Baby Update

34 weeks

The pregnancy is still going smooth & we only have a little over a month to go, until the due date anyways.  I have a feeling Brinleigh is going to enter the world fashionably early, unlike her mother who is late to everything!  I have been sick for over a week now & went to see the doctor who told me I had bronchitis.  After prescribing some medicine & staying home for a few days & relaxing, I am finally getting over it.  The baby has been doing good though & will not be affected by anything.  We are slowly getting the last few things we need before the baby comes & getting her bedroom organized & put together.  One of my very dear friends, Stephanie, ordered us a car seat & once that arrived I went to work trying to figure out how to work everything.  I got the car seat base installed in the car along with the car seat, however, I'm not sure if it's in there correctly & so I will be making a trip by the fire department to have them check it some time in the next couple of weeks.  My belly is getting bigger, the back pain has surprisingly subsided, & my energy level has once again decreased dramatically.  I am sleeping a lot more again & tend to get heartburn in the middle of the night when I'm laying down sleeping.  Since the baby is getting bigger & she has less room to move around, I don't feel as much movement but I do still get an occasional nudge from her feet or hands.  The braxton hicks contractions have also picked up quite a bit & I seem to be getting them much more often these days.  We are very grateful for the packages we have been receiving from our family & friends.  It is such a huge help & we can't thank everyone enough.  One of our most recent gifts was sent from my brothers Taylor & Keith & Taylor's girlfriend, Meghan.  They sent us a handmade quilt & pillow made especially for Brinleigh by Meghan & her grandmother.  It is extremely cute, super soft, & I am absolutely in love with it!

 

King Salmon Season

King Salmon season officially started a few weeks ago.  At first, Kolt was having a hard time catching anything, I think mostly because the season had just started.  But now that it has been a few weeks, he is bringing home the fish!  Because we are "non-residents" he is only allowed to catch one King Salmon a day & his limit is 4 per year.  Since the friends he usually goes fishing with are "residents" they are allowed up to 3 a day & an unlimited number per year.  Therefore, Kolt some times brings home some of his friends catches too.  He has been VERY excited about the salmon & is slowly starting to fill the freezer.  Before King Salmon season started, Kolt was doing very well catching halibut, which we figured out is the ONLY fish I like to eat so far.  

Kolt's First King Salmon!!!

 Kolt's Second day of catching King's

Day 3 of bringing home the King Salmon

 Kolt & our neighbor & good friend, Nick Roberts

Baby Shower!!!!

Last weekend we had our baby shower/ bbq, hosted by our neighbors, Nick & Megan.  We had a great time & enjoyed hanging out with friends & eating lots of good food.  We cooked hamburgers & hot dogs on the grill & asked the guests to bring side dishes if they could.  We also had a ton of sweet goodies.......White chocolate covered strawberries, cupcakes, fruity pebble treats, cookies, white chocolate dipped oreos...... so much sugar!  The guys played horse shoes & corn hole outside but it was raining off & on.  There were several games played & even one specifically for the boys where they had to see who could drink a beer out of a baby bottle the fastest.  Kolt Foreman won that game.... shocking!  haha.....    We received several packs of diapers & some cute little outfits.  A few people bought us some items from our registries & some people bought stuff & we are still waiting for it to be delivered to us.  Some of our friends who have a one year old little girl gave us 4 trash bags full of baby clothes.  After going through them all, we ended up keeping about 1 bag of clothes & with everything we already had for her, Brinleigh's closet & dresser are almost full of cute outfits.  

We have had several family members & friends ask what we still need that we have not yet received so I spent some time updating our registries at Target, Kohls, & Babies R' Us.  As far as clothes go, we do not need anything smaller than 6 months.  If anyone wants to give us clothes, 6-9 months & up would be great.  We pretty much only need whatever is left on the registries.  I have removed everything that we have or have too much of & the things that we have realized that we really don't need.  We also ordered her crib bedding this week & that should be arriving next week some time so I can finish setting up the crib.  I am still working on putting all of her clothes away but had to order more hangers & they should also be here next week.  My biggest challenge right now is figuring out how to black out her bedroom.  I bought pink curtains to match the bedding & room decor & because they are such a light color & extremely thin, they do not block any light what so ever.  I have some thermal black out panels that I have attached to the curtains but there are still some cracks that let sun light in.  This probably wouldn't be such a problem if the sun didn't shine directly into her bedroom window in the morning & we seem to be having more sunny days than what we are used to since it it summer time.  Plus, since her room is also the guest room & with everyone coming to visit after she is born, we wanted to make sure that the sun isn't shining into the room & waking people up at 5am. 
Since it is June, we are at the point where we have more hours of daylight than darkness.  The sun goes down & it gets "dark" at about 10:45ish pm right now.  Once the sun is down, it is dark outside but the sky is still somewhat lit up, kind of like having a big, bright, full moon every night.  The sun starts to rise again around 3am, so when I wake up at 4:30am to go to the bathroom (which is extremely annoying might I add), Brinleigh's room looks like someone has gone in & turned on the light, it is so bright in there.

As far as the pregnancy goes, I am now 33 weeks & getting bigger every day it feels like.  We have our last childbirth education class & a bi-monthly check up on Monday.  I can tell that the baby is getting bigger by the change in movements.  I don't get kicked or punched as much since she doesn't have a lot of room to squirm around.  I do feel her push her feet & hands against my belly though & it almost seems like she is trying to escape through my skin.  I also feel her feet & hands glide across the outer part of my belly.  The only way I can explain it is like if you were to press the pad of your finger or your knuckle against your arm or some body part & then slide it a few inches across your skin.  The only difference is that the pushing is coming from the inside, not the outside, but I feel it both in my belly & outside of my belly if I have my  hand or arm resting on my stomach.  She is big enough now that it actually physically hurts to bend over & put on my shoes, socks, pants, etc.  When Kolt comes home from work in the morning, he wakes me up to get ready for work.  Before I get out of bed he talks to me & sometimes he talks to my belly & in the last few weeks the baby has actually started to respond to his voice.  It's quite funny because she won't be moving & then after he starts talking for a little bit, I feel her "wake-up" & start moving around.  When Kolt stops talking she will stop moving, but as soon as he starts again she moves again.    

Here are a few pics from our baby shower. 

       

30 Weeks

Today I am 30 weeks pregnant & definitely starting to feel uncomfortable.  This past Monday we had an ultrasound done & got to see our little baby.  We confirmed yet again that it is definitely a girl, Thank the Lord.  I would have gone into an extremely dramatic panic episode if they told me any differently.  She is growing perfectly weighing about 3 lbs now & measuring at 30 weeks as of Monday, which was only a couple days ahead of the gestational age.  She is head down which explains why her feet are always in my ribs.  She was very active as usual & it was entertaining watching her move on the computer screen & being able to feel her at the same time.  At our 20 week ultrasound I was only barely starting to feel slight movements so when we saw her move on the screen I didn't feel much.  During the ultrasound we could see her opening her mouth & sticking out her tongue & she was touching her nose with her hands.  That same day we also started our first childbirth education class.  There are a total of seven couples in the class with Kolt & I being the only ones expecting a girl.  We learned about the end of pregnancy & what is happening with the baby & my body as I prepare to go into labor.  We also learned about the stages of labor, when it is safe to stay home & when we should prepare to head to the hospital.  And then of course all the details of the actual delivery process & the husbands/ labor coaches role during the process.  Since being pregnant I haven't had any weird or unusual cravings & the only food aversions I experienced was with red meat, mostly during my 1st & 2nd trimesters.  My latest obsessions have been brownies & coke, which is weird for me since I normally prefer Pepsi & don't bake brownies very often.  As of now I am baking a new pan of brownies about every 5 days & had to go buy a 12 pack of coke since we usually only have Mt. Dew in the house.  We also received GREAT news this week!  My mom wasn't going to be able to come visit when the baby is born, but Cordale managed to work some things out & as a wedding anniversary gift to my mom, he is sending her up to visit for about 2 weeks so she can see the baby when she is born.  We are very excited that both our mother's will be coming up to visit & will be here to help us with the baby in the first few weeks.  

   

29 Weeks Down.... 11 more to go

I am now 29 weeks pregnant & definitely still growing (about 1/2 an inch a week).  On top of the back pain, heartburn, & constant urge to pee, I now get to feel the wonderful sensation of being jabbed in the ribs at random moments.  It's not comfortable at all & at times quite annoying.  A few weeks ago we found out that Kolt can hear the baby's heartbeat if he puts his ear to my belly.  We read about this in one of the pregnancy books & decided to give it a try.  I started going to physical therapy a few times a week to help with my back pain.  Apparently I don't have an arch in my back that most pregnant women get from their pelvic bones moving forward.  My back is staying somewhat flat causing me to carry a lot of weight in my back & putting extra pressure on my back muscles & nerves.  
We start our childbirth education classes this coming Monday & will have one class a week for five weeks.  We also have our 3rd trimester ultrasound coming up next week & then begin to see the Doctor every 2 weeks.  Our first visitors are coming in a couple weeks.  One of Kolt's best friends from the Army, Dustin Zumwalt, & his wife will be here for about a week.  Shortly after their visit we have our baby shower on June 2nd.  As of right now my last day of work is scheduled to be June 29th & then my sister is coming to Sitka on July 23rd.  So we will see when Brinleigh decides to make her debut.  I think these last 11 weeks are going to go by pretty quickly.

28 Weeks:

  
Coast Guard Alaska Season 2 premiered a few weeks ago on the weather channel & I hope you are all watching.  So far every episode has had stories from the Sitka air station & some of the episodes have been all Sitka air station stories.  A nice change from last season where they covered more Kodiak stories.  Tonight's episode showed the Coast Guard rescuing one of their own.  Flight mech Andy Dennison & his family were reported overdue after their boat ran aground & got stuck on shore on Nakwasina Island.  This is somewhat ironic since Andy had to "rescue" Kolt & his friend Steve a few weeks ago from Nakwasina Island when the tide went out & left Steve's boat aground.  
     

Easter Sunday on the Boat

So I just realized that I never posted about our first Easter in Sitka...... not that anything exciting happened, haha.  It was absolutely beautiful outside & so we decided to load up the boat & spend some time on the water.  We took Gunner with us & did a little fishing.  We didn't see much wildlife except for some sea otters & Kolt caught a few rockfish.  It was a very relaxing day with our little family.  Here are some pictures from the day:


Mt Edgecumbe:

Some of the beautiful scenery:  

Catching Some Fish:

Sea Otters:

 

I know it seems like I haven't been keeping up on the blog, but the truth is........ our life is pretty boring here in Alaska.  The only interesting thing we really have going on right now is the pregnancy.  I am now 26 weeks & my growing belling is slowly getting bigger.  My only complaints are back pain, a lot of back pain, & my new found relationship with heartburn, which doesn't seem to be going anywhere any time soon.  The baby kicks hard enough now that Kolt can feel her when he puts his hand on my belly.  I can definitely tell she is getting bigger by her movements & that she now kicks me in the ribs.  A couple weeks ago I had a glucose screening to test for gestational diabetes, which came back negative.  This Monday we go see the doctor for our monthly checkup.  During the month of May we will be taking a childbirth class every Monday night & our Baby Shower will be June 2nd.  Kolt started working the midnight shift a few weeks ago & so we have been adjusting to his new schedule.  He will stay on mids until he goes on leave when the baby is born.  Kolt seems to like it & it is slowly growing on me as well.  

Pregnant Belly at 24 weeks:

25 Weeks:

26 Weeks: