20 Weeks

Whooooaaa we're halfway there! Whoaaaaa! Cannot believe this is the halfway mark!!  I missed last week - I've been busy busy either working or preparing for the Holidays which were woonderful!

Last week I had a routine appt.  They always listen to the baby's heartbeat with the doppler and it appeared that the baby was having some decels.  I couldn't feel her moving at the time and in all reality that's the most likely cause - her heart was just moving and the doppler starts to pick up my heartbeat.  Either way, the nurse practitioner that saw us wanted us to run over the ultrasound just so they could watch her heartbeat for a min a make sure things looked ok.  When we got there her heart was a little slower than it had been, more like 140 beats but as low as 125.  The normal range is 120-160ish so technically that's within normal and they weren't overly concerned.  I go back for my anatomy scan today so they will take a good look at the heart, cord, etc. and make sure everything at least looks healthy!  Send some prayers our way :)

I've been feeling fine though... starting to feel a little on the fat side.  This middle stage is kind of awkward in that I definitely am developing a bump but in everyday clothes it's unlikely that most people would think I'm pregnant.  Still fitting into my regular clothes but I did have to break out the belly band to get one of my smaller pairs of dress pants on :)

I'm still feeling her move all the time so that's reassuring that she's developing just fine :)  I haven't been extra hungry or anything until the last week or so and then I feel like I'm starving all the time!  Maybe baby girl is trying to fatten up a bit.

Still haven't committed to a name, although Andy calls her Emma Kate all the time.  We will see.  Harper is pretty good with her C words given she has Claire, Cam, Carrie and Kate to practice with so maybe she'd prefer a little sister named Caroline. haha :)

How far along: 20

Total Weight Gain: 9lbs
Stretchmarks: None 

Sleep: great

Best Moment This Week: Christmas!! was the best ever with Harper this year!!
Movement: yes :)

Gender: Girl!
Labor Signs: braxton hicks
Belly Button: lived in
What I Miss: not much
What I am Looking Forward to: anatomy scan today
Milestones: she is the size of a banana!

19 Weeks

20 Weeks

18 Weeks

Nothing too exciting to report this week.  I am getting so excited to be finished with nights and looking forward to our first Christmas this weekend with Andy's family!  I figured it's probably time we start looking at nurseries for this bebe girl so I've starting doing a little work on pinterest :)  Maybe after the holidays we will get a little more focused on preparing for this little one!

How far along: 18

Total Weight Gain: 6lbs
Stretchmarks: None 

Sleep: exhausted...
Best Moment This Week: being so close to finishing nights so I can spend a little more time at home with my fam!!
Movement: yes :)

Gender: Girl!
Labor Signs: braxton hicks
Belly Button: lived in
What I Miss: not much! the lack of heartburn... it's back early this time!! baby better have a full head of hair ;)
What I am Looking Forward to: finishing nights so I can officially be getting ready for Christmas
Milestones: baby can hear, is about 6 inches long and is 'going through the motions of crying' ha!

17 Months

Just noticed that Harper is 17 months and the baby is 17 weeks!! We've been trying to talk to Harper more about the baby but she has no clue.  We'll point to my belly and tell her the baby is in there... and then when we ask her where mama's baby is she only cares to tickle my belly button! ha  I think Harper is going to do great with her though.  She loves Claire and is always so concerned with her if she's crying.  She also loves to put her animals in all of Claire's swings/bouncers/carseat and will cover them with a blanket and then rock them.  She also loves to put herself in all these baby toys but that's another story....

November was pretty great - It was a much lighter workload for me so we got lots more family time in! Harper is still entertaining us nonstop of course.  We took her and Olivia to the zoo one weekend which was a lot of fun... and work! Poor Olivia has recently had her ACL repaired so couldn't use crutches all over the park so we just rented her a wheelchair.  So the plan was Harper would ride in her stroller and OJ in the wheelchair... well... Harper wasn't having the stroller.  There was way too much to see and do that could not be accomplished being restrained in a wheelchair.  That meant one person was responsible for manning the stroller and chasing the Harper which kept us pretty busy!!  Harper loved the elephants this time.  The zoo was practically empty as it was a bit chilly so that was nice to not have so many crowds fighting to see everything.

Maybe all kids are the same but one thing we have found about Harper is that if you give her an inch she will continue to fight you for more and more.  Ie, if you let her get out of the stroller once at the zoo she's going to want to do it all day long.  If you let her stand at church she's going to be whining nonstop to cruise down the pew to touch all the books.  I'd say she's just a tiny bit strong willed....

Her vocabulary is still increasing all the time but her comprehension is what is so amazing right now.  She really understands just about everything we ask her to do.  Although sometimes she exhibits selective hearing once you get her attention she will usually do what you ask.  Reading books is how I love to see what objects she knows - she will point to everything you request.

We put up our christmas tree a couple days after Thanksgiving and Harper is in love with it.  She really loves her Christmas tree the most though.  She probably asks us ten times a day to go upstairs and will race down the hall and into her room and say 'wooooow woooow' lol.  Her tree is up on a dresser so we don't have to worry about her touching it but she's done great with our big tree as well.  Although at times we have caught her using other objects to touch it... ie, will take her bunny and touch it's hand to the tree. lol  can't blame her for being creative!  She also loves to help with the Christmas presents/wrapping.  She will sit on the box for me while I wrap, pull out 18 inches of tape at a time, and unroll all the ribbon and then wrap it around herself... such a big helper!! ;)  But then she does faithfully take the presents and set them under the tree for me everytime :)

She started cutting molars over Thanksgiving... phew... that is no fun.  We were at my parents one night and she was up crying probably every hour and we had no clue what was wrong.  We thought she was waking up and then got scared because she had no idea where she was.  Then the next morning we saw her huge swollen gums.  They looked horrible.  She was a fussy lady for our first round of Thanksgiving at the Kings as I forgot to give her any tylenol before we went but for the next round with the Hamilton's she was back to her happy little self.  She cut two on the top at first and is now working on the bottoms.

She had such a big time at the Hamilton's thanksgiving.  She is seriously such a show off and loves having people paying attention to her.  We will beg her to do her 'celebration dance' for us and she refuses but the second my brothers walk in our door she's down on the floor trying to entertain us.  She had a big time running around with all her second cousins and especially loved snacking with Miss Kennedy when the appetizer table happened to be just their size ;)

She's still running around in 12-18 month things, moving up to size 5 shoes.  She weighed herself on our scale the other day and it says 21.4 so who knows how accurate.  She is finally tall enough to climb herself onto our ottomans/couches... can't say we're excited about that ;)  And she's just tall enough to reach door knobs but not quite big enough to actually turn them.  I am especially not excited for that! haha

Here's a couple pictures

17 Weeks

The past week has been pretty uneventful except I am officially feeling the baby move!! I'm on nights this week so I spend a decent amount of time laying wide awake waiting for the next page and that gives me time to pay attention to little baby rolling around in there.  I think that's probably the coolest thing about being pregnant :)

I think Harper and I have passed some little bug back and forth this week but fortunately my immune system has been strong enough to fight it with only feeling super nauseated.  Her on the other hand.... she has woken her dad up at 6AM 3 days in a row, crying, with diarrhea covering her and her crib.  Bless both their little hearts!!

How far along: 17

Total Weight Gain: 6lbs
Stretchmarks: None 

Sleep: so messed up... nights will do this to you :(
Best Moment This Week: feeling baby rolling around in there!
Movement: nope

Gender: Girl!
Labor Signs: braxton hicks already... so soon!
Belly Button: lived in
What I Miss: sleeping >3 hrs at a time... being on nights is far worse than having a newborn... and of course waking up to a baby is much more pleasant than who I get to see throughout the night
What I am Looking Forward to: completing my stretch of nights... dec 14th cannot come soon enough
Milestones: baby movement!

16 weeks

Well we have an exciting update to share this week - Harper is going to have a baby sister!!  As I had mentioned before Andy has been dying to know but I insisted we wait. Well, we had planned to do a gender reveal party next weekend but my Dad was on call so the next weekend we could do it was the weekend after Christmas... an awfully long time to wait.  But, we did plan on waiting... in fact I had already ordered something from etsy that we were going to use to make the reveal.  Then I woke up the  day before Thanksgiving and asked Andy if he just wanted to find out that day.  Of course he said yes so we decided that if we could get an appt at one of the pregnancy spas in town then we would go get an ultrasound done and find out!  Sure enough they were able to squeeze us in and although she was sitting so proper with her little legs crossed in front of her our tech was able to coerce her into moving a bit.  I didn't feel surprised at all for some reason.  For quite a few weeks I had thought it was a boy but then for the last couple weeks I had been thinking girl.

Andy decided he was going to skip Thanksgiving festivities and head back to the office to make some more money for the weddings in his future... I reassured him that we would be saving so much money with all the hand-me-downs from Harper ;)  Of course we are so excited to have two sweet girls and I hope they will be the best of friends!!  And I hope they think I'm not too embarrassing to hang out with either ;)  And with baby Claire right across the street... these girls could be a handful in just a few short years!!

Everyone is now asking about names and for some reason I'm having a hard time with it - we had our boy name picked out for sure but not positive about girls.  Our other girl name last time was Emma Kate and Andy still loves that.  I also really like Caroline though at the moment... but then I'm always thinking of other ones I love too.  We will see!

Anyhoo,  here's our little update for the week

How far along: 16

Total Weight Gain: 6lbs
Stretchmarks: None but need to get serious about lotioning up the belly 

Sleep: like a rock, except Harper cutting some molars has brought me back to the newborn age at times ;)
Best Moment This Week: healthy heartbeat of 155... so similar to Harpers.. and then finding out it's a girl!!
Movement: nope

Gender: Girl!
Labor Signs: braxton hicks already... so soon!
Belly Button: lived in
What I Miss: not much
What I am Looking Forward to: feeling baby move
Milestones: baby is the size of a turnip

I definitely am bigger this time than I was with Harper - I looked back at my old blogs to see when I broke out the belly band... not until like 22 weeks!! ahhh!! I am wearing scrubs for the next two weeks and had been fine in my work clothes until now... we will see with the middle of December brings ;)