Holiday Firsts

We had a wonderfully relaxing holiday season. We were able to spread our Christmas festivities over a three-day period which made for a very stress-free holiday. This will definitely be the annual plan for as long as possible.

This holiday season also brought along a few pregnancy firsts. On Christmas Day we reached the midway point! We’re on the downhill slope now. Also, my belly button decided to peak outside of its cave. The top half popped out a few days after Christmas so now I have a half-innie/half-outie. Ben is already really freaked out by it…this is going to be fun! I was also graced by the presence of my first encounter with heartburn. I don’t know how I have avoided it all these years, but I do believe I am now making up for all that lost time. Oh joy! And finally, the thing that completely shocked me was I experienced my first Braxton Hicks contractions. All of the books say many women don’t ever feel them and even if they do, they are completely painless. Ok, I will concede to the fact that they are not painful, but they are rather uncomfortable. To quote a frustrated Rachel from “Friends” when Ross told her Braxton Hicks contractions were completely painless: “No uterus; no opinion!” Well said Rachel, well said!

This wasn't a holiday first, but I just realized I forgot to mention it in my two-month break from blogging. I first felt the baby move (flutters) at 15 weeks. When we went to Mexico I could feel kicking, but every time I would call Ben over she would stop. But, Ben was able to finally feel her kick at 18 weeks.

Here are my 20 week belly pictures:

Mexico

Is anyone there? Yeah, I know—I’m a bad blogger! Hopefully, once the baby arrives I will feel like I have more to share.

Now to play catch up…

Ben and I took a wonderfully amazing trip to an all-inclusive resort and spa in Mexico in the beginning of December. It was my first time out of the country and my first flight on a commercial airline (says the daughter of a pilot)!

For the most part we had a wonderful time doing nothing! We sat on the beach under a cabana being waited on hand-and-foot for two whole days. Bonus: On our second day of lounging we had front row seats to two weddings! You can see one of the weddings taking place just beyond Ben's feet. Ben wasn’t really that impressed…I guess it’s a girl thing.

Later, we took a full-day guided tour of the ruins at Chichen Itza. I thought this was absolutely going to be the highlight of the trip, what with my obsession of history. However, after traveling for three hours and listening to our tour guide try to crack jokes for three hours straight we finally stopped at a little shop and that was when we learned that we would not be eating lunch until 4:30 in the afternoon. Um…what?! People, we ate breakfast at 8:30—you cannot expect a pregnant lady to abstain from eating for 8 hours. Needless to say I was a little panicky when we finally arrived at Chichen Itza. After listening to our tour guide talk about nothing for 20 minutes in the sweltering heat, Ben and I decided to live on the edge, break away from the tour and go EAT!!! After we ate we conducted our own tour, which was fabulous! At the end of the day, we decided we had a much better time exploring the ruins on our own and it was pretty fabulous!

Ben and I consider ourselves to be extremely blessed to have been given this opportunity (along with many others). We can't wait to go back--that is, if we can ever afford it!