I'm Still Here

I pinky swear I'm not dead. And everything is okay with baby, I promise. I have been so busy I can hardly see straight. I've had work up to my eyeballs, but everything should be back on track now, and I will be able to regularly update on a weekly basis, as I would like to be able to.

How far along?  28 weeks. This means 9 weeks until full term. Holy crap. That's single digits.

Total weight gain/measurements: Now officially 12 lbs.

Maternity clothes: Yup.

Stretch marks: Nope.

Sleep: So now baby has taken to really moving and grooving as I'm trying to fall asleep and at about 1:30 in the morning. It's great that baby is active...

Best moment this week: This. This was the first outwardly visible baby body bit. I'm pretty sure it's a butt.

Miss anything? Breathing normally. Baby is kicking the lungs a lot these days.

Movement: So, so much movement.

Food cravings: Purple popsicles.

Anything making you queasy or sick? Nope.

Gender: No, no clue!

Labor signs: No, thankfully.

Symptoms: Heartburn. Oh, and gas. That's what you wanted to know.

Belly button in or out?Still in, but so very close to being out. I think.

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or moody most of the time: Happy except when I'm tired, and then I'm crying.

Looking forward to: Making some nursery progress. Pictures in the next couple of weeks!

Here's the most recent belly shot! Growing big!

Playing Catch Up

Okay, so life has been crazy messy (literally, my house has been a disaster/construction zone) for the last three weeks. But here are the last three bump shots:

 And now for the proper update...

How far along?  24 weeks

Total weight gain/measurements: 7 lbs. Still.

Maternity clothes: Yup. Everything in the above pictures is maternity!

Stretch marks: No new developments. I've been using BioOil, Palmer's Shea Oil, and Palmer's Cocoa Butter for Stretch marks. They seem to be doing their job.

Sleep: Getting worse. I only slept 3 hours last Thursday night, which made Friday HORRIBLE. Like go-home-in-the-middle-of-the-day and sleep-almost-all-of-Saturday horrible. And also, I can no longer roll over without much concerted effort.

Best moment this week: FINISHING THE BATHROOM! Absolutely the best...now I can pee in the middle of the night without climbing Mt. Everest.

So this only shows the installed toilet, but that's the important part here. It's actually all done!

Miss anything? Wine. I really wanted a glass of wine last week.

Movement: Yes, lots of movement. Specifically, lots of hiccups!

Food cravings: Chocolate. And fruit. All the fruit. And carrots. 

Anything making you queasy or sick? Doing a-okay on this front!

Gender: We don't know, and we don't plan to find out!

Labor signs: Nope, none of those, although I had a bit of a weird moment last week. Maybe Braxton Hicks are starting?

Symptoms: LEAKING BOOBS! I almost for got that this happened. I had an existential crisis Thursday (EVERYTHING HAPPENED ON THURSDAY, MY TURNOVER DAY) as I was using the toilet. I realized that some day my puppy won't be with me anymore, and I sat on the toilet crying. And then, because the towels were all in the laundry, I wiped my eyes with my shirt. And then I cried some more, so I left my shirt up around my neck. And then I noticed that my left boob was wet, and I thought I had cried on myself, but I wiped it off and it was NOT a tear. So leaky boobs. That's new.

Belly button in or out? In, but so very very weird and shallow.

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or moody most of the time: Happy mostly...except for when I'm having bathroom crises and crying.

Looking forward to: Being able to roll over and get up by myself.

Little Stinker

 This kid is a mover and a shaker and clearly already a ninja. I'm getting kicked like woah! It's fun, though. I like knowing that kiddo is doing well. I can't believe we're already at 23 weeks; time is flying! I've got a lot of reading and planning to do, and Pete and I have to get started on this nursery. Soon. We've had my brother and his girlfriend with us this past week, which has been nice, but they've been in the nursery room so we haven't had a chance to do any of the work there. Our bathroom is almost done, and my brother has done a lot of work in our yard for us. So we're definitely making progress.

How far along?  223 weeks

Total weight gain/measurements: 7 lbs. But really only 2 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight. Maybe I'll only count from there.

Maternity clothes: Yup. And lots of leggings that aren't but they're comfy anyway. I mean, look at this belly:

I'm feeling HUGE for 23 weeks. This is only gonna get worse.

Stretch marks: So far no movement either way from last week. That one Pete saw is still hanging out on my right hip, but it's not worse and there's nothing new!

Sleep: It's been okay. The dreams are getting weird though. And kind of sad. Apparently, whatever I dreamed about two nights ago had me crying in my sleep, enough so that I woke Pete up.

Best moment this week: My parents and sisters came to visit on Tuesday! I took the day off of work, we went to the beach, and everyone got to feel baby kick! Also, my parents got us our stroller, so we opened that and played with it. It's the Uppababy Vista, and it's super nice.

Miss anything? I can't see my lady bits anymore...bye bye grooming!

Movement: Absolutely! So much movement, in fact, that at my midwife appointment on Wednesday, the midwife couldn't find the heartbeat. I was freaking out, and she started laughing. My reaction was all 'what is wrong with you!?!' and she said "Listen, do you hear that? That's the sound of your baby moving!" She finally did get the heartbeat: a steady 140.

Food cravings: Freeze pops.

Anything making you queasy or sick? Nothing in particular

Gender: We don't know, and we don't plan to find out!

Labor signs: Nope, none of those!

Symptoms: Exhaustion and movement are my top two, closely followed by nausea and hunger. I am a walking conundrum.

Belly button in or out? In, but so close to being out.

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or moody most of the time: Very happy!

Looking forward to: Still getting started on the nursery!

How's this for an actual update?

I am realizing that my weekly updates have been quite slack in actually updating anyone on anything baby related! So I searched and found an update template that a couple other mommy bloggers have used, and I'm going to build my updates off of that from now on. Since today is OFFICIALLY 22 weeks, I figured I would start there.

How far along?  22 weeks

Total weight gain/measurements: 6 lbs. But that's a little misleading I suppose because I lost weight in my first trimester (thanks morning sickness).

Maternity clothes: Definitely. Always, always in maternity clothes. Here's my 20 weeks picture (that wouldn't upload on Monday - so now I owe you both 21 and 22 weeks) and you can see that my regular t-shirts were starting to be a bit tight at 20 weeks. And now I'm bigger. I can still fit into most of my dresses though, so that's nice for work!

I know, I'm cute.

Stretch marks: Well, I thought I was doing okay and that those nasty buggers I had when I was bigger were being held at bay, but hanging out last night on the couch, my husband pointed one of them out to me. It seems that they are not going to be held at bay for much longer...time for belly butter!

Sleep: Yes, I'm sleeping. Mostly well, at that. However, that middle-of-the-night trip to the bathroom is really disrupting. And it's worse now than it has been the past couple of weeks because this is the state of my upstairs bathroom, the one that's closest to me: 

That means that in addition to getting up in the middle of the night to pee, I have to trek downstairs and back upstairs, which gets the blood pumping and, unfortunately, keeps me awake!

Best moment this week: Yesterday morning. I was laying in bed, on my right side, after having snoozed my alarm. I could feel baby moving around a lot and was wondering if I could feel it from the outside. I shifted on to my back, and put my hand where I could feel a spot of pressure, on the upper left of my uterus. And baby kicked! Not a little fluttering of movement, but a very solid kick! And then last night, after Pete pointed out my stretch mark, I could see my belly moving, and Pete put his hand in just the right spot at just the right moment and he got kicked too!

Miss anything? I'm missing liking bacon. I really liked bacon before I got pregnant...

Movement: A ton.

Food cravings: Just food. Like I said on Monday, I'm just always hungry.

Anything making you queasy or sick? Brushing my teeth.

Gender: We don't know, and we don't plan to find out!

Labor signs: Nope, none of those!

Symptoms: Heartburn. Stretch marks (as mentioned above!). Fatigue. Shortness of breath. Back-ache. And this new feeling is starting to take over me...I think it's nesting...that would be why my husband has ripped out my bathroom and why I made this over the weekend:

Belly button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or moody most of the time: Mostly happy. Only grumpy when I'm tired.

Looking forward to: Getting started on the nursery!

Hungry Hungry Hippo

I'm 21 weeks pregnant and I'm so freaking hungry. Like all the time hungry, feed me all the food all the time, hungry!

Baby is kicking a LOT, which is nice and very comforting. I have my next appointment next week, and I'm very much excited to hear baby's heartbeat again.

I don't really have much else to update on. Baby is growing, I am growing, and I have the appetite to prove it!

A Week Late and Likely a Few Dollars Short

It's been an interesting two weeks and that has a lot to do with how all of a sudden I feel like my temperature is up and everything I do, even waking up, is making me exhausted.

Here's last weeks bumpdate shot.

So my most recent symptoms include swelling, often from too much standing, exhaustion, as previously mentioned, and lots and lots of kicking! Tonight was the first time Pete felt the baby, and it was quite magical for the both of us! Tears in my eyes kind of magical! I can't believe there's really a tiny human inside of that tummy of mine, even though as I'm typing this I'm 20 and one half weeks. Which is more than halfway, so I really should believe this by now.

Another thing that has been going on for me recently is that I joined Rodan + Fields and now sell their wonderful skincare. Checkout these results!

And look who endorses these products! One of my all time favorite people in the world, Ellen Degeneres!

Check out my website at https://keighleyjohnson.myrandf.com/ if you're interested in any of the products!

18 Weeks and Definitely Growing!

Today was our 18 weeks anatomy scan and good golly! There's a baby inside of me! It's felt pretty real for a couple weeks now, but I totally had a 'fast forward to the future' moment this afternoon in that exam room. I could see my baby squirming around, throwing his/her hands in the air, legs cross-cross-applesauce sitting square on my bladder, and it was so surreal!

Good news: baby is 100% normal!

Bad news: we still don't know the sex. And you know what? That's fine with us because we've decided we don't want to know! There aren't many real surprises in the world, but this? This is something everyone can guess at but nobody can know until the end, when baby is well and truly cooked and ready to make his/her grand appearance.

Here's what I looked like at 18 weeks:

And here is what baby looked like:

And this:

And I totally saw this:

That's all for today! See you next week!