40 weeks...still waiting *edited with picture*

Well, we hit the 40 week mark on Saturday. I don't have a 40 week picture. I'll probably regret it, but it wasn't at the top of my priority list this weekend. Perhaps if I actually get dressed in decent clothes tomorrow I will take one. *Edited with picture*

• I'm working on getting over a sinus infection. Let me tell you, having a sinus infection at 40+ weeks pregnant is for the birds! Thankfully, I'm finally beginning to feel like I'm among the living again. 
• Amazingly, I still don't have any stretchmarks. I'm not all that concerned about it, but it's still surprising to me. 
• My favorite comments at this point are: "Have you had that baby yet?" "Still no baby?" "You're supposed to be having a baby right now!"
• I'm beginning to wonder if we might have an April baby?!?! I'm over trying to guess and predict at this point. We'll just be thankful when she decides to get here. Preferably, I would like to avoid April 1. 
• I'm thankful for my mom and husband who have taken great care of me the past few days! 

39 Weeks

It's crazy to think that we're so close to having our little girl! I love looking the app on my phone and seeing single days on the countdown. Of course, we could be here another 2 weeks waiting on her. Thankfully, I'm feeling great still and just trying to enjoy these last few days!

36 Weeks

 

We're less than one month away from our due date. I keep telling myself that the most we will have to wait to hold our little girl is 6 weeks! That's not long to wait! I'm continuing to live by little dates to help pass the time...doctor's appointments, lunch dates, church meetings, family coming, Duck Dynasty season premier...every day gets us that much closer to our life changing. My plan is to stay busy and active until the day she decides to make her arrival. 

My goals for this week:

• Get freezers cleaned out
• Start some freezer cooking
• Wash up her sheets, blankets, towels, etc.
• Get her closet more organized and shower gifts put away

35 Weeks

 35 weeks = 35 days = 5 weeks until our due date! It's hard to believe we're just 5 weeks from our due date. We found out that we were expecting at 5 weeks and now we only have 5 weeks left (hopefully)!

I'm still feeling great and so thankful for a good pregnancy. We were blessed with a shower this weekend. Our church family is so loving and supportive. The shower was beautiful and Little Miss is definitely going to be one well-dressed little girl! It was so much fun to open all the gifts, then take them home and look through them all again. I'm thankful my mom and sister were able to come for the shower. We had a wonderful weekend together and it was special to have them here.

Me with my mom and sister

Amazingly adorable diaper cake! I absolutely loved it!

33 Weeks

We had another great week! I had an appointment this week and everything is looking great. I did have an ultrasound to check on our little girl's weight, because my fundal height and my weight were the same two appointments in a row. Little Miss was being a little stubborn and hiding her head during the ultrasound, but the tech was able to get enough measurements to say she is right on track. She weighs 4 lbs 3 oz, which is perfectly average. It was fun to know how she is positioned and get confirmation for what body parts I'm feeling.

We spent our 33 week mark celebrating at Disney! I had to have a picture for proof. :)

32 Weeks

We're down to less than 2 months until our due date! Of course, I'm trying to keep in my mind that Little Miss could actually be an April baby. I am so thankful this pregnancy has been so smooth this far. I was telling someone the other day that I don't feel like I'm 7 months pregnant. I was feeling winded after doings something a few days ago and couldn't figure out why. Later that evening Little Miss kicked me pretty high up and I realized that she is now squishing my lungs more, thus feeling winded. It just hadn't occurred to me that we're at that point in the pregnancy. I kept thinking "such and such will happen later." Well, here we are at "later."

I am loving how the nursery is coming along. I'm not stressing about getting it done too quickly, mainly because I have other things to take care of. But I also don't want to just be sitting around in the last few weeks, which are probably going to be the longest anyway, waiting for her to come. I probably won't post any more pictures of the nursery until I can do a whole nursery reveal post! :)

This Week's To-Do List

We're at 31 weeks pregnant and definitely consumed with baby preparations. After a crazy few weeks and a really blessed, but busy weekend of church, I am ready to spend much of this week focused on getting ready for Little Miss. Here's my list of projects I'm hoping to complete this week:

•  Prenatal consult with a pediatrician and schedule another
• Finish bedding - - crib skirt, quilt, and accent pillows
• Yarn Ball Mobile

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• Our version of an alphabet wall

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30 Weeks

I really don't like this picture of me (hello fake smile and blurry face), but I had already changed out of my clothes before I looked at it on the computer.

This has been such a fun and exciting week! We painted the nursery, got the furniture, and I've been sewing like crazy! I think I might be nesting. :) It feels so good to finally be getting things in place for Little Miss, instead of just piling everything up in the guest room closet. I'm hoping to have made even more progress by the end of this week.

Here's a couple of little glimpses  for now...

28 Weeks

27 Weeks

I can't believe we're already in the 3rd trimester! It is exciting to think that we're so close to having our little girl. We definitely have a lot to do before she arrives and I'm ready to hit the to-do list hard. We got the nursery cleaned out this week and it's ready to be painted after the holidays. I also started a few sewing projects this week. I made a super soft blanket that matches her car seat and started working on her quilt.

Little Miss gave us a bit of a scare this week. Tuesday evening I realized I wasn't feeling her move like I normally do in the evening. I couldn't remember if I had felt her move at all that day or much the day before. I got a little concerned, but tried not to panic just yet. I knew I had been really busy, running errands and on my feet most of the two days, so it might have been that I just wasn't as aware of her moving. The OB had given me a little cheat sheet of common concerns and solutions to use as a first resource before calling the office. I followed the directions on there and drank some sweet tea, ice water, and ate something. The sheet said to do that and lay down in the position you feel the baby the most. If I didn't feel movement within 2 hours, I was to call the doctor. I did all that and prayed fervently. At about 5 minutes after the 2 hour mark, I was about to call the number when I felt her start to move. It wasn't a lot of movement, but enough to relieve my fears. I went on to bed and woke several times in the night to her moving. The  next morning she was moving and dancing all over the place, which made me so happy. Since that night (Tuesday), she's been more active in the mornings and not as much in the evening. That little scare certainly made me even more thankful for each of her little kicks and wiggles.

23 Weeks

Chris, Baby Girl, and I enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving week in Illinois with my family. The weather was perfect and the food was delicious! It was good to spend time with some good friends and our family. It's exciting to think that our little girl will be here the next time we see most of my family!

Reveal Party

When we found out we were expecting, I didn't want to find out the gender of the baby but Chris did. So I agreed that we could find out if we could have a fun reveal party and keep the name a secret until the baby is born. I had been seeing ideas for gender reveal parties floating around Pinterest and I practically had the whole party planned before we were even pregnant.




We had our anatomy scan last Tuesday and had the ultrasound tech seal the gender pictures in an envelope. I delivered the envelope to the lady making our cake on Wednesday and picked it up on Saturday. I wasn't the least bit tempted to peek during the ultrasound, take a peek before delivering the envelope, look at the CD we had made of the ultrasound pictures, or even look in the envelope when I picked the cake up on Saturday. But when I brought the cake home and set it on the counter, the thought hit me that the answer to our big question was right behind the layer of icing. I had a slight moment of wanting to cut into it, but knew it would ruin the whole party.

We had about 70 people over to our house for the party Sunday evening. We had just finished up a wonderfully blessed meeting at Little Union which started on Thursday night. Everyone was exhausted, but it was a fun ending to the weekend. 

The cake turned out so great! I also wrapped Hershey's bars in pink or blue paper showing "she" or "he."

A big thank you to Sis. Bobbie Jo and Sis. Abbey for putting the backdrop wall together. This was the first time I made the tissue paper pom poms. They were really easy to make and turned out really cute!

 

Pink and blue punch. We also had chili and a baked potato bar.

Team Blue - - the losing team!

Team Pink

Trying to get Skype set up for my family and Chris' family to be a part of the party.

Deciding how we're going to cut the cake

The big moment! I was completely shocked it was pink! I was sure it was going to be blue.

Still completely shocked!

Making sure our family can see it's PINK!

Chris cut the other end of the cake to be sure it was pink the whole way through! :)

Checking the ultrasound to be sure

 

Cute blanket from the Hulls

It's a GIRL!!!

The cake was yummy!

The party was a lot of fun and so special. It is definitely one of my favorite memories of the pregnancy so far. It turned out even better than I could have ever planned. We love our church family and loved being able to spend this special moment with them. I was also glad to be able to have our families be a part of it. It took a while for it to sink in that we're having a little girl. I had been so sure from the beginning of the pregnancy that we were having a boy. Every time I thought about the baby or would start planning things, I would just think about a boy. When I woke up Monday morning, it really hit me and I'm so excited! I'm already planning my trips to Joann's and Hobby Lobby. I have a list started of things I want to make.

I can't wait to start on the nursery. We have the yellow and grey fabric bought already. We had decided that if it was a boy we were going to do navy accents and aqua accents if it was a girl. So yellow, grey, and aqua it is!

The name is still going to be kept a secret until she's born. That's not going to be a problem at this point because we're not close to having it picked out. 

21 Weeks

Love, love, love this week! So excited to know that we're having a sweet baby girl! My mind has started spinning with all the the ideas of things to sew, make, and buy!

20 Weeks

19 Weeks

18 Weeks

Baby Crouse

We were able to see Baby Crouse for the first time yesterday! It was such an amazing experience. I'm still in awe when I look at the pictures. It is truly a miracle to see God forming this little one. From the ultrasound, the baby is measuring right on track for 17 weeks. He/she weighs about 6 oz. S/he's an active little thing! It was so much fun to watch all the movement!

17 Week Midwife Appointment

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I had my first appointment with the midwife today. I won't actually see the same midwife each time. It's a group of 5 midwives who practice together. Because they rotate every 24 hours at the hospital and you can't guarantee which one you'll have at delivery, they have you see a different one each time. I really liked the one I saw today. She answered a lot of my questions about how flexible and supportive the hospital/nursing staff is with natural labor and delivery.

The baby's heart rate is in the 150s. It sounded good and strong! I am measuring a little big, so we go for an ultrasound tomorrow to confirm the due date! I'm super excited since we haven't had an ultrasound done at all yet! The full anatomy scan will be in 3 weeks.

17 Weeks

I'm not sure why this picture is kind of blurry! My self portrait skills are lacking. I've been feeling great and definitely growing! I'm enjoying actually looking pregnant instead of looking like I've eaten a few extra cookies! I have my first appointment with the midwife today and so excited to finally hear our little one's heartbeat again! I'll probably do a post about how the appointment goes later.

15 Weeks