25 Week Update

I've been crazy about reading pregnancy blogs lately and I've decided that I haven't posted nearly enough in mine to document this journey. I think I can be extra good about it for the second(ish) half of this pregnancy. So far, here's how it's going down:


How far along? 25 Weeks
Baby is the size of a: Rutabaga (which apparently is 13 1/2 inches long. Who knew.)
Total weight gain: 5 lbs. gained
Maternity clothes? officially abandoned the Bella Band and have made the jump into maternity pants - wish I had done this sooner! So comfy! I did buy an adorable belted maxi dress the other day and I can't wait for warm weather to wear it.
Stretch marks? none! Drinking LOTS of water has kept them at bay...for now...
Sleep: sleeping great again!
Best moment this week: picked out our glider! Can't wait for it to get here. The $ savvy hubs has convinced me to wait a few weeks to see if it goes on sale. It was very hard to leave Babies R Us without ordering it.
Miss Anything? sleeping on my stomach. I have been a stomach sleeper for my entire life. Before now I was so dang tired all the time I didn't care how I laid down just as long as I was getting to go to bed, but now not so much. I just want to get snuggly on my tummy again.
Movement: inconsistent at best, but something every day. Mostly jabs in the lower part of my stomach, but felt one up by my belly button the other day.
Food cravings: anything citrus or sour. I have been eating tangerines like crazy. Like 3-4 a day, along with a glass of orange juice every morning that goes away far too quickly.
Anything making you queasy or sick: all queasiness is still gone, but my whack-o sense of smell is coming back. The fridge is starting to smell horrible again like it did at the beginning of this pregnancy.
Gender: Girl
Symptoms: some lower back pain off and on, bathroom trips every hour to hour and a half, and popping hips every time I stand up
Belly Button in or out? in
Wedding rings on or off? on
Happy or Moody? Happy!
Looking forward to: the first shower coming up in a few weeks!

Registry 101

Let me start this off by saying that I have absolutely no idea what a baby needs other than the obvious things like clothes, blankets, and bottles. This fact made registering slightly comical. I tried really hard to be prepared by making a registry checklist based on safety reviews and recommendations from friends and family. That being said....

Right before Christmas, Josh and I set out on baby registry adventure number 1 to Babies R Us. We are fortunate enough that there is an incredibly huge and well stocked store right down the road from us. At this point in time, we still didn't know the sex of Baby H, but we had to take advantage of the time off Josh had between semesters since we figured this would be a lengthy process and said we would just register for the big items we could re-use later with potential baby number 2. So we show up at Babies R Us around 8:30. Nobody is surprised, I'm sure, to hear that we were trying to get this done within about an hour of the store closing. It's just how we roll. I'm feeling excellent at this point. My belly is full of Chick-fil-a, I have a pre-researched checklist in hand, and I'm ready to start shopping. Josh, I think, was more confused than anything, but he did get to use the scanner gun (and fix it's weird problems) so he wasn't totally bored. Anyways, we fill out all of our registry paperwork we set out with our scanner. After going reeeeaaallllyyyy slowly down the first few aisles, reading all the boxes and labels and scanning one or two things, we hit our stride. But the next thing I knew, it felt like we were scanning every item humanly possible. I will be the first to say that I knew babies needed a lot of stuff, but holy cow. There is an unbelievable amount of choices out there for Every.Tiny.Thing.

bottles
burp clothes
pumps (terrifying, I might add)
bathtubs
pacifiers
diapers
toys
jumpers
high chairs
play yards
I repeat, HOLY COW

Can we say overwhelming??? Thankfully, I was able to edit said registry online later and cut out some of the stuff I eventually decided was completely unnecessary at this point in time...and then add it again later (how could I live without a teething ice pack?)....and then delete it again (we can just use frozen fruit in the little snacker bags! Or can we?)

Coupled with the registry we did later at Target - which includes lots of pink! - for the fam that does not have access to a Babies R Us, I feel like our house will overflow with baby items before the little butter bean gets here. That excites and scares me all at the same time. I've said before that May feels like forever away and I wish I could just fast forward, but I'm starting to think that we need to slow this adventure down a little. Feeling Harbor's little (and not so little) kicks and jabs remind me every day that she's growing bigger and stronger by the week and will be here before we know it! And there's so much left to do!

I mean, look at this belly! 24 weeks. That's 6 months, folks. Only 3 and some change to go!!

Blue or Pink?

We are SO EXCITED to announce that Baby H is a girl! Harbor Joy Hillyer will be here in May and we can't wait to meet her! We had our 20 week scan yesterday, although actually I am 21 weeks (possibly 22?) at this point. The ultrasound was amazing. I love every chance we get to take a peek inside and see our little girl. She is growing so quickly and moving around so much.

Technically we cheated a little and went to an imaging center right before we left for Alabama and the holidays and found out baby's gender so that we could share the news with our families on Christmas. This was a very difficult secret to keep, so we may have slipped and told a few extra people along the way :) Although the tech there was confident in what she saw, we still wanted to hear it from our doctor who confirmed that without a doubt it is a girl.

At yesterday's ultrasound we got to double check that she has 2 arms and 2 legs (all in the right place) and we also got to see the blood flow through her body - so cool! The cutest thing was watching her wiggle around and even yawn! As if we weren't already so in love with her, that cuteness was the icing on the cake. We do have to go back for a second ultrasound next month because the little stinker is all curled up in a ball with her little hands over her face and her feet up by her forehead making some things difficult for the doctor to see. She is also laying VERY low, so we couldn't get a good look at the top of her head. Her arms blocked a good view of her heart too. Needless to say, we are not upset at getting another sneak peek at her in February.

The ultrasound yesterday actually bumped our due date up a week to May 11 (which I think is my real due date anyways based on calculations) because on how big she is. Our doctor, however, still technically has us due on the 18th, but it doesn't really matter. She'll come when she's ready!

Here's a profile picture from yesterday:

Baby Bump, Month 5

Here it is in all it's glory!


I was just complaining to my mom the other day that I felt weird going into baby stores to look at cribs because I didn't look pregnant enough to be there. Well, this baby must have heard me loud and clear because the belly has arrived. I also started feeling Baby H squirming around in there last weekend and it is so neat! I was trying to describe it to Josh the other day and I just can't explain it any other way then a popping or twitching, but I just know that's what it is because I've never felt anything like it before. So many exciting milestones just in time for Christmas!

Boy or Girl?

If you know me at all, you know I'm not the most patient person in the world. So much to my dismay, there's not a thing I can do to hurry this baby along. I'm so ready to start putting the nursery together, wash tiny clothes in fragrance free detergent, and stockpile a small mountain of diapers. Luckily, we are one step closer to finding out of Baby H will be a he or a she - our appointment is set for January 6th! So until then I've been reading some of the old wives' tales and can't wait to find out if any of them are true. Here are some of the funnier ones and my results:

Heart rate (over 140 = girl, under = boy): ours was 130 on Tuesday, so boy
Cravings: sweet = girl
Chinese Birth Chart = boy
Hang your wedding ring over you belly and watch how it swings: mine was left to right which = girl
Morning sickness = girl
Eating the heels of bread: NO WAY = girl
Craving orange juice = girl
Worse acne = girl
More clumsy during pregnancy = boy
Husband has not gained weight = boy

It's a pretty even split so far. I don't believe in these things at all but it's been really fun making predictions!

Here's a pic of the bump at 4 months back in early November:

Announcing Baby Hillyer!

Okay, so we've technically already announced that we're expecting, but this is our official entry into the blog world. We are so thrilled about this little one being a part of our family we can hardly stand it! Over all, my first trimester was tolerable. I did have some pretty serious nausea that put me out of commission for a few days and was SO tired, but other than that it was smooth sailing. I'd say the strangest early pregnancy symptoms I had were extremely weird dreams, dizziness, and crazy food aversions (peanut butter = ICK).

Second trimester life has been wonderful (true to all the advice I heard). Much less tired, getting my appetite back, and just feeling more like myself in general. As of the last week, my belly has POPPED! Not a single pair of pants still fits. This got us pretty excited since it's been the first visible sign of the little creature growing inside me. We will find out if Baby H (as we have been calling him/her) is a he or she right before Christmas.

Every day we get more excited about adding a member to our growing family!

Baby H at 9 weeks. This seems so long ago!