32 weeks!

We are in the home stretch!  I can't believe how fast it has gone.  For the most part, I think I've been a pretty lucky pregnant gal.  Most of the common pregnancy ailments have steered clear of me, and I am incredibly thankful for that.  =) 

The basketball in my belly has been the main obstacle.  It is really good at catching things like crumbs and toothpaste, so my clothes are perpetually stained.  I can no longer squeeze behind Jonas in the bathroom, I have to wait my turn.  I have to be very cautious going around corners, or else Schnitzel gets stabbed.  I can't sit up from a reclined position, so I roll off the couch and bed instead.  It's all quite humorous.

People have started saying things to me and asking me questions about my pregnancy in public places, which is a new development.  For the most part people just look at me funny, but I occasionally get a "Congratulations" or "When are you due?" now.  It throws me off every time.  For 28 years, stranger interaction has consisted of "How are you?" or just "Hello", so now when I get these pregnancy related questions, it takes me a second to process what they are asking me and give them an appropriate answer.  I don't know why I find this so surprising, but it really does throw me off every time. 

We also get the urgent question, "Have you chosen a name?"  Yes we have, and no we will not tell you what it is.  A few people are feeling a little impatient about this, but I guarantee that you will love him to pieces even if we name him Swithbert or Frodo.

It feels like just yesterday Schnitzel was the size of a kidney bean, and now he is close to 4 pounds and 17 inches.  He reacts to our voices sometimes now, and we can feel all kinds of body parts poking out (though we don't know what parts they are exactly... we're hoping Dr. Thomas can enlighten us tomorrow at our next appointment). 

We can't wait to meet him!  Well, we can wait 8 weeks.  ;)  I go back to work next week, so things might be a little crazy for a bit while I re-adjust to real life... but I am ready and excited.  =)

Schnitzel's Room

Schnitzel's room is still a work in progress, but it is coming along!  We are waiting for Ikea to open (July 27th) for some of the remaining items that we need to buy:  a dresser, a lamp, a couple of floating shelves, and picture frames to hang from the gorgeous picture rail that Jonas hung!  Schnitzel would probably rather have a mattress than a floating shelf, but don't worry buddy, we'll get there.  =)

Here are some pictures of our (well, mostly Jonas') hard work!  Please disregard the horrible picture quality, we need a major camera upgrade.

First is a "before" shot from when we bought the house and moved in.  We did turn it into an actual guest room with a bed and everything, but we apparently don't have pictures of it in that state.  You can see the old paint colors though;  ugly yellowish walls and hideous brown painted trim.

 The guest quarters moved down to the basement, because this is Schnitzel's pad now!

Empty wall, will be filled eventually.  ;)

The crib and mobile that the Mile High Mom made!

My fun project!

Denver goes swimming.

This post is not about Schnitzel, it's about an adventure his parents had yesterday. 

Yesterday we had a "monsoonal flow" thunderstorm here in Denver, and boy was it a doozy!  When it rains or snows I take Jonas to and from work so he doesn't have to ride his bike in adverse road conditions (what a good wife I am).  So yesterday when it started to pour down rain at about 4:30, I headed out to go get him.  It was raining hard, but at that point only a few street corners had started pooling up with puddles; no big deal.  Once I got downtown however, I realized the conditions were not only poor for cyclists and pedestrians, they were bordering on unsafe for driving as well.  At that point I was only a few blocks away from Jonas' building though, so I kept going.  As I waited at a stoplight in a few inches of water at Broadway and 17th, many unlucky "businesspeople" (as I like to call them) were wading (literally) through the intersection, desperate to get to dry land or their wet cars.  I cried a little on the inside for their leather shoes and dry cleaned pants.  At last I made it to Jonas' building, and with a hop skip and a jump over some serious puddles, he made it to the car.  We turned onto 17th street, and began the adventure of getting home.  Now, thus far I have mentioned pools of water, puddles, pouring down rain... but those pools and puddles quickly turned into rivers, lakes, and oceans of water.  The entire 5 lane road (3 for driving, 2 for parking) was completely flooded.  Not just curb to curb; the water on either side of the road was up to the doors of the businesses and restaurants, flooding into the buildings.  You couldn't even see where the curbs were, let alone lanes or asphalt.  I strategically stayed in the middle lane (the higher of the 3 lanes), held my breath, and went through it.  It was 5 o'clock traffic on a one-way road, all the side roads were flooded out too, so I had no choice but to keep going forward.  Luckily, the Scion powered through and got us home.  Our house sits up nice and high on a hill and was completely safe from flooding, thank goodness.  Our newly mulched front yard was not so lucky.  The streets and sidewalks are littered with mulch throughout our entire neighborhood (the street sweepers are cleaning our block right now, actually), and our yard was a big contributor.  The river of water that caused the damage was gone by the time we got home, but it had flowed down our street with such volume and ferocity that it came all the way up through the yard and onto the other side of the sidewalk, washing away quite a bit of Jonas' hard work, and even coming into the backseat of his car.  The amount of water that got into his car was minimal, thank goodness.

We are expected to have similar storms developing around noon today, and I think I'll stay safely inside this time. 

Here are some photos Jonas took from the car before it got reeeeeally dicey.  When the swift rivers turned into angry oceans, he put the phone away.

 Water all the way up to the buildings.

 Let's go swimming at the bus stop!

Poor mulch... that's about 10-12 feet past the curb.

Schnitzel was just fine through the adventure, he's used to swimming.  =)

Glucose delight!

We had my 28 week appointment today, and the highlight of today's visit was the glucose tolerance test.  In order to determine if pregnant women have developed Gestational Diabetes, there is a routine test that involves drinking a sugar solution that has 50 grams of glucose and having your blood drawn an hour later to check your blood sugar level.  Dr. Google had warned me that this orange drink was definitely something to fear.  Many women have bad reactions to ingesting this super sugar drink, and I was prepared for the worst.  I sat down with my orange drink (it was chilled, how kind of them), took a deep breath, and took my first sip.  Much to my delight, it wasn't the devil's juice that Dr. Google had made it out to be!  It tasted like Sunkist, which was sort of a treat considering I'm not drinking sodas nowadays.  They told me I had to finish it in 5 minutes, but I threw that sucker back in 2.

During the hour wait before I could have my blood drawn, I met Jonas upstairs at the doctor's office for our 28 week appointment.  I only gained 2 pounds in the 4 weeks since my last appointment, but my fundal height measurement went from 24 to 30, a growth of 6 centimeters!  You'll see this growth in my new bump picture below... I knew that boy was up to something in there.  So, Schnitzel seems to be growing right on track, but I've been encouraged to gain more: ideally a pound a week.

I am now coming down from a lovely little sugar high, and hopefully my blood samples show that I am a professional sugar eater with no blood sugar problems.  I haven't been eating all those cookies for nothin'!

 28 weeks

My darling husband and I will be celebrating our 1st wedding anniversary on Sunday.  =)  It has been an amazing year, he is the most amazing man, and will be the most amazing father.  I can't wait for the many more years of happiness in our little family's future.  I couldn't ask for anything more.

The happy family 3 weeks ago at a wedding in Peoria, Illinois  =)