37 weeks- full term!

whoa.

how far along? 37 weeks
total weight gain: 35 lbs
babys size/development this week: at wednesdays ultrasound they said hank weighs just at about 6 lbs (right on track). my belly is still measuring about an inch or two small. babycenter.com says hank is the size of a stalk of swiss chard... back to the unknown vegetables. ill go with tiffanys comparison- a watermelon! yum! and large. my belly definitely feels heavier to carry around and is constantly hard.
maternity clothes: yup. and im running out of options of things to wear but im not going to buy anything else. i cant wait to get back to my closet full of spring/summer clothes!
miss anything? being able to bend over and comfortably tie my shoes (glad im mostly wearing flip flops and clogs now), my ankles... yup, swelling started this week (as the weather has gotten warmer and walking around a lot more)
food cravings: avacado and coffee!
anything making you queasy or sick? the noro virus made me very sick last sunday night. gross.
sleep: sleeping with my legs/feet propped up now since the ankle swelling began. oh the joy (but i am comfortable sleeping on my back, which i probably shouldnt do but whatever, doing it anyway)
best moment of the week: both my work and tys work threw us surprise baby showers on the same day!! mmmmmm cake. and being able to see hank moving all around on the 3D/4D ultrasound... kept moving the hands in front of the face like it didnt want us to peek in on him/her, but we got a few squished looking pics, and i fell in love with the fat chubby fingers.
nursery: all clean and ready!
weddings rings on or off? wedding band on, sometimes
movement? theres not a whole lot of room for hank to move around anymore so any and all movement is magnified by a trillion. a lot of it is now pretty uncomfortable.
labor signs? other than the contractions a few weeks ago, nothing new. and i definitely dont think i have "dropped" yet. doctor said i am about a fingertip dilated on wednesday, didnt say anything about efacement, which is fine since i dont really know what that is anyway.
weird pregnancy thing of the week: i know the ankle swelling isnt abnormal at this time but my right ankle is definitely more swollen than the left. so i think thats weird.
daddy is feeling: "ready.... for now. that will change once the baby is here im sure".
mommy is feeling: anxious, excited, nervous, ready to be done.
workouts this week: is violently vomiting a workout? i say yes! burned calories and got rid of everything in my body. win (barf, quite literally). i walked a little bit this week but with the swelling in my ankles towards the end of the week i decided to stay off my feet and eat pop tarts. heh.
looking forward to: tomorrow.

36 weeks

(post originally written on sunday afternoon)

complete with chips photo bomb

how far along? 36 weeks
total weight gain: i had mini pumpkin muffins for breakfast, mac & cheese for lunch, ice cream for snack and french fries for dinner... im kinda afraid to look. (related: so healthy)
babys size/development this week: baby weighs almost 6 pounds (we will find out for sure wednesday), and is gaining approx one ounce per day. at the end of this week baby will be considered full term!
maternity clothes? nothing is comfortable anymore. id love to spend the rest of this pregancy in a baggy tank top and sweatpants.
miss anything? this list keeps growing and growing... but mostly now i just miss my pre baby body (and mind)
food cravings? i think im just craving food in general right now.
anything making you queasy or sick? nope
sleep: ive been going to bed way too late this week and waking up at 6am on my days off. rude.
best moment of the week: finding the assholes that bombed the boston marathon finish line
worst moment of the week: (new question, hopefully only for this week) see add on note below
nursery: all clean and ready for baby!
wedding rings on or off? i took off my engagement ring and am wearing my wedding band (so i dont look like a single pregnant lady haha)
movement? i consistently have a foot protruding out the side of my belly. its fun to watch this amoeba squirm all around in what little space he/she has left (how about you just jab that leg hard enough to break my water sometime soon... k thanks)
weird pregnancy thing of the week: (this might be weird tmi, sorry) a few months ago i had a weird small skin tag develop under my arm. it got kinda painful at times because it would get stuck and feel like it was going to get ripped off. anyway, i noticed in the shower a few days ago it was gone. im kinda grossed out its like in my bed or something. pregnancy is so weird.
daddy is feeling: hungover. he and jamie had a little too much fun last night. (dont get me wrong, i like to have some drinks and have fun occasionally, but i dont miss that feeling AT ALL)
mommy is feeling: im actually feeling like im kinda hungover from the past 8 plus months. its so strange thinking back now on all of this... august seems like such a long time ago, while at the same time it seems like it has gone by so fast. im anxious and nervous and excited and and and.... and im definitely nesting. who vacuums the cement basement floor? and irons curtains...
workouts of the week: just a lot of walking this week
looking forward to: having our last ultrasound on wednesday... i cant wait to see the baby one last time before he/she arrives! also, only 12 days (or less) of work left!

ok so back to the "worst moment of the week": sunday night as we went up to bed i started to feel kinda sick. i had told ty i felt like i was holding back trying not to throw up (i hate being sick. despise it, so i try and try not to let it happen). i just tossed and turned til about 10:45pm and then finally figured i was going to be sick and pretty much spent the next 5 hours in the bathroom. (the only positive is that i got rid of all the junk food i ate sunday, win!).

i would return back to bed and shake uncontrollably. i think i was more scared than anything. baby was still moving a lot but i didnt know how/if this was going to affect it. at 3am i called amanda at work and asked her to check in with the L&D girls to see if i should go to the hospital for fluids. amy said wait and call my doc in the am and see what she said. so at 8:30am i called the nurses at the office and told them what was going on and they said try to drink some fluids other than water, eat something bland, and see how i feel towards lunch time. i took a nap, continued to be sick, and when i woke up my feet/toes were numb and i couldnt really move my fingers. i knew this wasnt good, so i called the office back and they made the decision to have me go to the hospital.

i called ty at work and was crying but i didnt have any fluid for tears. he came home and we headed out. i didnt have to go through the ER which was awesome (we'd probably still be there), just checked in at the desk for labor & delivery and headed to the floor. they made ty show his drivers license at the desk and get a visitors sticker to wear. when we got to the floor, a woman (didnt introduce herself/didnt ask who i was) came over to us and put me right in a room and then we waited til the nurse came in. it was a very different experience being a patient than working in the hospital... i never showed my ID, i wasnt given a bracelet (although i did ask about this and they had one for me, just didnt put it on me?), i was never asked for my name or date of birth (got blood drawn, an IV and was given two meds)... just seemed interesting since we are very much pushed to make sure we have the right patient all the time at my work.

but anyway... the whole experience was great and i started feeling much better within a very short amount of time. i ended up getting two bags of IV fluid (i hadnt peed since sunday night and still didnt really feel much like i needed to go), some IV zofran, and immodium (which i now figure we should have just bought at the store, ill probably spend $100 on it from the hospital haha). ive never been in the hospital before so it was all new to me but was a good dry run and gave us some insight for the next few weeks (remember to bring snacks, things to occupy ty, and bring some socks! brrrrr). the iv itself didnt hurt but the fluid was very cold! and for the second bag the nurse had to reinfuse the vein and that kinda hurt a little bit. im sure things will be very different the next time im there, but overall im so glad that i went. i have a bit of a headache today and still feel kinda weak but sooooo much better than i felt yesterday. and this morning mom stopped by to bring food: chicken noodle soup, goldfish, bananas, bagels, cracklin oat bran, and a roll of paper towels. what would we do without moms?! xoxo

also, i told ty i wanted to bring some windex and paper towels so we can clean the windows when i go to the hospital to have the baby. the streaks were driving me nuts! nesting much??

i am a runner.

prior to this post back in november, my blog was all (well mostly all) about running. i am many things... a strong woman, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a soon to be mother... but i also am, and forever will be, a runner. i havent been able to run in over a month, and to say that i miss it would be a huge understatement. the strength i have gained from running... physically, emotionally, mentally... cannot be measured. ive toed the start line of over 80 races, 8 of which were a distance of 26.2 miles, and have certainly spectated many on top of that.

i was not physically in boston on monday for the 117th running of the boston marathon, but i was there in spirit. i knew many people running, and many more spectating. ty and i had gone down to the sox game sunday, but i figured that monday would be too long of a day on my feet being 8 months pregnant, and decided against staying. instead i worked and had text updates coming to my phone about friends running, reaching marks along the course. sarah and i had gone down in both 2010 and 2011 to spectate, both times standing at mile 26.1 on the left side of boylston cheering on thousands of runners just prior to the finish line.

i have a lot of thoughts and feelings that i havent quite figured out how to process yet. there are a lot of "what if's" running through my head. what happened on monday is an unthinkable tragedy that hits too close to home. never once in any of the races i have run have i ever felt unsafe. it sucks to think that nothing is safe anymore. i still cannot wrap my head around all of it and what kind of world i am about to bring my unborn child into.

but i will not stop running. and i will not live in fear. the heroic stories help remind us that the good still outweighs the bad. i have never run boston, and it actually hasnt been on my "bucket list", believe it or not. but i cannot wait to train for and run my next marathon in october. as part of a community, us runners stick together and rise above when things get tough. we pick each other up when we are down, and we never give up. running a marathon, or any race distance for that matter, is an incredible feeling of accomplishment, and it is something that i will continue to enjoy, yet never in the same way again.

my heart goes out to all who ran the race... those who finished, those who didnt finish, those affected by the explosions, and those who lost their lives/family members that day.

35 weeks

i feel like my face looks so distorted in this pic. hrumph.

how far along? 35 weeks
total weight gain: only gained 2 pounds in between the last doctors appointment (2 weeks) so im feeling good about that. 
babys size/development this week: baby is growing fast and is just over 18 inches long (probably 20 in my case) and probably just at or slightly above 5 pounds. another week of a fruit that i know to compare to... a honeydew melon! kidneys are fully developed and the liver is starting to process some waste products. most of the physical developments are complete now and it will just spend the remaining weeks gaining weight (hopefully not too much!) and as my father-in-law nicely said, the next few weeks are for the head to keep growing. thanks john!
maternity clothes: i got a couple of tops from old navy (buy one get one free!), a tank top from the gap, and the long and lean maternity jeans at gap were on sale from $70 (who actually pays that?!) to $35, and then rang up at $24. win. also, i went from a size 6 back to a size 4. double win. (still not trying on my pre pregnancy jeans until... october?)
miss anything? sleeping on my stomach... sleeping in general... being able to tie my shoes... 
food cravings? got back on a BLT kick for a few days but that has subsided. i just still kinda want what i want when i want it (which isnt much different than when im not pregnant). i had the most amazing turkey burger with avacado today and really awesome french fries. wish we had a yard house closer by!
anything making you queasy or sick? nope
sleep: still havent been needing to wake up and pee at night, but im also still not sleeping well. just lying in bed, thinking i guess. was also rudely awoken at 4am saturday morning by a contraction which sucked big time. that whole natural child birth thing might have to be rethought. (alright it wasnt that bad, but it did hurt. and i wasnt expecting it, nor the one that followed about an hour later). the best part of this whole thing was that i texted my mom from the gym later that morning and she called all in a panic asking when she needed to come to the hospital. mom- if im in labor i will call you, not text you haha. also then rudely awoken this morning at 3am by chips puking up hairballs on the bedroom floor. which then turned into duke wanting to go out after hearing the commotion of us awake upstairs. awesome. were in for a fun/sleepless summer i think.
best moment of the week: watching clay make it to the 7th with a no hitter and singing sweet caroline with great friends at fenway!
nursery: still just organizing more and more... got the changing table all prepared, clothes are washed and put away, bed is made. also started packing the hospital bags... i cant decide what i want to bring for the baby so there are currently about 20 pieces of clothes set out that we need to pick through.
wedding rings on or off? on
movement? still moving a lot. apparently the head has made its way down, according to the doctors feel anyway (yay!), and they will confirm it at next weeks ultrasound just to be sure. im much more comfortable than i was when the head was up, but having the head down makes for a whole new/different way of being uncomfortable. im pretty sure i have never peed so many times in one day before.
weird pregnancy thing of the week: the hormones seem to be shifting again and im crying a lot more. the other night ty mentioned something about bringing duke to see the lady that we bought him from to show her how big he has gotten. then ty was like "and he can hang out with/play with cabela!" (dukes mom). i started crying thinking of how sad it is that we took duke away from his mom and that his mom had all her puppies taken away from her. good lord.
daddy is feeling: too busy playing candy crush saga to answer (he asked me to show him how to play one night and i found him the next morning obsessively crushing candies. we both love to hate that game.)
mommy is feeling: more and more anxious. seems weird to say that if i have the baby on my due date i only have 15 days left of work... maybe even less! (im scheduled to work the day before my due date)
workouts this week: 6.1 miles walking, 18 miles biking, 5 miles elliptical
looking forward to: a fun upcoming weekend with friends, and looking forward to meeting this little wonder ive been growing!

34 weeks

how far along? 34 weeks
total weight gain: ill find out tomorrow. i had a lot of coffee cake this weekend.
babys size/development this week: approx 4 and 3/4 pounds... about the size of a canteloupe!
maternity clothes: wearing them? yes. anything new? no.
miss anything? all things prior to being pregnant. 
food cravings? nah.
anything making you queasy or sick? nope, although i just feel kinda blah all day, every day.
sleep: still having difficulty falling asleep, and now waking up and not being able to get back to sleep. lovely.
best moment of the week: my baby shower! hank is so very very loved (and mom is so very very overwhelmed!) it was so great to see so many family and friends (many i havent seen in a very long time!)
nursery: my project for today and tomorrow... getting all the baby shower gifts organized and put away! 
wedding rings on or off? on
movement? i have had elbows to the ribs all weekend. fun.

weird pregnancy thing of the week: nothing really weird this week
daddy is feeling: he continues to say he is excited... and i really think his face in this pic genuinely shows that.

mommy is feeling: im excited and like i said, a bit overwhelmed. and a little scared. but i know that this baby already has a ton of love and support from friends and family and im just really anxious to find out what is squirming around inside me and start the next part of this journey. 6 more weeks!

workouts this week: not really as much as i had wanted to do but i got some really good elliptical workouts in... pain free! 35 miles for the week with biking, elliptical, and walking. i chose sleeping and resting over a few workouts and im ok with that.   
looking forward to: heading to boston and seeing the red sox game next sunday!!!

33 weeks

how far along? 33 weeks
total weight gain: dunno, no scale this week. everything still fits (ah, the joy of stretchy clothes) but my belly is getting larger (and heavier!)
babys size/development this week: the size of a pineapple! i know what that is! baby weighs a little over 4 pounds and has passed the 17 inch mark (whoa). "he or she is rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look" haha. babys immunity system is almost ready to fight against infections, and fingernails are almost complete.
maternity clothes: i love the tshirt and tank top i got from old navy, and my dress for the shower should be here soon. and although its not really maternity, my mom bought me a pair of sandals for the shower and i love love love them!
miss anything? this stuff...

movement? yup, constantly. 
food cravings? all the food. minus pickles.
anything making you queasy or sick? nope.
sleep: slightly better than last week... having an easier time falling asleep but now im waking up multiple times a night. not to pee or anything, just waking up and falling back asleep. a friend told me about a little trick to help with the charlie hourses... anyone ever heard of putting a bar of irish spring soap in a sock and placing it under your fitted sheet? sounds crazy but im gonna try it! (thanks heather!)
best moment of the week: got a lot of house cleaning stuff done, and mom brought easter dinner (meatloaf wrapped in bacon, mmmmmm bacon)... and this little guy

no bunnies were hurt in the taking of this pic. 

duke just thought he might need a bath before baby comes.

weird pregnancy thing of the week: i put my belly button ring back in just to make sure the hole stays patent (i think i still want this thing after... we'll see. id at least like to have the option without having to go get it pierced again)... and ill save you the pic but the placement is not even close to my belly button anymore! very weird.
nursery: clean and organized! 
names: i wanted to tell at least the first letter and ty said no. boooooo. 7 more weeks!
wedding rings on or off? on
mood: i had been feeling like i was really done with this whole pregnancy thing and just wanted to go into labor... then i got some news about an old college friend this weekend and decided that i am fine with the 7 week wait to meet our little one.  
daddy is feeling: uncreative with his "how are you feeling" responses. "im excited". what i think he means is "im really pumped for this weekends shower where we will get a lot of stuff that will clutter up our house (half of which i dont know how to use/what it is), and i am really looking forward to learning how to change a diaper and try to live on 2 hours of sleep a night! woo hoo! also, i really enjoy the amount of ice cream we keep in the freezer."
workouts this week: we will just call this "bike week"! (about as exciting as shark week, right?) 62 bike miles and a 1.5 mile walk (with about a quarter mile run) with NO weird/uncomfortable pelvic pain. win!  
looking forward to: my shower this weekend and this beautiful spring like weather!! (despite this mornings rain, booooo... but all the snow is finally gone!)