Week 29: Face Faves

With my belly growing at an amazingly rapid pace, it’s becoming increasingly harder to feel cute when I feel like a beached whale …. sooo I’ve been focusing my attention to the top and bottom of my overall look (top being makeup and bottom being shoes). This week I’m going to highlight some of my favorite bronzers, eyeliners, eye shadows, etc. Next week I’m going to talk about SHOES!!!! (Thank goodness my feet haven’t swollen up like little sausages yet.)

Eyeliner: right now I’m really into liquid eyeliner for a number of reasons. One, it is too hot in the summer for a pencil; the color just seems to melt right off my face. Two, a little goes a long way and three, once you learn how to put it on correctly it works great for day or evening looks. The downside is that it is a challenge to put it on without looking like you applied it during an earthquake. My favorite brand (and I’ve tried LOTS) is Chanel. A lot of the cheaper choices dry and crack but this one goes on super smooth and stays until you wash it off.


Bronzer: A must must must have for summer. Yes, tanning beds are bad for you. Yes, spray tans stink (literally). But that doesn’t mean you have to look pasty all summer – pregnant or not. My favorite, most natural looking bronzer is by NARS; it’s called The Multiple in South Beach. It’s a color stick that has a great shimmer to it and glides on very smoothly. It gives the most beautiful, dimensional color to your skin, I use it everywhere … eyes, lips cheeks. !


Eye shadow: The BEST summer colors, hands down are brought to you by Christian Dior in Tropical Light. This is a pretty pricey pallete but I’m here to tell you, it’s worth it. The colors are bright, beautiful, shimmery and can light up any face. It also stays all day without primer and can be applied darker for evening if desired. I get so many compliments on my eye shadow every time I wear it and I just cannot say enough good things about it.


Lip Gloss: The best plumping lip gloss is Buxom by Bare Escentuals in Bambi. I’ve looked high and low for the perfect petal pink color and this is it. The texture is also fabulous; it’s not sticky and it doesn’t sting so much that it dries your lips out after it wears off.


Weekly Womb Workings:

Having a baby prematurely is frightening, no doubt. But due to the impressive advancements of medical technology, if Rob was born this week, he'd have a 9 out of 10 chance of survival, which is seriously great news. Other awesome developments:

His brain can now control his breathing and body temperature. He can also cough and yawn (as evidenced in the 3d ultrasound pictures)!

His skin is looking less wrinkled as he packs on the pounds. He’s now storing up on the energizing and insulating “white fat” he'll be born with (unfortunately, white fat is not energizing and insulating for Mom!).

And speaking of energy, my little meatball is on fire these days. I’m feeling all sorts of kicks, punches and elbows, especially when I’m lying down. It’s an amazing feeling except when I'm trying to sleep at 3 a.m.
This week Rob is a little over 15 inches long—about the length of a loaf of bread—and weighs about 3 pounds, as much as a Macbook Air laptop, which I’ve had my eye on since my computer crashed last week.

Week 28—Hellllooo Third Trimester!

Here we go! This is the last leg of the Mt. Everest Journey my body will undergo in order to produce our little being. Before the horror stories of the third trimester come to life, I wanted to document all the wonderful things about pregnancy before I’m too huge, hot and miserable to remember how much fun I’ve had the first two-thirds of the trip. So I’ve decided to do my top ten favorite things about being pregnant:

10. Good Skin: After the ultra hormone-induced teenage acne of my first trimester and after the lizard skin (see week 23 for details) of most of the second trimester, I am finally enjoying the pregnancy glow look and I love it!

9. Expectant Mom Parking Spots: I’m not going to lie…before I got pregnant; these parking spots always irritated me. I thought to myself: “don’t pregnant women need exercise?” Well, now that I’m 7 months pregnant, it’s June in Houston, my lower back hurts all the time and it’s becoming increasingly harder to breath due to my lungs being smushed by my uterus, I TOTALLY understand the parking spots and I’m very thankful for them : )

8. Feeling Him Kick: There’s really no explanation for this one, if you’re a mom, you know. If you’re not a mom it’s pretty hard to describe and explain but it’s the coolest, most wonderful feeling in the world!

7. Baby Showers: I love a good party and all of my baby showers have been a BLAST!!! It has been so much fun to get together with friends and family who love and care about us so much. I know after little Rob gets here, our visits with friends might be a little more sporadic so it’s really great to visit everyone before the real chaos begins.

6. Sucking In (or lack thereof): It seems like I’ve been sucking in since the second grade so after I hit the twenty week mark and had a little baby bump, I decided … what’s the point of trying to suck in? I’m embracing my expanding belly and letting go of trying to hold it in (which is basically impossible at this point).

5. Shopping for Baby Clothes: All I have to say is keep me out of Baby Gap!!!

4. Decorating the Nursery: I’m having the best time putting everything together for baby Rob’s nursery! It’s such a cool feeling to wash, fold and organize his clothes and try to imagine what he’ll look like sleeping in his crib.

3. The Ultrasounds: This goes without saying, but the 3d ultrasound was the most amazing experience of them all. The detail in the pictures and the ability to see his features is just incredible! When I feel like I still have a long way to go before I meet him, I can look at the pictures and see his little face.

2. Having such a sweet husband to experience the journey with me: I must say that I feel beyond blessed to have such a wonderful, caring and supportive husband. He has been so excited from day one and has gone to EVERY Doctor’s appointment with me (I don’t expect that to continue as I’m approaching my bi-monthly appointments, he does have a job, after all). He’s up for anything, whether I’m craving ice cream or exercise. He’s also there to offer a backrub every night which has been a lifesaver lately as the baby is getting bigger. Thanks honey!!!

1. My favorite thing about being pregnant is the fact that I’m growing a life inside of me! I realize that millions of women have babies everyday (and before I got pregnant, I really didn’t think much about it) but when it’s your body and your child, it really sinks in what a miracle it is. One day early in my second trimester, Carlysle came home from work and we exchanged the usual “Hi honey, how was your day?” And I thought for a second, smiled, and said “It was wonderful! According to this book, I made Rob’s brain, eyes and started on his lungs today!” It’s just amazing to know that I’m growing a little human inside of me.

Week 27: The Fuzzy Math of Pregnancy

Okay if someone asks you “how many weeks are in a month?” Wouldn’t you reply with “four?” Well, I’ve always thought there are four weeks in a month, give or take a few days here and there. A woman’s gestation period is 40 weeks long—so that’s 10 months right?? I’ve always wondered why people say you’re pregnant for nine months. For example, next week I will be 28 weeks pregnant (7 months pregnant) and I have 12 weeks to go (3 months left) for a total of – drum roll please—10 months! Okay, enough of first grade math lessons and onto the fun stuff. I recently had maternity pictures done by Maddie Dean Photography and they turned out great! I couldn’t decide whether or not to have them done. After all, pregnancy seems to make every branch of your body puffy, not just your belly! But I figured this is a pretty special time in our lives so why not, I didn’t want to regret not having them later. It was a pretty funny photo shoot, I was almost 27 weeks pregnant and my belly is obviously not nine-months-preggo-huge yet so before every picture Sarah, the photographer, would say “okay ready? 1, 2, 3 PUSH OUT!” And I would push out my belly as hard as I could while trying to maintain a relatively photogenic appearance despite the fact I was trying to look like Bubba with a beer belly! It was the first time I’ve ever “pushed out” in a picture rather than sucked in.

Weekly Womb Workings
I’m not sure if I’m pregnant with a baby kangaroo or a baby human… these kicks are getting intense!! He’s already started to throw temper tantrums; when my bladder gets full he starts kicking A LOT—I think that’s his way of saying “Mom, give me more room in here!” This week he’s about 15 inches long and a little over two pounds. His taste buds are very developed now and he actually “tastes” the amniotic fluid so he’ll be semi-used to the foods I eat when he begins to nurse after birth. His hearing continues to develop and he can now recognize voices and sounds he hears on a regular basis.

Week 26: Baby Got Back ... Pains

This weekend my cousin Mark took a few days off from Air Force pilot school to be married to his college sweetheart, Lexi in San Antonio. The wedding was beautiful and we got to see all of my Mom’s side of the family. Sunday, my Aunts hosted a baby shower for me and my Dad’s family drove in from the Kerrville area to join us. The shower was sooooo cute and fun and I now know that as of yesterday, my belly is 10 toilet paper squares round! The food was delicious: homemade chicken salad croissants, pimento sandwiches cut into heart shapes, fruit salad, pasta salad and my all time favorite: Cake Balls made by our cake lady, Annette, brought all the way from Houston. You haven’t lived until you’ve had one of Annette’s cake balls….maybe we should have done the toilet paper belly measuring game before I had three of them.

Speaking of bellies, It seems like the first 20 weeks of my pregnancy I wished for a baby bump so I could look more pregnant than pudgy. It seems like I started showing right at 20 weeks and this belly has taken off! Now I’m like “whoa Nellie! Slowww down!” I still have 14 weeks to go and the bump is growing at an amazingly rapid pace. It’s become increasingly harder to bend over and buckle the straps of my favorite summer wedge espadrilles (yes, I’m still wearing heels and am determined to right up until I deliver) and my back is starting to really complain about the extra weight it’s supporting. I’ve read that the ligaments and joints around the area where your tailbone meets your hips start to loosen so your hips can expand and it can be painful. Umm If I could relay a message to my hips, I would let them know that they really don’t need to be ANY wider than they already are. And I can definitely tell when Rob moves and hits my Sciatic nerve--that’s happened a couple of times and pain shoots down one or both of my legs. It’s really neat. This pregnancy really has been so much fun though. I loooove feeling him move inside me, there’s just nothing like it. Carlysle can feel him now too, which is so amazing for him, it makes everything that much more real (not like it wasn’t real from the minute the pee test screen showed a little blue cross, but you know what I mean). Besides the minor backaches, I really feel exactly like I did before I got pregnant, just with a bigger belly : )

Weekly Womb Workings:
Air sacks are developing in Rob’s lungs, which means it just might be possible for him to take a breath at the end of this week. The air sacks (technically called alveoli) will continue to grow for the next nine years. The membrane that keeps the alveoli separate from the blood vessels is now thin enough to allow for that oxygen–carbon dioxide exchange we call breathing. Other highlights this week:

The retina completes the development of its normal layers this week but he still can’t see anything because his eyes are sealed shut and it's really dark in there, but his eyes are now fully developed.

Brainwaves for the auditory and visual systems are detectable in his brain this week. That means his brain is registering things like sound and light. I’ll be sure to hit the classical music sessions extra hard from now on : )

I’m breaking out the sparkling grape juice—Rob has now completed two-thirds of his stay in Hotel Womb de Callie! Although I love being pregnant, I think I will love hanging out with my little meatball more. He weighs about 2 pounds and is 14 inches long head-to-heel, or about the length of a burp cloth. (Otherwise known as my primary wardrobe accessory for the next several months … good thing my Mom made me some really cute ones!)

Week 25: The Dream Registry

This weekend was our Couple’s baby shower at Birra Poretti’s in Friendswood. It was so much fun!!! It’s such a great venue for any type of shower and the food was excellent. We got to talk to friends and family that we haven’t seen in a while which is always great. My sister-in-law made a beautiful diaper cake and on the guest favors—get this—were custom printed M&M’s with our BABY PICTURES ON THEM!!!! It was so cool, I’ve never seen anything like it. And all I can say is Baby Rob is going to be one spoiled little turkey!!! He got a stroller, car seat, pack and play, high chair, baby monitors, baby swing, some awesome blankets, bathtime essentials, clothes, books and toys … thank you so much everyone!

All of these showers lately have my imagination wondering … what would it be like if we could create an impossible dream baby registry? What would be on it? What would you wish for as a new Mom or in your remaining months of pregnancy? Here are some of my “dream wants:”

10. A live-in Maid – because between the feedings, diaper changes and playtime who has time (or wants to) clean their house??

9. A set of Octopus arms – Now I know I’ll be new at this but I’ve been around enough friends and family with newborns to know that extra arms would be really nice at times.

8. Five (or more) extra hours in the day – Trust me, I’ve heard the nightmare stories about new mom sleep deprivation that goes on for weeks and months so what if moms could have a “free five hour a day nap time?” Hey, it’s only a dream.

7. A live in chef --- see reasoning for #10 … (no wonder celebrities have so many babies; they can afford all the things that can be bought from this list!)

6. An endless supply of diapers that actually fit. MAAANNN those things are expensive!!! Not that I will have time for pedicures anymore, but if I did, they would certainly cut into my pedicure budget 

5. I wish another baby mega store company would open a store in Houston. I really, really dislike Babies-R-Us for some reason. I can’t ever concentrate when I’m there and the customer service is pretty sub-par. Why can’t we have a Buy Buy Baby in Houston?!? (It’s a baby store owned by Bed, Bath and Beyond and I’ve heard it’s way better than B-R-U … any moms out there want to help me petition for one in Houston?)

4. One free admission ticket for a short, pain – free labor. Hahahaha! Okay, don’t laugh, this is my dream registry : )

3. A personal shopper/assistant—because I’m sure it’s not easy toting a newborn to Babies-R-Us and standing in the customer service line for an hour to return stuff that doesn’t fit.

2. I wish I could fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes the day after I get home from the hospital. What? Isn’t that how it works … the baby comes out and your stomach is flat again? : )

1. Fully Paid electricity bills from May through November!!!!! I am soooo hottttt and 1. It’s not even that hot outside yet, 2. My belly is not that big yet and 3. I STILL HAVE THREE MONTHS TO GO!!! Mom, if you’re reading this, I really, really, really appreciate you having me in August. I’m sure this will not be the first time that, as a parent, I’m realizing what I put you through as a baby/child/teenager!!! (Even though I’m pretty sure I was an Angel.) So THANK YOU for carrying me in the Houston heat all summer!!!!!!

Weekly Womb Workings
Rob's hands are now fully developed and he spends most of his awake time groping around in the darkness and grabbing his umbilical cord. Brain and nerve endings are developed enough now so that he can feel the sensation of touch. His arms and legs have grown to almost the proportions they will be at birth, which is still sort of short—T Rex baby : ) His nostrils, which have been plugged up until now, clear out (like he's taken a super-dose of Sudafed) and he can practice breathing through the nose. The structures of his spine are now made up of 150 joints, 33 rings and some 1,000 ligaments. I cannot believe we can grow something so complicated inside of our bodies!

The capillaries, the teeniest blood vessels, are now forming in his body, giving his formerly translucent skin a pink glow. The blood vessels in the lungs also develop this week. Rob weighs about a pound and a half and is about 13½ inches long—he still has a lot of growing to do and his weight will double in the next few weeks!

Week 24: Shower Shindig

This Saturday, some of my best college friends threw a beautiful baby shower for me in Dallas. It was just perfect … a patio brunch get together with beautiful, wonderful and sweet friends. The May heat stayed at bay with the help of a cool breeze and the sun was shining all afternoon. As I looked around, I thought gosh … I’m so lucky to have the family and friends that I have—and not only am I lucky, but this wonderful little meatball growing inside of me is too; he’s already so loved and so wanted, and nobody’s even met him! It’s really amazing how that happens. My Mom and I stayed with my friend Megan (her home is becoming more like Hotel Megan as much as I’ve been up there lately!) and enjoyed a relaxing Saturday evening of pizza and movies and drove home on Sunday in time for a Mother’s Day celebration at my parent’s house. I could really get used to this Mother’s Day thing … thanks to my thoughtful husband; I’ll be enjoying the gift of a prenatal massage from Bergamos very soon!!! And not only that, I came home to new carpet in the nursery, the crib put together, the new chandelier hung in the dining room and our disappearing fountain in the garden all FINISHED!!! Thank you honey, you are truly the best 

Weekly Womb Workings:

This week, Rob weighs a little more than a pound and a half and is about 8.5 inches long (crown to rump). His tiny little face is fully formed so hopefully in a few weeks when we go for the 4D ultra sound, we’ll be able to tell what he looks like! His skin is still very thin and transparent and will continue to be that way until he accumulates fat under the skin. I just love chubby cheeks, don’t you?! Hopefully he’ll have them soon, he’s expected to gain weight at a rate of 6 ounces per week now.

Week 23: Lizard Skin

This past week reminded me a lot of my Freshman year at Texas Tech--not the fun stuff like Rush Week or football games or Chimy’s on Fridays after a killer test or Carol of Lights but getting used to the dry-as-a-bone desert climate. Now, I realize Houston is not a dry climate by any standards but my skin is so dry it looks like I took a dip in a vat of rubber cement and let it dry out in the sun. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little but it’s beyond parched people. Despite my moisture challenged epidermis, I have managed to find a cream that has thus far kept my bulging belly quenched and stretch mark free. It is Mustela Double Action Cream, not cheap but it’s worth every penny! As for the rest of my skin, I’m not sure anything short of Vaseline will help it now. As I head into the summer months, I’m coping with the fact that my usually shiny, bronzed summer skin now looks more like lizard skin.

My hair is a whole other issue! The other day my hair lady was going on and on and on about how dry my hair is and I just wanted to say “look lady there's not much I can do about it right now and my nose in Vogue Magazine means I don't really want to talk about my lack luster locks anymore!” But being the polite person that I am, I just nodded and smiled and tried to read up on the latest summer fashions.

The bottom line is Baby Rob is zapping my normally hydrated ecosystem of all its moisture for some reason! He’s worth it though : ) I’m sure I’ll have to sacrifice a lot more than shiny hair and skin for him once he’s here. Let my life of total servitude begin!!!!

Weekly Womb Workings:

This week, Baby Rob is eight inches long and slightly over 1 pound in weight; he’s roughly the size of a small doll (and just as cute, no doubt)! His weight in the next four weeks is expected to double – come on chubby cheeks!!!

Rob’s got a while to go before his lungs will be ready for air and he’s practicing his "breathing" on the amniotic fluid—sucking it in and out of his lungs, I actually felt him hiccup the other day! He’s starting to look more like a newborn as his skin becomes less see-through. His body is looking more proportional now, although his head is still kinda big compared to his cute little body.