Week 31

31 weeks is getting darn close to being over… so before I miss another week (sorry for those of you who were looking forward to the week 30 update) let me fill you in on what B.B is doing now. Our little bundle is weighting in at around 3 ½ pounds and has stretched out to about 16 (+) inches long (just about the size of a hack saw). He/she is really starting to plump up (its momma too), and its skin is now smooth (no more wrinkles) and has finally taken on a nice pink shade. B.B is able to track light and all 5 senses are fully intact! At this point its lungs are the only system that is NOT fully mature. This is the typical month that most Mommas start in on the pregnancy waddle…this is due to the pelvis ligaments that are softening allowing for the spreading of our wonderful birthing hips. I have just noticed that I am starting to sway a titch… spread baby spread!

Dancing Queen

Mallory really got into Christmas this year and loved all the people and the excitement in the air! As far as the gifts though I still think she liked the paper and boxes more then the actual gifts!

Christmas 2011

Wow! Did I ever underestimate the craziness of Christmas! Let us all breath in a sigh of relief that we all made it through it with our minds intact. Don’t get me wrong it was WONDERFUL, just crazy. We had so many people to see, so many places to go, so many gifts to cart back and forth, so much food to eat… AND through in a giant baby belly and everyone being/getting sick… just thinking of it all makes me want to nap (again). I thought that since I had a few extra days off work, I would get a chance to really catch up on things (blog, B.B’s room, photo album, and sewing) and instead I found myself more behind than ever. This is no pity party that I’m going for though; it was all self-induced wonderful torture. Here are a ‘few’ pictures just to give you an idea of the who and the what of Christmas day.

Too Cute

I just have to record this for memory sake (which is failing me more and more the bigger I get). Mallory is talking all the time and most of what she says is spot on.... but there are a few of her sayings that are unique and just about the cutest thing(s) ever... some of my favorites are:
Thomas: TaTa
Grandpa: Papop
Pillow: Plo-plo
Yes: Yah (but with a Swedish accent, and at the top of her lungs)
And my favorite....
Lap: Plop (it's so cute, she'll pat her legs, or my legs or Sonny's legs and say 'book plop' meaning that she wants you to sit down so that she can sit on your lap and read her a book). When you then ask her 'do you want to sit on my/Sonny's/daddy's lap and read a book' she'll yell "Yah!" It's all too cute. I know that all too quickly all these words are going to turn into the real words and I am going to be sad. Sigh.

Like Father, Like Daughter

Mallory goes through HUGE mood swings when it comes to her Daddy… there are days when she wants NOTHING to do with him. Don’t look at me, don’t play with me, don’t talk to me and don’t even think about touching me! Poor Matthew will come home from work and she’ll take one look at him and say ‘NO,’ through herself on the floor and start hitting her head. (Strange child). Matthew’s good about it though and doesn’t seem to take it to heart (like I would) and practically forces her to play with him! Then there are days when he’s the first thing she asks for when she wakes up, wants to snuggle him, and passes out kisses to him just because. It’s cute… on those days she can’t get enough of him. He needs to read her every story, watch her play and be the one to pull the blocks down. I love when she tries to mimic things that he does, like lying on the floor, using the wall as a foot rest, working in the garage or turning on the Christmas lights. They have a very cute relationship…and sometimes I’m a little jealous.

29 (and a half) Weeks

Our little BB is now around 3 pounds and 15 ½ inches long (making him/her about the size of a 1 1/8 inch Craftsman style Open-End Wrench). Doesn’t everyone have a 15 ½ inch wrench lying around their garage? BB should be within 3-4 inches of its birth length but may still TRIPLE in weight! Which means that each week it’ll gain about ½ a pound (and I’ll gain about a pound… but at least only half of that weight will be ON me). Heck, the placenta alone is about 15 oz right now (isn’t that nuts? I’m basically caring around a POUND of placenta???? Strange). Our bodies are amazing! Mom told me about a shirt that she saw… it said “I grow humans. What’s your super power?” Cute, huh? Any way…our sweet little BB is now practicing breathing lots and lots and its brain can start to regulate its own temperature, so all the soft lanugo (hair) will start to fall out now. BB is going to be storing white fat from now on. White fat is the energy supplying fat. Prior to this week it was storing brown fat which is primarily for temperature regulation. If BB was born this week he/she would have a 90% survival rate… despite the fact there are still (supposedly) 11 more weeks of cookin’ to do.

5 Wonderful Years

Yesterday, Matthew and I celebrated 5 years of marital bliss! It’s funny how quickly time seems to fly, while at the same time feeling like forever! (I guess the fact that we have been dating/together for a total of 13 years makes the 5 of actual marriage seem longer)… in a good way. So much has happened/changed for us in those 5 years, let’s recap: We get married in my 2nd year of vet school, we go to Tahiti on our honeymoon, and we have to come home (sad). He lives in Santa Rosa with his pops and I live in Woodland. For a year and a half HE dives to see me just about every weekend (not great on the gas tank of his truck or our pocket-book). I graduate, we go to Alaska to celebrate, I move in with him and Pops and we all live there together for a year (one big happy family). I work in Petaluma as a large animal vet (as I study to pass the test…. Stupid test) :), we start house hunting, fall in love with a little house in Santa Rosa and buy it (even though we don’t know if I passed the test or if I’ll have a job… since I stopped the large animal thing). We move in, I pass the test, I get a job in Healdsburg working on small animals. We take some amazing vacations (Utila: get scuba certified, Hawaii: Dad turns 60), buy a new car and then we have a baby… Mallory Rose! WOW! Wonderful, life changing, craziness! I go back to work, and then suddenly don’t have a job! Ahgggggg! Matthew is a rock, supportive and bringing in ALL the bacon! Mallory grows, takes her first step (I actually got to see it happen, because I wasn’t working… sooooo happy to be there for it)! I find work, to celebrate we go to the Bahamas… a little too much ‘celebrating’ occurs and B.B. joins the picture. I learn to work on birds, snakes, rodents and hold down the hospital as my boss battles cancer, Matthew gets ‘yanked’ around at work… but sticks it out and we get ready for our life to change again (in a matter of weeks)!!! What an adventure!
I love you dearly my sweet husband. You are my best friend, my rock, my stallion (TMI, I know). You bring a smile to my face and joy to my heart every single day. Thank you for all you do for me and our family. I love you and can’t wait to see what the next 5, 10, 20, 60… years will bring. xoxox

Oh Christmas Tree

Mallory is in LOVE with our Christmas tree! Almost every morning since picking it out, she give it a hug or a kiss. She calls it her “Tee”. She is great with the lights and ornaments and only once has she pulled on them too hard. She loves to gather her books and toys together and read to them under the tree, it’s so cute. She is such a good little girl, we are soooooo lucky.

28 and 31

7 months down… 2-2 ½ to go! Our little B.B is now about 15 inches long (about the size of an average piece of fire wood (at least here in our garage). This week it will hopefully settle into a nice head-down position and stay there until ‘D-day’. It’s spending most of its time pluming up, and now has 2-3% body fat. Its bone marrow is producing red blood cells, so with all that new/extra blood racing though both of us, I have another thing to blame for the weight. J Things are going well though… I have found a heating pad at night helps a little with the sciatica issue… but that’ll go away as soon as BBs born!!!! One of the b-day gifts from my parents was a massage, so I think I’ll see if the masseuse can work on that back-issue area. Yeah I had a birthday, I am now 31! It was a wonderful, quiet, 2 day celebration (I’ll blog about it soon).

Baby Dr. Apt

I had another baby doctor appointment today... All is wonderful. My uterus is measuring spot on (27.5 cm) and have gained a (gulp) 'appropriate' amount of weight (24.5 pounds.... uuuhhhhgggggg) and just to keep us guessing B.B's heart rate was higher then its ever been at 147 bpm. Hmmmmmm. (Oh, and the insane hiccups that were happening, aren't. It's maybe every other day now. So once again.... hmmmmmm). We brought Mallory with us and she had a fun time too... though she freaked out a little when the midwife went to raise the table and she couldn't see me. So poor Loren had to keep it low and do everything bending over. She liked listening to the heart beat (since it sounded like a galloping horse) but wouldn't even think about letting the doppler close to her 'baby' belly. I also got some good ideas about treating the horrible lower back pain/sciatica that I have had with this pregnancy, so that should be nice. I only have one more 'normal' appointment left and then I start coming in every 2 weeks...Wow, this baby is actually going to be hear really soon. I go through waves of wanting to hold and snuggle BB right now and freaking out thinking there is now way we are ready (mentally, financially, emotionally, physically....) for another baby. Guess it's coming if I'm ready or not, huh?! :)

27 Weeks

Week 27 has already come! It's nutty to me that in 13 weeks or less (God willing) I'll be holding little B.B.! Time is flying (I know I must say that each week... sorry). Any way I have now entered into the THIRD and FINAL trimester and if B.B. was born today he/she would have a minimum of a 85% chance of survival. B.B is now around 2 pounds and is 14.5 inches long (about the size of or wound up extension cord). Its little head is about 2.5 inches in diameter and its little eye lids now frequently blink. B.B has all of his/her eye lashes and eye brows and the little one will start to smile (especially during R.E.M.) this week.

Make A Wish

Love!

My heart melted this morning, literally melted! I was snuggling little miss Mallory and telling her that I love her, when she looked at me and said "yove u" and snuggled her head into my neck. It was so cute and sweet I just about died!
(I think those are the moments with kids that people talk about holding onto, so that when you feel like strangling them you can quickly bring those memories forward in your mind.)

26 Weeks

This week our little BB weighs about 1.75 pounds and is around 14 inches long (that's just about the length of our Craftsman 7.2 volt cordless screw driver). BB will start to take some practice runs at the ol' breathing movements this week by inhaling and exhaling its amniotic fluid. Its little eye lids have been fused closed (up to this point) and are now starting to open now that his/her retina is completely developed. Some recent studies have been done on mental stimulation while inutero... 'they' have found that playing with your baby by pushing on your tummy and gently pushing body parts (as they roughly push into your ribs/bladder/kidneys/uterus...) actually really stimulates brain development! I was ALWAYS pushing on Mallory (so much so that mom thought that I might hurt her)... little did we know that I am the reason she is so darn smart now! :)

This is my last week before the third trimester starts! Woohoo! It's totally feeling like it too, my belly feels huge, lungs and bladder ever-shrinking, energy low (zzzzzz)... Keep on truckin' it's almost over... then I'll probably want BB back inside for some peace and quiet!

25 weeks

2/3 of the way done, time flies! I'm not sure why this pregnancy is going so much faster. Could be the fact that this time I have a toddler that I feel like most of my awake/home time is spent chasing, cleaning, entertaining, feeding, cleaning-up after.... or maybe it's some crazy space-time-warp and time is literally going faster.... yep I'm sure that's it.
Any way, at 25 weeks our little BB as grown about and inch and a half from last week and is now a startling 13 1/2 inches long (exactly the size of our Craftsman hammer) and weights about 1 1/2 pounds. Lots it going on with the little nugget this week.... The air sacs in its lungs are farming and its little nostrils are opening (though it's not ready to breath just yet). Its little vocal cords are developing and its reproductive organs are now fully formed/descended. The spinal structure is taking shape and its little hands are now totally formed and perfect. The skin is no longer transparent and is taking on more of an opaque appearance as it accumulates more and more fat.
I know that I have been SURE that little BB was a boy (just like I was for Mallory), but 2 days ago I started getting little pangs of doubt. Mainly because we have entered the hic-up stage (which cracks me up). This little one hic-ups a ton, JUST like Mallory did. Granted I have nothing else to compare BB to, so maybe all babies hic-up this much...but now the seed of doubt has been planted, so now I don't know. I guess part of the fun of not finding out the gender is this back and forth game (but right now it is feeling more like when you know someone has a secret and they wont tell you just yet, but they keep bring up how they really want to, but can't). Yeah, that's how it feels. If I think about it too much I get a little sick to my stomach and a little frustrated. I've been trying to get Mallory to tell me what gender it is (since I'm convinced they can communicate some how). She's not being much of a help (it might have to do with having no idea what the word gender is...) :)

Big Girl Room

I've been meaning to post some pictures of Mallory's big girl room for a while now, but life got away from me. You know how that goes. Any way, about a 3 months ago we turned the guest room into Mallory's new room. We painted (two cute colors... a soft yellow and a super light salmon), installed a closet system, sewed curtains and got some cute furniture from Ikea. We moved her crib in there for the time being. We didn't know how she would 'take' to her new room (since I've heard/read horror stories about kids and change) but she loved it! She still gets excited to show her room to anyone new who comes over. Then about 3 weeks ago we switched Mallory into a big girl bed! (We were hoping that she could get out of the crib in enough time for BB to more into it... Gulp). Once again I was a little hesitate, not knowing if she was 'ready' to stay in bed at nap times and bed times... but we thought, what the heck the worse that can happen is that we have a bad nights sleep and have to put the crib back in. So we tried it. And once again, just to prove me wrong she was great with it! She's by no means perfect with it and we occasionally come in after a nap to find shoes, toy or books piled on her bed 'napping' with her. But all in all she is great and actually stays in bed in the morning waiting for one of us to come and get her up... she continues to impress me! Before this final arraignment of the furniture she was actually able to climb from her bed onto her dresser and once feel asleep up there!!!! So funny and so frightening. We have a video of it... I'll see if one of these days I can post it online. So after that, we rearranged (for the 3rd time) and spread all the furniture out! :) No more climbing! This past Sunday I made her the bedspread and a pillow to match the curtains... she loves the pillow and looked so grown up sleeping on it last night.

6 Months

At 24 weeks my little one is movin' and shakin'! I'm feeling BB under my ribs and on top of my bladder all at the same time (oh the annoyances of pregnancy that we quickly forget for the joys of a baby)! The heartburn that I had with Mallory is back. Food, water, air.... it doesn't matter all seem to induce it! I hate when it happen in an exam room and I have to pretend like there isn't a fire-breathing dragon charring the heck out of my esophagus!
Our little BB is now 12 inches long, about the size of a Combination Square Tool (what's that you ask.... it's apparently a ruler, and square edge and a level all in one... wow). :) This week it has gained over 4 ounces, tipping the scales at over 1 pound (ouch, guess I cant blame all the weight gain on this little one.... yet). All the bones in its inner ears are fully developed so it can now tell which way is up and down, it is too big to do cart-wheels anymore and should be sticking to slower turns and more defined punches/kicks. The cells in the lungs that produce surfactant are forming (which will help inflate the lungs once this little baby joins the outside world. Its skin is still translucent (though not for long), oh and my uterus is about the size of a soccer ball (no wonder I can hardly see my toes). Interesting (though somewhat disturbing fact...) starting at week 23 BB had a 20% survival rate in the outside world, but EVERY day that it stays in that rate will increase by 3%. Stay baby stay... I'll endure the heartburn a few more months.

Sorry

Sorry for being such a slacker with the updates... we have lots going on, some good, some bad... but all of it taking up my time and thoughts. I promise to post some cute pictures of Mallory Rose, my weekly garage comparisons AND my 6 month giant torpedo-belly :) Every day I have had one brave client ask me 'when I'm due' or 'If I'm expecting' so I have been enjoying that! The little one is moving and really enjoying my right ribs (Mallory liked the left side, so we already have differences in what they like/don't like). Just about all my co-workers have felt the little one kick and punch, some of them LOVE it... others are way freaked out by it... which is quite funny (to me).
Quick story... we have always made sure to have baby-dolls/stuffed animals and cars/trucks for Mallory to play with. She loves playing trucks and makes a great 'vrrrrrrooooooom' sound while playing. The other day we were at our friends house and Mallory had put a few baby-dolls into a doll stroller and was pushing it around saying 'Vrrrrrrooooooommmmmm...' Like they were in some 400 horse powered stroller. It was cracking me up! Glad she's well balanced. :)

FINALLY!

FINALLY someone ask me if I'm pregnant! I have been waiting! I have been wearing cute tight maternity-ish tops, and my white dr. jacket no longer buttons so my belly is sticking out for all the world to see.... but still no one has asked. I get it though... it's always that fine line of 'did that girl just eat a big lunch?' or 'is she about to have a baby?' Well, FINALLY someone had the gumption to ask! It made me happy to know that I actually now 'look' pregnant, because I sure do feel like it! The cute part was how this person asked...
It was a client who brought in his sons sick Chinese Water Dragon (a way cool fancy lizard). After a little while he said, "I am a man.... but I have four kids... but I AM a man... uhm, are you having your own little one?" I was beaming! Not only had someone FINALLY asked, but it was in such a cute way... like he had to keep prefacing it with the fact that he may say something stupid because 'he's a man'. It cracked me up and made my day!

Nemo

Ok, I know I'm working a little backwards here (starting with Halloween and working my way back)... but I want to show you guys lots of cute 'harvest time' pictures and Mallory as Nemo is just about the cutest thing EVER so I have to start there. I actually found this costume at Salvation Army (the one on Lytton Springs Rd) back in July or August, but it was in perfect shape and only 0.25. Yup, you got it, an entire quarter! So it's been sitting in our garage since, dreaming of the day when the cutest little toddler would wear it! Mallory LOVED getting dressed up (which is good, because I LOVE dressing things up...just ask my dead dog Muffin or my younger brothers). On Saturday we took Mallory to a Harvest party at a Church near us, it was loads of fun! Chili, hay rides, bounce house... which she couldn't get enough of! She was in there with the big kids for a little while running and tumbling with the best of them. I swear she is fearless. Then Monday we too her to a Truck Or Treat at a church in Windsor. That was fun too, she just was a little cranky and more shy... plus there was no bounce house (whats up with that?) :)
Just in case you were wondering, Yes that is a 26 pound Nemo trying to eat Krush...Who managed to escape by a sheer luck. Pretty sure he gave up one of his remaining nine lives though.