23 Weeks and Feeling Great!

Long time no blog!  I have not been able to update anyone for awhile because I've been caught up in work stuff and other things that have prevented me from spending a few minutes blogging.  I promise to be better about it as I get farther along.  :)

Arthur made a cool video with Finn's 20 week ultrasound.  I love watching it and seeing his little movements and memorizing his face.  Arthur did a great job picking some good Owl City music to go with it.  :)

Here's the video Arthur made.  My favorite parts are at 4:52 and 8:30.



Our next ultrasound is going to be this coming Friday, March 22nd.  This time I've invited my mom to come and record the ultrasound since Arthur's mom came to the last ultrasound.  I do like to involve them so they can start to bond as early as possible with baby Finn.

Arthur and I have also been shopping quite a bit here and there when we see cute baby stuff.  When we were in Vegas, we found some clothes we couldn't pass up at Baby Gap.  Here are some pictures of some of the clothes we got.

We also found some furniture for Finn's nursery!  We looked everywhere for a crib that we both liked.  I was trying to avoid really dark brown wood, and I also didn't like super light wood.  We ended up finding a crib on Babies R Us that had really good reviews and it was the perfect color called Driftwood.

Here is a picture of the crib and dresser set we got:

It took about 2 weeks to have them shipped to the Babies R Us in Midvale.  We picked them up yesterday, and Arthur's dad let us borrow his truck.  It was a relief to finally have them loaded up to get home.  Mike is still our roommate until May, so it will be that long until we can get his nursery set up.  That's ok, though, because we love Mike living here.  :)

Here is Arthur loading up the crib and the dresser on the truck at Babies R Us:

Everything is coming together pretty well!  I'm super excited to start showing a bit more.  I'm wearing maternity pants all of the time now, and I can feel Finn moving multiple times a day.  It's awesome.  :)

How far along:  23 Weeks, 2 Days
How much time left:  16 Weeks, 5 Days

Top two symptoms:  Hunger and exhaustion at night.  I've been eating everything in sight.  My cravings have gotten a lot worse since the nausea went away.  I've had some good energy these days, which is really nice.  Exhaustion at night is pretty bad.  I pass out usually before 10:00 and don't wake up again until 5-5:30 AM.  I know I need to take advantage of the time before Finn gets here, because I hear I won't get much sleep then.  :)

I also had a random symptom the other day, my feet swelled up super big.  It hasn't happened since, and I think it was directly related to eating too much salt at one meal.  I put my feet up and they've been ok and haven't swelled again, thank goodness. 

Favorite thing I ate today:  Lately, I've been eating A LOT of french fries.  For some reason, that's my craving of choice.  :)

Mood:  My mood has been good lately!  Much more positive and focused on the good stuff.  I think it's because I'm feeling better and I have some good things to focus on.

Worried about:  I'm really not worried about too many things, aside from keeping up with work and staying focused on the right things before Finn gets here. 

Excited for:  I'm excited for a couple of things.  I'm excited for the HypnoBirthing class that Arthur and I are going to take starting next week.  It was supposed to start tonight, but it didn't end up happening because the lady that was teaching it had sick kids.  It goes for 6 weeks in a row, every Saturday night.  It's supposed to teach me how to focus through the pain and be as solitary as I can so I can avoid an epidural.  It has some pretty good reported numbers from 2009 - 2013:

• NO pain medications or epidural: 82%
• NO episiotomy: 96%
• NO elective medical labor induction: 94%
• NO labor augmentation with pitocin: 94%
• NO c-section: 92%

Pretty good stats!  :)  I'm also excited for my next ultrasound which is this coming Friday.  I get to see Finn again!  Woohoo!

18 Weeks and Counting!

Happy Sunday!

It's been a few days since I've blogged, I had a really crazy week.  I'm finally feeling better from my cold that I had earlier in the week.  It was definitely better than the cold I had back in December.  I was grateful that it only lasted about 4 days, instead of the 2 weeks the other one lasted.

Baby-wise I had my doctor's appointment on Friday, and it was very successful.  We didn't get do an ultrasound, he said that I would get one in 2 weeks at my 20 week appointment.  I was mentally prepared for that, since he told me that at my previous appointment.  I'm looking forward to him checking everything and making sure Finn is healthy and happy.

He got the heartbeat, and it sounded better than ever.  That made my day awesome.  :)

Here is a video of the heartbeat!  I didn't get a visual, I just recorded the audio and put his picture behind it, in case you're wondering.

I've also been doing some shopping over the past week.  Whenever I go to any store, I always like to look at the baby clothes to see if they have anything cute for boys.  Arthur and I got some cool stuff at Babies R Us and Target.  We are mostly  looking for ocean or fish themed clothes, since that goes along with his name.

I realized a couple of weeks back that Finn is the name of one of the main characters on Adventure Time, a crazy cartoon on cable.  So I've been looking for stuff that has Finn from the show on it.  I found a cute little stuffed Finn at Target, so I had to get it:

My pants have been getting small, as I've been growing bigger.  I don't think I'm showing a whole lot, but I have been noticing that it's getting harder to fit into my pants.  I got a gift card to Motherhood Maternity for Christmas from Arthur's mom, so Arthur and I went shopping yesterday and I tried on some stuff.  They have this fake belly thing that you strap on so you can see what the clothes will look like when you're showing more.  I had to try it on.  It was so weird!  Arthur laughed and took some pictures:

This weekend Arthur and I also made a cake for Eli's birthday.  It was a Candy Castle cake like from the Candyland game.  We got one picture of it from one of Eli's friends.  We also took some on our nice camera, but that's still over at Arthur's house.  It was really fun to do!  We like making cakes, and I love doing the detail!

This week at work is going to be really busy.  It's also Valentine's Day, so I've got to get ready for that, since I'm cooking the dinner this year.  It's not that I'm not willing to cook as a labor of love, it's just that it kind of stresses me out to prepare a perfect meal, on time, and have it taste good too.  Better than good, even.  Oh, well... I have a few ideas already, so hopefully I'm prepared.

How far along:  18 Weeks, 3 Days
How much time left:  21 Weeks, 4 Days

Top two symptoms:  I've been really tired this weekend.  I think it's because either Finn is growing, or because I've had some pretty restless sleep.  It's tough to feel motivated to do stuff when you're so tired, even when you feel good.  I'm trying to push myself, though.  :)

Favorite thing I ate today:  Arthur made some delicious rolls for dinner.  They were so good!  I also had an amazing breakfast yesterday that Arthur made me.  He is so much better at cooking than me.

Mood:  I've felt emotional and a bit needy today.  The previous days I think I've been ok, a bit on the distracted side and not always able to focus... and that can frustrate me.  For the most part, though, I've been happy.

Worried about:  Even though I'm ready for anything, and would be happy with anything, I worry that there will be something crazy the doctor finds at my 20 week appointment.  I know that I've done everything I can to make sure Finn is healthy and happy, so I know that worrying is pointless... But pointless or not, I am still a normal worrying mom-to-be.

Excited for:  I had a thought today about playing outside with Finn when it's warm and he's bigger.  I know that's a long way off, but the thought of him running around in the grass and playing with our cats was a happy thought.  I also had a dream this weekend where I felt needed by someone else.  I know I'm needed by friends and family, but this was a different kind of needed.  I can't describe it.  It was nice.