(Almost) 33 Weeks

Well tomorrow is 33 weeks. WAHOO! It's pretty unreal to be so close. The wonderful ladies at work are throwing me a shower tomorrow and I am really looking forward to it... and it's crazy to think that I am only going to working for another 5 weeks. And things are so busy with all the recruiting visits we have going, and the stimulus money available for grants, plus the prep for getting everything in order for my leave including the temp who is starting next Monday...

Can I tell you how huge I am??? I almost need arm extensions for anything since my belly keeps me like 2 feet further away than I would normally be from anything. I feel like the bubble boy, but the bubble doesn't encompass my whole body, just my abdomen. Ryan keeps bumping into it and knocking around it, looking down surprised, like "what the heck was that???". It doesn't help that he is like 3 feet above it and can't even really see it from his height. I'm bumping into stuff all over the place too. One of these days the space I try to fit through just won't be big enough and there I will get stuck. I've gotten pretty close. I still try to turn sideways to fit through spaces, even though I know I'm just as wide sideways as I am frontways. In fact, I think at this point I am probably bigger sideways.

And the peeing is crazy. I feel like I have to go all the time, and when I go sometimes a little tinkle is my only reward. The other night, Aurora was resting just right pinching my piping and I actually had to physically move her to be able to get the flow going... geez kid!

Our last childbirth class is on Wed and I am amazed that it has already been 6 weeks since we started them. It was so much fun, and I really liked the couples we met there. We are doing a dessert potluck for our last class (Yummy!) and we are all going to email baby pics to our instructor who will send them around for us all to see, then after all our babies are born we are going to get together for a little reunion!!! I am really excited about that, it was a great way to meet some parents with same aged babies, and you already have a head start in knowing them. We still have a newborn care class this month too and then all our classes are done!

Ok so I have to brag about my wonderful Ryan. I went on a womens retreat with Cheryl (Ryan's Mom) this weekend. It was beautiful up in Pine Valley, and besides it being a really meaningful theme about forgiveness (a topic I have miles to work on) it was just a wonderful weekend, including a great afternoon of playing bridge with Aunt Diana, Nana and one of the other church ladies.

Anyway, there were some things that we needed to get done for baby set up of the house before Aurora comes, and Ryan was going to take the weekend to get some of it done since time is getting away from us now in the final months. All I thought he was going to do was move all the beer stuff out of the bookcase in the den, and get rid of the "beer fridge" in there.

Well when I came home, he really surprised me, because he had done it all!!! He replaced the window blinds in her room (something I really wanted done before she gets here), brought up the rocking chair, put the dresser in place and filled it with all the baby stuff, put up the table that was in the room on the wall as a wall decoration piece, and hung my dad's wreaths that he had made on them, so it looks like we actually have a theme now; natural & nature-y with neutral colors - perfect for us!!!

To make room for everything he took the two bookshelves that were in her room and moved them down into the old den which is now going to be a game/craft/play room, and moved all my scrapbooking stuff, and all the games downstairs too. I already had missed him all weekend from being away from him, then I came home to that and I just was overtaken with so much love for him!!!

I love my wonderful husband!

30 weeks +, going strong!

Well, on Tuesday I will be 31 weeks. Wowza! Things are so crazy busy, I feel like I don't have time to blink! (And I don't have room to breathe, for that matter). I can't believe that March is already half over. I am really looking forward to my next two showers, Nicole's shower, the weekend at the ranch, my easter egg decorating day, Easter itself, there are so many fun events as we head through spring and closer to our sweet Aurora making her exit/entrance. (Exit from her personal heated swimming pool, entrance into the big vast world).

It is really nice though, that this last trimester is going so fast, because, believe me, I am ready for it to be over! Some mothers you talk to just LOVE being pregnant. They are the ones with no symptoms, didn't start showing until they were 5 months pregnant, and at month 9 look like they ate a few burritos. I am not one of them. Don't get me wrong, there is no greater joy than growing the miracle of life, no greater honor than to carry your own and give them everything they need physically for 9 months to one day become a whole human. And it's fun to feel them kick in your stomach, and see the movement happen. Amazing to see the ultrasound and follow the progression of this tiny person who started in your uterus as a tiny grain of rice and eventually develops into a 6+ lb baby to leave able to survive outside the whom... but in general, there are a zillion other things I would rather be doing for 9 months than being sick as a dog in every way imaginable, too hot for comfort, fat as a pig, suddenly complete with cow udders that are very milkable and an ever growing tumor in your abdomen that displaces your stomach, your lungs and your bladder all at once. I don't enjoy waking up having to go pee more badly than I have ever had to before, rolling around for 5 min in bed just trying to get up enough momentum to get off the edge, stumbling to the toilet, managing to find a seat and discovering that a trickle of about 3 tablespoons of pee was what all the fuss was about (reference to the displaced bladder from above). Repeat ~4 times a night. And I am one of the lucky ones. My friends are on the 7-8 times per night schedule. It's not fun to regurgitate my food and drink for hours if I swallow an ounce more than a cup of anything at a time; as far as I know, I'm not a bird and don't have 4 chicks in a nest to feed. When Aurora comes, I will have a full appreciation for the sacrifice that my body has made to create this wondrous miracle, and it will be worth every bit that I went through to get her here.

Oh yeah, and I don't think I will have trouble breastfeeding, which makes me very happy; I can get a few drops of colostrum if I try. And I just couldn't help myself; my curiosity got the best of me, and I tasted it. It didn't taste like much and I didn't have the guts to taste any more. :0)

"Sorry it's Been so Long" Update

Tomorrow marks week 29, the beginning of the 3rd and final trimester. I feel like I have finally made it to the top of the roller coaster after months of agonizingly slow clickity clicks for each "pregnancy milestone" and now as I round the top of the crest the rest of the ride will just flash past me and suddenly I'm going to be heaving-ho in a UCSD hospital bed to get my little girl out of my stomach and into our arms!

Something that has kept me busy among other things, is my crappy prego immune system. I thought my last sickness was just a fluke; a bad cold exacerbated by allergies, but here I am a month later with another just-as-bad of a cold that has had me on my ass for almost a week now, having to admit that I no longer have the immune system of an elephant, and am completely susceptible to any bug or germ floating in my general vicinity that thinks I am just too cute to pass up for a night on the town (and then some). And the fact that you can't take hardly anything makes it pretty unbearable and harder to get over. (So this is what things were like before drugs!) Ok, complaining rant complete.

We started our childbirth classes last week. We are taking the extended 6 week series (Weds from 7-9 = way past my bedtime = I'm going in PJs and no one can stop me). I was pleased with the first one. I don't expect to learn anything really new (and I didn't at the first one) since I have been so religious about reading material - magazines, online articles, all the books, etc. - but I am hoping to get Ryan more involved with the info since he has not been. We spent some time doing some "social" activities with the other couples, which was interesting. One of the activities exemplified the Venus vs. Mars outlooks of women vs. men. We got into those two groups and came up with lists of the best and worst things we have encountered with pregnancy so far. The women came up with one good thing: being able to feel the baby move. The men came up with a number of good things that none of us women even considered a good thing, like bigger boobs. Way to think outside of the box guys. Ryan suggested that he was getting more good food cooked than normal; the other guys looked at him like he was crazy. I guess they are getting more crazy cravings from their women, and having to make late night runs to random restaurants. lol. It was a nice bonding experience for Ryan and I and I am looking forward to the classes to come.

My first shower is already next weekend! I am so excited. I also move into my own office at work next week too, which will be really convenient for when I come back to work and need to be breast pumping. Ryan and I got a lot of "clean up" chores done this weekend, including taxes, paperwork cleanup, general clean up... Things are starting to fall into place, and Aurora will be here before we know it!!!