This whole baby thing seemed like it was taking forever, but now that the due date is only 100 days away, it all seems to be happening so fast! 100 days. Can you believe that? There is still so much to get done. As far as I can tell, Kyllan has behaved and has not peeked at the nursery… yet. She is, however, inquiring about the nursery reveal at least twice a day and telling me what days would be good for her. I’m pretty sure that she has a date set in her mind that she will take a look regardless of what I say.
Things are really going to start flying by now. Last week we took our official labor and delivery tour of the hospital. Just another sign that the end/beginning is getting near. Kyllan is REALLY pregnant now, which may explain her lack of post recently. That, and she is back to falling asleep at the blink of an eye. Below is her 25 weeks picture, taken this past Saturday. This coming weekend we will travel to South Carolina to attend the wedding of one of Kyllan’s college friends and sorority sisters. The weekend after that we will be in Jacksonville (more on that to come). The week after that we will celebrate Kyllan’s birthday. The week after that, Kyllan’s sister is hosting her baby shower.
Also, I would just like to remind everyone that we are now blocking search engines from the site. Searching for “cody report” on Google is going to be less and less likely to turn up the blog. (More and more likely to turn up links by that guy named Cody who wanted to buy the domain from me a few years back for his weekly stock market report.)
Disclaimer: I received a phone call from a friend alerting me that too many post on the blog were focused on pink baby clothes and baby bumps. My next post will be a MAN POST about manly things
I didn’t mean to get this far behind, but I am glad William helped me out by posting last week’s baby bump photo.
In pregnancy news…..
Things are still going great! Baby Girl Cody is starting to move a lot more lately and not just when I eat. I have noticed that her kicks are getting stronger. William has felt her twice now and that was a great experience. His facial expression was priceless! The first time (and even the second), his mouth flew open in utter amazement and he had this huge smile on his face. I will probably never forget that moment. It was very special.
As you have probably noticed from the photos, my belly is really starting to grow now. Most people at work can clearly tell I am pregnant now and aren’t afraid to ask me about the baby and how I am feeling. It is interesting watching my belly grow. I am getting to the point where bending over is not as comfortable and easy as it used to be, but I can still reach my toes and don’t have any significant issues yet. I am still able to take three flights of stairs up to my office everyday and multiple times a day when I am walking throughout the building. I am usually a bit winded when I get to the top, but that is not much different than prior to being pregnant 🙂
I told William that I felt confident that our baby can hear, which is a good sign. When the fire alarms went off at work last week, it was very loud, and she definitely started moving around a bit. According to BabyCenter.com, this is the stage where hearing picks up. She was also moving a bit during the really bad thunderstorm on Monday morning (it was the type of storm with explosion like thunder), but it seems like she has been awake and moving every morning this week when my alarm goes off, so it may just be her routine for the moment.
Well… that about sums it up. Below is my 23 week baby bump photo. My mother suggested I wear a different outfit 🙂 I have only been trying to wear the same thing to make the comparison easier, but perhaps I will throw in a photo of me in something different this weekend. I should have taken a picture today! I wore a cute Isabella Oliver wrap dress. It was one of my splurge maternity purchases, but I love it.
This past Sunday Kyllan suddenly grabbed my hand and thrust it upon her stomach. As soon as I opened my mouth to ask her what in the world was going on, she gave me her “be quiet” look. A few moments later I felt my daughter move for the very first time. That brief second was one of the most amazing moments of my life.
With the new job, last week I had a spring break for the first time since high school. (I went to undergrad in New Orleans. We didn’t have spring break. We had 3 days for Mardi Gras and two days for Easter.) A funny thing happened. All that time off and I did not see one movie. Not in theaters and not at home. I didn’t play video games. I didn’t get around to putting together a photo book of last year’s trip to Hawaii or editing the 3 year old video from the Mediterranean. What did I do? (Yes, I know. Kyllan already told you.) I started putting together a nursery. I was out the door by 9am everyday, back by 5 every evening and putting things together all night. Even stranger than that? That’s exactly what I wanted to do with my spring break. Like Kyllan said, she hasn’t seen it yet. She is banned until it is completed. It’s interesting to hear what she thinks is going on in there. I think she starting to play mind games on herself at this point with all of her guessing.
On another note, we are going to try and reduce the visibility of the blog on search engines like Google. It will probably take a while before searching for the blog doesn’t lead lead you directly here, but you should go ahead and bookmark the site or subscribe to the RSS feed if you haven’t already.
Wow. This weekend was so full of baby that we literally wore ourselves out!! 🙂
Some of you may have heard that William is surprising me (and probably most of you) by completely designing and decorating the nursery. I really can’t even remember how this came about, but I do remember him telling me that if I were responsible for the nursery, I would get too stressed and drive myself crazy. He is probably right and I have to admit that with my work schedule remaining pretty busy, I haven’t really had a lot of time to research designs and nursery decor, so I enjoy not having that on my to-do list. I was allowed to make a list of 10 things I wanted to see included in the nursery and after that… I am locked out of the room until the room is done. I was a bit nervous about this arrangement, so the compromise was to ask my sister to ensure cinder blocks were not part of the room 🙂 . William was on Spring Break , so every day this past week I came home to him being behind closed doors for several hours working on the nursery. One night, I heard him hammering away at midnight… but… I was still able to fall asleep with no problem 🙂 The only details about the nursery I know are the crib, dresser/changing table, and rocker/recliner. We picked those out together and I am very happy with our decision. He has been so excited about this project, so I am anxiously awaiting the big reveal, which will probably be around my birthday, which happens to fall just before Mother’s Day. How exciting!! I can’t wait!
On Saturday, we had the first part of our childbirth class. Yep… childbirth class already. It was mainly because the dates for this weekend and next fit in with our schedule better than other dates over the next couple months. The class was from 9am-4pm, so it was a full day devoted to preparing for the big event. After class, we decided we were going to go set up our baby registries. We had already planned to do it this past weekend prior to registering for the childbirth class, so we decided to just stick to it and make it a day full of baby. After spending about 2 hours at each store, we were done and it was 9pm. We had been up since about 7:15am and we were exhausted. After enjoying a late dinner, we came home and collapsed on the couch. Needless to say, we didn’t make it to church today. It was about 10am before either of us attempted to get out of bed and the rest felt great. In fact, we didn’t even make it out of the house until about 6 or 7pm when we decided to go for a walk to get some exercise in for the day. Fortunately I also made is to the grocery store also to stock up on some breakfast foods and healthy snacks for the week.
So… a busy week and a very busy Saturday, but we accomplished a lot, so I think we are both happy even though we are a bit tired.
So… how has the pregnancy been this week?…. Still smooth! I can see why people consider the 2nd trimester the best of them all. You’re not dealing with the symptoms you may have had in the 1st trimester, the fatigue is not as bad, and your stomach is growing, but not too big to cause any problems or major distractions. I have not felt as much movement this week from the baby, but I know I am only a few weeks from feeling the major kicks and movements, so I should probably enjoy it while it lasts. One change I have noticed this week is my belly button has begun its journey forward and seems like it is going to start popping out in the next few weeks. It’s an odd thing to notice it pushing forward day by day.
Below, is my 21 week belly shot as well as some of the items we couldn’t resist buying for the baby while we were registering. Isn’t the purple Share Bear cute?! As you can see, we added some additional colors to her wardrobe, I like pink , but I want to make sure she can enjoy all colors. A couple of the items are actually for when she starts wearing 12 month clothes, so you probably won’t see her in a picture with those until next year.
So we have finally reached the halfway point! 20 weeks down, 20 weeks to go.
Now that we know we are having a girl, the excitement has picked up because we can begin decorating and buying things for her. In fact, the Cody grandparents were in town this weekend and kicked off the shopping with us. We found some great outfits for her as well as a few gadgets, and a diaper dude bag and baby carrier for William. We also found some books to add to her library. It was a fun weekend and I am glad William’s parents were able to come into town and celebrate with us. Check out the results of our shopping below. Yes, there is probably more pink than I would like, but the store we were in had mostly pink clothing. More colors to come in the future. I love my purple and reds!
So… how have I been feeling? Well… overall I am still feeling pretty good. This past week was a bit rough because I was fighting a sore throat and cold. I lost my voice for pretty much an entire week, which has never happened before (I have lost my voice, but not usually longer than 2-3 days). I will admit that I was hesitant to take any medication. I know there are certain medications that are approved to take during pregnancy, but I didn’t want to take anything unless I felt I really needed to do that. I did go through a few days of terrible coughing that was driving both William and I crazy. I finally ended up taking Tylenol one day and Robitussin another and for the most part, things seems to be better. I am still coughing a little bit, but not nearly as much as I was last week (or even Sunday morning for that matter).
Other than fighting a cold, things are still smooth. Baby Cody has been moving a bit more. She loves to move when I am eating. She definitely reacts to the blood sugar rush :-). Almost without fail, she will move when I am eating. There are other times she moves, but I feel the most movement while I am eating. It’s kinda funny. Right now, it’s still more flutters than distinct kicks, but I am finally to the point where I can tell that it’s the baby. The movements do feel like they are getting more distinct as the weeks go on, so I look forward to more movement.
We are going to have a baby… That doesn’t even sound right. It seems like just yesterday that the two of us were in graduate school and trying to figure out if I was going to introduce Kyllan as my girlfriend before heading of to a holiday party. I am sill getting use to this whole college professor thing. I’ve had years of formal education. Years of research experience. I’ve even taught before. But when the kids get ready to leave at the end of class, I start to leave with them, before remembering that I was the one that just gave the lecture and that I have to stay behind to shut off the lights and lock the door. Now, with zero experience or education, I have a few short months to prepare to be a dad 24/7. It’s a little scary. It would be a lot scary without Kyllan. The first time we heard the baby’s heart beat, I fought hard not to tear up in front of the doctor. (I’m a man’s man. I can’t be tearing up in front of no doctor!) Kyllan was just chillin’. She’s had months to adjust mentally as her body adjust physically. Me? I feel like an all new thesis defense is quickly approaching and the baby is the committee chair. Don’t get me wrong, I am excited. I just have no idea how to prepare for this and what comes afterward. Especially with a girl. (Is there a set of criteria for picking out a good doll?)
I’ve actually come a long way these past few years. Somewhere there is a picture of me holding our nephew, then 1, with my arms completely outstretched and as far away from me as possible. I had no idea what to do with him. Now, he is one of my favorite people in the whole world. (I still have no idea what to do with him though, so we usually just do whatever he wants.) About a year ago Kyllan and I were asked to substitute one morning in the nursery at our church. We’ve been volunteering every other Sunday ever since. I didn’t know I was a kid person. I had avoided them all of my life, even when I was a kid. Now “baby holding Sunday” is one of the highlights of my week… but we get to give those kids back.
In the future, I will be following up each of Kyllan’s post about the pregnancy with my own. I can’t let this become a girly blog, especially since I am going to be out numbered in the house.
William and I are very excited about Baby Girl Cody. We just found out this morning and I worked all day, so I haven’t made any purchases yet, but I can’t wait to start shopping!
We would have been happy either way, but I really am thrilled that we having a girl. I guess I just feel that we will have a good time decorating, and shopping for her and I am already excited about tea parties, cute dresses, lip gloss, girl scout cookies, mani/pedis when she is old enough, and even one day being the “mother of the bride”! Yeah… I know I am a long way off from that, but those are the things that cross my mind with a girl.
I am still feeling pretty good. The only issue I am running into at this point is comfortable sleep positions. At this point in my pregnancy, the recommendation is to sleep on my side, specifically the left side to provide optimal blood flow to the uterus. I have been a stomach sleeper for years, so this is kinda difficult for me. During the night, my hips start hurting and I have to flip sides, then I fatigue that side and have to flip back over, then I am fighting congestion, then I have to go to the bathroom, then when I get kinda comfy, William wakes me b/c my snoring (a new routine since becoming pregnant) woke him up. Then my alarm goes off. Though this is a bit annoying, it has really just started and I still don’t really have trouble sleeping, just end up waking up during the night a few times, something that did not happen much before. I am one of those people that falls asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow and can’t remember the last time I had trouble sleeping. I think I have some possible solutions. I will more than likely go ahead and buy a pregnancy pillow. I have heard mixed reviews, but I figured it is worth a try.
The Cody parents (soon to be Cody grandparents) will be in town this weekend, so that will be fun. We will likely go shopping together for Baby Girl.
The bump is growing as you can see from the picture below. According to BabyCenter.com, her brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. Some research suggests that she may be able to hear our voices. With that in mind, William and I made a trip to Barnes and Noble this past weekend to buy our first book for the baby. We planned to only buy 1, but bought 3 books :-). I guess we will start reading to her this week. She has already been able to enjoy the beautiful singing I do in the car on my travels to and from work. 🙂
So today is the day William and I were hoping to find out Baby Cody’s gender.
Drum Roll please………………
Ok. Nevermind. We still don’t know. What we do know is that our baby is pretty intelligent for realizing that he/she could hide their anatomy of interest behind the umbilical cord and play a fun hide and seek game for us. We have another opportunity next week, so we will see if Baby Cody will cooperate this time. My plan is to drink some fruit juice or something with a bit of sugar to getting the baby moving. 🙂
The good news was that the baby appeared to be healthy and things seem to be progressing very well. The heartbeat was strong at 153 bpm. The baby was actually measuring 3 days ahead of schedule, but I don’t think that really means much and they typically do not change the due date. The baby was moving around a bit, but usually appears pretty cozy and comfortable and also appears to be a thumb sucker (his/her hands are usually by the face). Despite not knowing the gender, William and I both left with huge smiles on or faces.
