26 Weeks...

Your baby weighs almost 2 pounds; measures around 9.2 inches from crown to rump; and hears noises, responds to light, and is generally more aware of its surroundings. In the same way that you can see a flashlight if you hold it against your palm, your baby can see the light coming through your belly. You may notice increased activity when in brighter light and decreased activity in darkened rooms. Its hearing is fully developed, and as he or she reacts to sounds, its pulse increases. Your baby will even move in rhythm to music!










*Your baby may weigh about two pounds now (average is 1.7 pound, 760gm) and is 14 inches (35.6cm) in length.
*To support the fetus's growing body, the spine is getting stronger and more supple. Though no longer than the span of the average adult hand, it is now made up of 150 joints, 33 rings, and some 1,000 ligaments.
*Air sacs in the lungs form now.
*Lungs begin to secrete a greasy substance called surfactant. Without surfactant the fetal lungs would stick together and couldn't expand after the baby is born.
*Although they've been sealed shut for the last few months, your baby's eyes are opening and beginning to blink this week. Depending on ethnicity, some babies will be born with blue or gray-blue eyes (which may change color in the first 6 months of life) and some will be born with brown or dark eyes.
*Retinas begin to form.
*Brain wave activity for hearing and sight begins to be detectable.
*Fetal brain scans show response to touch. If you shine a light on your abdomen, your baby will turn his head, which according to researchers, means his optic nerve is working.

Update for the week…

It’s been a REALLY busy week and I seriously can’t wait until it’s over. I spent most of the weekend and week studying for my state exam. I seriously studied my ass off!!! Well, I went to take it yesterday and guess what, I failed the second part again! By one question… two lousy points! I was so upset I wanted to cry when the guy handed me the paper, my eyes literally filled up with tears. So now I have to call later on this afternoon to see if I can set up an appointment to re-take it again the beginning of next week. I hate having to go and take the test. It is a 3 ½ to 4 hour test. You can’t get up to use the bathroom, get a drink, snack… nothing! The bathroom is rough because I have to pee about every 20 minutes or it seems like that. Yesterday I thought my bladder was going to explode half way through the test. I wouldn’t care or bitch about it if I weren’t 6 ½ months pregnant but I am and it sucks! I hate that I am such a procrastinator and waited 9 months to take the test. I should have just done it right after I finished the class. So yeah, I have to take it again and take it ASAP. I just want it done and over with.

As far as baby Aiden goes… things are going really well. My poor belly is getting bigger and bigger and he’s a lil squirm monster!!! He’s always moving around and gets the hiccups A LOT! It kind of freaks me out sometimes but it is neat at the same time. It’s funny because he totally messes with John. He’ll be moving all around and acting crazy and I call John over to see it and instantly he stops! John and I laugh about it because I totally think Aiden does it on purpose to mess with his daddy. The last couple of days I’ve had a really weird, sore, tender, hurting spot or something in my right side. It’s hard to describe. I don’t know if it is because he is laying weird or maybe pushing up against it. It is just really uncomfortable and it kind of hurts. Last night I had a horrible time trying to get comfortable when it was time for bed. John said when he looks at it there is some sort of lump or bump or something there. So that’s why we’re leaning towards maybe he is just pushing up against it or something. I posted a couple of new pictures over in the picture section. I think I may have to go and invest in a body pillow. I’ve just been using regular pillows but it doesn’t seem to be helping much anymore when I try to sleep. I don’t know what the difference would be between using regular pillows or a body pillow but I need to do something. Let me see what else. We called and scheduled our 3D ultrasound, so we’re really stoked about that and I hope that they get some good pictures for us. We go there on May 11th. We sent in our check and registration for the basic birthing classes and the breastfeeding something or other class. It was a package so I’m not sure what exactly that is. We go to the birthing class in mid June it will be two Saturdays in a row and 4 hours each day. Then the breastfeeding class is in mid July it is one Saturday for like 3 hours. So they should be fun, right? I can’t believe that it is only a little over 14 weeks away and the lil munchkin will be here. In the beginning of the pregnancy the time seemed to go by so slow and now it seems to be flying by at warped speed!

25 Weeks...

Your baby weighs about 1.5 pounds and measures 8.8 inches from crown to rump. He or she is becoming stronger as its stem cells continue to develop into bone tissue, and its bones become solid through a process called ossification.







*The structures of the spine begin to form -- joints, ligaments and rings. These will protect the all important spinal cord which serves as the information transmitter for your child's body.
*Blood vessels of the lungs develop.
*Your baby's nostrils begin to open. There is a study out of Belfast that suggests babies at this stage have the capability of scent preferences!
*The nerves around the mouth and lip area are showing more sensitivity now. When baby is rooting for food later on, these will be valuable!
*His swallowing reflexes are developing.
*Dexterity is improving. Your baby can make a fist and would clasp objects placed in palm.
*Your child has now obtained an approximate length of 13.6 inches (34.6cm) and weighs 1.46 pound (660gm).

Insert witty title here...

Life seems to be moving at a lightning fast speed. I feel like I just can't keep up with it at this point. We have so much to do and it seems like by the time we're done with work, taking care of the animals, then cooking and eating dinner I'm too exhausted to do anything else. Just thinking about it all makes me tired. haha.

The baby has been moving around like crazy lately and its really cool to feel and also watch. Sometimes I'll just be laying in bed at night and my stomach will just start twitching or jumping or something... I don't know how to explain it. It is neat though. He gets the hiccups alot too :) My feet and ankles were already starting to swell up so at night before bed I've been elevating them and John's been giving me foot rubs. I think it was because of the shoes that I had been wearing. They were the most comfortable shoes I had in my possession aside from sneakers, so guess what I've been wearing to work all week? Yeap, sneakers! I may look a little silly but its all about being comfortable and not having horribly swollen feet and ankles. My belly is getting bigger and bigger. I think I'm going to take some new pictures this weekend since I'll be at 25 weeks. I can't believe how fast time is starting to fly by now.

On Easter we went to visit my friend Dawn. We were just going to stop by to say hello and stuff like that but we ended up being there for hours! We had alot of fun though, I miss her and wish we got to see each other more often. Last night we had to "Stop" by my friend Jen's house to drop something off. Again, we ended up being there for hours. We sat around talking to her and her sister Chrissy (she's also pregnant and due Nov. 12th). We had a good time last night too and again, I miss her and wish we got to see each other more often. I've known all of these girls for years! I feel like ever since I found out I was pregnant and told people that I don't get to talk to them or see them like I would like too. Maybe its just in my head and my hormones talking though. I don't get my nights out anymore or girls night out because it always involves drinking. Obviously I can't drink right now. I don't even get asked out anymore and I think that bothers me. Maybe I am just getting lonely, I feel left out, and miss my friends, who knows.

Work has still been crazy. I called to reschedule my state exam and I have to take it again on April 26th. Hopefully this time I will pass both parts! Send me lots of good vibes so I can get it done and over with. I only have one more chance to take it after this one but I seriously want this to be the last time I take it.

Neat Stuff...

Congratulations!

Your Due Date Is Friday, August 04, 2006

Your conception date was most likely Friday, November 11, 2005

You are in Week 25 of your pregnancy and your baby is 23 weeks old. Why is this? A full term pregnancy lasts 40 weeks (280 days), broken down into 13-week trimesters, starting from the first day of your last menstrual period. That's right, you haven't even conceived in what physicians consider to be the first two weeks of pregnancy. You might as well get used to this idea now: Your first day of pregnancy is the first day of your last menstrual period. Ovulation usually occurs two weeks after that, and most women conceive during that time. So as if thinking you may be growing a human being inside of you isn't confusing enough, you are already two weeks pregnant on the day you conceive!

Your Third Trimester will begin 5/5/2006
172 days down, 108 to go!

Fun Birthday Facts

*Your baby's birthstone will be Peridot or Jade (Married Happiness)
*Your baby's Astrological Sign will be Leo
*Your baby's Flower will be Gladiolas or Poppy (Orange, Red and Light Green)
*Your baby will be born in the Chinese Year of The Dog
*This time next year your baby will be 37 Weeks Old!
*Your baby will start kindergarten in 2011, be old enough to drive a car in 2022, finish high school in 2024, and will graduate from college with the class of 2028, give or take a year. Can you imagine?
*See what happened in history on your due date

24 Weeks...

Your baby weighs about 1.2 pounds and is about 8.4 inches from crown to rump. His or her lungs have started secreting surfactant, the substance that keeps the moist, interior surface of the lungs from sticking together; and he or she is practicing breathing. Your baby's eyes are also watching for light and its ears are listening to your heart beat and your stomach growl.







*Bring on the bulk! Baby gains about 6 ounces this week. The weight is in muscle, bone mass and organs.
*His body begins to fill out with his appearance increasingly becoming more like a newborn.
*Taste buds begin to form. If mom drinks something strange or bitter, baby may be observed showing his distaste.
*Little creases have appeared on his palms. The muscular coordination of his hands has improved as he sucks his thumb.
*Over the next seven days the sweat glands will be forming in the skin.
*His lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory "tree" and cells that produce surfactant, a substance that helps the air sacs inflate easily.
*This week your baby is officially considered viable.
*Baby weighs 1.3 pound (600gm) and is 11.8 inches (30cm) long -- almost the length of a ruler!

Fifth doctor's appointment...

We went to the doctors this morning for another checkup. Everything is going great and looking good. The heartbeat is perfect. My measurements are good. She basically told John that his son is Perfect!! So we're very happy about it. I was only a pound off of how much weight I said I thought that I gained last month. I said a pound more than what I actually gained. I was a little upset about it but she told me not to worry about it. I'm doing great and not gaining too much weight for as far as I am along in my pregnancy. She mentioned that she's going to send me for another ultrasound after we go back for our next visit in May just to double check my cervix and placenta and stuff even though she isn't worried about it and is sure everything is fine. We have to look into registering for our classes at the hospital for the Birthing classes. We'll probably try to do the one in June so we'll end in July. Time is seriously starting to fly by!! We go back for another visit in four weeks and that's when they'll do my glucose test. They already warned me it is going to be a long visit. Not with the doctor but waiting for the stuff to set in or whatever before they do my blood work to check my sugar level. Then two weeks later for another checkup and then we hit the once a week checkups! After she told us that I was like wow, this is really starting to get close, huh? haha. So everything went well at the doctor's, she is happy, we're happy, and the baby is doing awesome. So it's a very good day....

Miscellaneous Rambling...

It was another busy weekend for us. We woke up early Saturday morning to take Jersey and DaVinci to dog training class. We were running late and it was a really crappy day outside. All cold, rainy, and just yucky. I was working with Jersey and 1/2 way through the class I started feeling all weak in the knees, light headed, and like I was going to pass out. I thought maybe it was just from standing or something, so it would pass but it didn’t. It got worse. My hearing started to get muffled and I felt exactly like I did when I almost passed out during my last ultrasound. So I was trying to get John’s attention by waving him over. At first he just smiled at me and waved back and I waved harder like no… come here! So he came over and I told him that he needed to take over with working with Jersey. I wasn’t feeling well. So I went and sat down and I started sweating bullets and had to strip off my jacket and my hoodie. So I was just sitting there in my t-shirt. It still didn’t go away so I had to go outside to get some fresh air. After getting rained on and sitting in the car for about 10 minutes I went back inside to see how things were going because I was feeling a little better. I don’t know if I was getting dehydrated, if I got overheated, or maybe my blood sugar went wacky but it was scary. We went home and I laid down to relax for a little bit while Sandy was working. I guess about 1:30 she called and we were out the door to go grab something to eat and then head to BabiesRus to work on the registry some more. I guess because it was such a cold and rainy day a lot of people had the same idea that we did. They were packed!!! So we just walked around and looked at the stuff we put on our registry and decided what we still wanted and what we wanted to change and did that. I still don’t think we’re done yet but after another 3 hours we were ready to leave. So we’ll be taking another trip up there sometime this week with Joyce.

I forget what we did on Sunday, my days are becoming a blur. I think we just did some sorting and organizing around the house. I started to not feel well again, so I laid down and took a little nap. I think I am just getting run down and with the whole not sleeping at night thing well, lets just say it sucks! It gives me way too much time so sit and obsess and stress about things. I just lay in bed staring at the ceiling thinking of stuff and I’m getting depressed about it. I went from finally being ok with the whole pregnancy thing to not really ok with it. Just because of me stressing myself out about things I can’t change. So I guess there is really no need to talk about it. Work has been busy so far this week and I’m exhausted. Today I had a hormonal crying fit and couldn’t stop myself from crying. Pregnancy hormones seriously toy with your emotions and it sucks! I was seriously thinking about mixing myself a drink to try to calm myself down when I went home to walk the dogs and stuff at lunch time. I didn’t though, I just let it pass. I got back to the office and cried some more. I couldn’t help myself. I just can’t wait until the day is over. I feel like taking something to help me sleep tonight but then I get so groggy when it’s time to wake up in the morning and I don’t feel the baby move around for a day or two… so I feel bad. So we’ll see what happens later. We got some more stuff that I had ordered yesterday in the mail. I love it all. I’m still going to take pictures, I just haven’t gotten to do it yet. Maybe tonight I will do it depending on how I feel. We’ll see…

**Update**
We took pictures of all of the pressies we bought or have recieved so far for the baby and they are uploaded in the Baby stuff section of the photos :-)

23 Weeks...

Your baby now weighs a little less than one pound, and is about 8 inches from crown to rump. He or she is continuing to develop facial features and you are probably feeling a lot of movement as your baby continues to explore its body and world in the comfort of his or her own personal "living womb." Your baby now has eyes that open and close, ears that can hear, and a thumb well worth sucking. If you notice feel your baby making regular, jerky movements, don't panic - your baby has the hiccups! The hiccups are harmless for baby but can be annoying for you if they last for a long period of time.







*Proportions of the body are now quite similar to a newborn although thinner since he hasn't begun to form body fat.
*Bones located in the middle ear harden.
*Your baby is able to hear. (Dads, did you know: low-frequency sounds mimicking a male voice penetrate the abdomen and uterine wall better than the higher frequencies of the female voice?)
*The eyes are formed, though the iris still lacks pigmentation.
*The pancreas, essential in the production of hormones, is developing steadily. She has begun producing insulin, important for the breakdown of sugars.
*If born now, your baby has a 15% chance of survival, his odds going up with each passing day.
*The average baby at this stage weighs 1.1 pound (501gm) and is 11.38 inches (28.9cm) long.

A long week or something like that...

It's been a long week, yet I feel like we haven't accomplished much of anything. The weather has been crazy, especially yesterday. It went from being a beautiful sunny day, to pouring rain, to sleeting, to hailing, and then snowing! Then it kept going back and fourth from sunny blue skies to cloudy snowy skies, back to sunny blue skies. Here I thought that spring was here! I guess I was wrong. ha! It was one of those days that I wish I could just stay at home in bed watching movies and cuddling. I'm starting to get really tired. I'm having a hard time sleeping at night again. My hips are killing me when I try to sleep on my side, it doesn't matter which side either. I try to roll over and give the one a break but before too long the other one starts to hurt. I've tried the whole pillow between the legs thing and everything. It really doesn't help any. I've been having crazy dreams too. I know they say that it is common during pregnancy but come on now. I need to get caught up on some sleep while I can before the baby gets here. haha.

We haven't made it back to Babies R Us to go back over the baby registry. We'll be doing it Saturday or Sunday I guess. That way we'll have more time to spend going through everything and hopefully we'll get it done this time. I get tired just thinking about it. Right now the baby is doing all sorts of tumbles or something in my belly. It's crazy! Next week we go to the doctors for our checkup. I'm sure everything is going great, so I'm not worried about it. I still have to call to schedule an appointment for us to have the 3D-4D ultrasounds done. They said it's best to get them done between weeks 26-28. So that is what we're going to do. My belly is getting bigger and it is making me feel yucky and fat. I seriously need to get over this because it is going to get a lot worse as the lil beaner gets bigger. I guess I'm just too self conscious. Last night I was messing around with my blog and added some new links. I made a section named baby peektures, it has a bunch of pictures in it. I put up all of the ultrasound pictures we've gotten so far, pictures of me getting bigger and bigger, and also a couple of pictures of me and John. I'll add more to it later. I want to take some pictures of the cool stuff that I've bought for him. I think on our end that's about it for now. Sorry for the rambling, my thoughts are just all over the place right now.

In other exciting news there has been two beautiful baby boys born into the world by two very special girls I know. Last week Liz and her husband Dave gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Alexander Fox. Early yesterday morning Jenna and Chris gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Joshua Ryan. They are the most beautiful babies and I can't wait until August gets here so that John and I can meet our little munchkin too :)

A fun lazy day and baby registry time...

Well, yesterday we had a lazy fun day or at least for the most part we did. So it was nice and very much needed. We went to BabiesRus after lunch to start looking around for stuff for the baby registry. Let me tell you it was so overwhelming from the second we walked in the door and they handed us the cool little scanner thingy!!! We were there for 3 1/2 hours and didn't even get more than 1/2 way through the store. They have so much stuff there and they tell you that you need so much stuff. It's seriously crazy. Like I have said before, I am totally clueless on what we need to get and what is good. So we're going to be going back again with my sister and Joyce to add stuff to the registry, maybe take some things off or change it a little and finish it off with the "must haves". We're going to take a second look at what we put on there yesterday to make sure we really like it all and want it. Some of the things I am kind of like, I don't know if I like it now. I was seriously up thinking about it most of the night last night.

I bought a few more things for the baby that I loved and had to get. I couldn't help myself. John bought a couple of books yesterday, so last night before we went to bed he read one of them to the baby. He was so excited and happy about it. I forget what the book was called but he said it was one of his favorite books when he was growing up. Of course there were monsters in it. haha. The baby was jumping around like crazy last night. John was in awe watching my belly jump up and down. I swear there is a jumping bean in my belly! It was really neat though. We just laid there laughing about it for the longest time. I don't know if he was up and practicing his karate moves or if he was just sleeping restlessly and turning all over the place like his mommy does. Either way it was really neat...