Bump Update - Week 30 & 31 on the East Coast!

It would be really silly to try and elaborate on how amazing it was to visit the east coast. There just aren't adequate words for how perfect it felt. I'm just going to post some pictures and hope it captures how grateful I am to be able to visit home, to have Ed in great health, to have such an amazing family and to have friends who are so generous with their lives and share so much time with me. I came home feeling very humbled and thankful for all the moments I had with those that mean so much. I know, I'm a huge sap, and I wish I could blame it on pregnancy, but no, I'm just completely in love with my friends and family! :)

Dinner in Alexandria, picture stolen from Michelle :) 

Emilia's first visit to Omi's house

Next photographable moment was the baby shower. There were several pictures of me opening presents and of the group but I feel like this one present represents my general struggle to open gifts with my belly and the table in the way. It was a wonderful brunch. My friends are way, way too generous. I'm very thankful. Also, I may or may not have had three servings of french toast. We are talking small plates here... but still... I could've eaten another 2 plates. :)

 Ken's birthday was up next! He got some fun things, one of the best being a book for him to read aloud to Emilia and my baby. We were all singing along when prompted, of course.

And then Christmas was upon us before we knew it...

Somebody loooooved her uncle. If ever I felt her fussing, I just walked over to Ed and had him say nice things to her. He seemed to know exactly what to do. Bodes well, yes? :)

Those pictures leave out so many other wonderful moments: karaoke, dinner with Carolyne's close friends, dinner with Ed's close friends in VA, a massage from Laura, Ken's birthday lunch, lunch with Lizzy, dinner with Michelle.... just little moments that didn't get the camera out but were unforgettable nonetheless. I could go on, but this would be the world's longest post. So let's skip to the baby stuff and leave the pictures with a huge, ginormous thank you.

Bump updates! Two weeks in one... 

How far along? 31 Weeks today

How Big Is Baby? Baby feels huge! Simultaneously bumping the top of my belly and my hip joint. Last week we were a 15.7 in cabbage and today we're a 16.25 in group of four navel oranges. I have no idea how they come up with this stuff. My midwife said baby is due for a growth spurt. I don't know where the room is gonna come from....

Sleep: Still waking pretty regularly thanks to bathroom breaks and joint/muscle pain, but I'm mastering this whole zombie functioning in the middle of the night. Guess this is sleep training. May need to invest in a biiiiig body pillow. Poor Ed is getting less and less space as I get bigger and acquire more pillows!

Best moment this week: Just being with family, seeing friends and having people feel my belly. It never happens here so I love when I get my belly rubbed. Seeing Carolyne's face when the baby moved around was just amazing - but seeing Omi's face when she met Emilia was 10 times as amazing.

Movement: What a wiggly worm! Seems the visit home was well timed, because this baby was really ready to show off for everyone. It took awhile at some points but mostly baby was plenty happy to show everyone wiggling talents. All arms and legs in there apparently.

Symptoms: Heartburn has taken a break! Yay! Other than that, I'm just really tired, very frequently. I'm swelling a bit for the first time. My feet were like hot dogs on that flight home. I've been instructed to take more epsom salt baths which should help, and to generally rest. I can get behind that protocol!

Food cravings/aversions: Ice cream. Ice cream of all kinds. All the time ice cream. No aversions anymore but I'm still mostly avoiding pickles and 'stir fry.' 

Gender: Can't believe how soon we'll all find out. 9 weeks is not very long, especially when you consider some women give birth around 38 weeks. That'd be the week after my birthday. Yeesh!

Belly Button in or out? Surprisingly, no developments here. I thought for sure we'd be out by now, but it's still pretty normal looking until I'm on my back.

What I miss: Being able to sit quietly. Lately, no matter what I do, this little one is active all the time and makes it hard to just sit and zen out. If the constant waking during the night is sleep training, this is definitely life training.

What I am looking forward to: Our childbirth prep class starting this week. I feel pretty ready and positive about the whole birth experience, but I also feel like there's an experience worth having in taking a prep class.
 

Funny moment of the week: Walking into moms house with Ed and all my high school friends... so weird to think of us all doing the same thing some 10 years ago for game nights and random get togethers.

Labor Signs: Very infrequent braxton hicks. So weird when those come up... it's like my belly turns into cement!

Weekly Wisdom: If you're lucky enough to have an amazing family and a loving group of friends, do your best to thank them and tell them how much you care for them. Hug them often and never take for granted they know how you feel.  

Milestones:  Ed returns to work this week! He'll be taking it slow but I know he's very eager to try to get back to normal. Most of the visit home felt good for him, aside from standing or sitting for elongated periods, but now he knows he'll need to be aware of that when he's at work and manage his energy accordingly. I'm very happy for him but sad to lose my company here at home. The kitties and I will miss the companionship... and help getting off the couch. :)

Ed/Bump Update - Week 19

(Forgive spelling or typing errors, I'm writing this up via mobile)

Things are moving right along. It was a really nice week. Ed's brother Rob is in town and has been helping me and lifting Ed's spirits. Joe Lamour also came to town for a work retreat so he stopped by at the tail end to see how we are all holding up here. It's so nice to see friendly faces. Like I've said before we're in this 'new normal' of baby stuff and hospital/rehab stuff and it's nice to take a break from that for a moment and talk about other things. Donuts. TV shows. Books.  

Discussing and then consuming donuts.

Ed's doing really well. No miracles or anything, but he's holding steady and his strength is coming back a little everyday. He's under less supervision, more mobile, and using more modes of transportation to get from A to B. These new treatments seem to be a really good thing. They're a pain time wise but if that's the only sacrifice, we'll take it. Keep on checking in with him and sending jokes and well wishes. We may be out of the worst of it but he's still got quite the road in front of him. He certainly won't tire of hearing from people. :) 

Also we found a new apartment! Thank GOODNESS. I was getting myself all worked up over it and worrying about the move. It all fell into place and I feel really good about it. One of the best perks is a community garden. I cannot wait to get my hands on that plot and do something fun. I know it's silly but I like imagining having a little toddler playing in the dirt out there, having some connection to nature. Practicing for future hard labor on our farm :)  

I see you tomato plants! And that's a BASIL bush on the right closest to the camera.

It's also a townhouse style place with one bedroom upstairs and one downstairs. Gives Ed a goal to work toward, getting up those stairs, but also a guest space that's a little removed from everything which is nice for visitors. The mini move will happen Oct 21st, the day before Ed is released, and the big move will happen the weekend after that. I'll be packing little by little until then. Fingers crossed it goes smoothly and quickly. 

How far along? 19 Weeks

How Big Is Baby? An heirloom tomato

Sleep: I've not been getting much of this lately. Thanks hot flashes and heartburn. 

Best moment this week:  Rob and Joe visiting, finding a new apartment, Ed doing some initial work with crutches... So many good things!

Movement: I had a dream last night that I could feel the baby moving all around, but I'm still waiting on the real life feeling. I think I have a sleepy baby in here. Must take after me! 

Symptoms: Heartburn has been rough but otherwise... Pretty low symptom week thank goodness. 

Food cravings/aversions: Cereal. Apparently honey bunches of oats and Cheerios are some of the only foods that don't give me grief. 

Gender: tbd

Belly Button in or out? In, but I'm surprised at how flattened out that area already looks... Pretty sure it'll be popping out at the end!

What I miss: After seeing Joe, I'm missing my friends something awful! Guess I'll just have to get my fix via some Facebook stalking :)

What I am looking forward to: Feeling the baby move and my next Dr.'s appt. It'll be the big 20 week check up to make sure everything is all good and we get to see the little alien again!
Funny moment of the week: Having two people exclaim 'you're showing!' And one laid her hands on my belly. I don't mind it at all but it's a strange adjustment. It's nice to finally show even just a little. Omi calls it my "little bubble."

Labor Signs: Ha.

Weekly Wisdom: Hm no great wisdom this week... Just more breathe in, breathe out and handle things as they come.  

Milestones: None this week other than finding a new apartment for us and what will be baby's first home :)

East Coast Vacation Part 2

And the trip continues! We left off on Monday with me teaching Mom's classes. She said she felt up to teaching the next day so we kept our plan to head up to the cabin Tues-Thurs. This time we finally decided to take a little detour and check out the Yeungling Brewery in Pottsville that is on the way. Well worth it. Although, forewarning, it was 1,000,000 degrees in the factory parts. I mean, ridiculously hot. Definitely made the sampling part of the tour at the end even more delicious.

These caves were carved out with pick axes, they couldn't use explosives. For such an immense network of caves, it was really impressive. And you could see the left over brick wall sections that were put up during prohibition.

This was upstairs where the actual brewing takes place. They had just finished for the day and it was extremely hot. The stained glass ceiling was put in because the original ceiling just magnified the sun streaming in, making it even more unbearable for the workers.

Outside was the canning area and it was so much nicer (temperature wise). The cans whizzing by are cans of Lite Lager. Fun fact, Yeungling doesn't water down their light beer.

The building across the way used to be an ice cream company created by Yeungling to produce profit during prohibition. Sadly, very sadly, this building is going to be torn down. I can't believe no one wanted to save it or repair it. I understand it must be expensive, but honestly, what a great old building - what a waste!

A couple of naps later... (at least on my part!)

Hello Cabin, it's been far too long! 

At one point I was reading on the hammock and I look over to see Ed creeping around the shoreline with some equipment - a machete and a rake. Turns out he was on the hunt for a snake that was swimming along the edge. Fella got away but I'm sure he and Ed will meet again.

The next day we were pretty socked in with fog the first half of the day...

But then miraculously - much like Kim's wedding, it all cleared, granting us one really nice half day.

My least favorite part of the cabin.... spiders.

Funny story, we were clearing a debris pile. I was helping because I wanted to be, well, helpful! And not just read all day on the hammock. So I'm helping, and everything is going well, until Ed grabs a branch and pulls it away revealing the LARGEST spider I have ever seen in my entire life. In person. In the wild. Outside of a zoo enclosure. I was so stunned with fear that I dropped everything, inhaled in fear, and started jumping up and down. I couldn't say a word. Ed - who had earlier seen that snake remember? - immediately paused and tried to get me to verbalize what I saw that was probably about to take him down. When he found out it was a spider he shrugged it off and then sent me to go read again. :) Later! I was validated when he saw the same spider at the bottom of the pile and agreed, it was a scarily large spider, and the largest he had seen up there.  Mhm. Never sleeping again. I would try to find you a picture of it, but let's be honest, neither of us needs to look at those kinds of pictures.

Thursday we made our way back to MD. The rest of the trip is a little foggy at this point. We went to see Michelle's performance in Ragtime at Kensington Arts Theater (which was wonderful - I hope you and Houdini know I wasn't just saying that!) and then had a little late night snack at IHOP. So many memories of Jekyll & Hyde at KAT and high school memories from IHOP! The next thing I remember is that we were on our way to get Carolyne on Saturday! It was a big surprise that she was coming in early so we just told Mom we were going to get El Pollo Rico and that we would be right back...

She was very happily surprised. Ed got a scolding from Mom for keeping secrets from her. Apparently that's only something daughters are allowed to do! :)

We went out for a night of karaoke and it was a chaotic wonderful evening. I can't believe this is the only picture I have from the night... but I do remember there was a lot of talking to people and singing and dancing and maybe even some tassels? :) It was a great, great evening. You guys, you friends and family, have no idea how much we miss you and how much more we miss you when we have nights like that.

In fact, I know I have one other picture from that night but it's stolen from Lizzy. So... thanks for posting it Lizzy :) If you didn't know, Lizzy and I have secret powers where when we're together we can take amazing pictures.

You see what not drinking does? It makes me turn bright pink from 2 beers. Oh flush face.

We (deliriously) made our way up to Gettysburg to see Omi early the next morning so we didn't get caught in Rolling Thunder traffic. Ed wasn't sure if he was going to be in town for the baby shower so this was his one chance to stop in and say hello.

The remainder of Sunday was spent doing some baby shower planning and then packing because Ed and I flew out early the following morning.

Oh Dulles, you are becoming like second nature to me now.

It was a wonderful 10 days and seeing so many good friends... in Alexandria, Silver Spring, Gettysburg and Virginia Beach. Thank you all for making time to hang out, we miss you more than we can say!

P.S. Happy day for same sex marriage supporters! Congratulations to all of us for starting to get things right. And on that note, hallelujah that measure in Texas also failed! Seems like a great Wednesday to me.