30 Weeks

As of today, I am 30 weeks and 1 day pregnant! Something about hitting the 30 week mark makes it feel like the baby is coming soon! The past couple days have been a little rough with some major back pain. I've spent a lot of time on the couch with my legs propped up on pillows trying to stay still. Thankfully, it's starting to feel a little better. Here's a picture of my baby belly at 30 weeks...

One of my friends does this little survey on the bottom of each of her blog posts. Since I don't have too much to update you on, I figure it'd be an good thing to do this post.


How far along: 30 weeks, 1 day
Maternity Clothes: I always have to wear maternity pants, I can still fit into some of my normal shirts. I'm pretty close to not being able to zip up my jackets and fleeces.
Sleep: I am pretty tired all the time. Thanks to finally getting a body pillow (one of those really long pillows) I haven't been having as much hip pain from sleeping. I wake up a lot to flip to my other side, but am sleeping fairly well. I am having some crazy dreams though!
Best Moment of the Week: When she started to move when she heard Kirk's voice. (Non-pregnancy related best moment of the week...Kirk taking me to see Harry Potter (finally!) and to PF Changs for dinner!)
Movement: She's starting to be a little forceful with her kicking. There's been a couple that have hurt! I love when she's moving and get nervous when I don't feel her moving around. (I know that she's napping and not supposed to move 24 hours a day - but I still get nervous!)
Cravings: Not too many. I did go to Target to return something and came home with chips and salsa, so I guess that'd be one.
Gender: Girl (unless we get a major surprise when she's born)
Labor Signs: None, thankfully. We are SO not ready and 30 weeks is too early!
Belly Button: Still an innie
What I miss: Diet Coke and regular coffee.
What I'm looking forward to: I can't wait to meet her and see what she looks like!
Weekly Wisdom: Sometimes it's better not to read too much about labor and details of it. Also people like to share horror stories about labor/babies.
Milestones: I feel like hitting 30 weeks is a big milestone! Only about 2 months left!

More Baby Shower Pictures

More baby shower pictures...

My sister Christy, my Umme and sister Carrie

Cindy and my sister Stacy

Anne (we grew up next door to each other), her mom Gail and Gail Salvatori

My Aunt Laura

My cousin Donna and my Aunt Nancy

Danielle and Sherri

Deb Ague, Jess Franco, Becky Ague, Katie Pittman and Meghan Odsliv

FCCC Friends...Christina, Erica, Carrie, Madeline and Beth

Erin and Jen

Sweet Home Chicago

A week ago, we got back from our 10 day trip back home to Chicagoland. It was a wonderful visit! We drove (a 15 1/2 hour car ride at 6 1/2 months pregnant...not the most comfortable day of my life!) and it was a long ride. The first couple days of the trip were spent visiting family and friends and indulging in some of the home cooking and restaurants we missed! It was great just to have time to hang out with people. We stayed at our friends, Jonathan and Christina Jackson's house, which was really fun and it was so nice of them to let us crash there for the week!

Once Wednesday hit, the week got really busy! Wednesday afternoon we met up with our friends Jen and Adrian to go see Lion King downtown Chicago. It was a rude reminder of Chicago traffic as it took us 3 and a half hours to go about 40 miles. We were getting a little worried that we'd miss the show! But we made it with about 10 minutes to spare. Lion King was awesome! It was so good! It was also great to hang out with Jen and Adrian. We both miss them a lot and I'm so glad we got to see them.

Thursday was Thanksgiving and we spent the day at my mom's house. There was TONS of great food (of course) and my sister Carrie, Kirk and I kept our tradition of watching the dog show and White Christmas on Thanksgiving day. We also celebrated my youngest sister Christy's 21st birthday.

Friday we had Thanksgiving with my Dad at Jill's house. It was a fun afternoon. I think our baby likes Thanksgiving food because she was moving around like crazy!

Saturday was a really fun day. Our friends Matt and Sarah got married! It was a beautiful wedding! The ceremony was really sweet and the reception was fun and a great party! There were tons of people we knew there so it was fun to see everyone and celebrate Matt and Sarah. I've know both of them since about 4th grade and we all went through youth group together. We took a picture of all the old youth group people that were at the wedding.

Matt, Kate, Me, Sarah, Erin, Lauren. Ben, Kelly & Sherri

Sunday was our baby shower. My mom, aunts, grandma and sisters hosted it. It was so special to have so many friends and family together. The decorations were so pretty (we kept them to use in the baby's room) and the food was delicious! People were so generous and so excited for us. It was so nice to see so many people after being gone for 6 months. Here are some pictures from the shower.

The sweet quilt Katie made

The cute mobile my sister Christy made

**see the next blog post for more shower pictures...I'm having some formatting issues! :o) ***

We left to come back to North Carolina really early Monday morning. It was a looonnnngggg drive back. We had no extra room in the car because of all the baby gifts as well as our Christmas presents. It was hard to leave Illinois and I would have loved to have some more time there. It was strange to realize that the next time we're back there, we'll have a 3 month old baby! (We're going back in May for my sister Stacy's wedding).

Since we've been back, I've been fighting a cold that I can't seem to get rid of. I'm also hoping to really start working on the nursery this next week. I'd like to get everything from the showers put away and start figuring out what we still need and getting it all set up. I think we're going to come back from Christmas and realize we only have about 7 weeks until our due date and I don't want to be scrambling at the end!

We went to the doctor last Tuesday and everything looks good still. The nurse was using the wand thing to hear the heartbeat and baby girl kept kicking it off! It took her 4 tries to get the heartbeat recorded since the baby wouldn't cooperate! Apparently she's feisty! :o) Since we are now in the third trimester, we start going to the doctor every two weeks now! That's a sign that we're getting close to the end!

South Carolina

This is a long overdue update. About 3 weeks ago, we went to South Carolina for the weekend. It was a chance to see Kirk's family and friends and also to have our first baby shower! It was especially nice to see our sister in law Rachael and our nieces Hailey and Heidi. Rachael was brave enough to make the drive from Atlanta by herself (with a 4 year old and 1 year old!) because Kirk's brother had to work.

We got there Thursday early afternoon and pretty much went straight to Kirk's favorite BBQ place. Most of Thursday and Friday were spent running errands and visiting family. The shower was Saturday afternoon. It was so nice! The room looked great and the food was good! It was a little surreal to open all this baby stuff and realize it was for us! We got some really cute stuff! I don't really have many pictures from the shower, I'll post some more if I can track them down.

One of the cutest gifts we got was a diaper cake Rachael made. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the tiers of the cake are made up of rolled up diapers and then it's decorated with all sorts of baby gear.
Here's the only other picture I have from the shower. It's of me and Kirk and our friends Rob and Lisa....

25 Week Picture

Here's me at 25 Weeks. You can see that we now have a crib! Some of our friends gave us a crib, changing table/dresser, stroller and swing. The baby's room is starting to fill up! It's exciting to have baby stuff in the room finally! It's motivated me a little bit to start working on the room. I think that'll be a nice project to fill up those weeks in between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We leave Thursday for South Carolina. It should be a great weekend and we get to see a lot of Kirk's friends and family and have our first baby shower! I'm so excited! Then we'll be home for 4 days before heading to Chicago. By the time we get back from there it'll be December! Time is flying by!

24 Weeks

We went to the doctor this morning and had a great appointment! I always get nervous before going to the doctor. I'm not sure why, I think it's just a fear of them telling me something is wrong. The baby's heartbeat was nice and strong - we both love being able to hear that! Kirk was talking about stealing the thing they use to hear the heartbeat so we could hear it whenever we want. The doctor said my dates all look good and that I'm measuring about a half week ahead of my due date. My favorite part was when he told Kirk that rubbing my back would help with my back pain, so now I can tell Kirk that it's doctors orders that he does that! We got the go ahead to drive to Chicago later this month - we just have orders to stop every hour and a half for a couple minutes for me to stretch my legs to prevent blood clots. It sounds like a lot of stopping, but with the baby kicking me in the bladder so much - we'd probably be stopping about that often anyways.

Our friends who are giving us a bunch of baby stuff are bringing the crib and some other things to us this Saturday, so we can start working on the nursery. I think getting the crib, plus knowing the baby showers are coming us is motivating me to start on the nursery. I'm getting excited to get everything ready for her! Anyone have any creative do-it-yourself nursery decoration ideas? We can't paint, so we have to be creative.

We are pretty sure we've decided on a first name for her but are still working on a middle name. We aren't telling anyone the name though...we want to keep that a secret until she comes. We truly value everyone's opinions and advice...we just don't want to hear them about the name choice! :o) Don't worry - it's a good name - nothing weird!

I know I keep saying it - but I'm so excited to go to South Carolina and Chicago this month. Because of the baby showers and Thanksgiving - we seriously get to see almost all of our friends and relatives! I can't wait!

I'll post a new belly picture once I remember to take one! I'm not so good at remembering things right now...

November

I am so excited that it's finally November. There are so many good things happening this month!

• A trip to South Carolina.
• Our first baby shower - with Kirk's family and friends.
• A trip home to Chicago! (Not excited about a 16+ hour car ride while 6 months pregnant, but we gotta get there somehow!)
• Our second baby shower - with my family and our Illinois friends
• My youngest sister's 21st birthday
• Thanksgiving! (which means all the sweet potatoes I can eat!)
• Matt and Sarah's wedding! I can't wait to celebrate with them!
• Going to see Lion King with Jen and Adrian
• eating Portillos! (you're not supposed to eat hot dogs while pregnant, but I am making the exception for a Portillos hot dog while I'm home. I haven't had Portillos since June - there is NO way I can resist!)
• Getting to go to our old church FCCC! We miss everyone there so much and can't wait to see the warehouse all finished!
• The new Harry Potter moving comes out so I get to see it with my sister Carrie!
• I can start listening to Christmas music!

Seriously - what a great (and busy) month!

The baby is growing and I am starting to show a little bit. (I'll post another belly picture later this week) I definitely don't look what I thought I would look like at 5 months pregnant, but it's ok. We go to the doctor on Thursday so hopefully we'll get another positive report on baby girl. I've been having a lot of back pain and get tired so easily, but that's ok. It's all part of it and it'll be worth it. I also am currently craving apple juice (but it has to be ice cold and a little watered down) and we should have never, ever brought home candy from the Fall Fest at church. I don't have the will power and keep taking a piece every time I walk past the bowl. I know I could move the bowl to someplace where I can't see it or reach it...but let's be honest, I don't think that will stop me!