Halfway!

HALFWAY! Can you believe it?! I am 20 weeks! That means I have 20 weeks to go! (well technically less because I am being induced a few weeks earlier).

So to celebrate my ever growing baby bump I took pictures. I am loving my transformation. I know most people have a hard time with gaining weight (which trust me I HATE the scale) but I don't think there is anything more beautiful than a changing body to support another little life.

I am so excited to keep growing for this sweet baby girl. I see a lot of premies at work so all I hope for is that she is healthy and stays in as long as possible, even if that means I get tons of stretch marks, have shortness of breath, pee when I laugh, and gain more weight. All of that stuff is easy to change after she gets here.

One of my friends, Amanda Gibson, offered to take these beautiful pictures which of course I couldn't turn down! I am so impressed with these pictures I can guarantee you that she will be taking all of our family pictures now. She is very sweet and makes you feel very comfortable in front of the camera. You can find more pictures from the company she works for here!

I found my beautiful dress at my FAVORITE maternity store. They make such high quality clothes and for a reasonable price. This dress isn't being made anymore but you can find a similar one here.

Now here are the fantastic pictures to enjoy!!

The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes

I have been listening to the Beatles non-stop for the last week, mainly Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (obviously)! And I am thinking Lucy is a big fan of them because she dances constantly when they are playing. 

On Friday I hit my 19 week mark!

This week my belly really just popped! I feel like I have been showing my entire pregnancy, but this week made me realize I haven't had a bump until now! I think I have shown so early because I am short, and Lucy has been measuring a little bit bigger than the normal. 

19 weeks has been SO much fun though. There have been some crazy pregnancy symptoms. There are so many weird things that happen to your body, but luckily I have some awesome family members that are more than willing to answer all of my questions.

Tyler & I had a pretty awesome weekend!

Saturday we went over to one of Tyler's brothers house and ate some delicious chicken salad & played with our cute little niece and nephew. We always have so much fun over there & always end up eating our body weight in delicious food.

 On Sunday we went over to my parents house and went swimming. It was so much fun. We played catch & ate too many otter pops with my cute nephew Jack.

Luckily my SPF 50 prevented me from burning. That has been another awesome pregnancy change, my skin is SO sensitive. If I step outside for more than 10 minutes without sunscreen I will burn.

On Monday morning we went to Babies-R-Us and registered for my shower! It was so much fun but so hard to pick out everything! Especially because we needed to remember that the big stuff needs to be gender neutral because one day we could have a boy & I sure don't want to buy new swings or pack and plays because everything is pink! 

Tyler's sister came home from her mission in Japan! So we spent the afternoon making some posters to welcome her before we went to the airport. Pictures of the group will be uploaded later because I unfortunately forgot my camera so I have to wait to get the pictures from everyone else.

My awesome origami skills.

OK! So last week I wrote about the CMV scare I had, today I got a call with my official lab results! The test came back negative which means I have never been exposed to CMV and my baby is perfectly healthy. I have never been more grateful for anything in my life. I could not imagine how I would feel if I had exposed my little girl to anything that could hurt her. Now I can relax and just keep imagining how beautiful she will be.

Also we talked to my high risk doctor and it turns out I will be induced before my due date! The doctor said he feels more comfortable with a controlled labor situation when his patients are on blood thinners. So baby girl will be here some time towards the end of December. Hopefully after Christmas but before the New Year, but I don't have an official date yet.

Faith, trust & pixie dust

Let's talk about the second trimester! It is seriously the best!

I started to feel Lucy move around a few weeks ago and it has progressively gotten stronger. It is the BEST feeling in the entire world. I love feeling this little peanut move around. I actually got to go to an ultrasound today and see her. Turns out Lucy is half ninja. She is constantly kicking and moving her arms. She moves around so much it was really hard to get some good pictures.

"Please, no pictures."

I was originally supposed to go for my ultrasound tomorrow but it turns out being a nurse is really dangerous. I knew going into my career that I would be exposed to all kinds of scary diseases (like ebola or TB). But there are some things in the NICU nurses can be exposed to that can actually hurt my baby (some of the TORCH diseases). Our charge nurses are pretty awesome and try not to assign any pregnant nurses to those kinds of babies though. Sadly we don't always know when a baby has a TORCH so we use universal precautions with every baby. The likelihood of me already have been exposed to CMV before I was pregnant was probably pretty high though which means both me and baby would be immune. And even though I feel SOOO much better after meeting with my doctor and him telling me that he knows my baby is fine and that because the ultrasound is perfect he is not even the littlest worried about it, I still can't wait for the results to come back for the blood work. Just so I have some peace of mind.

Although hearing my little girl has a perfect ultrasound truly makes me feel good. Today they tried to do the anatomy scan but they couldn't see her heart. She was scrunched up in a ball and moving around too much. So now I get to go back in about 1 month and meet with the fetal cardiologist where they will do their own anatomy scan to make sure her heart is great. Which is super awesome. And even though I am not a high risk for having a cardiac kiddo they apparently offer this scan to everyone who sees the high risk doctor (perks!).

I've been meaning to blog about each week of my pregnancy but obviously that has not happened. I am hoping to get better at it starting with this week (especially now because I am starting to show really good)! 

So for now here is just a summary of the last few weeks:

15 weeks!

16 weeks!

17 weeks! This is also by far my favorite picture I've taken while being pregnant.

18 weeks!