


The Viking Snack is dried fish. We were not big fans.

We were about 2 hours away from where we were staying, but we stopped at a geothermal park and stayed there for quite a while. It smelled horrible from all the sulfur, but it was SO cool! Even if it stinks, it was worth it to watch boiling mud! We got there just a few minutes before a tour bus, so we had a little bit of time alone. They came and went and another one came. I really liked having a car so we could go where we wanted and stay as long as we wanted. It was just great to be on our own schedule. We thought we would just get out and take a couple pictures. There was a huge hill and we decided to keep going to check out some more of the park. There were some slippery parts and I was definitely not dressed for hiking up slippery hills at this point, but we still really enjoyed ourselves. I was able to keep my balance and somehow I didn't leave with a muddy butt - just muddy boots.

How cool is this?!?

 Look  at all that steam!

 So pretty! This pic really doesn't do this place justice. If I wasn't so tired, I would have wanted to sit by this little stream forever.

At the top!

The tour bus and parking lot from the top! And we thought we would just spend 10 minutes here. Haha.

Next, we saw another area we wanted to stop. There were mountains in the background and we were right by the ocean (which meant it was really windy, which made it feel really cold).

Sidenote - we bought new rain jackets before we went to Peru. We did lots of research and decided to splurge on a Gore-Tex jacket. That was a good choice - I'll probably make a separate post about our jackets at some point, because we love them. They were AMAZING at keeping the wind out, so they played a HUGE part in us keeping warm without us being bundled up like Eskimos!

There were lava rocks all over. There were information boards about the wildlife that I enjoyed reading. Somewhere nearby, there was an old village that had been destroyed by lava. We couldn't find it at the time. We found out later, that it was on the opposite side of the road and we would have had to hike to it for a bit. We decided to keep making our way toward our room to get some rest. We managed to get lost on the way to our Airbnb...and just about every time we drove after that. It's not that there are lots of roads or turns - there's really one main road. The directions were just not right sometimes. We would be looking for a roundabout in 2 miles, then we would either reach it in a half a mile or 5 miles. The road names were also impossible to pronounce. My navigation skills, while still lacking for sure, improved a lot on this trip! By the time we finally made it to our place, it was almost noon! Time was already flying!

We stayed our first 2 nights at a really cute horse farm. The owners had converted a farm outbuilding into a 3 bedroom apartment. It was basic, but it had everything we needed. We REALLY enjoyed our time here. They had a really friendly dog. I did get to go say hi to the horses, but since it was dark and I didn't want to spook them, we didn't take any pictures. The first night we stayed, one other French couple stayed. The second night, 2 other couples stayed. It was cool to talk to everyone and learn about their travels. Some of us were just traveling for a short time and others were traveling the world.

Back to the farm! We finally pulled into the farm, which was probably 20 minutes from the nearest small town. I had read that it was normal for babies to sleep outside in Iceland, but I didn't expect to actually see it. Sure enough, we pulled up to the house to check in and there was a stroller (or a buggy, as they would say in Iceland) on the front porch. I read a little about this when we got back. If you care to read about why babies nap outside in Iceand, here's an article.


 They had just harvested turnips


Such a sweet dog! Perfect for when I miss Bailey!

Anyway - We got checked in, took our things in and laid down for a nap. We were only going to sleep for an hour, but I set the alarm for 30 minutes later when I woke up, then fell back asleep for another 15 minutes when I turned the second alarm off. I woke Josh up and we got ready to head out to start some sight seeing! We both felt much better after resting and I'm glad we did, because we ended up staying out pretty late that night!

We grabbed a snack, changed and headed out for our adventures!

We decided we would drive a portion of the Ring Road (which actually goes around the whole country - we would love to go back and drive the whole thing at some point!) to make the most of our short time. The plan was to visit a couple waterfalls and a black sand beach, then grab some food and head back to our room to get some sleep.

Our first waterfall was Seljalandsfoss. You're supposed to be able to see this one at night too, but we didn't stop on the way back through. You can walk behind the waterfall and it's so pretty! It was raining and windy, so it was difficult to get a picture without water being all over the camera lens.

Our next stop was Skogafoss. This one has a trail you can hike and I would love to go back and do that some day. We knew we didn't have much daylight though, so we made this stop pretty quick.


After this, we headed toward Vik, which is a little coastal town with black sand beaches. This was COLD. I'm not going to not walk barefoot on the only black sand beach I've seen in real life though, so I did it.

It was getting dark by the time we made it to Vik, but it was still a beautiful place!

After the beach, we were starving, so we found a place to eat. We decided on a place we found in our Lonely Planet book, Sudur Vik, and we were very pleased. Josh got a fish soup, which I was very interested in, but I wasn't sold on the idea of fish soup, so I passed. It was delicious! I got a steak sandwich, which was also very tasty.

We started to make our way back to our room and I was watching the sky for the Northern lights. It had been rainy earlier in the day, so I was hopeful, but still convinced we wouldn't see the lights on our first night. We did notice a large glacier on the side of the road that we hadn't noticed on the way through the first time. Josh stopped to take a picture and it has turned out to be one of my favorites from the trip.

 This is a map showing the glacier that we saw. Very cool!

Josh had told me about a tip he read in a book about photographing the Northern Lights. If you photograph the sky and you see green, there's a pretty good chance that you'll see the lights! I kept staring out the window, looking for anything unusual. At one point, I saw a funny, hazy looking cloud. I stared at it for a couple seconds and realized it was moving, so I grabbed Josh's camera and snapped a picture. Sure enough, there was some green! I was SO excited (this has been way way high on my bucket list for a long time)! I told Josh, "Babe, they're gonna do it!" Of course he had no clue what I was talking about, so I had to calm down enough to tell him the lights were coming out to dance! He didn't believe me, but he pulled over. He finally saw the haze too, so he set his camera up. The lights gradually got stronger so that we could see them with our naked eye. It was SO awesome! It was freezing out, but I didn't even care! Here are a few of the shots we got.

After seeing them for a good while, we decided we should make our way back to the farm and we would try to get a few pictures there too.

These are some of the ones he got on the farm.

At some point, I'll have to have Josh edit some of these so I can do something cool with them!

I say this was a very successful first night in Iceland!