Derek's birthday weekend

Yesterday was Derek's 26th birthday!! We spent the afternoon at the Houston Zoo. That was the first time we'd ever gone, and it was just amazing! If you're ever in Houston and haven't been, I highly suggest it. We were there for about 5 hours and saw essentially the entire zoo, and then brought Thai food home for dinner. Yum.

Today was a nice day too, although we spent the day puttering around the house instead of going out. Derek and I spent some time watching my belly morph this afternoon because Baby was very active. My belly moved in waves and went from pointy to round to oblong... it made Derek laugh :)

I've added a ton of pictures from the zoo, so have fun perusing them! I suggest you click on the photos themselves to check out the zoomed-in versions.

Sloth








Nemo and Dory, swimming around!








Meerkats, just like in the tv show "Meerkat Manor"








Sleeping meerkat








Giraffe








Derek and the giraffes








Baby Giraffe, Miles. Click on the picture to check out his fluffy horns!







Aww, the mommy and daddy giraffes love each other :)








Baby elephant!








Derek and the elephants








Lindsay and the baby elephant








Now THAT is a sleeping cat! I think it was a cougar.








Mr. Leopard. He was sleeping, but all the tourists woke him... he looked grouchy.







Lemurs from Madagascar!








Momma and Baby Lemur, having a snack. Baby says "Share with me, Momma"

(click the photo to zoom in and see baby's cute little face)














Grouchy looking, old-grandpa monkey








Orangutan








Zebra








Toucan Sam!








Derek and the pink flamingos!











Pretty type of King Fisher








This bird was so beautiful! He had a green mask, a vibrant blue chest and bright red under his wings.







Ms. Sea Lion, sunning herself.








Enjoying the sunny weather!

Week 32

My growin' belly!

By now, your baby weighs 3.75 pounds (pick up a large jicama) and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. You're gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. In fact, she'll gain a third to half of her birth weight during the next 7 weeks as she fattens up for survival outside the womb. She now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). Her skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up in preparation for birth.
www.babycenter.com

Baby has peach fuzz! We're betting it's blonde, boy or girl (as Derek and I were both blonde). Probably blue eyes too :) Aww.

Ultrasounds, purchases, and gifts, oh my!

Yesterday was our growth ultrasound and we got to see our "chunky" baby (at least that's how the u/s tech put it, because it looks like Baby has chubby little cheeks!). Baby is measuring about 1 week small, and the tech estimated Baby's weight to be about 3 lbs 9 oz. I guess we've got some growing to do!! Baby is positioned so that its head is down, its rump is up under my right ribs, and its legs are curved around to my left ribs. Baby also has one arm up near its head, the other down by its side. At least now we have an idea of what each protrusion is!

When the tech was looking at Baby's face, she zoomed in and showed us that Baby was moving its little tongue in and out of its mouth, like it was practicing sucking. Baby also had a grouchy look on its face, probably because someone was poking it with an ultrasound wand. "Quit waking me up, Momma. Just let me go back to sleep!" Here are the ultrasound pics, some of them with my comments in green to clarify what we're looking at. The sonograms are a bit confusing!

Baby's face.

Feet

Face again.

Side view of face.

Baby's profile!

After our doctor's appointment, we went to Babies-R-Us and bought our crib mattress, along with a breathable bumper, a mattress pad and two sets of crib sheets. We put the mattress, pad and bumper on the crib last night, so the crib is officially set up! Next we'll move on to something else... we need to get a dresser! Anyone know of somewhere we can get a nice (but not too expensive) espresso colored dresser??

Derek with the crib mattress

Ta Da!

Just a shot showing the inside of the crib so far! Sheets aren't on the mattress yet, that's just the mattress pad.

One more thing: this time we're giving a shout out to our friends Travis, Emily and Macie. They bought us the Fisher Price Rainforest Bouncer chair! Apparently their daughter Macie just loved it :) Thank you!!!

Tour of Birthing Hospital

Derek and I went on a tour of the birthing center at our hospital yesterday, and it was great. We saw a delivery suite (pictured to the right), a post-partum suite, the nursery, waiting rooms, NICU... we didn't get to see any of the operating rooms where they do the c-sections, but that's okay, I don't plan to go in there anyway. Unless it's absolutely necessary, of course.

The birthing center looked nice, not too much of a "hospital" feel. The labor/delivery/recovery rooms have jacuzzi's, tv's with DVD/VCR's, Wi-Fi for laptops, a pull out bed for my "support person" (aka HUBBY)... not too shabby! They also have room service so we can eat whenever we're hungry, just like a hotel. Yumm. There are no set visiting hours which means guests can visit anytime they want...er, we want, I guess. The tour guide said she's seen guests show up at 2am! Crazy. I think I'll just nip that idea in the bud though- no visitors at 2am, please! :)

They have a really tight infant security system, which is great. Babies are tagged with wrist and ankle bands that match Mom and Dad's wrist bands, security sensors are placed on their umbilical cords until we're discharged, they are footprinted and photographed and the whole birthing center has a state-of-the-art surveillance system. It's really impressive. I guess you can't be too careful nowadays.

Now that we've actually seen where Baby will be born, I think it's finally starting to sink in that this is REAL. Even though I can feel Baby moving around and we've seen the sonogram pictures, actually being in a delivery room made me feel all sorts of things... excited, nervous, overwhelmed. I cannot wait to hold our little one. I'm apprehensive about the labor. I feel like there is so much left to do, that we're not prepared yet. I guess these feelings are normal though. I'm sure everything will come together just fine!

We have our final ultrasound tomorrow and we are so excited. Can't wait to see our little Baby on the Doppler screen for the last time before delivery!

What a great weekend!

Weekly belly shot, 31 weeks.

This week, your baby measures over 16 inches long. He weighs about 3.3 pounds (try carrying four navel oranges) and is heading into a growth spurt. He can turn his head from side to side, and his arms, legs, and body are beginning to plump out as needed fat accumulates underneath his skin. He's probably moving a lot, too, so you may have trouble sleeping because your baby's kicks and somersaults keep you up. Take comfort: Al this moving is a sign that your baby is active and healthy.
www.babycenter.com

We had a really great weekend. The weather was beautiful, Derek and I spent lots of time together, we relaxed, saw some friends... really, it was fantastic! Pictures from this weekend are posted below.

Yesterday we had some friends over for dinner - my officemate Scott, his wife Melanie and their two young kids, Emmi and Bradley. They were so sweet and brought us baby gifts that Melanie had made - she sewed a beautiful baby blanket and made (yes, made!) a stuffed elephant for Baby. They also gave us a small notebook to write baby-related memories in. It was so thoughtful of them! We had homemade pizza for dinner (my parents recipe) and played some games with their Wii gaming system. Derek and I had never played with one before, so that was fun! Another cool thing was that Nova got to experience life with kids. I think this was the first time she's ever been around anyone younger than a teenager. Emmi was a little scared of her, but Bradley (who just turned 1) was so excited and crawled around after her. Nova looked a bit nervous and kept trying to get a safe distance away, but overall she handled it well :)

Today, Derek and I slept in and spent the morning relaxing. Around noon, we went over to our pool and laid out there for about 2 hrs. There was only 1 other family at the pool, and then a group of people having a birthday party under the gazebo so we had the pool pretty much to ourselves. We are both a little sunburnt now... that's what the first sun-tanning experience of the year will do for you, I guess! After that, we watched Twilight (haha, poor Derek suffered through the chick flick pretty well!) and bbq'd some hamburgers for dinner. I saw the first hummingbird of the season fly by our feeder quickly, so hopefully he'll be back soon. Last summer we had 5-6 hummingbirds come by at a time so we're looking to having that happen again.

We take a tour of the birthing center at our hospital tomorrow evening, so we'll post an update tomorrow night. I'm so excited to see the place where we'll be delivering our bundle of joy!!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Momma and Baby ready to go to the pool!

Ahhh, so relaxing. Cold water though.

Not too cold for Derek!

The beautiful blanket, elephant and notebook from the Maxwell's. So thoughtful!

Great day so far!

What a beautiful day outside! I need to put on a bathing suit (er, maybe just shorts and a tank top...) and go lie out by the pool to get some sun. I'm looking a bit pasty white!

Oh, and guess what? I found my missing diamond!!!!! Isn't that amazing?? I was cleaning out the vegetable crisper in the fridge and as I wiped the drawer clean, I heard something scratch along the bottom. I peaked down and there in the corner was my precious little gem. I could not believe it! Of all the places for it to fall, and then for me to CLEAN, it was the vegetable crisper. At least this proves that I eat my veggies, right? :) I'm just so happy.

Worst wife ever.

I have officially earned that title. Derek and I had just finished a delicious dinner of grilled steak and were sitting on the couch watching Madagascar II when I look down at my wedding rings and notice that one of my diamonds is missing. ONE OF MY DIAMONDS IS MISSING. Off of my wedding band. It's one of the smaller diamonds (thank goodness it's not the big stone in my engagement ring), but still I freaked out and started to cry and Derek and I have now spent the past hour trying to find one teeny tiny little diamond, lost somewhere in our apartment. Have we found it? No. We've also spent that time trying to find the receipt for the wedding band. Did we find that? Yes! Derek came out of the guest room holding it triumphantly. On the receipt is a disclaimer that says "All Jewlery Purchased From Americus Diamond is Guaranteed For One Year Against Manufacturing Defects". Yes, we're in the clear, we got married in June! Actually no, that doesn't help us. Not when we purchased the ring March 8, 2008 and it's now MARCH 18, 2008. A year and 10 days. Crap.

So, like I said, I'm the worst wife ever. Even if Derek says it could happen to anyone.

My tummy hurts

Haven't been feeling so hot lately (literally and figuratively). The joys of being pregnant, I guess. I'm feeling large and rotund, despite Derek insisting that I'm not. I've had indigestion the past few days (probably TMI), and today I'm getting stomach cramps too. I had my doctor's appointment this morning so I brought it up, and she said it could be a combination of things - maybe the new prenatal vitamins I've started taking recently, maybe a bit of stomach virus, maybe gallbladder problems (What?! apparently gallbladers don't drain well during pregnancy and crystals/stones can form). She suggested I watch the amount of fried foods, spicy foods and dairy products I eat to see if the cramps go away (hmmm, maybe this will help me feel better about my appearance!). Apparently it's a fairly common thing, gallstones in pregnant women. Blah. Besides that, Baby looks great, heartrate is 160 bpm. Baby had the hiccups while I was sitting in the doctor's office, but I felt too sick and uncomfortable to enjoy the sensation. Man, sometimes I just feel like such a whiner. Anyway, I'm staying home today to relax and recupperate. Nova is so happy, she jumped up on my belly to sit with me. She loves having someone to keep her company at home.

I've been listening to this pretty singing outside so I just turned and looked on our patio, and there's a beautiful purple finch sitting on our hummingbird feeder! It looks like he can't figure out how to drink from the feeder though, poor little guy. Spring is definitely here - birds are building nests, trees and flowers are blooming. It's just lovely. Even my tummy is in bloom (Father of the Bride II, anyone?).

Happy side note: The wife of one of Derek's groomsmen/firefighting buddies had a baby boy yesterday, about 3 weeks early I think! His name is Daniel Wade (precious!) and he's perfectly healthy. He's the first in a series of babies that are due this year for the fire department (next in line is us, then a new recruit and his fiancee). It's funny, last year the fire department had 3 or 4 weddings, this year it's all about the babies :)

Haha!

Week 17.
Just barely starting to sport a little bump.










Week 30.
Wow, this looks like a monster bump! And I still have 10 weeks to go...

Week 30

Your baby's about 15.7 inches long now, and she weighs almost 3 pounds (like a head of cabbage). A pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds her, but that volume will decrease as she gets bigger and takes up more room in your uterus. Her eyesight continues to devlop, thought it's not very keen; even after she's born, she'll keep her eyes closed for a good part of the day. When she does open them, she'll respond to changes in light but will have 20/400 vision - which means she can only make out objects a few inches from her face. (Normal adult vision is 20/20.)
www.babycenter.com

Only 10 more weeks, it's just so hard to believe. Derek and I have a lot to do, lots of purchases to make, etc. My heartburn hasn't been so bad over the past few days, although my stomach and other organs are definitely getting more and more squished, as you can probably tell from the belly pic above. Baby likes to stretch upwards! Other than that, things are progressing nicely. I'm starting to feel tired again, so I'm really enjoying lounging around the house today. We have another regularly scheduled doctor appointment this week (every 2 weeks now!), and next week we go in for our growth ultrasound. Woo hoo! I'm looking forward to seeing a "chubby" baby in the sonogram!

Last night, Derek had some quality "belly time", as he calls it. Essentially he just lays with his head on my belly, talking to Baby. Baby loves it, kicking up a storm, giving Daddy a few punches to the ear. It's great bonding time for the both of them :)

A quick shout out to our friends, Chelsea and Tim - they mailed us 2 baby books! The first book is "Organic Baby" and suggests simple steps for healthy living (how to make your own baby food, etc.). The second book is "Signing Smart with Babies and Toddlers" and I'm so excited about this one - I think teaching young children sign language is a great way to develop communication skills. Derek and I were looking through it the other day and we've started learning the basic signs for commonly used words: "more", "mommy", "daddy". I used to babysit for a family whose youngest child had Down Syndrome, and they used sign language as a means to encourage her development. It was really cool, seeing her do the simple signs. Thanks Chelsea and Tim!

Our beautiful crib

Here are some pictures from Wednesday night when we went out to dinner and put out crib together.  The crib is just beautiful!!  We need to rearrange the furniture in our bedroom so everything fits nicely... maybe we'll do that this weekend!

"Hello, Dad!" says kitty Nova

Derek dressed so nicely for dinner.

Baby bump and my new Aggie Ring!  WHOOP!

Derek taking the crib parts out of the box.

Working hard.

All done!!  Looks so nice in person, beautiful color, everything!