25WK6D - Closing Out The Year

Starting this off with a belly pic from Christmas last week, which coincidentally fell on the same day as our 25-week milestone!

ACORNSQUASHBABY doesn't really roll off the tongue, but that's what the sticker says, LOL. In just a few more weeks, we're out of the second trimester and into the third. Things are starting to get REAL now, yo. :P I still get a lot of comments about how I don't look very pregnant yet - but I'm betting the third trimester's going to kick baby growth into a more obvious gear.

I've been feeling pretty good, overall. Lots of congestion, lots and lots of baby kicks - they're strong enough now that I can sit at work and watch my tummy bouncing <3 Still a little bit of nausea, but it's not bad. And sitting/lying down is awkward and uncomfortable, especially when I have a full stomach. I'm a little tired too, but energy levels are much better than they used to be. So overall, heading into the next few weeks doing pretty well. Our next appointment is on Monday, January 4th - I believe it's mostly a checkup and they do some sort of additional blood test, make sure baby is growing properly and all of that.

We had a really nice Christmas and I finally got to meet my tiny baby niece! Cricket (my little minpin) was fascinated. It's sure going to be interesting for her when our baby shows up, hehe~*

That's my dining room table all set up for Christmas. I am thinking next year, when we have a 8-9 month old, it may not look quite so polished so I better enjoy the memories while I can! Oh, and Kaitlin made the CUTEST Nutcracker-themed scratch-off card game - they looked a bit like lottery tickets - to reveal baby's gender to the family. There was only one "winning" card in the batch - everyone had to scratch off three gold seals to reveal little Nutcrackers (for a boy) and Sugar Plum Fairies (for a girl), and the person who got three matching symbols had the right answer. It was a ton of fun, and my mom was the one who got the winning card, so she got to announce the answer to the rest of the family. <3 I'm still not allowed to announce it on the blog or to friends yet, though, because Kaitlin wants to wait for our shower/gender reveal party that's probably going to be set for February. That feels like such a loooooong time to wait - I'm having an increasingly hard time keeping myself from slipping up as more and more people ask me how the pregnancy is going. :P

Anyway, today is the last day of 2015. And what a year it's been. The nightmare of miscarriage, returning to Greece twice, finally getting pregnant again, the misery of the first trimester, Kaitlin's dad passing away, drama at work, getting married in Vegas, and ending the year five months pregnant and anticipating what will likely be an even more chaotic 2016 :P

I realized this morning that I never did end up picking a OLW (One Little Word) for 2015. The miscarriage and subsequent attempts sapped my confidence quite a bit. Choosing an optimistic word felt presumptuous; choosing a determined word felt like more of a challenge than I had the strength for; and choosing a negative word felt like I'd be placing a curse on the rest of the year. But here we are, at the end of 2015, and I think now I can assign a Word to it - PERSEVERE.

Of all the words I can think of, that's the one that jumps out at me. It goes beyond "SURVIVE", which was all I could do those first few months. But it has a little more gravity than "SUCCEED" or "CELEBRATE," neither of which really capture the darker and more difficult things we've overcome this year. What I really need is a word that encapsulates the idea of "carrying on," of continuing to press forward and refusing to accept defeat even when hope is crushed. So PERSEVERE it is.

And for 2016? Right now I am thinking something along the lines of GROW, NURTURE, and/or EVOLVE. Something that captures the big changes that are going to be coming next year, and the idea of giving a fresh, strong, solid start to a new life - to our marriage, to this new little person we're adding to the world, and to my own life. I think there are probably a lot of applications to my work life, too - I have to take a 12-month break from my job, hope that things go smoothly in my absence, hope others don't use that time to sabotage what I've built here, and maybe even find a way to come back from it in a stronger, better, more valued position. Maternity leave is an opportunity, if I handle it right, to impress my bosses and staff and clients with how prepared I can be and how dedicated to the work I am - but has to be balanced with not making it *too* easy to absorb my absence, because it would be not-so-good if things ran so smoothly without me that it raised the question "What do we even need her for, anyway?"

I'm going to tackle those worries next week, though, and for now just think about getting through the rest of this year.

Now that Christmas and our wedding are checked off the to-do list, we've turned our attention to the next things needing attention: Kaitlin's name change (she changed it with social security and the DMV this week), getting her added to my medical insurance at work, getting her car and motorcycle sold and a more reliable (hopefully 4-door) car purchased, and getting nursery and other baby things squared away.

This week we found a gorgeous dresser and crib on Craigslist for only $100 - a third of what I was budgeting - and snapped it up. We are now the proud owners of this beautiful set of furniture:

We also picked up the jogging stroller/car seat combo we've been eyeing at Babies 'R Us:

And tomorrow we have an electrician coming to the house to run wiring and install a ceiling fan/light in both the nursery and the office, which is a project I have wanted to do for years. We've already started "photobashing" (digitally putting together a layout for the wall mural) and Kaitlin's doing the vectorizing to create the wall art; the "Small World" castle is pretty much done, and the "Europe" wall is next. This weekend I have to finish the photobashing(still have an "Islands" wall, an "Arctic" wall, and the "Asia/Africa/Americas" wall to plan out) in the hopes that Kaitlin will be able to vector it all during the week next week so we can start painting next weekend.

There are so many things we're going to need to get done, from remodeling the nursery closet to installing baby gates to planning the baby shower - not to mention that I really want to take some birthing classes, tour the hospital where baby will be born, and get maternity photos taken. It's a bit overwhelming, but at the same time I'm really looking forward to having so many exciting things to do.

Truthfully I'm a wee bit nervous, heading into New Year's, because of how horrible the New Year was for us last year. I know this baby and pregnancy are different - even if baby were to come early, at 26 weeks there'd still be a decent chance of survival. But I guess traumas get deep into our lizard brains sometimes and they're tough to shake. So taking a deep breath and trying to focus on all the stuff there is to look forward to, and not think too much about scary what-ifs.

It's going to be a good year. *fistpump*

TWENTY-FOUR WEEKS

On our 23-week milestone last week, there was no blog post, because we were in Las Vegas,  busy doing this:

We are officially, legally married! We just need our marriage certificate from vital records, which we had to wait ten days before we can send away for it. But, once we have it in hand, Kaitlin will begin the process of changing her last name, and I will begin the process of getting her added to my medical insurance.

In the meantime, some sadness got mixed in: Kaitlin's father passed away the day before we left for our Vegas trip. So while we had a lovely mini-vacation of seeing the sights and eating good food and generally taking a break from regular life, the moment we got back we were swept back up in a whirlwind of to-dos, including attending his memorial, doing some cleaning at his house, and so on. This weekend will be entirely consumed with Christmas preparations, since I don't even have our tree up yet or any presents wrapped. 

There was also a day of stressing where we realized the CD of our wedding photos was unreadable in any of our computers, and we had to email the chapel and ask them to upload the pictures someplace where we could get them. Thankfully the chapel owner took care of that for us the day after I emailed her, and we were able to spend a bit of time editing the pictures into a photobook and ordering big canvas prints for our wall (really looking forward to getting them.)

So on the list for this weekend includes putting up Christmas decorations, a bunch of Christmas-prep shopping and cleaning, and wrapping gifts. Kaitlin's going to have a pretty significant honey-do list for the work week, too, since she's off work for the schools' Christmas break. But, once Christmas is past, we'll get to refocus a little - taking care of her car/motorcycle sale and working on the nursery, mostly.

Baby seems to be doing just fine, still alternating between quiet times and wiggle times, and still sapping my energy at a much faster rate than I'm used to. Also, it's pretty much impossible now to have a full stomach AND baby AND enough room to take a full lungful of air, so I'm finding myself very short of breath after I eat. I still don't get to eat full meals, either - I get acid reflux once my stomach gets too full, so I'm having to eat until I'm *just* uncomfortable, wait a few hours, and then eat some more. Means I'm pretty much always hungry even when my tummy won't hold any more.

We'll try to take a 24-week belly shot tonight, but for now I'll just leave you with our 23-week "wedding special edition." <3

22WK3D - I am an auntie!

I didn't get to blog on our 22-week milestone on Friday because it was a bit of a whirlwind of a day. We had our big anatomy ultrasound appointment - baby is measuring about 1 lb 3 oz so far, with all body parts and organs accounted for and growing like they should, and a nice strong little heartbeat - we even got to see the little face. <3 I'm waiting for Kaitlin to scan our ultrasound pics in so I can share them, but in the meantime, here's the 22-week baby bump pic:

 

So far I've gained about 10 pounds. The bump still only shows when I wear certain clothes - most of my shirts and jackets are too loose to make it very noticeable. I definitely notice when I'm sitting or trying to lie down, though. Feels like all my insides are being squished and it's hard to breathe. I've had a really hard time sleeping this past week, even with my usual 1/4 to 1/2 of an Ambien pill. I think that's also due to all the stuff we have going on - everything from work, to our Vegas elopement this week <3 and all the preparations, to Kaitlin's sister who's staying with us and the whole situation with Kaitlin's dad, to money issues and saving for another car and still trying to find time to post her car and motorcycle for sale, to the upcoming Christmas plans (I still haven't got our tree up), to the plans for the nursery that we really really need to get a move on but can't until after we get back from Vegas and Kaitlin's sister's gone home... and add to all of that - I became an Auntie on Friday! After 32 hours of labor (YIKES) my sister in law gave birth to little Hannah, who is just so adorable I can't stand it.

My brother is apparently completely smitten - my mom hasn't even gotten to hold the baby yet. :P I haven't been able to meet her yet, and might not get to until Christmas since we're out of town this weekend. But I'm really looking forward to it, she is so tiny and precious. And I'm kindasorta envious that he and my sister-in-law are on the other side of labor and delivery now (the part I'm least looking forward to) and have their little one to cuddle. I want my little one to cuddle!! (But not now, baby, you hear that? You still have like four more months of cooking to do, so don't be getting in a hurry...)

Anyway, it's been absolute insanity the past few weeks so I'm just trying to take things one step at a time. First, finish up preparations for Vegas, and get Kaitlin's sister to her last visits with her dad and then safely to the airport. Then, get to the airport ourselves (at 4 AM) the next morning, make sure we get to all of our scheduled events (but most importantly, the licensing bureau and the chapel) over the weekend, then get home and focus on Christmas prep and, if we're lucky, maybe a little nursery prep. And in the meantime, stay enough on top of things at work that they're not keeping me up at night.

I did call and make an appointment for next week with my doctor to have my Ambien refilled. I think that will also be a big help, because the other stressful thing is the fear that I'm going to run out of medication and be completely sleepless until the next appointment, which is truly miserable.

Just hanging in there, I guess. Pretty amazed that our little bean seems to be plugging away perfectly fine amidst all of mama's fluttering about. And grateful for that, too. Just keep doing your thing, little one, and ignore me for right now. In a month or two we'll have a lot more of this stuff under control. By the time you get here, we'll be ready. <3

BabyCenter's 22 week image!