Milestone #1 Achieved!

Again, I'm so sorry it's taken so long for me to post an update! We've been crazy busy since the last update. My friend Tiff got married, I've had three baby showers, and I met my first milestone for keeping this baby in me...35 weeks! I'm officially 35 weeks today, the same gestation my niece Maddie was when she was born. Our next milestone is Labor Day (no pun intended), but hopefully Eno (my sister Erin for those of you who don't know) will still be in town before heading back to Boston. Fingers crossed! Our next doctor appointment is next Friday where she'll check to see if there's been any progress made yet. I'll make sure to post an update and let you all know what we find out! Now on to the picture portion of this blog update :)

Tiff's Wedding (8/9/08)
I was a personal attendant in my friend Tiff's wedding. It was an outdoor wedding at Majestic Oaks Golf Course and an absolutely beautiful day! It wasn't very hot, but the sun was definitely beating down. Only one elderly woman nearly fainted at the wedding, which considering the number of people sweating bullets out there, I was surprised there was only one. Here are just a couple pictures from the day.

The beautiful bride getting ready

The parents-to-be after a long day
(I was the personal attendant for Tiff and
Adam was the personal attendant for me)

Loch Baby Shower (8/10/08)
The morning after Tiff's wedding, my mother-in-law Kathie and sister-in-law Marissa threw me a shower with Adam's family at Marissa's apartment. I had an absolutely wonderful time and played about the best game I think I've ever played at a shower! It was the "find the safety pins in the rice game". It was super hard and I pretty much sucked at it :) There were 90 small safety pins hidden in a bowl of rice that, while blindfolded, I had to try to find. I only found TWO! My mom ended up winning the game by finding 12 safety pins in 1 minute. Overall, it was a great time with great company and the baby got some really nice gifts. Here are a few pictures.

Auntie Marissa, Grandma Loch, Great-Grandma Heinrich, and Mommy

Mommy & Grandma Fuchs

Adam played the rice game as worse as I did (he only found 2)

Surprise Work Baby Shower (8/13/08)
Every Wednesday, my department has a weekly staff meeting teleconference. Our team is completely virtual where my director, boss, admin, and coworkers Mark & Juan are in Arizona, my coworker Lynne is in New Mexico, and my coworker Don is in Florida. At our weekly meeting last week, they decided to throw me a surprise virtual baby shower! I was totally surprised and couldn't believe they were able to keep it a secret. My local admin and friend Chuck walked over to my cubicle to give me the gifts from my team and take pictures of me while I opened the presents while I described what was going on to my coworkers on the phone. After opening the presents, they each gave me some words of advice and then we played a game! That's right, we played a game over the phone where we had to fill in the blanks on several classic nursery rhymes. It was an absolute riot and a really great time! I have some pretty special coworkers, so it's nice that despite the fact that we are spread across the country, we are still able to do some pretty nice things for each other. Here are some pictures.

Fuchs Baby Shower (8/16/08)
Last Saturday, my wonderful sisters and aunt Mary threw me a fantastic baby shower! Given the size of my family, there were 75 people invited to the shower and approximately 45 friends and family showed up. I definitely didn't want anyone put out by the number of people, so the shower was held in the social hall at my church. It was great to see so many people I love all in the same room! With so many people and a limited time for the shower, I almost felt like it was my wedding day all over again where are you aren't able to talk to people for very long if you want to try to talk to all the guests. I hope everyone understood and hopefully we'll all be able to catch up again soon! We had some amazing food, played a fun "Price is Right"-like game (that I REALLY sucked at), opened some fantastic presents, and enjoyed some great company! It was a great day and I couldn't thank my sisters enough!!! Thanks sissies! Here are some pictures.

My sisters know me so well!!! They got me a chocolate fountain!
It was a big hit!!! The church was great for the number of people who were there!

The "Price is Right" game where you guess how much the items are worth

Opening presents...she got some awesome stuff!

Me and my wonderful sissies

8 Month Update with Pictures

Hello loyal blog followers! Here's another monthly update for those of you keeping track! I'm just over 8 months and can't believe I'm nearing the end of my pregnancy! Only a handful weeks and she'll finally be done cooking (as Adam and I like to say). Since the last time I wrote, our lives have been pretty busy. We had our appointment with Maternal Fetal Medicine (I'll expand more in a bit), I went to a bachelorette party for my friend Tiff who's getting married this Saturday, we had our 32-week appointment with our doctor, we took our annual Fuchs family trip to Spirit Lake, Iowa last week, and Adam had a bachelor party for Tiff's fiance Brian last night. Life is sure never boring in the Loch household!

Here's the latest picture of my expanding belly! This was taken the night of the bachelorette party after I got home when I was just shy of eight months. The baby and I had a great time at the party, but were sure happy to get home and put mommy's feet up :)
Two days before the picture above was taken, we had our infamous appointment with Maternal Fetal Medicine. At this appointment, we had a high-resolution ultrasound done to evaluate the echogenic focus (light spot) on our baby's heart. What the doctor found was that the spot has not yet gone away, but is not affecting her heart function. She also found that the baby is measuring 2 weeks ahead (not possible based on my math), I have excess amniotic fluid, and her head is measuring large.

What does this mean? Well, they were concerned that I have gestational diabetes, so at my 32-week appointment I was ordered to take a 3-hour glucose tolerance test. As far as her head size goes, the doctor came in and measured mine and Adam's heads to see who was the culprit. Come to find out, Adam's head size is in the 75th percentile while mine is in the 130th...looks like she gets her big noggin from her mama :) Guess I can't blame Adam for the size of her head if I go naturally :)

Last Tuesday, I had my 32-week appointment to see how things are progressing and to follow-up on my Maternal Fetal Medicine appointment. Rather than a typical 15-20 minute appointment, I had a funfilled morning taking my 3-hour glucose test. As I've been telling everyone, I blew that test out of the water!!! I definitely do NOT have gestational diabetes, I just have a big baby. The rest of the appointment went great! My blood pressure and weight look good and everything seems to be progressing as expected. I'll have another apointment this Friday to see if there have been any changes.

As I mentioned earlier, this past week was also our annual family trip to Iowa. Adam and I had an awesome time! We got down there on Tuesday at dinner time, Meredith and Corbett left with the girls on Wednesday after lunch, Erin and Nat left Friday morning, and Adam and I left on Saturday at noon. We had an absolutely beautiful week and were able to spend quite a bit of time out on the boat. Adam got to do a little skiing and wakeboarding and was also able to get in a round of golf in Windom with my dad and Gary (our dentist). All in all, despite the fact that I'm huge and unable to drink, we had a fantastic week...probably our best family trip yet! Here's a few pictures from our trip.

The Fuchs girls and our guys...aren't we all cute?!?

It's not a family picture unless you're posing!

The Fuchs Family (minus Baby Loch)
(Left to Right: Grandpa, Grandma, Morgan, Erin, Isabelle,
Nat, Meredith, Corbett, Madeline, Libby, Adam)

Eva just loves the new perch I have with this big baby in my belly!As always, Bailey just can't get enough of her daddy!

And finally, after a long night of drinking at Brian's bachelor party, Adam was able to finish painting the baby's room tonight. We had gotten a start on it before we left for Iowa and were finally able to get the last stripe up today. I know there isn't any furniture in it yet, but here's a preview of what our pumpkin's room is going to look like. The theme for her room (if you can call it that) is white furniture with beige, pink and brown bedding and walls. Pink and brown are kind of the "in" thing this year for little girls, and I just can't get enough of it! I absolutely love it and think Adam did a fantastic job! Thanks honey!

Until next time blog readers!