29 Weeks

Baby is the size of a butternut squash 



She is approximately 17 inches in length and right at 3 lbs. As she is getting more crowded her movements are much more noticeable to me, it's sometimes hard not to jump (during meetings) when I feel a big turn or a limb poke me in the side.

As for me, I've gained about 19 pounds and with 11 weeks left I suspect I will end up right around 30 pound weight gain, which is exactly the middle of the recommended amount. My stomach/belly/fundus is measuring exactly on track, which means that the  distance from my pubic bone to the top of my uterus in centimeters is the same number of weeks along that I currently am (i.e. 29 weeks = 29 cm).



Only 77 more days!

Baby Shower!

Last weekend my friends and family threw me an amazingly beautiful and girly baby shower, there were homemade decorations and designer treats everywhere! I was overwhelmed with how perfect every single thing was and how many people came to show their love and support for my family-to-be. My hostesses deserve a special thank you: Heather, Jen, Julia, Libby and Littany- you all did an incredible job and I am so grateful to have you in my life!

To everyone who could not be there but sent your wishes from afar, you were truly missed and now I will overwhelm you with photos so that you can feel like you WERE there!

The Decorations:



The Food:



The Favors and Drinks:




The Gifts:
 

And most importantly, The People:



Macaroons by:
The Sweet Lobby in Eastern Market (Winner of Food Network Cupcake Wars)

Cupcakes by:
Georgetown Cupcake (Home of DC Cupcakes on TLC)

Shower Libs:
Made by my mom, Aili Melton (In-Design Studio)














Another THANK YOU to my sister Jennifer, and my friends Julia, Heather, Libby and Littany for hosting! I can't thank you enough, you did such a great job!

28 Week Appointments

Today was full of appointments- 28 weeks is a big milestone... luckily Mike was able to be with me through all of the appointments and drive me around so it was much less stressful.

The first stop was to get an ultrasound, at my 20 week appointment they noted that my placenta was not quite far enough away from baby's exit path, so I was asked to come back at 28 weeks for another check. Good news is that the placenta is now out of the way, it's still close, but within the "normal" range. The not as good news is that while they were checking that out they discovered that I have a short cervix. It is still within normal range, but at the low end. Note to self to ask doctor about that later!

As a bonus to all this placenta and cervix checking we got to take another peak at baby and we got more photos! She is weighing in a 2lb 14oz and everything with her looked perfect.

Here's a 3D shot of her face, she has her hand in front of one eye and then you can see the umbilical cord near her chin. I'll spare you the details but they were again VERY CONFIDENT that she is indeed a female. Confirmed.


So here's one of those hands I've been feeling punching me in the stomach, POW!

And a sweet little profile shot of her face, gotta love the little baby face!
 
 
 
Next stop was the hospital lab to get blood drawn to verify my Rh status so that I can get my Rh injection later on today. That wasn't too bad, I have gotten my blood drawn enough during this pregnancy that it's commonplace now. So we took care of that and I went to work for a few hours. while the pathologists worked hard analyzing my blood sample.
 
Then... Back to the hospital lab! Rh is still negative (as expected with your first pregnancy, second time gets trickier; but we'll worry about that a few years from now), so this means its time for my Rhogam injection - yippee! This is me being totally optimistic about getting a giant needle stuck into my arm muscle:
 
It wasn't too bad after all, but I will tell you that this smile was quickly gone from my face once the phlebotomist came in...
 
Last stop- doctor's appointment! We quickly went over the cervix issue and she said that while this puts me at a ever so slightly higher risk of early labor, the risk is low enough that there are no preventative measures that she wanted to implement at this time, she will just keep checking it.  She also gave me a chart to start counting baby movements and said to come back in two weeks. Everything was good, my belly is measuring exactly on track.
 
That was my day!

The Name Game

I've been pretty open about the fact that we plan to keep baby girl's name a secret until her birthday. What is not a secret is that we have NO secret to keep... that's right, we have no name!

As she is currently affectionately known in our house as "the baby", we know we cannot continue to call her "the baby" after she is born. We are working on it, but it hasn't been easy! Since the beginning we've had a growing list of names that we both like. The list keeps getting longer and the decision keeps getting harder. Some of the names we feel are too popular, or don't go well together, or make a horrible monogram.

I grew up with the initials "KGB". I do love my name, I think my parents did an excellent job- a nice first name and a family middle name. Now luckily I didn't really get teased over "KGB", but I did give a good scare to our Russian movers.

28 Weeks

Baby is the Size of a Head of Cauliflower
(don't ask me how that makes any sense...)


12 Weeks Left!

Glucose test results

NORMAL!!!

No gestational diabetes for me, yay!

Woo hoo!

Today I've made it to my third trimester, baby!!!

Woo hoo!

3 Month COUNTDOWN!

My calendar is getting awfully close to the 15th of the month, which means we are at the 3 MONTH COUNTDOWN!!! BabyBump app says only 94 more days until baby! Wow, time is going by so fast.

My doctor's office now wants to start seeing me every two weeks so providing urine samples and getting my blood drawn will now become my part-time job. This will be in addition to my existing part-time job of obsessing over cleaning out every single storage closet/cabinet/drawer in our condo and making Mike paint random things.

Doctor says my weight gain has been slow and steady and she expects I'll still gain another 10 pounds. She was able to use her doctor's instinct and tell me that baby is laying sideways across my belly with her head on my right side and her feet on my left. That explains all the kicking I've been feeling on my left side!

J. Crew Maternity and Baby

I was just casually checking my Hotmail account (where all my junk mail goes) and saw an email titled "You can still wear your favorite pants", and was surprised to see it was from J. Crew! Could it be true??

YES!

J Crew is jumping into the world of maternity clothes! All they have right now is (very expensive) pants http://www.jcrew.com/womens_category/maternity.jsp, but I am hopefully for another store's worth of maternity options to shop from! 

They've even started a line a baby clothes:
I doubt I'll be buying my baby a $145 cashmere cardigan anytime soon, but their stuff is super cute. And it's not all over $100, (there are onesies for under $50!)....

I will keep my eye out for some additions to the J Crew Maternity collection, but for now I'm sticking with my regular maternity clothes sources- AT Loft, Old Navy, GAP, Motherhood Maternity and Pea in the Pod. I've found a couple of overseas stores that sell maternity as well, if you decide you don't want to wear the same maternity dresses as the girl who is pregnant sitting 2 cubicles away... ASOS and Isabella Oliver. They have amazing stuff and shipping is surprisingly quick for coming from the UK. 




GD and the Glucose Test

Originally Posted: 08/13/2013

I drank this lovely bottle of sweet grossness this morning:


This is a test for gestational diabetes, performed around 24-28 weeks.

And now I'm waiting to get my blood drawn. So far neither I, nor the baby have been reacting well to this crap. (Note to future pregnant women, try refrigerating this- it's terrible drinking sweet warm liquid)

My blood is now drawn...
So now we wait for a few days to get the results!

27 Weeks

Baby is the Size of a Cucumber

26 Weeks


We took a little trip to Baltimore this Friday - we went to a concert and visited the aquarium. It was very  nice to get out of town and stay away from for a night since we've been working so hard to get everything ready before the baby shower!

Working While Pregnant

My plan is to work up until my delivery date. I love my job and although it will be a wonderful experience to be home with my new baby, it's very hard to imagine being away from work for a couple months. The longest I have ever taken off was two weeks.

But working while pregnant presents some challenges. From when you first find out you are pregnant and trying to hide it and not fall asleep, to later on trying to survive siting in an increasingly less comfortable desk chair.

So far some of my personal challenges have been:

The big 5-0

Well, the big 1-5-0 is more like it... I've hit the mark, officially gained 15 pounds and this is the most I've weighed since 2004.

I guess I'm carrying my weight outwards because I'm told I look big, but my weight is right exactly in the middle of the recommended amount. 

I've got 15 more weeks and most likely 15 more pounds!