Baby Love

Saryn is so ready for baby sister to be born. She LOVES her and is ready for her to be here already!

Saryn hugs my belly, gives it kisses, talks to it, covers it up with her blankie to keep baby sister warm - I don't know what she's going to do when I don't have a big belly anymore!

We've started looking at houses because ours is too small for us now. I told Saryn that we needed to get a bigger house because baby sister doesn't have her own room. Saryn started to cry and said we needed to go right now to get a house because baby sister HAS to have her own room!! So sweet!

We were lounging around last Saturday evening and were able to get a few cute snapshots of Saryn lovin on me and baby sister. Please excuse my....um....roundness. ;)






Kisses for mommy.



Saryn wanting to check on baby sister.



Kisses for baby sister.



Not much room on my lap anymore but Saryn doesn't seem to mind!!

35 weeks

How far along? 35 weeks
Total weight gain: 30 pounds - I gained 37 with Saryn
Maternity clothes? Um, hell yes - and I keep outgrowing the new stuff I buy!
Stretch marks? No
Sleep: Two pillows behind my head and one between my knees. ;)
Best moment this week: This week has been rough so I can't think of a "best moment" except that I haven't gone into labor yet!
Movement: Yes, and usually it's painful jabs on my left side. Pretty sure that's where her feet or knees are.
Food cravings: Cold food - milk, pudding, cereal, ice cream, cheese, ice water
Gender: Girl
Name: Yes!!!!
Labor Signs: A few
Belly Button in or out? Unfortunately, out!
What I miss: Wine, sushi & clear skin!
Weekly Wisdom: Sleep when you can!
Milestones: Making it this far and hopefully at least making it to 36 weeks

I am at 35 weeks now, which leaves 5 weeks left until my due date. I am pretty sure I'm not going to make it to 40 weeks and honestly, I don't think I'm even going to make it to May. I started having some pre-term labor signs around week 33 and that has stopped but it's definitely left me thinking that this little baby isn't going to wait until May 20th to be born. Of course I want her to stay where she is for as long as possible but I'm preparing for an early arrival. :)

Pretty much everything is done at this point. I got the double stroller, new pack-n-play is on the way, painting has been done, and carpets & couches cleaned. :) The only things I have left to do is my hair appointment which is next week, weeding & mulching our flower beds and purchasing a few little baby items here and there. Nothing that needs to be done before she's born.

My pregnancy has started to take its toll on me. I wake up every hour and twenty minutes (like clockwork) during the night to go to the bathroom. It takes me a while to fall back asleep and it seems like as soon as I fall asleep I'm waking back up. I pretty much eat all day long and I probably eat more than most of the men I know. I eat a meal and walk away not feeling full, so I am basically eating us out of house and home. Good thing I'm the one who goes to the grocery store!

I have the typical aches and pains that come with this stage of pregnancy - back aches, leg pain, and just general uncomfortableness. No stretch marks so I guess I should be happy about that! ;)
I just realized today that I'm having Braxton Hicks contractions and have been having them for a while! I thought it was the baby stretching or moving but it was actually "practice" contractions. Ooops! haha! :)

Saryn is getting really excited for her baby sister to arrive. She likes to talk to my belly and give baby sister kisses. She talks about being a good helper and wanting to hold her sister. She just started talking about how when baby sister is born she's going to teach her how to catch a ball. Guess I might need to keep an eye on Saryn so she's not tossing balls at her sister right away!

57 days left

I am 32 weeks along in my pregnancy leaving me 57 days left until my due date. Saryn was born two weeks early so this baby could arrive early as well. Or maybe she'll be completely different from her sister and arrive 2 weeks late! Either way, we want her to stay right where she is until she is developmentally ready to arrive.



Most everything is done except random things that I want done before the baby comes. For example, I want the carpets cleaned, couches cleaned, hall bathroom upstairs painted, master bathroom trim painted, lawn seeded & mulched. You know, typical things people do when they have a baby. ;)



Since we are planning on putting our house on the market before or right after the baby is born, we are also getting our house ready for showings. Ideally, I would like to get all of the work done before she arrives. Right now everything is set up and should be done before our new one decides to make her grand entrance into the world. There are still a few things that are on my list that will have to wait to be done until the week before we put the house on the market - those items of course will have to wait. :)



I've even made myself a hair appointment in late April so I won't have to worry about that for quite a while!

The only thing left we have to do for the baby is to get something for her to sleep in and a double stroller. I have a friend who has offered to sell me her old double stroller for a great price so I am going to check it out this weekend. As for the bed for the baby - I think we might just go with our old pack-n-play for a while. Still not 100% sold on that idea and I am still looking on craigslist to see if I find anything I like. We can't really use the cradle that we used with Saryn because we don't want Saryn to be able to reach the baby. I'm not too worried about that part yet. We have a pack-n-play the baby can use and she can always sleep in the carseat next to our bed until we figure out something more permanent.



Jordan and I need to go visit the hospital as we will be delivering this baby at WakeMed in Cary vs Rex with Saryn. We are still working on names for this baby - still not 100% sure of the middle names. We still have 6 weeks left, right? :)

29 weeks

How your baby's growing:

Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. Her muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and her head is growing bigger to make room for her developing brain. To meet her increasing nutritional demands, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because her bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby's hardening skeleton each day.

The funny thing is, I have been drinking milk like it's going out of style! Now I know why! :)

Everything else is going along just fine. I start seeing my doctor now every 2 weeks instead of every 4.

How far along? 29 weeks
Total weight gain: 21 pounds - I thought I had gained more than I actually have!
Maternity clothes? Yes
Stretch marks? No
Sleep: Two pillows behind my head and one between my knees. ;)
Best moment this week: Playing music for the baby
Movement: Lots of it - this baby is seriously going to play soccer or run track!
Food cravings: Milk
Gender: Girl
Name: A first name - a few middle name potentials
Labor Signs: No
Belly Button in or out? Half & half ;)
What I miss: Wine, sushi & clear skin!
Weekly Wisdom: Exercise, you'll feel better!
Milestones: Having most of the baby's stuff ready

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Third Trimester

This week marks my 28th week meaning I am officially in my third trimester. From now on I'll go from seeing my doctor every four weeks to every two weeks. Taking the glucose test is my next appointment and of course I'm hoping I pass! ;)

Yesterday we started getting our bedroom ready for when the baby comes. We were hoping to have sold our current house and moved into a 4 bedroom home before the baby arrived but with Jordan's job situation we decided to wait. For now we are working on making the space we have more comfortable. Our plan is to share our room with the baby until we move - which will hopefully be over the summer.

For the past two years our bedroom has been more than a bedroom. It's been my office for real estate, craft room for me and basically storage for any junk we have that we don't know where to put it! We took out two filing cabinets, two chairs, and a desk!! We moved the bed and are planning on taking out two tall dressers and replacing them with one short dresser so we can use the top of it as a changing table for the baby. Our bedroom is actually starting to look like...a bedroom!! We still need to get curtains as the light sort of shines right onto the bed now and have the carpets cleaned - then we can pull the baby stuff out.

I've already gone through Saryn's old baby clothes and there are a lot of things the new baby will be able to wear. For the most part we'll really only need to buy summer outfits for during the day since Saryn was born in the winter. We certainly have plenty of pajamas, blankets, & bibs!

A little info on my pregnancy thus far:

How far along? 28 weeks
Total weight gain: 24 pounds
Maternity clothes? Yes
Stretch marks? No
Sleep: Two pillows behind my head and one between my knees. ;)
Best moment this week: Listening to Saryn tell strangers that her sister is in mommy's tummy!
Movement: Lots of it - this baby is seriously going to play soccer or run track!
Food cravings: Sweets!
Gender: Girl
Name: A first name - no middle names yet
Labor Signs: No
Belly Button in or out? Half & half ;)
What I miss: Drinking wine!
Weekly Wisdom: Talk less & listen more
Milestones: Finally in the 3rd trimester!

Have a good week!

103 Days Left!!

But who's counting? :)

I've started to make mental lists of what we need to buy for this second baby. Most of our baby items can be reused but there are a few things we'll need to go purchase. About half of Saryn's newborn/baby clothes we'll be able to use again. I've started to go through her stuff and have pulled out everything up to 3-6 months. By the time the new baby is 6 months old we'll definitely need some new clothes. Saryn was 6 months old in June and this baby will be 6 months in November. I doubt many of those clothes will work!

We are still working on making space for the new baby. Hopefully by the end of the month we'll have that all sorted out and ready for her. If not, we still have a few months to work with!!

We have a first name that we both like but are not 100% sold on it yet. We've decided not to tell people what we are going to name the baby until she is born. I have friends who are pregnant right now and their parents have told them they don't like the name they've choosen for their baby!! Yikes! We want to just steer clear of situations like that! ;)

One nice thing that I've noticed about being pregnant this time around is that people are not bombarding me with advise! Guess they think that since I've already gone through it they don't need to tell me their opinions again. Whatever the reason I am grateful!

A little more info:

How far along? 24 weeks
Total weight gain: 20 pounds
Maternity clothes? Yes
Stretch marks? No
Sleep: Normal, with an occasional nap during the day especially if Saryn wakes up at 6:30!
Best moment this week: Jordan with his head on my belly talking to the baby and she kicks him in the ear!
Movement: Lots of it
Food cravings: Cereal, potato chips, milk
Gender: Girl!
Name: An idea but not certain
Labor Signs: No
Belly Button in or out? In
What I miss: Clear skin!
Weekly Wisdom: I'm pregnant, hormonal, no patience and have a short fuse - watch out!
Milestones: 3 months left!

Have a good week! ;)

Cravings & Such

In my last post I said I was 22 weeks - oops, I lied! I'm 22 weeks this week! I'm going to chalk that up to pregnancy brain. ;)

I've started to get some cravings with baby #2 but they are very subtle compared to my pregnancy with Saryn. I'm craving a lot of milk right now, cereal with banana on it, and milk and cookies before I go to bed! ;) All of those were cravings I had with Saryn as well. I eat a lot of sandwiches, anything with peanut butter (yum!) and eggs. Not really craving meat very much, although I've had a craving for tacos for a few days now. Bought stuff today to make some this weekend! ;)

Jordan and I were planning on selling our house this winter and purchasing something a little bigger before the baby arrives. Jordan has received a promotion at work and is now traveling every week to a town just outside of Boston. Since we are uncertain of how this will play out we are holding off moving until this summer. The move might be to just outside of Boston or somewhere else in Cary. Jury is still out on that one. ;) So, I've been trying to do things around the house that will make things more comfortable while we are in the house until we figure out what we are doing. Mainly it's our bedroom that needs some help. We are going to move a bunch of furniture out of our room to make room for the baby's stuff. I've just started cleaning out stuff and hope to have it done by next weekend.

Once I get the furniture out of our room and rearrange everything so it's the way we want it I'll start going through Saryn's baby clothes and whatnot. I'm excited to go through what we have so I can see what will work for this baby and to reminisce about when Saryn was little. I'm also excited to see what new things I need to buy for this baby!!

Saryn was able to feel the baby kick the other day. She was snuggling me and laying on my chest/stomach and the baby kicked a little. Saryn might have been pressing on my belly and the baby was trying to let me know she needed a bit more room. ;) Saryn didn't move so the baby kicked again. I asked Saryn if she felt that and she sat up and said, "Yeah mommy, what was that?" Too funny! I told her that it was the baby kicking inside my tummy. She thought that was the funniest thing. She of course wanted to try and feel it again but was giggling and squirming so she wasn't able to. I'm sure it felt weird to her since the baby kicked her right in the tummy too!

Baby #2 is a girl!

We had our 20 week appointment and we are pretty sure baby #2 is a girl!

We took Saryn with us to the ultrasound and she really liked seeing the baby in mommy's tummy. It's nice to be able to tell her now that the baby is a girl and she's going to have a sister soon. Everything with the baby is normal and moving right along. I've been feeling her move since about week 16. She's getting stronger and big enough now to kick me hard enough to feel & see from the outside. Hopefully Saryn will get to feel her little sister kick very soon!



I've started working on names for our newest little one but the two I came up with Jordan shot down. I really liked one of them - had the two middle names picked out and everything! I'll keep that one in my back pocket just in case. ;)

I've decided that the mind of a pregnant woman is very interesting. I've begun "nesting" and really all nesting is (at least for me) once I get an idea in my head I have to do it or I can't stop thinking about it. Once I get the idea finished I feel this sort of relief. But then usually within minutes there is another idea that I need to fixate on and the process starts all over again. Not sure if that's how it is for everyone - but that's what it's like for me!

One of my projects I want to start this week is to clean out our bedroom to make room for the cradle and some of the baby items we'll need again. We were planning on moving to a bigger house but that needs to be put on hold for a while until Jordan's new job gets sorted out. Right now we have our bed, 3 dressers, a desk, two filing cabinets & two rocking chairs - in our bedroom!!! Absolutely ridiculous! The desk and filing cabinets are going - to the trash for all I care! We have a very large bedroom and I think getting rid of those three things will free up a lot of space and make our room much more comfortable!

A little more info:

How far along? 22 weeks
Total weight gain: 14 pounds - yikes! ;)
Maternity clothes? Yes, but I can still wear some of my regular clothes too
Stretch marks? No
Sleep: Normal, with an occassional nap during the day
Best moment this week: Saryn talking to the baby and tickling my tummy to tickle the baby.
Movement: Yup
Food cravings: Still no!
Gender: Girl!
Name: Won't tell what it is even if we have one! ;)
Labor Signs: No
Belly Button in or out? In
What I miss: Clear skin!
Weekly Wisdom: Be around happy/positive people!
Milestones: Found out we are having a girl!