What a Week!

The first half of the week was great. Little Guy's check-up on Tuesday went well, as usual. He's right on track and I'm slightly dilated. I was disappointed that the doctor couldn't tell me anything about when I'll deliver except that I won't go beyond 42 weeks! Best not to think about that scenario. I doubt he'll be much overdue, if at all. I'm having practice contractions, and they've become stronger and more painful in the last week.

Work was a real challenge on Thursday and Friday. We had big submittals going out both days, and of course something usually goes wrong when we have big deadlines. My job is to coordinate all of the pieces of the submittal from different engineers, get it copied, and deliver it to the client. Everything was going well on Thursday until the girl who works in our copy room came back from lunch drunk. She couldn't understand anything I was trying to tell her, and her movements and speech made me wonder if she'd had a stroke or something. So I had to try to finish the copy job myself, which killed my back and feet, and I missed the FedEx deadline anyway.

Friday's submittal wasn't much better. The engineers didn't have their stuff ready on time, so it put me even farther behind. I stayed an hour late to get the originals ready for the printers (I sent this one to an outside printing company!), and then my bus home was another hour late! There is nowhere to sit around the bus stop, and my feet and back felt bruised from standing so long. I was almost in tears, I was so tired and frustrated. Thankfully when I got home last night Adam had picked up dinner and I got to kick back and watch my favorite show, Escape to Chimp Eden. We curled up on the couch (kind of a challenge right now), and Adam rubbed my hair until I fell asleep :)

Today has been a gorgeous day. There's nothing like that first day of spring when you get to wear your flip flops and go without a jacket. We had a nice day out, and now we're going to have dinner and watch Marley & Me. Some of the women in our labor class talked about how hard the movie made them cry, so hopefully I'll survive it. It hasn't taken much to make me cry lately. I teared up the other day when I discovered that my last clean shirt that actually fits had a big stain on it.

Here's a picture of us at 37 1/2 weeks. Little Guy is showing his support for his Aunt Katie's school, Purdue.

Little Guy's Room

His nursery is ready to go, finally! We have our carseat installed, his clothes are washed and put away, and now we can't wait! I have been really restless the past couple of days, and having lots of practice contractions. We're still about 3 1/2 weeks away, but he could come earlier.


It's been nice to have time to get things taken care of. I even took the car to the dealership yesterday to get caught up on all of the routine maintenance. While I was waiting I got a big craving for hot dogs, and I spent a good half hour in the waiting room thinking about whether or not I felt like going to the effort to buy hot dogs and cook them. Finally I decided it wasn't worth the effort. But then on my way home from the dealership, I stopped at a Walgreens for something, and a group was having a hot dog cookout outside the store to support the American Cancer Society. I couldn't believe my luck! Little Guy and I got our hot dog, and I wrote our names down on the donation card. (You'll have to go to the Lake City Walgreens here in Seattle if you want a sneak peek at his name!)


I made a photo collage (you can see it in the second picture above) for Little Guy's room so he'll be able to see his family every day. He's been pretty quiet the last couple of days, probably because I can't sit still. He's still moving around though, so no worries! Speaking of worries, the swine flu scare made us a little anxious. Even Adam got a little worried when they announced the first cases in our area. I called and talked to my doctor's nurse, and she reassured me that there are safe treatments for pregnant women. I really hope the outbreak continues to be mild, since Little Guy will be here so soon.


He'll be full-term in just 2 days! We have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday to check if I'm dilated at all, and afterwards we're going out for dinner to celebrate Little Guy being full-term. I'm going to work another couple of weeks. I'm still sleeping really well and just mildly uncomfortable, but it's hard to keep my mind on work. I'm really looking forward to my last day!

IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!!

Now you get to read the rest of this blog entry with the 80's song in your head. It's now my theme song, since it takes a little pumping up just to walk down the hall to the bathroom at work. Little Guy is due 4 weeks from tomorrow! My energy is waning and I've had some REALLY uncomfortable days, but overall I think I'm pretty lucky.

We had our last parenting class yesterday - Infant Safety & CPR. It was upsetting just to think about using anything we learned in the class, but it also helps me to feel more ready. We know what to do in the worst possible situation, so I feel less pressure to know everything else. I spent a good part of last week studying up on baby poop - who knew there could be so many variations??

I know I've said it before, but Little Guy is REALLY getting big now. He's been poking his feet out my side all day, and I'm not so sure all of his adorable little socks are going to fit those boats!
His room is almost ready. We finally found a lamp and curtains after an exhausting day of shopping on Saturday. I was dead set on finding something before we went home, and Adam very patiently drove me to every store I could think of. We even thought about custom ordering curtains at JC Penney, but the saleswoman was really rude to us. We could tell it was because she sized us up as having no money; I was wearing a wrinkled men's tshirt and my hair was in a messy ponytail.

Adam has been really great about helping around the house, and it's been really cool going through this process together. During a break at one of our parenting classes, all of the moms rushed to the bathroom, and as we came out the dads were lined up in the hallway waiting. It was cute to see Adam standing there as one of the dads. They all had similar dazed looks on their faces. Adam is one of the most easy-going people I know, but even he gets a little nervous about the birth and parenting.

Getting Closer!

We'll be 35 weeks along next Tuesday - it's hard to believe we're this close! We went to a breastfeeding class today, which made me feel more confident that I'll be able to do it when the time comes. We had several hours to kill downtown before we headed back to the hospital for a birth center tour, so we went down to Pike Place Market and spent a relaxing hour at the bookstore. Little Guy had a photo op with Barack Obama...

I had a rough week at work. I had multiple long meetings that required a lot of coordination, and I struggled to keep up. In the past I liked the chaos, but now it's just exhausting. I felt really frustrated with myself for forgetting things and not having everything perfect. And I've had to ask for help, which is tough sometimes. Most of my coworkers have been great about helping, but I give myself a hard time, even though I know that's silly!

Finally on Friday I had to laugh at myself for being so uptight. I was sitting in yet another meeting, feeling miserable because I was so uncomfortable and couldn't focus. I was roasting (even though the woman next to me was shivering), and my hands and feet swelled up like sausages. My back was hurting and my sciatic nerve was compressed (aka butt cramp). Then my laptop crashed and I thought my notes were lost forever. I had two hours left in the day when I got back to my desk, and I thought I'd never make it. But then I thought about how I would do absolutely anything for Little Guy...step in front of a train, whatever (although right now that would be counterproductive), and I realized that my discomfort and frustration are such small things. Thinking about things in that way gave me a fresh burst of energy (maybe not a "burst," but I was able to stay conscious at least). It helps just to accept that there are going to be challenges and not get too worked up about them.


Little Guy's room is coming along great. Adam painted it last weekend and we set up his furniture. We need to do the finishing touches, but we should have pictures soon. It's already cuter than I imagined, and more spacious. Now I just need to find curtains and a lamp - I thought it would be easy to find simple yellow curtains and a lamp with a yellow shade, but so far no luck!

Oh my!

We had our childbirth class yesterday. It was a great class - the instructor was hilarious and the other couples were really nice. Since it was only an 8-hour class, we didn't get to talk about things in much detail, but it gave us an idea of what we want to learn more about and what decisions we need to make.

I was a bit freaked out by the birth videos she showed. It wasn't so much the actual births as all of the moaning and groaning before-hand. We learned some great coping techniques, but it made me realize that it's going to be more work than I thought. I had this idea that you go to the hospital, sit in the bed for however many hours, and then the hard work happens when you push. I didn't realize how exhausting and painful the actual contractions would be. I had trouble falling asleep last night just thinking about it, but I feel better today. Adam was really into the class and learning all of the coaching techniques, and I'm going to read through the book they gave us and practice the coping techniques.

It was also good to learn more about pain control. I'm going to do my best to stick it out through the contractions until we're pretty far along, then go for the epidural when/if it gets unbearable. We learned that it will minimize our risk of a c-section or of slowing the labor if we wait until a certain point. I didn't have strong feelings about a regular birth versus c-section until the class, when they talked about the recovery period for a c-section. I'm ready to take it easy for a couple of weeks once he's here, but I'll lose my mind if I'm that limited for 6 weeks.

We saw the doctor today, and Little Guy is doing great. My belly measurement is right on and my blood pressure is good. AND I only gained 2 pounds since my last visit. If I keep the pound a week rate, I'll gain a total of 40. A little on the high side, but not too bad. The doctor was able to feel Little Guy's position, and he's head down, right where he should be! He's turned facing my right side, which explains why I feel all of his kicks on that side. He has had hiccups at least twice a day for the past week, and his hearing seems to be more sensitive. He jumped earlier today when someone honked one of those air horns outside, and he did another little jump when the microwave dinged while I was making dinner.

A Tapeworm Called Little Guy

Here we are at 32 weeks! Two different strangers made comments this week about how the baby "must be due any day." Yep, any day 8 weeks from now! I'm not going to have anything to wear towards the end because I've about grown out of everything already.

I can't stop eating today! My two pregnant friends at work talk about how hard it is to eat because their stomachs are too compressed. I don't have that problem. (They're both having girls, so their bellies aren't about to drop to the floor like mine.) I woke up with a growling stomach at 4 am, so I had my nightly glass of Nesquik. I went back to bed but couldn't sleep because the growls started up again. So I had a bowl of cereal, and managed to sleep another four hours before the growls woke me up again. I've heard these hungry days are a sign that the baby is having a growth spurt. He's already so big that he can hook a foot through my ribs and squeeze my bladder at the same time!

Tomorrow is our childbirth class. I'm excited to see the hospital and know a little more about what to expect. But I hope we don't learn so much that we start getting nervous. I just want to know anything that will help the birth go smoothly.

The weather has finally turned spring-like, after we had SNOW earlier this week. I was sitting through a grueling 5-hour meeting at work, and I looked out the window to see a flurry of snowflakes! I got an eye twitch that still hasn't completely gone away, even after my boss's April Fool's joke. During the meeting, the client asked my boss if any design changes had been made on a certain structure. My boss replied, "No, except we decided to use [such-and-such] rebar." The room was dead silent except for the sound of me clicking away on my laptop, oblivious to the tension in the room. (I, of course, had no idea how horrific an idea it would be to use [such-and-such] rebar.) Then my boss smiled and said, "April Fools!" and all of the engineers cracked up with relief. Now imagine my boss with his goofy glasses and ever-present bed-head. Goofy as they are, the engineers I work with are really smart and nice to work with. It's nice to work in an environment where most people are focused on the work and you don't have to tiptoe around a minefield of egos.

Relaxing Weekend

I cheated a little bit on our chill-out weekend. I went in to work Saturday for a couple of hours to get caught up. It was a crazy week and I'm starting to train another Project Coordinator on my projects. It's weird having someone else take over the things I've been doing for a year. I'm more attached than I realized! But she's a hoot to work with and seems really sharp, so it will all work out. I'm planning to work until my due date, but we want to make sure she's ready to take over in case Little Guy comes early.

Yesterday was freezing cold and rainy, so I spent the rest of Saturday stretched out in the recliner reading a really dumb chick lit book. It was great. Today was a little busier. The weather was the best it's been in months - we actually saw the sun for more than a few minutes! We took a nice walk to the library. Well, it was nice on the way down. Adam had to sort of push me back up the hill when we walked home. I just love the little community we live in. We saw families out playing in the park, kids riding bikes, people walking their dogs... it's well worth the longer commute to live outside the city!

I enjoyed some cooking and baking today. I made potato leek soup in the crockpot (easy and delicious!), baked a sponge cake topped with strawberries, and made homemade granola bars. Ok, I cheated and used store-bought granola. It was fun, but my back and feet were really hurting afterwards!

I'm amazed at how good I still feel (knock on wood). Most days I feel pretty energetic. My biggest complaint is that I get frequent jimmy legs. It drives me nuts sometimes! The other night I was stretched out in the recliner, and I couldn't stop shifting my legs around. Little Guy must have had the jimmies too, because he was kicking me in the ribs non-stop, which made for an uncomfortable evening. I'm pretty sure he's already turned, because the past two days I've felt his hiccups low in my stomach.

Here are some photos of our new house we took today:

(I really need to hem those curtains. I bought a little hand-held sewing machine but gave up after sewing a bunch of jagged lines.)



Here's my easy recipe for Potato-Leek Soup:

4 cups diced potatoes
3 or 4 leeks
2 sliced carrots
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

Combine all ingredients in crock pot and cook on low for 8 hours.

Add dairy and spices in the last 20 minutes of cooking:

1/2 cups half-and-half, cream, or milk
1 cup shredded cheddar
salt and pepper to taste

Mash with a potato masher or mixer.