28 Weeks (Yes I am lazy and skipped another week...Im sorry!)

Again...I apologize as I managed to skip another week! 27 weeks flew by and I didn't take a pic...which led me to decide I didn't need to do a post! Hopefully you enjoyed my Iowa Shower/Iowa State Fair post...how crazy is deep fried butter...but I digress...back to your regularly scheduled (er...sorta) blog post:

How the baby is growing:

(disclaimer: I have decided that Baby Center is FULL OF IT when it comes to the size of the baby...some weeks it only seems to go up the tiniest bit, others it goes up like crazy and the numbers just don't sound right...but I'm going to go with it as I want to stay consistent with the source)

This week Baby Girl W weighs 2 and 1/4 pounds (maybe...) and measures about 14.8 inches from head to heels, like a Chinese Cabbage!

How I am changing:

I have officially entered the third trimester!!!! YAY! My belly is growing rounder and rounder and thankfully I do not appear to be getting to much rounder in other areas! (fingers crossed...) I have reached the point where instead of getting excited about how many weeks along I am I get excited about how many weeks until I get to meet our baby girl...12 if you are counting! (Well around 12...who knows when she will really come...I'm hoping a little early, but not too early as Eric is out of town the first couple days in November)

Doesn't it look so much rounder than 26 weeks???

No new symptoms to report...a bit of a return of "morning" sickness. Its NO WHERE NEAR AS BAD as it was so I can't complain but it still kinda sucks! Heartburn comes and goes but the Tums help. (I recommend the Smoothies, they go down so easy! Thanks for the tip Lauren!) Baby Girl is kicking like crazy! You can literally see my stomach move from across the room! I havnt seen any creepy (yet wonderful!) hand or foot prints but there is plenty of time for that still!

Everyone is always asking me if I am having any crazy cravings and sadly I am not...I say sadly because cravings are so entertaining and make such good stories! I haven't craved anything I didn't already like, I would just say that I give into cravings a whole lot more! For example...I have had a serious hankering for rice krispy treats several times during pregnancy and I have indulged several times! LOL

We had a tour of the Maternity Center at Spartanburg Regional last week and it got us both really excited for Baby Girl to get here!

Nursery News:

So far we have painted the walls in the nursery and baby bathroom, purchased the main furniture pieces and assembled the crib!

Elle likes the new furniture!



We attempted to make additional progress on the nursery last weekend...the plan was to buy a glider/ottoman...that didn't happen. LOL We did however find a rug! Its not exactly what I was thinking and its a little bit smaller than I really wanted but the price was right! I will do a whole nursery post when we get a little more done!

Showered with Love ... and deep fried butter???

The weekend of Aug 13th I headed to Iowa to see friends and family and to have my very first baby shower hosted by my Aunt Jan. It was such an incredible day, Baby Girl and I are so blessed to have such amazing friends and family that love and support us.

Friends and relatives (from Eric's family and mine!) gathered at my Aunt's house for an incredible celebrate of Baby Girl Wagner.

We played games,

          

We ate good food and then I opened presents for Baby Girl! She was very fortunate to recieve TONS of adorable clothing, (I know how hard it is to bypass cute little girls clothes!) some necesities like blankets and burp clothes. a few bigger items like her bouncer seat and bath and a few Wagner Family Heirlooms that just broke my heart (in a good way!) to open. I think I was pretty much crying through the entire gift opening experience! I was a fairly emotional person before pregnancy so the hormones have only taken it up a notch!



"My Aunt is the BEST!"

Beck (Wagner) Family Christening Gown

Aunt Jan's delicious creations!

Wagner/Beck Family Bassinet updated for Baby Girl!

The shower was such a success and I cannot even possibly express how blessed Eric and Baby Girl and I feel to have such amazing friends and family who love and support us! Thank you so much to Amy Bednarz, my Aunt Jan and my Mom Penny for making this shower happen! I love you all!

After the shower a group of us headed to ...THE IOWA STATE FAIR!!! If you are from Iowa you understand my excitement...if you are not from Iowa, The Iowa State Fair is one of the largest fairs in the United States. It is not the creepy dangerous...wouldn't attend if I was paid...situation that is apparently the fair in my current town. It is...in a word...AMAZING! Incredible food, good music, fun rides and numerous exhibitions showcasing Iowa culture! We ate cheese curds and Taffy, visited the famous "Butter Cow" and simply walked around and experienced The Iowa State Fair!

Yes this cow is made entirely of butter!

And now for an explanation of my post title.... Apparently news of a new product being served up at The Iowa State Fair was so outrageous that it made it all the way to the local Spartanburg station. This year someone did the unthinkable...they invented Deep Fried Butter. Now when I first heard about this I was just plain disgusted. I was told a whole stick was used and frankly it just sounded like a heart attack waiting to happen. Although further explanation did not convince me to actually try the newest deep fried concoction I do feel a little better for the people of Iowa! Apparently 1/8 of a stick is used, its covered in dough and cinnamon and sugar, and when its fried the butter completely melts and soaks the bread leaving a hollow space in the middle. Wow. That's all I can say!



A milestone!

Forgot to mention in my last post but I have passed a pretty large milestone...I am officially under 100 days until Baby Girl Wagner joins the world! Woo Hoo!

26 Weeks and The Dreaded Glucola!

So I missed 25 weeks...sorry! I got busy, forgot to take a pic and the next thing I knew the week was over and I hadn't posted...so here we are!

How the baby is growing:

This week Baby Girl W weighs about a pound and two thirds and measures about 14 inches, the length of an English Hothouse Cucumber! (or a work boot!)

Baby girls hearing is really developing now as she can hear when mommy and daddy talk to her!

How I am changing:

Still exhausted and not too sick...although I did have a little bout after the Glucolo but we will get to that. I'm getting bigger everyday it seems and  really looking pregnant!

 

I had a new and painful experience this week...Round Ligament Pain. Its essentially a shooting pain that stretches from below your abdomen up around the side of the belly. I think I have had it a little bit before but this one was out of the park bad! So bad that I had to lay down for 2 hours AND take Tylenol for the first time in my pregnancy! Thankfully that seemed to do the trick and I haven't had it again since. Here's to hoping I don't get it that bad again!

Its funny because before I was pregnant I always wondered why pregnant women are always touching their bellies. Well...between the kicks and the pains and the itching (soooooo itchy!!!)  I cant keep my hands off of it! Now I know!

The dreaded Glucola:

At my appointment today I did the dreaded Glucose test where they force you to drink a nasty sugary 8 oz drink in 5 minutes, wait an hour, and then test your blood to make sure you processed the sugar appropriately and are not at risk for Gestational Diabetes. 140 is apparently the magic number and if you are over that number you have to come back and take a 3 hour test which involves more drinking and more waiting. Thankfully I passed with flying colors with a healthy 104! No 3 hour test for me!

Baby Girl is measuring right on track and has a healthy heartbeat of 152...pretty consistent for the last few visits.

My next appointment is in 4 weeks and then I have to start going more frequently, 3 weeks, then 2 weeks, then every week! I cannot believe we get to meet this little girl in about 13 weeks! It can't come soon enough!

We have been working hard on the Nursery and Baby Bathroom and I will post pics as soon as we are done! Eric's grandma is visiting in two weeks and will be doing our window treatments! I can't wait!

What I'm reading...Orange is the New Black

Those of you that know me know that I am a big reader. I have always been and will likely always be. I am blessed to also be a pretty fast reader so I go through books a little quicker than the average person. I usually enjoy light readers, Chic Lit if you will, and I think that is mostly due to Law School and all the boring case law I was forced to read. I didn't want to give up my habit but I had to keep the books pretty casual to keep my interest. I have began to branch out a bit more now that I am no longer stuck reading all those boring cases but I still go back to the Chic Lit every once in awhile.

For the last year I have been a part of a Book Club in Spartanburg. It is literally the perfect "club" for me. We read good books, drink good wine, eat delicious apps and spend good time with good friends. Last night we had our monthly get together to discuss the book of the month, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison.  This is a book that I probably would not have thought to read had I seen it on the bookstore shelf or had it popped up in my recommendations on Kindle but it received a glowing review from my mother in law who has pretty similar taste in books as I do so I thought it would be the perfect book to suggest to my Book Club and it turns out I was right!



Orange is a true story about the author, Piper Kerman, who spent a year of her life in women's prison for being peripherally involved in a large drug trafficking organization. After college Piper sought out a more exciting life of adventure and ended up in a relationship with a woman who was a major player in a drug trafficking org. She never really took part in the actual drug trafficking but she would tag along as they traveled to exotic locales, stayed in upscale hotels and spent money like it was going out of style. Eventually she was asked to help and she did, one time. She then left the girl and the drug world behind and moved on with her life. She worked, she met a great guy, she moved across the country and her previous life was really just an after thought. That is until one day five years later when federal agents showed up at her door with an indictment! She ended up pleading guilty and being sentenced to 15 months in minimum security prison. The book tells us the ins and out of her stay at Danbury Women's Prison Camp. From the hierarchy of the prisoners, to the day to day activities to the individual stories of the women she met. Orange gives an eye opening look at what is really going on in our prison systems. And it wasn't what I expected...call it cliche but I expected to hear stories of male guards attacking female inmates and women being forced into unwanted lesbian relationships and although those things may have happened, they didn't happen to Piper and they were not the focus of the book. The book really made you think about the women who are in our prison system and what they go through when they leave. It also really made me think about the whole "War on Drugs" issue and the purposes that is serving. (I wont even open that can of worms...) All in all I really enjoyed the book and I would totally recommend it to a friend!

Some other recent reads I loved:
Hunger Games Trilogy
The Help
House Rules

24 Weeks

How the baby is growing:

This week Baby Girl W weighs a little more than a pound and measures almost a foot long, about the length of an ear of corn! (Or the size of an over-inflated football for the next week!)



How I am changing:

I feel like my belly looks a lot rounder these days and its starting to grow at the top as well as just in the actual belly portion. Strangely enough the public cannot decide if I am huge for 6 months or tiny for 6 months. Every time I wear a different outfit I have someone say one of two things to me: "You can't possibly be 6 months, you are so tiny!" or "You have really gotten big, only 6 months?" How I can at the same time be both huge and tiny is beyond me! All I know is that I have not gained too much weight and I don't feel like I have gotten any bigger in my arms and legs so I think I'm doing just fine! 

I am also happy to report that I felt pretty good this week as well. Traveling was interesting, riding on a little plane for a couple hours with seats that don't recline was NOT comfortable but it was worth the trip!

The fun stuff:

This past weekend we flew to Kansas City to celebrate the wedding of Meghan Mohr and Tyler Alt. I had so much fun, the wedding was a beautiful success and the party was fabulous. I was worried I wouldn't have nearly as much fun as I usually do at weddings due to my not being able to partake in the beverages and being tried all the time but I was wrong. First off, my friends are so fun I almost forgot I couldn't have a beverage or that I needed to go to bed! LOL Second, I think there were actually 8 or 9 pregnant ladies at the party! I guess we have just hit that point in our lives where everyone is having kids! Its very exciting! I forgot my camera so I didn't take any pics but I know a lot of the girls did so I hope to steal some pics once they are posted on facebook! It was totally worth it but I keep saying I have a pregnancy hangover due to my lack of sleep and running around all weekend! I can't wait to head home to Iowa in a week for my first Baby Shower for Baby Girl W!