34 Weeks!

6 more weeks! This past weekend we had a great baby shower, we got a lot of really nice things. A lot of hard work went into the shower and we really appreciated it. We have been very fortunate to have good family and friends. I am having a very hard time blogging at the moment, my concentration has been broken - I am constantly reminded that I a married to one of the silliest human beings on the planet but sometimes he does things that just blow my mind. Last year at this time he was a banana with cartoon hands and was the life of the halloween party we were at (he is the life of any party) and now he just comes downstairs wearing full feetie pajamas. Jason, the only 27 year old man who would ask for feetie pajamas for his birthday. We had found some on ebay, but tonight at Target we found some boys XL ones with robots. I am almost at a loss for words, I can only shake my head and think of our poor child.

The baby has been dancing a lot lately and today she was bouncing, it was incredibly weird and people could see it. I go back to the doctor next Tuesday, I only have two more 2 week appointments and then I am on to weekly. It really is getting close. Jason is so sure she will be born on his birthday that he has told me he will order us a nice Thanksgiving dinner from the hospital cafeteria. My mind is totally blank and I can not think of anything else at this moment lol. I am so grateful to have a goofy husband who makes me laugh all the time even if I give him a hard time about it. Annabelle will at least have a good daddy.

33 Weeks!

I have always spent most of my free time reading, mostly about true crime and historical things but since I have been pregnant it has been about babies and birth and all that goes with it. The girls at work talk about their birth stories and I like to hear them so I have some idea of what to expect. Sometimes though they don't want to tell me things so not to "scare" me. Fortunately for me I am not afraid of labor, I know it will hurt, how could it not. I have a higher tolerance for pain than a lot of people but I still complain. Most people do not think it compares to child birth but I have had many bad pain experiences with my facial swellings. The last one so bad that I wanted to shoot myself in the foot or anywhere just to get some relief and stronger pain medicine. The pain medication I was on didn't do the job and I passed out (just for a few seconds). I do not really want to get an epidural when Anna is born, but I know that I am not superwoman and I have absolutely nothing to prove by not getting one. I am going to go in with an open mind about it and take it for as long as I can. When I can no longer handle it then if there is still time I will get the epidural. I think I have a bigger fear of the epidural than I do the child birth, strange I know. I don't fear needles or anything like that but you just have to sit still and it is going into your spine! To me that is scary stuff. I know that the pain is just going to be temporary and just have to keep telling myself that. Mind over matter and all that jazz - we will see how well that works for me. I know that I may have a unrealistic view of things but it is my view and if I keep thinking this way then it might be the way things happen. Some people ask me why suffer the pain if I don't have to by not getting the epidural and I honestly do not have a good answer to that. The only answer I have is that my mom had my sister and I both naturally with nothing, surely I can not let her out do me.

Going back to reading, yesterday Jason was talking about censoring what our child would read when she was older. I told him absolutely not would my child be censored on what she read. My parents never censored me, and I turned out just fine - of course he disagreed with my turning out just fine part lol. Seriously though who says that stuff?!?!?!?!?! He was mostly joking when he said it because he knew it would aggravate me but I believe the first time he tries that on her I will punch him in the gut. I am getting irritated thinking of it, Jason Welch King of aggravation as my sister says.

I have a doctors appointment today, which is just routine but I am going to ask her about the Braxton hicks I believe I had last night. Braxton Hicks are fake contractions that are trying to get your body ready for the real thing. It was just some pulling and discomfort that woke me up from sleeping. It didn't last too long and I guess there were only one of them. I want my baby to be here but I don't want to her to be here now because I know she is not ready. She has seven weeks of developing to go. I wish that December would hurry so she can come out healthy and happy. No matter how uncomfortable I get I could never imagine wanting to go ahead and have my baby just so that I would feel better. Unfortunately though that does happen, and I can't believe doctors let it. I know some women say that they hate being pregnant, I can't imagine that either. I have had a good pregnancy aside from the sickness in the first trimester so that may be the difference. Annabelle thinks the way out is to push to the right side. She pops her elbow out and it just sits there prodruding from my belly. It is funny!

32 Weeks!

Yesterday I hit 32 weeks and we also drove to Lexington to Washington D.C. so I did not feel like blogging. Jason believes that the baby has dropped but I don't know. She elbowed me for about 30 mins last night. It actually hurt a little. I have a doctors appointment on Wednesday so I am sure the doctor will be able to tell me if she has dropped or not. Also on Wednesday my sister turns 24, it is hard to believe she is so old. We are very excited about our baby shower on Saturday - I am sure it will be very fun. I wore real shoes today for the second time since about April. My feet swell so badly now I thought they might help. I think they actually may have hurt my feet worse. It is easy to navigate around here but my feet hurting makes me not be able to walk as well as I normally would. Tomorrow I think I may go back to my flip flops and see if that makes a difference. My hands are swelling now especially at night, I took my rings off a couple weeks ago because I did not want them to get stuck and now there is no way I can get them back on lol. I hadn't taken either off for 3 years, except when I had my engagement ring fixed. Our anniversary was on Wednesday - we spent it driving our dog down to Mt. Vernon to meet dad and going to live on main for Jason's volleyball game. My feet hurt so I am going to bed!

31 Weeks!

We have only 9 weeks left before Annabelle arrives! I am getting more excited every day. I had a doctor visit yesterday and she is head down and the hard spot that we keep feeling is her butt lol. She didn't move as much yesterday as she has the previous weeks so I had asked the doctor about that. I figure she is just running out of room and the doctor told me to do the kick counts and that in her most active hour she should kick 6-8 times. Well she kicks 6-8 times per hour every hour so I guess I had nothing to worry about. Jason went with me yesterday so he could meet the new doctor I started seeing a couple months ago when mine left. Of course all he did was sit in the chair and look at a magazine the entire time. He did look up when she put the doppler on to hear the heartbeat. The hb was 158 yesterday, my bp has risen to 108/72. Mom was afraid it was too low before and now she seems to think it may be getting to high "for me." I have taken on a lot of fluid, my feet and legs are really swollen. I saw a picture of me from the weekend and my legs have a lot of fluid on them. A lot of my weight gain recently has to do with my swelling - things could be worse.

Yesterday was the first time I actually asked the doctor any questions having to do with the delivery and all that. I have been reading a lot during my entire pregnancy but as the time gets closer everything I read I have questions about now. We are taking three classes before she is born, Child Birth class, breastfeeding class and baby bootcamp. I am currently trying to work on a birth plan for the delivery and I talked about it with my doctor yesterday. I am not a hard person to please and I know that the doctors know much much more about these things than I so my birth plan will be pretty simple. The main thing is I'd like to be able to nurse her right after she is born, before she really gets any visitors. I would rather she get to eat and get settled down and then have people come in. I just think that would be best for her but it may not happen that way and if it doesn't that will be fine.

There are so many decisions to make about her birth and all that comes after and I want to make sure that I make the most informed and educated decisions that I can. Jason reading the books would make a difference in my decisions. So far his response is, whatever I think is best is fine with him. I don't agree, I think he should read for himself. That is like someone saying, whoever you vote for is who I will vote for even though I have no idea about either candidate. I think he will learn a lot, or at least I hope he does, in our birth classes. Last night he started reading to the baby - I know she knew what was going on and enjoyed it because when he finished she started kicking me. It was very sweet, it almost made me cry.

Our list of things to do got one shorter over the weekend. We traded the Explorer in for a Mazda 3 hatchback. I call it Anna and Kate's car as we had to pick a car that would be good for both of them. We have already taken Kate to the dog park in it and she enjoys it a lot. Her crate does not fit in the back so she just rides in the main back by herself. We had bought a gate to put up but it didn't fit which turned out to be a good thing as I think she could reach the baby if she had wanted too. I don't think Kate would hurt her intentionally but I don't want to risk it. They make one especially for our car but I have not been able to find it online so we are just going with one they have a petsmart. Kate has been sick since Monday (we think she ate some plastic and something out of the creek) so we've only taken her out in the car once.

Jason's volleyball team played in the tournament last night and lost. Since it was my mothers birthday mom and Veronica brought her up to Red Lobster. They also got to enjoy watching Jason play. I think its funny that my 70 year old grandmother spent part of her birthday in a bar - she loved it lol.

30 Weeks!

We have only 10 more weeks to go before she gets here. It is exciting - she may have turned last night or tried too. I could not breathe nor could I move. I went to Jason's volleyball game and did not think I was going to be able to get out of the car I was so sore. It just wasn't my back and stomach it was my legs and everything. Then last night I couldn't go to sleep because I could not get comfortable enough to breathe. I've had a lot of soreness the entire pregnancy but last night's was way worse. I know this is only a sign of things to come. I had my glucose test last Thursday and I assume I did fine on it because they haven't called me. That is somewhat of a relief. I have gained way more weight than I thought I had, 25 lbs. I honestly can not tell where it is other than my huge stomach but I know I've gained it other places. My feet (and now legs) still swell, but again its not a concern because my bp is running 98/66. I have not worn real shoes since May, only flip flops so I tried actual shoes this week to see if that would make a difference but it hasn't. Good thing swelling doesn't hurt! The baby is still measuring good and big. I go back to the doctor next Wednesday - I have started visits every 2 weeks now. The baby still has room because she kicks and kicks and punches and pushes on me all day long. People say they miss that once the baby is born and I can understand.

We have gotten a lot accomplished in the past two months but there are still so many little things we have left to do.
1. Buy the building
2. Put the junk from the basement in the building
3. Put up the closet doors in Anna's room
4. Get closet storage for Anna's room
5. Clean our house really good
6. Organize Anna's clothes
7. Get a different car

Anna went to her fourth concert this past weekend. She has now heard the Avett Brothers play three times. This was the best Avett concert I had been too, it was the concert we had expected the very first time we saw them. They aren't playing close again until November 6th, but I don't think it would be wise for me to go. I think I will sit that one out. I have absolutely no musical ability whatsoever, and Jason is the worst singer in the world, but I hope Anna has a little musical talent.