Tracking the Baby Bump: Week 36

Less than a month left!

If he were a fruit, he would be a crenshaw melon.

So this week, I really don't have enough room inside me for this child! Here's a little cross cut of a pregnant woman's body:

Now you see? Sometimes when I go from laying down to sitting up, I don't feel like I can sit up straight because it would squish my insides more than they can be squished! Seriously, look at how smashed the stomach and small intestines are... I'll just say that it's no wonder that nearer to the end pregnant women have.... bowel problems? Can I just say that and you know what I mean? The point of this is, my baby is huge and I ain't got no more room!

This week I have focused on two TV shows: Downton Abbey and The Biggest Loser. I watched Downton Abbey in record time! But the sad thing? Season two was on pbs.org, but by the time I got to the LAST episode of the season, the videos had expired. So sad! So I read what happened, but it's not the same as watching.... I was really sad. But, life goes on. It was a very interesting TV show to watch! It's like my favorite BBC, 1800s movies and shows, but being set in the 1914-1920s, it's slightly more modern. So there are old style values that are being challenged in a changing world. I loved that. I did not love that so many people were unfaithful to their spouses/fiances/loves of their lives! Too many people were kissing people they shouldn't have been kissing. Dislike!

And the Biggest Loser. Love it. I love that Jed watches it with me, too. The only problem is, I so want to change my life, too! I want to go work out and feel that awesome feeling after you worked your butt off and you're so sweaty and your muscles are so tired, and you just feel so good! But, it's going to be a few months before I can do that.... I hope that my motivation can last until then. So, I can't work out right now, but adding onto that, I just feel so dang lazy! I know I shouldn't feel lazy. I mean, it's not like I am choosing not to do dishes or lay down all day. But it's still so hard not to feel lazy! I keep asking Jed if he feels like I'm lazy because I'm so nervous he'll resent me for making him to everything around the house in addition to school and work. But he assures me he does not think that and I'm being very silly for thinking he would. Jed has been awesome throughout this. He's gotten to the point where I don't have to ask him to do the dishes or to take my plate from the couch where I ate to the sink. He knows I would want him to, so he just does it. I've trained him so well. Ha ha no, he's just awesome! He's stepped up and done great. Hopefully this bedrest thing won't last too much longer, and then it will be only a little while before I can get back into cooking light cleaning so I can help him!

So this week, insomnia has hit. I had several nights where I couldn't sleep for hours, and then when I finally fell asleep, I would wake up every hour and often wake up in the early hours in the morning wide awake! I'm so grateful I've been able to sleep in or take a nap.

But, I think all the insomnia caused some problems. Thursday night I went to bed with a migraine. Medicine didn't help, so I took a little more. Still nothing. So after a few hours of no sleep and pure pain, I had to call the on call doctor. I felt horrible doing so at 2:30 in the morning, but they had told me that one of the warning signs to look for was a migraine that wouldn't go away with medication. So, the doctor told me to go to the hospital.... Poor, poor Jed, to have to lose sleep for me. But he did, and he took me there. It was just like the last time; I did a urine sample and they drew some blood. I was hooked up to the fetal heart monitor and the blood pressure machine. All tests came back fine! My blood pressure was slightly higher than normal, but as I sat there, it went down to my "normal." So, just like last time, they told me it was good I came in, but I still needed to just keep an eye on things and come in again if something like this happens again. Lovely. So after two hours, I still had my migraine (although somehow it had lessened slightly), so they gave me some morphine and some other drug. It was a shot to the hip... owie. But they monitored me for another 45 minutes to make sure all was still well with me and the baby after the shot and to make sure my headache went away. And it did! Oh it felt blessedly good. So, we were back at home just after 6:00, and we went straight to bed. Both of us slept in, but I slept in until 3:30 that afternoon! I woke up several times, sometimes to texts, and because of the medicine I couldn't even stay awake long enough to reply to a text. The rest of the evening I was groggy and had a small headache, but with medicine and caffeine (prescribed by my lovely nurse), and food from my wonderful husband, I felt 10 times better that evening!

So, again we visited the hospital. Tomorrow is our 36 week appointment, which I'm excited for. I will have the Group B Strep test, hopefully the doctor can tell us if I'm dilated and how big the baby is, and above all, I hope we can figure out what's going on with me! I don't want to hinder the baby's growth by having the baby come early, but he is just so active so I know he's healthy and he seems pretty big to me, so maybe he's ready to come out! I'm just afraid that we'll have to visit the hospital every week for tests telling me that I'm fine and need to rest (which I'm doing plenty of), and I'm also afraid that one of these times, it may actually be worse than we thought and then I could have to stay in the hospital for several days or weeks! I don't want to sound selfish, because the baby's health is the most important thing, but it's hard not to think of my own health and our finances, because those are factors. Plus, what if one of these times it suddenly not only affects my health but also the baby's? It's a strong possibility. So for the health of all, maybe it's best to get this baby out!

I think by this time a lot of women hope that they'll deliver soon. It's nice to know we're in the home stretch, though! Only 25 days until my due date! Whenever he comes, I'm excited for him to be here! 

Organizing! It actually happened.

Well hey there.

So, long ago it was Christmas break, and I wanted to do some organizing around this dang house! (You can go back and read this blog post if you want a refresher on my many plans for the break, but I'm going to say most of it anyways.) Some of the things I wanted to do and did do was organize all of our closets and make a trip to DI. That, I did! It took a long time to get those closets clean... And it made our second bedroom a mess! I believe I have some pictures, too....

Here's our office when we first moved in:

So here is the office after Christmas.... after buying our crib for super cheap....

By the by, with the crib there, we couldn't even fit our chair at the desk. Problem? I think yes.

Sad to say, this isn't even the office at its worst. Another big problem with the office was that I would put our mail on the desk and forget about it. Somehow we still paid our cell phone bill on time? It was something that needed to change.

So, over Christmas break, not only did I have to clean out the closets, but I had to somehow fit our baby's stuff into that room. See our second bedroom is also our office, or nursery, our music room, our linen closet, our second closet for our clothes that overflow, and a place to house some random things. The most important functions for that room, though, are the office and the nursery. So, somehow we had to fit the furniture we needed in there, and the decorator/organizer in me wanted to have a semi cute room! A huge downfall of the adorable organizing blogs that I read and of Pinterest is that it makes me want to have beautiful rooms that are super cute, and between the room in our home and our bank account, that's out of the question. So, I had to make do!

Oh! But on the plus side, Jed got me for Christmas $30 toward decorations from IKEA for the desk! What a great Christmas present, right? I wanted to make a cute desk just like my favorite blog: http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/ . Click here to see my inspiration for my office! You have to scroll down a lot.... but what I wanted for my desk was a mail station and the cute pencil cup storage.

Well, on passed Christmas break (and like I said, I DID actually clean out the closets), on passed February, and I still did nothing. The things we got from Ikea sat on the floor. Life was busy! The one thing we did was switch the desk and the crib, which worked a lot better! Also, for Christmas I was given a lovely glider rocker from my in-laws, so we were fortunate enough to sell our old recliner on KSL and we got to replace it with a beautiful recliner. So, my desire for a cute coordinated office was slightly closer. All the wood in my office has a slightly cherry color.

Then came my lovely bed rest..... And I was SO lucky that the Saturday before I had done a ton of organizing of my office supplies and the Monday before was President's day and we had taken the opportunity to get some things from Target and organize a bit. Thank goodness I didn't procrastinate any longer than that! So the day after I was put on bed rest, Jed was amazing enough to make me feel better by hanging all my IKEA stuff! So by the time I was on bed rest, I was lucky enough to have almost everything organized! Whew!

So here is the thing that is my pride and joy from my Monday purchases/organizing: my itso modular storage. You buy one cube at a time and they connect. Then, you can buy shelves to snap in, wheels if you want it to be mobile, even doors to cover the cubes. LOVE it! You can buy these things at Target. So, here's what we put together:

Our 5 cubes we put together

 Here are the trays/shelves we bought to organize all our baby things:

Don't you just love this storage? Modular storage that is deep enough to store things like a bin of toys and our diaper bags, but nice and neat and put away. I love it to death. Plus, when we move, we can set it up differently if need be. I love that.

So the next and biggest step that I had been dreading was this: organize my files. I had so many papers to go through... so many.... I knew a lot of the paper I had needed to be tossed. I also had a lot of papers I knew was important, but I didn't know why or what to do with it! In comes: my mom. I asked her to come help me for several reasons: I was on bed rest, so I was bored and didn't want to overdo anything; she is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to running a home and finances; and last, if I scheduled a time to do it, it would have to be done!

In the days before, and I mean days, I did a little at a time. I didn't want to overdo, because physically I didn't want to cheat on my bed rest, and mentally, it made me feel better to not have hours of paper work to have to tackle!

I threw out tons of paper, tons. Once I knew that the rest of the papers I had were worthy of saving, I made these:

You can't see it, but what I did was took my husband's sketch pad because the papers were extra big, and I put categories on each, things like finances, insurance/medical things, job stuff, and even a "not sure what to do with but I know I need it" category. Then I put all my papers into their respective category. This made it so much easier for my mom to look at the papers for me, and if I had done it one my own, I could have easily put my papers in my filing box from there.

Speaking of my filing box... I prepped that for my mom, too!

Yes, terribly exciting, I know.

So, my mom came, and brought her LABEL MAKER with her! I love label makers. I hope to get one for Christmas or a birthday someday. It is a blessed thing. So, with my mom's help, we went through the categories, created a label for the hanging file folders, and then labeled some manila folders to further organize the papers. Oh it felt so good! AND because I had pre-categorized my papers, I was able to go lay down part way through when my good friends Sam and Evan came to visit me, but she was able to keep organizing! Awesome. So here is my beautiful filing box:

Nice and full and organized! I will never again have to search for important papers. Also, as I get important things (like work done on our car, insurance, taxes), I have a place for them! It feels wonderful.

I also made my mail station!

You can't really see what we labeled them, but we labeled the folders "To Do ASAP," "To Do," "To File," and "Coupons." So now, when I get mail, I will go through it THAT SAME DAY and then I can throw away things, put them in the folder of things I need to do now, sometime soon, or to file away. Now the paper won't clutter our desk!

I also now have a place to put receipts! We keep this in the mail station:

So do you want to see the whole product??!!

Here it is!

This cute caddy my mother made. Everything you need to change a diaper, right there!

Here's the desk! My pride and joy.

And here's a closer look...

These just stick to the desk, so you can keep your cords up on the desk and not have to worry about them falling behind!

This you may recognize from the iHeart Organizing blog. I love this way of organizing all my pens and pencils!

Notice how neat the labels look? LABEL MAKER!

So now everything has a place in our desk! It feels sooo good! It's great, too, because now when Jed or I need to find something, either we can look for just a minute and find it because I labeled most everything, or I can direct him to it because I know where everything is now! Also, I feel just a little better because I have a cute desk. I can't have my dream office with perfectly coordinated stuff and I can't have my dream nursery with adorable decorations, but I can get a little piece of it!

Hope you enjoy seeing my life become organized as much as I enjoy it. I have a feeling I will be referring to this blog post a lot, just to see the wonderful progress!

Have a great week!

Tracking the Baby Bump: Week 35

Can you believe I started doing this at week 15? What a difference 20 weeks makes!

Here I am at 15 weeks

26 Weeks

Today at 35 Weeks!

So there we have it. I'm looking pretty big, right?

Baby Stats:

Height: 20 ish inches
Weight: 5 1/2 ish pounds
If he were a fruit, he would be a: honeydew melon

So you would think I wouldn't have had an exciting week, right? Well you're right, being on bed rest has been rather boring. But not terrible!

I visited the doctor's office 5 times this week! Monday and Thursday for my non-stress test, Wednesday to pick up the 24-hour urine test kit, Thursday to drop off the 24 hour test, and then again on Thursday because I didn't realized I had to get my blood drawn when I dropped off the test. Whew! So many times.... This week I hope to only go twice, and then the next week I'll be going a ton of times. The nice thing is, with all these visits, I get the reassurance that the baby is doing great! The tests have all gone well, though my blood pressure went a little up, but my resting heart rate was still in a safe range, so it should be okay for now.

What else? Well I did lots of organizing on my work computer so that it would be nice and cleaned up for my long term sub to use, as well as a lot on my own computer. My email is very organized! Ha ha it was probably a strange thing for me to do, but you really can only look on Pinterest and Facebook for so long.... I seriously look at both those and my Google Reader at least 5 times a day, probably more. I should start tracking it. I'm discovering a few more blogs every few days, generally through Pinterest, so those help give me a little something new.

I also did lots of organizing with my office papers! I did it in several sessions, all of them sitting down, and watched some great tv shows and movies so that I was nice and relaxed the whole time! Plus, my mom came over and was a great help. Jed also was great, because he did all the moving of the papers and throwing away of the huge piles of paper I threw out. But that is going to be saved for another post! But that was something I looked forward to every day, even though it took up an insignificant part of my day, it was great to have something different and something where I wasn't laying down but was sitting up.

I don't know if it's because of all the laying down or if it's growing pains/round ligament pain, but I've had some annoying pain down in my pelvic area. Keeping a pillow between my legs helps, but I definitely have to shift from side to side or being really propped up by pillows so I can "lay down" on my back so that my hips don't hurt too much.

One of the funnest things of this week is that the baby started hiccuping! I always wondered if the baby was hiccuping and I never noticed, because around 28 or 29 weeks is when I heard I should be able to feel hiccups, and I never did! But this week, I have felt him hiccup almost every day. It's been fun to feel, and it feels nice to know he is doing what he's supposed to!

So, last, I think my baby may have dropped! Or he's on his way down. My friend Natalie as well as Jed both say that it looks like my belly is a little lower and not as round, but looks like it's hanging a little. I feel like he's a bit lower, because I definitely feel a lot of pressure on my bladder.... Ha ha today I had some troubles walking because he was definitely settled on my bladder. So, I read that your baby can drop soon before you deliver to weeks before, and considering I'm at 35 weeks, it is probably weeks, but it's still exciting that there are some small indications that things are getting closer!

I have to say, this week I got really excited for the baby to come. I just can't wait! I'm excited to be able to hold him, feed him, and all that jazz. I know it won't be easy, but I'm getting excited to just start figuring this parenting thing out! I'm such a planner, so I just plan and think things over and over until I can finally act on all of my plans. So, I'm excited for the point when I can finally act on all this planning, even though I know it will be hard! It's going to be great though.

So, another week down, and about 5 more to go!

A Baby Shower!

These are the awesome ladies who threw the shower!

Hey there.

A few weeks ago, I was given an awesome baby shower!

My old freshman roommates were so great and planned a great party.

First of all, big thanks to Kyli and her mother, who kindly let us have the shower at her house.

Now, the food was delicious. They made a soup bar. There were four types of soup, all of them so delicious. Then there were bread bowls and french bread as well as lots of toppings for the soup. They also has salad and these awesome fruit cups. For dessert my good friend Kelsey made some delicious lemon bars, there were some great cookies, and my mom made an adorable cake! Here's the delicious food:

Aren't these little booties so cute??

So, the food was awesome. I felt so grateful for all the people that came! I had family from all sides of my family and friends from all parts of my life. It was fun to see everyone there and chat with them. I always feel bad at parties and showers like these though; I feel like I don't give enough attention to my guests! So I hope they can forgive me if they didn't feel like I gave them enough of my time.

 

 

 

I don't think any pictures were taken of my friends from work, but they came, too!

So after a little while, we played a very fun game given by Kelsey. She asked me some questions, like my favorite baby movie (Father of the Bride II with Baby Mama as a close second), my biggest craving (sour things or citrus... I say this as I eat a slice of delicious key lime pie my amazing friends Sam and Evan made for me. They could not have given me a better dessert!), or if I had a gift card to buy anything for my baby, what thing would I choose (Baby shoes! I make involuntary cute noises whenever I see the cute teeny shoes). So she asked the same questions to the guests at the party and whoever got the most right won candy! My mom of course won, but she declined the candy, and so the next person in line was my coworker Janelle! She's pregnant as well, and so we have had many a conversation about our pregnancies. 

After that, I got to open presents! I always feel awkward at first opening presents. I just feel so self conscious and embarrassed! But I quickly was distracted by the cute outfits and super soft blankets for our baby! We got some really great things, and I am so grateful for the gifts and help from our family and friends! Thanks again, everyone! We feel very blessed to have such great family and friends.

This was a present just for Jed. We can't start too early introducing our little boy to Star Wars!

This was another awesome gift! My mom and Amy (?) put together this adorable diaper cake and Kyli gave me the awesome plaque.

My necklace is something my mom made. My lovely Aunt Toni taught us how to make cute little stars from ribbon, and then put them all together on a cute necklace!

Birthday Celebrations!

**I wrote this a couple of weeks ago but have been waiting to post it because I wanted pictures.... I think I only have a few I could post.... so today I thought, what the heck, let's just post this! The reason is partially due to the link my future brother in law, Danny, posted on Facebook this morning, that will be on my blog, too. Just scroll down to the bottom of Celebration #1 :) .

So my 22nd birthday was about two weeks ago, and I failed to write about it! So here it goes.

Celebration #1: The weekend before my birthday, we celebrated with my family both on Friday and Sunday. Friday, we had a super fun Mexican Night. First, we all went to Maria Bonita's Restaurant in Orem. We love this place to death. The owner, Maria, is so sweet. She calls all the women "Princessa" and the men "Champion." The service is on the slow side, so you must be prepared to wait for a while for your food, but it is dang good and there is a ton! If you're going on a date, you could easily split an entree. And the entrees I believe range from $8-12. I got beef fajitas (normally $16 other places) and I think my plate could have fed a family of four! I'm not kidding. Jed generally gets a burrito and he can't even finish half of it. Next time, though, I am getting their flautas! They are divine. You get three that are LITERALLY the size of an arm. No joke. And they taste awesome. And if you are a Pepsi fan, as Jed is, they have Vanilla Pepsi. Jed I think died and went to heaven when he found that out.

So after a slightly rushed but awesome dinner, we went up to Salt Lake to see Who Shot Juanito Bandito. It's a troupe of 6 actors who in the summertime have a playhouse in Bear Lake (The Pickleville Playhouse). They had done this show in SLC last year and Brittany had seen it, and she said it was hilarious. Well, we had no idea how hilarious. Jed says it was the funniest play he has ever seen, and one of the funniest things in general he has seen in a very long time. Seriously. The man who played Juanito Bandito was amazing. He had the funniest fake accent and he did improv better than anyone I've seen. Better than Who's Line is it Anyway. He could dominate that show. Jed even said if the second night wasn't already sold out, we for sure would have gone. So, this summer, they are doing another Juanito Bandito at the Pickleville Playhouse. You want a weekend getaway this summer? GO TO BEAR LAKE AND SEE THIS PLAY! If you're feeling extra rich, do the dinner and a show. I bet the food is great. Here's the site for the Pickleville Playhouse in Bear Lake.

*** I told you I was excited about a post from Danny? It was that they posted Who Shot Juanito Bandito online (the whole video) for the duration of the month of March! So I am terribly excited and want all my family and friends to watch this hilarious show. I haven't actually watched this online version, so I am hoping it's as funny and I'm making it out to be.... (there's lots of improv) but I'm sure it is! So click HERE to go to Pickleville's blogpost about it and watch the video. Please? You won't regret it!*****

So that was birthday celebration number one! It was awesome, to say the least.

Celebration #2: That was Friday night, now on to Saturday! It wasn't a birthday celebration, but it was a great evening. Jed's mom was in town for a Family History Conference, so we got to go to dinner with her in SLC and then she stayed at our house that night. Before dinner, we walked around the Church History Museum and the Family History Library. Both are really cool, but the library was SO overwhelming. I don't know how people browse through that place and find specific names! I hope I find the drive to do family history one day.

Then was dinner at the Roof on the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. I have heard of how great this restaurant was, so I was super excited. It was amazing. We got the most requested table available, which was in the northwest corner. So on my left was the Temple and in front of my was the Conference Center and the mountains. Awesome. And the food. Wow. First off, Jed and I both for the vanilla raspberry italian ice. You could hear the angels singing as you drank that thing. I loved it to pieces and if it was not so expensive, I would have gotten another. But it was well worth the money. If pinterest can find me this recipe, I would be eternally grateful. The food is a buffet, and so I only tried a small portion of things so as not to stuff myself silly! There was only one thing I was not thrilled with, and everything else was really good or amazing. There was some tortellini salad that I would have ordered a tub of and this amazing sushi thing on a cucumber that I meant to get another one of so I could dissect it and figure out why it was so good! They chicken cordon bleu was amazing, and none of us could figure out what it was, but there was some other flavor in there that they put in that made it one of the best I've had.

Am I making you hungry yet? I'm sure you're already craving Mexican food and chicken. Now on to the dessert!

The dessert buffet. Yes, there was a buffet of dessert. And there were 30 desserts! Oh my gosh, you could have died in there from the overdose of chocolate. So, I had to choose wisely, because by this time I was definitely full. The best desserts there were definitely the chocolate mousse, the key lime pie, and the creme brulee. I actually got a second of the brulee because they were so little! It was the only thing I got a second of. If I had been crazy and wanted to blow up, I would have gotten a second piece of key lime pie because that was amazing as well. (I'm sure the fact that lime/sour flavors are my pregnancy craving have nothing to do with how much I loved it....)

***Quick side story. We went to Applebees this weekend and I squeezed a lime over our Fiesta Lime Chicken. Throughout the rest of the evening, My hand would be near my face or pass by my face and immediately I would think or say, "What smells so amazing????" And I forgot everytime and had to recall every time that it was simply lime juice on my fingers. This story was to attest to my major pregnancy craving. Seriously folks, lime is so great!

So, that was Saturday. It was a beautiful restaurant with amazing food and the most beautiful piano music being played from the coolest piano.

Celebration #3: Sunday was the Super bowl! We had some great finger foods, tres leches cake with amazing raspberry sauce on it, and opened presents. It was great. I love my family, and I got some great things! Thank you family :)

Celebration #4: Finally we are on to my actual birthday which was on a Wednesday. At school, we always have birthday parties for the kids and teachers. So, as it was my birthday, I knew I would get a fun little party. I came back from lunch to my kids all sitting in our calendar area and yelling "Happy Birthday, Mrs. Stephenson!" They were so excited and it was adorable. My co-workers were so great and got me a gift card to Olive Garden. For a while, it sat on a desk next to the card the kids signed, and the kiddos kept asking, "When are you going to open you presents???" When I did, they all oohed and ahhed over the card ha ha. And then one student said, "Is this the only present she's going to get?" Ha ha it was cute. Throughout the rest of the day, one of the kids would tell me happy birthday and it would set off a chain of happy birthdays from the other kids, and that was just plain adorable.

Celebration #5: (And the last of the celebrations.) Jed was an awesome husband and took me to Happy Sumo for my birthday! We had a coupon for $15 toward your meal, so we had to use that! It was great, too, because generally when we go to Happy Sumo, we go on 1/2 off night. We love it, and we love the selection of rolls, but there is another page of rolls we never get to try because they are never 1/2 off! So for my birthday, we tried those rolls. Oh it was good. One of them we got the previous year when we went with my mom and step dad for Jed's and Tony's birthdays, and I remember it being amazing. This year, not so much. Our favorite by far was the Samauri Roll. If you go to Happy Sumo, get this one! It's very rich and creamy. Then, we went home and watched a chick flick! Ha ha I've been trying to convince Jed to watch our edited version of Love Actually since Christmas because I knew he would like it and it is one of my favorite chick flicks. He has refused every single time, though he did promise he would watch it "eventually." So for my birthday, he suggested that we watch it. We did and it as great and Jed liked it! So, I consider my birthday a success. He was also an awesome husband and got me some great gifts.

So there you have it. I was thoroughly spoiled for my birthday and it was great! I only hope that I can thoroughly spoil Jed on his birthday. I have come up with like 6 different ideas of what to do, all depending on it we have had the baby or not! It's so hard to plan! Here is my dilemma: Baby is due April 5th (Thursday). Jed's birthday is Sunday the 8th. So, I really shouldn't plan anything that weekend and we won't be going out to eat on his birthday since it is Sunday. So, we resort to the weekend before, right? Wrong! It is General Conference! So the only time we can go is Friday night, because I don't see it being very good to skip any of the sessions to celebrate a birthday..... But on of the plans actually has us driving up to SLC during the 2nd session, doing my fun activity between sessions, Jed going to priesthood while I.... ? And then us going out to dinner after. So, hopefully I will have some great inspirational idea come to me, but I have a feeling I won't be able to really plan what to do until his birthday is upon us!

Tracking the Baby Bump: Week 34

What a week it has been! Seriously, crazy. And despite the fact that I'm on bed rest, we never took a picture.... but I thought it was more important to update you on my health than how big my belly is getting.

So, on Friday at my doctor's appointment, we got some more information about what's going on.

First of all, I am on bedrest, but it is okay if I go out every once in a while. And by go out, that means I can go somewhere where I will be sitting. So, still no grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, etc, but I can go to a hair appointment, to a restaurant, or to my mom's house. And I can go to church! Only one hour though. This is half his rule, half mine. This weekend I went to my brother's eagle scout project where I sat the whole time and sanitized books, but by the end I was pooped. Today, I barely lasted through church. Those church pews just aren't what you would call comfortable. So, already my body has adjusted to bed rest and can only handle an hour or two of activity. Kind of sad and pathetic, but I'm glad to know.

Next, he told me that as long as my blood pressure doesn't go any higher, I will probably make it to full term! I have mixed feelings about that. It means that the baby gets more growing time (yay!) but it also means instead of 3 weeks of bed rest, I have a potential of 6 weeks.... so perhaps I will get everything done on my to do list! Oh and he also said that after 34 weeks, steroids to help the baby's lungs grow don't really have much affect, so I won't have to take those.

Last, I will be going to the doctor at least 3 times a week. Every Monday we will do a non-stress test with the baby and measure the amniotic fluid. Every Thursday we will do a non-stress test. THEN starting at 36 weeks I will have my regular doctor's appointment every week. So, this week I don't have a doctor's appointment, but I do have to go in to get the supplies for another 24 hours urine sample. I will be doing these about every week as well. Whew! The receptionists already recognize me, but but the end of this pregnancy they will for sure all know my name.

So, obviously Monday was yesterday so I had my first NST and amniotic fluid test. They took me to a room with a SUPER comfy recliner. It was sweet. First they tested the amniotic fluid.  It was basically an ultrasound. She "divided" my belly into four quadrants and looked at how much fluid was there. Somehow she came up with a number, 9.6 (units? Ounces? I don't know), which is on the low end of normal, but still normal. Yay! Then we did the NST (non stress test) where I just sat there with the fetal heart monitor and the monitor to check for contractions on. We were going to sit there until the baby's heart rate elevated 3 times. I didn't realize this, but the heart rate elevates every time he moves around! On that Sunday we went into the hospital, I was on the fetal heart monitor, and Jed and I kept getting a little concerned that the baby's heart rate kept getting super fast, then slowing down. Little did we know, that's exactly what is supposed to happen! So, that was my appointment. Oh and they took my blood pressure. Still high, but not too high.

So, there you have it. The thing I've been complaining about the most to Jed this week is my swollen hands/toes. I shouldn't complain, because seriously, it's not that bad. I still don't like it though. I think I have officially outgrown all my flats. It is just too darn uncomfortable. So, it's either slippers or sneakers from now on.

How to Survive Bed Rest

I think everyone reading my blog either knows me well enough or has been able to figure out that I am a planner. I don't always follow through with my plans, but I love planning! So as I anticipate being home for the next 2+ months (at least 3 weeks bed rest, probably a couple of weeks after the baby is born before I leave the house....), I think I need a plan.

First of all, I have to say that I am both looking forward to/not looking forward to bed rest. Pros: I get to sleep in and take naps, I will never be forced to cook or clean, I have an opportunity to do some crafts/projects, I can watch all the movies I've been wanting to and read all the books I've been wanting to. Cons: I can't cook or clean and yet I'm stuck in the house so I have a HUGE desire to clean up the dishes and vacuum and such; I'll get bored; I may plan to do things, but actually starting them is really hard to do; I miss seeing people; I can't go shopping and maybe even can't go to church (I'm asking my doctor about that TODAY!); sitting and laying down gets really old really fast..... I'm sure you can think up all of these things.

This woman looks much too happy to be on bed rest... Besides, people already go crazy when on bed rest. To be on bed rest in a completely white room? Looks like a mental hospital to me....)

So here's the plan:

1) Get up at a good hour every day. I hope to get up whenever Jed leaves for the day.

2) Get semi-ready for the day. I think that make-up and certain clothes will rarely see the light of day in these next few weeks, but I know that if I stay in pjs all day and never shower, I will feel extra crappy.

3) Have a plan for the day. I am going to have a To Do list for each day, even if the only item on it is "Watch 2 episodes of Downton Abbey." I will have a purpose every day!

4) Use all this time to do some AMAZING scripture study. Jed and I are doing really great at being consistent with scripture study, but I use the excuse that I don't have time to get myself really into some great study. I no longer have that excuse..... at least for the next 3 or so weeks! So I hope that I can get myself to do that.

5) I'm not on strict bed rest, but they did say that I should generally only get up to go to the bathroom and shower. So, on days I'm not all sweaty, I generally shower every other day. So on the days I don't shower, I have that extra 20 minutes where I would normally be standing in the shower/getting ready to actually do something like put dishes in the dishwasher? Eh? Gosh this bed rest thing can be so hard! I want to do what is best for the baby, so if laying down all day is the key, I will do it. But it's so hard when I don't feel sick AT ALL and when I feel like, what's a little 10 minutes of standing going to do? Well, I think it could potentially do a lot (I've got to ask my doctor). So I may cheat once in a while (because I can't stand those dishes any longer), but I am going to try to practice some will power and not do anything! The nurse did give me the okay to sit like normal, like I don't have to be laying down all the time, so I may take advantage of that and attempt to do some dishes or some cooking while sitting in a chair. My fish tank needs to be cleaned and I'm seriously thinking about doing it in the bath (I will not be in the bath, just for clarification; I will just clean it by sitting next to the bath.). Ha ha that will be interesting.


So wanna see my list of what I hope to do? If you don't, well skip on over these bullets:

• Work on my portfolio for my internship (because I WILL graduate, dang it) 
• Meal Plan. This is rather important, because I have to be very creative with my planning... I basically have 3 types of recipes to look for: freezer meals (which my dear mother will be helping me put together), incredibly easy meals Jed can put together, and last but not least, not necessarily easy meals, but meals I can cook while sitting down and that involve minimal standing up and moving around. I think I will planning a lot of crock pot things.
• Catch up in my 10 year journal. Thank goodness I have the most important things I'd want to write about all on my calendar. (P.S. Have you ever used a 10 year journal? I love it to pieces. You should get one!)
• Commission Jed to get me some butcher paper and supplies so I can decorate the baby's room (low priority.... but maybe I'll do it)
• Clean out the folders on my email! Isn't this something you would love to do, but you know it will take hours and hours??? 
• Cross stitch! I have a project I've been working on since 2009. It's going to look awesome, but I think it's been over a year since I've touched it. Sad, sad day
• Go through all of our papers. This is a project that will take several days, I'm thinking, and that I will need lots of help with from my dear mommy. I have way too many papers, ranging from important things like contracts/birth certificates/car things/insurance, to old school papers that I'm not sure if I want to keep or not, to handouts from church and girls camp. So, the plan is to have my mom help me know which important papers are actually important, file those all beautifully, and then SCAN all my other papers that I would love to keep because they have cute sayings or they have potential importance (school papers), but scanning them will get rid of the clutter and get rid of the stupid things I don't really need to store! I'm so excited! This is really the number one thing I want to do during bed rest. The number one thing I don't want to do is my portfolio, but I cannot wait to have these papers organized! Life will be so wonderful. 

 

How about some fun things?

• Pedicure/manicure/facial (all done by myself, of course). I do have a wonderful gift certificate for a pedicure, so if the doctor says I can go to church or things where I won't have to walk far and can sit the whole time, I will be getting a pedicure!
• Indexing! My sister-in-law was so smart and suggested this. How long has is been since I've done this??? Way too long. But now I feel pretty obligated to spend some time doing this. I want to make it part of my routine every day.
• Visiting! People, come visit me! I love to chat and I love to hear about your lives.
• Watch HGTV. I've already spent the last two days watching way too much of this, but I am seriously going to have this be part of my daily schedule. I love it, and I am learning a lot of little things to look for when buying a house or what to do when you want to sell your house. So I will justify this TV watching by saying I am educating myself in something I don't know very much about, but will need to know lots about! 
• Exercise? I hope I can do some little things. I actually want to ask my doctor if a half hour of stretches would be against bed rest.... because I will be relaxing like crazy when I do that! And isn't the goal of bed rest to keep my blood pressure down? We'll see. There's always the kegal exercises, too, which will help in anticipation for labor and pushing. 

Okay, so now I need to go eat something. I turned on the stove to cook me up some breakfast sausages, but for some reason the smell of the hot pan mixed with the popcorn smell left over from the popcorn I had last night..... the last thing I want to do right now is eat. That brings me to another important part of my plan for being on bed rest: don't snack all the time! I have a feeling I will be gaining a lot of weight in the next month or so...... Anyways, any suggestions for bed rest are appreciated, as already all the suggestions I've gotten have been awesome! Thanks friends!

Bed Rest

Hello there, friends.

So if you have been reading my weekly pregnancy posts, you probably read last week's about my going to the hospital over the weekend. Well there have been some new developments.

Tuesday near the end of the school day I had strange vision problems again. I called my doctor, and they had me come in to take my blood pressure. It was high, not too high, but high. So they ordered some blood work to be done, a 24 hour urine sample, and bed rest. I had a moment (or several moments) but stress because I couldn't help but wonder what would be done with my job??? I am the main teacher of 11 cute little kindergarteners who need a lot of care and specialization. I was smart and prepared the lessons for the rest of the week (most of it was already done, thankfully), and then I was on bed rest.

Wednesday was boring, and spent in anticipation. The nurse told me that by 4 I should have the results of the test. False! That afternoon another nurse told me there was no way they would have the test results before the office closed. Lame. So, another day of bed rest was in order. The nurse did tell me, though that she would leave a note to the nurse who would be there in the morning to get my test results ASAP and call me ASAP, so that made me feel better. Slightly. That night I honestly felt like a kids before Christmas. I have a hard time waiting sometimes....

Today I waited as patiently as possible until my doctor's office opened and I left two messages, one with the lab work people and one with the nurse's station. And so I waited.... and waited..... and so 50 minutes later, I called again and stayed on hold for a good 6 minutes until they answered and said, "Oh yes you left us two messages this morning." .....yes I did. I felt bad, but hey, they told me they would know first thing in the morning! So then they told me they were just waiting to talk to the doctor and then they would call me.

So, about a half hour later, they called. The test results came back totally fine! That confused me because I definitely had some major signs of pre-eclampsia. So the nurse continued on, telling me that while the tests were good (and that was great news), I did have the symptoms of pre-eclampsia, so they said that basically I had a mild form of it. In order to make sure it doesn't turn into a severe form, they told me I had to be on bed rest, plus they'll be seeing me every week where they will monitor my blood pressure closely and also make sure they do a non-stress test each time on the baby. They said I will probably have to do a few more 24 hour urine tests as well.

So that's the verdict! I have pre-eclampsia, and I will be on bed rest until I deliver the baby. They said that most women in my situation make it to 37 weeks as long as they stay on bedrest, so that's good news. I did not want to have a preemie baby if I could help it! So from what I gather (and I will be confirming this with my doctor tomorrow), I will probably have this baby early. I don't remember what I put in the last post and you may already know this, but the only way to get rid of pre-eclampsia is to have the baby, because it has to do with the placenta. So until that placenta is out of my body, I will have pre-eclampsia. So, from what they've said, they just want me to make it to 37 weeks and then this baby is outta here! That means that my new "due date" is probably March 15th. And Ides of March baby?

I'm feeling pretty good right now. I'm glad that my baby and I are healthy enough that we don't have to worry right now, but I'm also glad that they know they want me on bedrest. My biggest fear when they told me the tests were fine was that I would go back to normal life, only to be rushed to the hospital because I worked myself too hard or something changed. So, while I am unhappy to be on bed rest (and slightly stressed about missing work), I'm glad that I will be able to at least do something (by not doing anything) to help the baby stay in longer and to keep us both doing okay.

That brings me to a question. Anyone been on bed rest? Anyone have suggestions for what to do? My instinct when I am home is to cook, clean, and organize. Luckily, I can still do some organizing in bed or just reclining/sitting for a while, but I can't do those other things I would like to do. One thing is for sure: if anyone has a desire to visit me, please come! I have a feeling I will be bored to tears one of these days (and I will literally cry, knowing how I've been this whole pregnancy), so if you so desire,  I would love visitors.

Last but not least, thanks to those who knew what was going on and prayed for us! We know those prayers were answered.

Tracking the Baby Bump: Week 33

Hello, again!

So, I'm sorry I missed last week. I have had a lovely cold for the last two weeks, and last weekend it was getting to its worst. So, I decided to skip my post.

Baby Stats: (I'm wondering when I should stop this... because who knows how big my baby will be? A friend of mine had a baby that was 18 inches.... and the book is telling me my baby is 18 inches.....)

Height: 18 inches
Weight: 3 1/2 lbs
If he were a fruit, he would be a: pineapple

What has happened these last two weeks? A lot! (So you are warned this will be long... But interesting, I think!) Even what happened TODAY was a lot. Yes, I have a story to tell!

I'll start with the story. The background to the story is that at my last appointment, my blood pressure was a little high. I was sick, so they said they weren't too worried. I also gained 9 pounds which was 3x what I have been gaining every month.

Fast forward to last night. I was having some strange vision problems. You know how it looks when you get your picture taken and you have spots in your vision? Well I had a long line of spots where I couldn't see. It seemed pretty bad.... so we went to bed in hopes my vision would be normal in the morning.

This morning, I still have spots on my vision, but thankfully not that huge line. I've done enough reading in my pregnancy books that I knew high blood pressure, vision problems, rapid weight gain, swelling (which I had just developed), and protein in your urine (which I seem to have every once in a while) are all signs or preeclampsia. I would just google what that is, but it's basically severe high blood pressure, which left untreated can develop into eclampsia, which means you will have a lot of seizures. So, we thought we should get this checked out. Being Sunday and my OBGYN's office closed, we thought it smart to go over to Walgreens and get my blood pressure checked for free. This we did, and my blood pressure was 153/97. Woah! So we waited a few minutes and did it again. 163/98. So needless to say, my blood pressure was high. So we called the on call doctor for my OB office and he told us that from what I was saying, it would be best to have some tests done at the hospital.

So, we went to the hospital! It was kind of like a practice run through for when I go into labor. We went up to labor and delivery, we registered with the hospital, then they took me to a labor/delivery room exactly like one I will be in when I deliver the baby! They had me change into a gown and they put on a fetal heart monitor. Over the next couple of hours, I had my blood pressure taken numerous times, gave a urine sample, and got my blood taken for testing.

Here's my bracelet from the hospital:

By the end of the two hours, my blood pressure was normal and all the tests they took were normal. We were all relieved and the doctor told me he was really glad I was paying attention to my body, because women have come in with the exact same symptoms as me and they had severe preeclampsia. For some reason I was spared that trial (for now), so we are very happy! It was a kind of scary few hours, but I've always been the type of person that is very calm in emergencies (like when I filleted my finger on the table saw in woodshop.... I had to tell Chelsea it would be okay, not the other way around). So all is well!

The doctor told me to take it easy this week if possible. He asked me if I didn't work or if at work I could just sit and relax. Ha! I told him about my job and he told me that if anything gets worse, they may ask me to take it easy and could even say I shouldn't go to work, so here's hoping that it doesn't get to that point! It would stress me out way too much! Plus, who wants to be on bed rest?

Now, onto less serious things!

Prego Symptoms:

- Swelling.... major swelling! Okay, not too major. I don't have kankles, thank goodness, but my wedding ring is definitely off for the rest of the pregnancy, all my flats hurt my feet, and in the past few days, bending my toes and fingers, I can feel the excess swelling. It reminds me of going on Trek. I walked with my hands by my side for 10 hours a day, and by the end of the day, my fingers were huge! So huge I couldn't bend them very far. It's not that bad, but I can feel the pressure when I bend my fingers.

- A bazillion stretch marks. Dislike.

- Carpal Tunnel Syndrome? Did you know that a lot (and according to my What to Expect book, a majority) of pregnant women get some carpal tunnel syndrome? Well, for the last week or so, my arm has been hurting during the night. And when I say hurting, I mean, I wake up, need to pick up one of my 4 pillows I tend to use, or just want to turn over, and so I move my arm to pick it up or to help me move, and I get this sharp pain in my forearm. I really couldn't figure out the problem. There was no bruising, I hadn't remembered hurting my arm, I wasn't sleeping any differently, there was no change to my body that should have brought on such pain! So, in all my research online, and I know I shouldn't self-diagnose, but I think this is my problem. Apparently, when you sleep on your arm (which I tend to do) or when you don't move it for a long time, that can bring on these symptoms. So, my lovely mother gave me a wrist brace, which I used all yesterday and used last night as I slept, and I had no pain when I woke up! Yay! It's so nice being able to come up with a solution to the pain.

- Continuing difficulty bending over, rolling over, and in general just getting up. Especially when sitting down, it just takes such effort to bend to get something off the ground! And moving when I'm lying down, I feel like a walrus or seal because I have to make such a great effort for such little movement ha ha. Jed is so kind and will get out of bed (not in the morning, just if we're lying in bed on our computers or something) or he will come into the living room to help me up. I hardly even have to ask anymore; if he sees that I have to get up, he will often just come over and put out his hand to help. I love that he is so thoughtful :)

- My belly button has never been so small. Circumference-wise and depth, it is for sure smaller. I am still an innie, but with seven more weeks of growing, I think I could make it to a flat belly button. How strange!

- Weight gain.... I went to my 32 week check up last week.... and I had gained 9 pounds! Ah! I was consistently gaining 3 pounds at each check up, so that was a little scary to have gained 3x the normal amount. I wonder if it has to do with the retaining water. At my check up, my blood pressure was not where it should be, either, so I wonder if we should be worried... However, it was just the beginning of my cold, so the nurse said it maybe had to do with being sick. The interesting thing is, just like how my sleeping habits haven't changed, my eating habits haven't either! I have exercised/eaten just about the same throughout this entire pregnancy, meaning I hardly exercise and I snack quite a bit. I'm getting the the point in the pregnancy, though, where I will go in to the doctor at 34 and 36 weeks, and then every single week after that. It's so weird! I actually made doctor's appointments all the way until my 39 week appointment, because we won't know until that point if I will need on at 40 weeks or not! It is getting so close!

- My belly is huge. How can it get any bigger? I have 7 more weeks of growing.... about a 1/2 a pound of baby a week. How in the world can I get any bigger and rounder! I'm a little worried for the coming month and a half.... I'm still excited, but a little worried for how hard it will be to get around. I actually ran yesterday, because one of our students forgot her backpack, so I ran after the bus. I did not catch it, because it was too far by the time I got outside, but I ran down the hall. I doubt it was fast, but I still can run, despite this huge belly! 

- Heartburn still plagues me. It's pretty consistent, too, with what I eat. Pizza is still a huge love of my life, but I know for a fact I will have severe heartburn afterwards. Thank goodness for medicine.

- My gums still bleed when I brush my teeth. I am dilligent in my teeth brushing and semi-dilligent in the flossing, but my gums always bleed. The interesting thing is they don't bleed very often when I floss.... I don't understand, but that's the truth.

- I'm consistently hot. I sleep with the fan on and only a small blanket the majority of every night.

- For the past week, I have woken up almost exactly 12 minutes before my alarm goes off every morning. Not every morning have I woken up at the same time, and yet somehow my body knows when my alarm will be going off and I wake up before it.

- I've tried to figure out when the baby always moves, and I have pinpointed the one consistent time (partially because it's one where I am always sitting or lying down): 10:00 (PM). Just before or just after, that is when the baby is at his most active. The other night Jed actually got to feel him move for almost a whole 15 minutes. There were some pretty big movements, too. It's so fun to share that with Jed, because he doesn't get to feel him move much. Our baby seems to sense whenever I put Jed's hand on my belly. One interesting fact from the nurse who taught our prenatal class: with her babies, whenever they were active in her womb, for the first while after they were born, they were active then. So I guess I can already plan for a 10:00 feeding for the baby!

Those are the pregnancy symptoms..... So I mentioned that I was sick, and still am. My voice is rather funny and I use a ridiculous amount of tissues.

There are a couple of fun things that happened in the last two weeks that I will not write about in this post, but in their own posts. These two things are my amazing baby shower and our prenatal class! Oh they were both so great.

I will end with the fact that I am only 7 weeks away from having this baby. That is so insane to me (and Jed). I had a dream last week that I had the baby, and it made me wish the baby was here so much! I am in love with our little guy already. I am anticipating a lot of crying when our baby is born. I think just looking at him, realizing that he was growing inside me since July, that I've fed and nurtured him while he's in there, and now I get to hold him and love him and take care of him, gosh, I will be overwhelmed with emotions. I've been wanting to be a mom probably since I was 4 and played with my little dolls. I've loved babysitting. I've loved holding any baby I can get my hands on. Now it's getting so close that I will have my own little one to care for! I know it will be so hard, but I can't wait.

Our Awesome Prenatal Class

I hope that all of you are planning on taking a prenatal class. It was invaluable! We did the two week one at Provo's Intermountain Hospital. The lame thing was that the class was 3 hours long, but it was nice only having it for two weeks. A great plus to it, too, is that you get to go to a breastfeeding class for free when you take this class. That one will be in March for me :)

So, what did we learn? The first night was quite a bit of stuff I already knew. She went over terms and definitions of things. Then she went over other stuff I think I knew..... What I did learn from the first night were these things:

1) When to go to the hospital - mainly for unusual things. (Go when your water breaks, if you are having contractions and it's before you should be giving birth, if you have bleeding--especially with pains, etc.)

2) Signs of labor. This was great because I just can't imagine what contractions must feel like! So basically, if you have any uncomfortable feeling at regular intervals, and the intervals keep getting shorter and the pain keeps getting worse and lasts for longer periods of time, you are having contractions! If they are irregular at all, you are probably fine.

3) Stages/Phases of Labor. There are 3 Stages, and 2 Phases of Stage 1. Stage 1 is basically contractions. Phase 1, 2, and 3 are basically your contractions getting worse and worse. She said that Phase 3, in her opinion and from her experience, is the worst. It is called the Transition Phase. Stage 1 is so bad because it's basically your cirvix dilating and effacing (or moving farther apart and getting thinner). Phase 2 is when you get to push! She said this is better than Stage 1 Phase 3 because you actually get to feel like you are doing something, not just dealing with pain. Stage 3 is basically giving birth to the Placenta.

4) She showed us lots of pieces of equipment. The scariest by far: forceps. They do not look what I imagined them to.

Scary, right? It doesn't help that these don't exactly look clean....



The second night was Jed's favorite/worst. I just loved it all. Here's what we talked about:

1) Postpartum care. We got days/weeks of how long things will take to heal, how long there will be bleeding, how long till your milk comes, etc. Very interesting, and made me feel better, knowing what to expect. She also showed us what sort of things we will be wearing after the birth and what sort of things we will be able to do/take to help with the pain....

2) Newborn care. This was informative, but also repetitive for me. I've been reading my three books I have over and over in an effort to know what to expect, so a lot of what she went over was a review. It's always nice to hear it from someone who knows, though, because they add in the personal opinions and things like, for one child this worked, and for another it didn't. Jed especially loved them going over the proper way to put a carseat in your car and the baby in the car seat. You would think it would be common sense, but there are some things you want to watch out for, and who knows if we would have made some of those mistakes. Interesting fact: The county health department will do free car seat checks if you make an appointment, so you can have an expert tell you if you have it in your car correctly and if your baby is in it correctly! Very nice.

3) Birth video! We watched one made at the hospital, which was cool. There were four births. First was pretty basic, and it included an epidural and an episiotomy. Jed just about passed out at the end, I actually got choked up! The relief from the mom and the excitement of the baby being there made me so excited for that! The next birth was of a c-section. That was a little on the gross side..... Third was a VBAC and they used forceps.... Again, forceps are scary! I did not like watching that one. The woman in it was very funny, though. And last was a natural birth, which really was unfair to watch, because literally, she pushed 3 times and the baby came out. The nurse measured her, said she was dilated to about 9 1/2 cm, so she went to get the doctor, and when he came in, the baby's head was literally halfway out. By the time he had gloves one, the whole head was out and these little hands and arms were squirming their way out. If only I could be so lucky!

4) Tour of the Hospital. This was all done with pictures, but it was nice to see. Now I know exactly where to go (5th floor) when I'm in labor and I know what the room will look like, where I will go after delivery (4th floor), and all that jazz. This was something Jed and I both really wanted to know, so we were really glad we got to see this.

So, there you have it, that is what you can learn in a prenatal class! We are very glad we went, and it only makes us more excited for the real deal!

Tracking the Baby Bump: 31 Weeks

Here's the picture for this week!

Baby Stats:

Length: 18 ish inches
Weight: 3 1/2 ish pounds
If he were a fruit, he would be: 4 naval oranges

So, the word of the week is... fatigue! I have felt so lazy this week. In the evenings, over the weekend, I just felt so tired. I think a big factor in this is how big I'm starting to get. I just get into a great position on the couch, and then after a while I start to get sore, so I have to move, and it takes so much effort just to shift my weight to move! Getting up from the couch is harder, so I'm very thankful for dear Jed to help me up all the time. I really am getting so big, though. I've had a lot of strangers ask me about when I am due. I think I've finally gotten to the stage where there is almost no mistaking that I am pregnant. People can really tell, even when I have my big coat on. I'm sure it's due to the way I walk, as well. I realized I don't walk with my hips going up and down anymore, they go front to back. Plus, I think I lean back a bit.

Just to show you how big I really am, here is a close up of my stomach. I'm holding back the shirt so you can see just how round this belly is getting!

Crazy, right?

Another blessed fact of the week: I'm officially retaining water. My wedding ring has been retired for the next several months. All last week I struggled to put it on and take it off, which I was hoping was due to the fact that whenever I woke or was going to sleep, I was rather hot. But, I tested it one time when I was cold and I knew my fingers should be smaller, and my ring was still nice and tight. So, Saturday was the day that I had to put my ring into my jewelry box and get out a cheap one I got from Claire's long ago. It's rather sad... My flats are no fun to wear anymore, either. My feet are definitely a bit swollen. Not so much that I can tell, but enough that when I take off my shoes, I have a lovely red line where my shoes were.

I'm sure I had more to say, but I honestly can't think of it! Exciting things are happening this week, though. My birthday is on Wednesday, our first Prenatal Class at the hospital is on Thursday, my 32 week appointment is on Friday, and my baby shower is on Saturday! It's going to be a great week.