Getting so close to meeting Baby Girl!!

I've been terrible about keeping up with the blog lately, but there is much to update everyone on! We have had so many exciting things going lately as we have been kicking it into high gear getting ready for our Baby Girl.

Things continue to go very well with the pregnancy. I had a period of time where I had some excruciating back pain/butt/leg, making it very difficult to walk and go up and down stairs. It started around 32 weeks and I was resigned to the fact that I would have to suffer through the next 8 weeks, but with the help of physical therapy the pain is now much, much better. I cannot tell you have much of a relief this is!

 Two weekends ago Kat and I had our joint shower, hosted by Aunt Judy and Sue. It was a beautiful event and everything was JUST perfect. Baby Girl Thornton and her stud of a cousin, Baby Boy Sonny, got very spoiled. Baby Girl Thornton and I were so lucky to have both of her grandmothers there, as Ellen made the trip from Syracuse to spend the weekend in Rye and attend the shower.

Ellen, Kat's mom and my mom with their amazing Grandmother baskets, beautifully put together by the experienced Grandma of the group, Ellen.

Me with two of the most amazing women in my life--My Mom and Ellen

Kat and I with Elizabeth and Olivia- creators of the amazing diaper cakes, and so much more!

Me with Aunt Jude--- the amazing hostess, chef and designer of the event!

The following weekend my Mom drove down with all of the presents from the shower, and spend two days helping me get the nursery together. We worked hard, decorating, hanging things and getting all of Baby Girl's clothes and blankets washed and put away. Our hard work paid off, I feel so much more ready for her now, and I'm thrilled with how her room turned out. It's a nursery like I've already dreamed of and it wouldn't have been possible without my mom's hard work, and Judy, Olivia and Elizabeth's talented designs!

We are short on closet space and got creative, plus I love being able to look at her pretty things all the time!

My mom taking a well deserved break under the branch made my Judy.

We had an ultrasound to check on the baby's growth this past Monday and she looked great. It's odd to see how big she is now, the ultrasound can only look at one small part at a time, unlike when she was tiny and you could see her whole body at once. She weighed approximately (and these measurements can be quite off in either direction) 2094 grams, or 4 lbs 10 oz! This puts her at the 45% for weight. We are thrilled with her growth and development. The ultrasound tech, who was different from the one before, immediately commented on her hair, so it must be true that she is already sporting a head of hair!

On Thursday I hit the 35 week mark, which is a big milestone, since she no longer requires an automatic NICU admission based on her gestational age! Of course we want her to grow and mature a bit more, but it's a huge relief that she could come anytime now and not have to go to the NICU. At my appointment I talked to the OB a bit about the Braxton-Hick's ("practice") contractions that I've been having sporadically, and she told me at this point if I went into full blown labor they wouldn't try to stop it. That was crazy to hear, and make me even more grateful that her nursery and done and we are pretty much ready for her to come! This week we plan to install the carseat, pack bags for the hospital and get a few things we still need for her arrival. It's hard to believe that she will be here so soon, but I don't think it will hit either of one us until we she is actually here.


This weekend Tommy and Katy came to visit us with 11 week old Amelia!! We had so much fun with them and it was great to have a baby in the house. Amelia is just beautiful and is such a good baby, she slept from 9pm-7am while she was here!! We love seeing Tommy and Katy as parents, they are awesome!

Miss Amelia cuddling up to her soon to be friend!

34 week belly shot

Long overdue post

This is a long over due post! Sorry for the lack of updates. Starting a new job, traveling and the holidays have been keeping us very busy. We have had so many wonderful things happen over the past few weeks. Things are going very well with the pregnancy and Baby Girl Thornton. She continues to be her active self and I can feel her hiccups much more often now. Today I felt them on two separate occasions!

The first weekend in December I had a baby shower in Syracuse hosted by Ellen, Sarah and two of Ellen's closest friends, Judy and Julie. It was a beautiful night with great food, beautiful Christmas decorations and great friends. It was such an overwhelming feeling to see everyone come out to support us and our baby and we got incredible things for her. It was a night filled with love and I am so glad my Mom could make the trip out to be there with the Syracuse ladies.

Just over a week before Christmas we headed to Kiawah for a wonderful vacation with some of the Sonneborns. We were there with my Mom, Jeff, Kat (+Baby Boy Sonny) and Brian. We did some biking, lounging by the pool at the Sanctuary, walks on the beach and lots of relaxing, reading and playing games. Kat, my mom and I did water aerobics one morning and it was great, both babies seemed to LOVE it as well.  It was a great week and we look forward to our next visit to Kiawah (with Baby Girl of course!).
We flew from South Carolina to Syracuse to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas with The Thorntons and Solomons. It was wonderful to be there and spend time with family, as well as catch up with friends in the area. It was a fun and memorable Christmas.

The day we drove back from Syracuse we had an appointment and ultrasound to check up on Baby Girl Thornton. She looked perfect on ultrasound and the tech even pointed her hair to us! She weighed (approximately) 1424 grams, or three pounds two ounces. It is so hard to believe how big she is, she is triple the size of some of the preemies I take care of. We love watching her grow and hope she continues to grow and thrive for the next two months. We look forward to seeing her again on ultrasound in three weeks.
Here are some pictures from the past month. I will post pictures from the Syracuse shower when I get them from others. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and has a very Happy New Year!

28 weeks

Merry Christmas! In Kiawah, 30 weeks.

Today's belly pic- almost  32 weeks

Publish Post

Profile shot of our sweet girl <3

Hello Third Trimester!

This week marks week 28 in our pregnancy, which is considered the start of the third trimester! It starts to feel like time is flying by, which is fine with us because we are so excited to meet our baby! She continues to be a busy girl, rolling around and kicking me all the time. She can be quite entertaining to watch from the outside these days.

I had a great appointment today with the certified nurse midwife. As she did last time, Baby Girl kicked the doppler as soon as the midwife put it on my belly to listen to her heartbeat. Her heartbeat sounded great and my uterus is measuring perfectly for how far along I am. I passed my one hour glucose test, meaning I don't have gestational diabetes, which was a relief for me. My bloodwork showed that I have  mild anemia so I've started iron supplements. This is extremely common in pregnant women. The good news is that this "anemia" (my lab value was one away from being in the normal range, so very close) earns us two more ultrasounds to check on Baby Girl's growth. One will be right when we return from Kiawah, in about three weeks, with another around 34 weeks. I'm excited to be able to see our girlie a couple more times before she makes her big appearance and have no doubt that she is growing and developing just fine. The midwife also gave me the clear to travel by plane to Kiawah, which is good since our flights have been booked.

We continue to be so thankful for a healthy baby and supportive and loving family and friends to welcome her into the world. We hope everyone is having fun preparing for the holidays and look forward to seeing each of you soon.!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Rye and Jeff and Judy's house. Matt and I were able to stay in Rye four nights and we had a lot of fun hanging out with family and relaxing. We got to see Amanda, in from San Diego, on our way to Rye, which was a highlight of the weekend. Other highlights included celebrating Liz's birthday, going out in Portsmouth, many meals together and a girl's afternoon! It is always so nice to be around both of our families.

Our little girl continues to thrive and grow. I can definitely tell that my belly is getting bigger, and every day it seems like she is kicking in a new area (yesterday she reached my ribs!) She is starting to be more responsive to pressure on my belly, when Matt puts his hand on it she seems to find him and kick his hand. We love her so much already and can't believe that my due date is just three months away!

This weekend we are looking forward to spending time with some of the Sonneborns to celebrate Henry's (grandfather name still to be determined) birthday and Nana and Pop-pop's 70th wedding anniversary! The next weekend is our baby shower in Syracuse, and after that we head to Kiawah! We have so much to look forward to and plan to enjoy every moment.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We missed those of you we weren't able to see and look forward to seeing more family very soon.

Some of the incredible spread!!

25 weeks!

I started this post yesterday but never finished it, so it quickly turned from our 24 week update to our 25 week update. Time seems to be flying by, it's hard to believe that we will be meeting our little girl in just over three months!
Baby girl and I had a check up with the OB yesterday and everything continues to look good. Her heart rate was 130, although she was moving all around making it very difficult for the OB to count the heartbeat for the full minute. I can tell she is definitely getting bigger as in the last couple days I've felt movement higher and out more to the sides than ever before. I have one more visit at the every three week frequency, and then I move to every two weeks since I'll be entering the third trimester!
Later today we are going to pick up the nursery furniture!! We are lucky to have such good friends here, Melissa and Christian, to let us use their SUV and help us move it too.  I am so excited to start getting things set up, although that probably won't happen just yet as we need to move furniture around in her room to make space for all of her beautiful things.
Otherwise we are hanging in there, I'm fighting a cold and cough that left me with absolutely no voice for two days, but I'm starting to feel better so hopefully I'm over the worst of it.
We have a lot to look forward to in the upcoming weeks, celebrating Thanksgiving and Elizabeth's birthday next week and our Syracuse shower in three weeks!
Hope everyone is doing well, sending lots of love to you all.
-Hannah, Matt and Baby Girl

23 week update

I figured since we are nearly 24 weeks now I should post our 23 week update. Things continue to go well for me and Baby Girl. She is definitely an active baby and it feels like she is constantly on the move.
Matt and I picked out our nursery furniture this week. It should be here any day, then we just need to figure out how to get it from the store to our house. I can't wait to see it in her room! Here is what we picked out:

 Here is this week's belly picture. It's definitely getting bigger these days, though I am still not in maternity clothes yet.

I spent this weekend in Syracuse celebrating Ella's first birthday. Matt had to work but I couldn't miss such a big event. It was such a sweet party and Ella had a BLAST hamming it up for everyone. It was so nice to spend time with the Solomons and Thorntons.

We hope everyone is doing well, and to see you all soon. Xoxo

22 week update

We had our follow-up anatomy scan yesterday at one day shy of 22 weeks. The ultrasound tech was able to see everything that she couldn't last time, and everything looks great! Our little spaghetti squash (this week's vegetable) was very active during the ultrasound. Her legs were squished up by her head for a lot of the scan, as seen in the picture below. The ultrasound tech said she looked like a ballerina (must be from her mother!). We caught her yawning in the corner of the screen as the tech was looking at another part of her body, very cute to see. Baby Girl estimated weight is 490 grams, about one pound, which is strange to us since we've both cared for babies significantly smaller than that. We are so glad that she is growing well. Her movement is now occasionally visible from the outside, which is a very strange thing to see. I even took a video of my belly moving since Matt was at work the first time I saw it.
According to my app, this week her taste buds will continue to develop and her nerve endings are developed enough that she has a sense of touch.

This weekend we will be celebrating Jeff's 30th Birthday! We also found out this week that Jeff and Kat are expecting a Baby Boy!!! We are so excited for them and feel so lucky to already have a beautiful niece, and to have a sweet nephew on the way as well!!