Weekend update and two more belly photos

Nothing too exciting happened this weekend. Overall, it was nice and relaxing. I went to get a prenatal massage on Saturday morning and Ben was kind enough to clean house while I was gone - I LOVE HIM!! Saturday night we had dinner out with our friends Matt and Kate to celebrate Kate's birthday. I had gnocchi stroganoff and it was awesome. Ben had a burger, and he liked it. Only problem was he added blue cheese, so I couldn't try it (have to steer clear of blue cheese for now...). Sunday we actually made the trip to Babies R Us to register. (We have a bit of tweaking to do, but you can view it if you search for us by name.) Dare I say, it was a bit overwhelming! We enjoyed checking everything out, but it makes you realize how much stuff you really do need (or maybe you really don't need) for Baby Girl Lowe. I think most of the items are creature comforts and things of that nature that in general make life easier with a baby. We shall soon find out - I'm 24+ weeks now, right around the corner from the third trimester and into the homestretch!

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, which beforehand I have to drink some "yummy" glucose drink and then do some blood work. This will be give the doctors any indication of gestational diabetes and whether I need to have a more extensive glucose test done (think drinking thick cough syrup over the course of three hours....not fun!). So hopefully my results after tomorrow are good and I can avoid the additional testing!

Here are two more belly photos - I think I'm caught up!

23 weeks - Baby Girl Lowe had a growth spurt! 24 weeks - no major growth spurt, just a big dinner right before we took this photo!

Songs on the Blog and baby names/suggestions

We added two of our favorite songs that remind us of BGL to the blog. Ben's favorite is "Daughter" by Loudon Wainwright III - you might recognize the song from the movie Knocked Up. Mine is "Beautiful Life" by Fisher - it's the song from the commercials for Jon & Kate Plus 8 on TLC. Hope you like our choices.

Many people have asked about the name of BGL. Here it is, short and sweet -- we are not going to be sharing the name of BGL until she makes her grand arrival. Sorry to disappoint, but we did find out the sex to satisfy many of you (yes, including ourselves), so this name thing is going to be something that Ben and I can share just between us. I will, however, offer you a tidbit....below is a list of suggestions from our friend Lauren Motley (soon to be Lauren Johnson - it'll make sense when you get to the last name on the list). She cracks me up. My favorite is Butterfly - it's kinda hippy-ish and we all know how much Ben loves Boulder, so it seems to fit. Enjoy! Oh, and if you have BGL name suggestions, respond to this post and we'll put them on the list. You might be lucky and have us choose a name you like.....we'll take first and middle name suggestions.

Names for Baby Lowe. One for each letter of the alphabet.

Aiesha
Butterfly
Chrystyna (a new twist on the ol’ Christina!)
De-lisha or De-nossis (couldn’t pick just one)
Ezola
Fajah
Germaine (yep, under girl names)
Hyacinth
Imelda (on the list)
Jack-ee (not to be confused with Jacquie, both on the list); Ja'Quaelah
K'Brianey (I just picked this one so you could try pronouncing it)
LeRinda, L'Tanga, or Larhonda (the L’s just sound too good with Lowe)
Monette (yep, also on the official list)
Skipped N’s – no good ones
Odessa
Precious
Queisha
Redonna (just shy of Madonna; a ready-made celebrity name)
Sharisha (rolls right off the tongue); Shamecca (Shamecca mecca high mecca highny ho)
Tye (not to be confused with Ty Bo)
Blows me away there were none for “U”
VeNay
Wygenia (hmmm, wonder how they came up with this one? The guy at the end of the table with a lisp….)
YoLanda (because you have to include this one)
Zelda (don’t use this one – it’s reserved for the future Zelda Johnson)

HUGE THANKS TO...

My cousin, Alicia. She sent Ben and I a HUGE HUGE HUGE box of baby stuff. We got it a week ago and I feel like I'm still going through it. I can't thank her enough for taking time out of her busy schedule with two kiddos to package that stuff up and get it to us. Believe me, Alicia, it will be well used! Thank you again!

Mini-update and one more belly photo

No news to report on the pregnancy front, so again, no news is good news. BGL is moving around more and more. Ben and I can feel her just about every day with good swift kicks. She actually kept me awake for part of Sunday morning, just having a party in my belly! I think more sooner than later we'll be able to SEE her moving - that will be very interesting! Next appt. is not until February 11, where I'll do my initial glucose testing to screen for gestational diabetes. Then another ultrasound (probably our last) on February 26. Nothing to report for this week, just going to finalize our registry list and hopefully make it to BabiesRUs to get that done this weekend. We'll see...the weather has been so nice, we haven't wanted to be inside for hours and hours. We are still walking on the weekends when the weather cooperates, although I have noticed that I feel it more about half way through than I have in the past. Just tired a bit, and my hips and pelvis start to feel some pressure. But if this is as bad as it gets, I'm good to go! Here's one belly photo that hasn't been posted yet. It was last week, when I was 22 weeks along.

Saturday we went to the Avs game and had a great time. They lost, but it was still close and we got to see a total of 7 goals. Ben hasn't ever been a hockey fan, so he probably got tired of me talking my way through the game, but I do think he had fun. He stood up and cheered and got into it more than I thought. Progress is progress! After the game we swung by St. Anthony's to tour their labor and delivery ward. Neither of us got a warm fuzzy from it, so we've decided we're delivering BGL at Lutheran in Wheat Ridge.

We went to our friends' Matt and Kate's to watch the super bowl last night. Had some good snacks and watched a good game. Ben and I put $10 in this pool where you had to pick results from 10 categories throughout the course of the game, like first sack, first touchdown, etc. We actually won! Took home $70 - not too bad for a Sunday afternoon of watching football.

20 week ultrasound photos

Here are three photos from our ultrasound this week. Hopefully you can make them out okay. We only get small printed photos, nothing digital, so these are scanned in...Enjoy!

Baby Girl Lowe - it's official (and no, I won't point "it" out to you...)

Baby Girl Lowe was waving at us.

Head shot - brain, eye sockets and nose are visible

It's official - we are having a baby....

GIRL!

Everything on the ultrasound was excellent, heart rate, aorta, brain measurements, four limbs, all 10 fingers. I’ve gained 4 lbs this month, so I’m right on track. Glucose testing next month, and then another ultrasound at 26 weeks to check my cervix (since I had surgery on it way back when). Mini-hospital tours in the next couple of weeks to pick our hospital and then we’ll probably take one fast baby/childbirth class for some basic info. I feel like I need it…..

Ben is already worried about our daughter dating, but then he did admit that she'll have him wrapped around his little finger. I can only imagine....

Photos and maybe a video of BGL (Baby Girl Lowe) will follow later this week.

New Years' Update!

So I have to apologize for not posting anything in a while. The holidays came and went, I got sick, I started a new position at my firm, trained my replacement for my old position, and well to be honest, I just wasn’t feeling up to blogging much. Just too tired and run down from my cold to even attempt to keep up. I’ll try to keep this short and sweet….

First – the holidays. My in-laws and Ben’s brother, John, and his girlfriend, Tracy, came to stay with us for a week over the holidays. Even with the small house, it was nice to have people at our place for once. We watched a lot of movies and ate a ton of food. For Christmas Eve we went to Carmine’s on Penn for some awesome Italian food, and then Christmas Day Ben and I made our first full-fledged turkey dinner. I did a traditional roast turkey and Ben deep fried one. They both turned out great. I might add we did cornbread stuffing this year and it ROCKS. I’ll post some photos below. We exchanged gifts with everyone and got tons of great stuff. We got a gift card to Babies R Us, which will come handy for sure, a gift card to Best Buy, which we used to upgrade our camera with some video capabilities, and we got a jogging stroller as well. Ben’s stoked about that one! We got some baby sandals, booties, robe/bath set – all of which are just too cute and I can’t wait to get them on Baby Lowe. All in all, it was a great week and we were really quite lonely when everyone was gone. But I guess we should just relish the calm before the storm.

I caught a nasty cold which started the day of Christmas and just got worse over the next couple of days. I had bad head congestion and then it moved into my chest. Believe it or not, I finally just kicked my cough this week. I was as tired as I’d been during my first trimester. I was miserable on some days, somewhat okay on others. Didn’t miss any work, but I think I probably should have. I just didn’t have the time to take off since I had to take 6 of my vacation days for my knee surgery back in June. That just messed me up for the rest of the year to take time off.

I am now a paralegal at my firm, working on post-judgment collections and general litigation. Basically, one of my mail responsibilities will be to find money (that people likely don’t have) to pay debts to our clients. I’ll be doing investigative projects, garnishments, and preparing my attorneys for hearings in which they’ll question the debtors about their assets, etc. I’ll also be supporting associates on general litigation matters within the firm, drafting documents, doing filings with the courts, document management, calendaring, etc. The list goes on and on, but after a week and a half in the new position, I have now realized I was really ready for the change and the challenge. I trained my assistant, Stacy, last week and she’s fallen into our firm nicely. I am happy to leave my two partners and one associate in her hands!

We also got a crib, if you can believe that! I remember driving home with it in the back of Ben’s Xterra, thinking, wow, a year ago we’d have been driving home from Sniagrab (big ski sale) with new skis or snowboards or something, but here I was staring at a crib and dresser thinking, wow, this is actually going home with us. We’re not delivering it for a friend, it’s actually for us…..weird, surreal, but really very exciting!

Baby Lowe is growing - I can tell. Kicking has gotten more often and not so much flutters, but more of full on kicks once in a while. I felt the first one at the beginning of 19 weeks, and grabbed Ben fast enough that he could have a chance to feel it from the outside too. He just lit up and got this big grin on his face. I was so happy that he could feel it I wanted to cry. Then again last night, I was laying in bed reading when I felt some more. I got his hands on my belly and he felt them too! I love the smile on his face, and I got all giggly to the point where my stomach was shaking so much you couldn't tell what was going on for a few seconds. But he definitely felt them!

I am at the end of my lunch hour, so I’ll leave with one more blurb – check the blog tomorrow. We have our 20 week ultrasound and we’ll hopefully find out if we are having Baby Girl Lowe or Baby Boy Lowe. We’ll take a DVD with us, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get it uploaded from the office computer or not. But we’ll definitely post on here what sex the baby is. Stay tuned…..

Here are some photos from Christmas and the crib. Oh and a couple more belly shots of me along the way. Happy New Year everyone!

Cornbread stuffing, yams and greenbean casserole

Our two turkeys, roasted in the front, deep fried in the back

Ben's handiwork setting the table - it looked so nice!
Our tree
Ben's ingenious idea for stringing lights - backpack!
Baby Lowe's dresser with changing pad
Baby Lowe's new digs

16 weeks
18 weeks

19 weeks

20 weeks

Excellent test results!

Just got off the phone with the doctor. I got my blood work results back from my appointment last week. My Downs Syndrome screening came back negative, which means that I am outside the result window for concern or even more testing (like a super scary looking amnio). As for Cystic Fibrosis, my chances of having a baby inflicted with that are 1/12,000. And then for Trisomy 18 and/or 13, my chances are 1/23,000. So those numbers are really excellent! Of course, nothing is definite, but my doctor has no reason to be concerned from any of our results! Here's to a happy, healthy Baby Lowe!

Tanner Wishes You a Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Lowes! Tanner is having too much fun with all the sweets and treats at the house....he found some antler ears and just couldn't resist. Happy Holidays!

Tanner at 4 and 1/2 years old:

Tanner at 7 months old (his first Christmas, and yes, he got coal in his stocking after this!):

16 week check up

Well, I'm in my fourth month, if you can believe that! I had my 16 week check up on Wednesday, and just had my vitals, weight, etc., checked, met with the doc briefly, and then had some blood drawn. Nothing to report, no concerns, just right on track. The highlight was listening to Baby Lowe's heartbeat! I love that - I could listen to it for hours. Ben and I are going to get one of the home listening devices. I'm so excited to get one of them! We'll get the one where

Ben's parents arrive on Saturday to visit for a week for Christmas. Then John and Tracy arrive for four days on Tuesday. It'll be good to host for once! Ben took a half-day today to get a start on cleaning, etc., as evenings are hard for me to get motivated at all. By the time I get home from work, I'm usually pretty tired. There are a few days a week that I feel pretty good, but generally, the thought of doing more than making dinner, taking the dog out or laying on the couch doesn't appeal much to me. Again, Ben's been great - taking on the majority of the housework. I don't tell him enough how much I appreciate him, but I will start doing that more for sure!