Music/Story Group!

It's Tuesday, which means it's music and story time at Green Mountain Birth Connections in Bennington. Wes is about 10 months now, and has so much fun at this play group!

38 weeks, and pre-baby fun times

38 weeks!

green beans + cherry tomato from the garden :)

testing out the birth pool

our eclectic 4th of July feast

daily yield of black raspberries from the garden

Hunter's chicken coop project

corn, beans, squash, carrots

green blueberries

35 weeks

Baby, you're all balled up into a little basketball!! Okay, a very BIG basketball!  I can't believe how much my belly is just sticking out there!  Can't wait to meet you- could be in only a couple of weeks!  We're almost done gathering all the supplies for the homebirth, and the team home meeting is next week!  So very exciting :)

34 Weeks

Only 3 weeks until I'm 'full-term'!  Below are some pics of the changing station/nursery nook I set up for baby with the help of all the wonderful items we received at my baby shower back on June 1st.

30 weeks + the new house!

Hunter working away at our future vegetable garden

Part of our backyard

My mother-to-be Mother's day present from Hunter :)

Our front yard on a beautiful sunny morning

30 weeks already?!  Not sure where all the time has gone.  Now the countdown really begins.

26 weeks

Can't believe there are only 14 weeks to go!

6 months?!

       Okay so somehow I'm only a few days shy of reaching the 6-month mark!  Not sure how that happened so quickly, but I guess looking at these photographs somewhat explains it.  My belly has thankfully slowed it's rate of expansion at last, but it definitely hasn't stopped growing.  I'm so grateful that the nausea/morning sickness are things of the past!  It's a lot easier to enjoy the pregnancy now, since my worst symptoms are mild swelling and occasional foot/leg cramps.  I feel the little guy/gal moving almost constantly!  It's amazing. I think the longest I've gone without feeling a kick is a couple hours.  I love laying down and watching my stomach bounce around while baby twists, turns, punches and kicks!  If I haven't felt he/r in a while, I just put my hand on my stomach, wait a little bit and, sure enough, s/he gives me a jab or two.  Thankfully none of the kicks hurt (yet) so hopefully it stays that way as long as possible.

       I'm so excited to be having a home birth! We reserved a birth pool and are looking into taking a hypnobirthing course.  I'm also taking prenatal yoga, which has been going well so far.  Oh and to think we'll be moving into our new house in the next couple weeks! So many things at once.  Hunter and I have been talking a lot about our plans for homesteading- we can't wait.  Vegetable/herb garden, chicken coop, berry bushes, compost, fire pit, fresh baked bread, and more!

Now onto the photos:

Had to add one of our first baby, Semi.  She thinks she's much smaller than she actually is!

22 weeks

24 weeks

24 weeks

21 Weeks

The night Erika got home for spring break! Too bad she's not in the picture. She's taking it though :)

Eating at usual! Baby makes me hungry all. the. time.

Had to include a pic of the big-sister-to-be

 

 

21 week bump!

I can feel the baby kicking and moving all the time! So far, Hunter, Erika and Katie have all been able to feel it.  She wakes me up at night too sometimes, from rolling around all over (yes, I call her 'she' even though we don't know the gender. Better than 'it', right?). Can't believe we're already passed the halfway point!

17 Weeks

16 weeks

I thought this was a cool video that sums up the next few weeks of the baby's development, so I decided to share it.

And then of course I need to post the weekly produce comparison.  Apparently baby is now the size of an avocado.  This avocado is rather unripe and mis-shapen, but most of the other pictures of avocados I found were sliced in half and I prefer thinking of baby in whole terms :)

Oh and I almost forgot to mention, I felt the baby moving the other day!  It was as I was slouched over at the computer and it felt like flutters and swishing... kind of hard to explain. But so cool.  Then I stayed in that position for another hour trying to feel it again but it didn't happen haha.  Since then I've felt the little guy squirming every once in a while.  I can't wait until a few weeks from now when Hunter will be able to feel it too.

No new cravings, still clinging to my chocolate milk and oranges :) I'll post a new bump picture as soon as I can get Hunter to take one with me, because there isn't enough of him on this page!

15 weeks and growing!

Cravings this week... Chicken and chocolate milk! Mm mm can't get enough of it.  Unfortunately I have that really annoying pregnancy symptom where you get a horrible taste in your mouth, especially after eating.  But I've got a good routine going of 'eat, chew gum, eat, chew gum, repeat..."

We technically could find out the gender now but we're going to hold off, hopefully until the very end.  I'm almost 100% sure it's a girl though- I've just got a feeling.  I've heard such 'feelings' can be wrong, and often are, but I'll believe it when I see it!

Baby is approximately the size of an apple right now.  And below is a picture of what he/she looks like this week.  Since we probably aren't having any more ultrasounds unless absolutely necessary, I'm grateful we've got the internet to allow us to see how the little apple is growing and changing each week.

Heartbeat

Here's a video of the first time we heard our baby's heartbeat, at about 10 weeks gestation (and on January 1st- our anniversary!).  My midwife was so surprised by how quickly and easily she found the heartbeat (usually wouldn't be so easy for another few weeks at least), that she thought I was actually a whole month further along!  We found out a couple days later at our first ultrasound that I really was only about 10 and a half weeks pregnant, but the way my uterus was angled made it unusually easy to hear the heartbeat.

There is nothing sweeter to me than the sound of our baby's heartbeat <3 

Baby

We've got a little one on the way, due at the end of July (right around Hunter's birthday!).  We're both so excited and it's all I can think about, and not just because I'm still suffering from round-the-clock nausea.  I might have to take a break typing to run and throw up... :/

Here's a little timeline.

10 Weeks

 

 14 Weeks

 

The baby is supposedly only the size of a lemon right now, but it seems a whole lot bigger according to my exploding belly.