We’re under 10 weeks, folks. And if this little one decides to come a little early like his/her big sister, it’ll be even sooner.
Due to our short week last week and our trip to the Poconos, I missed another week with the belly photo and post. Oops. Sorry, baby. What can I say? Second-child syndrome. I’m doing the best I can!
30 Weeks Pregnant
So, what’s new this week? Well, I had a doctor’s appointment, and it was my last monthly one—from now on, I’ll be going back every two weeks. I know from last time that the increased frequency of appointments makes time go by even faster, so… I’m buckled up and ready for this wild ride.
Blood pressure was still good. I’m curious to see what it does in these last several weeks, since by the time I had Nora at 39 weeks, I had been diagnosed with late-gestation hypertension and was facing an induction the following week if she hadn’t decided to come on her own. Weight gain? I think I’m up a total of about 14 lbs. now. That’s a few pounds less than at this point with Nora’s pregnancy, but that’s understandable considering my 8-days-with-no-food stay in the hospital, during which I lost at least 4 lbs., if not more. My doctor confirmed that I passed the glucose test, thank goodness.
But the biggest thing about this appointment was my belly measurement—once again, I have started to measure small. Funny, because if you look back at my 30-week post with Nora, it was titled, “Measuring Small.” I’m only behind by one centimeter at this point (I’m 29 cm instead of 30), but if it’s truly going to be the same as my first pregnancy, that gap is only going to grow wider over time. I’m fairly certain (without referencing old blog posts) that by the time I had Nora, I was measuring FOUR WEEKS (that’s four centimeters) behind. *shrug* Nora was 6 lbs., 10 oz., so it’s not like it was really a problem. Anyway, when my doctor mentioned it this week, I mentioned how this what right around the time I started measuring small last time, too. After reminding her of that, the doctor didn’t seem too concerned. She asked how big Nora was at birth, and when I told her, she said, “We’re probably looking at the same situation here.” I can deal with that. I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up in the sonographer’s room for a growth ultrasound sometime in the next few weeks, though, just to be safe. I’m glad that this time, I have the experience to know that it’s not always a big deal to measure small—so I’m not worried.
Now that we are staring down the due date in little more than two months, I am entering “get shit done” mode. In other words, I think nesting is kicking in. I’m anxious to get into the nursery and get it going, which I am planning to do in the next few weeks here. I am also knocking off other projects around the house whenever I can, and it feels SO.GOOD. Man, I love nesting. :)
Still feeling lots of movement. The big kicks and flips are frequent, but I’m also starting to feel (and see!) the little “stretch” movements, too. The slow, gradual pokes that come from a tiny baby butt sticking out, perhaps. And I’ve now graduated to frequent peeing, too. Fun times! Any time I stand up… need to pee. Oh, and at night? This past week, it was normal for me to be up 3-4 times during the night for a bathroom trip. Ughhhh it is the worst. Even if I get a “full night’s sleep,” I still wake up feeling unrested. It’s the pits, but I know it comes with the territory!
On Sunday, we woke up to sunshine in the Poconos. It was still pretty chilly outside, but we didn’t even care. After breakfast, we layered up—I wore a long-sleeve t-shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, AND a Northface fleece—and headed outdoors. We took the kids down by the pond to explore.
Soon we decided to venture out on the dock to go fishing. I was a nervous wreck about Nora being out on the dock without a life preserver of some sort. I knew that if she fell in, Michael or I would be going in right after her, but still. And because it was so cold out, the Puddle Jumper we had brought with us for her to wear down by the pond wouldn’t have fit over her arms. Soooo… I made her wear it like this:
Tightly around her waist, but without the arms. I figured it had to be effective for at least keeping her on the surface long enough for us to grab her, right? I’m glad we didn’t have to find out. We were, of course, very careful out on the dock with her, regardless of what kind of “safety device” she was wearing. Anyway, so that explains the weird looking floatie on my kid for all of the upcoming fishing pictures. :)
My brother had a little kids’ fishing pole for Hunter, so Hunter and Nora took turns catching fish. With a lot of adult assistance, of course.
I didn’t know that Nora would be all that into it, but surprisingly, she was. She had no problems standing and/or sitting there while we waited to catch a fish—as long as she could be involved in reeling in the line. I taught her to watch the little red and white bobber and she was happy to do so. Adorable!
I love the way Nora is looking at the fish in this pic. She was really curious about them! (Oh, and by the way: It’s a catch-and-release pond. We let all of them go!)
Tyler was teaching the kids about the different parts of the fish. The scales, the eyes, the sharp fins on top. Each of them took a turn touching it. Again, I was surprised Nora was into it!
We eventually called an end to fishing and went back up to the house for some lunch. We put the kids down for naps, and we relaxed outside in the sunshine. Nora took a long nap this day—must’ve really needed it, and maybe she was worn out from all of that fresh air and fishing!
Once the kids were up again, I set them up with a little outdoor art project. A long sheet of paper off of a roll, and a bunch of (washable!) Crayola paints and brushes.
Bryce eventually got in on the action, too. I tried to put the paint brush in his hand, but instead he tried to take it in his mouth! Goofball.
While it was nice out and we still had everyone in the same place, we decided to get our annual group photo out of the way. We often leave this task until the last morning, and it’s always chaos as everyone is trying to pack up and leave. Smart thinking this year!
After dinner that night, we all headed back outside for a fire in the firepit.
A weekend in the mountains wouldn’t be complete without s’mores! And of course, our sweets-loving girl was thrilled with this special treat.
My mom asked Nora if she could have a bite and SHOCKINGLY, Nora said yes and let her have it!
Nora and Hunter were ALL over Michael after the s’mores. They had a lot of fun running around playing with him before we finally had to put it to an end and call it bathtime/bedtime. The weekend was full of so much fun and joy. Nora had an absolute blast, and it was really amazing for us to see. I have all of these memories of being a kid and spending time in the Poconos with all of these friends and family… and Nora will have those memories, too. It’s very special to me. Now, it’s only a shame that we have to wait another year to do it again.
Well, sort of. Susan’s daughter, Nina, is getting married in September so we get to go up to watch her get married in the Poconos, too! It won’t be the same—we won’t be staying at their house, but getting our own rental. And obviously they’ll have a ton of guests, so other friends/family in town to worry about. But still, something to look forward to.
Until next year… when we have two more kiddos to add to the mix! Our baby, and Trevor and Kara’s new little one (due in October, have I mentioned that??), too!
Another year, another Memorial Day weekend. And another family trip to the Poconos!
If you’ve been reading here a while, you know by now that it’s tradition for us to travel down to the Poconos Mountains in Pennsylvania to spend a weekend with my family at my mom’s best friend’s house. Our group is getting larger every year, now that all of us kids—my mom’s three and Susan’s two—are grown up, marrying off, and having families of our own. We’ve all known each other basically all of our lives, so it’s a fun time. We look forward to this weekend every year! This is our second year making the trip over Memorial Day weekend.
As usual, we left on Thursday night after work. When I was picking up Nora from daycare, I was carrying her out of the house when I fell off of the front step and landed in a heap on the sidewalk. Well, actually, I stepped down off of the stoop onto an uneven portion of the sidewalk. My foot rolled just the right (well, wrong) way and it gave out. I felt tremendous pain in my left foot and knee as everything was tweaked, and I fell forward with Nora in my arms. I managed to keep her in my arms until I was just a couple of inches from the ground, at which point I let go. Poor thing knocked the back of her little head on the sidewalk and started crying—but truthfully I think she was more scared than hurt. In addition to saying her head hurt, she was crying about the car keys being on the ground (“Daddy’s keys fell! Daddy’s keys!”) two seconds later. The whole thing was clearly very traumatizing for her. :)
Anyway, it was not a great way to kick off a long weekend. What the hell? Why does this stuff always happen when you’re getting ready to leave town? I ultimately opted to let us all hit the road as planned. I didn’t feel like spending time in an urgent care center to get an X-ray. Although it hurt, it didn’t seem to be swelling up like a balloon, and I was able to bear weight on it OK… so off we went. We caravanned down with my family, as we usually do.
At our halfway stop, I was limping pretty good, but I had been icing it in the car—no way to elevate it, though! Again, I was able to get around OK, and it wasn’t looking any worse, so I thought I was just dealing with a sprain.
Nora was good in the car. She just hung out with us and ate her sandwich during the first 45 minutes or so, then we turned on movies for her on the iPad. She watched quietly for the rest of the ride! But after about an hour, we hit rain, and it was POURING the rest of the ride. To drive three hours in that garbage was not fun at all. Michael drove the first half and I drove the second half, and there were times when I couldn’t even really see the road. Stressful!
The rain was indicative of what was to come.
As we were getting closer and closer to the Poconos, my foot started hurting more and more. Despite icing it while I was driving (it was my left foot, so it’s all good!), I could feel it throbbing and any little movement was causing me a lot more pain than before. When we pulled up in Susan’s driveway and got out—in the pouring rain, no less—I was horrified to learn that I could.not.walk. I literally could not even take a single step on my left foot. At that point, I was convinced that I must’ve broken my foot, so I cried. How could my luck be so bad? I just had appendicitis and now a broken foot? All while PREGNANT?
My brother came out and assisted me into the house and Susan greeted me with painkillers and a fresh bag of ice, along with a pile of pillows. Not the way I wanted to start things off! We unloaded everything and got settled. After a little bit of time, we put Nora to bed on her air mattress in our room and then all of us adults caught up for a while longer before calling it a (late) night.
The next morning? I still couldn’t walk. Couldn’t bear weight on my foot. We started to make plans to visit an urgent care center to get it checked out—but it was 40 minutes away so I was not in a huge rush. And the weather, oh man—the HIGH temperature on Friday was 45 degrees. And it rained practically the whole day. It was freezing and it was not conducive to our normal outdoor Poconos activities. Bummer.
While we all lazed around all morning, Susan’s husband arrived. He’s a doctor—a plastic surgeon—so he checked out my foot and assured me he really thought it was just a sprain. He and his daughter ran into town for a few things and he picked me up a good ace bandage, and wrapped my foot for me. In the meantime, as I attempted to get around the house, I began to be able to put more weight on it little by little. I still had a mean limp, but it was seemingly getting better. And once wrapped? I could walk a bit. I decided to hold off on urgent care altogether.
The whole gang decided to head to the (somewhat) nearby outlet mall for some shopping. Although it was better, I couldn’t do THAT much walking, so Michael had to push me around in a wheelchair. Nora rode around in my lap. :) I don’t know why we didn’t get a photo, we so should have! Oh well.
That basically summarizes our first day. We didn’t do much of anything except shopping. Nora and Hunter got outside for all of 10 minutes before it started raining again.
Toddlers and fireworks. Good combo. :) Just kidding—they are just sparklers and smoke “bombs.” And they didn’t even get to light any, at least not on this day! Nora was loving PURPLE and BLUE, though (her favorite colors).
Saturday was not much better. It was still overcast and cold and wet. By afternoon we started getting some breaks of sunshine and we thought that maybe we’d get out for a little walk around the property, but Mom and Susan headed out and basically came running right back in a few minutes later. It was VERY windy, and still freezing. Outdoor time was out of the question—again.
But it was also Hunter’s birthday, so we occupied ourselves with that for a bit. We had thought ahead and brought Hunter’s gift with us so that it would be something else for the kids to play with. We let him open it in the morning.
It was a remote control car, and both Nora and Hunter were infatuated with it. It kept them busy for a great deal of time—score!
It must also be said that Nora was IN LOVE with all of the dogs in attendance for the weekend. In total, we had six dogs running around—my brothers and I each have one, and Susan has three of her own. SIX DOGS! Nora was especially smitten by the poodles, probably because there are two of them and they were “twins.” :)
We found her like this multiple times—up on the couch between the two dogs. This photo is not posed… this is literally how we found her! So cute. I took the opportunity to interview her about her beloved new friends. Video is below:
While they were gone, Nora and I got to work making Hunter a birthday cake. After dinner that night, we all gathered ’round to celebrate the little guy.
Ending the day with cake and good company… how could that be wrong?
Although the first two days weren’t all we had hoped they would be, our expectations for our Poconos vacations are usually pretty low—meaning that we don’t make many plans. It’s supposed to be a carefree weekend, so we roll with the punches. And rain? Well, there’s nothing we could do about it. We made the best of it and relaxed more than we ever get to do at home!
Thankfully, things started looking up on Sunday. More to come.
Nora is seriously in love with Tessa.
I guess this was actually established a long time ago, considering how “Tessa” was Nora’s first word.
But I can’t get over how much my girl loves our dog. Nora has even given her a special nickname—Tessie. And she will say over and over again “MY dog Tessie” and “Tessie MY dog!” She randomly gives Tessa hugs and kisses. She’ll demand, “Tessie, play with me!” and when she’s feeling whiny, will even request that Tessie be the one to take her to the bathroom to go potty. :)
They have a special relationship, these two.
I cannot say enough good things about Tessa and how she handles all of the attention from Nora. We had a rough start with Tessa when we brought Nora home from the hospital, and then things got way better. But then Nora became mobile and as Nora officially “towered over” Tessa, she became intimidated again. We had a few incidences between maybe 15 months and 18 months when Tessa actually nipped at Nora’s hair. It would always come when Nora was “threatening” Tessa in some way… accidentally falling on top of her, or when Nora tried to sit in my lap when Tessa was already there. Nevertheless, it was a little scary. I didn’t think she would ever actually BITE Nora, but then again, you can never truly trust dogs and their animal instincts.
But somehow, that all melted away. We’ve taught Nora to be gentle and cautious with the way she approaches Tessa. And Tessa has learned that Nora is not a threat. What we have left is a girl who absolutely adores this doggie. And a dog who doesn’t seem to mind all of the attention from this girl.
In fact, I’d say Tessa—most of the time—eats it up. Last weekend, we were outside playing, gardening, etc. when I heard Nora say, “Okaaaaaaay, I’ll pet your belly!” I looked over to see Tessa lying on the ground in the sunshine at Nora’s feet, turned over onto her back. This is Tessa’s way of begging for belly rubs, and her favorite place for them—in the sunshine. And not only was she begging Nora, but Nora knew exactly what Tessa’s gesture meant!
We often jokingly say that it’s a good thing that Nora loves Tessa so much, because otherwise, she’d be long gone (because she can be such a pain in the ass). It’s totally not true, of course, but still… the meaning behind it is telling. Before Nora, we used to joke that the reason Tessa stuck around was because she was so cute. Now? Nope, it’s about Nora. :)
I know dogs—or any pets—are not for everyone, but I’m so glad that my Nora has her Tessie.
I’m a little late with my post this week. But if you’re wondering if you’ve read my 28-week post before, well, you haven’t—but you may have thought you did, thanks to my original post title last week. I’m just an idiot.
I posted about entering third trimester and all of that fun stuff, and then the following week, as Tuesday was approaching and I was getting ready to turn another week more pregnant, I happened to look at my pregnancy app on my phone… and noticed that it said “27 weeks, 6 days pregnant.” Whaaaat? I thought that I was on my way to being 29 weeks pregnant, not 28. It was then that I realized that I had inadvertently skipped a week.
It’s a tell-tale sign of a second pregnancy, I must say. Because hell, when I was pregnant with Nora, I read those pregnancy update emails from Baby Center and The Bump religiously, and could’ve told you—without hesitation—at any given time exactly how pregnant I was. Now, I look at the weekly updates on my app only once every few (several?) weeks. And clearly I can be wrong about where I’m at in the pregnancy. Whoops.
Anyway, all of that to say that now I’m REALLY 28 weeks pregnant (actually, almost 29 now, but shhhhh) so here is the 28 weeks pregnant post. And last week’s post title has been corrected to 27 weeks. *sigh* Moving on…
28 Weeks PregnantNot a whole lot to report at the moment, actually. I did go last week to take my glucose test, and I didn’t hear anything from my doctor’s office, so I’m assuming all turned out OK. Thankfully.
Nora is HILARIOUS right now. This week, she randomly started saying that she has a baby in her tummy, too, and now there is no convincing her otherwise. She has also been repeatedly telling us that she is having a baby BROTHER, but then when we ask if it’s a boy or a girl… she’ll say girl. So the lines are a little crossed there, I’m not sure what to think. ;) Today she also told me that when the baby gets bigger it is going to come out [of my belly] and play with her. And we had a long discussion about all of the baby things she’ll be able to help me with, and all of the things she’s going to teach the baby. So freaking cute, I can’t even stand it.
Physically… I’ve started feeling some heartburn symptoms already, which I am less than thrilled about. It’s actually been better the last few days but there were a couple of days within the past week when I was in some pretty serious discomfort at times. I remember all too well the feeling from when I was pregnant with Nora—when, toward the end, the simple act of bending over to tie my shoes or pick up something from the floor resulted in vomit up in the back of my throat. THRILLING, I tell you. Anyway, it’s nowhere near that bad (yet) but I’m guessing I’m soon going to be suffering yet again.
Projects… still working on finishing up the kids’/guest bath. Just finishing touches now, but of course it has taken longer than anticipated (as usual). I’m trying to focus on one thing at a time, but my mind is now traveling to the nursery and prepping for baby, which is what I’d really like to be doing now. Approximately 12 more weeks… plenty of time left, right? But I do think we’ve finally landed on a color scheme and a plan, so that’s good. Just need to start executing now. More on that in the coming weeks.
I also took my list of things that we need to buy new for baby #2 (again, not a lot) and put them on a baby registry. Not because I’m having a shower (I’m not) and not because I expect people to buy us gifts (I don’t), but to serve as more of a checklist for ourselves. Plus, hey, I’ll take the awesome registry completion coupons at the end, haha!
I realize I’ve been slacking on things like filling out paperwork with my HR department and determining how to pay for my benefits while I’m out on leave (I can pay my premiums in advance, when I get back, over time, in one lump sum, etc.) so I need to figure that out. And my doctor’s office has asked me about the hospital pre-registration paperwork like three times now, so I should probably go ahead and get that done, too, eh?
I know 12 weeks is a long time, but then… it’s really not. That’s starting to hit me now.
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
