Next month!

I can officially say that our baby is due next month!!! AH!

We seriously can't wait to meet Gunner. We love watching him move in my belly and talking to him. I'm really not sure what's normal at this stage, but he seems like a very active baby. There's just something so special about being woken up in the middle of the night because of baby kicks and movements.

I made a quick business trip to Colorado Springs at 31 weeks. Thankfully, the trip (although long) was very easy. I made sure to stay hydrated and wore my sexy compression socks to avoid bad swelling. While I was there, the people in my office threw me a surprise baby shower! It was beautiful and made me feel so special. I also got to meet up with 5 of my best friends in Colorado for dinner after work. And guess what? They ALSO threw me a surprise baby shower! It was a full day but I felt so blessed to know such wonderful people.

This weekend Josh and I are headed to Destin for the weekend for a quick birthday trip. I'm looking forward to some relaxing and time on the beach. This may be our last trip before Gunner comes so I know we'll make the best of it.

As always, here's an update on the belly and some of the pictures from my trip to Colorado.

30 weeks...and counting

AH! I can't believe we only have 10 more weeks of this pregnancy. I've been so blessed to have had a fairly easy pregnancy. I've been dealing with siatica issues this last week, but it's not even that bad so I can't complain. I went on my Saturday 4 mile run and had to laugh at how slow I've become. I'm basically shuffling. But I'm so blessed that I'm still able to go out and run at 30 weeks.

We also had our baby shower yesterday. We have such wonderful friends here at Fort Rucker that went above and beyond to make this shower perfect. It was an adorable aviator theme with the cutest decorations. They also went way out of their way to provide a spread of food that was gluten and dairy free. Trust me, that's not easy! We got a ton of wonderful gifts and I believe we're stocked up on diapers for a while :).

Gunner is definitely growing. It's so weird to see how dramatically my belly can move while he's moving or how lopsided he can make it :). I can't wait to meet this adorable little stinker.

Here's some recent pictures from the shower and past weeks.

This week....third trimester!

I'll hit the third trimester on Thursday. How in the world did that happen so quickly!? 

This pregnancy journey has been so fun. I've honestly enjoyed every little bit of it. I love how active our baby boy is at night and in the morning. I'll often lay in bed for an extra 5-10 minutes after my alarm goes off just so I can feel him wiggle around. Sometimes Josh will wake up in the middle of the night and put his hand on my belly and feel our little boy moving around.

It's also amazing to me how much I've grown in the last few weeks. I'm finally looking pregnant (at least to the point where people aren't afraid to ask). Yesterday (at 26 weeks) was the first time a stranger has asked me if I'm pregnant. Josh and I were at a restaurant and the waitress said, "Is there a little person in there?" pointing at my belly. I said "yes" and she said, "I thought so but I was a little afraid to ask just in case I was wrong." I totally understand that feeling! I'm terrified to ask people if they're pregnant, even if they're noticeably about to pop!

I'm still exercising consistently. This morning I ran 4 miles. I'm really hoping I can continue running into month 7 and maybe even month 8. It always makes me feel 100% better. 

Josh and I found a doula. She seems great and I feel so much more at ease, just knowing she'll be around. We've been to a couple child birth classes. Sheesh! There's so much to having babies that no one ever tells you about. Should we circumcise? Should we not? Should we get this vaccine? Should we not? Should we cut the cord right away? Should we not?

Here's some of my most recent pictures. As you can see, the belly just keeps growing :).

Pregnancy and Exercise

So I always said that if I was to ever get pregnant, I wanted to exercise throughout the pregnancy. Obviously, I don't have complete control over this, but so far, I've been blessed to be able to work out 5 times a week. The first trimester was a struggle. I was ALWAYS tired and had no motivation to work out. It was also my first trimester that I ran a half marathon (at 9 weeks) so maybe that's why I was so tired. I was running up to 6 miles on week days and 10+ miles on weekends. After that half, I slowed my running down quite a bit. The further I get in this pregnancy, the slower I get. I NEVER push myself. I run where I'm completely comfortable and if I start to feel uncomfortable, I'll stop and walk for a bit. I was running about a 9 min/mile before the pregnancy. Now I'm at a 10:30/10:45 (so that gives you an idea how much slower I've become).

These days, I've been spending a lot more time on the elliptical and bike. I typically only work out for 30 minutes a day. Weekends I'll try to get one or two 4 mile runs in. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to run outside lately...not because I don't want to but because I have to deal with the pregnancy bladder issue! As soon as I start running, I automatically have to pee (even if I literally just went). Little boy bounces around on my bladder, making it extremely uncomfortable to run. So if I run 4 miles, I'm typically stopping at 2 miles to run to the bathroom.

I completely understand that exercising will become much harder the further in the pregnancy I get, but I'm hopeful that exercising can continue. It helps with any stress issues I might have and always makes me feel 100% better.

Here's an update on recent pictures. I feel like I popped right around 21 weeks.

Half Way!

There are days that it still feels so surreal that I'm actually pregnant...that I'm actually carrying a tiny human being. We just hit the 20 week mark - half way there! We also found out at 18 weeks that we're having a baby boy. We couldn't be happier. I was positive that it was a girl so I was a bit surprised when the tech told us we were having a boy. It's been so fun starting to prepare his nursery and picking out names. I also started feeling kicks around 17 weeks. It's such an exciting feeling and makes everything so much more real. It's amazing to me how much I can love this little man already.

I've spent a little bit of time reflecting back on 2015. The beginning of the year was a bit rough. I struggled understanding what God's plans were for us. I doubted and I complained. I'm thankful that God is gracious. And I'm so thankful that He has blessed us with a little miracle when the best of the best doctors told us it wasn't possible. There were many areas that I didn't trust God in the beginning of the year. Children, finances, jobs.... Now that I look back, I'm amazed (and ashamed at my lack of trust) that God has taken every single area and blessed us beyond measure.

Here are a few baby bump pictures up to week 20. It's been fun documenting this!

Too long

It's been way too long since I've blogged. So long that I just now realized that my blog backdrop just disappeared....great. I'm not fixing it - nobody's got time for that! :)

Things have been a bit of a whirlwind since September. Josh was in SERE (Army Survival Training) for 3 weeks so we weren't able to talk at all during that period. Crazy thing happened...I also found out I was pregnant while he was gone. We've been trying for 4.5 years and were basically told that it probably wouldn't happen to us so we had stopped trying and were adopting. It was the last thing I expected to happen! Obviously we are beyond excited for this new addition.

I do find that I still struggle with trust though (imagine that). The first three months, I wouldn't let myself get too excited because I was so scared something would happen to the pregnancy. Even though we're at 15 weeks now, I still have a hard time with this. I am so thankful for every ounce of blessing God has given us, yet I still find myself becoming scared that something bad will happen. Why can't I just relax and trust God that everything will work out?! I'm a work in progress. Thank God that he is a gracious forgiving God! Thank God that he blesses us beyond what we could ever deserve despite my issues!

There's so much that I'd like to say about this pregnancy but I'm going to keep this post fairly short. I'm going to leave with some pictures that were taken when I announced the pregnancy to Josh. This will always be such a fun, special memory. :)

Just because I needed this today