Being Thankful

As Thanksgiving approaches I have been thinking about all of the things I am thankful for. I know I sound like a Charlie Brown special. I have a great family and a special baby on the way. God has blessed me with tremendous friends and the resources not to have to worry about where my next meal is coming from. I have a good job that I like well enough and that hopefully will be flexible with me after the baby is born and a nursery full of all of the supplies the bean could possibly need thanks to generous friends and family. I just feel so blessed. I really do.

The countdown to bean's arrival continues. Everyone at the office thinks it is going to be sometime over the holiday weekend. I think my boss might have a cow, no pun intended, if that happens because I am smack in the middle of writing a new business presentation that is due on Wednesday. I am working down to the wire but I have decided that the 30th will be my last day. That will give me a week to be at home before bean's official due date. I am hoping to relax and hang out with my friends who are already on maternity leave maybe offering a bit of baby respite so they can you know shower and stuff. :)

I hope all of my friends and family who read this have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

Redbeard the Redbird Lover

So remeber how nutso I told you Jeff was about the post-season? Here is proof. This was the game where the Cards clinched the NLDS. Note his red beard and hair. Yes, I love him even though he is nuts!

No Really, I am Happy to Be This Large

This is my first attempt at posting photos so here is one of me feeling very preggo for those of you who have not seen my girth. This was actually about a month ago so I am even larger now. Maybe I will try to get my entire body in one frame and post that later.

Two Down, Two to Go

So as previously stated there are/were four of us at church that were pregnant. The second of our friends had her baby this weeked. She is super cute. That leaves me and my friend with a January due date. We went to visit my friend in the hospital and she looked great. It is so weird, I think you sort of expect that the mom and dad will suddenly look different, but they look the same, just now they have a child. It is a bit of a weird phenomenom.

Now I really am in the home stretch. I am just over 36 weeks and technically Emmy could come at any time and boy howdy I am ready. Last night, I got up to go to the bathroom, came back to bed and 13 minutes later had to go again. I sort of think Emmy sits in there and waits until just after I get comfy and them uses my bladder as a trampoline. I think she thinks it is funny, I suppose it sort of is.

Today it is raining and for some reason this last trimester I get a bit blue when it rains. I think I tend to slow down a bit when it rains and that allows the sad feelings to creep in. I miss my mom something fierce and am trying really hard not to think about it. ( I know that is not the healthiest way to deal with it but at the same time if I let the water trickle through the dam, next thing you know I have a flood.) I really just wish she could be here to guide me and help me and just make me feel better about things.

In other news things are winding down at work. I am trying to off load as much info as possible to the team so that while I am out they can be moving all of our programs forward. I think I am going to have my last day be November 30. That is only about a week before I would officially leave because if Emmy is not here by my due date I am not coming in to the office to wait for her. The 30 is the end of a pay period though so that makes sense since I am not going to be paid for my maternity leave. That is really only about two weeks away. WOW!

Anyhoo, just waiting for the bean, I will keep you posted as I wait.

Almost 36 Weeks

Went to the doctor today and it seems as though the baby has dropped slightly but everything else is still locked up tight. The bean is still snug as a bug in a rug baking away. This is both good and bad news. It is good news because technically if she popped out today she would be about a month early. This is bad news because it means I could have as many as six more weeks of being preggo. Sleep has become elusive and comfort is a thing of the past. I have to pee constantly and am just a touch nauseous.

I got a flu shot today as well. That was the easiest needle I have encountered in a long time. Jeff was very nervous since he does not like needles but even he thought it was a piece of cake.

This weekend is house cleaning and yard cleaning for Jeff and I. The leaves came down in droves this week and our yard is covered. So I am going to attempt to do house work and yard work on Saturday and then do a lot of nothing on Sunday. I do need to go get nursing bras and make a quick exchange at the maternity store but other than that seriously I promised Jeff we could relax on Sunday. I will try to convince myself that I am keeping the Sabbath holy. I will let you know on Monday how I do.

Functioning Human

I have returned to my regular state of normalcy - if you could call my regular state normal. I have stopped obsessing about things in the house and things at work. Thanks to all of you who have been praying that I would find some peace.
I have detected a pattern. I whip myself up in to a frenzy on the weekends because all I think about is home/baby stuff. Then I go to work on Monday, settle back in to a work routine and calm down. Then I wake up Saturday morning yearning to color code my closet. Everyone at work is convinced the baby is coming sooner rather than later because this nesting instinct has gotten so bad. I am evening nesting at work. I have cleaned out files and told people about my secret hiding place on the server and what not.
In other news, I was pleased to wake up this morning to the news of a democratic Senate victory in Missouri. This great red state of mine has elected a democrat to the Senate, not by much, but we did it. I think people may be voting less for the democrats and more against the republicans. It will be interesting to see what this means for our country and the war in Iraq.
Okay, enough rambling for now...

Anxious

This past weekend I spent a lot of time trying to convince myself that I was going to do really well with the whole labor thing. I am not going to have too much anxiety or fear and I will just kick back and enjoy these last few weeks of sleep-filled nights. I know God is in control and when He says it is time, it is time. Nothing to it....

I am a fool.

As I looked in the mirror today it looks a little bit like my belly is lower. Last night I had pretty serious Braxton Hicks or fake contractions as I call them and I wondered what was going on inside there. So then I convinced myself it is all in my head and I am nuts. I sit down to my status meeting this morning and one of my co-workers says the baby looks like it has dropped a little bit. Holy crap, maybe it isn't all in my head. Maybe she really has dropped. All of which means approximately nothing because the seven web sites I have looked at this morning all say she could drop two-four weeks before labor.

Well we definitely need to make it two weeks and four weeks is fine too, but I swear I am starting to get antsy. I can't concentrate on work, all I want to do is clean and organize and sort and fold and file. I cleaned out all of the drawers in the kitchen this weekend. I also made the world's most expensive trip to Super Wal-mart because I wanted to make sure we do not run out of anything until January. The pets have extra food, we have enough toilet paper to do a righteous eighth grade TP job - on the White House. I bought everything we need for Thanksgiving, even though it is a good two and a half weeks away. I did read an article today that says you should have approximately 150 diapers on hand for right after the baby is born. I think I only have like 75, holy crap, gonna have to go back to Wal-Mart. Seriously I am spiraling out of control. It sort of feels like I had about six cups of coffee and chased it with a side of Mountain Dew.

MUST CALM DOWN, MUST DO WORK, MUST NOT OBSESS...

Wish me luck.

What Was That Twinge?

Well, I am pretty much ready for this thing to happen at any time. I will pack my hospital bag this weekend and we will put the car seat in Jeff's car and then we are all ready. I don't know why I think this is coming sooner than expected but I really do.

The two big things I am holding out for...
I made an appointment to interview a pediatrician and she is on vacation until 11/20. So I need to make it until after that. In addition I would like to put up my Christmas decorations and tree Thanksgiving weekend so if I can hold on until 11/27 I will be in good shape. I am a little more flexible on the Christmas decorating because Jeff's parents will be here for Thanksgiving so it might be nice to have Emmy while they are here, but we will see how it goes.

Sunday November 12 I will be 36 weeks which is considered full term and the healthiest possible arrival time for the baby (36-42 weeks) so I am game any time after that. With all of that being said I am now acutely aware of every nuance of motion/pain/ache/etc. That my body produces. What was that, was that the begining of labor? I promise I won't be one of those people who attempts to check herself in to the hospital five times and is sent home every time. I will probably end up waiting to long, but I am ready for the next stage of the adventure.

I know that the next stage will bring ridiculous difficulty and that it will be harder than anything I have ever done or ever will do, but I feel ready. Breastfeeding - I embrace the pain. Sleeplessness - bring it on. Diaper duty - I am armed with the diaper genie II - for serious stink. I know when that time actually gets here I will pray to God to make it all go away but at this point I just pray that God will make me a good mommy and Emmy a good baby and a Cardinal fan. God is good and He will see me through.

34 Weeks and Counting

I had another shower this weekend. This one was thrown by my friends from church. My friend Britt flew in from LA and Penny drove in from Nashville. It was so nice. I had a great time at the shower and got so many nice things. It was great seeing Penny and Britt. There is something special about old friends. It was also nice to be able to introduce my old friends to my fabulous new friends. I realized that I am sort of a unique hybrid of the two. I still have some of my old LA ways but I have adopted many of the valuable Midwestern qualities of my new friends. (Most of my new friends aren't actually from the Midwest, but I associate all that is good about them with being a Midwestern thing.)

Speaking of special, my husband is tremendous. On Friday - game five of the World Series where we were probably going to clinch it all - he gave up his ticket so one of his co-worker's sons could go and so he could spend time with me. He brought me flowers and made me dinner and we watched the game together. I could not believe he would give up his ticket for me. He truly is selfless. What a great hubby!

We did in fact win the World Series and this town has not stopped buzzing yet. It is pretty neat to see how crazy everyone is about their Cardinals.

Not much else to report. I am just feeling ready. I have a weird feeling that I will not end up lasting 40 weeks. I just sort of feel like it is going to be early. I can't tell you why just an odd feeling. We will see, I also thought I was having a boy so my "feelings" are not the most reliable. I would like to make it at least 2-3 more weeks so that everything is full term but after 37 weeks I am open for business.

We'll wait and see...

Large and in Charge

I feel VERY pregnant right about now. I am not sure how there is still room for my intestines because it feels like I am all baby and all belly. Emmy has taken to kicking/hitting less and swimming more. I can feel her doing flip turns and the backstroke it seems like. Apparently your fluid level increases fairly dramatically in the last tri mester which is part of the phenomenon. It is such a weird feeling. For my non-pregnant friends, try to imagine someone moved your pancreas a little to the left and then to the right and then back again. For 32 years my insides have been relatively stationary and now I have Michael Phelps in there swimming for his eighth medal.

I made the last of my doctors appointments today. It really hit me that I only have about 6.5 more weeks. CRAZY!!! I have been talking to my friend who's baby is going on two weeks old and she basically said it is so much harder than you can ever imagine. I am trying to practice imagining it to be the WORST thing in the world so maybe, just maybe, I won't be so caught off guard. Every night I pray that God will let Emmy be healthy and happy and that He will make me a good mommy.

In other news, the Cardinals are now in the World Series so the LONGEST SPORTS SEASON EVER, continues to roll in my house. I am trying so hard to be supportive of Jeff's Cardinals love affair, but I am really quite over it. I want the Cardinals to win because I would love to see this town rewarded for its faithful devotion, I just would like to see them win soon.

What Do You Call a Baby Cardinal?

The Lou is all abuzz today as the Cardinals pulled out an unbelievable nail-biter of a win against the NY Mets to win the NLCS and advance to the World Series. At one point we were going to be lucky to even make the playoffs and now we are headed to Detroit to play for the big money. Needless to say this is big news in my house.

Last night I was taking a bath when Jeff came in wearing a red STL stocking cap and red STL gloves. "I have to go to the gloves, it is 1-1 in the 8th, the gloves are lucky." Whatever you say big guy. I love my husband for being such a nut.

Baseball has pretty much taken over every aspect of our lives at this point but Jeff obviously still has an eye on the fact that we are going to have a baby, as evidenced by the following post on his blog.

"A couple nights ago I actually prayed that Emelia would like baseball. I am sure it is because the Cards are in the post-season and I think about baseball a lot right now. When I went to Game 4 here in St. Louis, where the Cards clinched the series and advanced to the NLCS, I spotted several families and it made me think about how cool it would be to be at a game with my daughter and, hopefully, to have her root for her favorite player and be excited if we win and sad if we lose. Of course, she might hate baseball, and that is OK, but I can dream, can't I?OK, honesty alert--I just re-read that last graph. It really will not be acceptable if Emmy doesn't like baseball! : ) "

That's pretty cute huh?

The Beginning of the Baby Chain

I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but there are four of us at church that are pregnant. Our due dates are as follows, Oct. 8, Nov. 20, Dec. 10, Jan. 11. It is a certifiable baby boom.

My first friend was due Oct. 8 and her baby boy showed no sign of being ready to enter the world. After another week and still no movement the doctor recommended a c-section. So yesterday morning she went in and two hours later she had a baby. He is 8lbs. 10 oz. and apparently has a record setting large head. (Thank goodness she didn't try to fit that through the birth canal if you know what I mean.) Jeff and I went to visit the couple last night. Everyone is doing well. I asked her if it was weird to suddenly have a baby and she said it was a little strange but that from the minute they put him in her arms she felt like she had been holding him forever. Now she maintains that she still feels clueless so it isn't like suddenly she has the answers to every baby mystery out there but she feels like she can do it. That was like music to my ears.

I hope it is the same way for me. I am starting to reach the point where I am ready to be done being pregnant and to start caring for Emmy. I am still scared of toxic diapers and uncooperative breast feeding but I am ready to try it. Everywhere I turn there is differing advice on how to do just about everything relating to baby. I have decided to be informed but to spend more time praying than reading because I figure if anyone really knows how to do it it's God. So why not go to the source. So today I feel ready but tomorrow who knows, I might be back to being petrified. I was an emotional nut before getting pregnant, addiing all of the extra hormones surely didn't help matters.

The Real World

So I realized today that reality has set in. I am not just pregnant, I am actually going to give birth. Now I know this doesn't surprise any of you, but it is big news for me. I think once I found out I was pregnant I spent a lot of time thinking/reading about being pregnant. What to expect at this week and why my belly feels like that and why even Cheerios give me heartburn, etc. Now I have sort of gotten used to the alien in my body and am realizing that soon I will have a baby. That baby will then turn in to a toddler and then a child and then a teenager, etc. I feel a bit overwhelmed at the change in my life. I can sort of imagine childbirth and even the baby's first year, but after that I can't even daydream because I don't know what it looks like.

Jeff recently wrote on his blog that he feels more prepared than ever and is ready to be a dad, although the child better like baseball. (It is playoff time in the Lou so baseball fever has clearly consumed his brain.) I however feel less prepared than I felt a week ago. I feel prepared for the beginning but how can I ever prepare for all that is to come after that. I guess that is what life is all about, never knowing how things will play out just trusting that God has a plan for you. I read a snazzy little tidbit recently that said "What the Lord takes you to, He will get you through." I believe that with all my heart as I have seen it in my own life several times, but that doesn't mean I am not scared.

Whirlwind Weekends

I now spend most of each weekend devoted to "finishing" the nursery. Things are almost done and I am loving the way everything looks. I found my Eiffel Tower lamp and bought the lampshade that matches our bedding. I have hung the bedding blanket on the wall as well as the matching wall decorations, the only thing missing is the shelf and her name on the wall. If I spent this much time finding a pediatrician I would not be awake at night worrying about what I haven't done.

I have started to get a bit restless. I am feeling like there are only a few things left to do and then other days I feel like it is probably just the calm before the storm. Who knows, all I know is life as I know if is about to change dramatically.

Let the Nesting Begin

This weekend we had our second of three showers. It was terrific. I got to see my family and I also got to see all of my mom's friends. They are such a crucial link to mom. All the way home from Bloomington I thanked God that my mom was such a good friend and cultivated relationships with such excellent people. Each one of them reminds me of my mom in some way or another.

The good news is we got some lovely stuff for the baby. The bad news is the nursery was not prepared for the influx of stuff. What that meant is that on Sunday I channeled my mom and "got busy." I worked around the house from 12:00 when we got home from church/Target until 8:45 when Jeff banned me from starting any new projects. We finally finished the "easy-to-assemble" dresser and got that moved in to place. Then I started sorting through the clothes and separating them by size. The bigger ones went in to a tub to be used later and the smaller ones went in to the washing machine. I washed all of the bedding and all of the towels/clothes we received. Jeff was funny as I was pouring the clothes in to the washer he smiled and said look at all of that little stuff. I decided that baby socks, while being ridiculously cute, are even worse to launder than regular socks, which I loathe. Socks suck! At about 8:00 I began assembling the bouncy chair which was when Jeff yelled at me for starting a new project at this time of night. But once I was done I just sat in the rocker and took in the glory of the clean nursery, sloppy paint job and imperfectly assembled dresser and all. It all looks pretty darn good and I am proud to put my bean in there once she comes.

I still feel slightly overwhelmed with all of the stuff I need to know so I have started thinking about the "rules" at night before I go to bed. No immersion bathing until the umbilical stump falls off, alcohol swab the stump every time you change the diaper, no pacifiers for two weeks or until breastfeeding is well established, no bottle until four weeks, bath every three days, the 5 S's of a happy baby, feed every two hours, don't let them sleep more than three hours at a time during the day, wake them up to feed at night if they have slept four hours, count stools and wet diapers to know if your baby is getting enough to eat, etc. I am sure once the baby comes and I am sleeping for about four hours a night I will forget the rules completely and some sort of survival instinct will kick in but for now I am busy chanting. The chanting makes me feel better though and that makes me feel like I might be able to do this after all.

Is It Nap Time?

So as I hit the home stretch , as every pregnancy web site calls it, I am having two very distinct emotions. I definitely feel like "okay let's do this already " and I also feel a sense of peace about the craziness that will be my life once the baby comes. I have truly experienced every emotion I can think of in the last 7 months. I have spent a lot of time being scared of what the birth will bring and being terrified that I won't be able to cut it as a mom. At this point I am willing to concede that I won't do everything right and that is ok. I have enough humility to ask for help. I am not ashamed to say I can't do this alone and I will ask whoever is there for whatever help I think they can offer. My days of prideful independence are over. I think that peace settling in has led to the other emotion of "lets get the show on the road." If I am feeling that way as I approach week 30 I can only imagine how I will feel at week 38.

The other things I am feeling are raging heartburn, overwhelming tiredness and the constant desire to pee. I go to the bathroom every hour all night long. Each time I get up to use the bathroom I eat two more TUMS. I believe that all of this contributes to the tiredness I feel. I am so tired right now as I type this that I can hardly keep my eyes open. I have to figure out some way to combat all of this because I can't concentrate and work is the longest 8 hours of life each day. I live for getting in the car to go home because that means I am that much closer to going to sleep.

I am thinking this is just another phase that I will settle in to but I sure hope the settling happens soon.

I Hope the Test is Take Home

So tonight I have breastfeeding class. Jeff was supposed to go with me but instead he is down in New Orleans doing something with the Best Damn Sports Show Period. I am guessing he won't be missing much but I can definitely fill him in. I believe this is our last class in the whole child bearing department, at least for now. I am not sure exactly what we will cover but if I knew there was a class offered on the subject and I didn't take it I would be busy wondering what I had missed. I am so anal like that.

We finally got the carpet down in the baby's room. It took the carpet guys all of 45 minutes to rip up the old and put down the new. Once they were done I decided I would move the crib, which Jeff has assembled in the living room since we knew the carpet was being changed, in to the nursery. It didn't fit through the door. Because I am a stubborn old goat I even tried taking the mattress out and turning the dang thing on its side. That didn't work either. When Jeff arrived home I was in a state of complete frustration. I informed him he would have to take it apart and then reassemble it in the room. He began frantically trying to get it through the door - unsuccessfully might I add. I barked at him about something and left for a seminar at church. I find it is always a good idea to yell at your husband in the most un-Christianlike way possible before heading out to God's house. I called to apologize on my way to the class and told him I would help him take it apart later. Well I called when I was on my way home and he had no luck and had decided against starting to disassemble it in favor of watching the Cardinals game. (I didn't love that answer but now I was leaving God's house and really had NO excuse for being un-Christianlike.) Thank goodness because when I got home not only was the crib in the nursery, Jeff had put all of the bedding on it as well. Turns out he popped our new windows out of the frame (they are apparently meant to do that) and shoved the crib in from the outside through the window. Our neighbors must think we are nuts. I am pretty sure they are right.

Baby Uggs

My friends Chrissy and Susan came to visit me on Friday. (They are the animal trainers I used to work with and they really came to visit my dog but I am lucky they like me too.) They brought me a basketful of baby goodies. The most ridiculously adorable thing in the basket were the itty bitty Ugg boots. I am thinking I will make Emmy wear them in the summer with a mini skirt and tank top but then she might be confused with Mischa Barton. They are so cute I want to eat them.

It was a relatively peaceful weekend with a couple of hours of work thrown in. Things were fairly PC (pregnancy crazies) free. I did yell at Jeff at one point for being so uncompassionate as to take up two thirds of the couch which only left me with one third of the couch. He looked at me like I was on crack and scooted over. God bless him!

We finished painting the nursery this weekend. It is a bit messy but I conceded that Emmy will never know. As for the rest of you who may visit my house you are not allowed to think or say anything snotty about the paint job in the baby's room. See, that should take care of any of my perfectionist issues/insecurities. We will get the new carpet this week and hopefully get the furniture set up by the weekend. That means we should have everything in place by October which makes me happy.

I am getting to the point now where I want to get the show on the road. For those of us who had a long engagement it sort of feels like that. The whole bloody wedding was planned by July and still I had two months of waiting with serious anticipation/anxiety. That is about where I am at with the baby factor. I am officially nine weeks away from what they consider full term which is sort of weird and sort of exciting.

Maybe the Donuts Were a Bad Idea

Do you all remember when I was rattling on about how I wish I had a belly and I looked pregnant and what not? Well, the belly has arrived. Yea, I kind of like it. What I don't like is the fact that it brought along its good friends right and left thigh. They decided they needed extra company and brought their cousin gigantic butt! I knew things were not fitting as pleasantly as they used to but when you put on maternity clothes it is tough to tell where they don't fit, you just know they don't.

Today I went to the doctor and she promptly informed me I had gained nine pounds. Now, I was dressing with intention on all of my doctors visits, i.e. wearing lightweight clothing, no accessories and shoes that could be slipped off so as not to add a single additional ounce to my charted weight. Today is a bit on the breezy side so I had on jeans/t-shirt/sweatshirt. To top it all off I was wearing a headband - that is at least an extra .5 ounces! The doctor mentioned that I still have weight to gain as we hit the home stretch and that I should try to watch my eating and exercising habits. I wondered if she meant watching the three chocolate chip cookies go in to my mouth or if she meant watching myself lick the glaze from the Krispy Kremes off of my fingers. I have had the worst sweet tooth this month so I am trying to cut back on that and hopefully next time I go in I will only have gained a few pounds. Maybe I will just wear my bathing suit to the doctors office, that is bound to buy me at least two pounds.

Today was the gestational diabetes test. Basically you drink this sickeningly sweet kool-aid, wait an hour get some blood drawn and wait for them to tell you if you have any issues. Overall it wasn't bad but that sugary sweet stuff had to account for at least a pound of water weight, damn them!

Three is No Longer My Lucky Number

So ever since I made the varsity cheerleading squad my sophomore year of high school wearing the number three, I have adopted it as my "lucky number." Because I believe things happen because of God and not because of luck this is sort of a silly thing but none the less I like the number three and anything divisible by three. I am beginning to rethink that.

I have hit the third trimester. I am not sure when exactly it starts because you are actually supposed to be pregnant for 40 weeks which if you do the math is ten months. The three trimesters of three months each is yet another scam perpetrated by the man. The biggest change I have noticed is my emotions. They are a disaster. I feel at times like I am completely unraveling. The slightest affront sends me in to tears. Sometimes I want to cry and have absolutely no reason to do so. Anything that even remotely reminds me of my mom sends me in to a tailspin. I am not angry at all or even testy, I am just so darn sad. It isn't all the time, but it washes over me periodically like a wave. Someone else from my childbirth class was saying her emotional crazies have gotten worse the closer she gets to delivery. I am hoping mine doesn't get a whole lot worse or people will think I am crazy. There is no current scientific proof that I am not, but I would hate for everyone to think I am nuts!