27 weeks and a Goliath

I went to Zumba class on Monday and the baby was not really having it. I was getting some pain in my lower right abdomen, so I did half a class trying to do really low impact stuff but the pain got a little worse so I left.
I went for a slow walk on the treadmill but the pain was still there. I walked for about 15 minutes and then went and lifted some weights. That seemed to help as I was mostly doing arms (tris, bis, shoulders) and back. I didn't want to over do it since I wasn't sure what the pain was so I went home to rest. The pain on my lower abdomen felt like round ligament pain, but stronger. I'm still not sure what it was but I'll keep that in mind for my appointment with the OBGYN next week.

The rest of the week was uneventful with school and work. On Thursday, Hector went to stay at the hotel in Miami where his P.E. exam was going to be held the next day. I wrote him a little letter with Bible verses about victory, and had my mom and nephew write him some encouraging words too. Hector's love language is gifts so I though a little something tangible to take with him would be nice.

Friday was E-day so I texted him bright and early to encourage him and make sure he was up and ready and sure enough, he had been ready since 6:30am. My little early rising, hard working bee. By the time he was taking his exam, i was already at the office and OF COURSE when he had the long break in between sessions, I had a client and we were not able to talk on the phone. I was so sad to come back to my desk to find 2 missed calls from him and a text message saying "Just wanted to talk to you on my break, I gotta get back in to the exam now". Ugh, I felt terrible.

By night time, he was back home and it was a triumphant return! He said he felt way more confident this time around and like he had used his time more efficiently. So now we wait. We won't know the results for a couple of months, but at least for now we can enjoy more quality time to spend together.

Saturday morning came around and it was WATER PARK DAY! If there's one thing you need to know about me, it's that I love water parks. I was super excited! We had been planning for a few weeks to go to Rapids Water Park to celebrate my nephew's birthday early (since they close it down at the end of October) and Hector being done with studying. Turns out, my car has been having issues for a while so we woke up very early to go drop it off at the shop. As these things usually happen, Hector and I got into a very big fight, like fight all the way back home and keep fighting once we parked in front of our house and then get out of the car to keep fighting IN FRONT OF A BIG GROUP OF JUDGY JEHOVA'S WITNESSES WHO KEPT STARING AND ASKING IF WE NEEDED ANYTHING. Ugh. I hate scenes and causing scenes and that was just NOT how I wanted to spend my Saturday morning.

After things calmed down a bit, we started getting ready for the park and made breakfast for the kids (my nephew's friend was going with us) and as soon as we got in the car, Hector broke out in a terrible skin rash. He's been having that issue for about a month now, I think it's stress related because it started getting worse the closer we got to his exam date. Since he breaks out and gets uncomfortable in the heat, he decided not to go to the park. I took the kids by myself and we had a good time EXCEPT for the fact that I barely was able to ride anything fun :( I figured I might go down a slide or 2 but when I got close to them and would see how high they were or how many twists and turns they had, I would back out because I don't want to do anything that could hurt the baby. I did ride the lazy river a couple of times and went in the wave pool. I was so tired after a full day of water park that I just laid down the rest of the night and didn't even attempt to go to our church's park day on Sunday.

26 weeks!

Pretty uneventful week. Got 1 Crossfit workout in and no Zumba (I was exhausted that day), did more baby shower planning and served as interpreter at church for the first time (Pastor preaches in Spanish and I interpret in English through a mic straight into member's headphones) 


Weight: 18lbs up

Maternity clothes: Absolutely. All my pants and leggings are maternity and most tops as well. I wear a few tops that are non, but I bought them a size up and I think they won't fit anymore in the next few weeks. I still have 2 non maternity maxi dresses that I wear but they're also kind of tight.

Stretch Marks: No new ones that I've noticed, just the same ones getting deeper? Or more noticeable? I'm not sure.

Sleep: Not great. I've always had trouble falling asleep and I think it's getting worse now. I'm definitely not getting 7-8 hours and I feel it. Will I ever sleep? Probably not :(

Best moment: I might be imagining things, but I feel like he reacts to his daddy's voice which is the sweetest thing ever

Missing: being able to sleep!! also, not sleeping in a reclined position. We have an electric platform bed and you can put your feet and your head up, and I sleep on it completely reclined all night.

Loving: Feeling him kick and talking to him.

Movement: He moves a lot! He's still on his little schedule for the most part, but he moves so much. He also kicks back if i'm laying down or sitting in a way that's uncomfortable for him haha little divo already.

Cravings: Nothing weird, just more food in general. I get really hungry sometimes.

Sick: No. My heartburn and reflux are back, but nothing like it was at the beginning. I'm back to being scared of tomato sauce and spicy stuff.

Showing: Yes definitely. Some people say I have a tiny belly, some people say it's huge but it's there for sure!

Symptoms: Still crying when I'm tired or overwhelmed. My feet swell up at the end of the day and my hands and fingers swell up when it's too hot outside. 

Looking forward to: sleeping, napping, putting my feet up, relaxing

25 Weeks and a hard good bye

This week was a hard, emotional one. For reasons that I'm not entirely too thrilled about, my younger brother moved to California. I spent a lot of time praying, crying, talking to my mom, worrying and it was all for nothing. His decision was made. He left early on Monday morning, drove for 3 days and made it to his destination. 

I'm sad that he's gone and that he chose to leave so close to the holidays and before even meeting baby Leo, but I have accepted it and am trying to be supportive of his decision and keep my mom strong. 

Even though we're only 2 years apart, I always felt like he was my baby and have tried my hardest to protect him from making mistakes and teach him from my own, but there's no way that you can completely shelter someone from stumbling. This is the path he has chosen and it's something we have to get used to. 

I will miss him like crazy and it would have been lovely to see him interact with my baby the way he did with our other little nephew who looks up to him and thinks he's the coolest person to walk this Earth but such is life.

Mom, bro and I at Panera :'(

Pregnancy wise, this week was uneventful but I've noticed my feet swelling up when I spend too much time sitting down so I try to walk around every so often and stretch my legs a little.

For school, I had to do a presentation that was making me really nervous (public speaking is right up there in my most hated things list) but I felt like I did really well! Our professor recorded us so we could critique ourselves afterwards and I must say i was impressed lol GOOD JOB SELF! 

I was able to get two Crossfit workouts this week (although now I'm scaling pretty much everything) and it helps tons with swelling, sleeping and overall feeling better so I've made it a goal to go 3 times a week every week. It's been hard to get to that number because of how busy my schedule is and sometimes I just feel like I'd rather sleep or rest a little than get in the car and drive to the gym then workout and then drive back home. 

I'm very thankful for this time but I feel like it's going by so fast and I'm not paying enough attention to it because of how much I have going on. I'm sure once the semester is done in mid-December I will be able to just relax and completely enjoy the last month and a half of being pregnant. I'm very much looking forward to that. 

24 Weeks and a Hurricane

           24 weeks. The day before Hurricane Matthew was really sunny

Last week I was 24 weeks and my belly was feeling large and in charge. Monday was just like any other day that included work, school, Zumba and cooking. I had no idea that a storm had been brewing for the past few days (ahh the beauty of not having cable) but when I got home I started seeing more and more people post about it on Facebook. I got curious. It's been 11 years since the last time a big hurricane hit South Florida and I remember it well. I started to pay attention and figured I should keep track of this one.

Tuesday was also busy with more of the same routine except Facebook was kinda going crazy about the size of this storm and I started to get concerned. Honestly, the last thing I wanted to do was go through another Wilma (no power for a week, no water for 3 days, no gas at the pumps) at 5 months pregnant and with someone else's kid (my nephew) under my care. When I was in class we were told that school MIGHT be cancelled due to weather but to pay attention to the announcement they were going to e-mail the next day. 

Wednesday comes around and BAM! craziness. Apparently this monster storm grew to a huge category 5 in the ocean (just like Wilma and Katrina) and was expected to make landfall as a category 4 the next day. When I went to work on Wednesday, our manager decided that we should all leave early that day to finish preparations for the hurricane and that we would be closed for sure on Thursday and maybe Friday. I also received the school notification letting me know that classes were canceled for Thursday and Friday. As it turns out, this day was the day I was to go to the doctor for my glucose test, but they also called me to let me know they were closing early due to the storm and to come in right away. I left work at 11:45am and headed to the doctor. The roads were busy at around noon. Everyone trying to get home so they could finish boarding up or get to Home Depot to get stuff to board up or to Publix for water and supplies. Gas stations were packed, with lines of cars going around. Always the last minute stragglers. Thankfully I had been telling Hector to get supplies while they still had them on Tuesday (they ran out of water at Walmart though. He bought a 6 gallon camping jug and filled it with filtered water at home). We went to Hector's office to help him with last minute prep (putting computers away and securing windows)

I was trying to stay calm for my nephew because he's never been through a storm like this as we don't have them in Ecuador and I really wanted to be reassuring but was freaking out on the inside and it was hard for me to fall asleep.

Hurricane breakfast spread

                                                             

Thursday was D day. Or H day. We slept in and then made a big breakfast (lol, because I kept thinking we might never eat at this table again. Dramatic much?) Hector wisely used this extra day to study for his P.E. exam and my nephew and I wisely used it to park in front of the TV all day. We watched shows and a couple of movies including Titanic to kill as much time as possible while we waited for Matthew. As the day went by, it kept getting darker and darker and a little windier so you could definitely tell a storm was coming, but nothing too bad. I kept checking the news updates and it seemed like the hurricane was moving further away from us and more towards the ocean and by night time, we knew it was not going to hit us. Thank God! I was so relieved. Our office manager texted everyone to let us know the office would be closed on Friday anyway so that was pretty cool. Four day weekend here we come! We walked the dog at around 11pm and it was raining and windy but definitely no hurricane. 

The next day, Friday, was clear and we were bored and tired of staying home so we went for a ride to see the "damage" (aka, some fallen branches) and then my nephew and I went to the mall for a very long time to browse and shop. 

Saturday was spent doing baby shower stuff with my mom and best friend and then more hanging out at home and Sunday was just a day of church and rest for all of us. It was hard for everyone to get back into the groove of things after a 4.5 day weekend so Monday was ROUGH.