October 6th, 2008:

grat·i·tude

–noun

the quality or feeling of being grateful or thankful: He expressed his gratitude to everyone on the staff.

In light of the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend I have decided to do a daily post on the things in my life that I am have gratitude for and am thankful for. I think its always important for us to focus on what we have rather then what we don’t have. If you are a person who judges the worth of your self by the objects that you have, the cars that you drive, the money in your bank then I challenge you this week to dig deeper, look around you, and reflect about the good fortune in your life that is not amounted in any bank account or material object.

This week and perhaps always…allow yourself to be defined by your gratitude and a spirit of thanksgiving…not by the standards that are created by society. Throughout this week I hope to share with you some of the things in my own life that I have made me full of gratitude.

23 Weeks down….17 weeks (give or take) to go!

What can I say about the past week of pregnancy….nothing!  It’s been a very boring nothing to report type week for me and quite frankly I’m happy to say it out loud!  At this point in my pregnancy with Jacob I was in a lot of uncomfortable pain due to SPD (symphysis pubis dysfunction) and it just makes me ecstatic that so far I have not had to deal with that pain again!  The busy work week paired with a hectic weekend made week 22 seem to fly by and now I’m here on another Monday reporting to the world that I’m 23 weeks pregnant. 

This week the baby is the size of a LARGE mango….that’s right a LARGE mango. I believe a few weeks back the baby was the size of a SMALL mango!  How’s that for progress?  Ha!

The baby’s lungs are slowly starting to develop over the next couple of weeks but it will be quite a few more weeks before they are ready to function effectively outside of the womb without the help of ventilated breathing or oxygen. Over the next couple of weeks the baby reaches that important point of actually being viable outside of the womb but trust me we want that baby to bake bake bake!

I’ve got no appointments this week and no ultrasounds so its setting up to be another boring pregnancy week which is exactly how I like it! The baby has been moving up a storm and most of the movement happens in the day and evening which I hope is a sign of good things to come when the baby comes! Ha! Who am I kidding!