Officially in the THIRD Trimester!!!!

Here is the very latest photo of me, taken tonight on a self timer. (Maria - here is a picture with a tight fitting top for you, as requested a while ago!) Can you see my beautiful hydrandea flowers on the kitchen table? Or is my big belly blocking you from seeing them? They are from the shrubs on the side of our house! I am so excited we have BLUE ones this year on one of the shrubs, and we didn't even do anything to change up the acidity or whatever in the soil, so perhaps it's because of our little boy? However, we do have three shrubs, one has all pink flowers, one mostly blue, and one a combo of pink, blue and light purple. Blue is my favorite color, and my wedding bouquet had blue hydrangea in it, so I LOVE them! I cut some of the blooms off the shrubs for the house and also brought some to the office for myself and a co-worker. And there are so many blooms it does not look like I cut anything off of them!

I had a doctor's appointment on Monday (6/29) for my 28 week check up! Glucose test was great - my "score" was an 89 - anything under 140 is good. I asked about the "crash" that I felt my body having about 4 hours after drinking the orange stuff, and Dr. Passes said that was probably exactly what was happening - I had a sugar crash. He did an abdominal ultrasound and told me that the baby is currently in the breech position, which is quite common at this point. I was not surprised, as a lot of the kicks I had been feeling this past week were a bit lower than previously. The baby usually turns around on his own, and it's still early. There were a few days I wasn't feeling much of anything, and I would drink some juice or chow down on my candy cakes (from Tastycake - LOVE them!!!!) to try to wake the little guy. John was reprimanding me about waking a sleeping baby - he is going to be a good dad, isn't he? And while I've been pretty mum on how much I weigh nowadays, I will tell you that based on my calculations, I've gained 18 pounds. I just read that most women gain around 11 pounds in their third trimester, and I'm having a tough time imagining where that's going to go and how big my belly is going to be getting over the next few weeks. Dr. Passes said I'm small, but nothing to worry about. I'll now be going in for check ups every 2 weeks, until I am 36 weeks along, when it becomes every week.

I finally decided that I should start reading up a little more on things regarding the baby. I have to admit, my attitude has been a bit of the "ignorance is bliss" route, which I have to at least say has worked in terms of keeping me less stressed. I've been telling myself that I'll figure it out and that I'm not the first person to have a baby by any means! And for some reason I keep telling myself that John will know what to do if I don't...no idea why I feel like he already knows more than me...but he is more relaxed and laid back in general than I am and when I do express a concern he's quick to say that we'll figure it out. John's mom sent us the Baby 411/Toddler 411 books, and I finally pulled Baby 411 out this weekend so I could scare myself even more with how much I don't know! At least now I know that you usually wait until 6 months to start the baby on food....I mean, I wasn't thinking he's going to come out and want to order a pizza after that's all I ate for the first 3-4 months of the pregnancy, but it was one of those things I was curious about. Oddly enough, the book did not have instructions for how to diaper a baby...between my 2 nieces, nephew and a few friends' kids, I think I've maybe changed about 25 diapers in the past 9 years...and often times it was with the help of someone else. Today at lunch I was reading on babycenter.com, and watched 2 videos...one of a woman getting an epidural. Mind you, I'm accustomed to getting allergy shots, but I got a little uncomfortable. Then I watched a video of a woman getting an epidural, and giving birth. She made it all look so easy, but I will not be watching any more videos. I'm going back to the ignorance is bliss method I've been practicing. Reading is one thing, but I've seen enough. I'm sure you'll all be dying to hear our labor and delivery story, but you definitely will NOT be seeing a video.

The weekend was beautiful here in NJ but of course went too fast. Saturday I babysat for my friend Denise and although we got a brief shower mid afternoon, her son and I were outside in the pool most of the time. Sunday was a picture-perfect beach day, and I was up at the beach for 4 hours! I am very fortunate that some members from Eagle Oaks, where John works, allow me to park in their driveway, and their house is right across the street from the beach. It was pretty crowded since I think everyone probably had cabin fever this month after all the rain we've had. Where I usually sit is about 2 blocks from the Pavilion where the restrooms are...and I smartly chose to situate myself less than a block from the Pavilion, since the little guy seems to be resting directly on my bladder more in recent days. Plus I am drinking a lot of water to make sure I am staying hydrated while outside when it's hot. But we had a beautiful breeze, temp was around 80, and the water temp was 69, and I ventured in for a quick dip. The waves were spectacular for boogie boarding....which I did NOT do any of. Unless John makes a trip to the beach with me this year, the boogie board will just hang in the garage until next summer. I also got in a little exercise with a walk along the entire length of beach in Avon, so I didn't feel like a totally lazy beach bum! Unfortunately John had to work all weekend, but he did get to play 9 holes of golf (at least, and that I know of ;)!) both Saturday and Sunday.

To end tonight, a very Happy Birthday to John's mom and my mother-in-law Cathy! We look forward to seeing you next week when we come out to Charleston for a few days!