Ch-ch-ch-changes

With less than 40 days until my due date (yes, it is 38 days away, but saying “less than 40” sounds a WHOLE lot cooler)

I’ve been reflecting on how most of my life has changed. Now to all you women who have had babies (particularly to my dearest mother and sister in law Katie who both delivered twins!!! You are both absolutely amazing!) I’m guessing you have war stories that can kick the pants off of mine. So, no sympathy required, just simply logging away the details and entertaining myself (and hopefully a few of you out there as well!)

Sleep

Pre-pregnancy: I’ve never been one to struggle with sleep. Sleeping through the night is what God intended mankind to do, and so I did it. On my belly, back, side, you name it, I could sleep in any position and count on waking up refreshed in the morning

Pregnancy: If you ever had the joy of owning a turtle you have most likely seen that turtle on its back and its valiant attempts to flip itself back upright (and let me take this moment to apologize to Truman, the family turtle, for the times you escaped your tank only to be thwarted in your retreat by landing on your back. Being left to the mercy of some Pennock child to place you back in your home, but only after watching your amazing determination and flexibility for a few pain-staking long minutes was probably not best.)

Cue Lindsay. Flipping from one side to the other while lying down takes the SAME amount of effort as actually getting out of bed and then lying back down on the other side. Maybe even more effort since I make lovely sound effects as a heft my belly from one side to the other.

Getting Ready for the Day

Pre-pregnancy: Lots of options. I have a closet full of clothes that fit, multiple ways to wear my hair, and all the energy in the world to enjoy preparing for the day.

Pregnancy: Between my two pairs of jeans and 5 maternity shirts, a core body temperature of a bazillion degrees (give or a take a few) which no longer allows me to wear my hair down without having it plastered to my head in sweat, and the energy of my 80 year old patient who just went through a total knee surgery, I’d say getting ready hasn’t really happened in a few months…

Potty

Pre-pregnancy: At work we joke that “you know you are a nurse if the only times you pee are at 6 in the morning and 6 at night.” I used to pride myself on my bladder. When we made our annual Mecca out to Utah/Idaho from Michigan, I was never the one that made our car pull over for a pit stop. 28 hours of driving provided all the scenery I could want, no need to add the view of various gas station bathrooms to the itinerary.

Pregnancy: On average I have to get up to go to the bathroom twice a night since my bladder can only expand to the size of a tennis ball. And I only add to this problem since I drink all day long and have yet to quench my incessant thirst. Seriously, no one warned me that I would have to refill my Britta filter at least twice a day to keep up with this unquenchable need for water. I think my baby has a future as a swimmer.

Work

Pre-pregnancy: 12 hour shifts? Piece of cake! I’ve been doing this for almost 3 years now. My body is trained for this!

Pregnancy: Once 2:00 in the afternoon rolls around I may or may not be contemplating asking my patient to scoot over in bed and make room for me. I’d promise I’ll give a double dose of pain meds! :) C’mon, look at these elephant ankles! No soul should be forced to walk on these for another 4 hours!

Weight Gain

Pre-pregnancy: What are a few pounds gained or lost? It’s probably water weight, so no stress!

Pregnancy: What’s wrong with weighing more than your husband? :) And even though the baby probably won’t weigh more than 9 pounds, for some reason the docs say to gain 3 times that.

Marks

Pre-pregnancy: The only marks I’d ever get are freckles in the summer, a bruise after a clumsy mistake, and the occasional zit after a stressful event.

Pregnancy: Oh the lovely stretch marks! To you blessed souls who don’t have them, you are missing out. “Because once you pop the fun don’t stop.” But not just on the belly. Oh no! Be thankful that clothes cover the parts they do, because I know I sure am.

Date Night

Pre-pregnancy: racquetball, hikes, dinner and a movie, and just getting out of the house.

Pregnancy: anything but leaving the house. Mostly just reading out loud and watching the first 10 minutes of a movie before falling asleep sums it up nicely.

Eating

Pre-pregnancy: Eat anytime and anything I want. If I woke up and skipped breakfast, not the end of the world. Just eat an extra big lunch, there’s room for my stomach to expand.

Pregnancy: Even though I have been known to have late night snacks with my nightly runs to the porcelain throne, the second I wake up for the day I am famished. Probably from all the energy I expend by trying to turn myself and get comfortable… And as for eating big meals, NO WAY! I haven’t finished a meal at a restaurant for a loooong time. Got to have something to eat at 2 in the morning right?

Cuddle

Pre-pregnancy: used to cuddle with Kyle.

Pregnancy: Cuddle with my pillow under my belly, between my knees, and one behind my back. Don’t worry; I still wave over my mountain of fabric so he knows I care.

Dishes

Pre-pregnancy: Put them off as long as possible.

Pregnancy: Put them off as long as possible.

And I guess with that said, not everything has changed, just a lot of non-important things. I’m sure baby cakes will be worth all these changes and bring a few of his/her own.

Ee-u-pwi

So, with an undergraduate degree in psychology out of the way it's time for me to look towards the future. Graduate school seemed to be the next logical step. And so, Lindsay and I are heading out to Indiana...

 

IUPUI Jaguars! We're going to be spending the next few years in downtown Indianapolis while I complete a masters degree in Industrial/Organizational psychology.

I figured it was best to stick with cats in my college study. Cougars to Jaguars. It only seemed right.

We're going to miss Utah. Especially Provo and BYU. It's been a great home for the last several years. But it's about time to move on. Midwest, here we come!

32 week shot

So Kyle got home from work and we took a couple of pictures real quick for your viewing pleasure. Here is 32 weeks looking at you!

55 days and counting

Yes, it’s been awhile since I’ve updated. And no, I’m not going to apologize about it. :) Between working full time and growing a baby I feel like I’m allowed some leniency of how often I post. But since Kyle is at work and I have already taken a nap this morning (that’s right, I took a nap within 2 hours of waking up!) let me update everyone.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t know if we have ever announced on our blog that we are expecting. So here’s a big surprise to anyone who happens to still follow our blog and has not heard our news! I am 32 weeks along, which puts us less than 2 months away from June 20^th. We are so excited! Kyle is thinking we’ll have a little girl

while I have a gut feeling the baby is a boy.

I guess we’ll know for sure the first time we change the little squirt’s diaper…

We actually were pregnant for the first time back in June and were due on March 3rd this year. But for some reason things did not work out and I miscarried. It was really tough, both at the time and for months afterwards, but we made it through it. And although I still can’t say I’m glad it happened, I think it has helped me deal with the less pleasant sides of pregnancy with a better attitude.

One of the things that helped me cope with this loss was training for my half marathon that I ran back in October.

It was a Halloween marathon and I dressed up as an American Flag. It's cool, I promise. I ran cross country and track in high school and it was SO NICE to get back into a running routine. It was good to be working towards a goal and the training definitely helped me manage the new stresses of working as a Registered Nurse on the orthopedic/neurosurgery floor at the hospital. My training was going really well, that is until morning sickness set in. I ended up running the race when I was 7 weeks pregnant. The first 7 miles went really well. Miles 8, 9, 10, oh who am I kidding, and all the rest of the race were rough (I’ll spare you the glamorous details of what that means). Fortunately, 13.1 miles came and I finished! My time wasn’t too impressive but I am definitely very excited to start training for another in a few months.

Most of my pregnancy has gone pretty smooth. Just twice a day I would meet my worst enemy.

That’s right, my toothbrush. I don’t know what it was, but something about sticking this plastic tool in my mouth with all of its minty freshness would make me throw up. I don’t know if any other ladies out there can relate to this, but it was a daily routine. I embraced being “Lindsay Rotten Mouth” because I could hardly brush my teeth longer than 30 seconds. Fortunately, we live in the modern age where gum has been invented. Trident Tropical Flavors became my best friends and thus I was able to keep all of my friends without scaring them off with foul breath. :)

So after months of puking daily, we made it to the blessed 20 week mark and had our first (and only) ultrasound. Now, up to this point I would have a near panic attack each time we stepped into the doctor’s office (we are going to Valley OB here in Provo and love it.) What if there was no baby? So the second our baby popped up on that big screen, I couldn’t catch my breath. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen! Our ultrasound tech was so nice and was going into all kinds of details after she found out I was nurse. Here's a picture of the heartbeat.

And look at these cute little feet! She said that each foot measured an inch.

And here is a sideview of our baby! I can't believe how well defined the features are!

And here's a shot of the face head on. Kind of looks like Skeletor from He-man... but a very cute Skeletor....I probably shouldn't say things like that...I promise I will be a very supportive and loving mom...even if our child does look like a villan. :)

I think this photo is amazing because you can actually see the lens of the eye. Isn't that wild?

And a cute picture of the back to show that there are no signs of neural tube defects. The tech mentioned that I had a large uterus and that the baby should grow into it...hopefully that doesn't come back to bite me...I've never had someone comment on my uterus before. :)

After she measured everything she asked us if we were going to find of the gender. Now, for some reason we had thought it would be fun to make it surprise and told her “no.” She got so excited and pulled out two chocolates, one says “It’s a girl” and one saying “It’s a boy.”

Now granted, she gave me the boy one and Kyle the girl one, so maybe that’s why we both are swinging the way we are. After it was all over, she pulled me aside and told me that if I ever changed my mind later in my pregnancy she has the gender written down and all I have to do is ask. Too funny! So far we haven’t caved yet!

I finally broke down and began wearing maternity pants once I was 24 weeks along, and to be honest, I don’t know if I will ever go back to wearing normal clothes again! I haven’t had to do up a zipper or button on my pants for months!!! So if later on this year you still see me wearing my stretchy waist band pants, don’t act too surprise. Pregnant women and grandmas have got the comforts of life figured out. And for anyone shopping for maternity clothes, I recommend going to Burlington coat factory. The clothes there are a fraction of the price of the other maternity stores I've been to.

Now getting up at 5 in the morning and getting home shortly before 7 at night when I work has been tiring to say the least. But I do feel so grateful that I have job that we have insurance to take care of our family. On average, I walk about 5 miles while I’m at work (one of the girls I work with wears a pedometer) which is great exercise. Plus I love my co-workers and my patients. But I will blog about that another day.

Well there is the latest and greatest. I’ll end with some pictures so you can see how the baby and I are progressing.

This is the best pre-pregnancy picture I could find from the side. I guess I never have thought of taking side shots of myself until I was pregnant.

This is me at 20 weeks and still in normal clothes!

This is 23 weeks

This is 24 weeks

This is 26 weeks

Sorry I don't have any that are more recent. I'll make sure to take one soon and update. For now, be satisfied with a picture of our cute infant seat.

The Forgotten Holidays

So, as I was getting ready to celebrate one of the greatest days of the year (Halloween) I was walking past an apartment in our complex and saw that they had already put up a Christmas tree and decorations! Now, I love Christmas, but when preparations have moved to before Halloween I get a little upset. So I decided that I couldn't forget some of my favorites holidays and decided to dedicate a post to what happened with Lindsay and me over these last two months (mostly focusing on Halloween and Thanksgiving).

Our October was great. Lindsay had spent the last couple of months training for a half marathon that she was going to run on the day before Halloween. It's called the Halloween Half Marathon and everybody that runs it goes dressed up in costumes! Some of the costumes that people were wearing were crazy. I found about 17 Waldos in the crowd, another half dozen Thing 1's (and almost as many Thing 2's), and plenty of superheroes.

Lindsay went as an American flag.

She did excellent. I got to see the last 1/4 of a mile. I don't think I could ever run that far. I'm really proud of her for achieving that goal. Brendan and Kristin came along to help along with the cheering.

It was great. After that we went home and carved pumpkins...

Halloween turned out great. Really relaxing. We had a little get together with some friends and made some personal pizzas,

(Those are mummies if you couldn't tell) and some 7-layer dip in the shape of a ghost!

We didn't have too many trick-or-treaters so I got to eat most of the huge bag of candy that we got.

So Halloween came and went. But November is great because it has one of my favorite days of the year, Thanksgiving! What's better than a day devoted to eating and football? Lindsay had to work at the hospital over Thanksgiving, so we didn't venture out anywhere, just stayed at home. I got the privilege of cooking all day long (while watching the football games of course) and preparing the feast for when Lindsay got back back. I tried brining the turkey this year, which turned out amazingly! I recommend it to everyone if they are going to make a turkey. 

That's the turkey brining in the corner.

It turned out nicely.

Special thanks to Brendan and Kristin for the amazing rolls.

Lindsay was very pleased to have such a great meal to come home to. 

Okay, now that I have properly celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving it's time to get ready for Christmas! Just three short weeks until we'll be hanging with family!