Pregnancy Update/Wives-tale Gender Predictions

We're officially a couple weeks into the 3rd trimester which is absolutely crazy! Time really is passing super quickly! We are so excited to meet this little baby and are trying to wrap our heads around having a baby of our OWN in just a short 10 weeks! The belly is impossible to hide and I am definitely past the stage where people don't really comment- everywhere we go and at least 10 times a day at work I am involved in some sort of baby conversation surrounding when I am due, whether I am carrying low or high, people's guesses on gender, and stories of random people's birthing experiences and/or pictures of children and grandchildren. It's amazing how a pregnant belly can bond complete strangers! I enjoy it though and everyone has been so nice, supportive, and excited... even if I literally JUST met them for 5 minutes!

Also, since we have decided to wait until baby's big arrival into the world to find out if we have a baby boy or girl on our hands, I've been extra into "baby predictions" that come with many different old wives-tales. I've been keeping a personal blog for baby (aka an online baby book for easy printing... haha oh the technology generation) but thought this was fun and that I would share it here as well:

Here are some of the fun/weird wive-tales predictions we have done and what they predict Baby Leo will be:

• Ring test: BOY
  
• Chinese Calendar: GIRL
• Carrying low (boy) vs high (girl): NA. or BOY? I swear I'm in the middle/this baby takes up every inch from pelvis to ribs! But I have heard recently several people who say I am carrying low... so maybe boy has the edge here?
• Basketball (boy) or watermelon (girl): GIRL
• Cravings: NA- I've definitely eaten a lot more sweets while pregnant, but still love my salty snacks... basically I just like eating. A lot.
• Heartbeat (140 and below = boy; 140+ = girl)= GIRL. Heartbeat is currently 156 bpm
• Morning sickness: GIRL. They say if you have pretty bad morning sickness it is a sign of girl and I'd say throwing up until 16 weeks was pretty rough!
• Breakouts: BOY. I think I've actually had less breakouts while pregnant! Can't complain about that!
• Mayan Legend: GIRL (determined a baby's sex by looking at the mother's age at conception and the year of conception. If both are even or odd, it's a girl. If one's even and one's odd, it's a boy). 
• Linea nigra: BOY (If you get a linea nigra and it runs from your pubic area to your belly button only, it’s a girl, and if it goes all the way up from your pubic area to the bottom-most part of you rib cage, then it’s a boy.) 
• Hairy legs?? (yes = boy; no= girl)- NA. Started out faster then around 25 weeks practically has stopped growing all together!  

So looks like GIRL has a little bit of an edge but BOY definitely isn't too far behind and for some I really feel like it's a 50-50 split. Soooo.. really all this highlights is how we really have NO CLUE and no way of really finding out until this babe makes it's appearance. So until then... bring on the baby bets, I love hearing everyone's guesses!

Do we have a Mini Nick or Mini Lindsey on the way!?!? Only 10 weeks until we know... either way, I have to say this child will be pretty adorbs! Not to toot our own horns or anything.... ;)

It's so cold in the D...

Seriously, so cold. Yesterday, it was something crazy like -13 and -30 with windchill. Very pleasant...

Not even the hospital was safe from the cold.

Basically, a pipe froze and burst causing water to rush into the hospital leaving about 6 inches of really nasty water on the ground in the ER.

So a word to the wise... don't be like this guy and drunk shovel without gloves on, on the coldest day ever in Michigan because the closest ER may not be able to assist you...

Never a dull moment in Detroit. Lesson learned? Gloves are good.

So long 2013, hello 2014!

I am still grappling with the fact that 2013 is over and 2014 is upon us! 2013 FLEW by. So much happened and it was such a great year of adventures and accomplishments.

2013 in a nutshell::

•  We kicked off 2013 on our Honeymoon Cruise enjoying tons of sun, relaxation, fun adventures, and of course lots of love!  I'd like to do it again, please.

• Lived up our final 5 1/2 months on the wonderful little island we called home with lots of cliff jumping, scuba diving, ocean swimming, and simply just embracing all that the island had to offer.

• Nick completed his first 2 years of medical school and our time in Grenada came to end.

• We moved back home to Michigan where Nick went completely MIA- living in the library studying for STEP 1.

• Nick completed the STEP and we were able to enjoy some quality fun time and celebrate with a trip to Nashville!

• We found out Nick crushed his STEP 1 and that we are expecting our first baby all in the same week! Talk about a week full of BIG and exciting news! We're pretty blessed!

• I didn't open a fridge for 2 1/2 months due to extreme morning sickness and smell sensitivity. Unfortunately, this is not a joke and yes, was semi neurotic!

• We were placed right here in Michigan at St. John's Hospital for Nick's clinical years which was a huge blessing! Thank you, SGU!

• We are renting our first home together in the US in Saint Clair Shores and enjoying life as new home-renters.

• I continued to be in awe and love pregnancy! We decided not to find out the sex of our baby- so we continue to toss boy and girl names back and forth and have been loving the suspense and are excited for the big reveal in April!

• Nick completed his internal medicine rotation and is halfway through his surgery rotation.

• After 200+ job applications, countless interviews, passing out my resume at tons of offices and random shops near our house, constantly being told I was over-qualified OR under-qualified, I got hired by Karmanos Cancer Center in Detroit and start working January 6 (don't all 6 month preggo people start new jobs?!)  Wish me luck! 

• We celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary!!! Wooo hoo! 

• We wrapped up the year with Nick having unexpected time off to celebrate Christmas and New Years and we definitely have taken advantage of every minute! It's been the perfect combination of relaxation and laziness and fun with friends and family! We made 4 different stops for Christmas to ensure we saw everyone and rang in the New Year with 2 of our close couple friends! It was the absolute perfect ending to a great year!

Cheers to a great year past and another great year ahead! These next few months will be a complete whirlwind with Nick continuing to chug away through Surgery with multiple night shifts, my new job, Nick's family medicine and peds rotations, seeing what the 3rd trimester of pregnancy has to offer, and finally welcoming our baby in early April! Whew! And that's just a summary of the first 4 months of the year!

Bring it on, 2014! :)

And a few recent pictures just because!

Family minus those crazy little bros who were too busy running around to pose!

A few from our first big snowfall of the winter! We got almost a foot of snow! Don't be fooled by our sad faces... we DO miss our little island for SO many reasons, but also do love wintery weather and SNOW!

Only one shovel and being preggo = husband shovels and wife does not. Pregnancy perk? Yes.

I only threw a few snowballs at him while he slaved away..... ;)