26 Weeks

I feel like time is flying by.  Wasn't I just talking about getting excited that a stranger noticed I was pregnant?  Now I'm getting nudged or kicked all the time and when I look straight down I no longer see my feet :)  Our crib came in this week (earlier than expected) and James picked it up today!  Can't wait for him to put it together... the nursery will start coming together after that! James and I joked that we're now "officially" having a baby... there's a crib in our house!
*Note: we also told each other we were "officially" having a baby once we saw the baby on ultrasound, heard the heartbeat, when I first bought maternity clothes, when I first felt the baby move, when he first felt the baby move, etc... this game will probably continue until right after I give birth :)

Then Bailey got curious about this new thing in "his" room and had to investigate for awhile.

I'm getting ready to head out on a week long trip: my first stop is tomorrow night to see my cousin Maggie's play in Macomb, IL at Western Illinois University where she is a fine arts grad student.  My mom and sisters are both going to meet me there so it will be a girls night!  Colleen hasn't seen me with a pregnant belly yet so I've been getting texts all week about how excited she is to see me/us :)  Then I'll be in Barrington for Easter weekend and finally I'm headed to Cambridge, WI for a preceptorship in a family practice clinic for a week after that.  A preceptorship is elective time we have in residency to work in the "real" world outside of the hospital and our own clinic.  I've been using my preceptorships this year to see if I like any of the towns/clinics in Wisconsin that are currently hiring family practitioners (Wisconsin is high on our list as a possible future location for the Kane Family).  Cambridge is a small town outside of Madison, less than 2 hours from Barrington.  We'll see how it goes!  James wasn't able to get away from work next week to go back to Barrington for Easter or to visit me in Cambridge-- he's in charge of the Drake Relays street party in downtown Des Moines (the Drake Relays are a huge national track event at Drake University every year) as well as usual end of the month inventory at work.   I'll miss him but it's only a week apart, we've definitely done longer time apart during my med school/residency training!

I've felt overwhelmed lately-- work has been busy, responsibilities of being Chief Resident has been exhausting, finding a job when I finish residency in a little over a year has been on my mind, and last but definitely not least I feel like we have so much to do before Baby Kane arrives!  But sometimes I need to just stop, take a deep breath, and think how lucky I am that I'm doing work I enjoy, I'm married to a great guy, and we're expecting a healthy baby soon.  So really, life couldn't be any better.  

26 weeks!

How your baby's growing:

The network of nerves in your baby's ears is better developed and more sensitive than before. He may now be able to hear both your voice and your partner's as you chat with each other. He's inhaling and exhaling small amounts of amniotic fluid, which is essential for the development of his lungs. These so-called breathing movements are also good practice for when he's born and takes that first gulp of air. And he's continuing to put on baby fat. He now weighs about a pound and two-thirds and measures 14 inches (an English hothouse cucumber) from head to heel.