Baby Bump 34 Weeks

 Baby H is now 4 3/4 pounds and 18 inches long. The fruit of the week is a cantaloupe. She is continuing to gain more body fat to keep her body temp up and her central nervous system is maturing.

We had a great appointment last week with the new doctor. The daughter of the doctor we had been seeing is going to be delivering the baby so we got to meet her for the first time. Zann and I both walked out feeling in really good hands and felt so comfortable with her. We talked with her for a long time and made a plan for the coming weeks and the birth.

The baby looked great on the ultrasound and everything measured normally. She doesn't fit on the screen all at once anymore so we didn't get a good picture to bring home. Her heart beat was steady and in normal range also.

She didn't give any indication otherwise, so we are still going with October 10th as the expected due date. I have a feeling she is going to come on the 14th or 17th though.

My back has been hurting a lot so the doctor gave me a prescription for physio therapy. I have been going twice a week to get the knots rubbed out of my back. It is just a temporary relief not to fix any problems but let me tell you it makes the world of difference for the next two days. I am always very ready to go to my next appointment.

 I am not sure if real Olympians go here but I like to tell myself they do. Thank you Swiss doctors and Swiss insurance for having sympathy on pregnant women.

Sleep, well that has become more of a problem this week. I am getting up 2 or 3 times a night and can just not make myself comfortable. It takes all my strength to roll over. When I do fall asleep I just don't think I am sleeping very deep because I am exhausted in the morning and by after lunch at work. Its part of the price you pay though :)

Baby H has been soooo active lately. She is moving most of the day but especially in the afternoon. When I get home from work she goes crazy if I am sitting down. She loves her little dance parties and especially loves them up in my ribs.

We are going to the hospital tomorrow night for a tour. I can't wait to see everything and will update after that.

Here we are at 33 weeks

 34 weeks

34 weeks

Baby H got some sweet new books in the mail this week from Gaga and Hoo Hoo

And Horay! Zann finished painting the dresser! 

 The baby was so excited she even bought Zann a big pack of gummy candy!

So this week I was wearing dresses every day and every day people would tell me how huge I look, how I just get bigger every week, and ask if I was sure it wasn't twins. It did not bother me at all that people said this because that is how I feel I do feel huge. Then Friday I wore capri pants and a tight shirt and everyone said how small my bump is. So my conclusion is that dresses make you look much bigger in the end of pregnancy, especially after looking at me wearing a dress this past weekend. 

If your hands are not under your belly when wearing a dress you can look like a wide load I have come to realize. Luckily the weather is cooling down so I will be in pants until the end. 

A Labor Day weekend in Switzerland

Since I won't be waking up to this over the weekend... 

We are heading down south and crossing into Italy to spend the night here.

Just as beautiful but with out my parents and Susie.

We made sure to get a hotel with WiFi so we can cheer on Auburn tomorrow night! War Eagle!

Baby Bump 32 Weeks

Here is Jicama which Baby Center says is the size of Baby H this week. I have no idea what this fruit (is it a fruit?) is but it weights 3.37 pounds just like Baby H. She is about 16.5 inches long which is sounding and feeling really big to me. She now has toenails, fingernails, and hair. I wonder if Baby H will come out with hair. I just can't picture her to have dark hair because Zann and I both had light hair as babies but who knows.

I am still feeling pretty good I would say for being almost in my 34 week of pregnancy. But I am definately starting to feel the strain of pregnancy also.

My body just gets tired and I feel like I am lugging around a bag of bricks with me sometimes during the day. I started back at work last week and the kiddos came this week. Luckily I don't have a class or I would be not functioning come 3:00 every day. I am still getting my work out walking between buildings and subbing for teachers while they do testing. After working all day then coming home and doing the normal house chores and fixing dinner and cleaning up for the night I am spent by 9:00 and my back feel like all the bones in it are breaking.

When I am asleep I think I am sleeping pretty hard but I have been getting up many times a night to use the bathroom and to roll myself over.  Our bed is pretty low to the ground since it is a European bed and it takes every ounce of strength in my arms to push myself off my side to stand up. I count that as my work out for the day. I have been doing stretches every morning when I wake up and at night before bed. Yesterday I tried a pregnancy yoga dvd and it felt really good. I am hoping the doctor can write me a prescription for a massage or something next week.

I go to the doctor on Monday and I am very excited to hear what she has to say. I feel like Baby H is pretty low down and have notice I am doing more waddling than walking so we will see if that true. I haven't been to the doctor in 5 weeks because of the scheduling of the appointments from when we were gone in the US for so long. This is the longest we have gone with out seeing a picture of Baby H. I miss seeing her. Hopefully we can get a good picture to bring home this time. And hopefully the scale hasn't tilted too much since it has been 5 weeks since I last got weighed.

Zann has vowed to finish the dresser this weekend. I am dying to get all our baby thing organized so we can see what we still need. So hopefully that will happen so we can put everything together to see what needs to go on the walls. Pictures to come when we make some progress.

Baby H has now been out of the country two more times. We took a trip to Stockholm a couple weekends ago and went to Germany for the day last weekend. We went to go do some shopping but the traffic was so bad getting there we decided just to relax and eat lunch. We will be going back soon though. We looked at the diapers at the store here and they are super expensive. Like 29 chf for 45 diapers and 2-3 chf per jar or baby food. Convert that to dollars and its even more. So Germany it will be for baby products.

Here we are at 32 weeks after a long day at work.

Here is baby H standing over the border of Switzerland and Germany

Baby Bump 31 Weeks

Well officially less than 10 weeks until Baby Hawkins makes her big arrival. I am 31 weeks as of this past Monday.

Size of baby: BabyGirl is about 3 1/2 pounds which according to my weekly updates is the weight of 4 naval oranges. So next time you buy a bag of oranges you can think of my carrying that around in my stomach right now :)

Baby Development: BabyGirl can now turn her head from side to side and is beginning to gain fat on her arms and legs. She is about to head into a big growth spurt.

I have been feeling pretty good lately. Still tired sometimes but I have been sleeping in more so that has helped. But back to reality tomorrow with school starting.

Falling asleep and staying asleep has not been so easy. I think we have a night owl little girl. Right when I get into bed she begins her little night time party. Her movements are so strong now I can't fall asleep then sometimes they wake me up in the middle of the night. She is moving like a wild woman and getting the hiccups alot. I tried to take a video of her rolling around and making my stomach move today which was pretty funny.

I have been the hungry hungry hippo these past two weeks and thanks to the amount of ice cream I have been eating am looking like that hippo also. But we were on vacation in Stockholm and then it was nice weather and the end of summer so every day had to be celebrated with ice cream. I didn't really have any cravings that were too strong the whole time being pregnant but two days this week I woke up at 5am NEEDING apple juice and a cake pop. Well we didn't have either of those things but it was all I could think about until about 2 in the afternoon. Maybe Liz will surprise me and fly over with her cake pop maker!

So I'm annoyed because Blogger keeps rotating my pictures the wrong way even though they are saved flipped. If you know how to fix this please let me know!! Well here we are at 30 and 31 weeks.

30 Weeks

 31 Weeks

In other baby news, we are starting to get organized a little bit. The baby room is still a mess with everything in the crib but Zann has been working hard sanding and paiting the dresser. I am waiting on him to finish this I have somewhere to put the clothes when I was them. I also painted the little table we have to go next to the glider.

Our sweet friends have also dropped off some baby items they are so graciously letting us borrow this week. It makes it seem so real to have baby things in every room now :)

Z hard at work in a room full of dust.

The mess that will soon be where baby sleeps.

Here is a little peak of BabyGirl's beautiful bedding from her Sullivan Grandparents (we are still working on their names). I just love it and can't wait to see it all put together.

We also received the daycare packet from the pICSies (pronounced Pixies). It was weird to already have to think about daycare before she is born but my school has a wonderful daycare with just a couple kids and fabulous girls that work there.

Tomorrow is back to work for me. We have teacher work days this week and then children come back on Wednesday. I think I will be one tired girl at the end of the day!

Baby Shower for Baby Hawkins

These three ladies are amazing!! While I was home in Virginia they threw baby Hawkins the most beautiful and thoughtful baby shower. They are the best friends a girl could ask for and I am so happy we have stayed so close since highschool.

The two mamas to be due two days apart with the beautiful arrangement of yummy food.

The cute cake for Baby Hawkins and Baby Whitworth with the best frosting ever!

It was such a nice day to celebrate the little babies coming and they were showered with some beautiful things :)

Here are some pictures from the day.

With the beautiful hostesses

The two mamas getting showered with precious baby things.

Tiny little shoes

Love my sister

I can't believe I didn't get a picture of my mom and I together.

Thanks again for such a great day ladies! xoxo

2 Years

On Monday we celebrated our two year anniversary. I can't believe it has been two years since we walked down the isle. These two years have flown by and we have nothing but great memories from them. When we were engaged we never dreamed that we would be living in another country and traveling all over. We sure have been on an adventure and are about to start another one with our little baby.

I love looking back at our wedding pictures and reliving the whole day and night. I am so thankful to my parents for giving us the perfect wedding and a party to remember!

I am so happy and feel so blessed the Lord chose Zann and I for each other. We look forward to all our years to come together.

To celebrate we went out for a night in Zurich. We went to a wine bar for an appetizer and a glass of champange to celebrate and then walked across the street to a great Italian restaurant for some pasta. And we are going to Stockholm this weekend to continue the celebration :)

Happy two years!

Baby Bump- 29 Weeks

I have totally been out of blogging for way to long. I really hope to become better at keeping up with it especially when Baby Girl is born. From here on out I will try to post at least every week and maybe do some catch up posts.

How Far Along: 29 weeks. Welcome to the third trimester!! I know these last couple weeks will fly by with summer ending and school starting but I am sure by the end things will start to seem really long.


Size of baby: Baby Girl is the size of a butternut squash this week. Since week 25 she has gone from being a rutabaga to an English Hot House Cucumber (whatever that is) to a head of cauliflower then to a head of Chinese cabbage. I thought these were very interesting food picks for size. haha Baby Girl is now 2 and a half pounds and 15 inches long.

Baby Development:  The muscles and lungs are strengthening and the head is growing to make room for that big old brain :)

I have been feeling the baby move pretty regularly for a while now but all movements have been so much stronger in the past two weeks. Baby girl is very shy though and does not like to perform in front of other people. The whole time we were home everyone was trying to feel the baby move and as soon as I would feel her someone would put a hand on my stomach and she would stop. Susie, Jack, and Liz did get to feel some good kicks.

We went to the doctor last Wednesday and found out that the baby is head down (yay!!) and her feet are over on my right side. So I can now tell if it is a foot or hand moving. The movements are sometimes sudden kicks that shake my whole stomach and other times it feels like the little girl is trying to crawl out. The little stroking movements from her hands are the weirdest feeling. She mostly does that at night when I am trying to sleep on my side. Zann has felt it every night and we both agree it feels like an alien rubbing and poking inside me.

I have been sleeping pretty well besides getting up at least once a night still. It has become harder to roll over and get my pillows adjusted just right. This week I have been so tired though. I have been sleeping in until after 8 and then have taken a nap a couple days which is very unlike me. I think I have maybe taken 5 naps in the past two years and I have taken 2 already this week. So the tiredness definitely returned for the third trimester. I bet I will be exhausted after working all day soon.

I have been feeling great pretty much most of the time. I can tell moving around is slowly becoming more difficult. I now have to think about bending over and have been doing much more squatting to pick things up. I have made it to the gym twice this week and have gone on two long walks and those both felt great. My stomach does get really tight if I move too quickly or after walking for a while. Apparently those are Braxton hicks (practice contractions). When that happens my stomach gets sooo hard.

Luckily the doctor did not comment on my weight this time. He said that I gained the right amount since last time. I don't know how since I did not hold back at all during our three weeks in the US and ate out every meal for the last week we were there. But I'll take it. I loved getting some American food while we were home. We had our burger fix at Poe's no less than 3 times. I was a little behind discovering the serve yourself frozen yogurt places but when Candice and Mike took us for the first time in Charlotte, I was hooked. Our daily activities then revolved around when we could go get frozen yogurt. I so wish they had that in Switzerland! We have been having some pretty tasty Movenpick ice cream for dessert many nights though. I am so still hooked on fruit which I realized today how expensive it is becoming. Fresh fruit is not cheap to eat here and averaging 5 to 6 dollars a day on fruit alone for myself is adding up but it’s what we will do for now to keep me healthy.  

Here are growing belly pictures from the past couple weeks. I tried to do everything I know how to make the pictures turn but no luck. If anyone knows how let me know : )

24 Weeks

 Baby Hawkins getting some love from Erin T at 26 weeks on the 4th of July

28 Weeks after the doctor (The way I am holding my hands makes my belly look much smaller)

28 Weeks

29 Weeks on our 2 year anniversary

 Zann trying to make me laugh to stick out my belly

Not Cherry Picking

After spending a rainy day inside yesterday we decided to get out of the house today and go cherry picking at Jucker Farm. We weren't sure what kind of adventure we were getting into by taking public transport  but decide to go for it. And to our surprise to was very easy!

When we got there we were greated by skies like this behind us and

 this in front of us.

The weather in Zurich has been crazy the past coulple days. It was predicted to rain almost every day last week then it would be bright, sunny and 85.  Today it was sunny sometimes then very couldy and windy with temps in the low 60s. This week the temperate is predicted to range betwenn 60 and 80. Crazy!

Anyway, back to Jucker Farm. After walking around for a bit we set off to pick cherries only to find out it was closed today. We never found out why because it said online they were open and a friend went last week. Then we tried to pick strawberries but they were clearly out of season since all the plants were covered in flowers.

So we decided to walk around the farm for a while then eat lunch.

Last week I was swear summer dresses sweating and now we are wearing a winter fleece and jacket.

Right as we were finishing lunch it started to rain so we ran for the train. Of course as soon as we got to the train it was bright and sunny again. Oh well, we loved the walking around the farm and can't wait to take the baby there in the fall!

Baby Bump- 23 Weeks

How Far Along: 23 weeks or about 5 1/2 months.
Size of baby: Baby Girl is 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound.
Baby Development: She is developing blood vessels in her lungs to get her ready for breathing and noises are starting to become familiar.

Since last week we have been to the US and back for a wedding in Charleston. We had such a great time but it was a short trip. Baby girl has now been on 13 flights and  to 7 countries in my belly. She is sure going to be the world traveler! I didn't really feel any different flying while pregnant. The flight itself was fine except I had to get up to use the bathroom many more times. But my back was killing the day after and still is. I hope it is not a sign of what is to come.
I am feeling the baby move all the time and its so neat. I feel her the most at the end of the day when I am sitting down. I don't think we sat down the whole time we were in Charleston because we were so busy running around that I hardly felt her. Hopefully when we are back next week we can relax and everyone can feel her move. I think she has been lying with her head facing my back the past could days because I can feel the movement inside alot but haven't felt it on the outside as much.
In not so good news, my doctor told me last week that I have gained too much weight and I need to be on a strict diet now. Booooo on that!! I was devestated at first but have gotten over it after reading much more online. Swiss doctors are very conservative when it comes to weight gain and he said I should only gain 20 pounds total throughout my pregnany. All American website have given a slightly higher number. I am still on the high end for right now which I can't believe I have done but oh well. According to the doctor I should now have absolutely no carbs or sugar and stick to well cooked meat and fruit and veggies. Much easier said then done when working at a school where we have lunches and treats all the time. I decided not to start this while in Charleston but we have been eating tring to eat no carbs for dinner and I have been eating healthier lunches. Sweets have still been a problem though :) Its hard to resist when someone hands you a piece of chocolate cake when you are starving. I am hoping for a healthier summer where I actually will have time to exercise more instead of being dead tired after working 10 or 11 hours a day. And I will have more time to prepare healthier meals instead of packing a million snacks to bring to school. I am really going to miss the gummy candy we always have around the house and ice cream but I know I will be happier in the long run.
My mom and I have been working hard the past two weeks picking out bedding for the nursery. My mom is so sweet and patient to deal with everything I send her online. She has found someone in Arizona to make the bedding and my dad is bring over a rug for the room this week. We will hopefully have everything else by the end of the summer!

Look at this beautiful dress my fab roomie at school and her little girls gave Baby H today. Her twins picked out the design and a Swiss lady sewed it on the dress. I am going to miss those sweet girls and their mama when they move to Texas :)

All three pictures were taken on the same day but the bottom one looks much bigger to me. My belly has popped out for sure and I feel like it is growing quickly. Thank goodness Zann brought me back a bunch of maternity clothes when he went to the US two weeks ago.

As I am typing this I am watching Zann eat a bowl of ice cream with chocolate fudge. No fair!! In his defense, I did sit on the couch and watch him do P90X right before that.

Baby Bump 21 Weeks

How Far Along: 21 weeks

Size of baby: Baby Girl is 10 1/2 inches long which is about the size of a carrot and she weighs 10 1/2 ounces.
Baby Development: She now has eyebrows!
Gender: We were very happy to find out last week that the baby is a GIRL!!
Movement: I feel her move all the time. It feels like there is a trampoline in my stomach sometimes.
Sleep: I have been sleeping alright at night but still getting up at least once for the bathroom.
Cravings: Ice cream! I have felt myself getting full much faster lately though. I haven't been able to finish what I am eaing sometimes.
Symptoms: Chapped lips. I'm not sure that is even a symptom of pregnancy but no matter what I put on them they still feel so chapped.

We didn't get a picture at the beginning of the week because I was with my class on a field trip then as soon as I came back Zann left to go to his cousin's wedding in Columbia. So, I tried to get a picture the best I could in the mirror.

My belly is growing more and more everyday.