21 Weeks

This pic was taken on the date my 21st week began, I’m actually almost 22 weeks now.

Fun Facts: How big is your baby? About the size of a large banana — and speaking of bananas, if you eat one this week, there's a good chance your baby will get a taste, too. That's because he swallows a bit of amniotic fluid each day (for nutrition, hydration, and to practice digesting), so he eats whatever's on your menu — and gets to put those developing taste buds to good use. So go ahead and nosh on those nachos (or crunch those crudités): Your baby may develop a taste for them when he’s older.

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Weight Gained: I’m up 2.7 lbs now!

Symptoms: I feel REALLY blessed. I’ve had so few “symptoms” during this pregnancy but this week I noticed my vision would be kind of blurry until I “refocused”.

Food Cravings: Pizza Subs from Subway. I blame it on changing offices and being .2 miles from subway and not having access to a fridge or microwave. So, so good. I also have been craving strawberries and bananas.

The breakfast at the hotel had strawberries and banana’s daily, I was so happy!

Food Aversions: None really (this week!).

Sleep: I was in Minnesota the majority of the week and I slept HORRIBLE. I woke up every single hour 2 nights and the one that I didn’t wake up that often, I fell asleep at 1 and woke up at 4:07. After I got back, there was a night I woke up and had to have Philip help me up because I literally couldn’t do it myself, it was really weird.

Stretch Marks: Zero.

New Baby Item: Nada. I tried to find some cute stuff in Minnesota but we had a mall fail and I was driving and looking up directions (yeah, I know…) so I didn’t really feel like going too far.

Movement: There was one day when he didn’t move a lot and it scared me to death. I even texted Philip saying I was worried, of course an hour after that he started moving like crazy.

Exercise: When I was in Minnesota, there was a road right by the hotel that wasn’t very traveled and it was exactly a quarter of a mile.

One day I tried to jog it but I very quickly found out that my sweet baby boy didn’t like that idea so I “power” walked it everyday after that. Completely 2-4 miles daily depending on my mood. At home, back in the regular swing of things at the gym.

Comfortable Maternity Traveling.

I had a nice long day of traveling and I was so thankful I took extra precautions to make sure I was comfortable in the process. My last trip to Minnesota in May taught me so much about ensuring you’re comfortable when at an airport or on a plane for a good portion of the day (I was in the early stages of pregnancy then – 6 weeks ish so I was miserable). Therefore, I present: MY TOP TIPS FOR TRAVELING WHILE PREGNANT!

• Wear comfortable shoes. This is a given any time you’re traveling but I know I normally opt for a sandal of some sort that I can just slip on easy after going through security. Not this time! I didn’t mind the extra minute it took me to lace my shoes back up, it was worth it when I realized how big the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport is and how far my gate was from where I needed to be.

• Stay hydrated but don’t drink too much. You may want to rethink that complimentary beverage in flight. Nothing is more annoying than having to get up mid flight to use the way less than stellar “restrooms” <-if those even count.
• Pack a light carry on. Yes, this includes those that have wheels. If you’re navigating through an extremely large airport, even pulling something too heavy gets tiring.  My carry on consisted of a snuggie and a computer only.
• Don’t fly hungry. I don’t know about y’all, but if I get too hungry now I get angry and I feel horrible. (I’m pretty sure the angry part is all the time though.) Philip and I had lunch around 11:30 and my flight was at 2:30, this gave me plenty of time to not feel overly stuffed but it also wasn’t too much time so that I was hungry again in flight.
• Bring a blanket or jacket. I know they have blankets you can ask for but those always smell funny to me and Lord knows I get crazy hot or crazy cold in a instant these days.

Memphis Snuggie ;)

I feel like all of these are things that you should do/expect on a normal flight but I know I didn’t do any of these before. I promise they’re so helpful when pregnant!

Now that I’ve finally made it to Minnesota and have food in me, I’m relaxing in the hotel trying to avoid all the work I brought with me to do. I’m trying to stay really positive about the entire trip even though I really didn’t want to come and then when I got here, the hotel informed us we’re on the third floor and there are no elevators. How a hotel can function without an elevator with three floors is beyond me! I’m pretty sure my doctor would advise against carry a 28lb bag up three flights of stairs!!

Maternity Shopping Tips

I head out early this morning to finally buy some maternity clothes. Since I went out early, there weren’t very many people around and I took my sweet time trying on a ton of clothes. With that being said, here are the “tips” that helped me along the way.

Sneak peak of some of today’s finds.  

• Don’t shop at stores that specialize in maternity. We’re talking stores like A Pea in the Pod, Destination Maternity, etc. Everything there will be so ridiculously expensive and you’ll end up spending a ton on clothes that you won’t wear very long. I went to stores like Kohl’s, Gordman’s, and Target.
• Shop the sales. I racked up at Gordman’s today by only shopping the sales racks.
• Find pieces you can wear throughout your entire pregnancy. I found several cute short dresses today but I knew I couldn’t wear those towards the end of my pregnancy in December so I put them back. One of the shirts I bought is a tank top but I knew I could wear it under a cardigan in the colder months.
• If you aren’t completely comfortable, don’t buy it. I tired on a shirt that I loved but I didn’t feel 100% comfortable in it. Since I loved it, I debated it for a while then ultimately decided, if I don’t love how I look or feel in it now I won’t love it later either.
• Utilize what you already have. I went through my closet pretty early on and pulled out pieces I had that could work over a bump. This included tunic’s, leggings, and maxi dresses/skirts.

I know a lot of people say “don’t buy maternity, just buy clothes 1 size bigger than you are” and I understand the concept of this but I don’t agree 100%. The maternity clothes I bought don’t look like maternity clothes so you bet I’ll be wearing them even when I’m not pregnant and they’re my size. If I would have just went up a size, I wouldn’t be able to wear anything afterwards which would have been wasteful to me.

Week 20

After an extremely busy week, I am beyond excited to do very little this weekend. I have a very low-key agenda that includes shopping for maternity pants (I think it’s time…), the normal workouts, going to my mom’s to pick up a suitcase for my trip next week, the dreaded packing and a lot of chillin’ with Philip and my kitties before I leave for 4 days. Since I’ve been so busy this week, I didn’t put up my usual pregnancy by week post. I seem to always be late for that though so I’m not surprised. So here we go:

 

Week 20

Fun Facts:… If you're having a boy, his testicles have begun their descent from the abdomen to their ultimate destination — the scrotum. And while your baby is definitely getting bigger (weighing in at about ten ounces and measuring six and a half inches), there's still plenty of growing room in there, which allows him to twist and turn (and allows you to feel his acrobatics!)

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Weight Gained: When I weighed myself the morning my 20^th week started (which is when the picture above was taken), I was up 1.8lbs.

Symptoms: At this point, all I have is the hair and nail deal still.

Food Cravings: I crave pizza sauce lately but not pizza. I want the sauce on toast or a whole wheat tortilla but I don’t want the full pizza. It’s weird, I know.

Food Aversions: Anything overly sweet I despise still, even overly sweet tea.

Sleep: My little man kicks my bladder all night long so I wake up having to pee. I go to bed early now though, I’m in bed by 9:30 nightly and asleep at 10 if Iron Chef isn’t on, if it is, I wait until 11. ;)

Stretch Marks: Not a single one from pregnancy.

New Baby Item: I actually don’t think I bought anything this week and I’m not sure how I held off an entire week.

Movement: ALL.THE.TIME. He loves to move and make his mama feel uncomfortable! I swear he’ll try to squish himself to one side and it feels so weird for me but I absolutely love it <3

Exercise: I’ve been taking it really easy exercise wise. When Philip and I go to the gym now, I normally walk while he jogs (30 minutes), then I do really light weights (typically the lightest the machines go but add more reps), and if he ever does an exercise I can’t do anymore, I’ll hop on the elliptical for 5-8 minutes until we’re at the next set.

On another note, one day during lunch I ran to Kroger to pick up some snacks for my desk at work and I came across Thin Mint coffee creamer.

Um, what?! How did I not know this existed?!??!!? I want coffee lately but decaf coffee tastes a little funky to me so I need a stronger tasting creamer so something with mint in it is perfect. Plus, it reminds me of a chocolate peppermint mocha around Christmas time (which I’m trying to hurry this year!) so I’m a fan!

Moving Day=Exhaustion

Well, the day we’ve all been waiting for is finally here. MOVING DAY AT WORK! The movers got to our sales office at 8am to start loading everything up (we spent a lot of yesterday packing it all). I got to the office at 8:30ish and they told me everyone went to the community already (our permanent building) so I decided to head over there instead. When I walked into the community, I immediately noticed the beautiful decorations and also, the eight million people. Because the building isn’t quite done and has to be by Saturday, there are so many people working to complete the final details. The designers have a ton of work to do and they’re running around like crazy trying to complete it all in such a short time. They’re doing such a fabulous job though, here’s a sneak peak of one of the almost finished dining areas.

We toured the building again to see all the touches we haven’t seen in the past and to also try to familiarize ourselves with it. The building itself is MASSIVE and there are so many different wings and sections, I know I’ll have to carry a map around for a while. After the tour we started to get bored, the movers still weren’t there and we really couldn’t do anything until they brought at least our computers. Finally at 10:30 I decided to swing by the sales office to see how the progress was, or really, what the hold up was! When I walked in they said they had about 15 minutes of work left and needed someone to lock the door behind them.

Since Target is right across the street, I decided I needed to swing in to get a skinny decaf caffe mocha from Starbucks to pass the 15 minutes I had. When I returned, they were loading the last item so I locked the door and head to the community.

An hour later, still no movers.

Finally, an hour and a half later, they showed up. We told them we’d start letting them know where to put items at and they told us that their boss informed them to leave everything by the front and that’s it. We spent a lot of time yesterday labeling all the boxes so when we heard they were instructed to just leave it all, we were a bit frustrated.

Fast forward some and the boxes eventually got to the right place. I started unpacking my office and felt very overwhelmed because it was such a mess.

I dug my computer out because I had several deadlines to meet today and when our IT manager went to set everything up, it wouldn’t come on. Just my luck, I thought! He tried 4 or 5 different reboots but nothing worked and he eventually had to swap my computer out with another and I will be sending mine back tomorrow to get it looked at.

The problems don’t stop there though! The new computer turned on but, I couldn’t log in. When I finally left the office at 5:45, there were 2 IT people working to get some sort of network in my office so I can play catch up tomorrow and get some things done.

By the time I got home, I realized I sat down all off 30 minutes that day and my feet were killing me! Since I was home later than normal, Philip was already ready for the gym and I quickly changed and we high-tailed it there so we could get home asap for dinner since I was already starving. Evidently moving is exhausting and makes you hungry when you’re expecting! Now that I finally have food in me, watched Big Brother, and showered; it’s BED TIME.

I’m hoping to make it into work a bit early tomorrow to get some work done that I missed today.

Goodbye, Stress!

When I started my new job with a startup company back in May, I knew in the beginning a good portion of my time would be dedicated to staffing. As we draw closer and closer to our open day and the day my staff should be here, I began to stress a little because I just wasn’t having luck with applicants. Today though, I made my last offer. STAFFING IS OVER and I’m very happy with every single individual hired.

Today also happened to be the day that we had to pack up our office because at 8am tomorrow, we will be moving from a sales office to the our building! I can’t stress how happy this makes me because our set up in the sales office was less than ideal. It was a tiny store in a shopping center that the company I work for rented, and made into “offices”. We had seven people in an office the size of a frozen yogurt shop. <- I use that as an example because next door was a frozen yogurt shop and we had the same size suite as them. So, today, we scrambled to bubble wrap and pack. It amazes me that since May 6th, I’ve accumulated so much stuff.

It was also difficult to actually get any work done since half our stuff was packed early on. After a long, less than stellar day, it made me smile to come home to this sweet guy.

Stress is really bad for babies so I’m so happy that I don’t have any strict, make-or-break the opening of the building deadlines I have to meet anytime soon! I don’t want to go all Kim Kardashian and have him 5 weeks early.

In my quest to “be healthier” for my son, eating better, consuming more water, and not stressing are definitely top on my to-do list! Now if I could only get out of going to Minnesota next week…

All day kicking

I started feeling my sweet baby kick a few weeks ago but it was barely and off and on. Today, I’ve felt him move NONE STOP and I love it! :) I know a lot of people say all the kicking makes them feel uncomfortable but I absolutely love feeling him move. As a first time mom, a lot freaks me out. For example, when I can’t feel him, it freaks me out.

This was actually the perfect day for him to start moving like crazy because I felt extra large today. I was so frustrated when trying to get dressed this morning and the first two pairs of pants I put on didn’t fit comfortably. After I finally found something that I could breath in, I head downstairs in a really bitchy mood and then he started moving and it made me realize that me being uncomfortable is worth it.

I have to grow, I have to be a size I’ve never been before/not used to, and I have to get some bigger pants so I don’t go through this same ordeal daily.