Christmas Cheer at 22 Weeks (and a day)

Another couple of weeks have gone by. Thanksgiving has past and Christmas is approaching...aww, my favorite time of year! I love how everyone is always so happy; I love how radio stations begin playing Christmas music 24/7; I love the first snow of the season (only the first though) and I love love love having our Christmas tree up! But seriously, who am I kidding - my tree has been up for about three weeks now.

It's hard to believe that this will be our last Christmas as a family of two. Next year I'm sure I'll be looking for places to move/hide toys and baby gear, doing my best to clear a spot for our Christmas tree. I can't wait!

That brings me to baby news - I hit 22 weeks yesterday. To "celebrate," Nate and I spent our evening touring hospitals downtown to determine where we wanted to have the baby. We found that Mercy and Methodist are both great hospitals with newly renovated maternity centers, so we really couldn't make a bad decision. We ended up choosing Methodist, primarily b/c my doctors are affiliated with that hospital but also b/c I like how their birthing suites are also the recovery/postpartum suites. Done! Now we can schedule (and Nate can look forward to) childbirth classes.

I also had an appointment today to have my platelets checked. Since my initial OB visit showed my platelet counts being severely low, making me then have to see a hematologist, my blood will be drawn periodically to check my counts until the baby is born. Today was my first check-up since seeing the hematologist three months ago and, thankfully, my platelet counts came back normal! Whew!! Now, I just have one more precautionary check-up in March and I should be good to go.

Here is a belly picture at 22 weeks. I am definitely feeling all kinds of baby movement, and typically around the same times each day which is awesome. It gives me something to look forward to on a daily basis. I love those little kicks!

Symptoms: I haven't had any extreme symptoms but I have noticed that it is sometimes a little harder to breathe or move after I've had a big meal. My heartburn comes and goes and, surprisingly, it was gone for all of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Shocking! I was sure I would suffer the whole time. I guess I just need to start loading up on turkey, potatoes and noodles instead of Tums.

22 weeks
Baby H - size of Papaya

In other baby happenings, Nate and I have been thinking hard about baby names. Who knew that coming up with the perfect name would be so difficult. Luckily for us we have our nephew, Brady, who offered some great suggestions:

1. Gunner Puppy (Note - Gunner is Brady's yellow lab)
2. Lukey Wookie
3. Fred Dogg (Our personal favorite!)

Seriously though, names are hard! I'm hoping we have one by the time Baby H arrives.