Bumpdate: Week 20

Even though I have been pretty miserable so far, this pregnancy has gone by pretty fast! I'm 20 weeks and 4 days pregnant today.

20 Weeks

Some stats on my pregnancy so far:

Weeks Pregnant: 20

How big is the baby? At the 19 week ultrasound, baby measured 8 inches and 12 ounces. According to TheBump, our baby is the size of a banana this week. Getting big!

Weight Gained: 5 pounds. Starting to wonder when the weight gain thing is going to happen. I'm not too worried yet, especially since I lost a few pounds in the first trimester, but most places put weight gain at the 20 week mark between 7-12 pounds, or 1/3 of the total weight gain. Running the numbers, I expect to gain around a pound a week for a total weight gain of 25 pounds. This would be perfect. I'm working on not obsessing over this fact. I'll gain what I need - I'm eating what I can when I can.

Ultrasounds done: 3 and probably no more. The first one was done at 9 weeks to detect viability when I was in the hospital (see below). The second was at 13 weeks for diagnostic purposes. The third was for genetic screening and to determine the gender, which leads us to...

Boy or Girl: It's a girl! The ultrasound tech was able to get a clear view of the parts and is 99% sure that we have a little girl. We were both hoping our first would be a girl, so we're pretty excited. 

Symptoms: Heartburn, nausea (although is starting to get better) mostly caused by insanely thick mucus, nosebleeds, carpal tunnel, occasional cramping, extreme emotions - I already cry easily, but pretty much anything sets me off these days.

Cravings: Chocolate, Sweets, Fruit (especially smoothies)

Aversions: Meat of any kind, the smell of eggs, raw onions, and pretty much anything else that is not on the cravings list.

Hospital stays: 1. At 9 weeks I developed a deep vein blood clot (DVT) in my right leg. I like to now joke that since I had a DVT in my left leg in 2006, I have a matching set of blood clot legs. My body essentially hates increased estrogen and requires me to be fully medicated with blood thinners. I originally was on a low dose plan but that did not stop me from developing a clot, so I now get to pour thousands of dollars worth of medication into my body. Fun!

Blood thinners injected: 200 or so

Movement: I started feeling something happening around 18 weeks. Weird light tapping that seems to happen when I'm sitting in a slightly reclined position. Also when I feel like sleeping in.

16 Weeks

Pregnancy is starting to get a little more fun this week with a much more noticeable bump, baby "kicks," and finding out that our baby is a girl! Not gonna lie though, I'm pretty excited to be done also. Halfway there!

We’re Back!

Here’s a sneak peek at this year’s Christmas card.

So… I’m breaking the several month hiatus because I think I’m ready to start writing again! The last few months have been busy to say the least. Here is a quick recap of the events of August through December:

1. Hyvee Triathlon



Mike biked and his brother ran and his cousin swam. It was a fun time and the pup got to come with us and have some fun at the grandparents’ house.

2. Back to School


This is probably my primary reason for the blogging hiatus. I started back to school full time at University of Northern Iowa. I’m giving it my all in attempts to graduate in 5.5 semesters. December 2015 can’t come soon enough.

Since we don’t live in Cedar Falls, Iowa, I have been dividing my time between our house in Dubuque and my parents’ place near the university. This semester it worked out that I could be home Friday through Monday and go to school Tuesday through Thursday. Next semester I won’t be so lucky, but I’ll touch on that later.

3. Chicken Prep

Mike worked hard on getting the chickens ready for winter and also for being lower maintenance. He created a heated watering system and a food tube that can theoretically keep them fed and watered for a week without us having to do anything. They are amazingly still laying 2-3 eggs a day so we are still checking on them daily, but it is nice to know that if we are gone for a weekend or something that they will be fine on their own for a couple of days.

4. We’re adding to our family.

I know, again, right? A dog in 2012, chickens in 2013, and now we’re actually adding a human to the mix. The baby is due at the end of May, which will be perfect for school. I plan on taking the summer off completely and in the fall, we will commute daily to Cedar Falls with my mom hopefully watching the baby while I go to school. As we’re learning, things happen and we just have to go with the flow, so obviously these are just plans.

You can probably expect this to turn into a baby blog, since that is pretty much consuming our lives at this point

5. Side Projects

These include:

The kitchen that will never be finished

Michael’s quest to find thousands of Mountain Dew bottle caps to win Xbox Ones for him and everyone he knows. Digging through recycling bins, peddling candy bars for bags of caps at the redemption center, hounding relatives and friends to text us their codes, we really have no shame. It was probably worth it because he successfully won three!

Planning a nursery – the Fantastic Mr. Fox theme is full go. Expect adorable foxes everywhere along with their forest friends, way too many stuffed animals and no painting because I am way too lazy for that nonsense. We painted the room gray back in 2012 and I think that will work just fine for our gender-neutral nursery.

So that is basically what we've been up to! Stay tuned for pregnancy talk, kitchen work, and most likely adorable pictures of our furbabies.