Bumpdate {28 Weeks}

We have officially entered the third trimester, y'all! Holy crap. Time is flying by and I can't believe that this pregnancy is already two-thirds of the way over. I feel like we still have so much to do (which is true) and not a lot of time to do it in. This week, Peyton completed her fourth 5k race and got to say "hi" to the whole family in 4D!

Week 28: March 12 - March 18

Week 28 Milestones:

- Baby is the size of an eggplant this week! At our ultrasound this week (28 weeks and 4 days), Peyton weighed 3 pounds and was 15 inches long. She has been very busy this week developing billions of brain cells, and a regular sleep patterning including a REM cycle, as well as dreaming. I wonder what she dreams about?

- Earlier this week, I felt some really large crazy movements going on. It literally felt like she was turning her entire body. What a weird sensation. Apparently, I was right and she was actually doing exactly what it felt like she was doing. Our ultrasound on Sunday confirmed that she had completely turned herself around and flipped over. Now, she is already in the position she needs to be for delivery...meaning she is head down and face down.

- My total weight gain thus far is 27 pounds. The belly is getting rather large, but the rest of me is staying pretty well in tact. Of course, when I look in the mirror I feel like I'm gigantic all over but everyone keeps telling me that all these bump photos I'm posting make me look larger than I really am in person. I think I'll take their word for it and just believe that even if they are lying just to spare my feelings :)

- My ankles are somewhat swollen (not as bad as they were last week though) on a regular basis. I occasionally have Braxton Hicks contractions, but not regularly. Sometimes I feel a little stiff and achy if I've been sitting for too long, and I'm notorious for doing too much in one day and exhausting myself. However, it's hard to force myself to stop and relax because I typically feel great. I am really excited that I have made it this far and my belly button is still in and my hands aren't swollen so I can still wear my wedding rings! Small victories y'all. Unfortunately, I have been noticing lately that I think my hormones are messing with my ability to have patience and not be a bitch. I generally have a lot of patience (heck, I was a middle school teacher, you have to have a lot of patience and tolerance for that), but lately I have been getting easily pissed off at people who do things that annoy me. I don't like it, but I can't help it. I'm sorry, but I'm large and super hormonal now, so if I snap at you, it's not personal.

- Food preferences: Same old, same old. Except my love for chocolate ice cream is real serious now. Every night before bed, I just have to have a bowl of chocolate ice cream. I'm also really into textures right now too. Like I can only have specific brands of chocolate ice cream, because I want it to be a specific texture of ice cream. I know, insane. Same thing with my coke icees. I can only get my coke icees at this one gas station now because their machine is the best. Their machine is always working, never on defrost. It always has the right coke syrup to icee ratio, and their machine always delivers the icee at the perfect frozen texture no matter what time of the day it is or how long the machine has been running. If you are not someone who drinks icees, then this probably sounds like crazy talk to you so please ignore me. However, if you are someone who drink icees, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. I just have to go to this gas station only because I can't risk getting a bad icee or walking in and seeing that little red light blinking on the machine. That would be detrimental to my pregnancy craving because I know what would happen next...I would have to spend the rest of day driving around Jacksonville in search of the perfect coke icee. This is serious y'all. On that note, since I have found the coke icee mecca of gas stations, everyone that works there now knows me as the "pregnant coke icee lady". In fact, the guy working the register told me today that he is going to miss me once the baby is born. Hmm, maybe this is starting to get a little excessive. Luckily, this gas station is close to my house (only about 7 miles away), but far enough away (one exit north on I-95) that I'm not tempted to go there every day. Oh, I can't believe I just wrote such a large paragraph about nothing but coke icees. I'm ridiculous. Hormones, y'all, hormones.

Well, on to more important things. On Sunday, we did a 4D ultrasound. For the record, my family totally talked me into this. I will be the first person to admit that I think babies look pretty weird and a little creepy in the 4D ultrasound photos. I mean, what do you expect? They are squished in that tiny space surrounded by fluid, not exactly a prime location for a photo shoot. However, I knew that doing the 4D ultrasound was something that our moms and my grandparents would really enjoy, since they would all be able to attend, so we decided to do it. We had the ultrasound at the same place we did our gender ultrasound because they allow you to bring in up to 8 people and they have a couch and big screen TV for everyone to watch it on. It was like having a Super Bowl party for my uterus. Just imagine having 8 other people present while you have your ultrasound...it makes for quite an interesting experience. Especially between my brother, who always has to make jokes and inappropriate comments, and my grandma with Alzheimer's, who has absolutely no filter and sees nothing wrong with saying anything that comes to her mind no matter how socially unacceptable it may be. It made for a very entertaining 30 minutes, after which the ultrasound tech told me that this was the funniest and most outgoing group she has ever had. Yep, we never fail in that department. Nonetheless, everyone really enjoyed getting to see the ultrasound live and I'm so glad that they were all there to be a part of it. I must say that watching her live in 4D on the ultrasound was really cool. The weird looking pictures don't do it justice. Watching her move around, suck her thumb and smile at us was pretty amazing. Plus, we could see her from a lot of different angles and really get a good look at her features. I think she enjoyed showing off for us as well :)