Moving Right Along

I am starting to face the unsettling truth that this whole pregnancy thing is flying by.  I am amazed that we have just about three months left until we meet our baby girl.  At times I feel like I am ready for the pregnancy part to be over, and there are times that I would like to keep her in there forever.  I mean honestly, having a kid is scary business and part of me likes that she is safe and protected at the moment.  On the other hand, I think Kevin and I are ready to begin this adventure, to learn as we go, to grow as a couple and as a family.  So hopefully when the time comes, the "I'm ready" feeling will overshadow the "this is scary" feeling.

We have had a busy and productive couple of weeks.  Kevin is winding down his second year of residency, which means the worst is over (yay!) and he will finally have at least two weekends off a month!  I'm also so proud of how far he has come, what he has accomplished this year, and how he has handled the long hours, the stress and sheer exhaustion.  With the end of the year comes many "ortho family" celebrations, welcome picnics for the new interns and graduation dinners for the outgoing fifth years.  Again, at this time of year, I am reminded how lucky we are to have ended up in such a great place for residency.  We could not have gotten through this time nearly as well without the support and friendship of the other residents and their families.  I am very much looking forward to third year!

As for baby news, I had a doctor's appointment this week and everything is going well.  I measured at exactly 26 weeks, the heartbeat sounded great, my blood pressure is low and my weight is on track(although on the upper end).  Overall I am definitely starting to feel really pregnant.  My feet hurt every.single.day, I have swelling in my hands, feet and ankles and it is starting to get hot here.   I have also noticed that my hips don't seem to be attached anymore (Kevin would tell me the technical term for that is ligament laxity), I just know that it feels funny when I walk or lay on my side, as if things are moving around too much.  The baby is still very active and is definitely getting stronger.  I felt her hiccups for the first time last week, and they now seem to be a common occurence.  It is still amazing to me to see and feel my stomach moving because of her.  I have made progress on the nursery and am so happy with how it is turning out.  I will share pictures once we get paint on the walls. 

Now for some pictures from that past few weeks:

25 weeks

26 weeks

Kevin and I at Ortho Graduation

Kevin took this picture, so excuse the sun in our eyes.  Britta is another expecting mommy from the ortho program who is due 4 weeks after me.  I do know that I look way more pregnant than her, we'll just say its those 4 weeks.

Britta (another mommy to be) and I at Graduation

Kevin and I had a fantastic anniversary dinner at The Sherwood Inn in Skaneateles.  I have wanted to try this place since we moved here, and we finally had a good excuse!  It was 10 times better than our anniversary last year at Turning Stone Casino, in my opinion, we had a table right on their front porch, looking over the lake.  The only disappointing part of the night was that we discovered our favorite ice cream place in this area, The Bluewater Cafe, has closed because they are turning it into a bar!  A bar!  What good is that, what did they do with all the delicious ice cream?  We had to make do with a half gallon from Wegmans, because I had been anticipating ice cream all day and Kevin knew better than to disappoint his pregnant wife on his anniversary!

Sherwood Inn

 We love that this town is just a 30 minute drive away.

Skaneateles

Nursery Progress

One of the reasons I was looking forward to finding out whether our little one would be a he or a she was so I could get started on the nursery.  I love decorating, so it is no surprise that I was excited to create a new room in our house for such a special reason.  I posted a couple of months ago that we had cleaned out our previous "office" for the would be nursery during one of Kevin's rare weekends off, and that we had found a dresser on Craig's List to refinish.  Well, that was as far as we got for several months, since we were waiting to find out what we were having.  I had planned on a neutral nursery all along, with some minor color differences, but Kevin envisioned a baseball themed room for a little boy, so we were in wait and see mode.  When we found out we were having a girl, I was thrilled to be able to go ahead with my planned nursery.  If you know me well, you may know that I love elephants, so an elephant themed nursery was in my mind long before we planned on starting a family.  Kevin's only request was that the room be colorful, he immediately rejected my original plan of having neutral gray walls with accent colors.  So between the two of us, our nursery plan looked like this:

- Elephant theme
- Colorful (preferably coordinating with the rug we already had in the room)
- Eco-Friendly and Safe
- On a budget

From that list, and lots and lots of research, pinterest browsing and searching fabric sites online, this is what we came up with!

The top two are the paint colors; Benjamin Moore's "Robin's Nest" for the walls and "Galapagos Blue" for the dresser.  I love love love the elephant fabric found here on spoonflower.com, and feel it was well worth the $18 a yard I spent on it!  The rest of the fabric I found on sale at fabric.com, and am very pleased with. (Fabric.com has a 100% satisfaction guarantee and although I haven't needed it, I have heard, fantastic customer service).  They are called "Remix Stripes Bermuda", Michael Miller "butterfly kisses kiss dot yellow" and Michael Miller "backyard baby samaras white".  I have plans to make curtains, a crib skirt, crib sheets (3), a changing pad cover, book slings and cushions for the rocking chair.  If I have enough time and fabric I would also love to make a baby quilt, blankets and a car seat cover, so we shall see.  So far I have ordered and received all the fabric, and made the crib skirt.

 I am very happy with how the skirt turned out (I followed this tutorial: sew4home.com).  I highly recommend the sew4home tutorials and plan on following a few more from their list of baby items.

Last thing, mostly because I spent a lot of time and effort researching and deciding; we got the baby mod modena crib from walmart.com.  I know, Walmart! but it was the most affordable crib that met my criteria for solid wood, relatively eco friendly and had non-toxic finishes.  We ordered the colgate eco classica III mattress from amazon.com, which is not 100% organic, but has several "green" certifications, was well reviewed, is eco "friendlier" and definitely safer as far as chemicals go without costing more than the mattress I sleep on.  Kevin had a difficult time stomaching the $200 price tag even then! "It only needs to support 30 pounds, how nice does it need to be?!" was his reaction.  Keep in mind he also thought a laundry basket would be a legitimate place for a baby to sleep .. I wish I was kidding.  Overall, I am very excited with how far the nursery has come, and I will keep you updated as I work on my possibly over-ambitious projects.

Catch up .. weeks 20-24

I apologize for taking so long to write another update, I guess things have just been a little crazy for the start of summer!

We have had a busy few weeks, so I almost don't know where to begin.  Most importantly, everything with Baby McCoy is still going really well.  We had a 22 week follow up ultrasound because the baby was being so difficult last time, and were happy to hear that everything is nice and normal!  We also officially found out that we are expecting a baby girl.  We are incredibly excited to get to meet her in just a few short months.  We got to see her cute little face, and a profile view that revealed how flexible she is!  If you can't tell, she is bent completely in half with her knees almost touching her nose in the image below.  We might have a little ballerina on our hands. 

 

Kevin has had a very busy work schedule the past couple of months, so it was a treat that he had Memorial Day off (perks of a VA hospital rotation!).  His parents came to visit us for the long weekend, and we had a great time going on a couple day trips; Cooperstown, NY to visit the Hall of Fame, Skaneateles for some wine tasting and an ortho friends bbq.  It was also nice to be able to enjoy Kevin's company for once!

Otsego Lake in Cooperstown

Baxter and Kevin watching the Liverpool Memorial Day Parade

Before visiting my favorite ice cream shop in Skaneateles

We made a quick trip home this past weekend to help my parents move ten minutes down the road to a new house that will be perfect for this next phase of their lives.  I didn't manage to take any pictures because we were too busy, so I will have to grab some the next time we're home.  In other news, we have started on the nursery (I'll post an update soon!), and are just keeping busy with work and normal crazy summer schedules.

Overall, I still feel great, but have started to feel some discomfort from just being bigger than I am used to.  I know it is only going to get worse, but these pregnancy aches and pains are no joke.  The few things that bother me the most are fairly frequent heartburn (some days/weeks are worse than others) and swelling feet.  Luckily we have had very mild weather lately, so I have been sleeping great and don't have to worry about the heat!  Here are a few pictures from the last couple of weeks:

20 weeks

21 weeks

22 weeks

23 weeks

24 weeks

*Note: I have no opposition to posting my face in these pictures, the mirror in our bedroom was hung for a much shorter person, so I can't see my face!  Also you might notice that the dogs make frequent appearances in these pictures, it's not that they are that attached to me, it's because I usually take these in the morning right before it's time to feed them, they want me to hurry up!