34 Weeks Pregnant!

Only two weeks left until I’m full term!!! Have you put in your guesses for the Blitzen Baby Pool yet??? Better get on it! Go here to enter and here to learn more about the prizes I’m giving away 😉

Baby Growth: This week Blitzen now weights about 4 3/4 lbs (we know my baby is bigger than that though!) and is almost 18 inches long. I’m basically carrying a cantaloupe around in my tummy! If Blitzen were to be born at this point in my pregnancy then he or she would most likely be fine, maybe a couple days in the neonatal nursery but would, most likely, be perfectly healthy 🙂 Courtney gave birth to Colt during this week in her pregnancy and he’s fine so it’s a comforting thought!

Belly Pictures: With Zach traveling a lot I’m going to probably be doing a lot more solo mirror pictures here at the end of things! That means my belly stickers will be backwards 🙁 sorry! You can REALLY tell a difference in my stomach now. I feel like all over I look bigger, face too. I FEEL like a blimp!

Maternity shirts just do not fit the belly in a flattering way so I tried to show it off a little better for you

I’m also wearing my Stella and Dot bardot gold earrings and matching bardot gold bracelet

(btw: Stella and Dot jewelry makes an AWESOME Christmas gift…half the line is $50 or less and each item comes in an adorable little box. NOW through Nov 14th you can get flat rate shipping by shopping on my site – www.stelladot.com/emilyparker and putting the name “Kim Johnson” in as the hostess when you shop! Contact me if you have any questions or if you have a wishlist you want me to get to someone special for you!)

My Symptoms: Bending over is a chore. I’m pretty short and having this HUGE belly in my way makes it pretty difficult. So thankful I have a helpful toddler! He’s gotten used to me asking him to hand me stuff 😉 I’m in desperate need of a pedicure as well. I painted my toes before Hawaii and it was painful to reach that far. I can’t imagine how much it’d hurt now! If it’s even possible at all!

I am very, very exhausted. I think it’s mostly b/c Zach was gone all week and I had Kye all on my own (and didn’t sleep well each night) but it’s also probably pregnancy related. I haven’t given myself any time to rest because I feel it’s crunch time and I’m trying to use up every second I can by being productive. Plus I figure why rest now?!? When Blitzen gets here I sure as heck won’t be getting more rest so it’s better to not spoil myself now with it! Right?

I’ve noticed that if I’m too active I will swell but it hasn’t been anything to horrible…when I do swell though it’s pretty painful and I really can’t do anything. My feet also get very sore if I’m running around a lot and I’ve noticed that my walk is now a legit waddle. I can’t get anywhere too quickly and running errands takes me a good bit longer than it used to.

I feel like I’m in an “accepting” stage of pregnancy. Like I accept that this baby is coming now and that my life WILL be drastically different, as will Kye’s and Zach’s. I am looking more forward to all of it now than I was. I’ve always been excited about the baby, just more worried about the changes and the stresses. I feel more like I can handle it and I think as this pregnancy comes to an end I’ll only be more and more confident and ready for our new phase in life to start!

Still having Braxton Hicks and LOTS of pressure. Blitzen is also very hard feeling in my stomach and I can feel him or her all day at any time. It’s like he or she is simply out of room! My stomach is completely stretched and I can’t imagine it possibly stretching more. My poor belly button is pulled to its max! I don’t ever remember my stomach being this tight feeling before. I think it’s because I gained so much extra weight last time? So it had a cushion? haha! I def don’t mind people feeling my stomach this time around because I know my tummy doesn’t have an ounce of fat. It’s literally skin then baby!

My face has really cleared up and I feel like my skin has that pretty pregnancy glow like it did in the first trimester. I like it! I can’t stand the dark spots but I enjoy the rest of it. I’ve also noticed my hair and nails don’t seem as thick. My nails are breaking easy again and my hair doesn’t look as full as it did earlier in my pregnancy. Also I can still wear my wedding rings, but not for very long. The engagement ring is still FINE (I can wear it 24/7 if I wanted to without issue) but my weddings bands feel too tight and bother me pretty quickly.

Weight: I gained 1 lb this week! 18 lb total. Which means I’m about at the halfway point for how much weight I gained with Kye! I can’t imagine being double this size. No wonder I hated being pregnant then (actually at 34 weeks I had gained 29 lb total!)!!! I know I’m going to exceed my 20 lb overall goal…but it’s be great if I could keep just gaining 1 lb a week until Blitzen comes. I have a chance to be under 25 lb!

Gender: After my two baby showers this weekend I’m a little nervous about delivery day and presenting everyone with the gender news. Zach and I will be THRILLED if its a boy…but it seems like everyone else wants it to be a girl so badly and I just want that announcement moment to be PURE JOY and no one saying, or even thinking, anything negative about it. My hunch is still a girl but, like you all know, I’d like to have it be a boy! Either way I WILL be truly happy. I cannot WAIT to find out and I just want all our friends and families to feel the same way ya know?

Speaking of the showers though it was interesting how many times pink kept coming into play on accident. Robyn ordered a cupcake cake and told the store to make it “gender neutral” yet it came out yellow, green, white and pink. Courtney and Casey ordered a donut cake and told them “gender neutral” as well yet the frosting on the donuts turned out to have some with chocolate, some white, and some pink. Kinda strange huh?

Maternity Clothes: I’ve officially reached the dreaded point of no return. Regular tops no longer fit. I wore one on Monday and it kept riding up where my belly showed! I’m in all maternity clothes all the time (I do have some regular sized tunics that still fit but that’s it). I seriously don’t know how I wore them for SO LONG last pregnancy. No wonder I did every trick in the book to make Kye come early, maternity clothes just make you miss pre-pregnancy!!!! EVERYONE I see looks so, so skinny to me now and I’m totally jealous. Maternity clothes, while comfortable, are just straight up ugly. Ugh. I can’t stand it!!!

Movement: Lots and lots and lots of movement. Often painful and TONS of hiccups! Kye has started to enjoy feeling my stomach more and feeling the baby move

Sleep: Not great. Takes me a LONG time to fall asleep then I wake up easily and can’t go back to sleep. Still often wake up having to pee and wake up with bad leg cramps. I know it’s all God’s way of preparing me for those middle-of-the-night feedings. Levi has been driving me INSANE with waking me up at night so he’s sleeping in his crate every night for a long time. We’re done dealing with it!

Cravings: Looking forward to my birthday dinner this week at Aligatu!!! Some of their seafood sauce and their shrimp and rice sounds sooo good to me! I had Zaxbys this week and it was mega good too! I do think I’m kinda over my Subway craving. I haven’t had it in over a month and I haven’t really wanted it either. Chocolate milk is still the winner with cosmic brownies in second 😉

What I Miss: Non-maternity clothes. Bending over comfortably. Sleeping through the night!

Best Pregnancy Moment of the Week: Mom and I took Kye to the sibling class at the hospital (post to come, I can’t STAND being this behind again! Ugh!) and he was PRECIOUS. It made me so happy to see him take it so seriously and really, truly want to help and take care of the baby. When we left to go to the hospital I asked him where we were going and he said “we’re going to the hopsibal (he always says it wrong) to pick out a baby!” He really thought we’d get to bring a baby home with us. So sweet! He loved seeing the baby in the nursery and getting to practice putting on a diaper and such. I think he will be more helpful than I originally thought he would. I’m excited to see him in that role!

Kye and I also attempted to put together his old bouncer for the baby and spent 30 min trying to figure it out. The thing only had 4 screws yet after all that time it was still in pieces. Totally gave me a new appreciation for my husband and how handy he is! I decided I’ll let him handle putting all the baby stuff together from now on 😉

Questions/Concerns: Mainly just wanting to get everything done in time. My personal goal for our house being done was my birthday. Well, Zach’s still not done on the storage shed so we haven’t even started on the other house stuff yet. I’ve got TWO weeks until I’m full term. I really, really, REALLY want it all done by then. I also have lots to do that I plan to have done then too (gotta get to cookin’ b/c I have a LOT of meals to make and freeze still!). I just want to reach full term and spend those last weeks enjoying my family of three. I’m sure it all won’t be done by then but wouldn’t it be awesome if it could happen?

Goals for the Week: I was STRESSING about not being prepared for natural childbirth. I felt like I was a failure because we haven’t done the exercises nearly as religiously as last time around. I started googling around hoping to find the success rate of the Bradley Method with second pregnancies. I couldn’t find any exact numbers but I did find where SO MANY women said they didn’t do the exercises and such and still did great with delivery. That it’s more about a mindset than anything else and the support system you have around you. I feel SO much better because I have an awesome support system (I’m so blessed!) and know I have the proper mindset. I’m also setting myself up for a better experience this time around and I feel confident the hospital staff will be part of that support system for me. All of that being said, Zach is in town the next several weeks so my goal is to work on Bradley nightly with him. We need to get out my birthing ball and start practicing on what to do during actual labor.

I’m hoping this week to enjoy my birthday and accomplish a LOT around here!!! Zach got ALL the baby stuff out and put together last night so that’s a GREAT start on the week…and today he’s hoping to paint the shed. It would be an AMAZING birthday present to have that junk DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Notes from Pregnancy #1: I wrote a blog entry about being 34 weeks pregnant and it’s great for comparison…you can read it here! I like my hair SO much better now don’t you?!?! This week last pregnancy we put the finishing touches on the nursery. Kinda cracks me up since we haven’t done a thing for Blitzen’s nursery! I have a new friend, Brandi, who is coming by this week to help me look and see what I should do. She majored in interior design so I know she’ll be mega helpful! If it’s a boy I wanna do sharks and if it’s a girl I wanna do mermaids…you can see some of my ideas on my Pinterst board here! We had a crazy busy weekend with two baby showers for Kye. The first was one hosted by Katie and Ashley (funny that it happened to be the same week Robyn hosted one for me this time around) and you can read about it here. The second one was my church shower and omg I forgot how many presents we got! It was TONS! You can see that post here. I love looking back each week at my old blog entries…it’s so fun to re-live those memories and Rachael, if you’re reading this far down, I LOVE re-reading all your funny comments too 🙂