November Book Club Meeting

This month my book club was supposed to read Reading Lolita in Tehran. Needless to say this book was horrible and none of us finished it. Don't bother reading it as it's dull and drags on & on without ever getting to a point. I made it through 40 excruciating pages before I put it down. I'm hoping this next month's book will be much better.

I had a fun time visiting with the ladies at Coffee Underground. While there, my good friend Dawn & I took a few pictures with my cell phone (as I had left my good camera at home). We are due 2 days apart. She's expecting twins, a boy and a girl. It was fun comparing tummies and symptoms.

In this picture, we stood side by side so you can see how much farther Dawn's twin belly sticks out than mine. Jennifer accidentally cut our heads off.

This was the standard "hold your belly" pose.

And this is my favorite "sexy mamas" pose. Yes, we were standing near the restrooms in a tiny hall as that was the only place with any lighting.

I'm so glad I'm going on this journey with a good friend of mine!

After the meeting, I drove over to Woodruff Road to look for some flat dress shoes. Earlier that morning, I had worn heels to church and within about 20 minutes, my ankles were swollen. I don't have any dressy flat shoes. Most of my flats are business casual or very casual. I found a pair on sale and let me tell you that going to Woodruff Road at 5:30pm on a Sunday is definitely the time to go. The stores are open until 7pm, but there was no traffic and no lines in the stores.

23 Weeks

This past Wednesday was my 23 week mark. It's passed by in somewhat of a blur. For baking, I had to do some cake pops for Friday and some for goodie day at work as well. I also made a cake today to deliver for tomorrow for a 25th wedding anniversary.

Last night, Pat & Ravyn spent the night on their way to Virginia for Thanksgiving. We cleaned our house this week and when they arrived, we took them to eat dinner at Wade's. They had turkey and dressing at Wade's - yeah!! That's one of my favorite foods to eat there.

Today I sold my jams and jellies at the annual Christmas Bazaar at a local church. I did much better than last year as I sold 30 jars. I took 55 to sell, so I brought home a few, but that's much better than the 20 I sold last year. It seemed like a lot more people came through the event today.

Last weekend we decorated the house for Christmas, so we're now all ready for the holiday season. I finally had a chance to get my picture made for this week. I'm up to 10 squares of toilet paper around my stomach.

New Picture

Mom said she needed a new profile picture of me. Since she doesn't read my blog or get on Facebook much, I had Vince take one with my cell phone & sent it to her via text message to her phone. Just thought I would share my 22 week 5 day picture here as well.

Week 22

Today I am 22 weeks pregnant! This past week I have had some nose bleeds, lots of acid reflux every day, and felt flutters in my belly. I've been using the saline nose spray to help keep my nose from bleeding. I've tried humidifiers before, but I had one that started smoking and another that grew mold in it quickly. So I'm staying away from fire hazards or mold growing machines.

The flutters started sometime last week, but I couldn't be sure until Saturday and Sunday when I really started feeling them a lot. I think yesterday he was in a sleeping and growing phase because I didn't feel him much but my belly felt very tight like it was stretching again.

This picture was taken at 21 weeks 3 days pregnant.

On Sunday, Barbara and I enjoyed the Ellen Hines Smith Girls' Home 3rd Annual Tea Party. Lots of ladies attended and several young girls. The theme was Fancy Nancy. I took some mini cupcakes and they had other little finger foods provided as well. We enjoyed our tea party!

Dad's Healing

Dad's infected foot is looking much better. The blistered skin is healing and looking more back to normal now. His surgical sight is still taking a while to heal so they keep it wrapped until the stitches come out. His left foot is healing nicely. It still has a lot of black on the wound, but he his able to wash it now so hopefully it will start looking more like a scar soon.

Left foot

Today was a the first day that dad went out to eat at a restaurant since his accident. It's been 2 months. Mom took this picture as they ate at O'Charley's for lunch today.

Halloween Party 2

On Saturday night, we attended our second Halloween party of the season. We altered our costumes a bit and went as Hugh Hefner & a pregnant playboy bunny. I liked this costume idea better than last week's.

Our friends Thad & Danielle recently moved into a new house so they hosted a house warming/Halloween party. She made so much delicious food. We ate and chatted and enjoyed the tour of their new home.

Danielle, my friend Jessie, and I are all expecting. We had a fun time talking about our pregnancies. In fact, the pregnant ladies were the last to leave the party. Somehow we managed to outlast all the other guests.

20 Week Ultrasound

We went for our 20 week ultrasound yesterday. Well, technically, I was 20 weeks 6 days. The baby measured right on schedule so our due date is still March 14 (National Pi Day). Since I am considered of advanced maternal age (over 35) this ultrasound was performed at the hospital's outpatient center at their high risk center.

We started the ultrasound by bringing 4 types of DVDs and 1 VHS, none of which were compatible with their machine. It takes a DVD+RW. I had every other kind of DVD, so we missed out on recording it. She wouldn't let us record it with our camera, but Vince did take a few still shots. Some of them were kind of weird and blurry since she was moving pretty fast, so we have no idea what some of these pictures are. Like this one. I think it's his legs.

She printed out several profile pictures and one of his legs. He even had his legs stretched way out at one point.

The scan consisted of looking at his brain, spine, heart, bones, and a few other things. She measured dark spots on the brain, the length of different parts of his spine, and the length of his big bones like femur, tibia, and humorous. It was neat when she turned on the heat sensor part of it to see red and blue colors indicating the flow of blood in and out of his heart. She looked at all the veins, ventricles, and valves. His heart rate was 137, same as last time. The entire procedure lasted about an hour, but it seemed to go by very quickly. He was very active the entire time. His position was breech, so his head is up near my ribs and his legs were on my left side. Vince did manage to snag this cool picture of him looking at the camera.

The doctor then met with us and said everything looked great. He said whatever my risk was that came back from my blood work, that I should double it. So if I was a 1 in 10,000 risk, it would be 1 in 20,000 instead. He put me in the lower high risk category and said I should be treated like any other pregnant lady. His only recommendations were to do my glucose screen earlier than 24 weeks and to have the baby around 39 weeks instead of waiting until 40 weeks.

I plan on having the baby whenever he's ready to come. So far my weight gain has been fine, my blood pressure is great, and I've had no issues. I go on Thursday to my regular doctor to have my official 20 week appointment. I'm now at 21 weeks today!