Baby Shower Roundup

32 Weeks, 3 Days

Check out how pregnant I am (at 32 weeks, 1 day)!

Not much is new on the pregnancy front other than being HUGE and uncomfortable. The baby is moving so much these days and gets the hiccups at least 5 times a day. His kicks and punches are so forceful that at times, I double over or cry out "OUCH" when I feel a sudden jab. I'm not complaining though. I'd much rather him be an active little monkey than too quiet in there. Also, I'm having some, ahem, pelvic pain, which is difficult to describe. I don't want to get TMI on you guys, but it feels like somebody punched me really hard in my lady parts. I read that as the pelvis readies itself for the delivery process, sometimes the ligaments can overstretch and it can be uncomfortable on mommy-to-be. Damn straight! I plan on telling my doctor about it at my next appointment, but from what I've read online, it seems to be normal. Lovely!

On a lighter note, I had the most wonderful weekend! Mom, Ash and Vanessa all came into town for my Baltimore baby shower. It was a total blast. Since I never posted any photos from my Houston shower, I thought I'd make today's post a round-up of photos from each shower. A special shout out to my mom and sissy for hosting my Houston shower, and to my dear friend Jess for hosting the Baltimore one! Everything was absolutely lovely and I feel like the luckiest gal in the world to have people care about me and this baby so much. Check out some highlights:

Houston Baby Shower - January 12, 2013

Darling Ava Grace and Mese

Aunt Barbara

Adorable centerpiece

Me and the MIL

Preggo Sissies

My lovely sisters-in-law

Valero/Lozano Clan

Lizzie and Alex

Baltimore Baby Shower - February 23, 2013

The Childres Chicks

One of the world's greatest sister-in-laws!

Mommy and Daddy

Jess, the hostess with the mostest!

Precious decor to match the circus theme of baby V's nursery

Anne Marie and Me

My favorite ladies from Planit

Vicente joined us to help open gifts. Check out these baby TOMS from Jess!

I also finished Baby V's nursery this weekend. Mom told me where to hang stuff, and Vicente did all the manual labor. It looks absolutely beautiful and I'm so happy with my choices. Of course, none of it would have been possible without the generosity of our parents, family and friends who contributed to the room with their lovely gifts. See for yourself how everything turned out:

Nesting and Such

32 Weeks

Well, I'm currently eight months along and have eight more weeks to go! I feel a bit like Thomas the Tank Engine, both in size and personal mantras. "I think I can, I think I can!" I'm happy to be near the final stretch, although I'm sure time will seemingly stand still now until the delivery.

This week was a productive one in terms of nesting and exploring childcare options. We hired a painter to spruce up our common living areas and give the guest room/nursery a makeover worthy of any stylish baby boy. Vicente and I plan to buy a house when Baby V is around 6-9 months old, but since we agreed to stay in our cozy city rental a bit longer, I thought it needed a little face lift  The combined living/dining room is now a beautiful taupe color that makes the space feel much warmer. The walls were painted a hideously cheap white color, and after three years of wear and tear, they looked miserable. The former office will now serve as the baby's playroom (complete with changing table, baby swing and rocker) since the nursery is too small to fit anything other than the twin guest bed, the crib and a tiny dresser. We had that room painted the same color as the first floor. Of course, we painted the nursery blue. I just couldn't resist. Everything turned out beautifully, and I'm so happy we decided to hire someone to do it for us. I would have botched every aspect of the job. I'm so uncrafty it's scary. Luckily, our landlord is splitting the cost with us so it wasn't that bad on the wallet.

Check out the pics:

 

 


The plan is to hang the wall decor this weekend while my mom, a fabulous self-taught home decorator, is in town to help. I attempted to hang curtain panels in the nursery last night while Vicente was at a hockey game, but that turned out disastrous. I dropped a curtain rod and shattered the glass finials...so I guess it's back to Target during lunch today. It's probably best that I had to stop the installment before I started. Preggo + ladder = bad idea.

My awesome friend Jess is throwing me another baby shower in Baltimore this weekend for some of my gal pals in the area. I'm so excited! I know she's put a lot of work into it, and I can't thank her enough for doing this for me. As I already mentioned, my mom, sister, and one of my sister-in-laws are coming into town tonight for the shower. Yay family! I'll do a better job taking pics at this shower than I did at my last one in Houston. Stay tuned.

Let's see, what else happened this week? My bestie Ariel decided to get married in Santa Barbara in July, which happens to be three months after the baby is born. After much debate, V and I decided to make her wedding weekend our post-Baby Moon and leave the little one in Baltimore while his abuela Maritza takes care of him. I already feel a bit guilty about it, but he'll be three months old by then and I'll probably relish a weekend  alone with my hubby. I ordered my bridesmaid's dress yesterday and had a bit of a dilemma trying to figure out what size to buy. Obviously, I can't waltz into a Bella Bridesmaids store to get my measurements taken, seeing as how I'm currently a heifer with a watermelon for a belly, so I had to guess what size I'll be by the wedding. I'm typically a dress size 2, but I usually order a 4 in bridesmaids dresses since you can't add fabric, you can only take it in. However, I decided to up the ante to a size 6 to accommodate my Dolly Partons. The body of the dress is flowy, floor-length and chiffon, so it should hide any remaining belly I might be holding onto at that time. I hope it fits!

Lastly, I have a pretty solid lead for a potential nanny share situation. I met a new mommy online who had a baby in January. She's heading back to work in April, and is currently vetting nanny candidates. She's looking for another family to share her nanny with -for cost and developmental benefits for the babies - and it just so happens that we are looking for the same thing! The plan would be for me to join her nanny situation in July when I head back to work. We've been going back and forth via email and we seem to have a lot in common. We're meeting in person on Sunday and if all goes well, which I'm sure it will, we'll start interviewing nannies in person together. I actually have a phone call to vet my first nanny candidate today and I'm inexplicably anxious. I hope she's not a freak.

Wish me luck.

All Quiet on the Western Front

30 Weeks, 5 Days

I had my monthly baby doc appointment this morning at GBMC. It was pretty uneventful - not that I'd want it to be any other way. Dr. H. gave me a clean bill of health, per the usual. My blood pressure is awesome, my weight gain is on track, and my blood work from the last visit came back negative for diabetes, anemia and syphilis (there's a shocker...jk!). My fundal height measured 32 cm, which puts baby V on target, albeit a little bit large, in the size department. I learned today that a woman's fundal height should match up with the week of her pregnancy (30 cm at 30 weeks, 31 cm at 31 weeks, and so on...) It's not an exact science, but if it was, that would make baby V about a week older than we originally thought. Dr. H. said baby V is about 4 lbs and two weeks from now, he'll be 5 lbs. Big boy! When the nurse was trying to find his heartbeat this morning with the doppler, he kept wiggling around and she would lose the heartbeat. She laughed at how active he was, and when she finally clocked his heartbeat for a solid 5 seconds, it was right where it usually is in the 150s.

I now tip the scales at 150 lbs. That means I've gained 4 lbs since my last visit, 22 lbs since my doctor has been tracking me at 8 weeks, and 30 lbs total since I found out I was pregnant at 5 weeks. For the past three months, I've pretty much gained a pound a week on average, although my doctor expects it to slow in the last month of pregnancy. I'm within the normal weight gain range, but it's still a bit shocking to be in the 150s when I've been in the 120s since 8th grade. Oh well. 'Tis the life of a preggo woman!

Some other random pregnancy-related things I learned today:

• My doctor doesn't like her patients to go more than 7 days after their due date, so she would recommend inducing me if I was that late. 
• Dr. H. performs circumcisions on baby boys the day after delivery, which she said is her least favorite part of her job. I laughed. 
• Zantac is totally safe for pregnant ladies, thank God, and my doc recommends taking 75 mgs twice a day to relieve my ridiculous heartburn. If that doesn't work, I can up the dosage to 150 mgs. 
• Fetal hiccups are super common and completely normal, even when they occur more than 10 times a day as in my own experience. 
• It's a possibility that the umbilical hernia I was born with and had repaired as a child may rupture as my belly expands, but there's nothing I can do about it while pregnant so we'll deal with that if it happens.
• I should start feeling Braxton Hicks contractions more often now that I'm a couple months away from delivery. I've already had about 4 or 5 contractions in the last couple of weeks, which is to be expected. It isn't painful yet, just uncomfortable. My entire uterus tightens into a hard ball for about 15-20 seconds, then stops. My doctor said if I feel more than 5 or 6 within an hour, to lie down, drink some water, and call her. But, anything else is completely normal.
• I scheduled my next appointment for three weeks from now, then my doctor wants to see me two weeks after that, and then once a week until my due date.This shit is starting to get real, y'all!

Vicente is currently at the house negotiating with a painting company, who hopefully can start painting the nursery tomorrow. Why aren't we painting it ourselves, you might be asking? Because we're lazy and would rather pay professionals to make it look pretty. Once that happens, we can hang artwork, shelves, and put the final touches on the baby's room. I'll post pics once that happens, but here's a little preview of one-half of the "nursery suite."

Proud Daddy in the "playroom."
Note that we're using the ironing board to keep Madison off the baby floor
until we get a more practical baby gate.

My adorable niece, Ava, who is going through a Minnie Mouse phase.
Perfection, no?

Technology is "Nuts"

30 Weeks, 3 Days

Yesterday, Vicente and I did something incredibly cool. We visited an ultrasound clinic called Little Bo Peep to get a sneak peek of Baby V before his April debut. This "clinic" is one of the only places in the Baltimore area offering 3-D and 4-D ultrasound services by a registered diagnostic medical sonographer. It's an out-of-pocket expense, but totally worth it if you're anything like me and anxious to see how your baby is growing and developing in utero. My doctor told me several weeks ago that I wasn't going to have any more ultrasounds during my regular check-ups unless something went wrong, God forbid. I had heard of ultrasound clinics like Little Bo Peep before, and figured it would be worth it to pay an extra $100 to see baby V one more time before his birthday. I'm SO happy we did it!

Our ultrasound tech was cute as a button and so enthusiastic about the whole thing. She spent about 15 minutes capturing some priceless images and video footage of Baby V. We got to see his perfect little face, his hands and feet, and the family jewels to confirm that he is, in fact, a dude. I was amazed at how much he looks like his daddy. He definitely has the prominent Valero nose and Vicente's upper lip. Baby V was pouting a lot during the ultrasound, likely due to the invasion of his privacy. Luckily, he gave us a smile or two. So adorable I could die. We saw him opening and closing his mouth like a little guppy, and reaching for his toes with those tiny little hands! What did people do without this kind of technology!?!

I uploaded the ultrasound video to Youtube for easy viewing. Check out our perfect little prince, Vicente Valero, IV! (Disclaimer: video might make you cry.)

Sneezing While Pregnant

29 Weeks, 4 Days

Now that I'm comfortably (or should I say uncomfortably?) into my third trimester, the pregnancy symptoms I had hoped were a thing of the past are coming back to haunt me with a vengeance. Case in point: extreme fatigue. During my first trimester, Vicente teased me about my chronic fatigue, saying that I must have contracted the African Sleeping Sickness (a parasitic disease endemic to Subsaharan Africa that is transmitted via the lovable tse-tse fly.) All I wanted to do in those first 12 weeks of pregnancy was sleep.  Luckily, I regained my energy in the second trimester, only to lose it again the moment I hit 28 weeks. Oh joy.

Another symptom? Breast growth! As a woman who was already enjoying a healthy C-cup prior to pregnancy, I wasn't really begging for a more bountiful bosom as some of my smaller chested counterparts do. Frankly, I was shocked and even a bit awed to find myself jumping up THREE cup sizes in the first trimester. I was praying to God Almighty that the growth would slow down after the first trimester, and it did....but only for a few weeks. Now the boobs are starting to take over my body. I think they're jealous that my belly has surpassed them and they're now playing catch up. I assume the growth is due to the fact that I'll soon be a milk factory, but let me just say I'm not a fan. There's got to be a flip side to these Dolly Parton-esque breasts. Because let me tell ya, being ogled at by every man walking the street isn't one of the perks (no pun intended). I better have one healthy, chubby little baby who never cries because he's hungry at the end of all this. I'm certainly not going to trade in my career in PR for a career in porno.

I've also been suffering from a whole new pregnancy symptom since I hit the third trimester: RAGING heartburn. Unfortunately, I've always suffered from heartburn as an adult, but with some minor modifications to my diet (bye-bye cranberry vodkas) and a regular dose of Zantac prior to red wine binges and steak dinners, I could deal with it. Pregnancy heartburn, however, is a whole new beast. Obviously I'm not drinking wine or cranberry vodkas these days, but I still get the raging heartburn every day around 4 pm like clockwork. I keep a giant tub of Tums on my desk at work to help me deal. I expected to get heartburn, but I never imagined it could be this bad. It feels like battery acid is splashing into my throat. The burning is so intense it brings tears to my eyes. I can totally sympathize with fire-breathing dragons these days.

But enough complaining. Some of the joys so far from my third trimester? I can tell which end is what now that baby V is approximately three pounds (the size of a butternut squash). His little round head prefers the left side of my body, and his feet are usually firmly planted into the right side of my abdomen. He also gets the hiccups at least three times a day, which I utterly adore.

29 Weeks, 3 Days

PS: Sneezing while pregnant sucks. It's painful and I feel like I'm going to pop a hernia or pee on myself every time I do it.

PPS: I have a friend who grew up in Denmark who told me this weekend that Danish people call pregnant women whales...and it's not deemed an insult. I'm so glad he didn't ask Vicente how the old whale was doing. I might have punched him in the face.

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!

25 Weeks, 1 Day

26 Weeks, 1 Day

Vicente sets up the crib!

The finished product, plus a nervous beagle.

Crib, post baby shower. Crib and bedding courtesy of the Valero family!

Love this mobile, a gift from my mom

The new guest bed in the nursery

Anatomy Of A Pregnant Lady

25 Weeks

Things are moving along quite nicely in my pregnancy. I'm 25 weeks today, which means I only have 15 more weeks to go! I haven't updated my blog recently because I don't feel like I have much to say these days. I guess that's a good thing because it means all is well in Baby Land. The only thing that has really developed since my last post is fetal movement. Baby Vince is a kicking monkey! I can now differentiate between his kicks and punches. And he rolls around a lot. My belly is really starting to stick out a lot too, and you can see his movements very clearly from the outside.

I came across an interesting sketch today on one of these pregnancy blogs that I follow. It gives a quick anatomy lesson of a pregnant lady, and it really put things into perspective for me. While my baby is nowhere near this size just yet, it still explains why I have the sudden urge to pee when Baby V feels like he's riding low, and it explains why I'm constantly out of breath and feel so full after a few small bites of food.

Anatomy Of A Pregnant Lady (note the bladder and the stomach)

Also, I've started lining up my maternity leave at work, and realized how much it sucks to have a baby in America when you're a working woman. After looking into how other countries handle it, I decided I'm moving to Sweden. Or Germany.