23 Weeks

Okay, so you can't see my bump in this picture under my jacket but you'll see it if you scroll down.  This is my grizzly husband and me hiking in Glacier National Park.  Please ignore the vacation hair....and Dan's dumb hat

And to keep with tradition: This is us at 23 weeks.  Baby is as big as a grapefruit

How far along? 23 Weeks (okay, so I'm really far behind.  Vacation got the best of me this past week...then the Olympics started so I've been kinda distracted.  I love the Olympics almost as much as I love celebrating Christmas (good thing Hobby Lobby started selling their Christmas decorations already.  Can anyone say Christmas in July?!?)

Total weight gain/loss:  15 pounds.  I'm sad to report I only gained one pound over vacation.  I blame that on the flights and rides there.  I was doing so well but then on our last flight, we encountered a heck of a lot of turbulence on our landing (enough to make anyone chunder, Dan said) and unfortunately that person was me. Ugh!  I can safely say I haven't used a barf bag on a plane since I was 8 until this past week but I was glad to have them supplied for me in the seat backs in front of me.  Then since I already had a weak stomach, the 4 hour drive through actual mountains and windy roads (turned into 5 due to my umm well "pit stops") made "my tummy feel icky".  Thank you Dan for being a fantastic driver as I yelled, "PULL OVER NOW!"  This adventure brought me back to the horribleness that was my Morning Sickness experience just a few months ago.  I was not happy about starting off my vacation like this.  I spent the next day and a half recovering via Morning Sickness diet (bland, icky food that I would be able to keep down).  Once my stomach fully recovered, my goal was to "get chocolate wasted" (in the words of the cute girl from Grown Ups) and eat lots of food!

Maternity clothes? I did not break out my maternity swimsuit on vacation.  I did, however, break out my awesomely tacky "America" swimsuit on our float trip in honor of the Olympics though.  I was just around my family so I didn't care much about dressing too modestly.   After all, I was on vacation and was going to let my stomach hang out if I felt like it.  Plus my sisters were dying to feel the baby move so my stomach was constantly on display.  I must admit though, that my normal clothes are starting to feel a little tighter!  The question is, how long am I going to hold out getting maternity clothes? Answer: As long as I realistically can!

Stretch marks? Nope.  Just soft skin and a growing belly!  I think I saw some weird vein things on my legs but maybe that's just my pale skin telling me that I need some sun.  Wouldn't be the first time that I realized that people can pretty much see through my pasty white skin.

Sleep: Sleeping pretty well mainly because vacation wiped me out everyday.  We went hiking a lot and I was just exhausted from traveling for part of it.  I slept like a bear!  But gosh I've been having some weird and just odd dreams.  I normally dream very vividly (writers need to contact me for plots for their next movies cuz apparently I have some phenomenal ideas!) but these dreams I've been having are not only vivid but just plain weird.  When I explain my dreams to my husband, he thinks I'm crazy but again that's probably not the only reason he thinks I'm one odd duck.  I enjoy my dreams but the weird ones need to stop.  I like my funny and entertaining dreams a lot more, thank you. (I'm hilarious in my dreams...and real life)

Best moment this week: Vacation in general.  Being with my ridiculous family, playing pranks on our dad (we might or might not have thrown a live chicken on my dad while he was sleeping. No chickens were harmed in this prank), listening to the ridiculous things that come out of my mom's mouth (I might or might not have actually peed my pants and laugh-cried because of some of things she said or did - she did win the award for Most Fun on Vacation for the 2nd year in a row), beating the snot out of my sisters and their boyfriends in games, making video diaries, floating down rivers, hiking in Glacier National Park, and ingesting as much chocolate as I could get my hands on (aka getting chocolate wasted).  I can't choose just one moment but I'll just choose "vacation" as my best.  Now that I'm back in flat Illinois, I'm ready to go back to beautiful Montana.

Little Baby Koch and I went hiking on Wild Horse Island

My ridiculous sisters playing "Where in the World is Little Baby Koch".  In this picture, Little Baby Koch was hiking in Glacier National Park

(Needless to say, they're pretty stoked to become aunts)

Miss Anything? Gosh did I miss having an adult beverage or two this past week.  I mean I survived without them but nothing says "Vacation" than relaxing with an adult beverage.  Plus there are so many microbreweries in that area of Montana that my family loves to try but I was just allowed to watch. Wah! Soon, Jackie. Soon.  I guess I'll live though.  Small price to pay for growing a healthy, wonderful nugget inside of me.

Movement: Baby Koch did not like the last leg of our traveling journey.  He made that perfectly clear with some jabs to my stomach.  He also told me that he was not fond of windy car rides through mountains.  Sorry son.  In order to get to our cabin we had to endure the travels.  Maybe he'll appreciate the views and travels more once he gets out of my belly.  He did kick up a storm this week!  Everyone got to feel him move and thought it was the coolest thing ever...which it is.  I was doing some reading (yes, the Kochs read in order to prepare ourselves for our little bundle of joy in whatever way we can) and "they" (whoever they is) said that this is the time that the little one typically "moves" the most because he is still small enough to do flips, kicks, jabs, etc. in my expanding womb.  Once he gets bigger and takes up more space inside me, there will be less room for him to show me his acrobatics skills so we won't notice movements as much.  Makes sense right?  So now we just get to enjoy all the movements he's making in order to prepare himself to be an Olympic swimmer (he'll be too tall to be a gymnast if he gets my family's gynormous genes).

Food cravings: Chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate.  If it was made of chocolate, it was going inside my body this past week.  From milkshakes, to chocolate bars, cookies, milk, squares, etc. I ate it all.  And it was delicious!  Chocolate definitely was a gift from God.  Thank you God!  I also wanted everything to be salty this past week.  I was dying for chips and salsa everyday.  Food tastes better with a little extra salt on things.  Good thing my blood pressure is ridiculously low so I'm able to enjoy my salty foods.  I also craved beer on vacation...but I wasn't able to indulge in vacation beer. Wah!  I did do my share of smelling the sweet smell of it.

Anything making you queasy or sick: The last plane ride, 4 hour mountain driving, and cigar smoke. I already mentioned the last plane ride and the mountain driving and forgot to mention the cigar smoke. Cigars were a plenty of vacation (apparently it's a guy thing) and i normally love the smell of a good cigar, but not while I had a weak stomach.  I survived though.  I made sure to stay upwind of the smoke or inside for the sake of little baby Koch.  

Have you started to show yet: O yeah!  Only super flow'ey shirts can cover it up but there's definitely a bump going on.  It's still got a long way to go to take it's shape into the big bump I so desperately want but the bump has arrived!

There he is!  My little baby boy is growing inside my belly.  This is a picture of me "sunning myself" (aka laying out on a pontoon with my 50+ spf in order to protect my pastey skin) on vacation.  My sister thought the mountains in the background were a perfect match with my pregnant belly and boobs.    Not far off.  But you can see how low my nugget is.  Because I'm tall, he still has to move up my belly and has a lot of room to do that.  Right now he just looks like I ate a giant Chipotle burrito but he's there!  My little man!  Gosh I can't wait to meet him!

You can't see my belly button in this picture but I still assure you it is a definite innie.  My sisters even tried their best to measure how deep it is and might have tried to "feed" little baby Koch by putting food in it.  I have a weird family.

Gender: Boy Boy Boy!  (not three boys, just one)  My parents are dying for their first grandchild and are super stoked for it to be a boy.  Everyone was trying to guess boy names, ask if we picked out a theme for his room yet (answer...not yet. We still have a lot of unpacking to do in our new place), and talk about all the cool things they have planned for our baby boy.  (Should I be scared?)

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or Moody most of the time: 

Happy except when I was crying about feeling sick.  The sick brought my mind back to that horrible place I was in a few months ago when my body uncontrollably puked up stomach acid because there wasn't anything left inside of me but it wouldn't stop. (sorry for the graphic'ness but hey, that's what happened)  I cried a lot because I was scared that I was going back there.  Luckily it passed in just a few short days and I still had plenty of vacation left to enjoy.  All I had to do was relax and take it easy and I was really good at that.  Plus it makes me happy to win at games.  I'm what you call a sore loser and sometimes an obnoxious winner (need to work on correcting those qualities before the nug comes) so it makes me so happy to win at games but when I lose, I get sore.  When my sisters and I lost against the boys in Pictionary, I was angry but I was happy to see I wasn't the sorest loser in the bunch.  My youngest sister (former competitive volleyball player) might have thrown some pieces and gave my older sister and I a pep talk that we couldn't let these dumb boys (or something to that extent) win so we needed our A game.  Needless to say we brought it back in the 3rd round and crushed the guys.  I'll just leave it at that.  I was sad to leave Montana.  The days flew by but our time was up and we had to say goodbye to the gorgeous mountains.  Now back to the flat land of the soybeans and corn. Sad!

Looking forward to:  So another one of Dan's brothers is getting married this year and the wedding is coming up in just a few short days. (yeah yeah, I'm behind on this whole blog thing so my weeks are all messed up and out of order)  I'm pretty stoked for this wedding, not gonna lie.  Since I'm feeling well and able to eat food, my plan is to A) chat it up/catch up with all the friends and family I possibly can at the wedding (because I actually want to be around people this time around)  B) eat delicious food!  C) dance my little heart out  and D) celebrate David and Meggie's special day with them.  That's pretty ambitious of me but I'm really looking forward to it.  David and Meggie were made for each other and ever since they got together, I've been planning their wedding in my head because everyone knew it was going to happen.  I'm pretty stoked about getting another sister this year in addition to the other one I gained in April when Dan's older brother got married, Erica.  More girls!  God has really blessed us with such amazing friends and family and I'm so happy to be part of this expanding crazy Koch clan.  Man this wedding is going to be fun!

I hope to get back on track with this whole blog thing.  We'll see if it happens or if the Olympics continues to get in the way of my progress (it probably will).