Camping at 23 weeks

A couple weeks ago, Dave and I went on a nice week long camping trip. The weather was amazing and we had such a relaxing and refreshing time. It's amazing how busy life can get, and how good it can feel when you can take a little time to kick back and enjoy the time God has given us. Below are some pics from the trip. This was the extent of my creativity, standing by site 23 when I turned 23 weeks!











I was out grocery shopping before we left camping and got my first "comment". I was picking out produce on one side of the produce wrack, and a guy in his 40-50's was on the opposite side of the wrack. It was cold at the time so I had on a t-shirt and a jacket. He commented that pretty soon I won't be shopping alone. I said, yep. He then asked when I was due, and I said November 1st. He's like "NOVEMBER!! YOU ARE HUGE! Are you carrying twins or something??" I was like...No, just one...and he then went on to say that this must be my first cause he could see the sparkle in my eyes when talking about it, said good luck, and walked away. I smiled and looked around to see if anyone else heard what this "friendly" man had just said to me. I had to laugh, I mean, really?? I wanted to say, really, I'm not even wearing maternity clothes right now, and my capri's are even buttoned, thank you! But, in the end, I just had to laugh at how strangers need to comment, and then be thankful that I have an opportunity to get HUGE. I never thought I'd be given this gift, and I know of many many women out there who would love to be called huge in public because God blessed their womb. I'm sure this will be the first of many "comments" or "adivse"!

A few days after we got back, I had another dr appt. All went well, his heartbeat was in the mid/high 150's and my belly is measuring where it should be. I gained 3 lbs since the last appt, bringing it to a total of 12. Next appt, I have my 1 hour glucose test and my ob will be talking to me about pre term labor. Praying I will not experience that, but the info will be good!

It's been HOT lately!! Not complaining, but I've been noticing more braxton hicks lately and a little less movement from little man. I'm thinking I need to drink some more water and make sure to take it easy. I am very thankful though that I have not had any swelling, praise God!!! I'm not uncomfortable, yet, in the heat.

So, that's my update...I'm 25 weeks today, all glory to God!

The Revealing Party

On Father's Day we had our big reveal party. We had everyone come in either blue or pink, whatever they thought baby was. We had a great walking taco bar and then the crowd grew restless to find out. I started out talking about our journey, and sometimes it felt like a race. We had to keep the faith that God had a plan, etc...which of coarse I was crying through. Then Dave announced that to find out the baby's gender, the would have to run a race to, the "Amazing Baby Race".

We split the group in two and had challenges they had to complete to get the clue to find their balloon somewhere within a couple miles. The clue gave driving directions, but at each turn, they had to answer a trivia question to figure out whether they should take a right or left. If they got all the trivia right, it would lead them right to the balloon...but if they even got one wrong, it would send them on the wrong path and they'd have to backtrack and figure out which one they got wrong. There were 3 challenges (washer toss into banana outline...baby was size of banana then), dart throw with them having to guess our due date and then get the darts in the according numbers (11, 1, and 11 again), and finally ladder ball where they had to guess the day of the month in February where we found out we were pg (25) and then throw 25 pts exact. There were 3 clues to lead them to balloons, and we had a finish line at the end. The first team to arrive got to pick their "final" guess and pick the pink or blue balloon. The first team arrived but got a time delay penalty for speeding! Then, we gave a wrap up of how what they experienced during the race was a lot like we did with infertility, excitement (with new treatment), frustration, not knowing what path to take, and wanting to give up. We each grabbed a balloon (me pink, Dave blue) we held them up, and popped them. We stuffed the balloons with confetti that said "It's a Boy", and was blue. So confetti flew and they were all excited to see the blue on the ground!