Here Comes Baby V: Chugging Right Along

27 Weeks, 3 Days

(I have a lot of catching up to do, so pardon the extra long post this morning!)

I had my Houston baby shower two weekends ago on January 12th. My sister and mom hosted it at my mom's house, and about 35 of my favorite women attended. It was absolutely beautiful and the food was divine. The caterer, Jim Benton, who also catered our engagement party, prepared quite the spread worthy of any pregnant woman! There were fried pickles, chicken-and-waffles, chicken salad lettuce cups, and salmon quiches. My mouth is watering just remembering it. I received some lovely baby gifts - some from my registry, some not - and am incredibly thankful to have such a caring support system to help us bring this baby into the world (even if they're all the way back in Texas.) I'm sending out a special online "thank you" to everyone who came! Your real thank you notes are on the way soon!

My latest doctor's appointment was on Wednesday. As is standard practice, I was screened for gestational diabetes which was unpleasant to say the least. I had to go into the lab super early and chug a glass of glucose. It tasted like flat orange soda with about 20 packets of Equal in it. YUCK. I'm not a gaggy person, but I almost puked trying to drink that stuff. I had to wait an hour before they could draw my blood, so I walked on up to my doc's office for my appointment while the sugar worked its magic. Boy, was Baby V loving it. He was kicking and tumbling all over the place. He must have a sweet tooth just like his daddy. (FYI, my results are in and I'm negative for diabetes. Score!)

According to my doctor's evil scale, I only gained four pounds in four weeks which is a vast improvement from my eight-pound gain the previous month. My grandmother told me I'd probably slow down with the weight gain toward the end of my pregnancy because I wouldn't be able to eat as much as I used to. She's spot on. Now that the baby weighs approximately two pounds, he's taking up a lot more space and my poor stomach is smushed flat like a pancake. That doesn't leave much room for a double bacon cheeseburger with a side of fries, now does it? The doctor is pleased with my weight gain thus far, so I'm not stressing about it. She said the top of my uterus is about four inches above my belly button which means Baby V is on target for growth. She also took my official fundal height measurements for the first time. This is when the doctor measures from the top of the mother's pubic bone to the top of the uterus. I forgot how many total inches she told me I was, but it was all perfectly normal. While the doc was measuring away, she laughed and told me how she could see Baby V visibly moving around. I told you he enjoyed that glucose test! Baby V's heartbeat was in the 150s. My blood pressure was normal. My next appointment will be the last monthly exam. After that, I will go biweekly until the last month when it picks up to weekly visits. That'll be fun.

I had a mild breakdown this past Friday night and started crying out of nowhere. I feel bad for my poor hubby having to take the brunt of my pregnancy outbursts, but in a nutshell, this latest emotional moment was due to the fact that I have the nesting bug HARDCORE and feel like there's so much to accomplish before baby comes. The thoughts running through my head Friday night were along these lines: "Our house is too small. We have too much stuff. There's no room for baby. The nursery is a mess. OMG THE BABY IS GOING TO HAVE TO SLEEP IN THE KENNEL WITH MADISON! HELP!"

Now that I'm entering my third trimester, my physical abilities are becoming more and more limited; I just don't have the stamina to run 50 errands in a weekend like I used to. Despite all that, Vicente and I were super busy this past weekend trying to accomplish a ton of stuff before I can't drag my fat ass around anymore. We picked out paint colors for the nursery, sold the desk, assembled the new daybed for guests to sleep on in the nursery, took apart the old queen-sized guest bed, disposed of a nasty box spring (which proved way more difficult than one would expect), and took a huge load of old crap to Goodwill. I can now breathe a huge sigh of relief because my to-do list is much shorter.

And now, for some pictures!