Week 31

Peanut and I were in for a check-up today at the doctor! Everything looks great. Picture perfect. HR good, my measurements were good. I am very thankful for no complications thus far!!

This week in the news:

-Peanut is supposed to be heading into a growth spurt, gaining about ½ lb per week. So lets make that calculation – if Peanut really weighed 4 lbs 2 oz at the last US at week 30, we start adding ½ lb per week – by week 38 we are already looking at an 8-9 lb baby! YIKES A ROO!!!

-She can turn her head from side to side.

-Her legs, arms, and body continue to “plump” out as fat accumulates underneath the skin!

-She continues to move all around!! I really think she will become a gymnast or swimmer in her later days. Two reasons why I think this – (A) I secretly always wanted to be a gymnast/cheerleader. I was a “wanna-be.” However, I never was the “right body type” when I was younger and in school, so needless to say that didn’t pan out for me and I stuck with swimming! (B) She does flips, turns, full-body shakes all in that confined amount of space!! Surely she has an active future ahead!!! If she does end up being a swimmer, let’s hope she launches her career early and sprints out of this body and sac of amniotic fluid at 38 weeks!!! J

-Peanut can now process information from all five senses — so she'll be all set to smell the pureed green beans, taste them, feel them as she mashes them into her hair!

-Her lungs continue to mature as we speak!! She still needs more time for them to fully bake and mature!!

-She probably measures a little over 16 inches!

All for now!

Allyson and Peanut

A new view...

19 weeks, 25 weeks, 31 weeks


And that belly keeps on growing....


Allyson and Peanut

A day full of PINK...

A day to paint the town PINK!! Friday was our first nursery work day! Dad and Grandpa came up to help us get ready for our Princess' arrival! The guys arrived at about 10am and I had a nice warm breakfast for them! After filling our bellies, we all got to work. Dad and Nate started painting while Grandpa and I put together the crib! Below you will find pictures from the day! The last picture is what we have done thus far... we still have LOTS to do to finalize the nursery, but we still have plenty of time. Once we have it done, we will post more pictures! Enjoy!














Nate and I taped the room on Thursday night to prepare for the Friday PAINT-DAY!











Nate painting coat #1! Isn't Peanut's daddy a stud? :)













Dad taking a break to smile for the picture! He is pretty happy at this moment in time b/c he just had a nice tall glass of CF Diet Pepsi to quench his thirst!! His job was "cutting in" during coat #1. What a champ!










Here is Grandpa Kiesel trapped in Peanut's crib!!! Or at least it looks that way huh?? Grandpa and I were a great team putting together the crib!! We thought we should only put three sides on in the living room b/c we knew we couldn't get it through the narrow bedroom doorway! Well, we had to end up taking off one of the sides b/c it still wouldn't fit. We needed a "C" curve to get it into the bedroom and we were dealing with an "S" curve!! Oh well... as you can see below, we were able to get it finished.











This is Peanut's room thus far. Doesn't that pink look awesome against the white woodwork? Looking back, we wished we would have found a white crib, but the other furniture pieces we are borrowing and/or have, all have a honey/maple finish -- thus the honey finish for the crib.

We still need to put up the valence (it can been seen on our Amazon registry) -- but we have to find the perfect rod for it.

We are borrowing Sarah's glider rocker which had baby blue colored cushions. As you can see the pads are missing off the chair and foot stool. I am going to recover it with a sage green material to match the valence. You might ask, how are you going to do that? Well, that is a great question -- I still don't know the answer to it! Does anyone reading specialize in recovering cushions??? If so, please let me know so I can pick your brain!!

We also have to pick up the changer/dresser from a wonderful family up on the Northside. It is coming together... but it still needs lots of work. I won't even show you the inside of Peanut's closet yet! It is a mess -- however full of cute clothes for next summer!!! :)

Allyson and Peanut

5 lb hand weight in my stomach?

This week in the news:

It is SO great to be able to refer to our Princess as "she" with confidence! I still will call her Peanut b/c it is a fun fetus name! In 8-10 weeks, she will no longer be a Peanut, but ____ ____!

-Her brain is starting to wrinkle and fold and looks like something that grew in the back of your fridge. Oh yum!!! It is due to the rapid growth of your little genius's brain cells. We know she is already a smartie!!

-Her Fingernails and toenails have finally finished growing!!

-Peanut's bone marrow is completely in charge of red-blood-cell production now! Thank heavens!! This is pretty important, don't ya think??

-Peanut is starting to shed her lanugo—the downy hair that was covering her skin. Now that she's chubbier (and we know this for a fact) and better able to regulate her body temp, she doesn't need to sport a fur coat 24/7. My question is this, what happens to the lanugo? Does it just dissolve? Does it continue to float around in the amnotic fluid? I sure hope Peanut doesn't swallow the shed lanugo -- poor thing might suffer from her first and ONLY HAIRBALL! YIKES!

-Peanut is about 15.7 inches long now.

-We know our Peanut weighs over 4 lbs. However, the weekly emails say she "should" probably weigh almost 3 pounds (like a head of cabbage). Pretty soon Peanut will be 5 lbs which is the size of my hand weights that I take to Zumba Class! That is crazy to think I will be carrying around one of those in my stomach!! :)

-Her eyesight continues to develop, though it's not very keen; even after she's born, she'll keep her eyes closed for a good part of the day. When she does open them, she'll respond to changes in light but will have 20/400 vision — which means she can only make out objects a few inches from her face. (Normal adult vision is 20/20.)

-The emails tell me that when Peanut is awake, her eyes are wide open and she's whittling away the hours looking around, checking out her rather dark, limited environs. I find this fact rather strange! So she really keeps her eyes open exposed to all that fluid???? I would sure love to have a videocamera down there to see her eyes open!! WEIRD!!!

Stay tuned.... we are painting the nursery this Friday!! Hopefully we will have a chance to set the crib up and start decorating!!! I will try to post some pictures of daddy hard at work!! We went on Sunday to pick out the PINK paint for the walls!!! This room will SCREAM PRINCESS PEANUT!!!

Allyson and Peanut

Applesauce and Confirmation

Today has been a very exciting day for the Long family!! We were both able to get in a good early morning workout (my husband the stud ran 12 miles -- Peanut and I didn't do that much of course!) We then headed up to see the beautiful Lora Fledderjohnn get married to her beau, Keith Dodson! It was a beautiful fall wedding!! The weather was incredible for pictures too!! Hope they got some great outside shots!! I was able to catch up with some dear friends of mine that I haven't seen since our wedding!! That was a total blessing!!! When we got home from the wedding, Nate took a 2 hour nap (do you blame the poor guy?) and I made my first fall batch of homemade applesauce!!! (Thanks to Erin's amazing recipe!) I thought I would do a little photo journaling during the process!!










The preparation is the most time consuming!! Here I have already peeled,cored, and sliced 1/2 peck of JonaMac apples with another 1/2 peck anxiously awaiting their "clipping and snipping." I use one of the best gifts in the world, William's Sonoma Apple Peeler!! This thing rocks!! Can't make homemade applesauce without it!!!












Here you can see that 1 peck of apples cut up filled my largest stock pot to the top!!











Here is the finished product!!! Where did all those apples go?? It just doesn't seem fair to start with a huge stock pot and the final product dwindles down to 1/2 stock pot!!

The applesauce was mighty tasty!!! Nate already has one tupperware container gone!!! I have to freeze some of it or it gets eaten within the first 2-3 days of production!! Next weekend I will have to purchase another peck and make more!!! 1 peck/weekend is all this prego-mama can handle!!!

After the applesauce was made, we relaxed and watched a movie until the big event of the night..... are you dying to know what that was??????

We headed downtown for another secret viewing!! We were able to see our little PRINCESS on camera and FINALLY she decided to flip around, spread her legs, and show us the goods!!!! It is a girl -- no doubt about it!!! What a sigh of relief!!! I was thinking I was going to have to take back a whole closet full of girl clothes for next summer!!!

She is also measuring big again -- she weighed 4lbs 2 oz or 1883 grams!!! Yes, she is a porker!! :) Well-nourished I like to say!!! So that is where all of my food is going!!! Guess it is better to go to her than to my BUTT!!! HUH?

She is also measuring about 2 weeks ahead still. If you average all the measurements, it had me at 32 weeks 3 days.... when my "technical count" is 30 weeks on Tuesday!!! Fine by me -- lets get this baby out two weeks early and have an extended holiday break at home with daddy!!!!

All in all, we had a WONDERFUL Saturday, with wonderful news that our little girl is healthy and growing strong!!!

Now, this mama can stop worrying about the sex and start reading her childbirth books!!! Goodness knows she needs to figure this out if she is going to be delivering a HUGE baby!!!! YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Allyson and PRINCESS Peanut!!!

9 out of 10 chance...

Well friends, we are at 29 weeks!!! I can't wait till we are in single digits for weeks and for the countdown to 30 days!!!

This week in the news:

-The weekly email starts out by telling me, "Due to the impressive advancements of medical technology, if your baby is born this week, she'd have a 9 out of 10 chance of survival, which is seriously great news." I have to admit, this is great news -- but yikes -- to think of delivering at 29 weeks is VERY scary to this medical professional!! The burden of knowledge is too great and worrisome!! Peanut needs to stay in this big belly at least another 9 weeks before she is allowed to come out!!! I have told her that quite a few times too!!

-Peanut's brain can now control her breathing and body temperature.

-Peanut can also cough now -- maybe she is trying that now inside her little womb when she gets a nice big swig of amnotic fluid down the wrong pipe! :)

-They also tell me that her sucking abilities have been perfected and to "look out, boobs!" I would really like to meet the person that writes these weekly updates!!! They crack me up!! Can't you just see it now -- a female with huge 1980's glasses sitting behind a computer in the basement of a building just laughing at herself as she types up the weekly emails? B/C seriously -- who thinks of these things????? (More funnies to come, keep reading)

-About 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in Peanut's hardening skeleton each day. (Ok, so I geeked out on this information bit and had to include it).

-Are you ready for this one by the weekly email comedian????? "Peanut's skin is looking less wrinkled as she packs on the pounds. She's starting to look more like a Pampers model and less like a Depends model. She's now beefing up on the energizing and insulating white fat she'll be born with (unfortunately, white fat is not energizing and insulating for adults!)." I would hate to see what a Depends model looks like!!!

-Peanut is a little over 15 inches and weighs about 3 lbs. Hopefully this weekend we might be able to get an actual weight on our little Peanut! Stay tuned...

Allyson and Peanut

HICCUPotamus...

Exciting news on the Long baby update homefront.... Peanut has had her first and second case of the hiccups!!! It might not "technically" be her first case, but it is the first case that this mama has felt. About a month ago, I was talking to Michelle White (who is also pregnant, due at the same time) and she was telling me that her little baby girl gets the hiccups all the time! I wondered how Michelle could feel that? It seems like such a small thing to feel? Michelle told me what it felt like and I knew that I had never experienced it before. However, this past Friday while I was at a CE conference in Nashville, IN... Peanut started hiccuping 30 minutes after I ate lunch. I thought, "Ah... she is very active"... but then the small little "taps" continued at a constant beat for 20 minutes... Then again today while I was reading up on the "Bradley Childbirth Method" at Barnes and Noble, she started in again... I just smiled and laughed to myself!!! Laughing out loud while reading about childbirth is kind of an oxymoron isn't it???

All of this said, I have really come to enjoy her hiccups!!! I look forward to many more encounters with our little HICCUPotamus!!!

Allyson and Peanut

Weirder things have happened...

Is Weirder a word? Is it even spelled correctly?? Oh well!

Peanut and I were driving from my Brownsburg office to my downtown Indy office on Tuesday during lunch time. We were jamming in the car to some good 'ole fashion 80's tunes (gotta get a dose of them every month or so). As I passed the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, I noticed traffic on 16th street was slowing down. I couldn't really figure out why everyone was tapping their breaks. Well, the closer I get, I see a very frail old man (probably at least 80-85 years old), walking on 16th street in the right turn lane with his walker. He was on oxygen and carrying the can on his shoulder. He also had a CVS pharmacy prescription bag in his hands. (Granted he was 200 ft in front of a CVS where he must have just come from.) I was quite puzzled by this situation and I will tell you why -- b/c there was a perfectly good sidewalk 10 ft from the street!!! Yes, this older gentleman was walking (with a walker) down 5-lane 16th street instead of using the sidewalk! He wouldn't have even needed to share the sidewalk b/c NO ONE else was around!! I really hope that man made it to his final destination and wasn't hurt! Not everyone drives as cautious as myself, now that I have a peanut growing inside of me!!!!

I just found this "weird" happening to be blog worthy... hope you enjoy!!!

Allyson, Peanut, and the weird 16th street "walker" man!

Third Trimester....Bring it on baby...

Well, we hit 28 weeks!!! Yipee!!! We have hit the third trimester mark!!

We had our 28 week check-up today! The baby looks great. Her HR was 152 today and she finally decided to turn herself around and get out of the breech position! Although the midwife told me that at any time she wants, she can flip back around. They won’t worry about her specific position until about 34-35 weeks. I guess that is a relief??

In the news this week:

-Peanut’s eyes are partially open now and can blink.
-Peanut should have eyelashes as well. Let’s hope she gets her daddy’s BEAUTIFUL eyelashes!! If you haven’t ever looked at my husband’s eyelashes – you should b/c they are long and beautiful!!!
-Her eyes should have color now, too. It may not be the color she ultimately ends up with, especially if they're light gray or blue. The eyes typically don't settle on a final hue until nine months after baby is born. Isn’t that interesting?
-She is about 15 inches long and should weight 2-3 lbs. Unless you are our child and probably weigh 3-4 lbs by now!  HEHE
-Peanut’s billions of neurons in her brain and adding more body fat in preparation for life in the outside world.

Nothing else is new and exciting.... besides the fact one of our faithful readers had their baby... Welcome to the world Colin McHugh AKA Turnip!!! We are so glad that you finally decided to join your wonderful parents in this big and exciting world!! Colin -- make sure to take your mom up on the ice cream offer that she bribed you with during those last few weeks!

Allyson and Peanut

A place to rest your little head....

Exciting news!!! Peanut has somewhere to lay her precious head when she arrives into this big, scary world!!! A little different than the dark, comfortable, warm womb huh??

Our crib came today!! (See it's picture to the left) You may ask, why in the world did you order it already? You still have 10-12 weeks left??? Well, all the places I was reading said to order the crib 6-8 weeks before you need it b/c it takes that long to come in!! We ordered it late last week b/c of those reasons and it already appeared!!! I assume the biggest challenge will be putting it together!!! Hopefully the directions are easy to read and comprehend!!! What a fun husband/wife activity!!! Can't you just see it now???

I also ordered the Mattress from Amazon.com b/c I found it cheaper than Target as well as Free Shipping!! We got that last Friday!! Only took 2 days!!! Oh yeah!!!

We can't wait to have a little princess to put in that crib!!

Well, stay tuned... 28 week update tomorrow, plus doctor appt tomorrow!!

Allyson and Peanut

A few words to an Anonymous reader ...

To the person that has written many hurtful comments on our FAMILY blog:

After the first VERY hurtful comments you posted on the blog, I deleted them and tried to ignore how hurtful they were to myself and my family. You said that "I had lost a reader."

However, you did not stop reading.... You proceeded to write two more EXTREMELY hurtful comments last night on the blog that I did not appreciate at all. I can't imagine saying such hurtful and horrible comments on any one's blog, despite what you may think in your head. I believe that you are a coward b/c you did not even have the courage to sign your name to those comments and take responsibility for them. Don't you remember the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Due to your lack of respect for me and my family, I will have to change the comment field so that I have to "approve" a comment before it is actually posted.

This blog was created to serve as a journal to later print off and show our little one of our journey towards birth and all of the happenings while she was "baking" in the oven!!

To all the other faithful Long Family Chronicle readers and supporters, I greatly appreciate your positive comments during this time of excitement, growth, maturation, and pain! I am truly encouraged by your comments and am grateful to have such wonderful friends to support us during this exciting time in our lives!

Allyson

Keep on truckin'

Don't ya just love the little 3D wiget picture of Peanut for this week? I had a fun time in photoshop adding some text!! LM - doesn't Peanut look a little bit more in proportion these days? Good thing huh? Would hate to have a Peanut with a HUGE head and tiny arms and legs!! I might get a few weird looks walking down the road!!

Since I blogged the last time, quite a bit has happened!! Apryl and I headed up north to the wonderful Babies R Us and I finished my registry! I would never have been able to do that without her excellent help and recommendations! Wow, that is a daunting task for a first time mom!!! I hope to pass on the favor to someone else once I have a little "experience" under my belt! I also finished up my Amazon.com registry as well. So, I think I have covered all my boundaries for first time mom supplies and needs!! At least I hope!

Today I did my bloodwork to prepare for my 28 week appointment next week!! Included in the bloodwork was a CBC, Syphilis, and a 1 hour Glucose Challenge test! We can say I passed the Syphilis test with flying colors -- as if I imagine you were all worried!! :) I kicked butt in the 1 hour Glucose Challenge test with a BS of 97! Oh yeah!! Pretty impressive after a 50 gram load of glucose!! I was pretty thrilled with the good 'ole body!! The only thing that wasn't up to par was my hemoglobin (10.8; normal is 12-14) and hematocrit (31.2; normal is 34-36). Sounds like Peanut is leaching all of my iron stores!! No wonder I have been pretty tired lately! I just chalked it up to the pregnancy!! I need to start eating more of my iron-rich foods!! You might be able to call me Popeye soon!!

I have to say the Glucola wasn't as bad as I had expected. They gave me 10 oz of lemon lime glucola and I stuck it in the fridge for 3 hours. The lady at the lab said, "you can pour it over a cup of ice." I was thinking to myself -- "Self, is this really going to make 50 grams of sugar taste any better???" I have to say, I got it down in less than the recommended 5 minutes. I would have to equate it to 10 year old Flat Regular Sprite, double the syrup/sugar! Yum!! Doesn't that make you want to go out to the store and pick up a Sprite? Believe me, I won't be drinking a Sprite in the near future at all!! All in all, I survived and was thrilled to have good results!

This week in the news:
-Peanut’s lungs and immune system are maturing this week as she prepares for her grand entrance. They tell me that is she were born today, she would have an 85 percent chance of surviving as her lungs are capable of breathing air (with medical assistance, of course). I don’t know if I should be encouraged by that statement or frightened? Hum???
-Peanut’s length has more than doubled in the past 15 weeks!
-Peanut’s brain tissue and neurons are all developing at a rapid pace. Her brain waves are now firing away just like those of a newborn baby.
-Peanut should weigh over 2 lbs and be about 14.5 inches in length!
-Peanut’s sleeping and waking at regular intervals, opening and closing her eyes, and perhaps even sucking her fingers.

Well, that is all on the home front... hope you enjoyed our busy life update!

Allyson and Peanut