hey baby, let's meet up

the day is almost here. i officially have 2 days until my due date. and i have to say i'm a little surprised. i really didn't think i'd make it this long. just about everyone (including me) thought this little guy/girl was coming early. and i guess technically i still have time to be "early" but now i'm starting to wonder if i'll be late. ?!

i've had several bouts of "false labor" where for about 2 or so hours i'll have semi-regular and somewhat painful contractions. tummy as hard as a rock, back ache, lower belly cramps--all of what people say the onset of labor feels like. and then it passes. when the time actually comes, i may not even know i'm in true labor. it will be like "the boy that cried wolf," only more like "the baby who cried 'i want out!' " 

i don't know if it's that i'm physically ready for this baby to be here, because i still feel really good. minus the whole peeing five times a night deal, i'm actually sleeping better at night (well most nights anyway). i think more of the mental approach of my due date, coupled with the transformation my house has made into a baby haven, have both made it extremely hard to accept that it could still be two weeks before this rascal is here. two weeks...ugh.

my nesting has reached out of control proportions. i've done almost everything imagineable. the only thing stopping me from vacuuming (again) and waxing my wood floors is knowing that i have to be on full alert at work still. because when the weekends come around, i have no fears of exhausting myself. and i have. last sunday i vacuumed and wiped down all my baseboards, mopped all the floors, cleaned all the blinds and window sills, dusted everything, magic-erasered the walls and door frames, and did 4 loads of laundry (one including my final load of baby items). by 3pm i was quite regretful of all this. i wanted to saw my legs off at the waist, they hurt so bad. i've also roamed the halls at 3am thinking of ways to reconfigure my kitchen eat-in area, and i've stood in the nursery at 12am wondering what else i could fold or hang or wash...

annnd, slowly but surely the "nursery" is almost finally complete! here are some poor-quality phone photos for your enjoyment: 

that orange 1880s french chair is named "charlotte" and she's one of my prized possessions. she is not a nursery chair per se, but she looks good there...and i don't have another chair that fits in there. there is, after all, still a queen bed, night stand, and dresser crammed into the room. oh, and a cute book shelf (not pictured) with baby books and stuffed animals that we've been gifted.

thanks to my sweet friend, anna, who's baby shower decorations all have been hung, or will be hung, in my nursery. it was so great not having to spend time deciding what to put on the walls! and she is so crafty!

that bunny is the bunny from the book "goodnight moon" and he just so happens to match my crib bedding perfectly!

i'm quite happy with how it all turned out :)

on another note, i'm also ready to have this baby so i can meet the person i've been carrying around for nine months! that's right, i said person. a living individual, created by God, being formed into a baby from the time of conception. besides what i'm told, i know this to be true because of how connected i am to what's inside me. from the very beginning of my pregnancy, i've been sensitized to certain things in life--not because of pregnancy, but because of the person i'm carrying and who this baby will be. i'm certain of it. i can't explain it. it just is.

that being said, i feel like the person that our baby will be (whether boy or girl) carries a lot of my husband's traits, and most of all, the heart he has for people. he finds compassion within him that makes me look cold-hearted. sometimes i comically say "his heart is bigger than his brain" because, well, sometimes it is. i would much sooner tell a drug addict to get the you-know-what off my porch before i let them borrow my phone. i can be kind or generous when i don't feel like it, but it is a learned behavior. i have to remind myself that i am called to be these things. for him it comes naturally.

bringing a child into this world will not be an easy task. sometimes i look down at my belly and say "i'm sorry, baby, for what this world has for you" because it is ever-changing and there are so many dark things that will fight for my child. it's hard to prepare for that. but somehow, i know my child has that nearly-stupid love for people in him. it may take a while for him to find it, but it's there. and the reason i say "him" is because i've been 90% sure since i found out that i was pregnant that my baby is a boy. and because of how much my baby will be like his dad. so even if it is a girl, she will be like her dad in that aspect...we just don't have a name for her! 

so, no, we still don't have a girl name. we have a handful of names that we like, so i suppose if they surprise me and say "it's a girl!" and then they said "no really, she's a girl" after i tell them to check again, we'll have a tough decision to make! if she is a girl, hopefully i'll know when i see her!

so come on out, baby! we're ready for you. in every way possible. 

pregnancy senioritis

i've hit a wall. i'm done. not with pregnancy, though. i love carrying a baby. yes, i am one of those rare women who loves being pregnant. sure it has it's disadvantages, but in general i've been very blessed in pregnancy.

i'm done with everything else. everything that's keeping me from focusing on these last few weeks as a pregnant woman. i'm done with work. i'm done with favors. i'm done with being polite. i'm done with to-do lists. what i'd really like to tell everyone is "no. i'm not putting anything else on my schedule to get done until this baby comes, because, in case you forgot, i could have a baby any minute." (this, of course, excludes time with friends because i like that, and i won't get much of it soon.)

i'm also working up until my due date. that's always been the plan. am i a crazy person? i think so. because i didn't realize that during your last month of pregnancy you only have half a brain. i don't know the science behind it, i don't know if it's been proven or not, but i'm telling you, it's true. i do things that seem perfectly logical only to later completely question my own rationale. it came in small bouts earlier in pregnancy, but now it's constant. i can look at someone with my full attention, listen to the words that come out of their mouth, digest it, and forget it the next day.

i feel exactly like i did my senior years of high school and college--senioritis as they call it. i'm just done.

on another note, if all of this stress doesn't send me into early labor, i am perfectly on track for a baby in two weeks. all the things in my body that change and progress to prepare me for pushing a human out of my you-know-what are progressing exactly as they should. i have a "textbook" pregnancy, apparently. at work we like to play a "where is baby?" game, because sometimes he or she looks to have dropped and then 2 days later will move up high again. so every morning i come in and the girls gather around my belly to take a look.

speaking of my co-workers, they are so awesome. monday we were supposed to get together for a "girls night" and it ended up being a surprise baby shower for me! it was so sweet! and good to spend time with them outside of work's stressful environment. i also had a small shower last weekend with close family and friends, which was also wonderful. you should see the decorations i got to bring home and hang in my nursery! and all the great stuff i got! we are so blessed. my husband thinks we've gotten more for the baby than we did at our wedding. i think he's right! (sorry i have no pictures up yet--things are still making their way into place.)

one of my favorite baby things is the swing. it looks so comfortable and plays soothing nature sounds. it makes me want to be a baby. sometimes i stand next to it and turn on the sound-maker so baby can hear it...ok, and maybe because i like it, too. maybe when he or she is here it will be a familiar sound and it can be a place of peace (and quiet)!

we have also had a small financial blessing come our way. i knew it would happen. i knew that something had to happen because God always takes care of us--always--i just didn't know when or how. i had gotten to the point where i didn't even want to look at our financial situation for the upcoming months. now we can breathe a little while i'm on maternity leave!

i've made a full recovery from my hospital stay with food poisoning. i did have horrible cankles and some mean acid reflux from all the fluid they pumped into me while there. but they have both resided, thank goodness. back to normal! my strep b test came back negative which means i've got the "ok" to labor at home as long as i feel comfortable. i've been practicing my breathing and my yoga ball exercises, and i've started a list of music i may find comforting during labor (if any).

so here's hoping the next two weeks go by much smoother than the last. baby will be here sooner than i know it!

also i'll gladly take bets on the sex of the baby :)

my birthday trip to the ER

a few days before my birthday my husband asked me if i wanted a party on my birthday. i said "no, because i wouldn't know what to do with a party. my birthday has never been a big deal!" (this is the plight of the "christmas birthdays"--everyone is coming off the tail end of christmas and by the time your birthday rolls around, few people are in town, and if they are they don't have much of an inclination to go to another celebration. my poor sister's is actually january 1st. so we're both used to it.) 

my 27th birthday quickly turned into a huge deal, but not the way i would have preferred.

earlier in the day, my husband was hard at work scrubbing down our new baby-mobile. it was given to us for practically nothing (and we are so grateful!), but the little car has been road hard and hung up wet. it needs quite a bit of elbow grease. so while he was doing that, i gave into the urge i had from the second i woke up that morning to get things cleaned up around the house. the nesting hormone had moved in for the day and i spent the better half of it organizing and cleaning (yet somehow parts of our house still look like a disaster--at least baby's portion is clean and organized). needless to say i definitely overdid it. my legs were aching so badly by the end of the day. 

eventually dinner time rolled around and i had to make the decision of where to eat. i toyed with the idea of franco's (i wanted some dang italian), and really we should have gone there. it's family owned and we know it's good, but for some reason i decided i wanted to have something new and different. both of us have only been to carrabbas once so we decided that was the place. i boxed up more than half of my chicken and pasta and we headed home so i could prop up my previously mentioned aching legs. within 30 minutes of arriving home, i knew something was wrong. 

what ensued over the next 4 hours was the most violently ill experience i've ever had. the noises that came out of my body....ugh. after being unable to keep down gatorade or even water, my husband threw on a coat and packed me up to head to the ER. i was reluctant for several reasons. 1: i hate being sick outside of my own home. it's uncomfortable and embarrassing. 2: the last ER trip we had last year with my husband was horrible--i generally associate ERs with being one of the most miserable places on earth. and 3: i didn't know if i could last the car ride. but i did. and if i hadn't been 36 weeks pregnant and afraid whatever was hurting me was hurting my baby, i never would have agreed (although he probably would have picked me up and forced me anyway). 

we arrived at west florida hospital and a very nice man greeted me at the door and asked what was wrong. my husband explained and i was immediately admitted (you say the word "pregnant lady" and people rush around you like royalty). they took me up to labor and delivery so baby could be monitored. i (of course) had to pee in a cup and they determined that i was extremely dehydrated and ran an iv with fluids. 2 bags later and still no change. baby looked fine, but i was having braxton hicks contractions every 5 minutes. while this is normally not of concern, left untreated could actually cause early labor, due to my extreme dehydration. they gave me some anti-nausea medicine which helped tremendously. after that one wore off, they gave me finagrin and then i was finally able to sleep a little and take my mind off of how much my aching muscles (from the day's activities, violent vomiting, and fever) ached even more in a hospital bed. 

bag after bag was dripped into me and slowly my urine was showing less keytones (i had to show none before leaving). during this time my amazing husband (who had nothing to sit on but a rickety lab stool, while running on no sleep) helped me disconnect from my machinery and pee however many times i had to do that, made sure i was comfortable (or as comfortable as possible), and grabbed a nurse whenever needed. he was such a trooper. i am a blessed woman. as sick as i was, i was surprised i wasn't crying for my mama, but he did such a great job that i didn't want for much (except my own bed).

and i spoke of the amazing labor and delivery staff in my last post, but i will say it again: they are wonderful. my experience at west florida hospital has been nothing but good. the ER staff was amazing, the labor and delivery staff was amazing--even though it's the furthest hospital from our house, it will be my choice from now on. a completely different story from our sacred heart ER experience last year. 

so seven bags of fluid and 12 hours later, my urine finally tested for no keytones. yay! and the contractions were much less frequent and much weaker. baby is staying put until he or she is ready to come into this world. for which i am so relieved! because even though baby would have survived just fine at 36 weeks, i told my husband i did not have enough energy to deliver a baby after all that!

i am in my own bed now, sleeping a lot and trying to get plenty of fluids. my muscles are still achey but my fever broke sometime last night, so i'm on the up and up! for those of you that knew, thank you for the thoughts and prayers. for those that didn't--i'm sorry! we had little time to worry about much else. i am just thankful to be journeying into these last few weeks of pregnancy safely, with a baby who is probably also very glad to be done with all the commotion!

and i will also not be eating carrabbas anytime soon. 

happy new year and a belated "thanks" for the birthday wishes :)