Baby Shower & Nursery Updates

First, thank you to everyone that was able to attend the shower this weekend. I had a a great time and felt so blessed to have such amazing family and friends to share this experience with. A special thank you to my hostesses (Robyn, Ashley, Angela & Jen) for going above and beyond what I had expected to make this day special. The slideshow on the left of the page has been updated with some pictures from the day for those of you that were unable to make it.

Justin and I decided that we would announce her name at the baby shower so I guess its time to make it known to everyone that's been keeping up with us via the blog as well. We've chosen Brianna Blakely. Blakely is in honor of Justin's best friend, Blake, and my sister, Ashley. Both are very special to us and we're delighted to honor them in this way.

Work on the nursery continued this weekend with Justin and Ashley spending many hours painting bumblebees on the walls. I've included some pictures below of the progress. When its all done, we'll have a border of circles around the top of the room and all the bumblebees will have their dot paths behind them. We'll also have black & white check curtains on the window to match the bedding. I personally think its the most adorable nursery I've ever seen, but then I freely admit that I'm a bit biased!

I think that's all the updates for today! Brianna and I will be seeing the doctor again this week so if she does anything funny again, I'll share it with you.

Love you all,

Lucretia

Nursery Progress to Date

We finally got the basics of the nursery done last night! The walls are now painted and the wallpaper border's up. We had so much fun last night finishing up BB's nursery and wanted to share a couple pictures of what it looks like at this point. The next step is to do all the detail painting on the walls and of course, have the furniture delivered. We're painting bumblebees, vines and a scripture on the walls this coming weekend after the baby shower. Here's what it looks like now and I'll post pictures of the progress next week.

The scripture we've chosen is Psalms 139:14, which is one of my personal favorites. The verse is as follows:

I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my souls knows it very well.

Love you all,

Lucretia

Ugh ... the 3-Hour Test

Okay, so I failed the 1-hour glucose test last week and now have to go through the 3-hour version. Its scheduled for tomorrow (Tuesday) morning so we'll see how it goes. Here's hoping and praying that I pass it!

As for the rest of last week's prenatal appointment, all is well. The drink really wasn't that bad at all, much better than I expected it to be. Baby Nesbitt gave our OB nurse, Holly, quite the giggle. Every time Holly placed the fetal dopplar on my belly to get a heartbeat, she'd kick it. The first time, I thought maybe it was just coincendence but after the fourth time of her kicking the monitor as soon as Holly tried to get a heartbeat, we were both in stitches, which didn't help. Apparently, she didn't like something about the whole experience!

Let's see, what else. I've gained 16 pounds to date so pretty happy with that. Everything else is right on track and I'll now be seeing my doctor every two weeks. I'm not sure when we'll have a sonogram again, but can't wait to see what our little one looks like. She's strong enough now that pretty much every kick or movement makes my tummy move as well, which has the tendency to freak out a few of my non-parent male co-workers when they see it happen unexpectedly! The look on their faces is priceless!

I think that's about it for now. I'll post some pictures from the shower and a nursery update next week.

Love you all,
Lucretia

Bye Bye Toes!

So, we're at 27 weeks and 5 days now ... that means there's roughly 87 days left till our due date. That's also only 44 days of work, not counting time off for vacation (yeah!). I have one more business trip scheduled and then I won't set foot on an airplane again until May 2009. That also means no more hotel stays or hauling luggage thru an airport security line and most importantly, no more trips to the cold north called Minneapolis until this time next year.

What this does mean is baby showers, nursery decorating, nesting, shopping for that perfect "coming home" outfit and the fact that I can't see a thing past the top of my belly ... Not even my belly button, much less my toes!

Can you tell I'm getting excited about the prospect of Bubbles' arrival yet? And for all of you that have been asking what I look like now, here's a picture to show you just what I mean.

All is well with me and except for the normal pregnancy aches, pains and general stuff, I still feel really good. Sleeping, or not sleeping actually, is starting to get a bit more frequent. Of course, it doesn't help that the dog, cat and Justin seem to think I'm the only heater in the house. If it gets the least bit chilly, it doesn't take long for one or two of them to decide they need to cuddle up with me. Cleo (the cat) has decided that kneading her paws on my side is her new favorite game. She'll knead her paws for a few seconds, then stop while the baby pushes back, then start up again. Neither one seems to care that I'm caught in the middle of their little game.

Work on the nursery will be starting soon now that the bedding has arrived. My sister, Ashley, has gratiously offered her design and artistic services to create a unique nursery for her niece. Once she's completed the work, I'll be sure to post a few pictures of it. I'm sure that it will turn out better than I could even imagine.

Let's see ... next Monday is the dreaded 1-hour glucose test and I'm really hoping I don't fail it as I have no desire to subject myself to the 3-hour version. I've heard all about how nasty the sugar drink is so once I've had the pleasure of the experience, I'll weigh in on if its as bad as I've been told. I'm also not too thrilled about getting up on the scale. I feel as if I've ballooned in the last week, despite my best efforts to exercise and eat healthy. If the look on Justin's face when I got home from the airport last night is anything to go by, it could be interesting. Being the good husband that he is though, he quickly gave me a huge hug and told me I looked beautiful. That, combined with a crazy boxer bouncing all over the house and making me laugh, successfully averted a melt-down.

That's it for now. I'll let everyone know how the doctor's visit goes next week. Wish me luck!

Love you all,

Lucretia

Baby Moves

Baby Nesbitt now has a new nickname ... Bubbles! That's because now that's she's moving around all the time, the best description I could come up with for Justin was a bubble machine going off inside. Of course, it was a tiny bubble machine a few weeks ago and I'd tell him she was doing flip-flops from one side to the other. Now that she's getting stronger, its bigger bubbles mixed in with a few kicks for good measure.

In fact, she's big enough that Justin was able to feel her for the first time Friday night! I think she was practicing gymnastics Friday night and after a few good kicks that I could feel, I thought we'd see if she'd cooperate and say hello to her daddy. Sure enough, she gave him three solid kicks to let him know she's there. All he could say was "goofy girl" with a big smile on his face! I don't think he was expecting it to be quite so strong.

I imagine in a few more weeks, there will be no more bubbles and I'll be wishing for the nice easy movement of the last few weeks. For right now though, its pretty exciting to be able to tell she's getting bigger and stronger every day!

Love you all,
Lucretia

The Nursery

Now that we know we're having a little girl, all kinds of conversations have started around our house, least of which is what to name her. You all will have to wait for that decision until she's born though! We've decided to keep it a secret so that you all have a little something to look forward to, as if her arrival isn't reason enough! ;-)

The next major topic of conversation has been how to decorate her nursery. Justin and Ashley have been a huge help through this whole process, putting up with my multiple ideas and pictures of bedding I want their opinions on. I believe we've finally decided on bumblebees as the theme and the bedding pictured above from JoJo Designs. The next step is to start painting and decorating the walls, all of which I'm leaving in Justin & Ashley's capable hands as they have a much better eye for that kind of thing than I do.

Her nursery furniture is from Munire Furniture and the crib is pictured in the second shot. We opted for a lifetime crib that will convert to a full size bed so that it grows with her. Hopefully, that means she won't need any new furniture for several years, or that's the idea at least!

In addition to picking out bedding and nursery themes, Justin and I almost have our baby registry ready to go. I had no idea until we started this process just how many options were out there and how much you could get for a baby! Thank goodness for online product reviews and the help of a few good friends (Robyn & April!) to tell me what I really do need and what I only think I need. I'm sure there will be a few things that get left off, or added on, that fall into one of those two buckets but the basics are covered.

That's all for now. Hope everyone has a great week!

Lucretia

It's a Girl!

Well, yesterday was the big day. We had our 20 week sonogram that checked the baby's development and of great excitement to us, we were able to find out the gender. We're happy to announce that we're having a baby girl and everything is normal and on schedule according to all the developmental markers. Below's a couple pictures from the sonogram, not that I expect everyone to be able to decipher them but I wanted to share them with you anyway.

In the picture on the left, the white straight line on the left side is her femur developing. Her profile is in the middle and just to the left of her profile, slightly below her chin is her heart. You can somewhat see her spine, which is the top light line that runs from under her heart to the left side of the image. The right picture is a close up of her profile, which shows a bit more detail, such as the eyes, which are closed, and a better image of her heart. What we weren't able to capture was her little arms and hands, which she kept waving around. Justin and I did get to see her little fingers a few times but she was too quick for us to capture it on film. The most important thing was that all the developmental markers show she's right on schedule for being at 20 weeks.

I have to say that we had a bit of a mixed reaction to the news. Justin's first reaction was "well, there goes playing with trucks and tools...guess I'll have to learn how to have tea parties now". All the pre-planning I had done regarding the nursery was for a boy as well so when we picked out furniture and bedding, we were somewhat back to square one. Of course, we're thrilled regardless but we were more prepared for a boy. I have to say, finding bedding or a nursery theme we like that's not pink, purple or pastels is proving to be a bit of a challenge!

In addition to all the news from yesterday, I've started feeling her move consistently during the day. Friday was the first time I felt anything more than a slight nudge. I swear she was doing flip-flops! Now, I feel her moving around off and on all day long. She's pretty active in the mornings but seems to slow down in the afternoons. The evenings are a bit hit or miss but I've woken up a few times in the middle of the night to find she's pretty active. I'm hoping that isn't a foreshadowing of things to come!

Overall, we're very happy that she's healthy and developing on schedule. We're in the process now of finding nursery themes, decor and the all important decision of picking out a name. As for me, I'm doing well. I gained 8 pounds this month (gasp!) but given I hadn't gained any weight at all until now, they assured me this was fine. By this point, according to several pregnancy sites, normal weight gain is 10 pounds so that made me feel much better. I think that's about all the updates for now. Thanks for taking time to read through the latest in our journey!

Love you all,

Lucretia