Today is a good day.

Today has been one of those days where things just go RIGHT.

My workload today has been light, so no stress there. I found out that I passed my 3-hour glucose test (YAY!), so everything is great there. And my very best friend was visiting from Chicago and drove up to have lunch with me and Brad today. We ate some delicious dumplings and caught up in the sunshine walk to the downtown mall, and things are just really really good.

Plus we leave for the beach tonight!

Besides that, not much going on. I'm very much looking forward to relaxing this weekend in the sun and the sand, and look forward to a good recharge down in Corolla.

Yesterday I wore the maternity skirt I made. You can't see any of the wrinkled seams along the back (or the safety pins making it temporarily smaller, to make some room for my growing belly), but overall I think it turned out really well!!

And of course, my "weekly" bump pic!

Well Eff.

I had my monthly checkup this morning. Baby's heartbeat sounds good, and I'm measuring normal, so that's all good and I'm very thankful for that.

I did get the awesome news that I failed my 1 hour glucose screening test that I took on Friday. My number came back at 161 and they like to see it below 140.

Not a huge deal, but it means I need to take the three hour test on Wednesday. I have to fast from midnight-on and be at the outpatient center by 7am. Oh joy.

I was panicking/upset/freaking out when I first got the news that I failed (despite the doc being unconcerned and telling me that there are lots of false positives). I know that gestational diabetes is easily controlled with diet and medication, and that it's nothing I did that could cause it - it's hormonal imbalances - but still. It's frustrating and annoying. I did some reading and found out that only 1:3 people that fail the one hour test actually fail the three hour test, so there's still hope that we're good. And it's definitely good that we caught it if GD is going to be an issue!

I'm just grumpy because I don't want to have to meticulously watch my diet like I probably should...

Back to the beach on Friday! I can't wait!!

I'm still here!

Oh man oh man have I been slacking on this blog thing. I'm 27 weeks along at this point and time is flying!

Yeah. It's been a month since my last post. Things have happened, I guess, though it doesn't really feel like it. I am so blessed and so lucky, but everything has been going really smoothly throughout this whole pregnancy! Yes I get crazy and hormonal sometimes (especially when trying to figure out what the heck we're going to do when I have to go back to work... fighting for part time while maintaining a PTO package is a pain in the ass!), but overall it's been easy breezy and I'm kinda loving being pregnant. 

I have been very forgetful and do/say some pretty stupid things. I've got an excuse, so that's nice, but it's like my brain just isn't processing things sometimes! Eh. That's other people's problems.

Besides that, I haven't had any physical issues - some cramping and possible contractions here and there - and a few mental breakdowns over weight gain (I'm up ~17 lbs right now, which is okay, but it's just frightening to see these numbers on the scale that I've never seen before!). I've got the glucose test on Friday, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything is healthy there.

Let's see if I can't just start from where I left off with the life updates and walk my way through to try and catch this blog up on all the highlights.

Last time I wrote, I had just gotten back from Salt Lake City. That next weekend I drove to Richmond to have dinner with my very best friend, visiting from Chicago, which was so much fun. I miss being able to hang out with her more often!!!

Later that week, I went to see STOMP at JPJ with another girlfriend. It was very cool, but did get a little repetitive after a while. 

We spent Easter weekend in Chesapeake with Brad's family. It was a great weekend full of relaxing, yoga-offs between Brad and his sister, and shopping with my her and my mother-in-law. We are so lucky to have such a great supportive family!!

The following weekend I babysat for some friends and then on Saturday had a girls day in Richmond with an amazing group of girls from church. We spent the day shopping at Short Pump, ate some delicious sushi at Sticky Rice, and finished the night off by seeing Wicked on (off) Broadway! The show was incredible, and it was a great day with great friends!

I've finally finished up exams for the semester (totally rocked them too!), so Brad and I celebrated by hitting a Lord Huron concert in Richmond (before it got rained out) and continuing on to the beach to spend Mothers Day with my parents. Brad has a sprained ankle (that we thought was a broken fibula), so he took it easy at the house, but the weather was gorgeous. We were able to grab dinner with his parents on the way back to Charlottesville on Sunday too. It was a much-needed recharging weekend, and has me super excited for a long weekend at the beach over Memorial Day with my family in two weeks!

We started our prenatal class on Monday. There are about 7 or 8 other couples in the class with us, and everyone seems really nice. Brad didn't find the first class very useful, but I definitely learned a few things that will be pretty crucial once labor rolls around. My goal is to keep moving and help the baby along as much as possible. Contractions don't sound fun, but I'm excited to get there!

So that's all the big stuff that's been going on lately. My sister has promised in her own special way to keep me from being the crazy, overprotective mom that I see around me constantly. I know that our kid is going to make mistakes and I have to let that happen, but I'm already so worried about her - I don't know that I can. This was my sister's response to that. Ha!

And finally, I haven't been the best about taking bump pictures every week, but thankfully I've been better at that than blogging. So here are a few that I've taken since my last post. Yeah... I'm the worst!

She's moving around constantly, which I love. She also moves around a LOT for Brad, which just melts my heart. She loves him so much already! I am so excited to meet this little girl.

It's a....

So last week I was in Salt Lake City, and let me say - it's one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. You fly in and see this:

Mountains and the Great Salt Lake!

But everything else is totally flat! Then you drive into the city and it's just got the most gorgeous backdrop to a city I've ever seen.

Like Seriously?!

I did some walking around town and wandered through the Mormon Temple Square. They had some gorgeous buildings there.

Had my first In-And-Out Burger experience. YUM. Brad is still SO jealous.

And here's the view from my flight home!

Overall, the conference was a bit of a bust. It was an awkward mix of people for me to talk to, but hopefully we get some okay leads out of it in the end.

I flew back into town on Saturday and hung out with my brother for a bit. Then on Sunday I met my friend and her 7 month old for breakfast. She gave me the lowdown on registry items to get and avoid, which was pretty helpful.

And on Monday we got to see our sweet little baby again!!!!

Brad had to know (almost immediately) whether it was a boy or a girl. Luckily the baby was super photogenic and flaunted it right away, so we found out that IT'S A GIRL!

We listened to her heartbeat - a solid 148 bpm.

Look at her sitting with her legs crossed! Just like a little lady :)

Little baby footprints! Her feet are only 4 cenitmeters long right now.

Covering her face with her hands.

But once we switched to 3D, we got a great shot of our beautiful little girl!

I'm pretty convinced she has my nose :) Brad thinks I'm nuts, but we'll see. Either way, it feels so amazing to feel her rolling around and kicking all the time and know that this is what she looks like! She was moving around a lot during the scan, and the tech said we were going to have our hands full with this one :) Based on her measurements, she's got some loooong legs (not surprising, since Brad and I are both tall) and weighed 1 lb 4 oz. I think that's also a little bit bigger than most babies at 22 weeks, but as long as she's healthy I don't really care too much. Her heart and organ development all looked great, which was such a relief. Now we just need to wait until August to meet her! 

Last but not least, I'll finish with a belly pic:

Some outfits moreso than others, but I'm starting to look noticeably pregnant. Yowza!

Whoops

So I'm 21, almost 22 weeks along now! I can feel the baby move pretty regularly these days, and it's absolutely amazing. Brad has been able to feel him/her kick a few times now and loves it. I'm glad he's finally able to feel it too - I felt so bad every time the baby would kick and I would be like 'did you feel it?!' and he would look all dejected and say no.

We are getting SO anxious to figure out if it's a boy or a girl. My appointment is scheduled for Monday and I just can't wait! I'm actually sitting in an airport now on my way to Salt Lake City for a conference, so that should help the time between now and Monday fly by.

We toured our first daycare last week. It's all so surreal! This place (First Steps) seemed great, but it was really expensive and they don't offer part-time care -- two big hiccups to our current plan. We'll see how it all works out though! We're touring a bunch more on Monday after the ultrasound.

Here's my belly pic from last week. I'll take another one soon. I'm slowly feeling more-pregnant-less-chubby, so that's definitely nice.

Halfway there

Hmmmm... This should have posted a while ago but didn't. Whoops.

I'm 20 weeks along as of Wed/Thurs/yesterday (depending on which due date you go by...)

Baby is the size of a banana! Huge, right?! 6.5 inches long. No wonder my belly is starting to pop out a little more.

I think I can feel him/her moving around from time to time. It's hard to be sure though - my stomach is pretty active and noisy, so it might just be that and wishful thinking. I can't wait until I know without a doubt :)

So far I've gained about 5 pounds. I'm okay with that, so we'll see how it continues. Cravings include random meals here and there (and Brad is wonderful about obliging), but mostly center around Mexican food. Thursday after class I was having such a strong desire for chips and salsa, I actually stopped at the store on my way home (and then polished off half a bag). Classy.

I got some new maternity clothes from thredup - an online gently used clothing boutique. Brad thinks it's weird, but you only wear them for such a short amount of time - I think it makes sense to buy brand name clothes for $8-$10 that have only been worn a few times! Plus it's free shipping and returns, so no real risk! I've got a few returns to make this weekend, but really liked most of it!

It's supposed to be a gorgeous 70 degrees today, so we're heading out to a vineyard for some wine tasting (actually the vineyard we got married at, so I'm happy to just hang out there!) then to watch the UVA lacrosse game! Tomorrow has church, waffles, and homework on the menu, with the UVA basketball second round game at night.

It's shaping up to be a wonderful weekend! Go Hoos!

20 week bump pic:

Wahoowa!

That's all I've really got to say! My wahoos have won the ACC regular season and defeated those annoying Dukies for the tournament championship today! Plus we were rewarded with a #1 seed in the tournament.

I hope we can make it to the final 4, but right now I'm just trying to embrace the joy that is Hooville right now!

It makes this 6 inches of snow were supposed to get tonight (despite it being 70 degree yesterday....) slightly more bearable.

Wahoowa!

Xoxo