Noakes' Nest: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

24 weeks 1 day...growing belly :)

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! Philip and I spent Christmas down in North Carolina with his family. We went shopping, played games, sang carols, chatted, and ate waaaaayyyy too much food. The day after we returned, my family came to Richmond to celebrate Christmas. We took them on part of the Tacky Light Tour here in Richmond (google it if you have no idea what I’m talking about), went shopping, hung out, and continued eating tons of food. My newest craving is super healthy…chili cheese hot dogs Yuuuuummm. All in all we had an amazing time with family.

Christmas morning.

Richmond Tacky Light Tour

We also celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary on December 29th!

Baby girl has been VERY active as we enter week 25 today! She let all her aunts and uncles feel her kick. It means so much to us how excited our siblings are to meet their niece.

One special thing we were able to do was invite my parents to my 24 week doctor’s appointment. Their visit coincided with my appointment so it only seemed right to invite them along. This was one of our best appointments, nothing new to report! No news is good news right now. My parents were amazed to be able to see her moving and see her spine, ribs, feet, etc. They were also able to see what I’ve been trying to explain about the hole in baby Noakes heart. It is always so amazing to me that we can literally see the valves in her heart opening and closing. We were even able to see her move her tongue as she swallowed and breathed out the amniotic fluid. As long as there are no more new developments my specialist thinks that I will be induced the first week of April (38 weeks) unless baby Noakes decides to come earlier. We are hoping she doesn’t do that though because earlier could mean not fully developed lungs and that in conjunction with her heart issues would not be good. So come on April!

I think that our ultrasound Thursday was number 9 and we still didn’t have a good profile/face shot of baby Noakes. Every time we have gone in she has hidden her face or was facing away. Well baby Noakes FINALLY cooperated and let us see her face! Our specialist then used a new feature to their ultrasound machines, 4D ultrasounds! Normally they don’t do them because they consider them "entertainment ultrasounds" but we were lucky enough to get a few pictures of her face!!! If it is possible, being able to see our daughter's face made us even more excited for her to get here!

24 weeks 4 days :)

She is snuggled up against my uterus on the left and her hand is up on the right.

We celebrated New Year's in Richmond with a Mad Men themed party hosted by our friends Leigh and Matt. We had a great time with friends and smoking candy cigarettes.