
Welcome Everyone to our Farm’s
Website.
We are Chris and Danielle Bove.
Both of us are natives of Maryland.
Chris grew up in Bay Ridge, a community on the Chesapeake Bay and Severn River
in Annapolis-- Maryland’s state capital and the Home of the U.S. Naval Academy.
He received his bachelor's degree from Mount Saint Mary's College in
Emmitsburg, MD and later attended graduate school at the Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore, MD. I spent my childhood in and around Baltimore, with
a brief stint in Florida with my Mom, and later I returned to Maryland and
called Pasadena home. I attended Essex Community College and Chesapeake
College.
We met in 1999 and started
dating in December of that year.
A couple of years later while
visiting New Orleans, Louisiana for the Annual Jazz and Heritage Festival (a
perennial trip for Chris), Chris "popped the question" in a popular
French Quarter eatery (Mr. B’s Bistro), I said “Yes!” and we were married in
May of 2004. We moved from Annapolis to Maryland’s Eastern Shore in September
of 2001. We bought a small farm (the real estate company called it a
mini-estate!) and we’ve been enjoying the “simple life” ever since.
Chris, a master gardener since the
age of eight, thanks to the influence of two talented and knowledgeable
great-grandfathers, took to the farm and began in our first year to plant a
small 40’x60’ vegetable garden. Ten years later, the garden is more than 1/2 an
acre, and he has grown up to 17 varieties of tomatoes, along with over a dozen
varieties of peppers, sweet corn, salad greens, asparagus, squashes, melons,
beans, cucumbers, herbs and the list goes on and on. The garden is fertilized
with composted manure from our horse, goats, and poultry-- and as such does not
rely upon chemical fertilizers.
Once the garden's produce is ready
for the table, Chris also demonstrates his culinary prowess in the kitchen
preparing sumptuous and seasonally inspired meals for friends and family alike.
He learned the "art" of cooking around the age of eight with the help
of his Italian great-grandmother, and learned the "science" of baking
from his mother. He has worked in nearly a dozen restaurants over the years;
including his own. In addition to taking to gardening and cooking, he enjoyed
countless hours with his father on the Chesapeake Bay fishing, crabbing,
boating and water skiing. When time permits, Chris enjoys designing and
assembling stained glass windows and art glass projects, playing the piano, and
sitting behind his drum set. He also enjoys buying "fixer-upper"
properties and rehabilitating them.
I am big-time animal lover since my
early youth and had my sights set on raising domestic and farm animals on the
property. I adopted a few dogs, some cats, gained a quarter horse, (then
another), and eventually we’ve had everything from horses, hogs, and goats, to
bunnies, peafowl, chickens and turkeys. I've even rehabilitated wildlife back
to health after injury or separation from parents and successfully reintroduced
them into the wild. I was inspired to investigate Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats,
and eventually made the choice to sell our pygmy and boer goats so that we
could concentrate solely on the Nigerian Dwarf breed. I enjoy caring for all our
animals, making homemade soaps and candles, as well as riding my awesome mare,
Twig.
Chris and I formerly operated a
small, popular restaurant and country store in Sudlersville, Maryland. I am a
Certified Veterinarian Assistant and have worked in the Veterinary field for
more than a decade and I oversee the health care of all of our critters. We are
also Authorized Distributors for the Udderly EZ Milker™ and numerous other livestock
products through Stone Manufacturing, Inc.
Chris is a Chef, manages the farm,
as well as our investment rental properties, and is the drummer for a
regionally popular band: Mystyk Harbour. We are both Certified Open Water Scuba
Divers and enjoy diving when we can pull ourselves away from the farm.

Below is our informal bulletin
board updating the goings on around Avolino Farm.
I update and add postings to it
every couple of months or so, or as there is news to report.
May, 2009
It has been a while since we have
updated this page with any news from around our farm. As is usually the case,
it was a l-o-n-g winter and has been a busy year so far around the farm! We've
had a very rainy spring, which has made daily chores "interesting" to
say the least- and which has caused us to temporarily postpone a few projects
around the farm. Happily, our vegetable garden is in the process of being
planted so we ought to have a summertime filled with tasty, homegrown produce.
We've boarded our beloved mare, Twig, at a friend's farm so we can repeat the
rehabilitation and improvement of our pastures that we did last year.
Unfortunately, the 2008 drought in our region erased the progress we made by
aerating, liming, and seeding our pastures last spring. We've had an incredible
kidding season so far with some really outstanding kids born. Avolino Farm
goats now reside in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Colorado and
Minnesota.
July, 2009
A few months ago we were so pleased
to announce that I was expecting our first child. Tragically, on Monday, July
27, 2009 we learned at a routine pregnancy check-up that my baby had died at 21
weeks in the middle of my second trimester. On July 28, 2009 I was admitted to
the hospital and after being induced into labor, delivered our stillborn son. I
named him after my husband Chris. Charles Christopher Bove, Jr. weighed just
9.2oz. The cause of his demise was clear upon his delivery: umbilical
entanglement. Chris and I are both heart-broken and beside ourselves with grief
at this loss. We have received lots of support from our families, friends,
fellow goat breeders, and customers for which we cannot express enough
hear-felt appreciation and gratitude. Thank You!
Having learned of my pregnancy, we
had made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our herd to prepare for
the arrival of our baby. Even in light of our recent loss, we are going to
continue on our previous course and are offering up approximately one third of
our breeding stock as well as the majority of our kids from this year's kidding
season. WE ARE NOT DISPERSING OUR HERD. Rather, we've decided that reducing the
size of our herd will provide us more time to recover and heal from our recent
loss, as well as allow us to move forward with less to manage as we continue
toward our goal of starting a family. Thanks again to everyone for your emails,
letters, flowers, cards, thoughts and prayers in the aftermath of our loss.
So long 2009…
With the events of the last year,
we decided to spend the Holidays and welcome in the New Year by taking a
well-deserved vacation. Three weeks of sunshine, warm weather (temperatures in
the upper 80's!), crystal-clear, turquoise blue water and Caribbean vistas were
"just what the Doctor ordered." We flew into Barbados in early
December staying at a gorgeous boutique hotel in Christ Church Parish. After a
few days acclimating to "island time" and scuba diving, we boarded
the "Sea Princess" in Bridgetown to embark on a wonderfully relaxing
14-night cruise. Ports of call during our cruise took us from Barbados to St.
Lucia, to Grenada, then Bonaire and Curacao, followed by Grand Cayman, Montego
Bay, Jamaica, and Samana, Dominican Republic… continuing on to Tortola, British
Virgin Islands, St. Kitts, Antigua and Dominica. We logged more than a dozen
scuba dives in half a dozen locales. From wrecks in Barbados and St. Lucia to
pristine coral reefs and walls in Bonaire, Curacao, Grenada, Jamaica and
Dominica we enjoyed every minute of our "bottom time" and saw some
amazing marine life and dive sites. After the cruise, we returned to Barbados
and spent some more time there enjoying Bajan hospitality and cuisine before
returning home.
We are truly looking forward to
2010, our upcoming kidding season, and all the opportunities this New Year
promises…
Well, January 2010 was relatively
un-eventful here- seasonally cold temperatures with a couple of small snow
events with around 6"+ accumulations.
February has started off with a
history making snow storm (over the 5th & 6th) blanketing us with nearly of
3 feet of snow! We shoveled paths all around the farm to grant us access to our
out buildings as well as providing clear passage to the goats to reach their
heated water trough and get out of the barn to stretch their legs a little!
With more snow forecasted, Spring cannot come soon enough!

A second major east coast blizzard
of the New Year hit us just a week after the first snow event, dropping another
2+ feet of the white stuff! We've been told that during "El Niño"
years, we can expect increased snow fall here in the mid-Atlantic… but this
winter has been one for the record books!
Luckily March has arrived and with
it, we've welcomed warmer temperatures, which erased the snow… Kidding Season
has begun as well and so far (knock on wood) we are starting things off as a
"doe" year! J
It seemed that we blinked and
Spring 2010 came and went. Summer is well under way and it has proven to be an
exceptionally hot and humid one so far here in Maryland. July started off very
dry, but we luckily had a rainy weekend mid-month which revitalized the
pasture, which had begun going dormant from the lack of rain. We are busy
taking advantage of the warm weather working on projects around the farm and
are looking forward to planning our 2011 breedings.
Well, when your life is tied to the
land and nature's seasons as ours, time really flies!
Summer 2010 is now but a memory and
Autumn is upon us. At this writing in mid-November, only a few colorful leaves
continue to cling to their limbs and branches. We are nearly complete in
breeding all our eligible does for their 2011 Kiddings, and we are looking
forward to our short period of "down time" that follows breeding
season and precedes kidding season. We look forward to spending the upcoming
Holidays at home this year and to 2011, which will mark our 6th year Breeding
Nigerian Dwarf Goats.
¤
Christmas 2010 was absolutely
awesome here at Avolino Farm! Chris had been dropping hints since Thanksgiving
that he was working on some major surprises for me this year… and considering
last year's surprise was a three week Caribbean Christmas Vacation I was beside
myself wondering what he could possibly have up his sleeve!
Well, the first Christmas surprise
was a new addition to my Sugar Glider colony- a beautiful 2 year old female
Sugar Glider named Lily. She is tame and after a brief quarantine and
introductory period, she joined our main Sugar Glider habitat and we are
waiting for her to be bred. I can't wait to have a joey or two!
My second Christmas surprise was
the return of one of our Austrailian Shepherd Luna's puppies from her 2006
welping. When Luna gave birth in October 2006 she produced 6 girls and one boy.
We retained the boy, Sport, and sold all of the girls. Two years ago, one of
our customers who decided to transfer from a local community college to an
out-of-state school returned Luna's daughter "Kissy Face" to us as
she could not take her along with her. Well, as it turns out, Chris found out
before Christmas about another one of our customers who was moving and needed
to find a forever home for the Luna daughter she had. Chris arranged for a
Christmas Eve delivery of "Winnie" and I was totally floored! We were
sorry to see all of Luna's gorgeous girls leave back in 2006, but I often
talked about what a beauty Winnie was and how I regretted letting her go. So,
now she's back home and after only a week of reacquainting herself with her
mother, sister and brother- everyone is getting along great. She's become quite
a Daddy's girl all over again!
My third big surprise was a
breeding pair of Goffin Cocktoos! They are a beautiful member of the parrot
family native to Indonesia and they will definitely make a welcome addition to
our home, especially when we move to Florida where we will no doubt construct a
large outdoor aviary for them or just allow them to spend time in the screened
lanai around the pool. I hope to also get some other parrots, macaws and
cockatoos after our move and start a breeding program once we've settled in.
We had snow here Christmas weekend,
which also made this White Christmas quite memorable for us.
¤
New Years 2011 has arrived and we
are only a matter of weeks from the start of a new Kidding Season here… while
we do enjoy the short respite between breeding and kidding seasons… we are
really looking forward to this year's crop of kids as we are excited to see
more outcomes from some of our newest buck additions to our herd.
¤
January 2011 presented us almost a
half a dozen winter storms here dropping a total of about a foot and a half of
snow, sleet and freezing rain. Luckily, in between the storms, we saw some
melting, which made dealing with the precipitation more manageable around here.
And thankfully, while many in our area suffered lengthy power outages as a
result, we never lost ours. Our doe, who held the title of "herd
queen" since the founding of our Nigerian Dwarf herd, Cactus Ridge Moobeam,
passed away the first week of the month at just over 12 years old. She was a
well-traveled goat and a member of the family here. She is, and will be missed.
Kidding is just around the corner, and we are in the midst of conducting our
annual herd health testing so we are being kept pretty busy. We hope the
Groundhog will tell us we are going to have an early Spring, but with another
major nor'easter predicted for this week here… it looks like winter is going to
hold on for at least another 6-8 weeks. L
¤
Well- we were surprised that the
Groundhog did in fact predict an early Spring. And during mid-February we saw
some true Spring-like weather here… a few days in the upper 70s, lots of
sunshine, and a total thaw of all the accumulated snow and ice. But of course
this time of the year in the mid-Atlantic is touch and go… and we still had a
series of thunder-snows and ice storms toward the end of the month.
¤
March 2011 arrived with extremely
windy days (50+ mph) and some thunderstorms! And right after the bad weather
moved out- our 2011 Kidding Season began! As of this writing on March 5th… we
have had 5 does freshen with a total of 11 kids. (1 singleton, 2 sets of twins
and 2 sets of triplets) We have several more due this month so things will be
hopping around here! Kids will be available to leave the farm at weaning (8-10
weeks). We will posting photos of the new arrivals as soon as possible so check
out the Goats for Sale Page!

(Me, enjoying some
"down-time" w/ some of our 2011 kids)
Mid-April 2011 is here and mother
nature has been having some mood-swings! <g> Just when we thought Spring
had sprung- cold temperatures and gusty winds returned to enter in the month.
We are just above the 60 kid mark at this writing, and we are really, really pleased
with this year's crop of kids so far. Save for one assist on a breach delivery,
all the kiddings this season have been smooth and "text book". As we
near our move to Florida, we are going to be reducing our herd down to around
30 head and will be placing some very nice, well-bred adult stock up for sale.
In many cases, we may be retaining a 2011 kid out of a particular dam/sire and
then placing the adult doe/herdsire up for sale. Once we settle into our new
ranch down south, we'll further develop and start re-building our herd again.
¤
May 2011 is nearly over and with
only a couple more does due to kid before summer, we are virtually through with
the busiest time of our year here on the farm. Kids are being weaned and we
finally get to enjoy more of our does' milk for ourselves. We are going to be
exploring more cheese making this year, and continue with making some homemade
soap for ourselves and Christmas presents for our family. We've been spending a
lot of time this month readying one of our rental properties for sale in
preparation for our move, and it is nearly ready to be listed. We have been in
a cool, rainy weather pattern here on the Eastern Shore, and are still waiting
to get the vegetable garden tilled and planted, but thankfully, our asparagus
bed as been pumping out an abundant supply of spears for our nightly dinners.
Farm visits began earlier in the month and we've been hosting folks each
weekend to visit with our herd, learn about goat ownership, and select their
purchases from our available kids and breeding stock. We're looking forward to
things slowing down a little as we enter the first part of summer.
¤
It is mid-June and while the early
Spring was wet, things have been very hot and dry as of late. We rarely see
100+ degree temperatures here in May or June but we had about a half a dozen
days with sweltering heat over the last 2-3 weeks. Our last 2 kiddings of
"Spring" happened on May 30th. We've rehabbed our last rental house,
it is now rented, and we will be listing it for sale soon. Our final project
before getting the farm up for sale, is Chris' commercial building which we may
begin working on by the end of this month. We've continued hosting folks out to
the farm and have been saying goodbye to a number of our 2011 kid crop as well
as some yearling and adult stock. By the beginning of July, we will be placing
about 30+ adult stock up for sale as we continue to scale down before our move.
Some truly excellent specimens from our herd will be available. In July we'll
be headin' down to Ocean City for our annual beach vacation and we may also
head back down to Sarasota before summer's end to do some more house hunting
and meet with some builders we've contacted. We've been talking more lately
about the possibility of having a custom home built for us in Florida as the
price of new, luxury home construction has dropped considerably over the last
couple of years…
¤
We had a great 4th of July! Besides
hosting a number of goat customers over the weekend, we took advantage of my
4-day weekend, and got some "R&R." We've posted another group of
our adult goats up for sale as we continue to downsize in preparation for our
move. We'll probably be offering some more up before the end of the summer too.
The vegetable garden is going "gang-busters" thanks to lots of
sunshine and warm temps, though we could really use some rain in our area.
Chris has planted 100 tomato plants, about 50 pepper plants, along with lima,
wax, string, and roman flat beans, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe and watermelon,
zucchini and yellow squash, and sweet corn. He'll be starting seed flats soon
for the Fall garden, which is going to include broccoli, cabbage, brussel
sprouts, cauliflower along with some crops we'll direct sow when cooler weather
arrives…
¤
The end of July 2011 is upon us and
it has been HOT and HUMID here on Maryland's Eastern Shore. We've been in a
drought for the last 2+ months, and one only needs to glance at local
non-irrigated farms to see the effects of the weather… large tracts of corn are
brown and withered, hay fields are dormant waiting for the next rain shower to
green-up and spring-to-life once more. Just two years ago, some of our hay
farmers were lucky enough to get 5 cuttings in one season, this year, many will
be grateful to get a second cutting from their fields. The attack of the brown
marmorated stink bug continues this year as well with many orchards and farmers
feeling the scourge. In our vegetable garden, the stink bugs have destroyed our
squash plants which normally would have produced all the way up through frost.
But, despite the heat and lack of rainfall, our tomatoes, melons, peppers, and
beans are really prolific this year. One nice thing about the drought is that
lawn mowing has all but disappeared from our chore list! J Our does are being dried off as I
write this, and it is hard to believe that by this time next month, we will
have begun breeding for next year already.
¤
We're starting off August in a
continued drought. Our herd numbers continue to drop as we see more of our 2011
kid crop leave for their new homes as well as a number of awesome adult stock
from our herd. We attended my family's annual summer family reunion in
Hagerstown, MD the last weekend of July and it was good to have a day off to
catch up with family from all over the country- some whom I've never met. We're
working on our breeding line-up for 2012 and will be posting it soon. We will
have a number of bred does available for sale as breeding season kicks off. Our
goal continues to be to reduce our doe herd down to about 20-30 head prior to
our move.
¤
When you live on a farm, you
learn-- as Chris and I have-- that you can't count your chickens before they
hatch (or your goat kids before they've hit the ground.) Over the last 4 years,
I've suffered 2 miscarriages and one peri-natal loss resulting in the
stillbirth of our son in July 2009 at 21 weeks in the middle of my second
trimester. We've been passionate about wanting to start a family and subsequent
to our last loss we have been attempting to achieve that end.
It is August 8th, and it is with a
great deal of happiness that we announce that I am once again expecting. J Our excitement is tempered because
of our prior experience, but we are very, very hopeful that this time we will
become parents. Taking into consideration this news, and our eventual move- we
are definitely motivated to reduce to our over-all workload around the farm so
we can enjoy the most that the next nine months will offer.
¤
Labor Day Weekend 2011 has come and
gone and Autumn is just around the corner. We have seen a good amount of rain
over the last 3 weeks thanks to lots of afternoon thunderstorms and Hurricane
Irene whose eye came within about 60 miles of our farm. We experienced some
very high winds, lots of heavy rain bands, and luckily only suffered some
downed tree branches. Forecasters are predicting a warm Fall, and so far the
Atlantic Tropical Storm season has been quite active. We'll begin breeding soon
for 2012 and our 2012 Kidding/Breeding Schedule is posted on our site. At this
writing, I am 8 1/2 weeks into the first trimester of my pregnancy and all is
going well. J
¤
We are already half way through
September. Thanks to the abundant late summer rains here we are experiencing an
invasion of Biblical proportion of mosquitoes around the farm! It used to be a
pleasure to sit on the porch or deck in the evening after dinner and watch the
sun go down, but now all time spent outdoors is hurried to get done what needs
doing, and then to get back indoors as fast a possible. J Having attended my 1st Pregnancy
appointment last week, my Doctor assured me that at this point "everything
could not be more perfect." The baby's expected due date is April 16,
2012!
¤
We are already well into Autumn
with only another week left until November 2011 arrives. I am now 15+ weeks in
my pregnancy and all is well. (Just 25 weeks +/- to go! J)

We have been drastically reducing
our herd numbers over the last 8 weeks with numerous sales of some of the best
bloodlines our herd has to offer. In order to "seal the deal" on a
few of our package sales- we regrettably have allowed a few goats to depart whom
we truly never wished to see leave the farm… our beautiful doelings from 2011--
Claire de Lune and Karasumi have taken up new residences-- as well as a few of
our adult does and bucks who we'd planned on retaining well into the future.
All will be missed, but fewer numbers has translated into a much lighter
workload around the farm, which Chris has been handling solo since we learned
of my pregnancy back in early August. Chris has been handling all the
"heavy lifting" around the farm, including hauling hay in the last
couple of weeks to store away for winter. With less work around here, we have
been savoring the seasonally warm days and cool nights as of late. By
Thanksgiving we're hoping to have our herd's head count down to around 40
total.
¤
We're a third of the way through
November 2011 and I am now 18 weeks into my pregnancy. Everything continues to
be going well and I have started to feel some movement from the baby already!
We've wrapped up farm visits for the year and they will resume some time after
I deliver in 2012. I have successfully reduced our goat herd down to 37 goats.
This is a considerable scaling back from just about 3 years ago when, after
kidding was complete, we had nearly 300 goats on the farm! It has been an
incredibly difficult task parting with so many truly exceptional animals from
our breeding program. In the end, decisions were made to preserve some of the
absolute best of our foundation herd, maintain the core of the breeding program
from the last 3 years, and to retain the most promising kids from this year's
kidding season. With so many long-time and new breeders choosing to completely
disperse their herds over the last couple of years of economic malaise, I am
proud that we will be continuing the tradition of excellence we established
back in 2006 when we founded our Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goat herd.
¤
Wow! Time has really been flying.
Thanksgiving is just a few days away and after attending my Maternity and Fetal
Specialist today we discovered that based upon my baby's growth and dimensions-
that my expected due date has actually been moved up! We were previously told
to expect me to be at 40 weeks on April 16, 2012… well my new EDD is 4/10/12! J Everything continues to be going
very well and our anticipation is growing daily. I have some lingering
tiredness but other than that- no other pregnancy-related complaints. I began
"showing" about 3 weeks ago and I am detecting more and more movement
from the baby. I am just a couple of days shy now of the 20-week mark; the
half-way point of my pregnancy. By Christmas, I'll be at 25 weeks and by New
Years, I'll be starting my third trimester… as I said, Whoo! Time is really
flying!!!

Around the farm- we're breeding our
does later than usual to have most kiddings take place after my delivery so we
are keeping an eye on the girls when they cycle and have been getting them
paired up with their service sires in our breeding stalls. We've had a
mixed-bag of weather here lately with a few days of "Indian Summer" warmth
and of course the beginning of the cold, damp, gray days that signal winter is
around the corner. Despite the rest of the garden succumbing to the first
frosts of the season- we are enjoying the last crop of the year: sweet
potatoes! We have about a 50 foot row in the vegetable garden and Chris had dug
up only about 2 feet of the row so far, and we've harvested about 1/2 bushel of
gorgeous Beauregard tubers. One of the first ones he uprooted was literally the
size of a football! Chris will start planning next years garden after the New
Year, and using his cold frame, will begin starting seeds in flats by
Valentines Day for early season crops.
¤
For the first time, at our OB
appointment, we were afforded the opportunity to see a 3-D ultrasound image of
our baby! It was amazing!!! Everything continues to go well for my pregnancy
and the baby is growing according to expectations. Here is a 3-D image of the
baby's feet and legs crossed:

Christmas 2011 was very special for
me. Being pregnant made things extra meaningful. I received lots of great
maternity wear and gift certificates for future clothing purchases. Chris
gutted and remodeled our kitchen's pantry closet and our mud room for me. We
spent Christmas Eve day with Chris' mother and sister (and his sister's husband
and kids who were in town visiting from Seattle, Washington) and that evening
with some of Chris' extended family at his cousin's house. Christmas Day was
spent at his aunt and uncle's where we had a traditional Italian Christmas
Dinner. We had spaghetti with meatballs and pepperoni in a red sauce, rigatoni
with sausage, peppers and onions, a prime rib roast, baked ziti, farfalle with
grilled chicken and roasted peppers in a parmigiano reggiano cream sauce, a
mixed green salad, and bread. Desserts were also plentiful! I took the week in
between Christmas and New Year's off which was a nice, relaxing break. We
completed our winter herd management, visited with family and friends, and got
a few projects done around the house.
¤
It is New Year's Day 2012. Happy
New Year!!!
I am now 26 weeks into my pregnancy
with just 14 weeks to go until my expected due date (40 weeks). From today
(January 1st) until April 10th (my expected due date) there just happen to be
100 more days to go. We will be officially counting down these last 100 days as
the delivery date gets closer. Our anticipation grows steadily each and every
day. Every evening Chris and I spend time feeling the baby's movements after we
finish dinner.
This kid can really pack quite a
punch! J
And before bed every night, Chris talks to my belly which often results in more
kicking and punching from the baby! <g>
My third trimester will begin in
about a week, and my next ultrasound is in about a week and a half, and we are
excited to see new images of the baby. The baby is gaining about 6oz. a week
right now- mostly fat deposits along with some weight gain in bone and organ
development. The last official weight was just before Christmas at just about 2
pounds. At our last appointment our Doctors told us that just around the middle
of January- the baby will officially become viable.
¤
I have officially started my 3rd
trimester and am at 28 weeks in my pregnancy right now. We have begun our Labor
and Delivery Classes, and my most recent ultrasounds were simply amazing. I'm
feeling well, despite having a cold for about a week-- which is the first time
I have been sick during my pregnancy. We are getting more and more excited as
there are just 12 weeks to go. We will be very busy over the next 12 weeks
though, and I hope eventually to start slowing down a bit as my delivery date
grows closer.
Our Smiling Baby! (27 weeks)
I'm now at 30 weeks and all is
continuing to go well with my pregnancy. "The kid" as I have begun
affectionately referring to the baby is very active! It seems "the
kid" has made every corner of my womb his or her "stomping grounds!"
J I find it so amazing-- the
connection that I have already forged with this little person living inside of
me. I've told Chris on several occasions lately that I think I am going to miss
being pregnant after delivery. (I see these words as I type them and I know it
sounds crazy!)
My Doctor visits are have been every
two weeks and we have just completed our Labor and Delivery classes. We still
have several more classes and programs that we will be participating in
including breast feeding and lactation, infant CPR, infant nutrition, and
caring for a newborn. January came and went as time continues to fly. We just
entered February 2012 and my baby shower is later this month; I am really
looking forward to getting together with family and friends.
-Danielle
Ó Copyright Avolino Farm, 2006,
2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012