Book review: Making Faces by Amy Harmon

I finally let myself read this book after weeks of it burning a hole in my Kindle.  I love Amy Harmon and I love the books that she writes.  This book came out on October 20 so it is very new and sadly, means that there won't be another new one for a while.  *insert sad, sniffling face*

I enjoyed this book thoroughly.  It wasn't my favorite book of hers, maybe not even my 2nd favorite but still definitely good and worth reading.  I think my friends would like it a lot.  Making Faces is a very easy read and strums on those heartstrings for the romance and emotions involved. 

If you want the official book review from Amazon, look here.

26 weeks

This past week was pretty boring in terms of my pregnancy.  I didn't feel much different than the week before.  Baby is still such an active night baby.  I'm really dreading when I have to turn that around once s/he is out.  Although, s/he must be starting to be awake a bit more because there is an added time frame around 9am where baby is up moving for a wee little bit.  Then the rest of the day baby is silent and sleeping.  Come 9pm, give or take 10 minutes, baby is up and at it all night long.  Yikes.

I happily am still stretch mark free.  I know I will get them because they will come in the exact spots that they were for my previous pregnancies but lucky for me, they are not on my stomach.  My rear end looks like a road map at the end of pregnancy though... was that TMI for you?  I don't care. 

I suppose I can tell you that pregnancy does not do nice things for my eczema.  I don't have much of it but where I do have it is always badly inflamed during pregnancy.  Something about the hormones makes it flare up.  Unfortunately, my eczema is on my face and so I think it looks like I constantly have waxed off a Go-T.  You will not see this in my photos because I edit them out.  That's right, I am a liar.  I am a photo liar.  But, I figure, I do not need to see visual reminders of this particular symptom of my pregnancies.  It's bad enough I am telling you and now you will look for it every time you see me.  Don't do that.  My fragile ego won't be able to take it. 

I've been getting more sleep lately so that I helping with my exhaustion.  I thought it would be helping a lot more than it is so that really tells me I have been over-doing it.  Soon, things will calm down for me and I will be able to regularly get more sleep and take more breaks during the day.  Well, not during the week.  Ha, like small kids let you get a break.  My soundtrack of getting off the floor from playing with the kids is quite comical.  There is a lot of groaning, sighing and finally an "ahhh" when I am on 2 feet.  I think I will have to put a chair in the toy room so I don't have to sit on the floor anymore. 

25 weeks

Holy hell I look like crap this week.  I just want you to know I realize this and I'm not walking around in some dream-like state that I look like Gisele Bundchen.  Who I really don't like by the way.  I could look like that too if I had 8 zillion dollars and nannies and, you know, DNA like hers.  What a jerk.

This Friday marks the end of the most difficult week of daycare I have had yet.  This might also be why I look like crap.  The kids were very difficult and the more pregnant I get the less patience I have.  This is unfortunate for the children but the most unfortunate for me.  I feel like Cookie is going to come out in some permanent state of anxiety and stress because of how things have been lately.  This isn't true right?  What movie is that from... she was all worried the baby was going to come out wired for stress for life.  Oh yes, Knocked Up.  I'm not sure if that's true but it is how I feel.  I need a relax day.  A ME day.  A day with no pressure, no guilt, no work, no kids.

Well now I am just complaining.  I need to SNAP OUT OF IT.  Whining to myself over a blog so everyone can read it.  I am going out of my mind.

Baby is healthy and active as ever.  I feel hiccups now and Cookie has them all the time.  You can easily feel baby from the outside doing everything like rolling, twitching, hiccups and not just kicking.  I think it's fun and I feel baby from the inside too!

My doctor appointment went well.  Cookie's heartbeat was at 152 bpm and s/he was irritated at the pressure of the Doppler on my belly.  That is one thing about this baby, s/he doesn't like pressure at all on my stomach.  Even the maternity band on my pants can get this kid ticked off. 

I am experienced with pregnancy so I had no questions related to that but I did ask quite a few questions about water births since that is the route I am planning on taking this time.  I want to go all natural, "I am woman hear me roar" style.  This may be a crazy idea.  I don't know.  Ask me in roughly 105 days when my due date approaches.  My doc did tell me something kind of weird that I hadn't heard before.  I guess they do a "quick test" for HIV on your routine blood tests and my "quick test" came back positive. He tells me this is quite common for pregnancy.  They are, of course, required to do the real test which OBVIOUSLY came back negative.  I do not have HIV.  I hadn't heard of this though.  Have you? 

The scale wasn't being nice that day and told me a tale I would rather not hear.  Am I eating salad and crunch on carrots all day long?  No.  I am not.  Am I drinking water until the cows come home?  No.  BUT I am eating small meals throughout the day and not gorging myself and am getting a hell of a lot more exercise than I got the last 2 pregnancies.  I think I am doing better than those pregnancies but the weight gain is still climbing steadily at a rate that I am not fond of.  Hopefully I can stick to my goal of 15 lbs less than what I gained with the other two.  You will have to trust me.  I can stand to gain 15 lbs less than those pregnancies and still have enough to spare.  My body packs on the pounds when a child is brewing.

Ok.  I am rambling and making a fool of myself enough today.  I am going to bed.  It will probably be more like a coma.  Until next week....

  

24 weeks

24 weeks.  Is this considered 6 months?  The way they measure pregnancy is ridiculous.  I'm 24 weeks but technically I'd really only be 5 months.  They say pregnancy is 9 months but really you are pregnant for roughly 40 weeks which if you are measuring every 4 weeks would be 10 months.  This is a constant bicker back and forth between Max and I.  Not a bicker, more like a friendly banter.

I'm rambling.  This should give you your first clue to how I feel.  I'm beyond tired. (I know I say this every week.)  Thankfully, this has nothing to do with my pregnancy.  I am so fortunate to have had 2 healthy, easy full term pregnancies and this pregnancy is proving to follow in those footsteps as well.  October has been insane for photography so I spend 10ish hours a day watching kids, make dinner, spend time with my family and once the kids are in bed I am up all night editing photos.  I am overdoing it right now.  I acknowledge it and understand why I am getting stern talks from family.  This is temporary.  I would never put Cookie in harms way but I don't think a lack of sleep will hurt Cookie too much.

Staying up all night just solidifies my knowledge that Cookie is on the opposite schedule.  S/he keeps me company as I am editing.  The baby really gets irritated when I am sitting at my computer chair for too long.  Things must be getting cramped in there!  I think I felt the hiccups a few times but as soon as it registers that the baby has been consistently doing something in there, it stops.  Of course.

This is also my first pregnancy to have my belly button pop out.  It doesn't show in my picture but it has popped.  I never found that to be attractive on a pregnant belly but one can't choose I guess!  I think Dex and Simon have gotten the baby confused with my belly button and always motion to my belly button when talking about the baby or when they want to kiss the baby.  The baby isn't anywhere else in this belly of mine. 

Today is the first day that I have felt uncomfortable.  Nothing severe mind you.  Come on, I have been 39 weeks pregnant at the end of July... nothing compares to that.  I think the baby was sitting as far out in my belly as possible and it just made all my movements kind of awkward and made moving around a little tougher.  It's a 3 step process to get myself off the floor (which I do often being a daycare provider) and oh man, hiking up the stairs with the 1 year olds in my arms is a work out.  If I don't gain as much this pregnancy I know it will be because of those stairs.  I have had to consciously give up holding two of the babies at a time which is really annoying because it makes for extra trips for me.  Each kid is roughly 25 lbs so its probably not smart to regularly lift 50 lbs at a time.  I know what you are thinking... you are right.  I have some guns on these arms :)  Ask my husband.  I look puny but I bet I pack a punch.  Oh yeah.

I have my 24 week apt on Monday so I will have some direct baby news to report then and, ugh, knowledge of my weight gain.  Dumb.  And I made my apt for after lunch so I could coincide it with the boys' wellness checks so dog gone lunch will show up on the scale as well. 

23 weeks

Late.  Whoops.  This is the first time I forgot.  I remembered last night that I forgot my Friday picture but I was schnazed up for a date night with the hubs and my outfit would have been way too much of a pain in the arse to get my belly to show so we took my photo today.  2 days late. 

This was a very tiring week.  Extremely bad timing as I have SO MUCH to do once the kids go to bed.  I have mountains of photos to edit and if I am tired my creative gene just goes out the window.  I wasn't just tired though.  Exhausted.  I am still exhausted.  I think I need a vacation.  I have too much on my plate right now.  Hopefully whatever is going on to cause me to be so tired will subside so I can get back to it and make it past 830 at night.

It is fun to watch my belly wobble and move with Cookie's kicks and jabs.  We weren't able to watch this sort of thing so early with Dex or maybe even Simon (I forget) but when Cookie goes to town dancing a way in there, my tummy wobbles all over the place.  S/he is also starting to kick things and it can be painful depending on what is kicked.  S/he is a very strong little bugger.  It's not a severe pain of course but enough to make me admonish the baby and try to press my stomach in an attempt to get baby away from what was being kicked. 

No other news for you.  Boring week.  I think exhaustion won over all other symptoms so there you go.  I am a boring bird.  Who goes to bed at 830.  Poo.

 

I had a pretty cute photo bomber this week!

22 weeks

Holy moses I almost forgot it was Friday.  I have SO much going on this weekend that being pregnant just isn't something I have time to think about.  Sorry Cookie.  I was about to hit the sack and it hit me that I turned 22 weeks today.  Well, Cookie did.

I do not have much to report this week.  With so much going on in life besides my pregnancy, I am extremely tired and pretty exhausted by the end of the day.  Thankfully Cookie is letting me sleep through the night now so I am getting more rest than I was last week. 

We did very well on our trip up to Grand Marais this past weekend.  We hiked and climbed and walked all day and I surprisingly didn't get sore at all.  Cookie was a champ and didn't let pregnancy slow me down.  Obviously we were much more careful about the trails we picked to climb on and my friends played the role of "Mom" and didn't let me get too adventurous but we had a great time.  Cookie's first get-away :)

We got the seatbelt fixed in my car so we were finally able to make sure all 3 car seats fit in the back of my Camry.  Yes, it is possible.  All fit perfectly fine and while we will be squished, everyone is buckled in safely and fit.  Now that I have the infant seat in the car (which I did only to test it), I am feeling really lazy and don't want to reinstall it later.  Maybe I will be like a first time Momma and have my seat set up crazy early.  Then I don't have to do it again when I am huge!  Sadly, my husband can't figure out how to belt them in properly.  I'm not lying.

Cookie has most definitely got his/her nights and days mixed up.  Baby has been very quiet during the day but as soon as, well right now (9 pm) hits there seems to be a little dance party happening in my belly.  Too bad I'm too tired to participate.  This will be incredibly fun to fix once Cookie is out of my belly (NOTE SARCASM).  I can't remember which of the boys were switched around but we got lucky and it only took a week to get him on the right schedule. 

Ok.  I have to go to bed now.  I honestly have a super busy weekend ahead of me and you will be lucky if I am even able to recover enough for week 23's post. 

21 weeks

I am brain fried.  I think we all should be happy I'm even capable of writing this today.  I have had major insomnia these last couple nights.  If even the slightest thing wakes me up at night, I have no ability to go back to sleep.  The combination of no sleep and running a daycare has me a bit frazzled and, well, brain fried.  I don't recall this particular thing happening when pregnant with the boys.  It's really annoying.  Granted, I am getting some reading done at night and have found Facebook really is completely dead at 3 in the morning but I really would prefer sleep.

Oh my ultrasound!  We saw our precious baby this past Monday.  It was amazing.  Cookie is growing directly on track for his/her due date.  They guessed he was about 12 ounces right now and everything is developing normally.  We got especially good pictures of his/her face and the facial features were so clear.  We definitely know there is no cleft lip, both lips were formed perfectly.  Cookie was asleep all morning until we walked into the room and then s/he was crazy!  It was fun not only feeling what Cookie was doing but seeing exactly what was causing those feelings on the screen.  The heartbeat was at 146 beats per minute.  My weight seems to be much better for this appointment.  Much easier to handle.  No.  I'm not telling you what it is.  I wrote it down in Cookie's journal so that I could track it there.  Then it's a secret.  Nosy peeps you are.

My belly is going to get so much bigger, this I know but holding two daycare kids at a time is getting a big excessive.  Going up the stairs 18 times to put everyone down for a nap is getting a little more tiring too.  My belly is definitely growing and starting to get in the way.  When Simon hangs on to my legs he really has to tip his head back to see my face.  It's pretty comical.  Soon he will just fall backwards if he isn't careful!

I gave up sleeping on my stomach a while ago but now I have to admit I shouldn't sleep on my back anymore.  I get a weird feeling in my lower back when I do and I know it's because the baby is too heavy to be laying on that nerve behind the uterus.  Bummer.  Just another reason why I can't sleep.  I take up way too much of the bed now because I try to get as close to sleeping on my stomach as possible but I have to jut out my leg so it hoists up my belly and it results in 2/3 of the bed being mine.  Technically, as I am 2 people, I should get 2/3 of the bed, right? 

Chocolate is amazing this week.  I have gotten to stuff my face with chocolate cupcakes, brownies and we always have butterfingers in the fridge now.  Yum-o.  I better watch this particular craving.  It could bit me in the butt... or just plain stay in my butt.