24 Weeks

I'm 24 weeks along now.  The baby is now about a foot long and weighs about 20 ounces.  So for now the baby is long and skinny.  Babycenter.com says to imagine an ear of corn.  Within the next few weeks baby will be filling out more and more.  Right now the lungs are developing some more and the taste buds are also continuing to develop. 

This past week has not been as eventful for me as past weekends have.  Both Matt and I have been sick.  Let me tell you, being sick is no fun - but being pregnant and sick is even worse.  There is just not much one can take to alleviate the symptoms.  Lucky for Matt he was able to take enough to still enjoy his trip to Las Vegas.  Unfortunately we have both still been feeling bad enough that he hasn't had a chance to tell me much about his trip.  We are starting to feel better and sleep better now so hopefully by the end of this week we will be able to sit down and talk about it.

I went shopping with my mom to get fabric for the baby's room.  We found a great print there and just need to show Norleen what I want to do with it so she can let us know how much fabric to buy.  Other than that, I spent most of my weekend resting and watching basketball (Go Marquette!)

In exciting news, Matt was finally able to feel the baby move!  Each time we sit down to watch tv I have him put his hand on my belly.  Of course that is almost always when the baby is sleeping.  But on Monday night as we sat there with his hand on my belly, I felt a big kick and at the same time Matt really perked up.  I looked at him and said, "You felt that, didn't you?"  He just smiled and said, "Well I guess there really is something in there.  You aren't just using this as an excuse to eat Hot Fudge Sundaes and really let yourself go huh?"  It was quite exciting!  I'm glad he finally got to feel it.

On to this week's belly shots:

I'm noticing that this larger belly is starting to make my legs look skinnier.  I'll take what I can get!

This weekend we plan to go register.  To my knowledge, my first baby shower won't be until the end of May, but time keeps creeping away from us!  Plus my good friend Staci said she would help us which is AWESOME!  Thanks Staci!  So that's the plan for this weekend.  Hopefully nursery work will get going soon too!

23 Weeks

I'm now 23 weeks along.  The baby is over 11 inches long now and also over a pound!  Babycenter.com is saying that it is about the size of a mango this week.  Thebump.com is sticking with the papaya for this entire month.

One of the big developments this week is that the baby can now feel ME move.  Matt still has not been able to feel the baby move yet, so maybe I need to get it all riled up right when he gets home from work.  We'll see if that works.  If not, I'm sure it will only be a couple more weeks that he will be able to feel it anyway.  The other developement this week is that the baby's hearing is getting better.  I have been talking to him/her a bit, but I suppose I will start doing it more now. 

We went to the St. Patrick's Day parade downtown this past weekend.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day and we ended up having a lot of fun!  I forgot my camera, but my sister brought hers so I will post some pictures as soon as I get them from her.  Matt and I had a very new experience at the parade.  Instead of looking around and saying, "Wow, what a nice float!"  Or, "Look at what that guy is wearing . . . hahahaha!"  We kept looking at parents and saying, "Hey, check out that stroller!  "Oooh, look at that Bjorn!"  And of course we had a gem from Matt saying, "We will NEVER do that baby comb over thing to our kid!"  Needless to say we have never been so aware of parents and babies before in our life!  Matt especially liked seeing the dads wearing the Bjorn.  He said to some of the others that were with us, "This year Caitlin is carrying the baby up front.  Next year it's gonna be me!"  He is quite excited about the Bjorn.  As much as I hate to say it, I think I can thank the movie The Hangover for that one!

We have not made much progress on the nursery.  We DID pick out paint colors last night, but apparently we picked some difficult colors because they need the paint specialist to come in and mix them for us.  So we will pick those up tonight, but Matt is going to Las Vegas this weekend so we will have to wait a while to actually get the paint on the walls.  Mom and I plan to go fabric shopping this weekend for pillows, curtains, seat cushions, etc.  So while the nursery is not showing any physical progress, we are making SOME.  Here are the colors we are thinking about right now.  They actually look quite a bit different in real life, but you will get a general idea:

 

The two aqua (they look bluer on the screen and greener in real life) colors will be put on the walls and the orange color will be used as accent.  For the accent I'm thinking of the curtains, seat cushions, pillows and I have a rug picked out too:

We'll see how it all comes together soon enough.  I may have to tweak some of my ideas along the way, but this is just what I'm thinking of right now. 

Anyway, on to this week's pictures:

Baby is getting big!  I could actually SEE him/her move in my belly the other day.  I was SO wishing Matt was home since I know he would have felt it for sure.  All in due time I suppose.  Anyway, I guess that's it for 23 weeks.  Matt's heading to Vegas this weekend and the following weekend we will go register.  Fun fun!

Week 22 Belly Shots

Silly me!  I got so caught up in my birthday photos yesterday that I forgot to put up this week's belly shots!  I suppose you can see it a little bit in the pictures in the previous post, but there is no profile so it's kinda hard to see.  Apparently I am FINALLY actually looking pregnant instead of just a little bit chubby!  Here are this week's pictures:

22 Weeks

22 weeks along!  This weeks fruit/vegetable according to babycenter.com is a spaghetti squash.  According to thebump.com it is a papaya:

Photo Courtesy of thebump.com

Baby is approximately 11 inches long and almost a pound!  According to the ultrasound last week, our baby is right there at about 14 ounces.  There is not too much information given about the baby's development this week other than the pancreas is forming.  Other than that, baby is gaining fat and his/her features are becoming more distinguishable.

In mom and dad news, we had yet another eventful weekend.  I mentioned in my post last week that I celebrated my 30th birthday.  Well this weekend was my birthday party.  The party turned out wonderful!  We had it at a bar not too far from our house called The Sports Pub.  It was a great night filled with friends, family and a lot of good food!  Speaking of food, Matt decided to go all out on the cake.  He figured we weren't going to spend any money on buying me drinks, so we may as well get a good cake.  He ordered it from Sarah's Cafe and Bakery (the same place we got our wedding cake) and he even got the same flavors as our bottom two tiers of the wedding cake.  So good!  Here are some pictures from the party:

Drinking a fruity "cocktail"

Conor and Aunt Tammy - The first guests

Aunt E getting some baby time

The Family minus the in-laws

The beautiful cake

Matt also took a video of everyone singing Happy Birthday to me.  The bar was kinda loud, but you could still hear the song.  Pretty funny:

I had a lot of fun!  Thank you to everyone who came to help me celebrate.  30 is going to be a great year!

A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

Well it turns out that Baby Vogt is a mover and a shaker!  During our ultrasound yesterday, the baby would not hold still for the technician to get a good picture of it.  We did get a couple decent pictures, but nothing like I have seen some other people get.  Without further ado, here are some pictures of our beautiful baby:

Profile:

 Profile with mouth open (I think this one looks a little cartoonish):

Baby's hands (curled up into little fists):

A blurry look at the feet:

So there's our baby!  Isn't he/she cute?  I cannot stop looking at the pictures! 

We (or more accurately I) decided not to find out the sex of the baby, however we both had a couple thoughts after seeing the baby on the screen.  Right when the ultrasound technician put the wand on my belly I saw the face and thought, "Wow, there's my baby boy!"  This is interesting because I have said from Day 1 that I think it's a girl.  For the record, I'm still going with girl, but could this be a bit of mother's intuition kicking in?  I guess we'll find out in July!  Also, Matt THINKS he saw a penis.  However when really questioned about this he said, "Well, it could've been a penis.  Then again I don't really know WHAT I was looking at.  It really could've been anything for all I know."  So there is some very unofficial, very unscientific proof that it is a boy.  HA!

Matt also thinks the baby has my nose and my lips.  You can't see it in the picture above, but the baby had really big lips in a couple of the shots we saw.  Of course he/she could have just been puckering or the lips could have been swollen a bit, but I'll take it for now.  Matt also thinks he saw a penis, so who knows?  I suppose we'll see how good Matt's ultrasound reading is come July.  If he is right on all these points, we may have to rethink his career choice.

As I mentioned earlier the baby is a mover!  It was so cool to see all the little baby movements and mannerisms.  He (or she) kept arching his (or her) back and then curling up.  It's little arms and legs were just flailing around like crazy too.  So freakin' cute!  I'm not so sure I will think it's so cute if all this movement keeps up when the baby is out of me, but for now it is adorable!

I have not been able to stop smiling since we saw the baby and also since the doctor told us that it looks VERY healthy.  Everything is developing correctly and it the right size.  I'm one happy mama!

21 Weeks

As of Monday, I am 21 weeks along!  On to the fruits and vegetables for this week.  According to babycenter.com, the baby is the length of a carrot.  Thebump.com says a banana:

Photo courtesy of thebump.com

The fruits and vegetables are becoming increasingly inconsistent, but whatever, it's still kinda fun!  So from head to toe the baby is about 10.5 inches long and weighs about 12.5 ounces!  The big news this week is that the baby's movements are getting stronger.  I can attest to that as I am feeling it move much more frequently!  It's pretty cool!  I can't wait for Matt to be able to feel it from the outside, but so far that hasn't happened. 

We had another busy weekend full of LOTS of eating!  I swear if I keep this up I am going to gain 50 pounds with this pregnancy.  We started on Friday night with Dewey's.  My friend Kerri was in town for a class she had to take so we thought we'd take her out.  Of course when you have a friend in town that has never been there, you have to take her to Ted Drewes!  YUMMY!  Saturday was my birthday.  We started the day with Rick coming over to help move some of the stuff out of the baby's room.  Matt and Rick took 2 trips and Rick and Gerry have graciously let us use their basement for storage!  Now we just have to get those beds out of there!  As soon as the stuff was moved, we picked up my mom and headed to Adriana's.  I have been craving it for a while now so being my birthday and all, we couldn't pass it up!  Adriana even gave me my lunch for free since it was my big day!  After lunch, we headed out to Treasure Rooms to order some nursery furniture.  We ordered a crib and a dresser.  They will take a couple months to come in but they said it should all be here before the baby. 

When we got home, Matt and I started getting ready for dinner at Vin de Set.  Our good friend, Kirby, is one of the chefs there and although we had eaten his food before, we had never actually eaten at the restaurant!  The food was amazing and Kirby sent out not one but TWO desserts for us to share!  It was wonderful!  We headed back home to watch a couple episodes of Mad Men, but I only made it through one before the food coma hit and I was out!  On Sunday we went to mass first thing in the morning and on the way there, of course I was hungry again.  I mentioned to Matt that we should go out to breakfast.  So after mass we went to Chris's Pancake & Dining.  I had bacon, hashbrowns, toast and pancakes.  I could not leave without having them ALL.  And to top off the weekend of food, we went to my parents' house that night and had That's a Nice'a Pizza.

After that weekend, it will be interesting to see what my weight is at my doctor's appointment tomorrow!  Yes, we have an appointment tomorrow AND the big ultrasound!  We are really excited to see the baby.  Last time we saw it, it just looked like a little gummy bear.  It will be so cool to see it looking like a baby this time!  I'll post pictures soon!

Speaking of pictures, here are this week's belly shots.  Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures, I think the flash was turned off!  My belly is getting quite a bit bigger and really rounding out this week (although I don't know if it is baby or food that is making it do that).  Matt even said as he was taking these pictures, "Ummm, hun, your gut is kinda hanging out."  Yea, thanks Matt!

Next week will not be too much different than this week foodwise, so I have been drinking my smoothies and trying to eat as healthy as possible during the week to prepare.  Matt said to me that if we keep eating like this he's really gonna have to start running again.  Then he looked at my belly and said, "And you, well, you've really let yourself go."  He's such a smartass!