Fun at Home, and Some Big Changes

I spent the day at my parents' house today.  Here's the belly at 32 weeks:

Not too bad!  I'm still not terribly uncomfortable, although I am definitely noticing the impact on my lung capacity; I catch myself panting a little after getting up off the couch and going to the fridge for another bottle of water.  Speaking of that, I never realized just how much water I'd be expected to drink - my doctor says my goal should be 3 liters a day - but then again, I also never realized that it wouldn't be too hard to reach that goal, because I seem to be eternally thirsty.  Result: an average of 10 to 12 visits to the bathroom in the course of a day, with 1 to 3 trips every night; I try to not drink any more water after 7pm to minimize the midnight bathroom breaks.

This was really cute, had to share it:

 My cousin Brendan drew this for Aaron as part of the Apple game app, "Draw Something."  Michelle - recognize the baby's hat and teddy bear?  haha!  Love it!!

And finally, my parents got Chinese food for dinner; here's my fortune:

As it turns out, this is actually rather appropriate, despite the misspelling... today, Aaron and I decided to move out of our apartment!

When, you ask?  Oh, just a week and a half before the baby's due date.  We're not crazy or anything...

Anyway, it was an offer we just couldn't let slip by.  Our current next-door neighbors 'Becca'lise and Craig, whom Aaron and I have grown very close to, found out that 'Becca's mother had a house she owned and was renting that would soon be available to new tenants - and she really wanted 'Becca to move in.  She even specifically recommended me and Aaron as possible joint tenants, since the rent would be too high for one couple.  The house has 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms upstairs, and downstairs is an office, another bathroom which is also a laundry room, a large living room, a family room with a fireplace, a dining room, and a kitchen with a breakfast nook.  Oh, and there's a pool in the backyard.  Sounds pretty sweet, right?  3 bedrooms for each of us, our own bathroom upstairs and one to share downstairs, we each get a living room so we can keep all that furniture...  needless to say, Aaron and I were pretty tempted from the beginning.  'Becca and Craig seemed to be considering it too, but we were all kind of on the fence because we weren't sure about the added expenses to our monthly rent.  But apparently 'Becca's mom REALLY wanted us to have the place, because just earlier today, she told us she had decided she would rent it to us at the same rent we pay on our apartments... plus she would charge a flat fee for all the utilities every month.  And she would be covering the fees for pool maintenance and yardwork.  Well.... we just couldn't pass that up.

So here we go, off on another new adventure!  I'll post more about it in the near future.

Big Belly on the Town

Here we are, 30 weeks down, 10 to go!  These were taken on April 29th, 2012:

Aaron and I decided to meet some coworkers of his after work yesterday to go bowling.  I called my doctor's office beforehand to clear it, and they said of course I could, providing I was careful about over-exertion or too much twisting, and that I used the lightest ball I could lay my hands on - no swinging around 12 lb. balls.  It ended up being pretty fun, despite my frustration at my stupid 6 lb. ball bouncing off the pins instead of knocking them down.

I thought this picture was worth a thousand words... I'll let you fill in the blanks.

7 Months, and All's Well

 

This is a butternut squash, aka approximately what I'm carrying around in my belly; 15 to 17 inches, and 2.5 to 2.9 lbs., except my little butternut is quite a bit more... well, active.

I had a regular doctor's checkup yesterday, and it was something of a relief.  After a pregnant woman reaches about 20 weeks, the baby is too big to measure by ultrasound; it's difficult to get one whole body part in the picture, especially when they're moving around.  So they start measuring the outside of the mama's belly, from the pubic bone to the top of the uterus.  Ideally the woman's belly measurement, taken in centimeters, should be about the same as the number of weeks along she is in the pregnancy, give or take one or two centimeters.  But at my appointment last month, when I was 23 weeks along, my belly measured 27 cm.  The doctor said not to worry much about it, but if I was still measuring too big at my next appointment, they may need to run some tests to see if there was an issue, or if I just had a big baby.  At my appointment yesterday, though, I was right on the money; 2 days away from being 29 weeks, and just short of 29 cm.  Apparently baby had a big growth spurt before last month's appointment (...or mama had a really big lunch).  Anyway, everything's fine and we're right on schedule, much to my relief.

Work has been good.  My feet and ankles have started to swell almost every day now, and in an effort to keep it to a minimum, I brought in an ottoman from home:

I worried at first about looking a little too laid-back, like I'm not working hard, but no one else seems to think so, and a couple other women in the office who have had kids told me I was brilliant - I guess they just tended to turn their trash can upside-down or use a cardboard box they found laying around the office.

As far as movement, as I hinted at before, this baby likes to move.  I don't get the hard kicks very often anymore, but when I do, it's a doozy.  My whole belly bucks to one side, and I try to suppress my surprised yelp because it tends to cause people around me to panic, like I'm going to drop the baby right then and there.  Most of the time though, I tend to feel squirming movements, and those still ache a little, but at least they're not sudden and I can generally ignore them.  The baby also makes these stretching movements, and those hurt a little more, like the baby is pushing as hard as it can and trying to make more room, or maybe it just needs to stretch out... but I don't think it'll be able to do that much longer.  I used to compare the sensation of movement to swallowing a live fish, and feeling the fish flopping around in there.  But lately it definitely feels like a baby; I'll get a push on the top right side of my belly, and at the same time feel something else shifting around down on the lower left side of my belly.  We're definitely starting to run out of room in there.

Also of note: I'm pretty sure I felt the baby get hiccups for the first time yesterday evening - well, first time I felt it, anyway.  There was a small, repetitive movement, almost like a muscle spasm, with each movement about a second apart.  It was deep in there, centered above my pelvis (so I imagine it was the baby's head I was feeling, since he/she is supposed to be in birth position already, and will stay that way til we're ready to go).  I couldn't feel it from the outside though, so Aaron couldn't either, which I was a little bummed about.  It was kind of cute, and lasted for about 25 seconds.

I don't really have much else to report.... I don't really want to talk about all the wonderful pregnancy symptoms I'm experiencing, because I don't enjoy them, nor do I enjoy thinking about them any more than I absolutely have to.  So I'm not sure if I'll have much else to put down here until the baby comes; ideally, I'd really rather not anyways - I'm totally fine with an uneventful, normal pregnancy. :)