When will baby Fletcher get here?

We're getting close enough that I thought I'd set up another online pool to guess when he'll arrive and his size.

Some things to know as you make your educated guess:

- Ethan's due date is January 26th, however I am scheduled to be induced on January 22nd if he's not here by then. (Less than 6 weeks from now!)
- Luke was born 4 days early - my water randomly broke on it's own.
- Jason was born 3 weeks early, for no apparent reason.
- I was born 1 1/2 weeks early - my mom had preeclampsia and they had to induce.
- According to a study I found, the most popular day for babies to make their entrance is Wednesday. Sunday is the slowest day.
- For the last, oh 5-6 weeks or so, I've been constantly asked "So, any day now, huh?"
- Both of my NSTs (non-stress-tests) picked up mild cramps last week.

For size:
- According to one study, the average weight of a newborn is 7.5 lbs, and the average total body length is 19-21 inches.
- Luke weighed 9 lbs, 3 oz and was 22 1/4" long.  I've heard 2nd babies can be bigger.
-I was 6 lbs, 3 ounces and 18 ½ inches long.
-Jason weighed 7 lbs, 9 ½ ounces and was 20” long.
- At my 20 week ultrasound, Ethan was measuring about 2 weeks ahead (same as Luke.)  However all measurements of my belly have been dead on with how far along I am (also same as Luke.)  We will be having another ultrasound at 37 weeks for size purposes - you have to make your guess before then.

So now it's time to make your guess!  There will be a fabulous prize (er, bragging rights?) for the winner.  And PS - if you get the sex wrong, you need help.

Go to the link below to enter your guess.  You don't have to register or anything - just make a guess!  :)

http://www.expectnet.com/games/EthanF

32 weeks

How far along: 32 weeks

So it's kind of funny - as I was starting this post I decided to go back and read what I wrote with Luke.  I could copy that word for word here - in fact, I will, because bizarrely enough, it's been the exact same.

"This last week has been interesting. I've gone from feeling the best I had this entire pregnancy, to entering the wonderful world of "oh my goodness, I'm so uncomfortable, when will he get here?" Then he gets his feet lodged into my ribs which is also uncomfortable. Oh, and the swelling. The swelling has started. Sometimes I feel like a marshmallow man. It's not all the time, but there was one day that I had to go buy new socks while I was at work because the normal ones were cutting into my ankles (er, make that cankles.) I'm learning to make sure I get enough water and sit with my feet elevated. I also made the switch to a fake wedding band this week."

So the only difference - I didn't actually go buy new socks this time around.  I wanted to, but didn't.  I felt like it was too early to feel this way, but apparently not.  



Total weight gain/loss: 28 lbs - ugh.  Although that's right where I was with Luke too (are we noticing a trend here?  Think this means I'll have another 9+ lb baby?)
Maternity clothes: growing out of some of my favorites
Stretch marks: covered in them - not sure what are from this pregnancy and what are from Luke
Sleep: Not going well at all. 
Movement: Ethan moves all.the.time.  All over the place.  Most days his feet are up in my ribs.  This is an area that is different from Luke.  Jason used to sit there with his hand on my belly trying to feel Luke and it would take awhile.  Half of the time now you just have to look at my belly and you see Ethan moving.
Gender: Boy!!!
Belly Button in or out: Most definitely out.

 So some fun things in the last month or so!  First, my awesome coworkers threw a "baby celebration lunch" for me.  There were about 8 people there I think, but there were so many more that contributed to an amazing amount of gifts.  My friend Emily also made these adorable baby rattle cake pops.  (Back story - she's known for making cake pops, so for her baby shower at work I tried to make these exact ones.  They didn't work and ended up in the trash.  I told her about them though and we had a good laugh.  Then she made them for me!)

All of the amazing gifts - clothes, diapers, books, gift certificates for massage/manicure/pedicure ...

And they were thoughtful enough to include Luke!  He loved his new truck!

 We've also been doing work in the nursery.  It's still not done, but here is a sneak peak.  The walls are a tan color.  My mom made the curtains, blanket, and bedskirt from a duvet cover that we found at Target.  I love the fabric!

Jason's brother did an amazing job on the alphabet print.  I found one on Etsy that I didn't want to spend the money on and he was able to replicate it - love it!

I'm sure I'll post more pictures once it's all done, but for now - here you go!

We also had a 3D/4D ultrasound about 2 weeks ago.  I was nervous about how Luke would handle it, but he did great!  He was mostly concerned that "mommy, he's YELLOW!"  I'm not sure that he believed me that it was just the way the picture looked.

I'm convinced that Ethan is another big one from the pictures - look at those chunky cheeks!!

 So this week starts my 2x/week non-stress-tests.  They are precautionary because of being on the lovenox.  We didn't have to do them with Luke, but procedures have changed in the last 3 years.  It will be nice to hear his heartbeat that often and have the reassurance that things are going well.  I'm planning to stock up on some kindle books to keep me busy.  We've scheduled them all out - they'll be every Tuesday and Friday afternoon.  Luckily my appts are also on Tuesdays, so I won't have to be there a 3rd day those weeks.

This update is probably long enough now!  :)

Halloween Party!

 We went to the always fun toddler Halloween party last night.  Several of our little friends were sick and couldn't make it, but it was still a great time!

(From left to right:  Bumblebee Elliott, Coca-Cola Bear Morgan, Pirate Tyson, Race Car Driver Luke, Car Andrew, Red Riding Hood Quinn, and Clown Rachel.)

And because we always have to show at least one outtake - Quinn and Elliott decided they'd had enough at this point.

I made a spider web taco dip - I thought it ended up really cute!  Laura did an amazing job (like always) with her decorations/dessert table and I had to take a picture of that too.

 

After dinner and the group picture the kiddos got to decorate their own cookies.  Luke loved it and may or may not have dumped an entire bottle of sprinkles on his.  :)

And one more picture!  Gotta have one with the race car driver and the race car.  :)

He has a name!

Ok, so he's actually had a name pretty much since our ultrasound when we found out he was a he, and while it wasn't a secret, we hadn't gone 100% public with it.  We call him by his name all the time, and so does Luke, so I figured we'd go ahead and tell the world.  :)

Our second little baby boy will be Ethan Todd.  :)  Ethan because we love it, and Todd because it's Jason's middle name.  Luke runs around and talks about Baby Ethan all the time.  Although he has a little bit of trouble with the "th" sound so it's his baby brofer Efan.  :)

That reminds me of another cute Luke big brother story.  We were at Old Navy last week and found a shirt that said "Best Big Bro" - I told Luke that and he got excited and said that "we need that at my house!"  So then we found Jason again and I asked Luke to show him the shirt.  He told Jason that it said "I'm Baby Ethan's brother!"  Close.  :)  So adorable!

Family Pictures

Karen took family/maternity/Luke 32 month pictures for us last week and I am so very thrilled with how they turned out!  This post is going to be very picture heavy - it's hard to narrow down my favorites!!  I have no idea how I'm going to pick which ones to print to hang on our picture wall in the living room.  I love that we have a photographer in the family!!

 

 

Potty training

This last time I blogged about potty training was 2 months ago, which was 2 days into the process.  Those first few days were rough as he figured it all out - I think we went through 14 pairs of underwear in one day.  Then, just about 2 weeks into it, he informed us that "he doesn't pee on the floor.  He pees in the potty."  From that moment on, with us anyways, he had no pee accidents.  He struggled at daycare (and was still in pullups there for another week.)  We realized that when in the pullups he knew that he could just pee in them, so we switched him to underwear at school too.  He had a few accidents, but they were mostly because even though he's sitting down to pee, he had some aim issues - that's hard for a little boy!  Over the next few weeks he managed to master that.  At the same time he became really independent about everything and told us to leave him along when he went to the potty and that he'd do it all himself.  He now goes into the bathroom by himself, turns the light on, gets his pants and underwear down, and goes potty.  Then he'll ask us (er, yell for us, demand) that we come in to help him pull his pants back up.

So for the last 5 weeks or so he's been completely pee potty trained.  It doesn't seem to matter where we're at or what we're doing - including in the middle of swim class! - he'll tell us he has to go.  At some point in there we switched him to underwear for naps and overnight - and he's never had an accident with that either, which completely amazed us.

The biggest struggle has been with pooping - he seemed to know he was going to because he'd tell us to leave whatever room he was in so he could go in his pants.  Not fun to clean up!  Luckily (for us!) he seemed to poop in his pants mostly at daycare, while out on the playground.  I felt bad for them though!  Then exactly 2 weeks ago he seemed to get the pooping thing too.  He mostly goes in the evenings now, although sometimes at school, but always in the potty.  He has been 100% accident free for 2 weeks! 

We were so shocked and so proud of well he did with all of this.  I won't lie - we bribed - a lot .... m&ms, new trucks that he could only play with if he peed in the potty, then only if he pooped in the potty that day.  In fact, he still gets 2 m&ms when he poops, and if he remembers, 1 mini m&m if he pees.  We also did sticker charts for awhile - he got 1 sticker every time he peed and when he filled the chart up (25 stickers) he got a new toy (matchbox car.)  I felt like that rewarded him immediately, but also gave him a reason to keep doing it as he earned the stickers for a toy.  We don't do that anymore for peeing, but are filling the last one up with poop stickers.

We are just so so proud of him!!!

Pumpkin Patch

It's that time of year again - time for the annual trip to Stony Creek to pick out our pumpkins!  Luke was so excited this year - he seems to love everything about Halloween.

For reference, here are the last 2 years with his pumpkin.  He's grown up so much! 

We had fun with playing with some of the different things there (tractor, straw maze, pumpkin train, slide) and then rode the hayride out to get our pumpkins.

Time for a group picture before we left!

When we got back home we went ahead and carved our pumpkin.  (That is "going away" as Luke says - who knew that it would be 80 degrees in October??)

We went with a pretty simple pumpkin this year - Luke loves it and he actually helped with it!

After dinner we had a fire in the firepit and Luke has his very first s'more!  I love the fall season!

Baby Update - 27 weeks

Third trimester.  Exactly 3 months, or 13 weeks, or 92 days to go ... but who's counting?  :)  I think it's been 9 weeks since I've done one of these so I figured it was time.  :)

How far along: 27 weeks
Total weight gain/loss: +20 lbs - eek!  Although I'm back to being nearly on track with Luke, so I'm hoping to stay under the 40lb mark (which was my weight gain with him.  Not sure I ever really went public with that info!)  So much for the 25-30 I was supposed to shoot for.
Maternity clothes: Um, yes.  I've noticed that this time I tend to wear more of the ones that are fitted, rather than the ones that tie in the back and billow out - no idea why.  Oh, and I was brave and bought a pair of maternity skinny jeans!
Stretch marks: Just everything from before, which is alot.
Sleep: Pregnancy wise, not bad.  Otherwise, it's been better. 
Movement: He is a little acrobat.  We're to the point that other people can feel him as well - including Luke!  He was fairly concerned hearing us talk about him kicking though.  "Mommy, my baby brother is kicking you??"
Food cravings: No big cravings. Loving meat, chicken is ok again, and find myself drinking Arnold Palmer's quite a bit.
Gender: Boy!
Labor Signs: Braxton Hicks a few times a day
Belly Button in or out: Just about completely out
What I miss: Spiked apple cider
What I am looking forward to: Finishing the nursery, 3D/4D ultrasound in a few weeks

I'm not going to lie, the past few weeks have been rough.  I got a cold several weeks ago and have had the annual "cough that lasts weeks and never goes away."  I've actually had a few panic moments because I start coughing so hard and just can't catch a breath.  It's been pretty miserable with the pregnancy.  I went to a medcheck and was treated for bronchitis and then had an appt at the Academy of Allergy and Asthma and found out that I have Asthma - and probably have for years.  (It was 14 years ago the first time it happened - that year I cracked a rib from coughing!)  Getting a cold is my trigger, so now I have an Asthma action plan.  I'm also doing nebulizer breathing treatments 3-4x/day now until we get through this round of coughing.  They also don't mess around with pregnancy and asthma - I have an appt each month until delivery and I have to get a pneumonia vaccine as well.  I was a little nervous taking some of the medicine but as they pointed out, it's important for the baby to get enough oxygen.  :)

My next appt is on Tuesday - it's the wonderful gestational diabetes test - oh boy!  Wish me luck!

First Movie!

About a year ago I heard that Finding Nemo was going to come back out into the movie theaters this fall - I immediately knew that this would be Luke's first movie.  It was his first favorite one, and Nemo is still his best little friend.

He was so excited when we got there - he got special glasses (with Nemo on them!) because it was 3D and they had a few Nemo posters up.

We got there a bit early and had our pick of seats.   Luke was a little confused and wanted to know where the other kids were.  Luckily some showed up soon after that!

Sporting the awesome 3D glasses.  These were actually a struggle for him - they didn't stay up quite right so he wanted to keep taking them off, which then made the movie blurry.  I wish it had come back out in theaters in a non-3D version.

Loving the popcorn!  He wasn't sure he wanted any at first, but then he realized what he was missing.

Overall he did really well at his first movie!  Next time we won't get there as early and it won't be 3D.  He did great with the glasses during all of the previews and the first 30 minutes of the movie, but then got tired of it.  Plus this was in the middle of potty training, so we had several bathroom trips.  We actually didn't make it until the end of the movie, but after 90 minutes there I don't blame him for being antsy.  At least we have it memorized and know how it ends!