time for another bump-date! at least I'm not gracing you with my belly every week like I have in the pregnancies past. I wouldn't be able to commit to that right now.. life is SO insane. but I do like to give a little update every time I get to go to my OB for a check up and especially when I get to see our little guy.
OMG, but little HE IS NOT. lets talk about our growing babe for a minute, shall we?
weighing in at 1 pound and 5 ounces he's measuring about 2 weeks ahead for gestation. which makes sense because my preggo belly is also measuring over 24 weeks when I just hit that 22 week mark on Sunday. LOOK at those legs. and his feet! my OB likes for the perinatologist to follow all her pregnancies, so I met Dr. Koster when I was pregnant with the twins and have continued to see her a few times while pregnant since. I always go between 22-24 weeks for a sonogram because according to my OB thats the opportune time for measurement of brain development. when she started the scan the first thing I saw was his foot. my eyes got big and I said out loud- what that his FOOT? it was huge!
I feel so bad for him so cramped up! I don't ever remember having my girls curled up in a ball like that. sweet guy. I couldn't help but laugh and laugh every time I got a full view of him laid up in there or a shot of his legs or his feet. truth is that it doesn't surprise me at all one bit about his length- my dad and three brothers all are 6 foot 3 and above.. my middle brother is about 6 foot 5. I could have potentially been very tall.. and I am for a girl. Jordan isn't a little guy, either.
brother is just growing along just as the others before him did.
he's healthy with a strong heartbeat at 143bpm and while he is measuring on the larger end for gestation my OB assured me that he's totally symmetrical:) he did have some fluid around his kidneys- everything else seemed to be filtering like normal but we just have to watch that to make sure the fluid doesn't increase or cause other problems. apparently thats really common to see in baby boys in the womb and it usually resolves itself by the time he's delivered. my fluid is a little elevated like it was in my pregnancy with Baker, so with both of those components in the mix it means I'll get serial sonograms to follow and make sure all is well for both mama and baby boy.
fine by me!
as for this mama.. feeling "great" finally, I suppose. two weeks ago when we all had a stomach bug it took me 5 days to feel back to normal. it really knocked me on my rear and I couldnt help but be so exhausted after the smallest amount of activity. my eating habits haven't been normal since then, either. I also have been getting REALLY full after eating even the smallest of meals.
my daily meal schedule might usually look like:
breakfast: toast or cereal with coffee
lunch: grilled cheese or a cup soup with a small salad
dinner.. more cereal.
after lunch is usually when I feel the most uncomfortable and am so miserable for hours! which makes it hard to eat a solid dinner. I don't feel sick, just full.
basically, this is common for me in pregnancy but not until around 32-35 weeks. its happening way early this time around and with the stomach bug a couple weeks ago and me not being able to eat a lot at all.. I lost a pound in the month since I last went to the doctor. my OB isn't super concerned because he's growing well and above average, but I need something to help speed up my digestion and make it easier for me to eat so he doesn't eventually reap the effects of me not eating well in the most important times of growth for him.
so she prescribed me a low dose of protonix once a day to see if that helps.
other things.. I haven't been working out very much, I'm sleeping like a rock, and I feel him move ALL DAY, which I totally LOVE. I love to feel him move.
I STILL cant believe we finally have a name for this little guy. I feel weird calling him little after seeing his outrageous legs and feet at our scan yesterday..and his hands were huge, too. I am still laughing about it!
we went around and around about naming this boy- we had a girl name set and ready to go. we were excited, ready, good. our fourth girl on the way. but when that balloon popped BLUE we both were like..
holy cow.. now, what in the world.. is this real life??
I immediately threw out all of my "original" boy names- boy names that we had been discussing for the last 8 or so years since we started talking about kids. they all of the sudden weren't "good enough" because part of me was doubtful I would ever get the chance to be a mother to three babies let alone FOUR. and then other parts of me, and Jordan has admitted this as well, thought that having a boy just wasn't in the cards for us. SO, who knew if I would ever get the chance to actually use those names I had listed on the "boy" column.
this new adventure was a giant leap into uncharted territory for the both of us- and it started with the very best name we could settle on. so much freaking pressure.
Jordan is very adamant about using a family name for the middle name. All of our kids have been named after a matriarch of the family, and so when it came to naming our fourth, he also was going to follow suit. Parker Jane is named after Granny Jane on the Fort side of Jordan's mom's side, Jolie Grace is named after Jordan's Meme on the Massey side, and Baker Bree is named after our tremendously loved BB. there are a lot of women on both sides of the family. A LOT. so we ventured over to the Huey side (my family) so see if anything we loved.. which again, I thought just wasn't ever in the cards for me and still nothing stuck out as perfect.
with all three of my girls I had this feeling of peace and "oh my that is it, thats the name" and I just wasn't having it with our baby boy.
Brady has always been one we like, and like the name Baker, it was a name that I wasn't completely struck by or even remembered that I had threw it on the list at some point.
but when it came down to naming a BOY it was good. we loved it. but the giant problem was that we didn't love any middle name we came up to go with it.
I was drinking coffee one Saturday morning shortly after the gender reveal- maybe even that next weekend.. and texting back and forth with a friend about name ideas..Jordan was at the fire station and it hit me.
what about Brady Jordan?
I texted it to Jordan, as it was officially one of the very first name ideas either of us had thrown out there. he loved it, but he didn't feel the need to use his name as a middle name since he was getting to keep the Massey name alive.
but, dude, you will be the most important man in his life- so why not?!
over the last couple months we have been playing around with other names, calling him by those for a couple days and still nothing felt right. we started to get way off base from what we had originally discussed and I was getting anxious.. so on our road trip to visit my parents a couple weeks back I cornered Jordan in the car for the three hour drive we had ahead of us with threats from his pregnant wife.
"we are going to decide on a name."
..and so we did. we went back to our original name and finally felt that ah-ha moment that we had with the three before him.
there were many reasons we didn't share Baker's name before she was born.. one of which was the family name we had decided on to use for her middle name. this time we didn't have a single reason to keep it hush hush. I was SO proud to be naming our boy after his dad and I wanted to tell everyone. our closest friends and family knew his name the moment we decided and so many parts of me thought it to be fun to let the surprise be when he finally arrives but then again I have typed his name out a million times when talking about him on this blog and finally decided that it was worth the excitement BEFORE he arrives to share the name we ultimately decided on.
those long legs. that button nose- a classic trait we saw on sonograms of Parker + Baker. and his big ol' belly. We cant wait to meet you, Brady!
--
In celebration of my 22 week bump and naming baby Brady I've got something special for you courtesy of my friends at Pinkblush!
I was introduced to pinkblush when I was pregnant with Baker. looking for something to cover this bump,
their maternity style of clothing was right up my alley. their trendy line of maternity clothing has grown tremendously since the last time I was dressing a baby bump.. and I actually didn't even realize they had a full (and amazing) line of
women's clothing completely outside of maternity clothes until
recently. I've been looking for some true wide leg maternity denim and of course I love the romantic style of anything floral + lace!
I've teamed up with pinkblush to offer one lucky winner $75 gift card to this trendy online boutique towards anything they wish! I know you mamas out there could use some easily transitional staple pieces in your closet, and every little bit helps to kick off a fresh start to this holiday season's wardrobe, right? RIGHT!! in the meantime, pinkblush has a promotion going right now, just use code BLACKFRIDAY for 40% site wide! I might have just stocked up on a few of their super soft lounge pants- I have these and just couldn't pass up these in stripe and these in grey (more floral!). I plan to be as comfy as possible while in the hospital and definitely postpartum, too! I also got my hands on this maternity robe for delivering baby Brady in a few short months! I cant believe how quickly March is approaching!
Enter for your chance to win in the rafflecopter giveaway below.
Giveaway runs through SUNDAY November 27th at midnight.
good luck + happy shopping!