Baby Schuchter: Week 18

Baby Size: Sweet Potato

How I Feel about being Pregnant: It is fun to actually be showing plus I have felt quite a bit of flutters!  I have had some unfortunate symptoms this week, but as time goes by things feel more real which is always great!  At some point I will actually post a bump picture.

Symptoms: I shouldn't have gushed last week about being symptom free... My nausea returned with a vengeance.  I also got a nose bleed yesterday which I know is normal because of the extra blood you accumulate.

Food Cravings: Nothing I can really think of!

Food Aversions: I can't think of anything for this either!

What I am Excited About: Finding out if we are having a boy or girl!!!! Yep, I definitely can't wait.  When you go over your fellow pregnant friend's house and she shows you all the cute pink outfits she got at her shower, there is no going back.  I want cute pink outfits!  Or blue!  We can find out in 10 days.

Sweet Thing the Husband did for Me:  My sweet husband... how about when I had an emotional breakdown about feeling sick and I crawled into bed with toast, got crumbs all over our newly washed sheets, and he didn't complain.  Or when I snapped at him twice yesterday for not listening to me and asking a question and he just asked if there was anything bothering me... I imagine I have been hard to deal with this week!  I am sorry husband!  You are the best, and I am a crazy, hormonal, pregnant lady.  Why do we rarely fight?  Because he is awesome and forgiving.

Boy or Girl: Oh, I don't know!!!!! Maybe I am just trying to cover my bases so when we find out, I look like I was right either way :)  David had another dream it was a girl.  This week I will go with girl!

Something I have Done to Prepare for the Baby: Start cleaning the guest room!!!! Yay!  Nesting has begun!

Side note:  Sometimes I wonder if nesting is a real thing or just a made up concept by society, but either way it is kind of fun and motivates me to clean.

Funny Moment:  The kids I watch were asking to see a picture of my baby.  I explained that in a week and half I would have a picture, but it would be an ultrasound, not a real picture like what you take with a camera.  They looked confused, so I said it would be a black and white picture.  The 4 year old responded, "So will your baby be black or white?"

It was awesome.

Special Moment: Feeling the baby move is very fun!  It really does feel like a butterfly is in your stomach.  I can't wait until David can feel it!

Learning to Go Kroger-ing... Again

When we first got married I posted about the frustrations of grocery shopping (Learning to Go Kroger-ing).

Between not knowing where items were, no knowledge of couponing, and little understanding of meal planning, I was overwhelmed.  I eventually learned where the items I buy on a regular basis are located and the concept of meal planning.

The problem we found is that our grocery bill was actually higher when I meal planned.  This is hilarious to me because when you read anything about cutting your grocery bill the advice universally is to meal plan.  Since I then got pregnant and felt like crap, I gave up on meal planning, couponing, and looking at ads.  My attitude became, "Well, if I am doing what everyone says to do to save our family money, and it is doing the opposite, then I give up."

Seriously, I followed all the rules.  I bought generics, looked at the price per ounce, used coupons on things I would buy anyway, looked at the ads, compared stores, blah, blah, blah.

Since going on a "doing grocery shopping smart" hiatus, I am back to try it again!  I realized this is a way I can help to give our family more financial freedom, and if I don't learn some of this now, it is DEFINITELY not going to happen anytime soon after this baby comes!

On February 1, I will embark on my first meal planned and coupons clipped grocery adventure since the growing of another human commenced.

Here is my game plan and if you are a grocery bill cutting guru, tell me your tricks or amendments to my undertaking.

1. Check out Kroger's ad and make note of sales
2. Meal plan from those items on sale to get us through 2 weeks
3. Find coupons online and from Red Plum, SmartSource, etc. for those items
4. Make my grocery list and note which items I have coupons for
5. While in the store compare the generic prices to prices of those items I have coupons for
6. Stick to my list 
7. Buy groceries and do not go back to Kroger for 2 weeks :)

We will see how it goes!

To find out the gender or not...

Two weeks from today we have our 20 week ultrasound in which we could find out what we are having.  If you have asked me if we will find out, I probably responded with some stressful rant about the pros and cons of each side.

I know there is not a "right" decision and most people will say they love what they decided to do on both sides of the argument.  How could you not?  It is your child!  This decision is not as important as what I am making it to be but nevertheless I am driving myself, my husband, and anyone who asks me about it insane.

Here are my controlled, thought out, rant-free ideas of both sides:

Finding Out

• You get to know more about your child
• It could help David/Shook bond with the baby before he/she is born
• You can be prepared (I am type A)
• My expectations would be in check
• You get to start buying cute clothes :)

Waiting

• Delayed gratification could make it even more exciting
• We rarely get to experience true anticipation
• Guaranteed gender neutral items 
• No one else would know (Shook is all about this)

The reason I cannot decide is because if someone with children is passionate and excited about finding out or waiting, you can probably convince me that is what we should do too.  The most recent plan was to find out until one of my dance parents told me how she waited to find out with all 4 of her kids and it was very special. UGH! The word special got me.


I am just thankful I don't have any control over determining the gender.  That is already done!


If you want to try and guess either boy or girl, I kind of love it when people do.  I might even have a list of what others have guessed in my phone just to keep track.  I know, I am obsessed with this.

What happened!

So in my last post I gushed how I actually liked being pregnant now. This was way too soon.

Sure enough the next day was met with all day nausea. I am on day 3 of it combined with heart burn.

I am at 18 weeks and I am a little confused how I have felt great for 8 weeks only to be back at those horrible 1st trimester days.  Back to snacking on toast!

Anyone else have these 2nd trimester relapses?

Baby Schuchter: Weeks 16/17

Baby Size: Onion!!!! Other websites also say turnip

How I Feel about being Pregnant: I love it way more now!  I am feeling great, rarely feel nauseous, and can eat most foods again.  It is so exciting thinking about what our son or daughter will be like.  This must be the stage when people say they love being pregnant.

Symptoms: Not too many symptoms!  Can you believe it?!  Still get a few headaches and I may have gagged a few times while cooking ground beef, but I feel good!

Food Cravings: Cheesecake with strawberries and soft pretzels.  Yum!

Food Aversions: Chicken... I will eat it for the most part.  I just don't want to cook it.

What I am Excited About: Finding out the gender!!!!!!  I think I have given up all hope on not finding out.  I barely can wait until I am 20 weeks.  I also am excited we came up with a few more baby names.  I love our girl names, so we just need to come up with some more boy names I think.

Sweet Thing the Husband did for Me:  This is going to sound really small, but I think it was cute.  I went to the dentist on Tuesday and threw away my tooth brush before I left.  That night when I went into the bathroom, Shook had laid out two new toothbrushes for me to choose from.  Just a small thoughtful gesture that I loved!

Boy or Girl: Definitely boy.  Most wives tales also predict boy.  We will find out how right or wrong I am soon!

Something I have Done to Prepare for the Baby:  I went to a cloth diapering class!  It was really fun and helpful to finally understand all of the terminology.  It also made me think I could actually do this without a washer and dryer.

Something I should be doing is cleaning out guest bedroom...

Funny Moment:  So I know later in pregnancy they say sometimes you wet your pants.  While I have not lost all bladder control, sneezing while I really need to pee has not turned out to be a good combination.  This is going to get really bad here in a few months!

Special Moment: The first special moment was when Shook had a very long conversation with my stomach talking to our baby.  I told him that the baby could hear us at this point, and it was cute to see him excited!

The second special moment has been one of the boys I watch, Henry, has been very interested in the baby.  Every time I come over, he asks, "What can the baby do this week?"  "How big is the baby?"  These are things I get excited about, so I love that a 6 year old also gets excited!  Last week when the baby was the size of an avocado  their family had avocado with their dinner.  He made sure to tell everyone that is how big the baby was that week.

Baby Schuchter: Week 15

Baby Size: Naval Orange (basically a regular orange)

How I Feel about being Pregnant: Pretty good!  I had my first cup of coffee at home today since I have been pregnant, so really, I feel good about everything!

Symptoms: Really bad headaches.  I have had constant headaches for over a week.  Bring on the Tylenol!  I will take this any day over feeling nauseous and helpless like I did in the early weeks!

Food Cravings: Plain yogurt with crushed up Oreos.  During lunch one day, I was eating with the family I work for and all the kids were eating yogurt.  I had a flash back to childhood of eating yogurt with Oreos and that is all I wanted.

Food Aversions: Chicken and ground beef... this goes away at some point right?

What I am Excited About: Trying to guess what the gender is.  The doctor told me this past week my baby's heartbeat was 144.  Immediately I looked up what this meant.  Guess what the first website said?  Under 140 means boy, over 150 means girl.... not helpful!  I know this isn't fool-proof anyway, but it's fun!

Sweet Thing the Husband did for Me:  Besides his usual of giving 150% while I give about 20%, this week he has been great hearing out my crazy pregnancy ideas, cravings, and dreams.  He never says one word about some of the things I buy at the grocery store (many times there are numerous impulsive buys).  He supports anything I am relentlessly researching, and reassures me that no one is going to sneak into our apartment and kill me (reoccurring crazy pregnancy dreams).

Boy or Girl: Boy.  I am pretty highly convinced of this one now.  See how fickle I am?

Something I have Done to Prepare for the Baby: Some serious research on cloth diapering.  I know many people do it for the environment, but honestly I don't care about that too much.  Call me cold-hearted and I honestly probably should care more, but I have many other motivations behind wanting to cloth diaper.

How about how much money you save?  Even with not having our own washer and dryer, we will save tons.  Plus, I can use them for kids in the future which makes our investment even more worth it.  My friend, Shelley, gave me a newborn cloth diaper and its adorable.  I would totally just use disposables if we had that much flexibility in our budget, and while we could maybe make it work, I know that we can with cloth diapers.

So if you have cloth diapering experience, please tell me everything you know.  Especially because I am considering hand-washing them.  Gross, right?

And for the record, I have no judgement either way about cloth diapers vs. disposables.  I just want to save some money.  I probably will use a combination of both anyway!

Funny Moment:  Shook and I have been watching "Friday Night Lights" and in the episode we were watching something pretty crazy happens.  I won't tell you too much so this won't be a spoiler alert, but someone dies.  Shook said something about how big of a deal that was and my only response was, "I think I need to go buy spinach and maybe some fruit cups."  The joys of pregnancy and food!

Special Moment: Tomorrow I will be 16 weeks and I told the kids that I watch how at 16 weeks the baby can hear your voice.  I actually told them this a week ago and they still remembered!  Before I left for the day, the two oldest kids kept saying, "Hi baby!", "Can you hear me?", and "How are you baby?"  Very cute!