Tracking the Baby Bump: Week 30

It's here: Week 30!

Baby Stats:
Inches: 17 ish
Weight: 2 1/5-3 lbs ish
If he were a vegetable, he would be a: cabbage. (I don't know how we go from butternut squash to cabbage..... To me a cabbage is smaller.....)

So this week I'm finally down to 10 weeks left. Next week we will be down to single digit weeks. That is so crazy to me.

I have to start out first by the biggest development: stretch marks! I know, I could hardly believe it myself. Today Jed pointed them out to me, which I'm sure he regretted, because I could not stop talking about it for the next 10 minutes. Apparently he's noticed them there for a week! This is what happens when your belly gets this big; you don't notice things below your belly button because they are so hard to see. So, here it begins. Wow. I wondered if this day would come, and here it has.

Well, I'm sick today, surprise surprise. Since Wednesday I've been feeling kind of like I had a cold, and yesterday morning I woke up miserable and this morning as well. Surprisingly, I am wide awake, but my body cannot handle too much today. Weekends are such a blessing. I have a couple of days to try to recoup before I have to go back to work.... It can be hard being the teacher and being sick. Friday morning I was ready to cry because I was so exhausted. If I had put my head down during lunch, I would have fallen asleep almost instantly. The afternoon went well, though, so that helped. This week was also Parent/Teacher conferences, and as I discovered in October, those wear you out! You wouldn't expect it, but they just make you so exhausted. This whole week I've stayed at school (or left school to go to my class) until after dark. Friday was a blessed day, because after all the work I've put in this week, I got to go home early (10 minutes early, that's right).

If I were to describe my week in one word it would be....... uncomfortable. I have been so lucky to have avoided some of the more unpleasant pregnancy symptoms (swelling being the biggest one I am grateful to have avoided so far, knock on wood), and so when the third trimester came (two weeks ago, I know, long time ago), and I read that the third trimester was pretty uncomfortable, I was excited in those first two weeks that I was feeling just as grand as before. Then came Thursday of this week, which happens to be the day I was officially 30 weeks along. Come Thursday, my right side from my lower back down to my knee just hurts. Sometimes it would hurt like that because that was the leg I broke (did you know I broke my femur? That's another story) and so I wondered if that was the reason, but it would not go away! I had Jed try to massage it out so many ways and in so many places to try to find the source of the pain, and we never figured it out, really. So this, I believe, we can chalk up to our favorite culprit: the sciatic nerve. Before it would give me rather sharp pains when I moved, and now I think our baby is just settling on it, and so I got dull, constant pain instead.

Another development: I think my baby's feet have settled right between my ribs and my organs. Since Thursday, I have felt this lovely feeling of being bruised on my lower right ribs. I couldn't figure it out! There was no bruise, for one thing. Then I tried just to gently press around the area to try to find out where the pain was the worst, and as soon as I pushed under my ribs, it hurt. So, with that, I concluded it was the baby. I could very well be wrong. Maybe I have an entirely different problem. But I think I've finally reached the stage where I have random aches and pains and the only answer it: the baby. He's getting big in there! I look at myself in the mirror and I am just amazing how pregnant I look! Ha ha I know it sounds silly, but it's still weird seeing my body look like this.

After this ranting and raging about my tiring week and uncomfortable week, I was to again mention that I love being pregnant and I have a pretty easy pregnancy, so I don't want to come off that I'm complaining too much. I wanted to blog about the pregnancy experience to help those who are pregnant themselves or haven't experienced it yet so they can get a bit of a "heads up" on what could be happening to them when they are pregnant. Luckily, I think everyone just knows that being pregnant is just uncomfortable, especially when you start to reach the end.

There's one more thing I want to blog about today. A book. But I think I will start a new post for that, so go check out my other post from today and read it.

Baby Books, Part 1

Hello there. If you read my 30 weeks post, you may have been sent here to look at this blog post. I hope to have several blog posts about books having to do with pregnancy and babies, because there are so many dang books out there, and I hope to give anyone who reads my blog a little advice on what has worked for me and Jed. I plan on going to the library one of these days and checking out several baby books, and then I can let you all know which books I think are the most useful. I've read through hundreds of reviews on Amazon.com for several books about raising your baby, and so I have a rough idea of which books might work for me.


Anyways, I wanted to talk today about the three books I've read so far.

1) What to Expect Before You're Expecting. Great book! Granted, I didn't have this book for very long before we found out we were pregnant, but in the months before as we tried to prepare and learn what exactly we could do to up our odds of getting pregnant, this book was invaluable. I am a huge fan of the format of the "What to Expect" books, so I like that. She's also very real in her writing, so she will kind of joke about things, and I like that a lot. The book has a lot of advice for dads when trying to get pregnant, and I love that. It also has a lot of advice on miscarriages and trying to conceive again after a miscarriage, which I think is important because sooooo many women go through that. So, I know that the majority of the world knows the general way of making a baby, but this book is great to give you lots of clues when your body has the best chance of conceiving and it helps you keep track of it so you can see patterns in your own body. Love it.

2) What to Expect When You're Expecting. Love this one too! I scoured over this book soooo much in the first few months of my pregnancy. I love that it is divided my month, so you can get a general idea of what will happen to you in each month. I love that it talks about what is happened to your baby each week, and then what is happening to your body as things change. Each month has questions and answers, which is awesome. The one thing that some people don't like about these books is that it can be hard to find your questions in the book. They aren't necessarily in the month you might think they are in or the index doesn't have that topic. Did I mention there was an index? Yes, there is, so it makes for some easy searching. But people are right, you might be in your 4th month and have a question the book doesn't address until the 6th month. But if you're like me, you read through this book well ahead of where you are in your pregnancy. There have been very few questions I have not been able to find an answer to, and if I couldn't, then I searched Google or asked someone, and I always found my answer. To sum up, I love this book, and I am so glad I have had this. I highly recommend this to everyone.

3) When Two Become Three by Mark E. Crawford. My best friend, Natalie, is taking a class and they had to read this book for it, and I'm so glad she told me about it! Seriously, this book was amazing. By the title you can assume that it talks about having a baby. The whole premise of the book is about how much your life, and most specifically your marriage, will change when you have your first baby. He gives lots of reasons why you need to prepare your relationship with your spouse for the baby, and then each chapter focuses on something to think about. The first chapter was about communication and conflict. I loved that chapter! Jed and I went over it a little together, but it's one we will definitely talk in depth about in the future. It gives great advice for any marriage (whether kids are in the picture or not) on how to have healthy conflict and effective communication. I can't rave enough about that chapter. I would buy that book solely for that chapter.

Then he talks about things like feeling lots of pressure, managing chores around the house, intimacy, relationships with family and friends, having a parenting philosophy, and stepfamilies. All great chapters. He also had two awesome chapters: one for the moms, one for the dads. I loved them both. He basically gives advice about how men and women differ and talks all about how the other parent feels with the new baby and why it's different than you are feeling, what sort of problems sometimes arise from not understanding each other, and all these perspective changing things. Both chapters are really awesome and I would read both, whether you are the mom or the dad in the equation, because it really helps your perspective.

I will also add two more things. First, he has a very readable style of writing. It's a little bit conversational and he throws in some funny things every now and then, so I was very comfortable reading his book. Also, he is a Christian author, so there were never moments where I thought, oh that really does not apply to our lives. He does not mention anything religious, but the whole tone of the book was just nice. He definitely values the same things we do (like the hopes of having me be a stay at home mom and Jed working.... whenever we can get to that part of our lives).

Anyways, I loved this book, in case the long paragraphs of me raving about it didn't give you that clue. It was really awesome, and I learned so much from it. I love the thought of preparing your marriage for such a big change, because no doubt it will change. Our marriage has already changed with me just being pregnant, so I can't imagine what will happen once we actually have to take care of this baby (it really is so much easier when it's inside of you... feeding is done automatically, no diapers to change, no spit up...). So, if you are going to have a baby, go get this book! It's less than $5 on Amazon so even if you are on the tightest of budgets (like we are) you can find change on the ground and in your couch to get this book!

Tracking the Baby Bump: Week 29

Baby Stats:
Height: 17 inches
Weight: 3 pounds
If he were a fruit, he would be: a butternut squash



Is it sad to say nothing significant has happened this week? I suppose not, because you don't necessarily want significant things to happen when you're pregnant. Significant can often equal bad. I have continued to be grateful that our baby is so healthy, as well as me. It's nice to know that we don't have to be worried about how much weight I'm gaining, gestational diabetes, preclampsia, and all that jazz. I know I should still be aware of those things and watch for them, but it's nice to have the doctor tell me that so far, I'm doing great!

Can you believe that I have 11 weeks left??? And in 4 days I officially leave the 20's and enter the 30's. I will be 30 weeks along! 30 weeks seemed sooooo far off. The last 10 weeks have passed by ridiculously quickly (and I have a feeling that the next 11 will pass by really slowly).

One thing about this week: The baby has been moving a lot more during the day. I know he was before, but now I can feel it better. His movements have also changed a little. I definitely feel like he is still kicking and punching me, but I think he just rolls over and shifts a lot, because I've been feeling some new, smoother movements. They feel a little more like a stomach dropping sensation. It's interesting and fun.

A friend asked me this week if my appetite has changed much since being pregnant. I have to say, not really! I hadn't really thought about it much, so it surprised me when she asked because I realized it hasn't. Honestly, before becoming pregnant, I was not eating well. I snacked all the time, so I wasn't hungry very much. Now, I don't have opportunities to snack much, so I am appropriately healthy when lunchtime comes around, as well as dinner, even with little snacks between. I think I might eat a little more at my meals, but not significantly. Strange how appetite changes are one of the huge pregnancy side effects you generally expect, and for me the only change in food is that I crave sour things a lot.

Oh, speaking of cravings, we went to Brick Oven this week. You will never believe what I got. Spaghetti! If you know me well, you probably know that I don't like spaghetti and marinara sauce much. But I was craving it that night, and I got it, and it tasted oh so good. I had it for leftovers today and Jed was quite unhappy, because he doesn't like spaghetti either, and so I made the house smell like it. But man it tasted good.

So I was thinking, because my pictures from week to week don't look significantly different, I wanted to see what I looked like between several weeks. So here are a few:

15 weeks:

(Can I just say, I feel like I was WAY skinny back then! I actually was at my heaviest when I first got pregnant, but compared to now I feel like I was doing great ha ha.)

22 weeks:

29 weeks:

So there ya go! I like seeing this. There definitely is a difference between 22 and 29! What a difference 7 weeks makes in a pregnancy. What will I look like at 36 weeks??? (I can give you my educated guess: huge!)

Tracking the Baby Bump: Week 28

Baby Stats

Length: 16ish inches
Weight: 2 1/2 ish pounds
If he were a vegetable, he would be a: chinese cabbage

This week was a great week! I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I have entered the 3rd trimester. It feels so good to know that I am 2/3 of the way done! I have to say, the 2nd trimester was awesome. The first kind of sucked. I was worried the whole time about miscarriage, I didn't look pregnant at all so I felt weird telling people, and every time I brushed my teeth I threw up. Second trimester, it's awesome. You get to see the baby really well on the 20 week ultrasound and find out its gender, you start to be able to feel him move (which as we've discussed is nice and reassuring knowing he's alive in there), and you start to get a cute bump so people can tell you're pregnant!

What am I expecting for the third trimester? Well to be honest, I'm not exactly excited. From everyone, even my books, it seems if they were to choose one word to describe the 3rd trimester, it would be uncomfortable. The baby keeps getting bigger, hurting your back and kicking your ribs and kidney and bladder, or not even kicking, but just settling in a spot that hurts like the dickens, and you just can't move around as much. Lovely, right? But I'm still extremely excited for it. Come February, I will finally arrive in the 30 weeks zone, which honestly has seemed so far away. It's just going to be exciting.

So this week I had my 28 week appointment! First off, I had to do the glucose test to test for gestational diabetes. Everyone told me how nasty it tasted, and honestly it was not pleasant, but not the worst I've had to drink. To me, it tasted like fruity cereal mixed with old orange soda. I drank it through a straw so it was done really fast.

*Side note. As I am typing, the baby is having a little jig on my bladder. They always talk about in my books and things about accidentally peeing a little as your baby kicks your bladder. He has kicked my bladder before, I've always been fine (just uncomfortable). Just now, I have to admit I had a hard time holding it in when he kicked!

Back to the doctor's appointment. So I drank the drink, and an hour later I was getting my blood drawn. Then we had to wait an extremely long time to meet with the doctor (he was the only one in the office at the time.....) but we finally made it in. I gained only 3 pounds! And the appointment before this one I gained 3 pounds. So I am at a healthy weight gain and that makes me feel awesome. I don't know how much I will gain in the 3rd trimester (this is when I expect to gain a lot, but I hope it is not so....), but if I continue to gain 3 pounds every 4 weeks, I will have gained exactly 25 pounds, which seems to the the agreed average of what women should gain in their pregnancy.

So then we met with the doctor. He was very nice and very friendly, but he made me laugh. So in the last few appointments, I've had my stomach measured (from pubic bone to the top of the uterus) because apparently, the length should be about the same as weeks you are along. So at my 24 weeks appointment I was at 23 3/4 inches and then at this appointment I was at 27 inches. Yay! So my doctor said to that, "Your uterus is 27 inches which is right on track...... this pleases us," and he proceeded to get out the dopplar and find the baby's heartbeat. Ha ha but I was having the hardest time keeping myself from laughing! He sounded like Gollum when he said "this pleases us." Who is us? It was funny. It was also funny because I was laying down with my stomach exposed as he tried to find the baby's heartbeat.  (For my representation of this doctor's assessment, watch this video and cut to 1:30.  - Jed)

Anyways, he kept having to move the dopplar around to get the baby's heartbeat which he said is great because it shows our baby is nice and active, which also means he's nice and healthy. Yay! Seriously, that made me so happy. It's so nice to hear your baby is healthy! It's so hard to know anything about your baby as it's inside you, and that can be a little scary, so I love going to the doctor to get that reassurance.

Speaking of being active, I have noticed this week the baby moving a lot more. Before, the best time to feel the baby was lying down, especially if I was on my left side. But this week I've been able to feel him a lot as I am sitting doing lessons with my students. Cool for now, but possibly annoying later. I love it though!

Anyways, that's been this past week. It's been great and I love that we're moving forward so well!

Tracking the Baby Bump: Week 27

27 weeks down, 13 (ish) to go! Sorry for the unattractive picture for this week....

Baby Stats
Length: 15 inches (We've been measuring from crown to rump, now it's from head to toe!)
Weight: 2 1/2 ish pounds
If he were a veggie, he would be: a cauliflower

So, this week. This has been a great week, physically! Sleep still is not the best, but it's better than over the break. I think getting back to work has exhausted me enough to help me sleep more soundly.

One thing I am hating which I don't think I've mentioned before is dry skin on my lips. A while ago it started, but it went away until last week. So basically, I have little teeny flakes on my lips. No amount of lip balm will help. I use a scrub to try to get rid of it, (this worked the last time) but this time around I'm having some difficulties getting rid of the flakes. So, I just keep trying to use my lip balm and scrub, and hopefully it will go away again! My hands have been kind of dry, too. This winter weather combined with pregnancy symptoms is not great for my skin.

Jed and I are also now starting to try to figure out what to do with our baby's pediatrician and insurance. Man, I hate all this. Since I (most likely) won't be teaching next year, I will no longer be on their benefits. But I will have benefits until August. So do we add the baby for the first 4 months of his life, then move him to BYU insurance? Or should we just put him on the BYU insurance as soon as he's born? I have never understood insurance, so trying to read all of the different insurance stuff is confusing to me. Hopefully we will come to a decision and things will go smoothly! I don't want to sound like I am ungrateful for life right now, because life is great, but I look forward to when school is finished and Jed has a steady job that provides benefits and things. No more switching around. I wonder if life is ever like this, but wouldn't it be great to be in the same house, same company, same insurance, same cars, for several years! I know life is super unpredictable, but going to college makes it more so. I look forward to a few years down the road when we are a little more settled. That being said, life really is grand right now! College is great, I graduate soon, the baby is coming, the pregnancy is going SO well, I'm not gaining pounds and pounds of pregnancy weight, we both have jobs and money coming in, we have a great apartment with super nice landlords, we live near my family, I could keep going! The point is, all is well with the Stephensons and we are grateful for Heavenly Father's help in our lives!

Have a happy Sunday!

If Ken were alive....

If Ken (you know, the doll) were a real man, he would be John Davidson.

Today I have had a lovely afternoon watching the Disney movie "The Happiest Millionaire." I love that movie. If I had been a teenage girl when this movie came out (1967) I would have for sure been in love with him. He has the most lovely singing voice. He's also in "The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band." I love that movie, too. He and Leslie Ann Warren have some of the most beautiful duets between these movies. If you haven't seen these movies, I highly recommend you do. They are the classic, good clean fun Disney movies with some great songs. Plus, there's the attractive John Davidson to look at too, ha ha. Looks like we know my celebrity crush...

Fireproof

I finally saw the movie Fireproof yesterday! Jed and I had it from Netflix for much longer than we should have, like at least a couple of months, so I'm really glad we took the time to watch it. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. For those that haven't seen it, it's about a couple whose marriage is on the rocks. The husband gets a challenge from his dad to find love through Christ and to do a 40 day "Love Dare" where he does something nice for his wife each day. He is reluctant at first, but learns to fall back in love with his wife. The wife of course is reluctant to trust him, so that puts a wrench in things when the husband finally wants the marriage to work but she is still holding back. There's also an element in the movie about the dangers of pornography and how it can ruin a marriage. I think this could be an awesome movie to have and to use to reflect on how your marriage is going. Being married for 19 months is not that long, and while I could never see us having such big problems that would cause us to grow as far apart as this couple did, you don't want to become complacent because I think it's probably when you get comfortable and stop trying that a marriage starts to fall apart. Constant vigilance, am I right?

Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't cry more than I actually did. I really only teared up a couple of times and tears actually escaped my eyes only in one scene. It was funny, too, I think Jed was expecting me to cry (Scratch that, I'm sure he was. I cry these days over the most ridiculous things). In the beginning, the couple has these terrible fights with awful yelling. They say the most selfish things. Jed was on his laptop as we watched, but he kept reaching over and rubbing my arm and looking at me like, are you okay? I wasn't crying (believe me I was surprised) but it was making me extremely sad to see these people be so selfish and rude to each other. Ha ha but what a good husband is Jed? I think he wanted to make sure I wasn't going to start crying and make sure I remembered that the mean husband is in the movie, and that Jed is a nice husband. It's good to reassure your spouse that you love them. In the arguments we've had, Jed has never been rude to me. We were just talking about this the other day, too. Of course we have had our arguments, and in the beginning of the marriage, I don't think either of us knew really how to deal with the other person when they were upset. Jed would get mad, I would cry, and him being mad made me cry more and my crying made him feel worse and worse, and so he was more mad. Now, if I'm upset, I still cry of course, and Jed gets mad of course, but we have both learned to look past our emotions a little and try to help the other person. It's just awesome knowing that we know each other so well, even in moments when we are most upset and the least likely to be kind to each other, we are learning to be less selfish and help the other person get over their unhappy feelings. I am so glad we have a relationship like that, and not one like the couple in the move where we yell and insult each other!

Anyways, I wanted to write this post not only to recommend the movie to everyone out there, because it was great, but also to talk about how awesome to do something like that! Last year, before Valentine's Day, I did the 12 Days of Valentine's. Starting on February 2nd, I gave Jed a small Milky Way and a Vanilla Coke along with a note of why I loved him. It was really fun for both of us, and I think that doing a challenge like that, whether a 12 day challenge or 40 day challenge where you really focus on showing love to your spouse is awesome. I told Jed we should do that this year as a count down to our anniversary. So, if we do it, you will hear of it! Maybe I will even type up all the things we do for each other so that you can get some inspiration of your own. (And if anyone out there has done something like this, I know Jed and I would both appreciate getting some ideas of what to do. 40 days of different acts of service, gifts, etc. is a lot of things to do, especially when there are two people doing it!) I think I will approach this by looking at the five love languages (physical touch, quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, and acts of service) and think of as many as possible of each. I just have to think of 8 things for each love language, and there's my 40 days! We'll see how it goes.

So, if you're looking for a New Years Resolution, this is a great movie to spark some ideas for resolutions with the people in your life!

Tracking the Baby Bump: Week 26

Hello, hello! So sorry for not only skipping last week, but being late this week with the baby bump posts....

Baby Stats:

Length: 9 inches
Weight: 2 pounds!
If he were a veggie, he would be a: hothouse cucumber (or as my pregnancy book says, just pick up a 2 pound chuck roast at the grocery store, and there's my baby!)

Aren't the holidays wonderful? I loved being able to have a lazy morning, knowing that my afternoon and evening would be all about family, which was equally as fun. It makes me extremely sad that my break is practically over, but at the same time, I'm super duper excited to start the new year, because the sooner it starts and gets going, the sooner this baby will come! I have become so excited for him to come. I used to be scared about him coming early, because I was scared to have to go back to work, but then I realized, it won't be for long, and it will give Jed lots of time to learn to be a daddy or it will give my mom/brothers lots of time to bond with him. Plus, pregnancy is starting to slowly get more uncomfortable.

First, I will talk about the great things about the last couple of weeks, namely, being able to see my stomach move when the baby moves! Seriously, it was only a little bit after the doctor told me, and bam it happened! It generally is most noticeable when I'm lying on my back. It's kind of crazy. It looks like someone is punching (or kicking) the inside of my right side, so my whole stomach moves in that direction and goes back in place. Sometimes he is pretty active and I can watch for a little bit, but usually it's not more than a kick or two. The sad thing is, Jed has yet to see it! I've tried so hard to get him to see it, but every time I call Jed over to look, the baby stops. Ha ha no joke. I wonder if it's because something in my body changes, like my blood pressure, because I'm concentrating so hard on the baby, so it stops because of the changes. It's funny though, when I see my stomach move, my first thought is that our poor baby needs something or is trying to say "Let me out of here!" ha ha. I know that's strange. It is very reassuring, though, to feel my baby. Last week I didn't think I had felt him all day and it scared me! So I turned on my left side like they tell you to, and just concentrated on relaxing (oh and I said a little prayer that my baby was still okay.... I hope that God doesn't mind my little 10 second prayers like this because they happen probably more than they should). But I shouldn't have been worried because I didn't have to wait more than 5 seconds to feel a little movement. I will have to remember things like this in a few months when the baby won't stop moving and it keeps me from sleeping. Then I can be grateful that I get almost constant reassurance that my baby is alive and well. Jed has been able to feel the baby more, which makes us both happy. I even have dreams, like last night, where I can feel specific parts of my baby. In last night's dream, my baby's foot was pushing out, so I could see this foot and leg trying to push through my skin. Describing it makes it seem a lot grosser than it was... but in my dream I could feel the head and the feet of my baby with my hands and let other people feel it too. I'm excited for when my baby gets even bigger and my brothers can feel the baby. I think they'll really like that.

Speaking of sleep.... I think the break has marked the beginning of a hard third trimester (which starts next week!). The first week of the break, I woke up wide awake around 3 or 5 in the morning and nothing would help me get back to sleep. I'd go to the bathroom, eat a snack, drink some milk, cool down in our family room because the bed was too hot, and after all that, I just had to lay in bed looking at my iPhone for a while until I fell asleep. I wonder if it had to do with how little activity I had compared to how much I move around when I teach.

The last few nights have been different. Long gone were the days of sleep on my stomach (it used to be the absolute only way I could sleep). Sleeping on my side was actually more easily achieved than I could have hoped, but I think that's because I sleep at a slight angle down, so my body still feels like it's sleeping on it's stomach. Well now, side sleeping is even slightly uncomfortable! I wake up after sleeping on my left side for a while and my side feels like it's being stretched way past it's ability. So I move to the right, sleep there for a while, and when I wake up, same feeling. Our bed has been over taken by pillows in order for me to sleep well. Poor Jed, he probably feels very cramped on his side of the bed, because I'm pretty sure my huge body pillow has found it's way over to him several times. I even resorted to trying to sleep on my back two nights ago. The only times in my life I've slept on my back were because I was sick and no other positions worked for me, or because I was recovering from my broken femur and moving even the slightest inch brought excruciating pain. But the other night, sleep would not come, and so I actually slept on my back (with the use of 3 pillows). Pillows are a pregnant woman's best friend.

Every day I feel more and more pregnant. I've been sick since Wednesday (really I've felt sick off and on all break, but I've been actually sick since Wednesday), so maybe that's why, but I have just been moving slower. The thought of picking up my feet to run sounds impossible. We have a Kinect, and anytime I have had to jump, I feel the need to hold onto my belly. I hope to goodness I can be fast with the kiddos at school, but I think as the days and weeks go on, I will only become slower and slower. It's kind of crazy how much of a difference I feel in the last two weeks. Quite suddenly, some of my maternity pants are no longer fitting well. The unfortunate thing is that the other pants I have are the ones with the huge band that goes over your whole belly, and those just don't stay up all that well yet because my belly isn't quite big enough yet. But if my belly continues to grow at the rate it's been growing (or at the rate I feel like it's been growing) I will be plenty big in no time and those pants will probably get snug themselves.

Well, as crazy as being pregnant may sound, it's awesome. There's just something about knowing your precious baby is in there that just makes even the awful things so great. And really, nothing has been very awful. I've been blessed with a fairly easy pregnancy. I would probably say the worst part of being pregnant has been my immune system. I have gotten sick at least twice a month, September being the worst when I got two different colds and two bouts of the flu. Let's hope that this has left along with 2011!

Oh, and two more awesome things: First, if my baby were born today, he would probably survive! I have no idea how long he'd be in the NICU, but he could survive! It is so nice to not have to be scared of a miscarriage anymore. Of course, any number of things could happen and we could have a stillborn, but odds are good that from now on, our little boy could be born and live!

Second awesome thing: I have less than 100 days to my due date! 94 days until April 5th. Awesome, right? I'm into the double digits.... it's crazy! Time is flying, and I hope it continues to fly by, because I can't wait for out little guy to come! And, like I said before, third trimester starts next week! (As in, calendar week, not week 27. It will start week 28.) I can't believe the second trimester is gone already! It passed by so fast. I think I can thank the holidays for that.

Anyways, happy new year! I hope you all have a great time going back to school.....