Third Trimester

28 Weeks, 6 Days

YAY, we are in the home stretch at last! Baby Sanchez is growing by leaps and bounds in my belly. It must be getting cramped in there - Baby Sanchez keeps pushing out just under my rib cage, off to the right, making a hard, funny bump on my belly! Its not so very comfortable to have my already stretched belly extra stretched because Baby Sanchez wants to show off how tall he's getting (somewhere between 15-17"). He won't be getting too much taller until after his birthday, but still has several pounds to gain. I finally get to split some of my weight gain with the baby!


Baby Sanchez has also started to make sleeping at night a little more difficult. I am up to sleeping with 4 pillows. Thank goodness we upgraded to a king size bed, because anything smaller and Fred would be sleeping on the floor! Once I've finally settled into a cozy spot, Baby Sanchez begins a fury of activity - apparently my cozy spot puts him all UNcozy. My belly squirms and jiggles while Baby Sanchez takes his time getting cozy too. If I switch sides, the squirming starts all over again!


The nesting instinct has come back in full force! Our middle "junk" bedroom is getting closer to being converted to the nursery. I would qualify what is left in there as "stuff" and not "junk." Its all going to find its way to organization soon, because we now have baby furniture! Yesterday we bought a crib and a dresser. I debated back and forth between the full-size convertible crib and the dropside, but I decided that once a crib goes though all of our children, I probably won't want to use it as a bed :-).

Anyway, time to finish up with nesting and get some sleep!

Omaha...Somewhere in Middle America

27 Weeks, 5 Days

So this week was pretty crazy! Fred, Baby Sanchez, and I all travelled up to Omaha, Nebraska, to visit my Aunt Paula and her husband, Buddy. Fred was already up in Iowa for work, so baby belly and I flew up there on Friday to meet him. I haven't been on a plane since finding out we were having a baby (maybe Baby Sanchez was already present when we flew back from Israel, but we didn't know it yet!), and Baby Sanchez was just kicking and moving like crazy when we were up in the air! I wonder if the change in air pressure has any affect on a baby in the womb?

Unfortunately, as we were beginning our decent to land in Omaha, the plane started getting very warm and stuffy. I can handle the heat, but my pregnant body can't even handle an over-full church on some Sundays. It was an agonizing 20 minutes with me thinking that I might pass out on the lap of the poor guy next to me. Poor guy - he was probably thinking the same thing and looked fairly worried! After we landed (finally!), I called ahead to have Fred buy me a water. Once I met up with them, I must have still looked pretty awful, because I noticed an airport staff person walk over and hover nearby with a wheelchair. Luckily, I didn't need it.

Saturday was fun. We went into Council Bluffs, Iowa, to the Union Pacific Museum, had lunch, and did some shopping. The Baby Gap had a Maternity section, so I took the opportunity to scope out the sale items. I think Fred is getting jealous of my growing belly and wanted to get in on some of the action. Gotta love the strap-on bellies in the maternity dressing rooms!

We had wonderful weekend and were both sad to leave this afternoon. Luckily, we had the front two seats for the flight home, and though the plane still got hot and stuffy, it wasn't nearly as bad up front.

I have another Doctor's visit tomorrow - I am taking the Gestational Diabetes test, so wish me luck!

Happy Mothers' Day!

26 Weeks, 5 days

Seriously, it looks like my belly just exploded this last week! Of course this photo was taken at about 10pm after a very long day, so my posture is probably not the best ;-). We are right at the 6 month mark - how crazy is that! It feels great though, to be rounding the corner into the thrid trimester. Nothing really new and exciting to report. Have I mentioned, though, that sometimes this baby throws such a party in my belly that it jiggles like JELLO? Its one of the craziest things I've ever SEEN happen to my body, especially since I have no control over it. Sometimes I will see a funny bulge push out on one side of my belly (& feel a little pressure in that spot) and then it will slowly go back to normal. On Monday I felt a rhythmic movement low in my belly, and either baby is getting ready for a career in playing the drums, or he had the hiccoughs! All is well. Have a great week!

What a Week!

25 Weeks, 5 Days

Its been a crazy fun week here for the Sanchez’s. The belly is getting bigger, and my crazy weight-gaining spree has slowed down. Generally I had just stopped getting on the scale except for trips to the doctor's office, but yesterday I was brave! The madness has finally come to a reasonable crawl. I feel like I am hungry ALL of the time, but have made an effort to always have fruit cut up and ready to eat for my snack times, and Fred and I have made a pact to not eat out if its just the two of us.

The other thing that started hapening this week that freaked me out at first was my first braxton hicks contraction. At least, since I've had one or two since then, I'm pretty sure that is what I'm having. I'll wait to check with the Dr. as long as they keep happening infrequently. These things are described as painless. What?!? Great, I can't wait to get to the real thing. Okay, so maybe I am exaggerating a little (or a lot) but it is seriously uncomfortable to have my belly turn into a tense little ball.

Tuesday was also our Baptism class at St. Vincent's. Not so much fun - especially since it coincided with many of our friends being at the Young Adult Mass next door. But good news is that it’s done. Of course we have yet to pick Godparents or ask a priest to do the baptism for us, but that’s okay.

Thursday I went to the OTC (Offshore Technology Conference) at Reliant Center for a few hours. Even though we were there on the last day and it wasn't very busy - we had to park forever away. One of the hospitality parking lot guys offered me a ride as I walked by (halfway through the walk). My first thought was, who, me? why? And then it dawned on me that I am obviously pregnant these days. I turned him down - I need my excercise, right? Well, on the way back my hip had just about had enough (though the rest of this pregnant lady felt pretty good!) and the same guy asked if I'd take the ride now - I said, "great!" Pregnant Lady Perks!

Today Fred and I went to BabysRUs and started our registry. There are seriously too many options! Sometimes I wish there weren't so many choices - I mean, there are bottles with disposable liners, bottles with special nipples, 3 kinds of special nipples for the bottles with the liners, bottles with special vent features, plain and simple bottles, and it just seems to go on and on! How is a girl supposed to know which one is best? We did finally figure out a car seat and registered for one of the two that did well in a recalled Consumer Report. We decided that if it passed at 70 mph (the reson for the recall, since US requires seats pas at 35mph), that's what we want for our baby.

Anyway, until next week!