The Final Stretch

Finally made it to the third trimester! I say finally, but really the past 28 weeks have literally flown by and I can't believe that in only 12 short weeks Brent and I will get to meet our little girl! We are so excited!! :)

I have started putting her "nursery" together. I use the term nursery loosely because it's really just her section of the room since we want her to be in our room for at least the first couple of months. We don't have any furniture or anything bought for her yet since we are waiting for the baby shower, but it's fun to try and decorate and get things ready.

Weight update:
Pre-pregnancy - 168.0 lbs. [my scale]
First doctor appointment (8 weeks) - 174.0 lbs. [my scale], 176.0 lbs. [dr. scale]
28 week appointment - 193.8 lbs. [my scale], 194.2 lbs. [dr. scale]

So, I've gained about 25 pounds total.. which is within normal, but I still have 12 weeks to go. My doctor originally recommended that I gain 25-35 pounds based on my pre-pregnancy weight and height. That would put my delivery weight at 193-203 pounds.. which is still doable, but I'm not going to stop eating or anything to stay in that range. If I gain a little more, I'm okay with that.. just gotta keep Beannette healthy :). As far as my personal goal to stay under 200 pounds, I don't think that's gonna happen.

I also had my glucose test at my last appointment, it was absolutely terrible. I had to fast for 12 hours, which was bad enough because I get really nauseous if I don't eat every few hours. And then I had to drink this orange drink that was basically pure sugar. Remember that I have had a hard time stomaching anything too sweet this entire pregnancy, so add that to my empty stomach and I felt miserable. I had to sit on my sugar drink for an hour before going back and having a ton of blood drawn. Luckily, all of my numbers were within normal range which means NO gestational diabetes for me! YAY! :)

Symptoms I've been experience include: lots of back pain, swollen ankles if I stand or walk for too long, food aversions, insane appetite, headaches, bloody gums and sore teeth, and a complete lack of sleep which leads to exhaustion. For some reason I just cannot get comfortable at night, so I tend to wake up every couple of hours. Guess my body is just preparing me for what's to come...

We also got a little bad news at the appointment. My doctor is concerned that I am not feeling much movement from Beannette so he scheduled me for an emergency ultrasound. It is on Tuesday morning... I am trying not to be too worried about it, I feel like if he thought it was serious he would not have waited until Tuesday to schedule it.

I have also moved to bi-monthly appointments! :)
It's getting close...

I am loved!

Brent does a wonderful job of cheering me up, even if it something small he knows exactly how to make me smile!

Let me first go back a few weeks, when I was in the heat of my baking streak. I constantly complained that finding what I needed was impossible because I had acquired too many spices and baking materials. Seriously. This was my cabinet:


Whether he was tired of hearing me complain constantly, or because he loves me that much he went out and got me this:


I was ecstatic! :)

Fast forward to yesterday.
Wednesday was a terrible, terrible day. Lots of drama and stress, on top of the 3 hours I spent in the ER early that morning... and it only got worse from there. Let's not even talk about the pregnancy hormones and emotions thrown into it.. it was just a bad day.

Thursday, he had to work and knew I was still pretty upset about Wednesday. As I was sitting at my computer checking my daily sites (mostly blogs) he was being awfully secretive in the bedroom. I assumed he was just playing his video games and didn't think much of it. After awhile he came out and got on his computer and I went to take a shower.

I got in the bathroom and found a post-it stuck to the bathroom mirror. It said "you will ALWAYS be beautiful to me <3". I lost it, I started crying my eyes out and I went and gave him a huge hug! It meant so much to me to find that note, and he knew it would make me smile... I don't think he was expecting the tears though. :)

It also really made my heart melt that he does pay attention to what I do. I sit on my computer everyday and browse multiple healthy living blogs, following the lives and healthy stories of people who I have never even met. It is a great inspiration to me, not only because I love seeing that other people live happy, healthy lives but because they also make healthy living and healthy eating fun. Health food does not equate to bad food, and exercise does not equate to torture. It's nice to see others who feel the same way.

I've been reading these blogs for a few months now and I must admit that while I love reading all of them, there are a few that have really stuck out to me for various reasons and I love them. I love the girls that write them, their stories, and I love reading their daily posts. Two of these, in particular, really stood out to me.

One was Caitlin. She is always upbeat and positive, and she shares stories about her personal goals and life outside of what she eats and how she exercises. Plus, it's always fun to see pictures and read stories of other furbabies :). But really, it was her side project that drew me to read HTP everyday.. Operation Beautiful. I first noticed the link on the side of her blog, and then I started following the OB blog as well. It really hit home to me because I have never had a good body image of myself and I used to partake in lots of negative and fat talk. I had never left any notes on my own, but I talked about them all the time. I thought most of my talk was just random babbling to Brent, until yesterday.

He actually listened and knew that if he wanted to make me smile he knew just what he had to do. Throughout the day I found 9 post-it's, all with different happy positive thoughts scattered throughout the house, and apparently there are still a few hidden somewhere. With each new-found note came new tears of happiness. Brent means so much to me, and for him to do that.. just to make me smile.. shows me how much he really cares about me. It may have been small, he didn't go out and spend a lot of money on lavish gifts, but his heart poured out to me on those little green pieces of paper and that means more to me than any material possession ever could. <3

New Discoveries

I was quite disheartened last night when I was craving a good ol' fashioned PB&J and then it tasted absolutely disgusting to me. The jelly was just too sweet and I couldn't stomach it.

Well, today I was making lunch and decided to try and get creative. Yesterday, Brent and I ventured to the Mount Pleasant Farmer's Market and picked up some fresh apples, it was seriously the only thing that looked appetizing to me (the one part of pregnancy I am quite sick of is my aversion to veggies...). I stared at them for a few minutes and knew exactly what I wanted to make.

I pulled out the bread and smeared one slice with peanut butter. I sliced the apple and put it in the peanut butter and covered it with cinnamon and nutmeg. To finish it off I grilled it on the skillet.

The finished product:



I cannot say enough how delicious this combo was! Brent, who was extremely skeptical when he saw me assembling it thought it was one of my greatest creations yet! I do believe this will definitely be making a reappearance. :)

It's a feast!

I've slowly been experimenting more and more in the kitchen, but mostly I have resorted to old favorites and lots of processed foods. My aversions have come back, hard, and I cannot seem to stomach fresh veggies. I have also been extremely exhausted and my feet swell if I am on them too long... hence why I have been pretty absent from the blogging world.

However, the other day Brent and I were at the grocery store and we decided we wanted ribs for dinner. Now, I LOVE ribs, and he loves ribs but neither of us had ever made them before. I tried looking up several recipes, but I didn't like any of what I found (mostly because they called for a 1 1/2 hour to 3 hour cook time and I was starving :P), so I decided to try it my own way.

We spiced them up with BBQ sauce and an assortment of other spices and put them under the broiler for about 15 minutes, checking on them somewhere around the 7 minute mark. This somewhat worked, the meat cooked but the BBQ sauce burned into a hard crisp shell. Don't get me wrong, it was still extremely delicious.. I just think next time I will try something a little different in the preparation.

On the side I made some homemade mashed potatoes.

Fun fact: Before he started dating me Brent hated potatoes with a strong passion, claiming they were disgusting and swore he had tried all kinds before. Now he loves them. He begs me to make potatoes (he especially loves them baked) with dinner! Success, if I do say so myself :)


Fun fact #2: Kenji loves mashed potatoes. It is a well known fact that Kenji is spoiled worse than most children, so of course when he smelled the delicious aroma of a new meat being cooked he all but dived into the oven to investigate. When we sat down to eat he jumped up on my chair (this is typical, he sits next to me in my chair while we eat waiting for me to give him bites), so I tore off some rib meat and scooted it over to him. He ignored it and instead stuck his entire paw into my potatoes and proceeded to lick it all off, then stuck his paw back in for more. I almost died laughing. :)

Overall, I would say the dinner was a success...