Week 33 belly pics, I haven't done them in forever!!!

For some reason, I feel like the camera/picture is taking away from the hugeness of my belly, like it should capture much rounder and larger! Oh well, here they are! They are taken in the "mothers room" at work, where I will get to pump once I go back to work!

the first pic is week 9, the one next to that in the reddish shirt is week 15, the one in the white sweater is week 25, and the bottom lefthand corner is week 33! I feel much bigger than the camera is giving me credit for!!! The funny thing is that each time I took one of the earlier pictures, even the 9 week one, I felt like I was huge. Now I look at them, and think, "will I ever be that small again?!?!"

Isabella Moving around

Here are 3 videos of Isabella moving around, hopefully they play!! (the red mark on my upper belly is a scab, I scratched a bug bite too hard a few days ago...) They might not display in the emails, you might have to check out the blog at http://babymartini2009.blogspot.com/ or watch them on youtube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99h3TYRZdZ0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBm8mKz7zFw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiMPpQ_s7Zw

7!

7 weeks left til Bella is officially her own person! She has a closet full of clean clothes (thanks to her aunties in Cali), an amazing baby room (thanks to her grandparents!), a huge and wonderful family all ready to go (spanning coast to coast).... now we just need her to arrive!

I feel like every other day is some new concern!! I pull a tummy muscle on Monday, fine for the next few, the baby stops moving for a stretch of time on Thursday...etc.... So I was only due for this, ha ha. Yesterday I started to feel sick at work, and wound up getting sick three times. I made it to the end of my shift and sped home and spent the rest of the night lying down. I took my temperature and the first reading came out 93.8 degrees!!! I got freaked out and waited 5 minutes and took it again and it was 95.6. I called Brian, who was at his aunt's house for their annual 4th of July celebration and talked to his mom, who is a nurse, who suggested I call the doctor, just in case. Bella was moving just fine, so I really wasn't worried, but the low temp freaked me out, I didn't want her shivering in there or anything, ha. The nurse had me take it again and it was at 96.1 that time, and stayed that way for the rest of the night. The nurse said to call back if anything changes or if I get sick again. Brian and Leslie left the party; she came over and took my blood pressure, which was high for me (I tend to be on the far low side of "normal"), but it was still in a safe zone and read my heart beat, which was in the 70s, took my temp with a different thermometer and it came back 96.1 again, so she made sure Brian stayed with me the rest of the night and I slept and ate crackers for the whole evening. Not how I anticipated spending the 4th of July, poor Brian missed all the good food that was just about to be served at the party (beer brats and cookies galore!) and he missed out on the family's annual horse shoe and badminton tourneys. And his cousin, who just had a baby was there, and was about to hold him when his phone rang! Sorry, babe! I feel much better today, a little sluggish and my back hurts for sleeping on my sides for so long, but overall, much better!!

Anywho...enough about me and my melodramas, here is what is going on with BellaReese this week:

How your baby's growing:


Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds, like the weight of a cantaloupe or a medium pumpkin! and is almost 18 inches long. Her fat layers — which will help regulate her body temperature once she's born — are filling her out, making her rounder. Her skin is also smoother than ever. Her central nervous system is maturing and her lungs are continuing to mature as well. If you've been nervous about preterm labor, you'll be happy to know that babies born between now and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine. They may need a short stay in the neonatal nursery and may have a few short-term health issues, but in the long run, they usually do as well as full-term babies.

Your baby kind of looks like she's coated in a layer of cream cheese these days. The thick, white substance that protects her skin from pruning in the amniotic fluid is called vernix. When she's born you'll probably see some vernix lingering in her "hard-to-reach" places like under her arms, behind her ears and around her va-jay-jay, if she's a she. Other news from the womb this week: The soft fur, lanugo, that covered your baby's body for much of her stay in the womb is now almost completely gone. Your baby begins to develop her own immune system, instead of relying solely on antibodies received through the placenta. This will come in handy when some grubby relative manhandles the baby without washing his hands first.This week, your baby measures about 17¾ inches, as almost as long as an American Girl Doll (!) and weighs almost 5 pounds, as heavy as a bag of sugar, minus the cup you put in your decaf this morning.

Your baby drinks about a pint of amniotic fluid a day.
You may gain a pound a week (500g) for the rest of your pregnancy.
Half of your weight gain will go directly to your baby.

The nails of your baby are now long enough to reach to the tip of the fingers or beyond and may need trimming as soon as they are born. They may scratch their face even before birth.


How your life's changing:


By this week, fatigue has probably set in again (yup!! I can sleep all day again if you let me!), though maybe not with the same coma-like intensity of your first trimester. Your tiredness is perfectly understandable, given the physical strain you're under and the restless nights of frequent pee breaks and tossing and turning, while trying to get comfortable. Nows the time to slow down and save up your energy for labor day (and beyond). If you've been sitting or lying down for a long time, don't jump up too quickly. Blood can pool in your feet and legs, causing a temporary drop in your blood pressure when you get up that can make you feel dizzy.

You are exhausted from hauling your bod around all day, so why can't you sleep at night? Is it because your bladder keeps crying out to be emptied every 30 minutes? Is it because you haven't been able to find a comfortable sleeping position since week 27? Is it because your mind can't stop making lists of things to do or replaying that shocking video you saw in your birthing classes? Yes, yes, and yes. It might comfort you to know you're not alone. Seventy-five percent of women in their third trimester have trouble sleeping (I actually don't have much trouble yet...sometimes if I get up to pee, it takes me a while to fall back asleep, and I can never truly get comfy or into a deep deep sleep, but I think I am pretty lucky still). Certain sleep positions will help you to be more comfortable and sleep better when you're pregnant. If lying on your back is making you dizzy or lightheaded try sleeping on your side. If you feel like bugs are crawling all over your legs in the middle of the night, get your partner to change the sheets. Just kidding. You might have restless leg syndrome, which commonly affects pregnant women (worst feelings ever!!! I just have to keep moving my legs and shaking them and scratching them, it is awful!). But it's still a good idea to have your mate do some laundry.

Birthday Celebrations

Bri and I spent the night of the 2nd at Grandma and Papa Shepards and had breakfast with them on my birthday morning and then headed back up to Madison to see the nursery. Aside from spending half the day just staring at the gorgeous nursery, I had a birthday barbeque dinner with my awesome hubby, the Krauss grandparents, the Martin Grandparents and my best friend, Erin. Afterwards, Grandpa Jim was anxious to get on the road to head back to Naperville so they didn't go out with us, but everyone else and I went bowling. They had a special orange pin that would rotate through the pins and eventually, if it made its way to the headpin and you got a strike on that turn, you won a free game. Everyone had at least one orange headpin through out our 2 games, but I was the only one to actually get a strike on it and win a free game! Pretty awesome! Here are a couple cute pictures of me and Erin.

I am not a believer in all the old wives tales when it comes to pregnancy, since most of them proved to be not true.; wives tales such as a lower heart rate means boy, if you crave cheese and meat it is a boy....both proved to be false for me. The only one, however that seems to have some validity this pregnancy is the way that we are carrying our babies. Erin is having a boy, and is only carrying out in front, and lower, not showing at all from behind. I, who am having a girl, is carrying high and wide, and is pretty obviously preggo from every angle. We are about 5 days apart from each other, due date wise, but her baby already out weighs mine by quite a bit. We don't think she will make it to August. For her sake, we hope she does, cuz her hubby is in Iraq right now and has a 2 week leave over her expected due date, so we are all praying the baby stays in until he comes home so he can be there for the birth!

I can't even believe pictures of me at this point! My belly is just huge! It is so unreal!

Happy 4th everyone!

The Nursery is done!!! and it is AMAZING!!!!

For my birthday, Grandma and Grandpa Krauss came up and did Isabella's nursery! We were "kicked out" of our house for 2 days while they did everything, so it was a complete surprise! We got the big reveal on my b-day, and it is probably the most amazing b-day gift ever!!! The only restriction on the room was there couldn't be a lot of pink! I had emailed G-ma Kelly a bunch of pictures of bedding styles that I liked, and she designed the room off a bedding set she found that encapsulated the designs I liked, with the ideas she had. We couldn't be happier.

We were talking about what I had wanted for the room after they had already started, and the only thing I wish we could have had "was bead board around the lower half, but I know that it is expensive and a lot of work, so really anything goes". Their response was "bead board is a little much, but I am sure you will like what we do anyways!" To my surprise, they had already put up bead board and went way beyond. Color-wise, I said I liked purple, and they said, we will have to see, so I really had no idea what they were going to do. It turns out, they had already painted purple on the walls. All in all, they combined bead board and the most gorgeous soft purple color to make the room amazing!

I hadn't originally wanted purple either, I felt it was maybe to "girly", but on a walk with Big City a month and a half or so ago, we walked past a lilac tree, and the smell reminded me of when Grandma Marcie would make my sisters and me get out of the car if we drove past a lilac tree and were stopped at a red light and pick her a bunch from a branch and then run back as fast as our little legs would carry us and hop back in before the light changed and the whole car would fill with that lilac scent. So, after seeing the tree in front of some strangers house, I picked a bunch and continued to walk and sniff it the whole way home, and it just made me smile and so happy, and to be honest, that emotions I felt at the memory surprised me! I hated getting out of the car to pick them as a kid, we always thought, how embarrassing!??!?!?, but the memory my mom doing that with me as kid as I am about to have a daughter of my own to embarrass is just so powerful....the thought of both of Bella's maternal Grandma's personalities and essences emanating from the room is just heartwarming!! I don't even think Grandma Kelly knew about the lilac story, but it all just fits so amazingly in my head! Here are the pictures, taken on my iPhone, so the quality isn't amazing and you can't really appreciate the detail and the color of the walls, but I think you can still get a good enough idea of how amazing the room is:

The view when you open the nursery door and look in. The espresso colored crib is on an angle in the corner. There are 2 green toy baskets on each side, and the blanket, bumpers and crib skirt are a green toille (spelling?). The blanket has a super soft and fuzzy cream trim around the toille with little green bows in the corner. It is so amazing! Another gift for us is the crib! They bought it for us, which was so incredible of them! Grandpa put up all the bead board and molding and then painted them cream. The ladder shelf was from our bedroom at our last apartment, I was so glad it could be used again. On the bottom shelf is the blanket that great grandma Lorraine made her and then the shelf up is a toy or two and a little photo album, above that is a piggy bank and the top shelf is a wooden bear, and a giraffe and pretty pink and purple card Grandma Leslie gave us for the shower.
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In this picture, you can see more of the rug that is on the carpet, you can see more of the amazing picture grandpa Jim painted for her, the shelf above has some of my favorite teddy bears, including one of the ones I made her and then the picture above the shelf is a black and white one with birds/leaves and sticks on it.

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A better shot of the crib and teddy bear shelf
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another angle of the shelf and painting
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That's right!!! I finally have a painting of my father's!!!! Granted, it is really Bella's painting, but I will take what I can get!! It is so pretty!!! So it says Bella in the middle, and then etched above the "Bella" in very small black writing it says "ISA", ha. There is a little bit of the green bedding motif in the lower right hand corner, and then glitter over her name. The painting is called "Sweet Dreams Bella" and it is just fantastic! I am almost crying just thinking about it! I am so happy that this is something she can have for always, a one of a kind piece that is just for her. I am one proud mama!
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This is a view from the ladder shelf. The door to the room is on the right. They brought the furniture piece up with them. Originally, it was painted black, but they repainted it cream and added the changing table pad and basket for wipes/lotions and baby creams. Since the room is on the small side, we couldn't fit a changing table and a dresser, so we combined it into one, and have tons of storage in the cabinets underneath the changing pad. Above that is a mirror and then above that is a second shelf with all my old favorite teddy bears, including my all time favorite and security teddy that I have had since I was 6, Scruffy, which I am happily passing on to her! There is a diaper holder attached to the wall that matches the bedding. It is so perfect!! These pictures don't do any justice to just how cute the room really is!!
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Another view of the changing area. In the corner, on the window ledge, is a teddy bear and a picture of Brian and I from our wedding, and then the space next to window will eventually have a picture hanging, probably one of the ones of Brian and me that Randi took when I was 25 weeks pregnant. They thought of everything!!! There is room on the other side of the window as well, where we will probably put a cutie picture of her once she is born
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A closer view of the crib and bedding, with of course, a teddy bear in the crib!
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The decorative pillows that are in the left hand corner of the crib
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The curtains
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This little placard is right next to the door as you are leaving her room.
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The one major hit of pink in the room, which is just the perfect amount!

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The view of the closet from the corner by the changing area. There is now a little 3 shelf unit that my dad painted from white to cream and added molding to, that sits in front of the outlet...I forgot to get a picture of it after we put it in. The floral picture above the bead board is of a red flower, that matches the shapes of the flowers in the rug pictured above.
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A picture of the teddy bear shelf
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A picture of the sign hanging above the closet
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And one last look of the amazing job that they did!!!

I can't believe the room is ready and the baby is almost here!!! I feel so much better knowing she has such a cozy place to come home to! Thanks again, guys, you did such a spectacular job, Brian and I love it more than we could ever explain!!!!