Starting our 31st week!

Well I have officially gone into the single digit week countdown. I just saw my doctor Thursday and she said that everything was right on track. I was measuring at 30 weeks and I asked if that was behind or ahead or on track and she advised it is right on track. I just finished my 30th week and so I wasn't sure if I needed to be measuring 30 weeks or 31 weeks. We heard Chloe's heartbeat as always and it was really loud and strong. My doctor said that Chloe must be a little hyper or active because her heartbeat wasn't being consistent. She said that if she is kicking or moving around while we listen to the heartbeat then it messes up with the readings. She did eventually calm down enough to get a good reading and her heartbeat is in the 150s which is good. I also asked my doctor if Chloe could indeed reach my kidneys and she said that she couldn't reach my kidneys, but she could be pressing on tissue that is pressing on my kidneys. She said that if I have that pain again I should call them because if I do think it is my kidneys then they have to be careful of any kind of infection. I guess with kidney infections it can get in your blood and I don't want that to happen.

Chloe moves around all day long. I was reading that most babies are more active at night, but Chloe is active all the time. I think she must be taking after her daddy since he does not like sitting still or not moving around. The good news is that her movements don't wake me up at night...yet. I've been pretty lucky with my sleep. I have definitely noticed that I am starting to get tired earlier again, but I'm able to sleep through the night.

I feel like I have really just popped the last few weeks and I know my belly is just going to keep growing. I can still see my fee so I'm not too big yet. We start our childbirth classes next week, which is a bit crazy. We will go once a week for four weeks and the classes are about 3 hours long! It is a little crazy to think that we are already ready for classes. I can't believe how fast everything has gone. We also start going to the doctor every 2 weeks rather than once a month! Zach and I have still been putting together Chloe's room. She has a lot of clothes! I had hung up all of her clothes and separated them by size, but now I only have room for newborn to 3 months to be hanging up and all the rest are in boxes in her closet. I think that I've used a little over 40 hangers just on her clothes, plus I have pants and sleepers in the dresser. It is crazy! We also tested out our monitor yesterday. We have the monitor that detects movement in the crib to help us know if she is moving and breathing. It worked pretty well once we got it all set up and Zach let me read the instructions.

Chloe will be here in no time and we are very excited and a little nervous, but still very excited!

Updated Nursery Pics

Glorious Green Grapes!

I've always enjoyed green grapes, but I realized I had a problem. For our first New Years day married in Quincy we decided to do nothing. We had a slumber party, which is basically just sleeping in sleeping bags in the family room, and we had a ton of food. He wanted olives, pickles, cheese, bbq mini hotdogs, and nacho cheese. I wanted grapes, nacho cheese and polish mistakes or tiger temptations. We ate a ton of food and I wouldn't stop eating green grapes. I loved them and they were so good. I think I ended up eating the whole bag of grapes that day while we just lounged around and watched movie after movie. It was then that I discovered a problem. That evening I was sick. My tummy hurt and I just knew it was because of all the green grapes that I ate. So I decided to say good-bye to green grapes.

It wasn't that big of a deal, but every time we were in Texas Ermine would always have green grapes and they just called my name, but I knew they would make me sick. It wasn't until this last trip to Texas that I caved. I'm pregnant and they were just there and they were begging me to eat them. So I did. I had a little bit, not the whole bowl of course, but I ate some. They didn't make me sick. So I ate them all weekend and I was talking to Zach to see why would they not make me sick now. I thought maybe Chloe really likes grapes, or maybe Texas grapes are different than other grapes, or maybe Ermine does something to her grapes different, but then it occurred to me. Maybe it was because I had only a small bowl and not a whole tub of grapes.

So we got back to Arizona and I was going to test my theories. I went out and bought some green grapes and had a small bowl. This would prove if Texas grapes are different or if Ermine does something different. I wasn't sure what she could do different to grapes, but I never know. The whole bag of grapes lasted me for a week! I never got sick. So now I knew that it was either Chloe really liked grapes or I can only eat them in moderation. Every week I get a bag of green grapes and every week I don't get sick. I do have to separate them in small bowls or bags because I would sit there and eat the whole bushel if I could.

I love green grapes!

I think Chloe is already trying to test her limits...

Chloe is a very active baby. Our first ultrasound she was just moving and wiggling around the whole time, but she is also a very stubborn baby. For instance whenever my doctor checks her heartbeat she tends to roll around and turn on her back so my doctor has to work to get a good reading. She also likes to lay up high near my ribs and push on my ribs and it hurts, but after a few seconds of pressure from me she will move out of the way for a few minutes, but that uncomfortable feeling was nothing like what I felt last week during my 29th week.

I had woke up on a Saturday and thought maybe I just slept on my side wrong because my left side hurt. Zach and I had decided that that Saturday was going to be a day all about us because we had been doing a lot of running around and having family in town, going to see family and just plain busy. We were going to go see 2 movies and hunt for Noble Roman’s breadsticks. (which are the best breadsticks if you haven’t had them before) We were also going to go to the mall so I could get in some good walking since it is so hot outside. The pain I felt wasn’t too bad and it was more sore than anything. After we went to our first movie and had lunch my aches and pains seemed to get better so I thought that surely I must have just pulled a muscle or something in my side. We had a great time at the movies and even though our hunt for Noble Roman’s breadsticks was unsuccessful we still had a great time exploring the east side of town, which I’ve never ventured over to.

That Sunday the nesting set in because I was cleaning out the pantry, kitchen and various closets to make room for Chloe’s things. I felt really good and that pain in my side was very minor. I just tried to keep myself busy and not think about it, which worked most of the time. Then the work week rolled around…I woke up Monday a little stiff and sore, but nothing too bad. As the day progressed the pain in my side got worse and worse. I finally took a Tylenol towards the end of the day because I was just a little grumpy with the pain. The Tylenol helped a bit and I started to feel better, but when I got home I couldn’t shake the pain. Now I was thinking that I must have strained my muscle while cleaning out the closets. I put a warm heat sock on my back and tried to relax.

Tuesday was pretty much the same except by the time I got home from work all I wanted to do was just lay down and hope that this pain would go away. I had a dilemma because the pain was on my left side which is the side I’m suppose to lay on to make sure that Chloe gets the most oxygen and blood flow that she can, but that is the side where my pain was and it wasn’t comfortable to lay on that side. I decided I would just rotate sides every 10 minutes or so, but whenever I would move to my right side I would worry that I was hurting Chloe so I ultimately just stayed on my right side. I fell asleep early that night, but then by 1:30am I was wide awake and in a bit of pain. I tried walking around the house, I went and got some milk and then finally I decided to try and tough it out and go lay back down with my warm heat sock. I lied in bed awake until about 3:30am. I knew that Wednesday would not be a good day.

I woke up Wednesday and man was I sore. I didn’t know if it was because of my lack of sleep or what. All I knew was I was really sore. I decided that I would take my heat sock to work and help relieve some of the pain. I also decided that I would take Tylenol every 6 hours if needed because I was sick of this pain. I made it through the work day without much pain, but I did use my heat pad a few times and I tried to stand up and walk a few times. I got home and sat on the couch, but sitting on our cushy couch was not helping my pain and it seemed to make it worse. So I layed down, on my left side of course, but that didn’t seem to help at all. In fact, it seemed to make things worse. I got out the heating sock, but that didn’t help either. At this point I was at a loss and I was all by myself as Zach was still working. And then when Zach did finally get home I just couldn’t handle anything. I was just in tears because it hurt so bad to sit, stand, and lay down. I kept asking him if this is what he thought the last tri-mester was going to be like. Of course I knew he didn’t have the answer, but I just wanted him to say “no”. The rest of the evening I was in quite a bit of pain and I took Tylenol around 7pm to help, but it only dulled the pain a little. I was just trying to take deep breaths and relax and sit up straight. I knew that on Thursday we were going to go to the Chiropractor so maybe it would help or he could tell me what was up with my back. In the back of my mind of course I was playing out all my unrealistic worries. I knew that my mom was coming over the weekend and when my sister was pregnant it was around this time that my other sister and mom had visited her and then she ended up going into labor, so I was worried my mom was cursed or something. I also knew that I had been doing a lot of cleaning and organizing and “nesting”. According to what I’ve read a lot of people say that comes on about a week before you go into labor. All of these things swirling around my head with the clear fact that I tend to over-react easily, which was not a good combination.

I woke up on Wednesday around midnight and I tried to get up out of bed, but I couldn’t. It hurt too bad. So its now time to get some reinforcement. I decided that since Zach didn’t have to work the next day that it was okay if I woke him up. I quietly started to say his name and tap his arm and wake him up just to see how asleep he really was. He was asleep, but he woke up within a few seconds. Then the waterworks came. I just started crying and telling him that I was in so much pain and I don’t think I can do this for the next 11 weeks. He of course just asked what I needed him to do and get and how he could help. I being the unrealistic person just said I need you to fix it. Of course this banter when on because I wasn’t being much help but just telling him things like “fix it”, “get Chloe out of me” and “I can’t do this”. He finally just took the initiative and went downstairs got me my heat sock and Tylenol and water and came back upstairs. I was able to calm down a bit and I sat up straight against the wall, which for some reason helped. I put the heat sock on and took the Tylenol. After about a half hour of me sitting there. I then asked him if he thought I should try laying down or just try falling asleep sitting upright. He just looked at me like I was crazy and said lay down. So I layed on my left side and being the good husband that he is he was rubbing my back and my side to help with the pain. I fell asleep rather quickly and when I woke up on Thursday. I was a completely different person. All of the pain was gone and I could just pop out of bed and get ready for work. The pain never returned and when we went to the Chiropractor he said that my kidneys were back there and it was more than likely something or someone..cough cough…CHLOE…cough cough…was pushing on my kidney. I’m not sure if she can reach my kidneys or lay on them, but I do think something was going on with my kidneys as it was tender to touch those few days as well.

Zach’s conclusion was that Chloe is getting back at me and doing jumping jacks in my belly because I tend to do jumping jacks while I am sleeping and in turn pushing Zach to the edge of the bed. My conclusion was that Chloe must have been feeling neglected by Zach because as soon as he started rubbing my side and my belly on Wednesday night she calmed down and didn’t hurt me anymore. The jury is still out and I’m going to ask my doctor this week to see if in fact Chloe can push on my kidneys and what she thinks of the pain I had. I still am convinced it must have been something that Zach did because clearly I’m perfect! :)

26 weeks down!

Wow! July was a great month. It has been quite warm in Arizona this past month so we have spent a lot of time in the pool at Sabrina and Adam’s house. We’ve been working a lot on getting the nursery put together as we got the crib and a few other items to finally make it look more like a nursery. Jeremy and Mandi also came out on their long drive from California to Texas. We spent a great evening with them just catching up, playing the Wii and of course having a great meal. Then Zach and I made the trip to Texas, by plane of course! It was a great few days just spending with the family and friends. We had a lot to celebrate since Jeff turned 21, Jeremy is out of the Marines and then of course Chloe. It was also great just to have the whole family together as it isn’t very often we are all together since we are all in different cities and on different schedules. Zach and I must be doing something right because the weather was perfect in Texas, which never seems to happen when we have visited the past few summers. We spent a lot of time in the pool and around the pool which made it great as well. While we were in Texas we also had a baby shower which was so fun. A good majority of the extended family was able to make it and a lot of family friends came out for the celebration as well. We are still shipping gifts back to Arizona as we received a ton of things for Chloe. I would have to say that Chloe was definitely spoiled on her first trip to Texas. Our trip was a blast and we were so excited that we were able to find a time when all the boys were home to come out to Texas. After we got home from Texas Jenna’s dad came out to Arizona for a few days. We had a nice time laying around the pool and having an easy going visit. It was also nice for us because the monsoons came to town so we had a lot of good rains over a few days. It really cooled off the hot July.

We had our 26 week doctor’s appointment and it was not a fun one. I think it was my least favorite appointment so far. At this appointment I had to do the Glucose test to make sure I don’t have pregnancy diabetes. So I had to stay away from sugar the whole day before and couldn't eat anything the day of my test. Luckily my appointment was in the morning and I was done by 10:30am, but the even worse part was that in order for them to test my sugar levels they had to draw blood. I was not excited about this. I didn’t even try to sit in the chair I just told the lady that I don’t do well and I need to lay down or I would pass out. I did pretty well considering I didn’t pass out, but Zach said that while she was putting the needle in my arm my eyes rolled back. He had a good laugh at my expense. I don’t have the results back yet, but I’m hoping I don’t fail the test as I will have to do a 3 hour test and they will take my blood 4 times in those three hours! Other than that my appointment was normal. I am measuring at 27 weeks so I either had way too many strawberry cupcakes in Texas or Chloe is just really growing. Maybe we will have an October baby and she will have a beautiful birthstone. I’m anxious to start seeing how Chloe is measuring as the weeks go by. Just 13 weeks and 3 days to go until my due date! I can’t believe how fast the time is going.