Crossing the Threshold

The day I had been dreading arrived. My wedding rings no longer fit on my sausage fingers. Well the rings still technically fit but were getting pretty tight and was quite a chore to get them off. I decided to go ahead and store them away before they got stuck. So now I'm sporting a faux wedding ring. I bought it 2 sizes bigger than my normal size so hopefully I won't outgrow this one.



I've also been having a time getting a good night's sleep. Can't seem to get comfortable. I can sleep on my side, but my hips cramp up easily so I have to attempt to roll to the other side which really should be an Olympic sport. My bathroom trips are also increasing in the middle of the night. As much of a pain all of this is, it will all be worth it in the end when we get to meet Baby Girl.

32 Weeks

Wow, 8 weeks to go. Really no symptoms. Just the usual culprits: heartburn, peeing all the time, yada yada. We have our first shower this weekend and I'm excited to celebrate Baby Girl.



I've started making the list of final "to do's". Hmmmm, I think that's it. Thankful for being another week closer to the big day.

Childbirth Classes

We took childbirth classes at the hospital the last two nights. It was really everything I imagined it would be. Watching lots of videos. Us sitting on a mat practicing breathing exercises. Hee-hee-ho. Hee-hee-ho. During the breaks, I snuck down the hall during our breaks to oogle over the brand new babies in the nursery. Not to sound overconfident, but I've been reading a lot about childbirth and I felt like I already knew a lot of the information.

One of the techniques were taught was to use visualazation to take our mind off the pain. So they had us sit on a mat with Neal behind me and me leaning up against him. The instructor told the coaches to tell us a story. I asked Neal to tell me a story about the Beach. He must have misunderstood my whisper because he told me this long story about a Peach. I listened through giggles and clearly need to work on visualizing. Maybe I'll get a story for him to read me.

I feel like I'm prepared as I can be, but also realize that it might not all go down exactly how I have planned. The one consistent thing I've read is to Be Prepared for Anything. The instructor did tell us more about epidurals than I ever knew before. That's something I'm still on the fence about. I'm not opposed to having pain medication, but there's a lot that can go along with the epidural that are definite downsides. The big one being that you can't move around because everything is numb in the southern hemisphere. I think at this point I want to see how far I can go naturally and then get the goods if the pain becomes unbearable. At the end of the day, our goal is to have a safe, healthy delivery for both me and Baby Girl. Time will tell!

Wednesday Musings

Time for a blog post with pure randomness.

~~We've been getting the house ready for the shower on Saturday. I've been cleaning a little here and there because a)I get tired frequently and b)I really dislike cleaning. Neal ended up being home yesterday and completed one of my most hated tasks for me: cleaning our shower. He also cooks 90% of the time. How I ended up with a man that cooks and clean, I'll never know. All I know is that I'm very thankful for it.

~~I had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday. We were in and out in record time: 14 minutes. The appointments are pretty routine these days: Get my weight, take my blood pressure, pee in a cup, measure the belly, listen to heartbeat, answer questions. Rinse and repeat in 2 weeks.

~~We've really gotten into the Olympics this time around. That's all we watch these days. My hormones have been pretty under control but I teared up when the women's gymanstics team took the Gold last night. Their routines were flawless and you could really tell they were a team. Go Team USA!

~~Now that it's August 1, I can officially say that we're having a baby "next month."

~~Baby Girl got her first "school supply" list from Bear Boulevard yesterday. Well mainly a list of baby things that she'll need when she goes to "school" in January. We were also invited to the Meet the Teacher day in a couple of weeks. Even though we've already met all the infant room teachers, we'll probably still go.

Random Louisiana Trip

A couple days ago, Neal's grandmother called to say she and Tia Yoya were riding the casino bus on Sunday from Corpus to Lake Charles to go to LaBaurge. So we deciced to make a quick trip and Neal had planned on seeing a customer in Beaumont on Monday morning.

We stopped at my mom's to drop Mack off. Somehow I managed to lose the key to her house so we had to be creative. Luckily, Neal found a window that wasn't locked all the way and was able to get in.



We dropped the dog off and headed to Louisiana. We all met up at the casino. Grandma gave us some fun money to play on. I played video poker for about 30 minutes and then decided it was time for me to get out of the smoky casino. I took a little siesta in the hotel room and watched the Olympics for a little while. We ate dinner at the casino before we headed back to spend the night at my mom's. The casino actually had really good cajun food. We split a crawfish grilled cheese sandwcich and a cajun pot pie.

New Principal

Yesterday I stepped foot in my school to meet our new principal. Our old principal suddenly (but not really surprisingly) retired over the summer. The nerd in me was excited to see my school friends and I was really impressed with what this new lady had to say. I think she really gets what our problems are at our school and appears to have a plan to tackle them and make SBE a better place. As excited as I am for Baby Girl to come, I'm also excited to start this school year and a little sad that I'm not going to be there the whole year to see her vision come to life.

31 Weeks

Hello 31 Weeks!



The belly is now starting to get in the way when attempting things like tying my shoes and getting clothes out of the dryer. It never fails. There's always one sock that gets stuck in the back of the dryer.

I've been getting a little winded if I do too much too fast. I guess my lungs have finally been affected.

I've been going through this stage where nothing sounds good to eat. I'll be ravenous and then when it's time to eat, it's hard to get food down.

Still have heartburn several times a day and now sometimes even in the middle of the night. My new routine is when I get up to pee in the middle of the night, I also take a TUMS.

I should let Neal write this part but I'll take a stab at it. I think I've been bossing him around lately. He's been a good sport and I can usually recognize when I'm doing it and stop it.

We took maternity pictures last night with 2 of my friends. We laughed and laughed during the session. Well the girls did. Neal was entertained on his phone until he was called to take a few pictures. Again, a good sport he has been!