Dear Alex,

Yesterday makes 27 weeks for us… the official start of third trimester! I can’t believe we are two-thirds of the way through this pregnancy already. As of this point, the pregnancy is considered “viable,” meaning that you have grown & developed enough to stand a fighting chance outside of the womb should you have to come out early for some reason. But I hope that doesn’t happen! Although the accountant in me says the tax break would be nice (haha), I want you to have plenty of time to grow & prepare for life out here… and honestly, I don’t think we’re quite ready for you yet either! I feel like there is still so much left to do– we haven’t bought much since the baby shower is coming up in a couple weeks, and all of our classes & hospital tour are scheduled for next month.

They say that second trimester is where a lot of growth happens, and I would definitely have to agree:

You went from the size of a peach to the size of a rutabaga! I have definitely felt many of the common effects of this change in size, particularly the ones related to carrying you lower (bladder issues, hip and back pain, constipation), as well as things like heartburn (when I lay down, mostly), swelling in my hands/feet/face, trouble sleeping and just getting comfortable in general. The upside is that I feel you move much more frequently, which has been so entertaining… but sometimes I swear I can feel you stepping directly on my bladder. LOL. Yesterday I went to my friend Shannon’s baby shower. She is due in early December (7 weeks ahead of me), and it was so interesting to see the difference in our shape/size:

Not the best picture of me (perhaps I should retire that shirt! haha), but you get the idea. Every woman’s pregnancy is different, from the symptoms she has to the way she carries, but I will say it has been nice having one of my good friends going through this at the same time I am– someone to talk to who really “gets it.” 🙂 Anyway, the other fun thing I did this week was go through the clothes Dad’s friend from work gave him (his friend just had a baby boy about 6 months ago). There was so much cuteness in there!

I have to admit, I got a little emotional & teared up while I was going through these, imagining you wearing them… it is just so exciting thinking that you’ll be here in just a few short months! Everything in the bags were mostly in the 0-3 months size range, so I think we’re just about set there. We have also already bought/received from others several items in the 3-6 months size range too. It’s really hard to know what we need to get for you when it comes to clothes, since we have no clue how big you’ll be and how quickly you’ll grow into new sizes. Grandma and Papa have been getting on me about not buying any more baby stuff until after the shower… but it’s so much fun to buy baby things! Luckily I don’t have to resist much longer (haha) since the shower is on November 10. Dad & I are really looking forward to the trip down to Hampton for that– we haven’t seen most of our family/friends down there in a long time, so it will be really nice to catch up with all of them. 🙂

Anyway, I’ll wrap this up for now. I’m writing a little earlier than I normally would since we apparently have a big hurricane coming our way & I’m not sure whether we’ll have power tomorrow night. Hopefully we’ll weather the storm without too much damage & power outages. I have a feeling I’ll get out of work tomorrow & probably get to telework most of the week, but poor Dad will have to go out in that mess. :-\ I’ll let you know how all that goes when I talk to you next week!

All my love,
Mom