Week 32

Description (from Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy):
You may notice a change in your baby's movements this week,not that she has grown tot he point of being crowded. Although your baby is probably moving around just as much, kicks and other movements may seem less forceful.
By 32 weeks, your baby weighs about 4 pounds and is almost 11 1/2 inches long, crown to rump.

Movement:
Baby is getting lots of hiccups still. At least one bout per day; sometimes as many as three! Good job practicing breathing, baby Ying :)
I've definitely been feeling movement a lot more often and a larger variety of types of movements. The strangest by far are when she either turn over or move a whole limb. It feels like she's going to burst out of there!
In fact, she moving around a bit right now. I just got up, so she's probably repositioning.

Baby Shower:
Big thanks to my mom for a great baby shower with my family! I got to spend time with a few of my aunts and cousins in Cincinnati. It's so great to be surrounding by such love and support!
I also had a visit from one of my best friends on Friday. The baby wouldn't kick for her. She was also pretty quiet at the baby shower. She must have stage fright!

Other Updates:
The baby name bracket is narrowed down to the final four.
32 week doctor's appointment on Wednesday.

Baby Stuff:
The baby's room is filling up with baby things. Between the baby shower, consignment sales, and the start of garage sale season the pile is growing. Now we just need to find a changing table, dresser and bookshelf so I can start putting everything where it belongs! :)
If you have kids and have never been to one, I highly recommend the kids consignment sales that are occurring this Spring (most will run again in the fall). There's a website "kidsconsignmentsales.com" that lists a lot of them (although the dates aren't always correct). We went to the half price day of one sale on Saturday and found lots of goodies. Below Kris and I are modeling the Baby Bjorn we bought.

Week 30

Description (From Mayo Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy):
Your baby is continuing to steadily add weight and layers of fat. From now until about your 37th week of pregnancy, your baby will gain about a half-pound a week.
Your baby may be practicing breathing movements this week by moving his or her diaphragm in a repeating rhytym. These movememnts may even give you baby a case of hiccups.
At 30 weeks into your pregnancy, your baby weighs about 3 pounds and is about 10 1/2 inches long, crown to rump.





Comments:
A few days before we read this description, I turned to Kris and said, our baby girl is has a really good sense of rhythym or she's got hiccups. Seems the latter may have been true. She had about 3 or 4 bouts of hiccups so far. So wierd!





Total Weight Gain:
As of today's doctor's apointment...18 1/2 pounds!
Also learned that my fundal height is now right on..30cm at 30 weeks. The doctor said it may have been measuring shorter because the baby was in a different position or because I'm carrying so low (see the picture below).


On a funny note, before he measured the height to the doctor today (the first of the other four doctors I'll rotate through), I mentioned that my doctor had been keeping an eye on the fundal height. He said, "well, you're tall and slender so, it's probably just the way you're carrying the baby." I must have looked at him funny becuase he followed up with , "you're 5'7" or 5'8" right?" I just laughed and said, "Only seems that way when I'm sitting down!"





Stretch Marks:
The first of these unwanted little buggers showed up in the past few weeks right over my hip bones. Hopefully that will be it :)





Belly Button:
Kris is convinced the top part of my belly button is an outie, but the bottom is still tucked in a bit.





Other Fun Baby-related Things:
Our neighbor brought over a play mat and a bunch of little toys that their boys are too old for now...what generousity!


I finished a lamp shade that I decorated with fabric Dr Suess character cut-outs only to discover the shade doesn't fit the lamp we had. It's okay...it was just an extra table lamp from the living room...we'll get her one of her own :)

We've created a baby name bracket of our two 32 names (16 each) and we're going to try to narrow them down along with the NCAA tournament. No, no, we're not leaving the choosing of a name up the whims of college basketball, we're just paring down the list by pitting my #1 choice against Kris' #16 and so on and so forth...

And now...a picture of the baby belly at 30 weeks:

Week 28

Description (from Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy):
Your baby's eyes, which have been sealed shut for the last few months to allow the retinas to develop, are probably beginning to open and close this week. If you could sneak a peek at your baby this week, you might be able to determine the color of her eyes.
Your baby's brain is also continuing to develop and expand rapidly this week. In addition, your baby is continuing to accumulate layers of fat underneath the skin.
Your baby is now sleeping and waking on a regular schedule. But this schedule isn't like that of an adult or even of a newborn. At this size, your baby probably sleep for only 20 to 30 minutes at a time.
By the 28th week of your pregnancy, the end of your seventh month, your baby is about 10 inches long, crown to rump, and weighs about 2 pounds.

Baby Days:
The past few days have been full of baby appointments it seems. Yesterday morning, I met with a parent educator from the Parents as Teachers programs run through our school district. She was very nice, informative and reassuring. I'll meet with her again some time after the baby is born and 5 times per school year after that. She comes for about an hour, goes over some of the developmental milestones and we do a few activities together with the baby.

Then, last night was our first "lamaze" class. It turns out to be much more of an overall childbirth class which is really great, actually. Yesterday night was sort of an overview and we did a few relaxation exercises. It will be interesting to see what next week brings!

Finally, this morning I had my 28 week doctor's appointment. From now on, I'll be going every 2 weeks and I'll start rotating through the group of OB doctors so that I'll at least have met the person who may end up delivering our baby if our doctor isn't available. Updates from the appointment:
I've gained 4 1/2 pounds over the past 4 weeks, bringing the total to 15 1/2 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight.
I passed the glucose tolerance test with flying colors...no gestational diabetes!
The baby's heartbeat was very loud today and was 158 beats per minute :)
I'm borderline anemic, so I have to start taking iron supplements in the mornings in additional to the prenatal vitamins in the evenings.
My fundal height measured at 26 centimeters. That means it has increased 3 cm in the past four weeks and 3 cm in the four week period before that. Generally, it's supposed to increase about 1 cm per week. So, if it doesn't increase 2 cm by my next appointment (in two weeks) the doctor is going to order another ultrasound just to be sure baby is growing at a healthy rate. She's pretty certain it's probably just because I'm short and small, but she wants to be sure.
Overall, everything is going very well and I feel great!

In addition to the Dr Seuss characters that I posted pictures of last week, Kris has added the fish from the Cat in the Hat, Thing 1 and Thing 2 and a few little sneetches (both star-bellied and plain). We're not done painting them yet, so I'll hold of on pics until next week.