36 weeks....Baby D is free to come whenever :-)

How Far Along: 

36 weeks

Due Date: 

June 13^th, 2013 (ish), though for whatever reason I keep thinking this baby is going to be coming sooner.  Maybe that is just me trying to make sure I am prepared, lol.  Braxton Hicks contractions increased in the 36^th week so maybe that’s a good sign.

Weight gain: 

Officially up 16lbs which turns out to be 5lbs more compared to with Alethea. J

Bump Picture: 

Baby Development:  

Baby D is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. He/she now weighs almost 6 pounds (like a crenshaw melon) and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. Baby D is shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected their skin during their nine-month amniotic bath. He/she swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement.  At the end of this week, Baby D will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.)

Symptoms:

I haven’t really had any new or crazy symptoms.  I have begun getting some positional hip pain that I can actually nip in the bud if I lift my belly.  A bit of a crazy feeling, but it works so I do it, lol.  I also have had a lot more Braxton Hicks contractions in the 36^th week of pregnancy so my body is definitely starting the birth preparation process already.

Currently craving: 

I haven’t had any cravings, but I have had a lot more sugar in the past few weeks because of various celebrations that have taken place.

Currently Avoiding: 

As a result of the sugar eating mentioned above, I have gone through phases of abstaining from sugar just to recover from my sugar highs, lol.

Belly button status: 

It is still in, but the top part has a lip that sticks out sometimes.

Movement:

Baby D moves A LOT.  This baby likes to rock n’ roll in my belly, especially after meals and in the evenings.  Thankfully my sleep still has been left undisturbed.

Name:

We have both a boy and a girl name officially decided.  If it’s a boy the initials will be DTH and if it’s a girl the initials will be DBH. J

Any appointments?: 

I had two appointments over the last month and both were pretty uneventful.  My 33 week appointment baby’s heart rate was 149bpm and the doctor made sure to go over all of their concerns with VBACs and going beyond the due date.  Then the 35 week appointment baby’s heart rate was 129bpm (thought to be because of naptime) and they did my group B strep test, but I have still yet to hear the results of that.  Starting next week I am on to weekly, most likely uneventful appointments, yay…

Any baby related purchases?:

During this month we had two baby sprinkles so we received our Ergo, some miscellaneous supplies, and a gift card to get some goodies at Babies R Us.  Then my parent’s gift, they decided, was to give us the double B.O.B. we wanted so we will have that all set for running once baby arrives. J

Alethea: 

She loves to talk about Baby D and has finally gotten to the point of saying D instead of “deep”.  We have set up the pack n’ play and a few other things to get ready for Baby D’s arrival and Alethea has gotten in the habit of saying some pretty sweet things about Baby D as a result.  She loves to point to the pack n’ play and say “Baby D come out and sleep in Baby D’s bed.  Lala sing Baby D ‘so big’ song”.  She is so excited to sing to Baby D.  She also scolded Baby D the other day when we were talking about Baby D kicking so much during dinner.  She said “Baby D be nice! No hurt Mommy!”  I am so excited to see what a great big sister she is going to make.

Exercise:

I am still running typically 4 days a week for about 3.5 to 4 miles making my weekly total usually between 14 to 16 miles.  One fun motivator for the month of May has been a contest I joined where you have to run 26.2 miles before the end of the month of May.  It took me 7 days of running to complete the challenge.   I have had to do more walking on a few occasions when I can’t knock a cramp, but overall my running hasn’t changed much (other than being really slow).  I am noticing more pressure on my bladder during running so I am sure that will be a struggle eventually, but it hasn’t messed it up yet.  It’s hard to believe that Baby D has already run 450+ miles with me!

Maternity Photo Shoot

Thanks to our good friend Anna, we were able to capture some pictures of the bump this time around.  We attempted some family and couple shots as well, but due to tons of wind and an uncooperative toddler those didn't all work out as well.  Anna also had a wonderful idea of using letter blocks and we took pics with our boy and girl name so we will have cherished memories no matter whether Baby D is a boy or a girl. :-) Here is a sampling of our success:

Alethea's activity of choice, lol

April Update: Ben 28 years, Alethea 26 months

                This month has been an absolutely wonderful month.  It has been so much fun to have Ben home so much more.  We have had the family time we have so desperately been needing, yay! 

"Fishing" with Daddy at the pond using sticks

                Ben finished his last grad school class, though he officially doesn’t graduate until May.  He also handed over all of his leadership and collateral duties at work, which means all he has to do is teach and grade now.  Like I said before, this means a lot more Hubby/Daddy time.  He has been so much less stressed and has enjoyed spending a lot more time with his girls.  His job search is at a bit of a halt due to a hiring freeze at the company that is very interested in him.  We are praying for good news mid-May, but he is also continuing to send his resume to all his contacts and apply. 

                April has been an eventful month for Ben and one last exciting thing was that he celebrated his 28^th birthday.  It was a bit of a two day affair involving an eating contest burger at Matt’s Burgers the day before, then a date sans Alethea involving delicious local food at Husk followed by from scratch strawberry cheesecake that I made.  Alethea had so much fun talking about Daddy’s birthday saying “Happy beht-day Dadday” and “Dat Daddy’s happy beht-day bag?” She was so excited to give him his present (protein shaker bottles and money toward new bball shoes).  I am so thankful the Lord has blessed him with 28 years and looking forward to many more with him in our lives.

bday cheesecake

Husk date

Posing with Daddy and his triple bomb burger

This month has been less involved for me involving a lot of the same old things.  I am still cooking up a storm while I still have the time and I am beginning to get the house ready for Baby D.  I have definitely been staying busy and enjoying a lot more solo runs because Ben has been home in the afternoons.  One special thing this month was having a small baby “sprinkle” with a few good friends.  Thanks to Anna it was a perfect little celebration and I got an Ergo, clothes, and a few baby basics.  To top off the evening Anna and I had a chance to hang out for a few hours after the shower and chat sans kiddos and it was wonderful.  Definitely a rarity and such a treat!

posing for Mommy's bump photo

favorite cooking creation #1: from scratch strawberry pop-tarts

favorite cooking creation #2: from scratch cinnamon roll cheesecake

Alethea is still working on being a jolly green giant, lol.  She is up to 37.5inches (up almost an inch in the last month) and 29lbs 9.6oz for her 26 month stats.  I think she has been adding some longer naps on occasion to accommodate this growth, which I have been very pleased to enjoy.   Although, she has started into a bit of a phase where she takes forever to fall asleep.  At naptime she is fussing and asking for us to come back or talking to herself and at bedtime she lays in her bed quietly for the most part, but is often still randomly talking or singing sometimes an hour after going to bed.  Not sure what the motivation is for all of that, but she doesn’t seem to have any ill effects from it thankfully.

This is what happens on the way home from the grocery when she 

plays for 1.5 hrs in her bed instead of napping

She is also moving into a stage involving a ton of curiosity.  She is constantly asking “What’s dis/dat?” and asking other questions to affirm her understanding of her surroundings.  I love this new stage most of the time, but at times it can be a bit exhausting.  I am amazed at how much more she is learning every day and she never ceases to amaze me with her grasp of concepts that I don’t even remember ever teaching her.  She is definitely in the sponge stage and absorbing everything around her.

"What's dat?"

"What's dis?"

Her speech is continuing to grow exponentially it seems.  She is speaking in longer sentences with each passing month it seems though, if she gets overly excited about what she is saying, she might take an eternity to get the sentence out, lol.  I am very impressed to see how great her understanding of directional words has become.  She uses words such as “on top”, “unda-neath”, “inside”, “outside”, and many more to describe where things are.  We hear a ton of these words on a daily basis because she loves to describe/narrate her surroundings.  She is even beginning to grasp her numbers and letters some and understands what they are for.  One of her favorite things to do is point out “lettees” on our shirts and often times she is correct with identifying them and it is very common to hear her counting “1, 2, 3….8, 9, 10” or saying “A, B, C, D….W, X”.  She will say all the numbers and letters when repeating after us, but only portions of them on her own.  Definitely not concerned because I know she will know them all in due time.

My artist

Oh yah, and she can climb way to well

One of my favorite things she has started to verbalize a lot lately is “for you/me/Daddy/Mommy”.  She loves to say “I get wa-wa for ….” and then hand it out to whoever is in the room.  It’s also so cute to see her get excited when someone does something for her and she says things like “Daddy sing songs for me, Mommy!” I love seeing her excitement about life and how much she enjoys sharing it with those around her….even if sometimes it can be a bit loud on the volume scale, lol.

Using her food cans as "wa-wa" cups

"Here go Daddy.  Dis for you!"

My little songbird is continuing to develop more and more of a love for music.  She requests “dance” music in the car which usually ends up just being K-Love or occasionally we rock out to one of my Glee CDs.  It is also a frequent occurrence to hear her waking up by singing songs in the morning and then she comes into my room to cuddle/talk or sing my ear off, lol.  Some of her favorites that she loves to sing/have sung to her are “Skin-a-marinki-dink-e-dink , I luh you….unda-neaf da moooo”, and “God so big…stars hanny-work too”.  She gets really into songs with motions and her Daddy and I love it!

She has also become quite enamored with looking at herself in the mirror.  We have a mirror on her toy closet door and she will intentionally walk over to it just to see what she looks like while laughing, whining, crying, screaming, etc.  I love this, not only because it is super cute to witness, but I also know that it is giving her a visual example of the different emotions she is experiencing.  It is her childlike way of developing self-awareness.  She also has been known to dance and make faces at herself in the mirror which entertains her for quite some time and often entertains Ben and I as well.

Oh the many faces of Alethea

Sheer joy looking at herself in the phone camera

I have also loved seeing her excitement about her friends.  She absolutely loves going to “play friends” and when we do she talks about what she did with them for days/weeks.  Whenever she gets to stay with a friend while I go to an appointment, she always comes home telling us about what she did (even with the mommies) for days.  It’s pretty hilarious at times to hear her perception of what happens.  For example, after she stayed with her friend Reese while I took Ben to the doctor for his surgery, she frequently said “Mommy take Daddy dockee, A-la-la play Reese’s housey….Reese’s mommy pick A-la-la up and kiss boo-boo.”  She has even asked many times since if that is where she gets to go again when we are leaving the house to go somewhere. So sweet that she loves her friends, and their mommies, so much already!

April brought lots of sunshine into our lives and I know life is only going to get more exciting over the next few months.  Only one more full month as a family of 3!  So thankful that God has provided us with such a busy, fun, and exciting, yet restful month of April!

She did help cheer Louisville on to win the NCAA Championship in Men's Bball

And one last dose of cuteness!