20 Down, 20 to Go!

Ah! As of Sunday, I was 20 weeks! That means as of today (Monday) I am officially  past the halfway mark. 20 weeks also means the anatomy scan, which means - that's right - we find out if we're have a boy or a girl! (Can you tell I am a TAD bit excited?) Our anatomy scan is scheduled for 8:30 am on Wednesday, March 27th. Fingers crossed the little one cooperates and spreads their legs for us that day. (I'm pretty sure this will be the only time I want my child to spread their legs).

I won't be posting the gender on here right away, but I will as soon, I promise. (Seriously, I can't wait to shout it from the roof tops!)

Since we have a few days, I thought it would be fun to take a look at my "gender symptoms" and you all can take a guess at what it can be. Bryan and I seriously do not have a clue. To answer the next question "What are you hoping for?" My answer is healthy, for sure. I am so excited for either gender. After everything we've been through, I am just so excited to finally be at this point.

Gender Symptoms

I highlighted these in pink or blue, in case you are not sure what that particular symptom means. If it's just in black, it means I think it's a wash. 

Carrying High or Low: I'm not really sure, I think low, but I'm also almost 5'10", so I think it would be hard to be carrying high. 

Heart rate above or below 140: Our baby has consistently been between 150 and 170 since day one.

Craving Sweet or Salty: At first, sweets were a food aversion. Once morning sickness passed, it's a good mixture of both.

Chinese birth chart: Based on my age and the month we conceived (29 & November), it's a girl.

The ring on a string over your belly trick: went back and forth.

Presence of acne: Skin is clear!

Morning sickness: I definitely did not feel good from weeks 6 to 10, but I never threw up.

Left breast bigger than right breast: Yep!

More leg hair than normal: Oddly enough, my leg hair seems to have stopped growing...

Sleep on left or right side: Right.

More headaches than normal: Haven't had a lot of headaches.

Dreams of Girl or Boy: I've had two dreams - both times it was a girl!

Do you guys have any more wives tales? Based on the above, it looks like a girl, but I would not bet my life on it. When I initially found out I was pregnant, I was convinced it was a boy - so we'll see!

The Nest is Almost Done!

I've been promising it for awhile, but here are some pictures of our house that is ALMOST done. It's so close, I can taste it. It's so close that I am going to start PACKING this weekend! Ah!

For those of you who don't know, we dug the hole for our house in July. Yes, that's right, nine months ago. The original plan was to be in our house by Christmas, but we had a lot of set-backs along the way. For anyone who is thinking about building the house, patience, patience, patience. I have never talked to someone who built a house and they moved in by their original deadline. Granted, ours took a little longer than normal because B did a lot of the work himself, but it was worth it because it allowed us some upgrades that we otherwise would not have been able to afford.

For your viewing pleasure, here are some updated pictures of the new place:

Installed today - carpet! It feels so homey having carpet finally in the bedrooms finally!

We went with hardwood floors throughout. It took Bryan awhile to convince me to do this because I thought it might be difficult for a baby to learn to walk on hardwood, but then I talked to several people who have hardwood and little kids and none of them had any trouble. I'm glad we went with hardwood, it looks amazing!

The entry way - I love our front door!

My fabulous kitchen with tons of cupboard and counter space! I can't wait!

The master shower - I am pretty proud of B for this. He's never tiled before and I think he did a pretty good job for his first time!

Vanity in master bath (bad cell phone picture)

My extra-large mudroom! In our last house, we didn't have a laundry room, we had a laundry closet. I am so excited to have a dedicated room. Eventually there will be a counter with some drawers and a custom, built-in kennel for Josie. 

That's it for now! Hopefully we don't have any more set-backs and we can start moving in within a couple of weeks and be completely out of our condo by the end of the month!

BumpDate: 18 Weeks

Well, here we are - week 18! Two more weeks and we're half way through. You may have noticed I skipped week 17, and I have good reasons. Week 17 was (hopefully) the worst week of my pregnancy as I came down with the stomach flu. I have not been sick with the flu since I was in grade school and it was HORRID! So horrible in fact, I ended up in the Emergency Room Wednesday night due to severe dehydration and needed an IV and some drugs to make it so I could eat again. Bleh.

As you can probably guess, taking a picture was probably the last thing to do on my list. Along with showering or getting off the couch.

Luckily, by Saturday I was feeling better! I was so hungry by that point that all I wanted to do was down a giant plate of spaghetti. So B and I made the trek into Cedar Rapids to a place called Zepplins where I gorged myself with parmesan french fries and a big plate of spaghetti. Later that night, I had my first experience with heartburn. At first I chalked it up to the fact that I hadn't really eaten anything aside from rice and toast since Tuesday and my stomach was just not used to actual food.

Then Sunday I had a sandwich from Subway and it was back with a vengeance. Dinner that night was pancakes and the heartburn was even worse. I am hoping the wives tale that says if you have a lot of heartburn, it means your child has a lot of hair is true. (I am not holding my breath though as my mom had a lot of heartburn and I was bald until I was 2).

Luckily today was a regularly scheduled appointment with my OB. After he heard that pancakes were causing my esophagus to burn, he told me to go get some Prevacid. Hoping this takes the edge off as I am not sure how I will be able to tolerate this for five more months.

Other than that, things are going great! Baby is squirming around in there and I know I can definitely feel it now. As you can see from the picture below, it's also growing at a respectable rate as well!

Hope your week is off to a great start!