Pregnancy - Week 37

Today marks the end of week 37 and I am officially wanting this baby out!

Week 37 started off with a weekly doctors appointment.  I had my first official cervical check and am already 2 cm dilated. The doctor said this was "good news" especially since I hadn't been having any noticeable contractions. She said "progress without pain is always good!" I had mixed feelings at that point.  We are in the process of getting a new roof put on the house and this baby cannot come until after that is done! (currently scheduled for tomorrow...fingers crossed for no rain!). Now that a whole week has passed, I'm taking all the progress I can get! Although I fully realize I can walk around all kinds of dilated for weeks on end.  Yay.

I thought I was standing in front of our tree...not a dead patch of grass and the neighbors AC unit... sigh. Also, this shirt is clearly not flattering, but dammit it's comfy!

We are busy at home getting all the final little things set up, like the swing, the cradle, the monitor, and the pack n play.  I've washed all the bottles and binkies, my hospital bag is in the car and I carry my makeup and phone charger in my purse with me wherever I go. I keep telling Zach we are like the boy scouts right now... always prepared!

Baby-wise, he's definitely dropped. Or he's just so huge that it feels like it.  I've got the "beach ball between my legs" feeling and lots and lots of pelvic pressure, so much that it sometimes wakes me up at night.  He's still moving and grooving in there.  Sometimes I'm looking down and my stomach will literally jump two inches to the side and back. It is the coolest/craziest thing!! 

We had another busy but restful weekend. I've been getting in the habit of waking up early with the dogs, feeding them, eating breakfast myself and then going back to bed until close to noon!! I feel bad for wasting my whole morning, but I'm taking all the sleep I can get, whenever I can get it because nighttime sleep is very hit or miss.  Saturday I went to my friend, Erica's bachlorette party. Lucky for me she just wanted to have a girls night at her apartment. We played games, chatted and I watched everyone drink. It was actually a really great time though.  It was nice to get out one last time with the girls before the baby gets here!!  Then Sunday Zach's work threw him a surprise shower! His boss called me on Friday and asked if I wanted to come and of course I said yes.  He was really surprised to see me and I think it' so cool that his co-workers went all out for him! They even had games and cupcakes! That's not too common for the guys these days!!

So, now we are just waiting. I've been having light contractions on and off the past few days. Sometimes I try to time them, but I still can't tell when one ends and another begins. That just tells me that it's definitely not the real thing yet.  Hopefully soon though!! Stay tuned!

Foreshadowing?

Just for fun one night, way before we were even engaged, Zach and I thought it would be funny to try out "The Gene Machine" at Dave & Busters. Here's the result.  Could this be what our kid will look like?  You never know, but it sure was funny!

Pregnancy - Week 36

I should be pretty darn thankful that I've had such a "boring" pregnancy.  I really don't have a whole lot of updates this week, which is good! I'm at the end now and quite honestly starting to get really nervous!!  I've run out of baby projects to occupy me so now I just kind of putter around the house and find myself sitting in the baby room staring at all the stuff.  It's really kind of surreal!

The weather has finally cooled (way) off and I am loving every second of it!!  We had another beautiful weekend too.  Saturday, Zach spent half the day raking leaves and I spent half the day taking naps, I was so exhausted that day. I even got in a little rest outside on the deck and got some color!!  That night we went on our "date night/anniversary dinner" to The Dish in Liberty. I know it's nothing fancy, but that's totally us and the pizza was delish!  Sunday I got a burst of energy and cleaned the house, ran a bunch of errands and did some baking! Boy, was I ever sore that night!! 

Physically things are pretty much the same.  I'm really sore, really tired and moving slightly slower than a snail. I think the baby has dropped or is just getting really big because I'm having quite a bit of pelvic pressure and pain at times.  Sometimes I will stand up and feel like I've been kicked square in the crotch a thousand times.  Luckily once I get moving most of the discomfort goes away. It's just the getting up and getting going that takes the effort.  I've also started getting some mild carpal tunnel in my fingers. The tips of all of my fingers are numb all day and in the morning I can hardly move my right hand.  However it's nothing that has been too bad, just weird.

Lubbin' on the baby....

The baby has been quite the mover and shaker lately!!  Lots of people say they stop feeling movement as often once they get this far along, but I've actually been feeling much more!! There's always this one random body part that he likes to poke out all the time, I'm guessing a knee??  My doctor says he's head down and once I showed her where all the movement is she said he's just a "little rump shaker" ha! It is really neat feeling him that much though!  The hiccups are also really cool too. He gets them for LONG periods of time too!!

So, that's that.  I'm officially "Full Term" now at 37 weeks.  He could come at any time! How crazy is that?!

The Baby's Room

So, the baby's room is finally done!  I actually had a lot of fun putting this together.  I never went into it with a "theme".  I knew I wanted to do wood alphabet letters in lots of different colors and patterns, but beyond that I had no idea where this was going to end up.  I stuck to mostly blues in all different shades and threw in some green here and there as well.  We wanted to do something that could easily transition into a "little boy's room" once he gets old enough to proclaim what he wants.  I really do love it and cannot wait to spend time with our little guy in there. 

Looking in from the hallway

Alphabet Wall - Opposite from the crib. I figure it will be something for him to look at when he's older and chilling out after a nap or whatever. Ha! This is probably the most "creative" thing I've ever done on my own and I've got to say I'm quite proud of it!!

The corner of the room I had no idea what to do with. I thought some colorful paper lanterns (not lit) would be cute.

The dresser and changing area.  The pictures above are of our little family, some will be replaced with baby pictures once we have them.

The bookcase and storage area.  The picture is the movie poster for "Matchmaker Mary". Our little Missy dog was used in it while she was a "waif" at Wayside when we were waiting to adopt her, so her picture is on it several times. I went to the big movie premier (ha!) when it came out and got this poster thinking I'd put it in a baby's room one day.  We also own the movie and I'm sure we'll watch it with the kid someday! 

I have a feeling we'll be spending plenty of time here.

Organizing closets is not my strong suit, especially ones this small, but this neat organizer thing really helps. Clearly, this is still a work in progress...

Ted's always checking on me.

Now we just need a baby!!

Four Years

Today is our our 4th wedding anniversary.  

It still feels like yesterday.  I can't wait to see what the next year has in store for us!

Pregnancy - Week 35

Another week down!


I'm really tired and am having a hard time coming up with much of anything to say about this week that isn't mopey or whiney, but I'll try...  My appointment this week went well. As it turns out I was definitely pretty swollen last week when I went in because ended up LOSING quite a bit of weight. Even my doctor said it was "dramatic" but overall she wasn't worried about it since everything else looked alright.  I'm just convinced that most of this awful weight I'm hauling around is water and am even more hopeful that it will quickly go away after birth... As you can see the baby is growing *quite* well...

 

I plan on working up until my due date, but oh man, it is hard!  I'm glad I have something to do during the day so I don't go crazy thinking about the baby, but I am SO uncomfortable all day long.  It's really taking a lot out of me, but I still think I can hang in there till the end. Not so sure about my wardrobe though. I keep trying to figure out a creative way to wear yoga pants to work, but haven't come up with anything yet.  Ideas?... *sigh*

I think I had my first bout of contractions Sunday night.  I hadn't been feeling super well all day and then at 11:30 pm, I shot out of bed with awful cramps and a super tight stomach.  I did a few laps around the living room, drank some water and completely freaked out Zach before laying back down.  I guess they stopped because I ended up falling asleep, but I was up and down all night.  It obviously didn't turn out to be anything since I am still very pregnant and haven't had anything close to that since, but it was eye opening! I packed my hospital bag the next day! :)

In preparation news, I hung some more things in the nursery and I promise it's almost done.  I hope to have pictures by next week!  Getting the mail has become super fun too!  It seems as though every day there some sort of new baby goodie in there.  Our house has been completely overtaken by baby things too. Right now we have a stroller in the dining room, pack-n-play and swing in the living room, a whole cabinet full of baby food gear, a laundry room full of baby bedding and we'll be setting the cradle up in our bedroom shortly!  There's no denying that the baby is coming soon!

We continue to "train" the dogs.  This week we got the gate I plan on using to section off the house when we are doing tummy time, have visitors or just want a dog-free area set up.  I've been trying it out every so often.  They aren't happy about it, but so far we haven't had any major melt downs, which makes me super happy.  They just seem to know something is going on and have been really good about the sudden influx of baby things, so I'm hopeful that the transition to having a real-live baby will be good as well.

So, now there's less than a month left to go... I still can't believe it.

Gettin' Married

My younger brother is anyway.  

Several months ago Vince and Sheena asked me if I'd "take their engagement pictures".  Seeing as how I only knew how to use the "automatic" setting on my camera and, well, the fact that I'm not a photographer*, I didn't quite know what to do.  But, they suckered me in.  Zach gave me a very brief camera tutorial in the backyard the night before the session.  We headed out one morning during that horrible heatwave and took as many pictures as we could before it got too hot out.  Much to my surprise, we got several pretty decent shots!  I suppose it doesn't hurt that the subjects are so good-lookin'!

Congrats to Sheena and Vince! Can't wait for the wedding in June!

 

  

*I still don't know what the heck I'm doing with the camera and I by no means think I'm some sort of photographer, but I had a good time anyway!  I'm sure I'll get in much more practice when the little one gets here!

Pregnancy - Week 34

Well tomorrow is the big 35/35 milestone.... 35 weeks pregnant, 35 days to go. I still can't decide if I'm really excited or really nervous! There's still so much to do, but at the same time we seem pretty ready.

Week 34 has been... a bit trying.  I ended up going to the doctor on Wednesday because I felt abnormally swollen. Usually I wake up to minimal swelling but that day I woke up just as poofy as when I went to bed the night before. In addition to my feet and hands being swollen I had some seriously pouty lips.  Everything ended up being perfectly fine and the nurse practitioner said the swelling wasn't that bad, however the weight gain in one week leads me to believe that I was indeed quite swollen because I haven't been eating nearly as much as before so there's no way that was all "weight gain".  Whatever. I'm thinking about telling them to stop showing me my weight. It's starting to get really upsetting, which is so silly because obviously I'll gain weight and I KNOW how to get rid of it once the baby comes, but still... it's hard.

I started doing all the baby laundry this week as well.  Wow, he has a lot of outfits!!  I believe I counted over 35 onesies and probably the same amount in sleepers.  I've been assured that they will all be used, but wow, it seems like a lot!  However, I can't complain because it was by far the cutest laundry I've ever done in my life :)  The blankets are all folded and all the clothes are put away. All I have left to do is the bedding, changing covers and random toy mats and whatnot.  We also hung the blackout curtains and I once I hang up a few more things the nursery will be totally ready!  

I also had my mom come over to teach me how to make the SUPER SECRET Italian cookies that she's famous for. I made them for my friend Erica's bridal shower and they were a hit!  Thanks, Mom! 

Physically I like to say I'm feeling alright (besides the swelling). I haven't had many bad Braxton Hicks and I feel pretty normal as long as I'm being lazy and lounging around, but I do have a pretty persistent back ache and getting up and down from bed or the couch is quite challenging and uncomfortable.  I am really looking forward to being able to move without grunting or moaning!  Also, the day I get to sleep on my stomach again might go down as a national holiday, even if it is only for an hour or two at a time. I cannot wait!

I've been going back and forth on posting pictures because I just cannot get over how puffy and exhausted I look, but to heck with it. Here you go....

Anello Baby Shower

Last weekend was my final baby shower. We've been so lucky to have so many people want to shower us with love that I ended up with 4 showers!  Which, for someone who tends to shy away from the spotlight can be a bit much, but I still had a great time.

This last one was thrown by my Aunt Janell and cousin Claire.  My Anello side of the family is quite large (hello, Italian Catholics!), but also tends to be mostly boys, so luckily when all the ladies get together it isn't too overwhelming. We had a really great time and once again, the baby was spoiled absolutely rotten.  Zach and I have hardly anything left that we need to buy before the big day!  So lucky!

Here are some pictures from the fun day!

 

 

And of course, once I got home Ted needed to inspect everything. He was only a little disappointed that there wasn't anything for him. 

Now Missy on the other hand? I caught her a few minutes later with a stuffed rattle under the kitchen table.  We might have some training to do...