Well somehow we have made it to 34 weeks already! And this baby GIRL is moving around inside of me as we speak! Since this is my first experience with being pregnant I obviously don't know how active is normal, but she sure does seem to move a lot! It will be interesting to see how that translates once she joins us... We might have an active little one on our hands!
Now let's back up to fill in a little bit about how things have been going throughout my pregnancy and looking forward to the future! And at the end I'll do a little fill in of other travels and things that have happened since end of April, because we have definitely had a full schedule!
I was 15 weeks when I wrote last and I'm pretty sure I thought I had a belly then! I had grown somewhat of course, but I have definitely grown more since then! Though still on the small side of things overall (will go into that more later). I started to feel the first kicks very early actually, I think it was about 18 weeks and I said to Jeremiah "I thiiiink I am feeling it kick" but was very hesitant to say for sure because it was still very faint! At that time we hadn't had the anatomy scan to know what we were having. Not long after I could see the faintest movement of my belly externally and not long after that Jeremiah was able to catch it too and feel it for himself! There was a lot of "hurry, put your hand there!" followed by no movement. She seemed to be shy to hands on my belly! But over time of course it has gotten much more consistent and now she's doing some crazy things in there making my belly a regular shapeshifter!
I have also been fortunate to continue to have no sickness and only very rarely feeling extra fatigued. For example, last weekend I had gotten 9-10 hours of sleep each night and still wanted a 30 minute nap when we got home from the mountains! That has not been the norm. I have had some significant rib soreness primarily when I am sitting in the car but really sitting in one position for too long. I'm guessing that's just from things shifting around and ligaments loosening up! I wrote in the last post about some significant bloating early on, but luckily that feeling went away around 16 weeks I would say. So that's mostly it in the way of symptoms throughout!
The next big, exciting appointment was our 20 week anatomy scan! I was pretty nervous that everything would look okay, but thankfully everything looked perfect! Our ultrasound tech was so thorough and explained everything she was doing and seeing as she went which was really comforting. Baby was measuring about 20th percentile, so she was small but they said anything from 10th-90th percentile is considered "normal." We asked her to have us look away any time she might reveal the sex and then she wrote it down on a piece of paper with an ultrasound photo and put it in an envelope. With that in hand we flew to AZ later that night. We had this trip planned for awhile but were able to arrange it so that we'd do a little gender reveal with family! We had to wait a whole 48 hours with that envelope in our possession before we found out! We gave the envelope to my mom who made a cake, either pink or blue, and then of course frosted it so we wouldn't find out until we cut into it in front of both of our families, including the Lucas' on FaceTime, and a few close friends. We had both mostly convinced ourselves that it was a boy. We figured since Jeremiah is one of two boys, his dad has two brothers, it seemed fairly likely. Honestly, we had joked for a long time that we would probably end up with only boys! So as we cut into the cake and saw pink we were both shocked! I was very excited and Jeremiah was too, but I think his shock was very strong at first! Now we can't imagine anything but this little girl! We have both loved referring to HER and knowing in advance so that we can start to imagine what life will be like with her! We also have a dresser full of hand-me-down girls clothes already so we are very prepared in that regard! We do have a first name picked out and having been referring to her by name, though have made the decision to keep that private until she is born. We are still very much up in the air between two middle names that we really like, so we are trying to refer to her with one middle name first and then we'll switch and see if either feels better after really using them. It was such a fun experience to do the reveal this way!
This is actually from the 33 week scan. And look at her little nose and lips!!
From there we kept chugging along with appointments, primarily quick dopplers just to hear the nice, strong heartbeat until the next "exciting" thing - the glucose test at 28 weeks. This happened actually right after another visit to AZ where my mom and sisters put on a beautiful baby shower! It was so nice to have so many good family and friends there to celebrate our baby girl! The food and desserts were incredible, the gifts so generous, and also displayed some really fun childhood photos of both Jeremiah and me (some pictured above) which were fun to look at and start to picture what she may look like! I'll get back to more details on the trip shortly, but anyway, I had my glucose screen and failed the 1-hour test. Failed it pretty badly in fact. I did sleep very poorly the night before and had not eaten as I "normally" do in AZ, so I chalked it up to that. But the next week I had to do the 3-hour glucose tolerance test and well, I failed that one too. This one just barely failed, but it still counts. So I was officially diagnosed with gestational diabetes. It came as a big shock and I was very upset and disappointed. It felt very confusing and frustrating as well because I don't have any of the expected risk factors, nor any family history of it. But turns out that doesn't matter when it comes to GD and it can impact anyone pretty randomly! So with this diagnosis came a referral to a "high risk" OB for a few extra appointments, primarily meeting with an NP to ensure that my sugars were well-controlled and with assist for managing the diagnosis with diet only. This also means I have to take my blood sugar with a finger prick four times a day, 1 when I first wake up (fasting), then 1 hour after breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Fortunately I have had no issues with managing my numbers with my diet! I am still allowed to eat carbs of course, but they need to be limited and also paired with fats and proteins to control the potential spike better. I have only had my number over the limit twice and both times because of Jasmine rice! I was very upset, but all things considered two spikes is not bad at all when I am testing four times a day! But I will be staying away from any form of white rice until this placenta is out! That's the crazy thing about this is that it's all because of my placenta and how the hormones are passing through it, so after birth I will be back to normal! Some of the risk factors if GD goes uncontrolled are very large babies, early babies, hypoglycemia for baby at birth, and it actually increases my risk of Type 2 diabetes fairly significantly, among a few other things. Because my numbers have been so well-controlled I did get the okay to only test sugar twice a day now! Though I'm just kind of basing it on what I eat at each meal to determine if I should test or not. Because one of the risk factors is very large babies, I had to get scheduled for an additional ultrasound. But turns out this little one is very, well, little! She actually measured in the 12th percentile at 31 weeks (about 3 1/2 lbs), which made the high risk OB want another ultrasound at their office since that is very close to no longer being in the "normal" range. So at 33 weeks (just last week) I had another full growth scan and she was right at 10th percentile (about 4 lbs) according to their measurements. With this, they put the label of "growth restricted" on her. Sounds scary, and no I don't love that label at all, but the OB encouraged me that there was absolutely nothing on the scan that looked abnormal, she was proportionally looking appropriate and placental blood flow was looking great, so she felt strongly that this baby is just small. However, because of this label, I have to set up additional weekly appointments at their office to monitor that everything is still looking okay and measuring in the right direction. I have some crazy number of appointments now up until 40 weeks, but we of course would rather be on the safe side! Both my regular OB and this high risk OB are within walking distance of my work since I am delivering at the hospital I work at, so that makes it convenient to just step away from work for a bit and my boss is extremely understanding! Kind of ironic to be diagnosed with something that is known for big babies and here we are with a tiny one! I am very intrigued to see how accurate these measurements are when it comes to the time she's born! We appreciate any prayers for continued growth and health for this baby. Maybe even for a growth spurt to no longer categorize her as "growth restricted."
Lots of pregnant PTs and OTs at work! This is excluding one who just delivered and one who just announced.
So that is all of the medical and symptom updates that I can think of, but we are also deep in the home and mental prep! We have our nursery pretty much all set up (above), just had our carseat base installed, and purchased items to fill in some of the gaps of things we were missing from our showers! Jeremiah and I were joking that you could call it nesting, but it feels more just like my normal need for everything to have a space and be put away, so I think that is why I am feeling like preparing! In the next couple of weeks it will be time to pack a hospital bag just in case and we still have a birth class coming up in mid-September that will help us prepare further! Though I have read two books on the birth process and Jeremiah has read one of these as well. We also took a "First Week of Life" class at the hospital that helped prepare us for what happens right after birth while at the hospital and some of the typical things to expect within the first week. It was a great and helpful class! Many people ask if the pregnancy has gone fast and I keep saying yes and no. On the one hand I can't believe that it is already September and we found out back in February, but I have also been counting down just about every day and cannot wait to meet her so that makes it feel long in some ways!
Out mountain/hiking themed nursery w/ the bassinet temporarily in place since my father-in-law is making us a crib!
Had to instill the family Beaver Creek tradition right away!
Most recent "bumpdate" from about 32 weeks!
Now let's go back to May! I took on a student at work for 8 weeks. She was in her second clinical rotation so fairly early on in PT school. I was not sure if I was ready for this step, since it feels in many ways like I just graduated, but that was actually 3 years ago now! So I stepped up to the challenge and had a really great experience! I think it was really valuable to show me what I know and also what I don't and where I could improve. I also had a very good first student who was easy to get along with so that definitely helped!
We had a farewell dinner for Mel & Mason, two of our best friends who moved to Durango, CO!
Jeremiah made me an incredible breakfast in bed for my first (pre)Mother's Day!
Then there was our Memorial Day weekend trip to AZ where we had our gender reveal that I described above in addition to other family time, brunch with Tommy & Emily, and celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary!
We made it on two camping trips this summer! One just west of Fort Collins and one just southwest of us. We bought new, nicer sleeping pads this year so I was still able to be comfortable sleeping on the ground!
Tommy & Emily made a trip out to see us in June, which of course included a lot of delicious food, games, a hike, and even exploring downtown a little bit more with them!
We had our horrible-looking front and backyard redone and now it looks wayyy nicer! We love it so much! They completed the whole project in only a few days and we couldn't be happy with the outcome! In a horribly ironic twist, the same day the yard was completed in the morning a tornado actually touched down about a half mile south of us. This is a super rare occurrence in the city so it felt like just really bad luck. But miraculously our yard missed any damage except for that a side gate was ripped off. But the gate was in bad shape and needed fixing anyway, so it really just spurred us along to get that project done ASAP!
Next up in June was a trip to Glacier National Park with my parents and aunt! We love visiting national parks so we were excited to check another off of our bucket list. It was absolutely beautiful and we really lucked out with weather overall! Only annoying thing was some construction they were doing in the park, but it didn't take away from some beautiful hiking, a red bus tour, a private van excursion, and also a day out of the parks where we got to tour this really unique, historic home in Kalispell.
This was the best scoop of moose tracks I've ever had.
Here's the house I referred to above! Highly recommend if you're ever in Kalispell!
Just about a week after we arrived home from Glacier we took off on another trip, this time for Grand Rapids, MI! Our second new state of the summer (Montana being the first). We had some really great friends from our old small group here in Colorado, Scott & Liz, who moved back to MI where they are from, a few years ago. We had talked for a long time about visiting them and were finally able to make it happen. Coincidentally another couple in our small group who we also were good friends with moved back to the same area not long after so we were able to see them as well! We explored Scott's parents "house" (basically this massive compound with all sorts of crazy things in it) and tried out the rock climbing wall and fencing, went to Lake Michigan, went stand-up paddleboarding, made s'mores in their backyard, went to an outdoor concert, and explored the downtown area a bit! We had a really great time re-connecting with all of them!
The second half of this same trip was to Chicago, IL where Jeremiah's cousin, Carly lives! Grand Rapids is only about a 3 hour drive from Chicago so we rented a car just for the day to make it over to Chicago. It was great to see Carly again, as it had been quite awhile and she took time off of work so we were able to get some great, quality time! We toured Wrigley Field, wandered downtown and of course got a picture at the Bean, visited Lincoln Park Zoo, went on an Architecture Boat Tour, had drinks at the top of Hancock tower, and ate some delicious food along the way.
Scott, Liz, and their three kids!
Part of Scott's parents' house! The hobbit house!
I did not challenge anyone to fencing, as you might imagine...
Matt & Tian!
The outdoor concert was at the Botanic Gardens, and this was a massive sculpture on the grounds!
Next in July was the AZ trip that I mentioned above that included my baby shower! This one was girls only, though Jeremiah did pop his head in at the beginning and end. As I said, it was a beautiful celebration and I felt very loved and grateful! Besides the shower we spent some more quality family time, ate at some of our favorite stops (did not know about the GD diagnosis yet), Jeremiah went axe-throwing with Tommy, celebrated our niece Mae's 4th birthday, and my sister-in-law Terrisa's 40th with a pool party at my brother's, and fit in a Saturday night dinner with the Dwights!
Cutie Reid!!
My Aunt Lesley made these cookies!
Adding to the girl crew!
A couple of weekends later, my sister Heather flew out to throw us another baby shower here in CO! This one was a couples shower that included friends from church, work, and school! It was fun to have people from all parts of our life together at once. It was really casual but it was perfect! Once again we received so many generous gifts and felt so loved for this baby!
We missed Mason who was back in Durango!
Some of my school friends!
In early August we drove to Kansas to celebrate Jeremiah's grandparents' 65th wedding anniversary! What a great thing to celebrate! It was a quick out Friday, back Sunday, but luckily it's an easy drive. A lot of extended family had gathered to celebrate them, so we packed the weekend with seeing family we hadn't seen in awhile and enjoying each other's company!
How quintessential Kansas is this?? If you have never visited Kansas, it is very uniquely beautiful!
In August we went to a Rockies game with our friends (also from our old small group) John and Tara and their three boys. We went to an Ed Sheeran concert that looked for awhile like it was going to get rained out, but luckily just ended up being delayed! It was a really fun time!!
Most recently, we went up to Breckenridge for a little "baby moon." Some people go all out for these trips, but we already had so many fun summer plans that time off was limited, but it turned out to be the perfect weekend for us. As I'm sure I have previously mentioned on here, we love Breckenridge. We managed to get out on a few hikes (slow and steady for me), eat at some of our favorite spots while still sticking to the GD-diet (thank you, hiking, for allowing me to eat more carbs!), spent a lot of time reading outside, wandered the main street and browsed in and out of shops, and had one particularly nice dinner at a restaurant called Hearthstone that felt like a really nice "last hoorah" date night before baby comes. We do have one more trip up to Breckenridge with my parents planned toward the end of September so we will we see how I am doing by then and whether we will make it up there! It's only a 2 hour drive away, but we will see.
For now, we are back to regular work routines plus many appointments for me and doing various house projects and baby prep! We are so excited to welcome her! Next time I write (most likely) she will be here!! 6 weeks to go!
