28 Weeks...Rock Chalk!!

Well I am definitely feeling very pregnant these days!!  I can't use my ab muscles to sit up so I have to rely on someone to either pull me up, or else I have perfected a nice roll maneuver in order to get out of bed in the morning.  Bending over has also become quite the challenge, so it's a good thing that I have years of ballet training because I am frequently doing pliés any time I need to reach down and grab something that I dropped!  Other than the obvious pregnancy issues and the to be expected back pain, I am still feeling great!!  I am still not too tired most of the time, although at the end of some of our longer walks with Lexie, Chris has to slow down quite a bit so I can make it up the hill back to our house.  But I still have the energy to get jobs done around the house and go on walks with Lexie so i think that is a definite plus at 7 months pregnant! And Chris is nice enough to give me back massages upon request to help with some of the soreness so that helps out a ton too.

'Lil Heathbar is getting stronger everyday and it is amazing to not only be able to feel the movements, but also SEE them sometimes too!!  She is very active at night, and now also likes to move around quite a bit after i eat something or whenever I have been sitting for a while.

Baby Girl's nursery has come together!  It is completely painted and we now have furniture in there.  There are just a couple more decorating elements left and I need to sew her curtains before it is all ready!  Once we finish those I will be sure to post pictures on here of the finished product.  Having the crib all set up and ready for her just makes me all that more excited to be able to get her home!

I am crossing my fingers for the final four game to NOT be a close one tonight and for the Hawks to come away with a big win!  I have been trying not to get too terribly stressed out during the rest of the tournament games, but it is going to be hard to keep calm during the final four!!!  Rock chalk!!!

-Ellie

27 Weeks

At 27 weeks we went in to get another ultrasound done.  At our 20 week ultrasound, the doctor came in afterwards and said that she "had something she wanted to tell us, but wanted us to forget it as soon as she walked out of the room."  Well, easier said then done with that one! Basically she said that the ultrasound picked up some cysts in the baby's brain (I think she called them cyborgs, but Chris says those are robots so who knows what the medical term is for them!).  However, she said that it is really common for ultrasounds to see those these days because they can see so much more detail, and usually they don't even tell the parents because these go away by themselves.  Occasionally it is associated with another disorder, but since everything else for baby girl was measuring normally the doctor did not think she had that particular disorder.

When I went in to meet with my doctor a couple of weeks after this ultrasound, I asked her about it and she repeated what the other doctor had said about these being completely normal and seeing them quite often on sonograms.  Chris wasn't worried about them at all, and I wasn't too worried - but was glad when my doctor suggested that we have another ultrasound done just to check that things were OK and the cysts hadn't gotten any bigger.  Great news though, at the 27 week ultrasound the cysts were completely gone and there was no sign of them!!  Yayyy!!!

Here's a couple of pictures of baby girl's profile....

I was actually kind of hoping that we could get a 3D picture done and get a better picture of her; however, she is once again proving just how stubborn she is and decided to keep her face hidden in my placenta the whole time so we weren't able to see her in 3D.  Guess we will just have to wait another couple of months to find out what she looks like!

Here is our 'lil Heathbar's first footprint!! :)

Some other noteworthy news from our appointment....  She had the hiccups during the ultrasound so it was really funny to watch her on the screen this time because you could definitely tell every time she hiccuped! Also, we had the doctor confirm that she is still indeed a she, and she is!  Good thing too ... otherwise a baby boy would be coming home to lots of dresses and a very pink nursery! :)

They were able to determine her size at the ultrasound and she is already 2 pounds, 3 ounces!!  The app I have on my phone says that baby should be 2 pounds at 27 weeks, so since this was a couple of days before I was actually at the 27 week mark I am thinking that we may have a big baby on our hands!!  For those of you who don't know, while Chris was a normal sized baby - measuring in somewhere around 7 pounds, I was a super ginormous baby - 10 pounds, 6 ounces!! (Sorry mom!!)  I didn't even fit into newborn size clothing (which is generally for babies up to 8 pounds), so we have been sure not to invest in any clothing in that size for baby girl, just in case she takes after her mom (which it is looking like she is on track to do!)

Just to prove this point, take a look at newborn baby Chris....

...and compare that to newborn baby Ellie, who come out with chins and rolls (it's no wonder that my mom stopped having kids after me!)

Small or big, we are going to love this little girl no matter what size she is!!  We are just so excited to get to meet her!!  Only a few more months to go!

-Ellie

24 Weeks

I'm sorry for the lack of posts recently ... busy season is definitely here and I have been crazy busy at work lately.  I am lucky to have a wonderful husband who helps me out around the house and running errands for me since I don't exactly have a lot of fee time to keep up with that stuff.  That definitely makes busy season a lot more manageable, but I am looking forward to the big 3/15 deadline next week, and even more so for the 4/15 deadline! (Which reminds me that I need to file our own taxes sometime in the next month!)

Baby girl has hit a growth spurt over the past couple weeks and become much stronger.  The little flutters I have been feeling inside for a while are much more pronounced now, and I can even see my belly moving around when she kicks really hard.  She is especially active in the morning and evening, and of course after I eat.  These kicks can be a bit distracting when working long hours, but I absolutely love feeling her move around in there!!

I am convinced she is going to be a dancer or performer of some sort - I went to Rock Chalk Revue at KU last weekend with some of my friends and she was dancing like crazy during the first few numbers. (On a side note - congrats to the DG house for winning best overall show!!!)  I also know we already have a little KU fan on our hands (as if there was any chance she would not love the Jayhawks).  During the KU/Mizzou game she was just cheering like crazy - and was dancing around after the Hawks came away with a win!  (This could have also been due to the fact that everyone watching the game at our house, myself included, were yelling and jumping around like crazy for the last few minutes of that game!)  My dad called me after the game to ask if I went into early labor due to the Hawks making it a close game.  Luckily I didn't - but hopefully the Hawks can avoid close games like that for the rest of March Madness because I don't know if baby girl and I can handle any more those nail biters!!!

Baby girl's room is coming together.  Chris has painted the walls and the trim, and we are painting stripes on one of the walls this weekend so after that all the painting will be done!  We have picked out her bedding (I LOVE it!), and found her furniture at Nebraska Furniture Mart last weekend so I am excited for that to be delivered in a couple of weeks!!  My mom and I are going to sew curtains for the room, so hopefully we can get that done in the next couple of weeks as well.  I know we have plenty of time, but I am just excited for the room to get all set up so it is all ready for baby girl to come home to!  Once we get it all set up, I will be sure to post pictures so everyone can see the final product!

-Ellie