belly button and linea negra

Just this week I have felt like my belly button was really sore! I thought this was strange. A few inches above my belly button is also very sore. I googled to see if this was normal during pregnancy, yep, just another fun side effect. They say around 26-28 weeks your stomach muscles and skin above belly button really start stretching and this puts pressure on the belly button. Ouch! It's not comfortable! I looked at my belly button today and it even looks bruised to me! The coloring is a little purplish looking. Weird... Anyone else ever have this problem?

My "dark line" or linea negra has appeared. It started becoming noticable a few weeks ago. Just recently it has grown to above my belly button and it's gotten darker. For those of you who don't know, its just a line down the middle of your stomach that is usually brown. When you are pregnant your body produces more pigment, so for some reason this increased pigment forms a line down your stomach! I'm hoping the increased pigment will allow me to get a little tan soon :) I'm not a big  "fake" tanner since Jared hates it, but I do like to go a few times throughout winter so I don't look so pastey white. I haven't been able to do that this winter! I can't wait till school is out so I can go lay out at my dads pool during the day and get some sun! :)

What does 25 weeks bring?

25 weeks pregnant brings swelling and heartburn for me!

The swelling was first noticed in my feet last Friday. I didn't think anything of it, because basically every pregnant women experiences swollen feet. I know the drill- elevate feet, reduce sodium, stay off your feet as much as possible. I am not so good at staying off my feet. That is hard! I can't imagine having to do it with another child to take care of... its hard enough now! Being a teacher makes it hard to stay off my feet. If I'm not up at the board teaching, I'm walking around the room helping kids with their papers. We don't have a lot of down time at school with 5 and 6 year olds! Today my friend let me borrow her rolling chair during math. I went to show my friend my feet and she's like oh my gosh why is it only one foot?! Hmm, good question! I let it go for a day and then when it happened today I called my Dr. just to see what they said. She said to watch it and let her know if it continues. I have had my feet elevated for about 45 minutes now and it still looks noticably more swollen. So I took a picture to compare!

Here is my swollen ankle on left foot! My calf is a little swollen as well.

Here is my normal right foot- notice the flip flop tan line already! Ha thats from recess duty at school!



Here is the left side- swollen foot and ankle

Other than the swelling, I got some pretty bad heart burn today after lunch! Ouch! I was tryin to push my food down I could almost feel the acid rising!!

gut feelings

So pretty much since I've gotten pregnant people started guessing what I was going to have. I heard about 20 to 1 guesses that I'm having a boy. Based all on the typical old wives tales I guess. However, the last time we went to our appointment the heart beat was 150, if you are a believer in the heart beat determining the sex, you'd say it was a girl! Most people say I'm carrying high and since I haven't widened at all, yet, you'd say it was a girl by that too. The chinese calendar says girl, and other tests like the baking soda test also said girl. Despite all of this, I've thought I was having a boy since the beginning. If you look at our closet of clothes, you can tell I think it's a boy!

Well, just this week, I started doubting my gut feeling! A girl at my work wanted to do the "necklace" test on me and of course I let her. The necklace test said girl! I kinda started freaking out because if it is a girl, I have no bows! Now, bows are VERY important if we have a girl. I will have a girly girl who will wear a bow in her hair everyday until she resists! :) That's just me!

So, I think I'm going to stop thinking so positively that it's a boy and go buy some bows just in case! Of course I'll be happy either way, but just in case, I better be  on the safe side!

15 more weeks, wow!

dresser/changing table

Why am I so indecisive? It drives me crazy sometimes, haha. I finally picked out our changer/dresser. I knew I wanted one that I could use later but those kind were soooo expensive. So I found this one which is called a combo dresser/changer. So I guess that means its okay to use after the baby doesnt need a changing pad anymore! I thought it was cute, a little small but it'll do. I really didn't wanna spend over 200 and it was just a tad over my budget, oh well!

Here is the stock photo of it. Once this is put together we will have all the nursery furniture!

nursery

I just realized I never blogged about the baby's room! It's definitely not finished yet, but getting there. Yesterday we put together the book shelf, need some baby books to fill it with! I got the crib sheet in the other day and I love the yellow color! So here are a few pictures of what we have so far...

Baby Yager's clothes..  notice everything still has tags since we don't know what we're having! There are lots of duck clothes to suit either boy or girl baby... I'm planning on bringin a boy and a girl going home outfit to the hospital and those are the only ones I'm washing besides the neutral stuff. I will just take everything else back that baby doesnt need! I kept all the receipts and most of it is from Kohls which you don't even have to have a receipt anyways! I just cant wait 3 and a half more months!! Buying clothes is addicting!!

burp cloths

Jen gave me some white burp cloths and I thought I'd spruce them up a bit! So I bought some ribbon and started sewing.

The first one I did was this one- a taggy. Lots of kids blankets and stuffed animals have ribbon loops on them and people call them taggies. I tried to stagger the ribbon loops but it kinda looks like they just aren't even, haha. This will probably be used more as a blankie since it has the taggies.

 This next one I just doubled up the ribbon and sewed it next to each other for one big stripe.

 I'll probably do more like this one, I think its cute to line the ribbon down the middle like this green one.

 Then this one I just sewed some owl decal things on. Cute owls and

definitely the easiest one!

24 week appointment

Well this appointment wasn't too exciting. I knew it wouldnt be. I had to see the nurse practitioner because my doc was out of the office today with sick kids.

My total weight gain from the beginning is less than I thought.. it is +8 pounds. Since my last appointment I was up +5 pounds.

My blood pressure was normal, 107/55

Baby's heartbeat is gettin higher.. it was 150 today. However, Jared's mom brought home a fetal heart moniter and when she measured it that night it was ranging from 130-144 So really I don't know how people can predict the sex of the baby off of the heart beat because it changes so much!

Tonight the baby was moving so much I was just watchin my stomach, so weird! I called Jared over and had him feel; the baby kicked a million times! Baby must be on a sugar high from the 3 glasses of lemonade I just drank, ha ha.

I have had some pretty bad back pain lately. It just started this week. I was sittin down eatin lunch a few days ago and when I got up my lower back started hurtin. It hasn't really quit since then! I told the nurse practitioner and she suggested that I get a band to wear or get a massage. I feel like it just needs popped or something.. since I think I just moved wrong and it caused the pain. So maybe a massage is in order for this momma!

Registry

We are now completely registered for baby Yager! I started the registry awhile ago and have been adding things here and there as I think of them. I think we are finally finished though! I can't wait to get everything set up in our house! We registered at Wal-Mart and Target. We of course went with gender neutral on everything since we didn't find out. But I think even if we did know what we were having we would have gone gender neutral so we can re-use everything for future babies!

Here are some pictures of some of my favorites off the registries...

Definitely gotta have the car seat! I know its not some cutesy pattered one, but I kinda like the simple factor! I really like the handle of the car seat, and the fact that it goes with a jogger stroller. That was the biggest factor in finding a car seat for us!

 Here is the matching jogger stroller. So glad Jen had kids first so I can learn from her! She said it was much better to have a jogger than a regular stroller, so instead of buying 2, why not just have one!

 The infamous boppy pillow. Every mom's best friend for feeding and

laying baby down on before they can sit up!

 So excited about this new newborn sleeper. Instead of having a pack & play in our room or around the house for the baby to sleep in we want to use this.

It rocks and cradles... also folds up easy to pack up and take somewhere!

 Thought this high chair was the cutest out of all the ones I searched... I wanted one that folded up.

 

There are many other items on our list! Such as a bouncer seat, swing, bumbo seat, travel seat, jumperoo, pack and play, and more! Man, babies sure do need a lot of stuff!!



23 weeks

I have been feeling baby move more and more! I even saw my belly move this week, wow that was crazy! My belly has really popped out within the last few weeks.

Weight gain- as of last friday I have gained a total of 9 pounds. So that means I've gained 6 pounds in just 3 weeks, yikes! I'm hoping I can keep it to a pound a week... until the end when you usually gain more per week. At this rate of gaining 6 every three weeks, thats putting me at gaining 30 MORE pounds than I already have. Uh oh! Not lookin good for my goal weight of 35 total weight gain during this pregnancy.

Maternity clothes- this week I wore my maternity jeans for the first time. Friday I wore my regular jeans to school and it was fine cause I was standing all day. However, that night we went to Joe's Pizza to eat and I confess I had to unbutton my pants after eating! It hurt so bad! I feel like when I eat big meals my stomach gets so bloated and feels like it literally can't stretch anymore!! Saturday I went shopping with my sisters and since we were going to be in the car for over an hour I thought I better play it safe and wear the maternity jeans so I was comfortable. I wore the full panel kind, and I wasn't a fan. The band kept falling down and I felt like my pants were sagging all day. Sunday I tried out the elastic waist band kind which are just below the belly. I liked these much better! They seemed to stay put. I'm so grateful that Jen is letting me borrow her summer maternity clothes. I will buy a few stuff here and there so I don't wear hers out, but I'm thinkin this summer I'll probably wear a lot of dresses to teach in and then athletic type clothes when I'm not at work. The jeans with the panel aren't going to cut it when it's 95 degrees out!

Cravings: I haven't had NEAR as many cravings this trimester as I did in my first. In fact, I can say that I don't think I've had any. In my first trimester all I wanted was salad type stuff, nothing to do with cookies/cupcakes/sugary food. Unfortunatly that has gone away and I can eat all that stuff again, haha, willingly!

Baby's Growth: At 23 weeks the baby weighs a little over a pound. They say it is as big as a pomegranate and around 11 inches long. The top of my uterus is now an inch above my belly button. I can totally tell this because the baby seems to always kick me high above the belly button!! Speaking of belly button, it hasn't popped. I'm not sure if it will pop or just stretch out. It seems pretty flat except at the top.