beet slaw and {week 26}

the hubby made a wonderful beet slaw. about 2 weeks ago, we had our first CSA pick up. CSA stands for community shared agriculture. it allows us to support a local farm while providing us some fresh produce and healthier eats. in our first pick up (it was a double pickup because December's pickup was canceled), we received 4 dozen eggs (that's a lot o'eggs. good thing protein is great for baby!), and a humongous batch of parsnips, turnips, carrots, beets, onions, and cabbage. :) we also got 2 pints of milk. everything is so fresh - it's been fun to try different recipes.

which brings me back to the slaw. he looked up a recipe and whipped up an amazingly tasty slaw. tonight i'm broiling salmon with some brown rice and shall gobble down some slaw too! :) thank you honey!

as for the preggo-ness, i am indeed pregnant! you know you're officially pregnant when people on the subway jump up and offer their seat - 3 people within 2 stops! it's a bit scary how quickly the belly has grown in the past 3 weeks. i know that it will continue to do so but i don't think i was quite ready for the speed at which it would grow. i'll have to take a photo so you can all see baby! :) i love watching my belly move around in quick twitches as baby kicks and punches. i love touching my belly and feeling certain hard round spots which i figure must be her head or her bum. :) it makes me feel so close to her! as if, i can almost touch her. :)

i wouldn't say i've begun nesting yet but we did have to purchase certain items - i.e. the crib and her baby dresser... soon, we'll be assembling it all and making room for baby. it's been weird to have so many changes but i guess that's when i'm thankful for a 10 month time frame to work within. if being preggo was only a 2-3 month affair, i don't think i'd be able to adjust! :) God knows what He's doing. :)

{week 24}

today marks baby week 24! at this point, baby is just over 1 pound and is almost 12 inches long! she's pretty lean but will apparently be plumping up soon. :) her brain is growing quickly now and her lungs are growing the respiratory branches. yay! my uterus is now the size of a soccer ball. wow. :) as you can see from the photo, the belly has grown!

baby girl is kicking up a storm. it brings such relief to me as when she kicks, i know she's doing well inside. this past week, we also booked our babymoon. where are we going you wonder? BARCELONA!!! :) i'm so excited to head out to europe again. my first and last time to europe was our honeymoon to greece. and it was absolutely amazing. this time around, we'll see beautiful architecture, lovely museums, and eat wonderfully tasty eats. mmm!

on monday, we see the doctor again and i take the glucose screening test. hopefully, all test results will come back negative and i will continue positively down this journey of pregnancy!

blessings and happy new year! what a year 2010 will be. :)

photo-riffic

i am so excited. earlier this week, i purchased my very first dslr. i have been eyeing these beauties for about 3 years now and always waited. when i found out i was pregnant, i realized that i really did want one of these to capture every moment with my baby gal. we started saving a camera budget and  after researching and asking around, i settled on this little 'not so little' guy. it's very exciting! 

my BIL has the nikon starter lens which he's agreed to give me so i'm very much looking forward to tomorrow evening when i not only get to see my sis and fam but also get to start taking photos with this new toy. :D oooh. i hope it's a good one!

it's a girl!

we learned today that baby is a girl. : ) for some reason, we thought baby would be a girl; to get confirmation is quite exciting. aside from finding out the gender, we were also informed that the development of the anatomy thus far looks good. yay for good news! :D what a true blessing.

another fun thing i just discovered. i can feel baby on the outside! for about 4 weeks now i've felt baby kicking on the inside but hubby could never feel anything. well, it's 3.30am right now so hubby will experience his first feelings of movement in the morn! 

time for this one and baby girl to try sleeping again... either way, come morning it's time to go to work! toodles... :)

pregnancy has been...

an interesting adventure thus far.

the good:

seeing baby on the ultrasound. hearing the heartbeat. feeling the baby kicking. watching hubby sing to my belly. eating more. anticipation of each little change that is to come.

the not-so-good:

feeling exhausted most of the time. lowered immune system leading me to be more sick than i have been in the last 2 years. inability to sleep through the night. 

of course the good outweighs (far outweights) the not-so-good. what a miracle conception and development is. to see the small embryo become a fetus and eventually become our baby is something almost unbelievable. i am reminded of God. He created all of this. how conception works, the perfection of a developing fetus, the amazing ability of a woman's body to give birth.... it is all 'unbelievably' amazing.

foliage filled boston

a lovely weekend with my sister, BIL and nephew. : )

my belly at the end of 14 weeks. my sis' belly post baby 7 months. crazy awesome!

jump for joy! it's been years since i've jumped around in a pile of leaves.

my adorable nephew in his bear outfit. : ) he's so cute...

i love you little one!!! if you only knew.

the hubby with baby. :) look at his adorable smile!

i could hug him forever. :) he has sausage links everywhere! i think one day he might just be a linebacker. hehe.

hello little pumpkin

i have some exciting news to share. i'm preggo! :) i'm at 13+ weeks which means i'm done with the 1st trimester. yay! it was filled with awe and excitement as well as much (MUCH) fatigue and uncomfortable nausea. the hubby says he sees more energy in me which is def a good thing.

we weren't trying, per say, but we were open to start trying in dec/jan so only off by 6 months. i feel so thankful that baby was created and has developed almost everything he/she will need for the future already... now for 6 months of maturing and continual developing. 

we found out at 5 wks and saw a tiny little dot on the sonogram. then 7 wks came and went with the sonogram showing a bigger dot and a yolk sac which is a dot resembling a small ring. at 9 wks, baby had a beating heart. :) and at 12 wks, we saw baby's big head and turkey-like torso. we heard the heartbeat and were told that things appear 'good' with baby. that is music to the ears of to-be parents.

being preggo has def brought lots of unexpectedness. in experiencing my own adventure, i realize that each mom to-be and dad to-be has their own special story. at 5 wks, the doctor felt we should be at 7 wks and didn't appear too confident in baby's viability because of how small baby was. also, my progesterone levels were too low so i was put on prometrium supplements. 2x a day for the next 7 wks. i was surprised how i could remember to take these pills every 9am and 9pm. i guess when it matters, it's easy to remember. 

each doctor's appointment brought hopes that baby had grown appropriately. you can imagine the excitement in seeing the heartbeat. it was a gray fuzzy beating little thing on the sonogram screen. :) i also didn't anticipate the extreme fatigue. the lazy lay on your butt all day long kind of fatigue. i thought i would never come out of it; though friends advised me that the fatigue does pass... 

now, we're past the 1st trimester, we saw and heard the heartbeat, and the belly is beginning to protrude a little. 

the less spoken part of being pregnant includes the nerves and anxiety related to the perception of how baby is doing. i realized early on the need to let go and really trust that God has it all under control. 

like this issue. to get or not to get vaccinated. at first i was mandated to get both the flu vaccine and the h1n1 vaccine as i am a hospital worker. but that ruling just got overturned in the NYS courts, so now it's really up to me. i've never gotten the flu vaccine which brings me concern. what if i have some majorly horrible reaction? and the h1n1 vaccine. that is a whole different story. it's such a new vaccine and no one really knows the long term effects. but then again, if i get the h1n1 flu, that can bring very serious consequences to not only me, but definitely baby. sigh... decision making for more than just me. that is very scary. what would you do if you were pregnant?

as wedding planning sheds light into marriage; it appears that being pregnant is appropriately the start of becoming a parent. baby is in good hands and i need to remember that.

that's the story thus far. :)