26 Weeks

Pregnancy Update August 20, 2012

How far along: 26 weeks. Only 98 days to go!

Size of baby: 14 inches, 1.75 lb. - A "Hothouse Cucumber"  A what?! Let's hope Bryson isn't that skinny... :)

What developed this past week: His eyes, which until now were developing under fused eyelids, start to open! Of course, there's not much to see in there, but if baby spots a bright light (or hears a loud noise) near my belly, he may increase his fetal activity because his brain is more developed and sophisticated!

Weight Gain: 21 pounds.

Maternity clothes: All maternity. Finally fitting more of the size medium shirts I bought online (thinking they'd fit right away).

Gender: IT'S A BOY! "Bryson Nicholas"
For fun, here are pictures of baby Caleb (daddy) as a newborn & at 6 weeks old!

Movement: Bryson likes to move at night when Caleb and I lay down to go to bed. Maybe he likes daddy's voice, because he doesn't seem to move much when I go to bed alone (before Caleb). I took this video the other night. I had felt a weird tightening sensation in my belly, so I pulled my shirt up and saw that baby was pushed up on one side! Then he kept moving and moving and moving! After a few minutes, I realized I should grab my ipod to record his craziness for all to see.  Click the link - it will bring you to the youtube video: Belly Bumpin' - 25.5 Weeks

Sleep: I feel like I'm getting tired earlier in the evenings these days. But it could just be because I go to work at 7:30am vs 8:30 now. The hard part is that if I go to bed too early, I wake up in the middle of the night, or at 4:30 with Caleb's alarm, and have a hard time falling back asleep, especially if my back is aching. But most of the time I sleep well and don't wake up often, just enough to roll over. Sometimes I'll go to the bathroom at 4:30 when Caleb gets up, but usually I don't want to get out of my comfortable bed and am able to sleep a couple more hours.

What I miss: Nothing - I feel bad complaining about the few minor inconveniences and pains when I am SO happy that Baby Farrell is doing so well and getting closer and closer to term! Can't wait to see what he looks like!

Cravings: Nothing. I'll eat anything :)

Best moment this week: My first baby shower! Thrown by my coworkers on 8/15. Will write a separate post with the details and pictures!

What I am looking forward to: My next doctor's appointment on 8/22 - I will finally get my belly measured so I can know if people's perception is off, or if I really am "small"! People are always incredulous when I tell them I'm 6 months pregnant! Also going to do the gestational diabetes test - I've heard bad things about the orange soda drink, but am confident I can choke it down quickly! :) Hope all is well with it - who wants to watch what they eat and take their blood multiple times a day?! Not me! :) Results come the next day.

Sisters - Gender Reveal

I'm hoping we are far enough removed from the whole gender reveal process that no one gets mad at me (or Caleb)... but one of my gender-reveal plans changed at the last minute. And I can't keep it to myself - this was so fun, and my sisters are absolutely hilarious. These pictures are them to a T; I have to share!

To back up a little, let me remind everyone that we found out the baby's gender a week before our family gender reveal party, therefore making everyone wait - no fun for them (and let me tell you, I was harassed and analyzed that whole week)! Both of my sisters live out of town (8 hours & 2 hours away), but we were all getting together the weekend of our gender party for my younger sister's bachelorette party in Cleveland. The plan was to tell the girls on Sunday morning before driving home to our family gender party that evening. That way everyone would find out the same day, albeit at different times of the day. But that was as "fair" as we could make it, while still being able to announce to Lindsay and Melissa in person.

Fortunately for my sisters, unfortunately for the rest of our family who had to wait until Sunday evening, Lindsay, Melissa & I went to dinner on Friday night upon arrival into Cleveland, before the rest of the party people came. They begged and pleaded and reasoned with me to tell them while it was just the 3 of us so that we could all talk about it and be excited together, versus waiting until we were running out the door at 7am Sunday morning where I would just have to say it and leave - boring!



Lindsay & Melissa YEARNING to know! Who can say no to these faces?! :)

So I called Caleb to get his input on doing away with the fair plan we had and we decided that we would tell my sisters, but keep the fact that they knew a secret so that THEY COULDN'T SLIP! That way if anyone heard them say "him", others would assume it's just because they've always said they think it's a boy. I know how much every thing I said was analyzed when I knew and others didn't for the week, I couldn't take the chance that someone else would accidently give it away! Especially to friends before family knew!



This is when I said, "OK!! I'll tell you!" They said "YES!!!!!"

So this is what I did:

I wrapped up 2 baby outfits - one blue and one pink.



Like my fancy white tissue paper wrapping?! :)

I told them to unwrap the gifts FULLY - as in, unzip the sleepers until you get to the note inside. But I couldn't say the unzipping part because I didn't want to give away what was in the paper, so they both thought they had the "right" one just by looking at the color. It was so funny! Lindsay screams," IT'S A BOY!" and Melissa says, "IT'S A GIRL!" Then they both look quizicallly at eachother, then the opposite outfit, then me. Melissa said, "It's twins?!" hahha! I said, "No! I told you - unwrap it FULLY - UNZIP THEM!" :)

Once they got to the notes, they started freaking out - I heard plenty of "I KNEW IT!s" hahaha

Those girls crack me up! They are SO excited to be having a nephew!

L & M with the outfits & notes they opened. See how happy they look!?

THE FINAL ANSWER:  BOY!



Aren't they the cutest?! Many conversations about names and plans and pregnancy were had over the course of that weekend. As guilty as I felt at first for not being fair (and basically lying about it! I'm confessing now, does that make it better?! :)), I wouldn't change it! It was one of the most fun things EVER to tell my sisters! They are going to be such great Aunties! Love you girls! Thanks for being so excited - and capturing your emotions in pictures! Now we'll NEVER forget your faces when you found out about Bryson Nicholas, the favorite first nephew! :)