28 weeks "There's a whole lotta baby in here"

Hello 3rd trimester!  The 28th week marked our first baby shower, a girls weekend, and an attempt to buy a chair for the baby room.  And speaking of the baby room....all it needs is the chair and a couple more DIY art projects to be completed.

First up, the chair attempt.  After going to 7 different stores last week, we were more than a little discouraged about finding something reasonably priced that we liked.  I of course found the perfect chair over at Pottery Barn Kids for the almost-a-good-deal-if-I-were-supersupersupersuper-rich price of $999.  Needless to say, we weren't even considering one of these as an option, just something to compare other chairs to.  I stopped at Babies R Us after work one day and finally found one that I liked almost as much as the PBK options.  I also happened to have a 20% off coupon that I could use.  But.  Do you think they could have it in stock in the store? No.  Do you think the warehouse could have it in stock? Of course not.  Do you think Babies R Us allows you to order one on back order to then be called when it comes in? No way Jose.  Why this is, is beyond me.  So, the only option I had was have another store ship one in their stock to the Madison store, which I was then told was risky because it doesn't always work out... meaning some lazy ass doesn't put it on a truck ever.  So I'm crossing my fingers this last hopeless option works.  I'm going to give it two weeks and if I don't hear from them, I'll order a different one.  I already found a couple online that are rated really high (from another store...I'm kind of not trusting Babies R Us' customer service at this point) for a little more $$$, but not too much, like only $50 or so.)

Second up, my girls weekend with all my best college girlfriends.  The nine of us hadn't been all together since March 2009, that's 3 1/2 years!  We used our time together to eat A LOT of food, and honestly just have a lot of hanging out/chatting/catching up time. :)

7 out of 9 of us at dinner Friday night at The Great Dane Restaurant in Madison.

(Laura, Evans, Courtney, Britt, Nicole in the back row. Briana, Baby G, Moi, and Baby K in the front)

And they were all wonderful enough to allow my baby shower be held over the same weekend, since we were all going to be in the same place at the same time.  And it was in a word.... amazing/exquisite/awesome/perfection. :)  A few of my closest Madison friends were able to attend too, which plopped the icing on the cake.  I (and Matt) could not have asked for a more wonderful shower for our little boy.  Nicole and Courtney planned a Dr. Seuss theme which was perfect for my English major dorkiness and Baby K's furniture favorite pastime (aka reading).  And Britt was amazing to host us all at her new house.  All my ladies were sososo generous and wonderful to us.  We are truly blessed. (And those of you who know me, know I do not throw that word around.  Like ever.)

Courtney politely demanded I wear the hat for the gift opening :)

**You can kind of tell by my red cheeks, but I had a seriously awful cold this entire weekend.  It started Thursday night and is still hanging around today (Tuesday). I tried going to work on Monday, but ended coming home sick after about two hours and then slept the rest of the day.  I'm blaming the flu shot I received the week before.**

Not quite figuring out the timer delay on the camera...

Shower attendees (minus Heather and Baby Lane who was a tiny bit of a cranky pants :)  )

All my Winona BH's :)  Finally together again!!!

The baby room is about 90% finished too!  I finally found a furniture configuration I like and finished up the first of two DIY art projects for the walls.  The antique rocker will be replaced with the future baby room chair once that fiasco is figured out.  The dresser used to be an orangey wood color, but I painted it white last week and spray painted the knobs a darker color too.  I'll come back with a full source list of where we got what and the costs at some point.  What do you think??? :)  :)  :)

View from the door.  Crib to the right, closet to the left.

Door to hallway on the far left.

Homemade/Hand-painted "No Monsters Allowed" art print :)

Nursing/Reading corner (new chair and more DIY art on the way soon)

All the girls gave Baby K a book :)

Changing table and toy basket in the corner.  Closet on the right.

Refinished dresser!

We put the dresser in the closet for a few reasons, mainly because there isn't a ton of wall space in the room, but also because the closet is HUGE.  It spans the entire length of the room and a little boy obviously won't need that much space for quite some time.  So for now, this 1/3 of the closet is a nook (with the other 2/3 still behind closet doors for storage)  We're going to paint the closet walls to match the rest of the room too.

28 weeks along (3rd Trimester!)

xoxo,

Matt, Steph, and Baby K

***Weekly words of wisdom:  When you're 28 weeks (or 7 months) pregnant you will look pregnant 100% of the time.  I repeat, YOU WILL LOOK PREGNANT 100% OF THE TIME.  Sometimes you think you don't look very pregnant (for whatever reason) and then someone makes the comment "There's a whole lotta baby in here!" when your friend and you walk by (your friend is 5 months pregnant).  Realize you look pregnant every second of every day.  And then have another Culver's chocolate milkshake.***

27 weeks "My body is crushing my knee"

Week 27 was pretty quiet.  I was home sick from work on Wednesday after having not slept much Tuesday night and I woke up feeling like I was going to puke, a feeling which lasted into Thursday, but I never ended up getting sick.  I'm thinking it may have been an aftershock from the flu shot I got at the doctor on Monday. It was my first time ever getting the shot, so I didn't know what to expect.  The only side effects I had were feeling pukey and my arm hurting the entire week (including while sleeping on that side).  Oh and I somehow hurt my right knee last weekend and can't figure out how.  And it aches quite badly when I walk downstairs or any kind of downward movement (have you seen our driveway?  Or been to our tri-level house?), so it pretty much hurts all the time. :  /

Matt and I went shopping for a chair for Baby K's room over the weekend.  Well, we tried.  We went to seven different stores on Saturday and didn't find one single contender.  Not even a minor contender.  We're hoping to find a non bulky, somewhat modern looking espresso colored leather/leather-like rocker or glider, for a reasonable price.  Or a Pottery Barn slip covered look.  At first we were hoping to find a rocker/recliner, but realized after a couple stores that we probably wouldn't need the recliner aspect of it.  We found a couple leather recliners in our price range, but they didn't rock.  And in the end I would really like a rocker/glider for nursing...and for story time eventually. :)

This is our final week in the 2nd trimester!  It makes me feel like D-Day is right around the corner.  In two months we'll be at full term (36 weeks) and sometime in that final 9th month, Baby K will come screaming into the world.  We've had a few friends/acquaintances go into labor or be induced weeks before their due date, so we're going to make sure we have everything set and ready to go over the next 6 weeks or so.....yikes/yay!!! :)

We have a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks though, all of which will be great distractions from panicking about early labor.  Next week is our first baby shower with all my buddies, the week after we have our family shower, and the weekend after that we're have our maternity photos done with my gorgeous and talented friend Heather (and it's Matt's 30 birthday weekend!).  Not to mention we have our baby classes at the end of October too.  Oh, and my belly grew a half inch over the last week (to 39" now).

27 weeks along

~Matt, Steph, and Baby K~

***Weekly words of wisdom:  Stop being surprised when shirts you wore before you were pregnant are now super tight or don't fit at all now.  Seriously, why even try to see if they still fit?  You're growing a baby who is 2/3 of the way cooked....your pre-pregnancy shirts ARE. NOT. GOING. TO. FIT. YOU. NOW.

13 Weeks "God, I'm huge"

Thirteen weeks found us in the first week of the second trimester.  I seriously cannot believe that we are over 1/3 of the way done cooking this baby.  It sometimes feels like I've already been pregnant for a year, but also like we just found out yeaterday.

This week we started working on the baby room.  Well, we actually started last week, but didn't finish until this week.  It was our former "office" or if I'm honest with you, the room we threw all our crap into that we didn't know where else to put.  Luckily we had cleaned out the closet a couple months before, so that was almost empty.  We decided to have a garage sale, not only to make some baby money, but to also get rid of the stuff that one or both of us has to have, but doesn't look at or use for 2 years.  The garage sale went alright, we about $300, but no one bought the three big items we really wanted to sell, which was our old living room couch (we got new furniture this Spring), the over sized green chair, and our snow blower.  So, onto Craigslist they went.  And now we're waiting for the lucky soon to be owners to buy them.  We moved all the closet stuff into one of the closets in the guest room and some stuff up into the attic too. 

**Mental note to future self: Do not watch True Ghost Stories on TV and then go in to the attic.  You will be convinced something is going to grab you and escape into the rest of the house.  You will probably believe this for a whole week.**

Morning sickness seems to have gone away slightly, but I'm trying not to jinx myself.  Energy level has definitely improved too.  And my belly is 100% showing a bump.  I thought it started to show around 11 weeks, but it turned out I hadn't gone to the bathroom in about a week : /  And when I look at the bump, I feel eeeenormous.  Which is ridiculous since I have 5 1/2 months to go...and a whole lot of belly to still come.  **Update: The day after I wrote this post I was naseous allll dayyyy loooong and had a migrane. : / **

Matt and I also think we found our girl and boy baby name.  We are not agreeing on middle names right now, so we'll see how that goes.  Here's a sample of the boy baby name conversation.  (please note....this is based on actual events)

S: How about Mendel?
M: Like Mendel Kendall?
S: Ha! I didn't even realize it rhymed.  How about Daniel?
M: Mehh.  How about Pepper?
S: Pepper?....Pepper?
M: Yeah, like Pepper Kendall.  Sounds like a pro athlete, right?  Or like Barry Pepper.  He's awesome.
S: No.  How about David?
M: How about Dragon?
S: What?
M: I like Pepper too though.

We haven't decided if we're going to share the name with people before the baby is born yet.  Matt doesn't mind the idea of sharing, but I'm hesitant too, just because I know I judge some people for choosing the name they did and don't want to be over analyzing that my friends and family are hating on the most brilliant name in existence once we decide on it.  We'll see....I'll probably end up blabbing to someone at some point anyway.  C'est la vie. :)

~S, M, and Baby K (not Pepper)

Holy Sh*t, we're pregnant!

Hello friends and family!  As the title of the blog and post suggests....yes Matt and I are pregnant!  We're excited (and nervous), but mostly excited and invite you all along for the ride. :)
Let's play some catch up from the past several weeks.  We're currently 13.5 weeks along and in the beginning of the second trimester.  Here's the run down of how it all happened.  Get your pervy minds out of the gutters folks, I'm, hoping you all know how it happened.  The "it" I'm referring to is the past two months or so.  (I'm feeling extra chatty, so be prepared to read a novella on the topic)

Week 7 and by 7 I mean 6 (but I'll get to that)

"Holy sh*t.............Holy sh*t!"

Yup, those were my ever so classy first words when I saw the 2 pink lines on the pregnancy test on Monday (April 16th).  Future Mom of the Year here.  Whoa.  Mom?  Let's back up a bit.

So about a year or so ago I started to get the itch.  The baby itch.  Suddenly all the chubby little baby faces I would see while out and about turned from something I would go out of my way to avoid, into something that I would lean over to peek at.  Matt noticed.  Like right away.  And it gave him heart palpitations.  Suddenly a few friends were pregnant and having babies and I had regular access to those babies...and I loved them.  I wanted to buy them presents and play with them and maybe steal them.  And it freaked me out a bit.  And it freaked Matt out a lot. 

So, I poked and prodded and would bring up maaaaybe trying to have a baby.  Like all the time.  And Matt was not on board.  And then I would tell him all the cute things our friend's babies  had done.  And Matt was not on board.  So, I decided to stop pestering.  And to try to let this idea grow on its own in Matt's handsome head.  I knew he would come around eventually and I didn't want him to agree to anything unless he was really for it....Instead of just saying yes to shut me up.

And then in January, while on vacation in Hawaii, Matt suddenly came around.  And suddenly we were trying, but not trying, but trying (you know how that goes).  And let me tell you, that was the longest month of waiting EVER.  I knew 3 friends that had gotten knocked up in the first month of trying, and that sounds nice and easy, right?  I had very high expectations for that first test and then...it was negative, and it crushed me.  I knew I needed to relax and just let things happen, but for some reason I had a very strong feeling that it would take Matt and I long time.  No idea why, but I just did.

So I relaxed for once in my life and when February came around, well I made sure I didn't rush into any test taking. Which was good, because the period showed up again.  But this time I took it in stride.  It would take some patience and hard work, because something as important as this would be worth it....and let's be honest....it's not really work anyway, am I right? Raaar :)

Anyway, fast forward to Mid April.  I thought I had gotten my end of March monthly visit (because my body has always been a bit erratic and unpredictable when it comes to womanly ways), but then suddenly by boobs were KILLING me, like all day everyday.  But, again, my body had always been erratic and my boobs hurting wasn't new news (hey, maybe they were finally growing).  Then I had a girls night and woke up feeling.....funny.  Like kind of hung over, but I hadn't drank very much the night before (but hardly drink at all anymore, so feeling off wasn't too much of a surprise).  Well, for the rest of the day my stomach felt kind of sick feeling, but I could have just been tired.

Then Sunday morning I woke up and felt funny in the tummy too, but I persevered and picked up McDonald's breakfast for me and Matt....and then felt awful (which isn't really unusual after McDonald's I guess) most of the morning and afternoon.

Monday morning (April 16th) I woke up at 3:30am for work, after not having slept very well because every time I tried to roll over onto my stomach (my normal sleeping position), I felt nauseous.  I went straight into the bathroom and pulled a prego test from under the sink and took it.  A "+" meant pregnant and a "-" meant not.  And it was a very bold - and a verrrrry faint cross through it.  According to the directions, this equaled a positive test.  BUT with the line being so faint, I honestly figured it was a fluke.  Because I had been spotting for like 6 days.  Which I figured was the monthly bill.

So, 45 mins into work, I have to run to the bathroom and puke.  30 mins after that same story.  30 mins after that, pukey puke again.  At this point I felt like I was dying and maybe had food poisoning, so I went home from work, trying to convince myself it was the flu.  But I stopped at the drugstore and picked up a different brand of test ( - means no, and = means pregnant), just to be sure.  I got home, peed on the stick, let the dogs outside and went back up to look at the result.....
=  (means pregnant) 
"Holy shit."  My heart started racing and I paced into the guestroom and turned and came back into the bathroom.

=  (means pregnant!!) (Why is it shouting at me?!)

"Hoooly shit!"  I think I did the pacing thing again....maybe twice more.  And I immediately wanted to call Matt...and take a picture of the stick...not sure why that was my 2nd thought.
Matt called to see how I was feeling about 20 mins later...and I acted as calmly as I could on the phone.  And the funny thing is, he even asked "Did you pee on a stick?"  Which I then had to lie about, because I didn't want to tell him on the phone.  When Matt got home that afternoon I tried to act as normal as possible, which I think I achieved (which me acting normal should have tipped Matt off that something was up to begin with).  And then I went up to the bathroom where the tests were and "calmly" said, "Hey!  Can you come up here a sec?  There's something you should look at." 

Which Matt replied, "Ughhh, can you show me down here? My foot hurts." 

So I walked up to him and held out the tests, probably with a psychotically huge smile on my face.  Matt stared at them for about 15 seconds and says, "What does that mean?" 

"What do you think it means?" (Probably shrieking)

"You're pregnant?"

And then I can't remember what happened....I'm sure I did some come loud shrieking for a while and then Matt looked a bit like he was going to pass out or have a heart attack.  It felt surreal.

The next morning I called the Dr, kind of not believing the tests were telling the truth.  We had a 9 week appointment set up in two weeks (thinking we were at 7 weeks when we found out).

Week 8 and by 8 I mean 7

Lots of morning sickness...lasting from when I got up at 3:30 and lasting until about 10:00am when I normally take my break.  My appetite decreased a ton and I only wanted super bland foods like bread and pasta.  Felt alright in the afternoon and then had another bout of "morning" sickness when I went to bed.

Week 9 and by 9 I mean 8 (I'll finally get to that now)

At the first appointment we found out there was indeed only one little peanut in my shell (Hallelujah!) and we were actually only 7 weeks along, not 8.5 like we had thought (based on the size of the peanut)....Giving us a due date of December 11, 2012.

Long story short (since this is getting too long already) we went to the same clinic I normally go to for my annual girl appt and used the doctor my Nurse Practitioner recommended....and hated him.  With a serious passion.  He was creepy and unsupportive and made us super uncomfortable.  So I made an appointment with a doctor a friend from work recommended, at a different clinic (which was actually a lot closer to our house) for a couple weeks later.  (Which ends up being amazing...but we'll get to that).

The REAL week 9

See Week 7...and I also napped from 3-7pm almost everyday this week (and last) then woke up to eat dinner and go to bed.

Week 10

Sunday night I had some heavy spotting (please note that I had still been having light spotting up until this point, which the Doc assured me was normal for a lot of women), but suddenly it was BRIGHT red (sorry for the TMI) and A LOT more than usual.  So, I waited until Monday morning, to see if it was a fluke...and I still had it.  I called the Doctor (who I still hadn't met, our first appt with her wasn't until the following week).  The nurse told me I should come in for an ultrasound, just to make sure everything was alright.  They were all booked at my new clinic, but could get me in that same afternoon at another clinic.  So Matt and I went in and had a normal over the stomach ultrasound and then had a huge surprise when the tech said she was going to do a vaginal ultrasound.  Yeah, Matt and my faces were probably identical in "What the...what?"  But though it was awkward and uncomfortable, we were able to see our little peanut in 3D, which was awesome.

Sorry, for the picture of a picture.  He/She was only about 2 inches or so long here too...how crazy is that?!  Hopefully he/she grows into that bobblehead a bit :)

Here's the other pic.

The typing/info on the picture is upside down because he/she was chillin' upside down at that moment.  Then he/she flipped around for the 3D picture.

The bleeding turned out to be from a hematoma that a lot of women get when the sac/egg attaches to the uterine wall.  It eventually goes away (aka spotting).  And about 3 days after this appointment, any and all spotting was 100% gone for me.

Morning sickness/being tired was still going strong. I puked at work twice this week : /  But we did make our first baby purchase!  We found an almost new fancy umbrella stroller at a garage sale in town for $15.00 (originally $125).  You can just flick your wrist and it pops open.  We figure it will be good to keep in the car as he/she gets older and for travelling.  We also picked up a bunch of barely used neutral clothes at another sale for like $3.00.  And a counter top boat/tub for baby baths.

Week 11

Met our new Doctor and fell absolutely in love with her.  She was super friendly and wanted to get to know us and made us both comfortable and laughed with us etc...  She was and is awesome.  She tried using the Doppler so we could hear the heartbeat, but of course it turns out that I have a very tilted uterus, which can make it hard to hear the heartbeat until later on in the pregnancy.  So we were not able to hear it that day, but she did a quick ultrasound, just to make sure everything was ok, and it was.  We got the see him/her all stretched out (arms and legs), then he/she tucked into a ball and then flung his/her legs and arms out again.  Sososososo cool.  :)  We made our next 4 monthly appointments at the end of this one too.  Our next one will be at the middle/end of June.

Week 12

Morning sickness was still going full force and lasting for about 6 hours every morning, and then for about an hour before/around bedtime.  Tiredness seemed to be letting up a tiny bit.  This was the last week of our first trimester already!  Time seems to be flying by, yet dragging all at once.  :)

~M, S, and Littlest Kendall