one week left!

i can't believe we only have a week left before we meet reese! i'm so beyond excited and ready! these past few weeks of pregnancy have been challenging. i'm huge, exhausted, and so uncomfortable. my feet and hands are swollen. reese loves to stretch out and kick me in the ribs. i can't bend over without coming close to passing out from lack of oxygen. and i'm just sooooo ready to meet her! so, so ready.

go big girl!

reese weighs approximately 6 lbs, 13 oz now, putting her in the 66th percentile. she's gained over 2 and a half pounds in the last 4 weeks. the ultrasound tech said babies gain about a half a pound a week from here on out, so i'm liable to have an 8 to 8 and a half pound princess! apparently, she also has a 'wide head'. they measured it and remeasured it like 4 times. thanks, nunley family for that!

i can't believe we only have 18 days left!

baby shower

my mom threw me the most fabulous shower over the weekend! it was full of wonderful food, fun games, and great company. i'm forever grateful for all the time and effort she put into the event. it, of course, turned out to be an emotional day for me. the shower was a reminder of just how close i am to having my very own daughter. it's such an overwhelming feeling.

here are some of the special gifts reese received...

doctor's visits for the week

monday's visit to the mfs went well. during the ultrasound, we got to see reese with the hiccups. cutest thing ever! plus, she opened her mouth super wide and stuck out her tongue! and she has at least an inch of hair already!

her cheeks are getting chubbier and chubbier

justin made the ultrasound tech check ONE MORE TIME...just to make sure (and i promise, reese, this will be the only nude photo i ever share of you!!!)...

today, i had my stress test at the ob's office. while i was hooked up to the machine, reese was bouncing around so much that the mid-wife could hear her in the next room! and i haven't gained any weight in a week! wew-hew!

for her majesty

leg warmers

p.s. i've gained 30 pounds.

as promised

reese's crib mobile...

inspired by this and this.

33 week ultrasound

she's absolutely beautiful! justin saw this picture, said 'that's my daughter', and started tearing up...

overdue update

i’ll be 33 weeks pregnant tomorrow. that’s only 6 weeks until reese arrives! i can’t believe this journey is almost over….well, this part of it anyway. i'm really trying to push through the sleepless nights, heartburn, expanding body, clumsiness, restless mind, etc…and enjoy this time because i’ll never get to experience it again.

the nursery is coming along slowly, but surely. i knitted some i-cord ties for the window treatment and i'm almost finished with her crib moblie (pictures coming soon).

i’m going to the doctor twice a week now. i spend one day at the ob’s office doing stress tests and the other day getting to watch reese flop around in my belly at the high risk office. she weighs 4 lbs, 4 oz now, putting her in the 46th percentile...right where we want her to be! i took justin’s stepmom and stepsister to my last visit and i think they thoroughly enjoyed themselves! they got to watch her swallow fluid and pounce around like a rabbit. she’s starting to get chubby cheeks and still has those adorable pouty lips. i love her so much already!

my 33 week lump...

the date is set

we'll get to meet baby reese on september 27th at 11:15 am! (dear god, no sooner...pleeeeeease!) that's exactly 9 weeks from today! we're so excited!

ouch

the movement in my belly is starting the get intense. she was flailing around so much the other morning that it actually hurt. she must have struck a nerve or organ or something. all i know is my 3 pound daughter is physically hurting me.

i'm going to the doctor every week now. one week to see the ob and the next week to see the mfs. the ob said that northside would be calling me soon to schedule my c-section! we can deliver any time between sept. 27th and oct. 1st. that's only 10 weeks away!!!

oh! and we've officially picked a name...

Reese Lynn Nunley

.

...'lynn' is my mom's middle name.

new ultrasound pics

baby girl weighs 2 lbs, 12 oz now! that's 3 oz more than davis weighed 2 weeks from now, at 30 weeks! so crazy. the ultrasound tech pointed out that she has hair on her head (which might explain the heartburn). we got to see her eyes open, which was the coolest thing ever (especially since she did it moments after i asked the tech when babies start opening their eyes! not kidding.). i feel like we're totally cheating by getting these 4-d ultrasounds done, but they're free and so darn cool!

her profile. you can see her little hand, too.

mouth open
huge lips!

28 week bump

Contrary to what your eyes may be telling you, I swear there's not another baby in my ass.

painting party

while justin was out of town with his dad and step-brother and davis was having a spended the night party with g.g. and jay, some of my girlfriends came over for a nursery painting party!

thanks, friends, for all the help!

"...heartburn is radiating my knee caps..."

the results of my glucose tolerance test came back negative. but they did show that i'm still anemic. so, it seems as though baby girl is hogging all my iron and folic acid. i'm now up to 2 iron pills a day.

on a completely different note, heartburn has completely taken over my life. i'll randomly feel this overwhelming surge of fire in my throat throughout the day. sometimes it'll even wake me up at night...especially if i've eaten mexican for dinner. mexican food, that is. not an actual mexican. although, that would probably do a lot more to my digestive system than shoot fireballs towards my uvula. i can't swallow it down or do anything except wait it out. refusing to take any medication, i'm consuming more milk in a day than 18 cows probably produce in a month. vanilla ice cream is also a good friend of mine. i do eat tums every now and then, but milk and ice cream are much more delicious-er.

i'm sure justin's so sick of hearing me shout, from our bedroom every night, "MILK! I NEED SOME MILK!" but we'll totally take this complication over what we experienced with davis. i can't believe i had him 2 and a half weeks from now. so crazy.

glucose tolerance test

i had to take my glucose tolerance test at my last ob visit. i was dreading this day. really dreading it. for the test, you're given a bottle of orange flavored (i've heard that fruit punch is now available, but i'm sure it's just as nasty) sugar water and have to guzzle it down within 3-5 minutes. it tastes so disgusting. seriously. an hour later, blood is drawn to test how quickly the glucose empties from your blood, determining if you have gestational diabetes or not.

i haven't heard anything about the results, so i'm assuming i'm ok.

i've gained 4 more pounds since my last ob visit, taking my total weight gain to a whopping 20 lbs. 20 pounds at 26 weeks. it took me 3o weeks to gain that much with davis. i'm blaming it on the fact that i'm a stay-at-home mom now and i seriously eat something EVERY TIME i walk into or near the kitchen. i just freakin' graze all day, much like a cow.

26 week jumping bean

24 weeks

baby girl is doing so well! she weighs 1 lb, 10 oz, putting her in the 54th percentile (just above average). the doctor said that the ultrasound pictures they took of her heart looked so good that they made copies of them to use as an example!

saying hello to us!

these 3D ultrasounds basically give you a sneak peak of what your baby is going to look like, which is totally cheating, but i can't get enough of it.

i have heartburn like you wouldn't believe, so i'm convinced she's going to come out with hair down to her shoulders. and my belly is growing like a freakin' weed. i had these pair of shorts (their size shall remain a secret) that fit me a week ago. i can't even get them zipped up now.

OB Visit

"Wow, you've gained...yeah...you've gained 7 pounds since you were last here." A wonderful comment made by the nurse today at my check-up. Seven pounds in 4 weeks. 'Wow' is right, lady.

Justin and I laid in bed the other night and watched my belly bounce all over the place. It was the neatest and weirdest thing we've ever seen. It seriously looked like she was practicing karate moves inside me. It's moments like that when you're reminded that there's an actual living thing growing inside you. It's crazy.

21 Week Lady Lump

Finally...my progress...

And some ultrasounds from our 20 weeks visit...

Her feet...

20 Week Visit

I took my Mom with me to meet her first granddaughter for my 20 week visit on Tuesday. Baby is still a girl and weighs 12 oz. now! Go big girl! I think she's taking ballet lessons inside my belly because she won't stop kicking me. I'm not complaining, though. It's the coolest feeling in the world! I might have some reservations about it when her 12 oz. little body turns into a 6 lb giant. But we'll see.

We've been kicking around baby names...ok....a baby name. So far, it's Reese. Girl names are so hard!

I made her a little somethin', somethin' over the weekend...

I've gained exactly the same amount with this pregnancy as I did with Davis at this point, and this baby weighs more than Davis did at 20 weeks. Go figure.

another baby knit

baby blanket

hyper fetus

this baby is so full of energy! i can feel her kick already! justin even felt it for the first time last night. i went to the ob yesterday for my check-up and we could barely hear the heartbeat through the doppler because she wouldn't be still! she's gonna come out dancing and doing cartwheels...just like her Mommy!

p.s. i can't stop shopping for her!

we're having a...

...girl!!!! we're, needless to say, so excited! more importantly, though, she's extremely healthy. she's measuring 17 weeks, 4 days and i'm only 17 weeks along. so her growth is great! now we just need a name for little miss pretty girl!

here, she has her hand up to her face and it looks like she's smiling!

another profile

oh! and i totally had to get this out of my system...

nursery theme

animals! i'm not going overboard with it, though.

so far, i've knitted these for baby's room...

cravings

with davis, it was frosted flakes and pineapple. not at the same time. i'd wake up in the middle of the night and HAVE to eat a bowl of frosted flakes before i could go back to sleep. and i'd eat so much pineapple every day that my tongue would bleed!

with this pregnancy, i find myself randomly wanting different things. and by 'wanting' i, of course, mean 'needing'. a couple days ago, i drove all the way to towne center mall just to get some pretzel bites with melted cheese. once i satisfied the craving, it was gone. i had to have french toast for dinner a few weeks ago and ate like 5 slices...craving gone. i'm really into cheese right now, though...little caeser's pepperoni pizza, atlanta bread company's asiago bagel with cream cheese, kroger deli's white american cheese...my digestive system hates me.

i'll post a lady lump photo soon!

dreams

when i was pregnant with davis, and before we knew what we were having, i would have these strange baby dreams. and, in them, the baby was ALWAYS a boy. i'd dream that my baby lived in my mattress, instead of in my belly. or i'd be walking around walgreens and he'd just fall out of me and i'd have to beg someone to help me put him back in. or i'd be delivering my baby in the middle of the mall's food court.

well, last night, i had my first baby dream of this pregnancy. it was born really early (which i can probably chalk up to stress and expect to have this dream every other night until its born), but it weighed like 20 pounds and was really healthy! i think it even had clothes on.

so you wanna know what sex it was??? a boy. so, now i'm convinced that that's what we're having.

my 12 week lady lump

i woke up a few mornings ago with this thing protruding from my body. it's finally real! i was so excited when i couldn't button my jeans that i immediately unpacked all the maternity clothes that my girlfriend gave me a couple months ago! jumping the gun, much?!?!

total weight gain so far: 3 big lbs!

first mfs visit

yesterday, we had our first appointment with the maternal fetal specialist. their ultrasound machines have a higher resolution than normal ob's offices so we got to see all the body parts in much more detail. it's still only 4 cm in length, but we could see its cute little fingers and thumb plain as day!

that little sucker is super active, too! it was, like, barrel rolling inside of me and bouncing up and down. the ultrasound tech was having a hard time getting certain measurements because baby wouldn't be still! so cute.

so far, everything looks great with me and baby!

that explains it

so, i got this message on friday afternoon that went a little like this...

"mrs. nunley, this is northside women's specialists calling with your lab results. please give us a call back as soon as you get this message."

i'll take 'things you never want to hear' for 200, alex.

then i went a little like this...

"good god. what the heck is wrong with me now?!?! what did they test me for anyway? stds. can't be that. hiv. nope. what then?!?!"

turns out, my red blood cell count is low causing me to become anemic. so that totally explains why i've been so freakin' lethargic, yawny, and exhausted for the past few weeks. so, on top of my prenatals and blood thinner, i'm now popping iron pills and munching on spinach throughout the day. geez. i guess it could have been worse.

first ob visit

we had our first pregnancy visit this morning. baby showed off its dance moves during the ultrasound! it was the sweetest thing ever! it's the appropriate size and weight for its gestational age, which is great news. it's incredible that this little thing (all 1 inches of it!) has complete world domination over my body right now!

the maternal fetal specialist will be contacting me to set up an appointment to thoroughly examine me and baby to further ensure everything is a-ok! keep us in your prayers!

morning (plus every minute after that) sickness

i don't do sick well...at all. especially the nauseous kind. i wake up every morning starving to death and feeling like i have the flu. and it doesn't go away until about 5 pm. i have a stash of saltines strategically placed throughout my house and in my car for emergencies. i never went through any of this with davis, so hopefully this is just the beginning of a 'normal', long, healthy pregnancy.

up to speed

aug. 2009 visited with new ob and maternal fetal specialist at northside for preconceptual consultations (recommended by my mom's work).
oct. 2009 started having lots and lots of blood work done to find any abnormalities with my blood, etc...all came back normal.
dec. 2009 had hsg done to check my uterus for tears, etc...normal.
01.26.10 positive pregnancy test results...lots of them! began taking baby aspirin to thin my blood and prevent clotting.
01.27.10 woke up with a horrible sinus congestion thing and stayed sick (because i refused any medication) for an entire week.
02.05.10 started experiencing constant pain in upper abdomen.
02.10.10 blood work and abdominal ultrasounds completed to find out what this pain thing was all about. results: "inflammation somewhere".
02.10.10 worried myself sick that something was wrong with the baby, rushed to my mom's work for an ultrasound, and found this...

...a healthy beating heart! and only one! my scanner isn't working so this is a picture of the print out.
02.11.10 morning sickness has set in. severe. and still experiencing pain.