Dev on Running

I’m in my eighth month of pregnancy! That sounds like I’m almost done, but technically there are 10 months of pregnancy, not nine. Two more months seems like a long time to go, but when I think about it in the context of how many more carefree, childless weekends we have left — only seven, as I write this, if the baby arrives on her due date — it sounds like hardly any time at all!

I don’t really trust my pregnancy app to be accurate about our baby’s size and weight, since we know she’s a bit bigger than average, but it says she measures about 18 inches long and weighs about 4 pounds. Remember, a doctor estimated she weighed 4.3 pounds last week based on ultrasound measurements. Keep packing on those pounds, kiddo!

I’m feeling her dance around quite a bit multiple times a day, which keeps me happy and anxiety-free. She seems especially active after I eat anything, whereas earlier I usually only felt her reacting to sweet foods. I can also easily see my belly move anytime she moves, which never fails to amaze me.

I felt extra-tired this week and failed to exercise at all except for one three-mile walk on Saturday. It was a beautiful, sunny day, so I shed my sweatshirt pretty quickly and proceeded to get multiple comments from people about my belly! 

This was surprising because I’ve worn a puffy coat outside for the majority of the time I’ve been really showing, and I can count on one hand the number of comments I’ve gotten from complete strangers. Once I was just wearing a t-shirt, it was pretty clear people were not afraid to say something about it.

Luckily I still feel comfortable in my body at the moment, so comments like, “You’re about to pop!” and, “Twins?” don’t bother me. Yes, I got both of those, back to back, from one guy. He clearly didn’t get the memo about what not to say to a pregnant woman — or any woman! 

I definitely look a lot more pregnant than I feel for the most part, which is a good thing, but that’s another reason why the comments surprise me — I often forget how big my belly is and looks to other people. Sometimes a certain outfit or angle in the mirror makes me go, “WHOA,” like this one:

It’s only going to get warmer, and I’m only going to get bigger, so I’ll just prepare myself for even more comments over the next several weeks — although I won’t be afraid to speak up if anyone is downright rude! But I believe most people only have good intentions with what they say, even if it doesn’t quite come out the right way.

As far as baby prep goes, Aaron and I are now registered for a hospital tour at the end of March (when I’m 35 weeks along) and an infant safety and CPR class that our doctor recommended in mid-April (when I’m 38 weeks along). I waited a little too long to register for the safety class, since there was only one left with open spots before our baby’s due date, so hopefully she doesn’t arrive before then!

We asked our doc if she recommended any birth classes, and she said she thinks they’re useful if you’re looking to have a specific type of birth experience or if you want to ease your anxiety about giving birth, but otherwise, no. This probably sounds silly, but I feel like I’ve read enough birth stories to know in general what to expect, and to know that I should also expect the unexpected. I’m actually not anxious about giving birth (yet) and feel prepared to roll with whatever happens. I trust our doctor and other professionals to help guide us when the time comes, and Aaron feels the same way.

My breast pump arrived and is safely tucked away in a closet until that exciting time when I need to use it. I also don’t dare to open the package until our insurance claim is approved and we’re reimbursed for it, because it is freakin’ expensive! I wound up choosing the Medela Pump in Style with On the Go Tote, thanks in part to recommendations from many of you.

Now, on to the nursery. It’s pretty much finished! Just add baby.

The final piece of art arrived this week, which is the custom name sign over the crib. We ordered it on Etsy and are really happy with how it turned out! It’s made of wood and feels surprisingly lightweight, but I’m still terrified about it (and Kermit) falling into the crib in the event of an earthquake. The next step will be reinforcing these pieces so they absolutely won’t budge. 

We also hung our IKEA spice-racks-turned-bookshelves and loooove them!

Aaron took on this project, inspired by this blog post, by staining and finishing these $4 spice racks to match the dark wood of the nursery furniture. We love how the shelves fill this random space between the two closets and turn our little book collection into art!

Despite having no definitive color scheme or theme (besides “a baby’s room”), we love how the nursery turned out. It’s pretty gender-neutral and feels clean and bright — especially when it’s warm out and we can have the windows open, like this past weekend! It’s hard to see in this photo, but there’s a beautiful cherry tree in full bloom just outside the window, too.

If you’re wondering what’s along the fourth wall, remember we’re still using this room as an office!

This is an old photo — I’ve since cleaned out those plastic drawers of all the crap I’ve hoarded for years (like birthday cards from 1996) and moved it down to the garage for Aaron to use for tools or bike parts or something. The lamp has moved to the side table next to the glider, and the printer is now on the desk. A diaper pail and laundry hamper now live where the plastic drawers used to.

I can hardly remember what the room even looked like before, but here’s a photo from when we got the crib — our very first piece of nursery furniture — when I was only 14 weeks along:

We’ve come so far! And by “we” I mean the room, the baby, and me. 🙂

Now that the nursery is complete, the things we have left to do before the baby arrives are not as exciting:

– TAXES. Ugh.

– Have our car seat inspected. Aaron has installed the car seat we’ll use to take the baby home from the hospital, but we’ll have it checked by a professional to make sure it’s all good. Here is a list of people and places that perform car-seat inspections in Washington state.

– I need to roll over my 401(k) from my previous job into my new plan. It took me two years to do this after my last job change, and I want to get this one done before the baby comes so I have fewer excuses to put it off.

– I need to order a new passport with my married name. My passport is the only thing I haven’t updated, and I kept putting it off since I had no plans for international travel. Now I have a bachelorette party in Vancouver, B.C., on the books for Labor Day weekend, so I need to start this process to make sure I have it ready in time. (This will likely also be my first weekend away from the baby — eek!)

That’s all for week 32! We have another doctor appointment tomorrow, so next week’s post will have an official update on how the baby is doing if we get any interesting info. Typically these appointments are quick, as the doctor just checks my weight, belly size, and baby’s heartbeat, plus asks if we have any questions. Uneventful appointments are a good thing. 🙂

Until then!

This week got off to an exciting start with a doctor visit and an ultrasound!

My bagel boycott paid off, as I’ve only gained a pound since our last doctor visit, putting me up 24 pounds overall. My belly is measuring back on track, too — woo-hoo! I swear the only thing I changed about my diet or exercise was that I stopped eating bagels, so this goes to show you how intense my bagel obsession really was.

Aaron and I also got our Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) shots to help protect our baby from whooping cough until she’s old enough to get her own vaccinations. Yay, science!

Next, we had an ultrasound to check on the baby’s size. The scan revealed she is already head-down — and hopefully will stay that way, but who knows! — and facing my spine, so unfortunately we couldn’t get a look at her face. The ultrasound tech took a ton of pictures and measurements, and a doctor used them to estimate that our baby weighs about 4.3 pounds (72nd percentile). She asked us how big we were as babies, and upon hearing that we were both well over 8 pounds, she said our kiddo will likely be in the 8-pound range. At this point, I’ll be surprised if she weighs any less!

Overall, the baby is doing really well and there’s nothing to worry about with regard to her growth. Whew.

I managed to exercise three times this week, including two trips to the gym and one glorious three-mile walk outside. It was 60 degrees one afternoon and I wore shorts!!! Spring is right around the corner.

My allergies know it, too. I started sneezing my face off anytime I went outside this week, so it’s officially time to take a daily allergy pill like I do every spring. (My doctor okayed my brand of allergy pills several months ago.) We’re lucky in Seattle to have an abundance of cherry trees that explode into gorgeous pink blossoms, but they’re also the worst for my allergies. I’m happy to suffer for the sake of beauty, though!

I’m starting to have difficulty getting out of bed without first building up some good momentum, as my belly is so freakin’ heavy and awkward. I don’t need assistance from Aaron (yet), but there’s a lot of attractive grunting involved from the effort.

I also had a horrible charley horse (calf cramp) this week. I hadn’t had a charley horse in years, but this one was worse than I ever remember having before. All the tricks that usually work to relax the cramp, like flexing my foot and massaging my calf, did nothing to help and it felt like it was going to go on forever. Aaron had to massage my leg for like five minutes while I cried and freaked out. (Have I mentioned I’m totally getting an epidural when I go into labor? Yeah, I’m a wimp.)

My doctor said leg cramps are really common in the third trimester and recommended staying well-hydrated, getting plenty of potassium, and stretching my legs before I go to sleep. She also said I should get up and walk around when they do happen. This really helped when another one struck in the middle of the night. I heaved myself out of bed — after thrashing around violently amongst the sheets and my Snoogle (referral link), accompanied by plenty of grunting — and walked down the hall, then stretched my calves on the stairs. Ahh, relief!

Our big accomplishment over the weekend was organizing the baby stuff that had exploded all over the nursery. We had dumped the baby shower gifts in there last weekend, and Aaron also pulled the gifts we’d gotten for Christmas out of the closet. It looked like this:

Frank, the giant teddy bear, was no help whatsoever. Thanks for nothing, Frank!

We spent Sunday morning removing packaging, snipping tags, organizing things into piles, and figuring out our storage needs. Thankfully everything was much less overwhelming once it was all sorted! We bought some plastic storage bins from Costco and decorative baskets from Target, and those made putting things away easy-peasy. I also washed and folded all the crib sheets, swaddles, and clothes (newborn through 3-month sizes; I’ll wash the rest when we need them).

Now the nursery looks like this:

Ahhh, so peaceful. I just got an email confirmation that the art we ordered to hang above the crib was shipped, so hopefully we’ll have that up in the next week or two!

Apparently I’m at the point when organizing a nursery completely poops me out, since I spent the entire rest of the day on the couch watching the Oscars red carpet and ceremony. It feels great to have gotten so much done with two months left to go, though! 

I’ll end this post by sharing a few items I’ve been loving for a while now.

Smith & Nephew Secura Moisturizing Cream (referral link)

During a friend’s bachelorette weekend a few years ago, one of the girls (who is a nurse) had this incredibly thick, rich cream that she’d gotten from the hospital and was loaning to anyone who had dry hands. I became so obsessed with it that she gave me her tube at the end of the weekend. I’ve since ordered many of my own tubes from Amazon, and find it’s the only thing that keeps my skin feeling super-moisturized through winter. I also use it on my belly after I shower, and have never felt the itchiness that is apparently common for pregnant women to feel as their belly skin stretches so rapidly.

This cream is on the greasier side when you first apply it, so I give it a few minutes to soak in before getting dressed, and then I’m all moisturized for two days! (I shower every other day now that I’m not exercising all the time.)

That brings me to…

Living Proof Perfect Hair Day Dry Shampoo

Do not — I repeat, DO NOT — try this dry shampoo if you’re not prepared for a $22/can commitment. (Please note that I buy this using my employee discount, which makes me feel slightly better about it, but I still realize it’s stupid.) This stuff actually makes my hair look and feel legitimately clean, not like I have dirty hair with dry shampoo in it. Plus, it smells amazing. Pretty much the only time Aaron comments on how good I smell is when I have this in, and that means I haven’t showered that day. 

A much more affordable option that I used to use, but now don’t like nearly as much now that Living Proof has ruined me, is Suave Professionals Refresh & Revive Dry Shampoo. It does a good job of soaking up grease at first, but by the end of the day, my grease is back. I also have a harder time blending this dry shampoo into my dark hair, even though both Suave and Living Proof spray chalky white. 

Aaron insists there must be a dry shampoo that costs somewhere between $2.89 and $22 that works just as well as the $22 kind. I don’t really want to put in the effort to find it. Any recommendations?

Now, an item that I actually prefer the less-expensive version of…

Basics Stella Maternity & Nursing Bra

I bought this to test the waters of nursing bras, and now I wear it all the time at home. I now need to wear a bra during all waking hours to avoid having neck/upper back pain (large-chested ladies: I’m so sorry, I had no idea what you’ve been enduring all this time!), and this one is super-comfy and supportive. I obviously don’t use the nursing clips yet, but I’ve tested them and they seem easy enough.

I also tried the Bravado! Designs Seamless Nursing Bra, since it had a similar number of rave reviews, and didn’t like it nearly as much. I thought the silky fabric was bunchy and awkward, and the removable cups were those really crappy ones that were already dented/misshapen and just looked awful. I was surprised that I so strongly preferred the Basics Stella bra, which is half the price of the Bravado!, but sometimes life actually works in my favor. Just not with dry shampoo.

My final favorite things are… FLAT SHOES! I gave up my beloved BP. Trolley Ankle Booties several weeks ago, and have now committed 100% to flats for the rest of my pregnancy.

The three pairs I have on heavy rotation right now are:

Classic TOMS — I work amongst extremely stylish women who wear high heels like you wouldn’t believe, so at first I felt like a fuddy-duddy busting these out for work, but I really don’t care anymore. My super broken-in pair accommodates daily foot swelling like a dream.

Converse Chuck Taylor Shoreline Slip-On Sneakers — These are cute, sporty, and go with pretty much everything. I used to reserve them for Fridays, but now every day is Friday because I’m hugely pregnant and I don’t care.

Vans Perforated Leather Slip-On Sneakers — In an attempt to look slightly more put-together than I do while wearing TOMS, I got these in black. I’m still breaking them in, but I like them so far and feel like they’ll be good “mom shoes,” too. I also love the grey suede version, but I don’t really need those… yet.

Notice these are all slip-on shoes, which is key because reaching my feet is a very real challenge. Tying my shoes for the gym is an event.

Once it gets warmer and less rainy, Tieks are the only ballet flats I wear. Yes, they are stupid-expensive, and yes, they are worth it. I’ve had my pairs for years and years and they still look brand-new. I wore this fancy pair for my wedding and actually still wear them all the time to work, to my baby shower, etc.

I think that’s all for this week! Oh, I got another prenatal massage after work today, and let me just say that scheduling a massage on a Monday evening is the greatest idea ever. Ugh, now I sound really spoiled with my fancy dry shampoo and my Monday massages. The massage costs me one-third as much as the dry shampoo, though! What is life??

I’m officially overtired and getting weird. Time for me to sign off and drag this big ol’ belly up to bed!

I’m officially in my thirties! Weeks, that is, not years. I still get to be 28 until May, while Aaron really is turning 30 in April.

According to my pregnancy app, our baby is about the size of a cantaloupe this week, measuring nearly 17 inches long and weighing about 3.5 pounds. I’m up 2.2 pounds from last week’s at-home weigh-in, yet down 2.3 pounds from the weight I recorded at last week’s doctor visit. Let’s just say I’m still up 23 pounds then, huh? Since our doctor visits have now increased to every other week, I’ll probably just go by those official weigh-ins from now on.

I finally had to buy bigger underwear this week, which I was really dreading because what kind of underwear do pregnant ladies even wear? I Googled something like “best pregnant underwear” and found message boards where many women recommended simply sizing up in your preferred style of Victoria’s Secret PINK underwear — particularly anything low-rise to accommodate the belly. I looked at a lot of other options first and found that it was really difficult to find wide, stretchy waistbands and comfy leg openings, but Victoria’s Secret nailed it. Huzzah!

I also used a lululemon gift card I’ve been hoarding for two years to buy a bigger size of my beloved Speed shorts. I tried some other styles while I was in the store, but found nothing else I liked better. So now I own three sizes of the same black running shorts, which is not weird at all, right?

Once again, I made it to the gym four times! I find myself scaling back on the resistance more often while using the adaptive motion trainer, since it seems to take less effort to get my heart rate going these days. I also get really sweaty even if it feels like I’m not working very hard. Thank goodness I’m not pregnant in the summer! I’d be a total mess.

I also got my hair cut this week, which turned out to be more of a dramatic chop than I intended, but I’m getting used to it. You’re about to see plenty of pictures of it!

Now, on to the event I’d been looking forward to for so long: my baby shower!

My mom, mother-in-law Greta, and lifelong friend Gillian spent months planning the shower, and it turned out so beautifully. I didn’t take any photos, as I was busy mingling with about 15 of my favorite ladies, so I don’t have every lovely detail to share, but here’s what I do have thanks to photos from Greta’s phone and some photos Aaron took at the end.

Greta hosted the shower at the community cabana in her neighborhood, and Gillian transformed the space with gorgeous flowers in pretty glass milk bottles and fun paper poofs all over the place. Gillian also put together little favors of different shades of pink nail polish, and Greta made sure we had my very favorite cake: the white-chocolate raspberry flavor from Nothing Bundt Cakes!

I don’t have any photos of the food and drinks, but my mom coordinated a wonderful spread of kale salad, a fruit and cheese platter, and Mediterranean tapas (like prosciutto, mozzarella balls, roasted red peppers, etc.) with crusty bread. She also made sure there was plenty of wine on hand for the drinking ladies, and lemonade for me. 🙂

After everyone dug into the food and chatted for a bit, we played a fun game where everyone tried to match each person to her baby photo. I wound up winning, getting all but two correct. I had an unfair advantage since I was one of the few women who knew all the other women quite well, but hey, it was my shower. 🙂 I won a bottle of champagne, which I shall hoard and enjoy in a few months.

Next, we played a Price-is-Right style game where everyone tried to guess the total cost of several baby items. I didn’t play this one, and instead acted as a model. This angle really shows how crazy-big my belly is — eeeee!!

The correct answer was $37 and change, and my friend Amy won with her amazing guess of $36!

Finally, Aaron joined the party just in time to help open gifts, which was perfect because I was so overwhelmed by all of them.

I wanted to give adequate attention to each gift, but also open them fairly quickly so people wouldn’t get bored. We shared duties to keep things moving: I would read the card while Aaron started opening the corresponding gift, and it worked out really well. I also loved having Aaron there because the gifts are for our whole little family to enjoy, not just me!

There are about a million photos of us making crazy expressions while opening gifts, but here are just a few.

I did not know tiny baby bracelets were a thing! This gorgeous one from Greta is more of a keepsake than something she’ll actually wear, but it’s so darn cute.

We got so many precious little outfits and snuggly animals and blankies.

There were lots of oohs and ahhs from the group. 🙂

And finally, my mom made me cry with the stunning handmade quilt she put together for her first grandchild. ❤

She started working on it right when we found out for sure we were having a girl. So pretty, and so very special.

Thank you so much again to my mom, Greta, and Gillian for making my shower such an amazing and memorable experience! I couldn’t have asked for a better group of ladies to celebrate with, and they all brought so much love for our baby. 

We’re more excited than ever to meet her in just a few months.

Side note: I was sooo comfortable in my dress. I bought it from Nordstrom, but some sizes and colors are available on Amazon for less. I ordered and returned a LOT of different dresses before I found this one that just worked. I always thought pregnant women were just effortlessly adorable with their cute baby bumps, but in my experience, it’s been tough to find the right fit for all my new curves. Don’t be surprised to see me in this dress again… and again… for anything else I need to look nice for.

We have our next doctor appointment and ultrasound tomorrow, and we’re so excited to see our baby again. Fingers crossed that all is well and she’s not getting too big in there. I’ll report back next week!

This photo is from our babymoon in snowy Leavenworth last weekend, since we take my weekly photo at the beginning of each week of pregnancy. It’s actually been really warm at home — in the 50s! It seems like the coldest of our winter weather is long gone, and I’m super excited about it. The more it starts to feel like spring, the sooner it seems our baby will arrive.

I forgot to mention my workouts last week, and I’ll only bring them up now because I took a fun picture to capture the size of my belly at 28 weeks, thus completing this side-by-side comparison of the beginning of each trimester:

From left to right: 5 weeks, 14 weeks, 28 weeks. I remember being so excited to finally start showing a bit at 14 weeks. Little did I know what was ahead!

I went to the gym twice during week 28 and started using the adaptive motion trainer instead of walking on the treadmill. I first tried it out of necessity, as both treadmills were occupied, but I found I enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s sort of like an elliptical, but you can adjust the type of movement you do simply by adjusting your stride. You can do everything from the motion of walking up stairs to deep, lunging strides. My most comfortable stride is somewhere in between. I find this machine gets my heart rate going better, makes me sweat more, and is much lower impact than even walking. I may look ridiculous on it with my basketball belly, but I’m a big fan!

This past week, I hit the gym four times (maybe a pregnant record??) to do 40-50 minutes on the adaptive motion trainer and lift weights. I’m in a great every-other-day routine at the moment and feeling fit and strong!

OK, let’s rewind to last Monday, the day after we returned from Leavenworth. I could have written about this in my last post, but I didn’t want to ruin that nice babymoon recap with a very negative experience.

I started really paying attention to the baby’s movements once I hit 28 weeks, as my doctor advised. She had mentioned during our last visit (way back in early January) that I should start counting kicks at the beginning of the third trimester, which meant that I should monitor her movements during an active time each day to ensure I was feeling at least 10 movements over a two-hour period. Once I started counting kicks, I found I had no problem counting 10 big kicks in less than 10 minutes during the baby’s most active periods! I was feeling so reassured that our baby was doing really well.

Over the weekend in Leavenworth, I wasn’t paying as close of attention to her movements because we were out of our normal environment and routine, but I got the sense that she was a bit less active than usual. She usually goes nuts midway between breakfast and lunch, and then again shortly after dinner. I was still feeling her move, but they were more subtle movements, not the big kicks I was used to. I started to worry that what I perceived as a decrease in activity meant something could be wrong.

On Monday morning, her usually active post-breakfast period brought more of the same: subtle movements, but no big, reassuring kicks. I called the hospital to ask whether I should be concerned, and they said it sounded like the baby was doing fine, but I could come in that afternoon for fetal monitoring if I wanted the reassurance. Deep down I knew everything was probably completely normal, but I really wanted to be sure.

Aaron and I left work a bit early to go to the hospital, and we went right back to a room where a nurse strapped a monitor around my belly that amplified and recorded the baby’s heart rate and movements. The baby’s heart rate was audibly strong, and the nurse kept pointing out the thumping sounds of kicks that were clearly happening, but that I couldn’t feel. She had me press a button every time I felt a movement, and I definitely wasn’t pressing as many times as she was actually moving because I just couldn’t feel the most subtle movements.

The nurse explained that every single movement I feel (other than hiccups) counts toward the 10 movements I should count within two hours, which is where I went wrong. I had gotten used to feeling big kicks, so I had been counting only big kicks. If I had been counting every movement — gentle flutters, rolls, flips, etc. — I would have easily gotten to 10 earlier that day.

Sounds great, right? The baby was clearly doing fine, and there was nothing to worry about. We could have walked out of the hospital then and felt completely calm and reassured. 

But something about this nurse’s personality was incredibly antagonizing. First, she made me feel like an idiot for not being able to feel every single movement, and not knowing that all the movements counted. She chided me for not paying attention to the baby’s movements, when in fact I was there because I had been paying attention and I was worried! It was all due to a misconception on my part, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t been paying attention. 

Then, when I said I felt reassured by the monitor, she said something horrible: “Just because this baby is OK today doesn’t meant it’s going to be OK tomorrow. You need to be worried every day.”

I was already on the emotional edge due to my anxiety going into this whole experience and my raging pregnancy hormones, so this made me start to cry. LISTEN, LADY. I am worried every day. You don’t need to tell me to be worried every day. I need someone to tell me to do what I can, which is be aware of the baby’s movements to make sure she is doing well, and then carry on with my life!

Then I said something about the baby clearly being very active, and that was reassuring, and she said something even more horrible. It was something about how she once had a patient whose baby was extremely active due to something being terribly wrong, and the excessive movement was actually an indication that the baby was dying. WHY WOULD ANYONE SAY THIS TO A PREGNANT WOMAN?? This turned my tears into hysterical crying.

I was trying so desperately to get the reassurance that I had come to the hospital for and could have so easily gotten, and she was making me feel like crap and planting new worries in my head about feeling too much movement. 

Aaron later said he was ready to give this nurse a piece of his mind at this point, but I was way ahead of him. I despise confrontation and will rarely call someone out for being a jerk, but I felt like I needed to stand up for myself and this lady deserved it. Between my frantic sobs, all I could muster was, “YOU… ARE… NOT… HELPING!” and a few other things, but I wish I could go back to that moment and really give it to her. I honestly don’t understand how she makes her living working with the most sensitive, hormonal women with that shitty, tactless attitude.

She tried to defend herself for just telling it like it is, and then thankfully excused herself after she realized I wasn’t calming down in the slightest. Aaron spent the next few minutes soothing me, and then a different nurse came in and said all the most reassuring and sane things I needed to hear all along. When I told her the previous nurse said I should be worried every day, her eyes got all wide and she was like, “Oh nooooo, you can’t live like that.” NO KIDDING!

Anyway, it was all so needlessly traumatic and stupid. I was on-edge emotionally for the whole rest of the day and about half of the next, even though I knew our baby was fine. Luckily I got over it, and I’ve been feeling plenty of reassuring movements every day since then. I’m still paying attention, of course, but purposefully NOT worrying about it anymore as an act of defiance against that awful nurse. Pardon me, but that lady can suck it.

So, that was Monday. On Friday, we had our regular monthly checkup with our doctor. I’m officially up 23 pounds and my belly is measuring a few weeks ahead! Our doctor wasn’t particularly surprised or worried by this, as our baby measured in the 90th percentile at our 20-week ultrasound, but she recommended we have another ultrasound in a few weeks to take new measurements and see just how big she’s gotten.

We are thrilled to be having another ultrasound since we thought the 20-week ultrasound would be our last. Last time, the ultrasound tech switched to 3D for a minute so we could try to see her face, but she had her hands blocking most of it and what we could see just looked kind of creepy (due to the technology, not her). I wonder if we’ll get to see her little face this time. Eeee!

I asked our doctor if there’s anything I should be doing differently in the meantime, and she said I could stand to watch my carb intake. I mentioned my daily bagel habit, and she was like, “Yeah, maybe take a break from the bagels.” I figured it was time. It was a delicious journey, though.

Aaron is extremely proud of the prospect of our baby being big, and I’m… not worried, but not exactly excited by the idea of birthing a whopper. Aaron and I were both on the big side — he was 9 lb. 10 oz. and born several days early, and I was 8 lb. 10 oz. on my due date — so it may just be inevitable! No matter how big or small she is, all that matters is that she’s healthy and comes whenever she’s ready.

This post is getting crazy-long, so I’ll quickly wrap up by saying I got a prenatal massage on Presidents Day and it was ahhh-mazing! I was supposed to have a massage in our hotel room during our babymoon, but the lady cancelled an hour before the appointment. I think it all worked out for the better, though, because the one person who was available at our local massage place on Monday was a guy, and he did an awesome job. Back when I was marathon training, I got massages from a small-framed woman at that same massage place, and I always felt bad asking her to use more pressure. This guy’s default pressure was plenty strong, and the whole hour was exactly what I needed.

I was also able to lie face-down on an Earthlite pregnancy cushion, which was heavenly in itself. There is a sheet covering it below, but if you look closely you can see the indentation where my belly could hang while still being lightly supported by the sheet.

The best part is that I discovered our insurance covers massages with only a $7 co-pay (and of course I tipped on the full price of the massage), so I booked a massage for every other week until I’m 37 weeks along because WHY NOT?!? I’ll never have this much free time again, and I may never need massages as much as I will over the rest of my pregnancy.

That’s all for now! I’m so looking forward to my baby shower this weekend and sharing all about it next week!

These smiling photos are nice and all, but how about one that more accurately represents my state of mind as I enter the third trimester?

My belly is officially big enough to act as a convenient shelf for resting my hands while Aaron takes a few test shots to figure out the lighting. I take this opportunity to make interesting faces.

Our baby is almost 16 inches long, weighs about 2.5 pounds, and is the size of a coconut. I’ve gained 1.6 pounds since last week, which puts me up about 20 pounds overall. I read an article that said I should be putting on ½ pound to 1 pound per week in the third trimester, and I’m like, hello, have you heard of bagels? Obviously not, and I am sad for you.

I am, however, definitely feeling the effects of this weight gain on my back and feet by the end of each day. I’m starting to look forward to the not-being-pregnant-anymore part in a few months. I’m really not looking forward to the increased discomfort that’ll come before then.

On a fun note, I recognized little baby hiccups for the first time this week! One night while I was lying in bed, I felt tiny, regular pulses in my belly — almost like a heartbeat, but definitely not kicks. It took me a second to realize what it was. So strange, but so cute.

The big, exciting event this week was that Aaron and I went on our babymoon! Rather than plan a big trip somewhere far away, we decided to enjoy a quiet weekend in Leavenworth, which is an adorable Bavarian-themed town about two hours east of Seattle. We did a fun springtime trip there back in 2013 (during which I did a 17-mile marathon-training run… OMG), and an awesome (boozy) trip with three other couples last January. We love us some Leavenworth!

We typically choose an inexpensive hotel or Airbnb room when we travel, but this time we splurged on a romantic, rustic B&B that my former co-worker highly recommended: Run of the River. 

It. Was. Awesome.

Each of the six rooms has spectacular mountain and river views, a cozy fireplace, a jetted spa tub, heated tile in the bathroom, etc. It was far nicer than the level of accommodation we’re used to, so it was a really amazing treat for us!

I cannot overstate the amazingness of feeling weightless in this tub. I guess I need to take more baths in our (comparatively tiny) tub at home!

The view from our balcony was stunning. While Aaron went mountain biking one day, I wrapped myself up in blankets and ate my favorite brie and crackers while sitting in an Adirondack chair, just staring at nature. I might’ve been in heaven.

Aaron didn’t have too much success with mountain biking since the snow wasn’t packed hard enough, but at least he got this cool photo!

Perhaps the highlight of our stay was the five-course breakfast each morning, which was served family style alongside the other 10 guests at this big table.

We started with yogurt (mango with shredded coconut one day, then apple-cinnamon with granola the next), followed by fresh fruit, an egg scramble (chorizo/onion/pepper, then migas), a carb (heavenly pancakes, then hash browns), and finally, a dessert (baked apple, then pear crisp). Plus, we had freshly made juice, coffee, tea, etc. SO FREAKIN’ GOOD. We had high expectations for the breakfast, thanks to my co-worker’s recommendation, and it completely lived up to the hype.

There was also coffee and tea available all day, plus a freshly made cake set out around 3 p.m. The day we arrived, it was a dark-chocolate wine cake (amazing), and the next day it was a pineapple upside-down cake (also amazing). We took full advantage. Like, multiple-pieces-of-each-cake advantage.

Away from the B&B, we had a lovely time strolling around downtown Leavenworth amongst the lights as snow fell…

…strolling around Waterfront Park to enjoy the views…

…and eating wonderful dinners at South and Watershed Cafe. Watershed is a new-ish farm-to-table restaurant with an ever-changing menu, and it was our splurge dinner that also doubled as our early Valentine’s Day celebration. It was incredible — a must-visit.

We also spent many hours just hanging out, chatting, and watching the highly addictive Making a Murderer. It was the perfect relaxing weekend!

As much as we enjoyed the peace and quiet, we also saw so many adorable little families walking around Leavenworth and got really excited to come back to visit next time with our daughter on the outside.

Remind me I said that in about six months when I’m dying for some peace and quiet… and sleep. 🙂

This week’s slightly squinty photo brought to you by: sunshine!

Our baby is about 15 inches long, weighs more than two pounds, and is the size of a bunch of bananas. Are those giant Costco bananas or little organic bananas? Based on the fact that I can feel her punching and kicking both sides of my belly simultaneously, I’m thinking Costco. 🙂

I’ve gained 1.7 pounds since last week, putting me up about 18 pounds overall. I’m really milking this pregnancy thing for all it’s worth and enjoying daily bagels and cream cheese during the work week, weekend pancakes, and everything Aaron bakes.

The Pioneer Woman’s sour cream pancakes are my jam. Don’t be fooled, I eat five at a time.

This week I experienced two instances of intense lower-back pain after being on my feet for long periods of time (two+ hours) that I know has to do with the weight of my belly, so I need to more conscious of taking breaks to sit down when I get into my go-go-go moods. I’ll get a burst of energy and do a bunch of stuff — for example, one evening I went to the gym, then immediately did a bunch of laundry and baked a loaf of bread — and then I’ll start feeling the pain and remember I’m pregnant and my body needs to chill the eff out for a minute!

On the exercise front, I went to the gym on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday for walking and weight-lifting. I’m still chugging through the first season of Startup and usually get through two episodes per treadmill session, which I really enjoy and look forward to!

My all-black uniform is still working for me. Even though it’s cotton, this Old Navy slub V-neck tee is really lightweight and just fine for breaking a little sweat on the treadmill. My lululemon Speed Shorts, which are my very favorite for running, have a comfy wide waistband and low rise that sits perfectly below my belly. The pair I’m wearing is a size bigger than my pre-pregnancy size, and I already had them on hand from when I gained weight while traveling. (Oh man… that is a deep reach into the archives from 2012.)

I also attended a fun Brooks Running event a few weeks ago, and they hooked me up with some much-needed items that I now wear constantly: the Uplift Crossback Sports Bra that actually fits and supports my newly larger chest (hurrah!!!), and Launch 3 neutral running shoes. (I was previously still wearing the Ghost 6s that I used to train for and run the Big Sur International Marathon, and they were wayyyy worn-out.)

Even though I just use them for walking right now, the Launch 3s remind me of my beloved Ghosts in that they feel made for me without having to break them in, but are much lighter. I plan to write more about the Brooks event soon, but for now, I just wanted to share that I’m loving these two items!

I feel really good about my fitness level going into the third trimester and will just aim to keep doing what I’m doing for as long as I can do it. I’m especially happy that I still have my “runner’s calves” even though I haven’t run in four months. 

It just goes to show that even something as low-impact as walking can be enough to keep you fit as long as you challenge yourself! I’ve decreased my speed quite a bit over the past several weeks, but I always vary the treadmill incline to get my heart pumping and legs burning.

In baby-gear news, I found crib sheets I LOVE!!! I originally ordered a few SwaddleDesigns sheets through my employer, but then noticed the company itself is currently having a 40% off sheet sale on its website, plus free shipping on orders over $50! They also have a wider selection of cute patterns, so I reordered the sheets directly from SwaddleDesigns.

As I mentioned, they are more expensive than the sheets I previously bought from Target and then returned, but they are made of such soft, lightweight flannel and have awesome reviews. I also discovered from perusing the website that SwaddleDesigns is a Seattle-based company started by a local mom in 2002, and the majority of its products are sewn right here in Seattle, so that makes me feel better about the price. Plus, the patterns are just so. darn. cute.

Elephants & Chickies
Mod Circles
Little Chickies

My friends and family know I have been quite resistant to buying pink things for our daughter, as I don’t want her whole life to be PINK!!!! from the very start, but I’m softening more and more on that front. It helps that these shades of pink are very subtle in person, and they look nice with our grey polka-dot crib skirt. (Many SwaddleDesigns sheets come a variety of other colors, too, not just pink and blue!)

Our childhood teddy bears approve of their new elephant friends.

We also ordered the final piece of nursery art to hang over the crib, which should hopefully arrive well before our baby does! I’ll share what it looks like when we get it, but it’s probably exactly what you’d expect. 🙂 

Thank you so much for all your breast-pump recommendations on Instagram! It sounds like Medela is by far the preferred brand, with specific shoutouts for the Medela Swing, Medela Pump in Style, and Medela Symphony. I’m leaning toward the Medela Pump in Style Advanced with On the Go Tote, as it seems to be a comprehensive set with great portability for taking to work. It’s quite expensive, though, so I’ll double-check that model with our insurance before I buy just to make sure.

Check out this Career Woman carrying her breast pump (and zero other things) with ease and grace. While wearing heels. And being in killer shape. Surely I’ll look just like that when I go back to work. 🙂

Finally, I want to share a few links that made me get all emotional and weepy this week: 

How to Be a Mama via Scary Mommy. My friend Kim, who lost her mom several years ago, shared this on Facebook, and it’s even more heart-wrenching to read as I try to imagine becoming a mom without having my own mom there by my side. Ughhh, I am sobbing again just typing this! Anyway, go read it. It’s very sweet.

14 Raw Photos That Celebrate What Giving Birth Actually Looks Like via Redbook. This may not be for you if you’re squeamish and/or reading this at work, as some of the photos are on the graphic side, but I think they’re lovely. They represent a variety of experiences: home birth, water birth, C-section, doctor-assisted vaginal birth, etc. As I think more and more about giving birth and try to imagine what it’ll be like, it helps to remember that no matter what kind of experience you have or how painful it is, the end result is so precious and beautiful. There I go, getting all soft again!

We are planning to have our ob-gyn deliver our baby at the hospital, and I’m happy to do it however is safest for her, whether that’s a vaginal birth or C-section. I’ve thought about trying to give birth without an epidural, but I’ll most likely get one. I was complaining to Aaron this week about a teeny, tiny burn on my pinky finger, and I was like, “Yeah, I should probably get an epidural.” Ha!

Anyway, that’s all several weeks away (I hope). Bring on the third trimester!

We took this photo last weekend, just after the Seahawks’ embarrassing loss to the Panthers. I look oddly cheerful despite the tragedy that was that game!

Our baby is the size of a butternut squash this week, measuring over 14 inches long and weighing more than two pounds. WHAT?! It seems like just yesterday that she was the size of a “tart kumquat”, but that was way back in week 10! (Fun fact: Aaron wrote in a card for our first anniversary, “Thank you for being the mother to my kumquat” or something similar; I’m sure I’ll be incredibly confused when I look back on that in like 20 years.)

I’m up another pound this week, putting me at about 16 pounds gained. I went to the gym on Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday for walking and weight-lifting, and started listening to the first season of a new-to-me podcast, Startup, which chronicles the creation of a digital media company focused on producing narrative podcasts. So, yes, it’s a podcast about creating a podcast company. I don’t know how to make it sound more interesting than that, but it really is! Thank you to the commenter who suggested it, and to all the people who shared their podcast recommendations on Instagram (check out the comments on this post to see them all). It really makes the treadmill time fly by way faster than music does!

The kiddo has been kicking so hard lately that it feels like she’s trying to escape, which I’m grateful for since I recently had some feelings of panic thinking about the possibility that something could go wrong before she’s born. I know it’s unlikely, but still, a tiny seed of fear is there. Every strong kick is wonderful reassurance that she’s doing just fine.

My energy and hunger levels seemed normal this week, until I crashed hard on Thursday evening. All of a sudden I felt exhausted to the point where it reminded me of the first trimester again, and I fell asleep on the couch from 6-8:30 p.m., then had no trouble going right to bed after that. The next day, and every day since, I’ve been totally back to normal. So weird!

I’m nearing the end of the easy-peasy second trimester (does the third trimester start with week 27 or 28? I’m finding conflicting info), so I’m sure I’ll start feeling exhausted more frequently as the baby’s growth kicks into even higher gear.

As for the nursery, WE NOW HAVE CURTAINS! I spent Saturday buying — no joke — six sets of curtains between Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond, then taking them all home to hang and decide. This was after already purchasing and then returning four previous pairs of curtains. Poor Aaron stopped caring long, long ago.

Anyway, I finally found a pair I liked, then spent two hours using three different methods (dryer, iron, steamer) getting all the wrinkles out, and then ta-da!!! We have us some motherf***ing curtains! (Can you tell I was getting frustrated with this search?) They are these turquoise-y, ocean-y blue ones from BB&B.

I’m sure you’re all like, “Whatever, they’re just curtains.” And they are. But finding the right combo of color, texture, and room-darkening quality was stupid-difficult. We initially wanted blackout curtains, but these darken the room quite well (with the blinds closed; they’re open in this pic) and our baby can just DEAL WITH IT. Gosh, I’m already such a good mom.

Now that those are done, I’ve returned the crib sheets we bought, because what else would I obsess over if I had all of our textile needs figured out? I irrationally began hating the sheets and all the various bright colors, and they just weren’t as soft as I’d like. I’m now eyeing some higher-quality sheets that are also more expensive, but I do get a discount on them through my employer. All the reviews I’ve read say they’re well worth the cost. We shall see… must obsess some more first.

We are lucky to have two big closets in the nursery, and between the two closets is a narrow section of wall that would be perfect for a series of vertical bookshelves like this:

I found this pic on Pinterest, but here is the original blog post on Joy Ever After. Go look at that beautiful nursery and pretend it’s ours, mmmkay?

Anyway, it looks like they used $4 spice racks from Ikea for the shelves, so that is totally doable! We already have a few classic children’s books and I’m sure we’ll soon get many more, so I’m very excited about this project. In fact, we just got Giraffes Can’t Dance from Ali and her husband Brian today! If you read Ali’s blog at all, you know she is obsessed with giraffes and this couldn’t be more perfect coming from her.

Thank you, sweet friend! #freshfromthegym #wokeuplikethis

Speaking of gifts, Aaron’s dad and stepmom gave us some adorable decor they found at Hobby Lobby this week. My favorite item — the one that made me cry in the middle of a restaurant — is this:

The perfect sentiment for our little girl. Thank you, Dwight and Maggie. 🙂

It’s not so much gifts themselves that make me cry; it’s the thought of people we love taking the time to pick out things especially for our daughter. I just get so overwhelmed by the amount of love that is already so evident for her. I don’t know how my tender heart will even handle life when she actually arrives!

Eh-hem… get it together, Devon. In other news, I found an awesome maternity dress that will work for both my baby shower and my friend’s wedding in April! I’ve struggled with finding flattering dresses, as that body-hugging silhouette that looks so cute on some pregnant women just hasn’t worked for me based on the dresses I’ve tried. This maxi dress, on the other hand, is flowy and soft and all those good things. I think it’ll also work well post-birth since it has a nursing-friendly neckline and will skim nicely over the remains of my belly. And it feels like wearing pajamas, but looks dressed-up — my fave.

Since my call for podcast recommendations worked so well last week, I’ll end this week’s post with a few more questions for parents:

1. Where did you mount your baby-monitor camera so that you can see into the crib but not have the cord hanging within reach of it? We’re struggling with this. Maybe we’ll just have to hang it close to the crib, but thoroughly secure the cord to the wall so she can’t strangle herself with it?

2. What is the best breast pump for a working mom? We checked with our insurance company and they’ll reimburse us for any model, so we just need to decide! I’d love to hear your recommendations for the best model in terms of ease of use, cleaning, and portability.

Feel free to leave a blog comment, shoutout on Instagram, or email me at devonpass@gmail.com if you have brilliant answers to one or both of these questions. Thanks in advance!

It was too sunny (!!) last weekend to take a photo in our usual spot, so we had to scramble to find another spot out of direct sunlight since we were on our way to see The Revenant with Aaron’s parents (which was awesome!). We snapped this photo really quickly, but it’s one of my favorites so far. I think I’m looking reallyyyy pregnant, but I know I still have 15-ish weeks to go and that belly is only going to get bigger!

Here’s a look back on how much it’s grown since the first photo at 9 weeks:

I barely even recognize myself from that first photo! I remember I felt a bit chubby when I got pregnant, as I weighed about 5 pounds more than the weight that feels like my fittest, and now I can’t believe how dang skinny I was! Leave it to pregnancy (or any kind of weight gain, really) to make you appreciate what you used to look like when you somehow couldn’t appreciate it at the time.

That said, I don’t miss my pre-pregnancy body at all right now. 99% of the time, I feel more confident about my pregnant body than I did about my non-pregnant body! The other 1% of the time is when I try on unflattering clothes or haven’t exercised in a few days and am just feeling blah in general.

I’ve done great with exercise this week and actually met my goal of going to the gym on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday! I walked for at least 45 minutes on the treadmill each day, and also lifted weights Tues/Thurs/Sat. I’ve officially transitioned to wearing my one pair of Lululemon shorts that still fits (as the waistband hits below my belly) and comfy maternity tees for the gym, as my old workout clothes are too tight and I have no desire to buy maternity-specific workout clothes at the moment.

It works! Even though I walk at a pretty slow pace, I make it sort of a hike with the incline feature and get a good sweat going, so it’s nice to wear shorts.

I got too bored with this season of Serial — sigh, I tried — so I’ve gone back to my old standby, This American Life. Any other suggestions for good podcasts to pass the treadmill time?

My pregnancy app tells me the baby is about 13.5 inches long and weighs about 1.5 pounds this week. That sounds huge! She is still kicking away, especially after I eat during the day at work and after dinner. Aaron and I can now see my belly move in addition to feeling it, and it really freaks me out when I have a plate or something resting on my belly and she kicks it! 

My weekly at-home weigh-in showed I gained two pounds since last week, which puts me up about 15 pounds total. Remember when I was worried that I wasn’t gaining enough weight?? Ha! Aaron is still eating Paleo and quickly dropping the (very few) pounds he gained over the holidays, so we are likely going to be the same weight within the next few weeks… and then I’ll easily surpass him. Bring it on!

My belly is getting in the way more and more, like when I go to pick up something I’ve dropped (gotta bend at the knees), shave my legs or tie my shoes. The struggle is real.

A few random bodily changes I haven’t mentioned before: I’ve had a faint linea nigra below my belly button for several weeks now. It’s so subtle that at first I thought it was an indent from my clothes, but it’s definitely darker skin pigmentation that’s here to stay for awhile! This is not something I care about in the slightest.

On the other hand, my belly button has slowly become more and more shallow, and Aaron is convinced it’s about to pop out. This, I care about! I mean, if it happens, there’s nothing I can do about it, but I’m not excited about the idea of it poking out through my clothes. I’ve heard some pregnant women use stick-on patches to flatten their belly buttons, but I’ll just cross that bridge when I come to it. Maybe it won’t actually bother me?

My sleep quality is still awesome, and I’m clinging to it like the last lifeboat from the Titanic. Aaron and I have long been going to sleep around 9:15 p.m., but lately we’re conking out between 8:00 and 8:30. I LOVE SLEEPING SO MUCH and I’m trying to enjoy it as much as possible before the baby comes! Even when she does sleep in those early days and weeks, I imagine I’ll be hovering over her watching her breathe, because otherwise how will I know she’s OK?? 🙂

We didn’t make any notable baby purchases this week, but our friends Hallie and Patrick gave us their infant bouncer and Rock ‘n Play since their littlest one is now done with them. Thank you, friends!! They also gave us the sweetest little outfit:

I’m dying of the cuteness!!! The tiny hearts!

The nursery curtains that arrived last week are too bright/bold in person, so I’ve ordered them in two other colors and hopefully one of them will work. Once we have the curtains figured out, all we have left in terms of decor is to fill the empty wall space above the crib! We have a good idea of what we want, but need to figure out the right color to go with the curtains, which will be the main color of the room since we’re not painting. Here’s the current (slightly messy) state of the nursery:

Lastly, I got invited to my baby shower this week! My mother-in-law put together the sweetest invitations along with our friend Katie, who also created those custom grandparent Christmas ornaments for us.

My terrible photo doesn’t do it justice, but how cute is that hand-drawn bike and trailer?? Love.

The rest of January is going to be really uneventful and low-key, but we have our babymoon and baby shower to look forward to in February, and then I feel like our baby’s arrival will be just around the corner. I can’t think about it too much or I’ll start to cry from a combination of excitement/terror.

I never know how to end these updates, so… until next week! 🙂

I’m officially six months pregnant! That feels nice and far along.

We had a monthly checkup with our ob-gyn this week, where I had my official weigh-in (13 pounds gained so far) and did my glucose tolerance test to check for gestational diabetes.

I drank this ultra-sugary drink, then gave a blood sample an hour later. I’ve read that some women think this drink is really gross, but I loved it! It reminded me of a flat orange soda — delicious. I could have had another one! I don’t know what that says about me…

I passed the test and don’t have gestational diabetes — hurrah! That wasn’t even my most nerve-wracking test this week, though.

Last year, during my regular annual exam, my doctor found a lump in my breast that she said I should get checked out. So six months ago, just before I got pregnant, I had an ultrasound that showed the lump was most likely a benign fibroadenoma — a very common, harmless thing. I was given the option to have it biopsied just to make sure, or to wait and have another ultrasound in six months to make sure it didn’t grow or change. I opted to wait.

I questioned that decision a few times over the past six months, as I would go back and forth between thinking, “It’s probably fine!” and, “Oh no, what if it’s not fine?” I wished I had just had it biopsied before getting pregnant, because obviously if it turned out to be something bad, it would be a lot worse to deal with while pregnant. But the doctor who had identified it as a fibroadenoma sounded very convinced it was nothing to worry about, so I just tried to calm down and believe it was fine.

Anyway, I had my follow-up ultrasound on the same day as the ob-gyn appointment, and it showed the lump had grown. The doctor said this was completely expected due to my pregnancy — everything has grown! — but I would need to have it biopsied anyway.

So, I had a needle biopsy done to collect three samples of tissue. The area was completely numb, so I didn’t feel anything during the procedure, but it didn’t feel too awesome later that day or the day after. My chest is already tender a lot of the time anyway, so it didn’t make too much of a difference. There is some lovely bruising, though!

I got the biopsy results the following day and it turns out the lump is benign and nothing to worry about, thank goodness. The next step is to have another ultrasound in a year just to check on it. I am so, so, so relieved!

I debated whether or not to share this experience here, but maybe some of you haven’t had your breasts checked in a while — whether you need a manual exam from your doctor, or you’re due for a mammogram — and this will remind you to make an appointment. Do it now, do it now, do it now! It’s always better to know what’s going on with those things, y’know?

As long as I’m talking about boobs, I’ll point you to the bra that has kept me as comfortable as possible during pregnancy: the Simply Perfect by Warner’s Super Soft Wireless Contour Bra. It’s only $16.99 at Target! In my seventh week of pregnancy, I spent a looong time at Target trying on tons of different bras before I found this one, which gave me plenty of support and shape without an uncomfortable underwire. I’ve been wearing it ever since, and I just bought the navy one, too. (Why don’t they make it in black?? So strange.)

Based on the reviews, it looks like lots of other women also love it, so give it a shot if you’re looking for a super-comfy bra, pregnant or not!

On the clothing front, shopping for maternity clothes is much less fun now that my belly is seriously bumping. I feel like all of my cold-weather clothes are drab shades of grey and black and white, so I’ve been hoping to find some things with color, but everything I’ve tried over the past few weeks has just looked odd and unflattering. I guess the things I already have are the most flattering, so I’ll just stick with them?

This was the best I looked after trying on a bunch of stuff, but I was already wearing this outfit (with a long sweater on top for work), so I made zero progress. I do love these A Pea in the Pod basic tanks, A Pea in the Pod leggings and BP. Trolley booties, though. I own more than one color of each of these items, naturally, and they are pretty much the basis of every outfit I wear.

We did make a little progress on the nursery this week, though! The crib bedding I ordered arrived, and it looks just as cute as I had hoped.

Clockwise from top left:

Circo ‘Balloon Ride’ Fitted Crib Sheet
Circo ‘Sweet Kitty’ Heart Fitted Crib Sheet
Circo ‘Snooz’n Safari’ Fitted Crib Sheet
TL Care Dot Crib Skirt (returned)
Circo Dot Crib Skirt

I figure we’ll be cycling through fitted sheets on a fairly regular basis thanks to the various messes babies make, and I like the idea of having a selection of different prints that coordinate with one neutral crib skirt. Target also carries a bunch of other adorable prints by the same brand, so we can always add to our collection if we need more! I ordered two similar crib skirts because the reviews were a little iffy on how the Circo version hangs, but I ironed out all the crazy wrinkles and it looks fine.

We also just got the curtains I ordered, but haven’t hung them yet. If they work, I’ll post an updated nursery picture showing the bedding and curtains next week!

What else? Oh, I did a prenatal yoga DVD this week! My mom got it for me, as she is super into yoga, and it provided a nice, relaxing whole-body stretch. I should do it at least once a week to stay limber-ish.

Aside from that, I only got out for one walk this week — but it was a lovely one.

I live for sunny weekend days when I can spend an hour or two outside and at least pretend it’s not the dead of winter, although the frosty ground and icy sidewalk do a great job of reminding me that spring is still several months away. I can’t wait until it stays light enough for me to walk outside after work! I haven’t been to the gym yet in 2016 because I’m afraid it’ll be packed, but I really should get back on the treadmill this week. I’ll fight for it if I have to! I’m seriously behind on Serial due to my laziness.

One last thing I’ll note, as I write this on the last day of week 24, is that I’m feeling a resurgence of intense hunger and exhaustion. The baby is kicking away every day and growing like crazy, so this is no surprise, but I feel like it marks the beginning of the end of my super-easy phase of pregnancy. Plus, everything I’m reading in my pregnancy app is basically like, “Shit’s about to get a whole lot worse.”

For example, here are some things I do not currently have, but apparently can look forward to in the coming weeks: itchy belly, swelling, headaches, gas, hemorrhoids, restless leg syndrome, Braxton Hicks contractions, dizziness, nasal congestion, increasing immobility… the list goes on. Wheeee!

In the meantime, I’ll continue to be grateful for every day that I feel good, and just try to keep moving so that I can continue feeling good for longer!

Happy New Year!!! 

We had a really low-key week and New Year’s Eve in particular, which was nice and relaxing. We’ve become obsessed with The Great British Bake-Off (aired in the U.S. as The Great British Baking Show because apparently Pillsbury has the term “bake-off” trademarked), and have been binge-watching episodes of it at every opportunity. You can watch it online at PBS.com, and at least one season is on Netflix, so get it in your life!

Despite watching endless episodes of people baking scrumptious treats, this hasn’t caused a huge surge in our consumption of baked goods. Aaron is back to eating Paleo after having indulged in all the same delicious things I’ve been eating while pregnant, so he hasn’t been baking much anymore. So far I’ve only made an effort to get my hands on some French macarons after watching the bakers take on a macaron challenge.

So good! Aside from that craving, I’ve been trying to dial back my treat consumption after a seriously sugary holiday season. My blood test to check for gestational diabetes is this coming week, so… yeah. We’ll see how that goes!

I did a much better job of staying active this week. I walked three miles on the treadmill on Tuesday and got all caught up on Serial. Then, it was so beautiful out for the rest of the week that I did all of my walking outside. Aaron and I went for a five-mile walk together on Thursday (New Year’s Eve, which I took off from work), and I did a solo four-mile walk on Friday (New Year’s Day) and a three-mile walk on Sunday.

Look how pretty! This was from my New Year’s Day morning walk. I did one of my usual running routes and really enjoyed walking it since I was able to take my time and appreciate the beautiful day — even though it was a frigid 28 degrees. Luckily, the route has plenty of hills to keep me warm!

This is truly an “I woke up like this” photo. I try to wear makeup, fix my hair, and look nice for my official weekly photos, so here’s what the opposite end of the spectrum looks like. 🙂

On a related note, one unexpected perk of pregnancy — at least in the second trimester — has been super-clear skin. Before being pregnant, I’d usually have a few minor pimples at any given time. Then my skin noticeably worsened during the first trimester and I had plenty of acne on my face, neck and chest. The worst was when I had two of those horribly painful deep pimples — you know the kind I’m talking about — on my face at the same time. But since the start of the second trimester, I’ve noticed my skin has been incredibly clear. Not perfect, for sure, but about as close as I could hope for! Thanks for that, kid.

I’m still feeling really good, have plenty of energy, and am getting great sleep. The only thing I could complain about is ongoing chest soreness/tenderness, but that’s just part of the gig and I anticipate it being so much worse when I start breastfeeding. So, I’ll just save those complaints for later. 🙂

I will say that I don’t know how naturally well-endowed ladies deal with the, uhhh, growth that happens during pregnancy, because I’m finding it quite annoying and didn’t realize how nice I had it in life as a naturally smaller-chested lady. I ordered some new bras online that are good for both maternity and nursing, so hopefully those will get me comfortably through the end of pregnancy and transition well into my next role as a 24-hour milk machine.

On the nursery front, we finally found crib sheets we like! I ordered fitted crib sheets in three different prints that seem to coordinate well with one cute crib skirt, so I’ll have to see if they really look good together when they arrive. 

We also attempted to shop for curtains this weekend and brought home a set that perfectly matched the sheets, but looked pretty crappy once we hung them. I’ve ordered another set that I hope will coordinate well with the sheets rather than match them perfectly, so we’ll see. 

I really don’t love decorating and don’t think I’m very good at it, so I’m not aiming for Pinterest perfection; I’m more aiming for a passably cute nursery that’s functional and makes me happy to spend time in it. With a crying baby. Being a milk machine.

I’ll end this update with a cute photo of a very small sample of the items Aaron has been bringing home on a frequent basis.

He looooves picking out clothes and hats and all sorts of things for our kiddo. He’ll hit sale sections of stores on his lunch break or check online for good deals and come home with the cutest stuff. I keep telling him to hold off until after our baby shower in February, but hey, I can’t fault him for being so involved and so excited to be a dad. In fact, it just makes me look forward to seeing him with our baby so much more, knowing he’s going to be the best father.

OK, now I’ll actually end this update with a little story. Aaron went to bed well before midnight on New Year’s Eve, and I tried to stay up but passed out on the couch before waking up at around 11:40. That gave me just enough time to wash my face, brush my teeth, and crawl into bed at exactly midnight, when I woke him up for a quick kiss before settling in to sleep.

As I lay there listening to the fireworks going off outside, I could feel our daughter kicking inside me, and it brought me to tears thinking about how exciting this year will be for our little family. Life will definitely never be the same again, but in the very best way.