I love being on the blogosphere and reading everyone’s 2014 recaps, goals for 2015 and their big plans for the year… and I think to myself… it would be really awesome to be in a place in my life to do that… but that feels monumentally far from the craziness that my life is in now.  So I’ll be satisfied with the fact that I’m doing the things that make my life doable right now and not worry about posting on the blog or making sure I have my resolutions for the year well articulated.  Right now my resolutions are to make it through pregnancy (hopefully with a healthy child to show for it) and to eventually unpack the rest of the boxes in my house.  I’m thinking maybe I can accomplish those two things this year.

And I promise I do have some house related posts that I am going to finish up for the rest of this week, but for now… a baby update.

I have two weeks to post about this time since I didn’t get around to posting through Christmas and New Years.

Week 13 Recap

Baby’s Size: as long as a Pea Pod (which btw feels like smaller than a lime, but whatever)

Baby’s Progress: Baby has fingerprints so no crime sprees from now on… and the body is catching up to the size of the head.

Weight Gain: -2 lbs. I’m staying pretty solid in the down two lbs from where I started (but i’m going to go ahead and assume its because I’m losing muscle since I haven’t been working out 😉 )

Sleep: Sleeping like a baby, except that my parents are staying with us this week, so my normal 9pm bedtime and 7am start time gets adjusted for socialization!

Milestones: Baby’s first Christmas? I’m not sure you can call this a milestone, but I missed 11 o’clock Christmas Eve service with my family for the first time (maybe ever in my life) because I just. could. not. stay. awake. We still haven’t bought much for the baby, or really gotten much as gifts, but my brother and sister-in-law gave Baby an awesome library of hard backed books, which feels like an appropriate thing for my child to have tons of books to start off its life!

Symptoms: Nausea is still rockin’, making it easy to bypass all the Christmas sweets.  I was however able to indulge in some pretty excellent meals while my parents and my brother’s in-laws were in town and cooking!

Workout: still No.

Week 14 Recap

Baby’s Size: a lemon

Baby’s Progress: baby can now squint frown and grimace… preparing pretty well for the terrible 2s! Baby’s arms are now proportionate to the rest of the body and it is producing red blood cells. And he/she is getting more flexible and active in there, but I still can’t feel it.

Weight Gain: -2 lbs. Yep… I still haven’t gained any weight, but I definitely am starting to show.  (Although part of me wonders if really my stomach muscles have just given up the effort to ‘suck it in’ so this is less baby and more belly!)

Sleep: Sleep is getting a little harder, especially trying to not sleep on my back… apparently I like to do that in the middle of the night and the doctors frown on that.  I have a fancy pregnancy pillow that my best friend gave me, so that’s helping some. And I’m having pretty crazy dreams.

Milestones: I survived 2 20+hour bus rides with our high school youth group and have lots of volunteers for babysitting (this is when Reese’s job as youth minister is going to come in handy!!)

Symptoms: The nausea is almost all the way gone!!! I still get a twinge of it after eating, but mostly feel great now, and my energy level is definitely back.  I still get tired if I do too much, but for the most part I feel great! But I also have to pee ALL THE TIME.

Workout: I’m definitely itching to go work out, walk, run something, but since it is 20 degrees outside most of the time, I’ll pass for now. Maybe in a few weeks when it warms up!

Alright y’all, so I promised that last week I would give you a more detailed update on the whole pregnancy gig.  And here it is! If babies and pregnancy aren’t your thing, go ahead and skip over these posts, but if you are like me and nosy about every last personal detail of people’s personal lives… by all means, read on!

I took a few pictures early on, but not much has changed, so I’ll post the few I have and update weekly-ish starting next week. And I’m going to go ahead and apologize for the bad quality of most of these pictures.  Especially the week 12 picture (taken about a week ago) because we were in the middle of the move, I couldn’t find the white maternity shirt I’ve been wearing in the other pictures and it was taken in weird morning light.  I’ll get better at taking these more regularly and find a regular place in the new house to take them!

Before week 9: We found out we were pregnant really early on, and had a doctor’s appointment at what we thought was 7 or 8 weeks, but it turned out to actually be only like 5 or 6 weeks, and the doctor told us that we were definitely pregnant, but that it was really too early to tell if everything was developing well, etc.  So we really held off on telling anyone, buying anything, just until we knew a little more.  So we went back at the end of 8 weeks, had another sonogram, heard the baby’s heartbeat and got some reassurance from my Doctor that everything was going well and looked good! We also got to hear the baby’s heartbeat for the first time which was a total tearjerker! But that being said, I didn’t start keeping good track of ‘updates’ until after that appointment.

Week 9 Recap

Baby’s Size: A Grape

Baby’s Progress: All the essential body parts are there, and it looks a little more human like.  Now that everything is there, it will start growing rapidly.

Weight Gain: -8 lbs, thanks to not being able to eat much and a bout of stomach bug post-Thanksgiving… that’s one way not to gain any weight over the holidays.  Doctor isn’t too worried about it as long as I start to gain in the second trimester… Which let’s be honest… shouldn’t be a problem (especially since that will hit right around the week before Christmas.

Sleep: Sleeping like a baby for 9ish hours a night.  I’m trying to enjoy it while it lasts since rumor has it this will be the last time I ever get to do that.  Thanks to first trimester exhaustion I turn into a pumpkin around 9pm every night.

Milestones: We got to share the news with our families over Thanksgiving! Everyone is super excited!

Symptoms: Still suffering from pretty constant nausea, but after about 4 weeks of it, I’m getting used to it.

Workout: I can’t even walk my normal pace without wanting to get sick… so workouts are definitely not happening.  I’m hoping to pick back up after the nausea subsides.

Week 10 Recap

Baby’s Size: A Kumquat

Baby’s Progress: Baby is about an inch long and weighs about a quarter of an ounce, but has done a lot of growing! Now has fingernails, vital organs that are starting to function and can bend his or her arms and legs.

Weight Gain: -4 lbs, Eating is still a major chore, but I’ve found a few coping mechanisms: pretzel sticks and chewing gum are my BEST FRIENDS.

Sleep: still sleeping soundly!

Milestones: I traveled a lot for work this week in my last crazy round of work, so it feels like I crossed over a major hurdle of busy and will hopefully be able to relax and take it a bit easier for the next few weeks.

Symptoms: Still suffering from pretty constant nausea and driving 1000+ miles through Nebraska wasn’t easy with nausea since driving makes it worse. But I survived.

Workout: Still definitely not happening.

Week 11 Recap

Baby’s Size: A Fig

Baby’s Progress: Baby is now 1 1/2 inches long and is the size of a fig. Baby is starting to get tooth buds… which feels a little insane, I mean… it’s only an inch and a half and it has tooth buds?!  Theoretically baby is kicking and stretching but it is way too early to feel it.

Weight Gain: still down 4 lbs but staying pretty constant at that, so pretty soon when baby gets a little bigger I’m sure I’ll be back to normal (and I’ll probably FLY right past normal)

Sleep: Getting up a few more times during the night to go to the bathroom, but overall able to sleep just fine! But since I fall asleep every night around 9pm, I’m still getting tons of sleep!

Milestones: This is moving week! So we are doing tons of activities/coordination/last minute packing, so getting into the new house and starting to unpack feels like a HUGE milestone!  Plus we are getting closer and closer to the end of first trimester which may mean I’ll start feeling better!!

Symptoms: Nausea is still going strong, and I’m getting very sick and tired of being sick and tired. But as we move into this new house and I look at the MOUNTAINS of boxes I’m hoping and praying for a major nesting phase!  Other than the nausea I feel great and my energy level is starting to pick up again, so I’m hoping the nausea will go away soon.  Oh and that rocking sense of smell… still going strong, which by the way? Doesn’t help the nausea… AT ALL.

Workout: I did a lot of walking around the new house, packing, unpacking and putting things away… so I definitely think I got my fair share of workouts in this week! But I’m still not doing anything really exercise related again. Probably that won’t happen until after the holidays (when I hope I don’t feel sick) and I’ll just join all the resolution seekers in January!

Week 12 Recap

Baby’s Size: A Lime

Baby’s Progress: Baby’s got some reflexes! Baby can open and close it’s fingers, curl its toes and respond if you poke at your abdomen… except that its still too small for me to feel it, so I wouldn’t really know, but that’s what the app says!

Weight Gain: -2 lbs. I definitely think the holidays will put me over the normal hump, so I’m not so concerned (and neither is my doctor in case some of you mom types were worrying about me!)

Sleep: New house, new route to the bathroom in the middle of the night, so I’ve stubbed my toe more than once this week!  But really, still sleeping great.

Milestones: We made the news public this week! And it was super fun to have all our friends and family wishing us well.  This baby is going to have one awesome community of people loving it and caring for it, which is really as much as anyone can ask!!  My husband is a youth pastor, and besides MANY of the youth lobbying for us to name the child after them, two of them gave him an hilarious book called ‘100 Reasons to Panic About Having a Baby’, which is really funny and very appropriate… having a baby is a big deal!!  We had another doctor appointment this week and got to have another sonogram so we got to see baby and hear his or her heartbeat which was super fun!! Everything is going really well, all the 1,000s of tests and questions and whatever they do to you, we’ve passed and so far baby and I are healthy and progressing normally, so we feel very fortunate! Plus… I’m so close to end of first trimester! (most people say end of first trimester is really after 14 weeks, not 12, so whatever)  But I’m in the range!

Symptoms: Yep, nausea is still there.  But energy level is getting back to somewhat normal (except I still want to go to bed around 8pm every night). And as you can see in the picture above I’m starting to show, but right now it looks like I’ve just gained a bit of weight not that I have a baby in there!

Workout: Haha. No.

Also a few people asked about a nursery, which I’m sure after we know what the baby’s gender is I’ll have tons of plans for what we are going to do with the nursery, but for now it is a good box storage place.

But this is the room that will eventually be the nursery (and not it won’t stay this blue even if we are having a boy).  It is next door to the master bedroom and the smallest room in the house, which feels appropriate for the smallest member of our family.