Under 100!

I apologize that I didn't get a post written for last week. After some internet and computer issues it all of the sudden was the middle of the week so I decided to just skip writing one. However, I'm back and I'm at 26 weeks! We are wrapping up the second trimester and the countdown is under 100! Lil' miss Ilyana is now about 14 inches and 1.7 pounds. This week she was finally able to open her eyes (she can now see the bladder that she loves to squeeze)! She also is able to move her head, her hair is starting to grow in (I wonder if she'll get crazy cowlicks like her daddy?), and her itty bitty toenails are starting to grow in. Also in these coming weeks, she (hopefully) is working on turning herself head down so that she's ready to make her entrance into the world. Jake and I are getting really excited to meet her. We got her crib last week and will hopefully be setting that up, along with her nursery, soon. I also washed a bunch of baby clothes this past weekend too. They're all so gosh darn cute! Lately at church, Jake has been playing the bongos with some of the worship songs, it's been fun to feel her dance along on those songs! My friend Megan was standing by me during church a few weeks ago and was able to feel her kicking, she's the first person besides Jake and I that has been able to feel her! I can't wait for her to be here so we can introduce her to everyone! The countdown is on and hopefully with the holidays right around the corner, the time will fly by fast!

Information about Ilyana:
EDD: Feb 27th (95 days!)

How mom's feeling: A little back pain and constantly peeing, but I really can't complain!

How dad's feeling: Ready for Ilyana to get here!

I'm still a wife first

We've made it to 24 weeks! We're now starting to check things off the development checklist as our little one prepares herself for life outside the womb. Ears: done; fingernails; done; lung walls: secreting surfactant. Surfactant is "a surface-activated fat that helps your baby's little lungs inflate" (babygaga.com). It continues to amaze me how quickly God grows a living, breathing baby! Miss Ilyana is now a little over a pound and about a foot long, about the size of an ear of corn (and to imagine that we started at the size of a poppy seed!). She's moving around a lot, especially when I eat or drink anything chocolate, and loves to have swimming practice when I take a bath. I love watching my stomach move while I'm in the bath, she really goes nuts! She's been making it really difficult to breathe lately (especially when I'm sitting for a long period of time), which has been rather uncomfortable. But I'm learning to take more shallow breaths more often to try to make it easier.

Becoming parents is a journey Jake and I are so excited about, but as excited as I am about becoming a mom, I'm still a wife first. This past weekend I went to a women's retreat, which was an encouraging and refreshing time. The theme of the retreat this year was "Godly womanhood". Like most retreats, I learned a lot of great things that I wanted to apply to my life and to our marriage. But unlike most retreats, I decided to pick 3 things that I felt would be most beneficial at the current time to actually work on and apply. Here are the 3 things I chose to work on:

1. Greeting Jake with a hug and kiss. Often when Jake gets home from work and school I'm in the middle of some sort of activity (housework, watching tv, derping on facebook) and I will take the time to say "Hi!" but then it's usually back to whatever activity I was in the middle of. The first challenge I have for myself is putting aside what I'm doing to get up and give my wonderful husband a hug and kiss to greet him when he gets home. It is such an easy way for me to show him that he is more important to me than whatever it is that I'm doing (because he is!).

2. Asking him how I can help. A great idea one of the woman teaching mentioned was that she asks her husband everyday "How can I serve you today?". I would really like to ask Jake this question daily, I think it will make him feel really loved and supported. I also think this one will be one of the hardest and I will have to really prepare my heart ahead of time everyday. Some days it may be as simple as just giving him lots of sweet hugs throughout the day, but other days it may be less... exciting, like doing the dishes. Can I put aside my own hopes and desires for the day to serve my husband?

3. A change in how I view housework. Up until now, I have viewed housework as a dreadful task that just has to be done... eventually. Some things aren't so bad, in fact I find vacuuming rather enjoyable, it's just things like dishes and putting away laundry that really get me. But one of the speakers this weekend mentioned something so simple, yet so profound to me. Housework is a way I can serve my husband. I would really like to start viewing housework in this way rather than that thing that I have to do... tomorrow. I don't think that this change in heart will come easily, and I don't think it's something that will change how our house looks over-night, but I would like it to change my attitude and I think, eventually, it will at least make doing those dishes a little bit easier.

Information about Ilyana:

EDD: Feb. 27th (109 days)

How mom's feeling: Counting down the weeks until we get to meet the little miss!

How dad's feeling: "I'm super excited for Ilyana to be out. I've been really enjoying getting to really feel her moving around consistently."

We've made it to a pound!

We've made it to 23 weeks! In the medical world, 23 weeks is generally seen as the point in a pregnancy where if a baby were born they could survive (with a lot of medical interventions). Miss Ilyana now weighs just over a pound and is about 11 and a half inches long. Her cochlea is now fully formed, meaning that she can hear the sounds of the outside world, so watch what you say around her! She's continuing to kick harder everyday. Sometimes Jake and I will just sit and watch my belly move, it's really weird, but also very neat! I've definitely noticed that she has started to take up more room, sitting for too long often results in being unable to breathe. I've also started to experience some braxton hicks. Braxton hicks are essentially practice contractions, not necessarily painful (so far), but definitely unpleasant. However, I'm viewing them as a good opportunity to practice relaxing and breathing through the pain. There really isn't too much going on this week, we're just (im)patiently  waiting for our baby girl to make her debut. Hopefully these last few months will fly by!

Information about Ilyana:
EDD: February 27th (116 days)

How mom's feeling: Looking forward to February :)

How dad's feeling: Ready for Ilyana to be here!

He is in control

Tomorrow will mark 22 weeks for our kickboxing champion! Ilyana is doing great, she's kicking like crazy which is fun to feel and watch although not always pleasant to wake up to! She's about the size of a spaghetti squash and has now developed a sense of balance (lets hope she gets that from her dad, not me!). She also seems to really like apples, they've definitely been a craving of mine and she tends to go nuts whenever I eat one. On the baby front, everything really is going great.

As most of you know, along with expecting our little one, we are also in the process of building a house. Even though dates were continuing to be pushed back, we were holding on to hope that we would get into our house before Ilyana arrived or at least shortly afterwards. We received news today that they will not begin building until next April, estimating to be done by mid-July. This is definitely a bummer. As thrilled as we are with the benefits of the ROOTS program, it has definitely been a frustrating process. The big reason we're so behind is slacking on the builders part, not the city. After taking several months to get a document to the city, they then put off giving the city a timeline until the last minute, meaning our deed couldn't be processed through this months council meeting. Because they now won't have the deed until the end of November (after the next council meeting), they won't be able to start building until it warms up and the ground thaws. As disappointing as this is, there have been a couple of thoughts that have been helping me to stay positive that I'd like to share. 

1. James 4:13-15: 'Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”'
There are two things in these verses that really stuck out to me about our situation. First of all, life is short, in a year or two, will it really matter that we had to wait 5-6 extra months to get into our house? I doubt it. Also in this verse I saw a challenge from God, can we trust Him enough to give this up to Him and have peace in our hearts about a difficult and disappointing circumstance? We are not in control here, He is.

2. The city is highly involved in our house now. They have done a lot of extra work to push our builder in ways that we can't. They will also be holding our builder accountable for the timeline they gave them, so hopefully this means less delays.

3. As much of a bummer as it is to not be able to get into the house sooner, there is a silver lining. Before finding out this news, we were in a sort of awkward state of unknown as to where we would be when we have our baby. Now that we have this information, we can make the decisions necessary to figure that out and start preparing for her arrival. We can start setting up furniture and other necessary items in the next couple of months instead of having to wait until the last minute. In some ways, waiting until July, although not ideal, may be a blessing in disguise. We no longer will have to move in the winter and won't have juggle unpacking with either me being super pregnant or with caring for a newborn. Also, Jake will (hopefully) be working full time when we move in, which will definitely take off a large financial burden.

Basically what this all boils down to is this: We're definitely disappointed, but God is in control. He knows what He's doing and we are trusting in Him throughout this process, both with the good and the bad.

Information about Ilyana:

EDD: 2/27/15 (127 days)

How mom's feeling: like a punching bag ;)

How dad's feeling: Amazed at the feeling of Ily kicking.

Kicking queen

Here we are at 21 weeks and Ilyana is kicking up a storm. That is, when daddy's not trying to feel! She will be kicking like crazy but as soon as he puts his hand on my stomach she stops, and starts up again as soon as he gives up! So either she's very stubborn or is just calmed by daddy's presence! However, he did finally get to feel a couple of good kicks Saturday morning. He was pretty excited and thought "it felt really weird". It's been really neat to start to figure out her activity patterns and know about when to start expecting her kicks. They aren't hard enough to wake me up at night yet (I'm not complaining!), but during the day she usually kicks around 8:30 or 9, again around 12:30, for an extended period of time from around 4:30-6, and once more before bed around 9:15. I'll feel a couple of random kicks throughout the day as well, but for now, that seems to be her schedule. If she wants to keep that schedule once she's here I would be totally ok with that! Not so little Ilyana is now approximately 12.5 ounces and almost 11 inches long, about the size of a large carrot! Jenna was holding up a piece of paper the other night saying that it was 8x11 and I think my mouth literally fell open at the thought of our little baby girl being that big! Looking at my stomach, we can definitely tell she is growing though!
In other news, our house should finally be getting started this week. After contacting the city about the hold up in the process, they talked to our builder and told them that their eligibility to build in the program was being reconsidered. Very quickly, our builder 'magically' got the document from their bank that we've been waiting for. Our deed will be discussed at the city council meeting on Tuesday and after that our builder should begin building. From what I hear, the city is going to sit down with our builder to discuss the timeline of our house getting built to make sure that they are getting it done in a reasonable amount of time. It will definitely be cutting it close, but there is still a chance that we will be able to get into our house before Ilyana comes. Please pray that we can!

Information about Ilyana:
EDD: Feb. 27th (130 days)

How mom's feeling: Besides some back pain (looking forward to the chiropractor this week!), doing great!

How dad's feeling: Super excited to have felt her kick!

Bows or Bowties?

20 weeks marks halfway! Today we got to see our perfect, healthy baby and find out that it's a... GIRL! Jake and I are both ecstatic! Miss Ilyana Noel is right on track to make her debut around February 27th. It was so neat to be able to see how much she has grown since our last ultrasound and see her little heart beating. My favorite part was getting to see her little fingers and toes! So cute! During the ultrasound she was very busy playing with the umbilical cord, swallowing amniotic fluid (yuck!), and playing hide and seek with the ultrasound tech. She's already stubborn ;) Everything is looking great and we are eager to meet our sweet baby girl!
To announce the exciting news to the grandparents, we gave them little pumpkins with bows on them, here are some pictures of some of their reactions (my mom was out of town and the pictures of my dad didn't turn out):

Information about Ilyana:
EDD: Feb. 27th (140 days)

How mom's feeling: Great! So excited to meet our little girl!

How dad's feeling: Giddy with excitement that he can have a little daddy's girl :)

Exciting news!

We are celebrating 19 weeks with some exciting news! Last night, my hand was able to feel the baby move! I was coming back to bed after a middle of the night snack and had my hand resting on my stomach as I was falling back to sleep and felt a little kick! At first I thought maybe it was just a trick of the mind, but then I felt it again several more times. It was so neat! After several tries today, Jake was able to feel a little kick this evening too! In equally exciting news, we will be finding out gender THIS FRIDAY! Everyone can look forward to seeing the announcement sometime that evening after Jake has gotten off work and we've had a chance to announce to all the soon to be grandparents. So now is the time to start calculating your guess, will our little peanut be a boy or a girl? If you'd like to check out our answers to some of the gender wives tales, feel free to take a look at last weeks post.

Besides that exciting news, not a whole lot has been going on this week. My hips have been a bit sore so we're praying that that would subside soon. My stomach has definitely been growing a lot these past few weeks too which is fun. I'll try to remember to snap a picture tomorrow (I'm already in my pj's for the night). It's no wonder my stomach is getting big though, our little peanut is already about 8.7 ounces and 10 inches long (we can start measuring from head to toe instead of head to rump now)! 

Information about Peanut:

EDD: Feb. 27th (146 days)

How mom's feeling: Painful hips, but really excited about everything!

How dad's feeling: Really excited to find out the gender (we both are guessing girl)!