The nursery (and a belly shot)

For those of you who are just dying to see just how huge I was on my due date (which has come and gone (yesterday) and yes, I'm still pregnant...):



And, I finally got around to taking pictures of the nursery yesterday. It's far more "put together" than I ever thought a nursery of mine would be, and I absolutely love it. That was hubby's doing - he wanted the furniture to match and everything. Once we finish replacing the outlet covers, Caitlyn will be the proud owner of the first completely finished room in the whole house... :-)


That last one is the chalkboard that hubby painted onto her closet door. I'm sure we'll regret that someday when there's wall to wall chalk in her room, LOL!

because inquiring minds want to know...

Just got back from the doctor...things are starting to head in the right direction, but we're still not having a baby any time soon. If I'm still pregnant next Tuesday, he's going to schedule an induction. Let's hope I'm not still pregnant next Tuesday - I've been hoping to avoid that!!!

At any rate, now that I've made a smidge of progress, I'm feeling much better about things than I was this time last week!

You might be a hormonal basketcase if...

...you spend a good part of the day panicking because you suddenly realized that any day now you could be going into LABOR (and what the hell were you thinking, wanting to give birth, anyway, that's going to HURT LIKE HELL!), and then leave the doctor's office in tears because, after two weeks of contractions, you're not even starting to dilate yet.

Let's just say I'm having a bad day. Everything's fine, Caitlyn's doing great (and, while the nurse didn't measure her at my weekly non-stress test, she did say she is a "good size baby"). My doctor started talking induction, and I'm still 11 days from my due date. As in "I hope I don't have to induce you, especially if you're not ready yet, because that just makes things difficult." Not that he's ready to actually schedule it yet or anything, but obviously he thinks things should be moving in a forward direction by now, too. I left the clinic with a post-due-date doctor and non-stress test appointment, whereas before my last one was supposed to be next Tuesday.

By the time I got home, I just couldn't keep it in any longer and begged hubby for a big hug and started crying. Gotta give him kudos - he didn't get mad at me for being all emotional like he sometimes does, and even tried to help me see the bright side if I *do* have to be induced - like, I'll know when, and I'll have my doctor (because if you go on your own you get whoever's on call at the hospital, but if he has to induce my doctor will schedule it when he's there), and I'll definitely know for sure when I finally get to leave work (since I've been ready for that for a while now!).

Don't get me wrong, I haven't begun to reach the "desperation point" where I just want to rip her out myself. I didn't sleep well last night, so I'm overly tired today which makes me overly emotional even when I'm NOT just shy of nine months pregnant!

I think it's because I'm a planner and a prepper. We've been all but ready for a while now - I've been wrapping things up at work for about six weeks, the nursery is nearly finished (and if we just buckled down and did it, it would be done in a couple of hours), the baby laundry is all done, the freezer is full, the car seat is installed, and we're just waiting. Just waiting. Twiddling my thumbs, so to speak. This is why I didn't set a date to leave work, much as I'm ready to be done. At least it's a distraction.

Who knows...maybe I should make hubby take me to the beach for a day this weekend...

Still here...

Haven't had much to post about lately, but I wanted you all to know I'm still here!

Still having contractions, hopefully they're doing something by now. I'll find out Tuesday. I did pull the "nearly 9 months pregnant" card to get out of actually cooking anything for our two Thanksgiving dinners - probably the only time I'll ever be able to get away with that!

My office is almost clean (at least by my standards!), the freezer is full, the Christmas shopping is all but done (I told hubby I'd buy his aunt's gift for him at lunchtime on Monday), and I only have one more load of baby laundry to do. Just about ready!

Still contracting...

...but not having a baby any time soon. Just practicing for the real deal... :-)

Things are happening...

Nothing major yet, but things are definitely moving in a forward direction! Yesterday I went in for my weekly non-stress test (since I have high blood pressure, they've been monitoring Caitlyn weekly for a few weeks now, to make sure she's active enough and that things are going as they should). I told the nurse something was definitely happening, but I wasn't sure what. I figured either she was starting to drop or that I was having contractions, but I wasn't sure which.

So, the nurse hooked me up to the monitors and, sure enough, I had three contractions in the half hour I was there!

Now, these aren't the real "oh my goodness I'm about to have a baby" contractions, but Braxton Hicks, or "practice" contractions. Just getting things moving, I guess. It's exciting because it's the first time I've felt those through the whole pregnancy, even though I may have been having them all along and I just haven't known it.

Even though I know in my heart that delivery day isn't imminent, it still shook me up a bit, and I went home and packed most of my hospital bag (I was going to do it last weekend, anyway!). And I'm finishing the last of the baby laundry, so I can pack some things for her, too! Now I just have to get hubby on board, or pack his bag for him, LOL!

Today I'm 36 weeks, four days pregnant. Just three and a half weeks till my due date!

Back up and running

Phew - it was just the router. We're back in business, folks! Yay! Thanks to the good folks at Verizon and UPS for getting us back up and running just when they said they would.

On another note, we're getting quotes this week to replace our furnace and put in an air conditioner. Them suckers are EXPENSIVE! Apparently we're lucky our furnace has lasted this long - both people who've come out to give us estimates said that most last 15 - 18 years, and ours is 24. I guess it's time! So, just when our income is about to be drastically cut, we're going to plunk down a huge chunk of change to put in the new system. Oh, and we ordered a new garage door opener last night, because it hasn't worked since we moved in and the door spring finally broke a few weeks ago. Ka-ching!

Between those and the stock market, my kitchen remodel is getting farther and farther away. It's ok, I can wait. I'm comforted by the fact that, once these purchases are made, about the only thing in this house that we haven't replaced since we moved in four and a half years ago is the water heater, which isn't original so hopefully it will hold out a while longer!

This homeowner stuff sure gets expensive sometimes...

On another note - tonight we start birth preparation class. Time's flying by!

Sigh....

our internet has crapped out, and we don't know if it's the router or the motherboard. Pray it's the router because if it's the motherboard we have to send it back to the manufacturer (it's under warranty), which means we'll be without a computer entirely and I'm not sure we could survive that!

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a profile picture of Caitlyn at almost 29 weeks. We hit 30 weeks this past Saturday - just 10 to go!

26 weeks

Well, we're heading into the third trimester - I hit 26 weeks today. I feel a lot more pregnant than that, though. My hips are sore, my tailbone is KILLING me, I wake up two or three times a night because there's a head squishing my bladder, I barely have an appetite, and my feet look like balloons most days.

I can't even imagine what it's going to be like come late November, as I head into the last couple of weeks!

But I'm not complaining, really! Things are still going well. Compared to a lot of women I know, my pregnancy is a breeze. It's the weirdest thing, watching her kick me (my whole belly jumps sometimes), feeling her spin around, randomly losing my breath as she smashes my lungs. Utterly fascinating.

Getting Ready

Phew - time is flying by! I've had a couple of comments about how I should be blogging my pregnancy and all, but really, these days I'm lucky if I get on the computer for 20 minutes a day, which almost gives me time to clear out all my junk mail! So my apologies for being MIA, but things are going well.

It's hard to believe, but we're more than halfway there. I'm 21 weeks along now, so in 17 - 21 weeks we'll have a little one in our arms. For those of you who haven't heard, it's a girl - we found out a couple of weeks ago. Her name is Caitlyn Claire, and I don't expect that to change unless she suddenly sprouts a penis!

We've been hard at work getting things ready - hubby got the nesting instinct so bad I'm beginning to think it's just going to pass me right by! We've painted the nursery (periwinkle blue and purple) except for the trim, bought our furniture and crib bedding, and have already started accepting hand-me-downs from friends and family who have been waiting for this for years (literally) and are eager to get stuff out of their closets and attics!

I've started our first baby registry. Feels a little early, but people have been asking, so I guess I should get on board. I'll do one more, so people have two stores to choose from. Registering is really difficult, since we'll have so many people giving us things. I have no idea what we're going to get so I have no idea what we'll still need! I know my hormones are seriously at play when it comes to this, because, while I'm so excited (and truly grateful) that we have so many generous people in our lives who can't wait to shower us with the things their children no longer need, it kind of takes the magic out of registering because I don't get to have the fun of looking at all the options and figuring out what I like best, like I did when we did our wedding registry. Of course, that makes me sound like an ungrateful selfish cow but, like I said, let's blame it on the hormones. Heck, we're blaming just about everything on the hormones these days!

On the whole, everything is going really, really well. Caitlyn is healthy, and she must be strong - I'm getting kicked A LOT, which is pretty darn cool! I just wish she'd flip over sometimes so I can get it somewhere besides my bladder, but I'm living with it. We have another ultrasound on August 22, to check her growth (since I'm a "fluffy" person, shall we say, my weight gain or lack thereof isn't a good growth indicator, so the doctor's doing it with ultrasounds. I don't know if that's common or not - used to be you only got one ultrasound in a pregnancy, but the people I know have been all over the map in recent years).

That's it for now - later gaters!

I guess it's time I spill the beans...

Wow. Guess I haven't blogged in a while, huh? Sorry about that. I've been, um, a little busy. Yeah, busy, that's it.

Ok, fine, you all know me better than that. LIES! It's all lies!

Truth be told, well,

I'M PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

True story! After two and a half years of trying, waiting, trying, waiting, screwing with my hormones and trying some more, waiting, and finally all but giving up, it happened. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 weeks ago.

I have proof! Here's a picture:



Yep, there's a peanut in there! That's an old picture now, taken at seven weeks. Anyway, I'm due December 6, which is just about the worst time to have a birthday in our families (simply because between the two families, I think we already have seven birthdays, plus a couple of friends' birthdays, plus Christmas, in November and December), but hey - we're not complaining!

So my big excuse for not blogging? Well, first it was too early to tell anyone, and I didn't have anything else to talk about. Then, I was sick. Oh, and I pretty much can't stay awake past 9:00 anymore, so blogging had to take a back seat. Then, my computer died. So now I have to share with darling hubby, which pretty much means kicking him off one of his games if I want to get online (like now, he's off watching Fantastic 4 on TV so I took over the internet). But, we're working that out!

At this point, all is well - and I'll keep you posted!