Birth Story Part 2

Hi!  If you are catching up, here is Part 1 of Allie's Birth Story.

So, we left off that I was headed to the hospital around 8pm on Tuesday (2/12) and had some pretty strong contractions about 5 minutes apart on the way there.  We got there and I checked in.  I had pre-registered a while back so that made things pretty easy.  The only glitch was that I apparently WAS supposed to check in with my OBGYN office one more time before we actually went to the hospital, but I hadn't done that because it had been a little unclear to me from what the doctor had told me that morning at my appointment (we discussed me returning to their office for a recheck if I made it to 5 minute apart contractions before they closed, but not what to do if that didn't happen before then).  It was no big deal though. The nurse took me to a triage room to check me out.  I was about 6 cm dilated and 80% effaced, and the nurses and doctor I saw seemed surprised I had labored so far by myself at home!  I was glad I had, because one of my concerns all day had been going to the hospital and either being sent home for not being far enough along in labor or having to labor a long time there.

I was set up in my room, which in my hospital is where you pre-labor, give birth, and stay after the birth.  It's all inclusive.  I ended up getting my epidural right away, because I was already at 6 cm dilated.  At the epidural class I had attended they said that about 4-6 cm is a good time to get it, because you already have an established progression of labor and hopefully getting the epidural at that point won't slow things down.  The epidural went well, I had been a little afraid of the needle and everything but it was no big deal.  I did have some itchiness after (mostly around my shoulders and chest), and my feet and legs felt hot and very tingly, a lot like when your feet fall asleep, but it was well worth not feeling the pain of the contractions.  The doctor also decided to break my water (it was around 9:30pm at this point) and put in a catheter since you can't feel when you have to pee once the epidural is in.  Once all that stuff was set up, they put me kind at an upright angle in my bed hoping that my labor would continue to progress.  I think about 10-11pm the doctor checked me and I was then at 8cm.  The doctor gave me an eta of around 3am for when I'd have the baby.

In the meantime, my parents came back from getting food and everyone hung out in the room for a long time, while we waited.

My mom had brought a picture of Clyde for me, so he could be there in spirit :)

Clyde picture was affixed above the mini fridge in front of me.

A couple hours past and my progress was checked and I was still only at 8 cm.  I was frustrated I hadn't made more progress after so much in the first few hours I was there.  After a while, Pitocin was brought up, and although I'd hoped to labor without it, I also didn't want to be stuck getting no where all night, so around 2:30am they hooked up a bag to my IV and we waited to see if it would help things along.  It was kind of a long night.  I should mention that my labor and delivery nurse, Hope, was awesome.  I loved her and over the course of the next few days with nurses in and out of my room, I realized how lucky I was to have her as my nurse during the rough times.  We all really bonded with her.

Over the course of the night and through my labor I was nauseated and got sick about 4 times.  I have a known reaction to Codeine and I think the epidural had something similar in it that made me kind of sick.  The good news is the nausea would come on, I'd get sick, and then I'd feel fine, so it wasn't a constant thing.  Still, it was unpleasant, and I went through a lot of ice chips.

Finally, at close to 6am, I was checked and was 9 cm dilated with just a "lip" blocking me from 10 cm.  It was time to start pushing.  Pushing is a weird thing.  I didn't feel like it was intuitive at all, and often felt like I was just holding my breath and bearing down, but wasn't sure on what.  I had a really hard time feeling like I was making any progress.  My mom had pushed for 3 hours when she gave birth to me, and after an hour, and then two passed, I figured I was due the same fate.  Hope had to leave and my new nurse, who I was not that crazy about, took over.  She kept telling me she could see the head, but only like a quarter-sized portion of it, which really just made me frustrated and didn't help.  Also, I was extremely exhausted.  Three nights in a row I had only gotten a little bit of sleep and it was taking it's toll on me.  I actually started falling asleep in between contractions/pushing, and was given an oxygen mask to wear in between pushes.

Despite my feeling like I wasn't making progress, at 8am, things started getting crazy in my room.  My midwife was brought in along with a huge team of people ready to take action when the baby came out.  It was apparent I was close to having the baby.  In between my second to last and last set of pushes, I started to cry and got really emotional thinking about the journey I'd taken to get to this point.  All the months of trying to conceive, the positive and negative pregnancy tests, the doctors, the surgeries, and the last nine months of pregnancy kind of washed over me.  I was sobbing and looked over to see Greg was wiping away tears too.  Then I gave it everything I could to push our baby out and she came out at 8:23am, crying and thriving.  They wiped her down as she was placed on my chest and I realized I was finally a mother to a perfect little baby girl.  Wow.

We did skin to skin for quite a while and then I was asked if they could weigh, measure, and do some tests on her.  She was 7 lbs 13 oz, 19 inches long, and scored a 9 on her Apgar test.  Pretty good stats!

Meanwhile, I delivered the placenta (Greg thought that was the grossest moment of the whole experience)  and then got stitched up from my second degree tear.  I didn't feel any of it, because of the epidural.

Once they gave Allie back to me, I did do a little breastfeeding.  To be honest, I don't really even remember my first attempt.  I think she latched and ate a little.

As for me, after not having eaten anything, since about 5pm the night before, I was pretty famished and REALLY thirsty.  For about the last two hours of labor, I kept saying that all I could think about was a huge glass of apple juice and how bad I wanted one.  Greg got me a couple little apple juices when I was recovering, and we ordered breakfast from the hospital- pancakes, hash browns (carbs with carbs, yes please!), bacon.  I devoured it.

We spent the day getting to know our baby.

Seeing Greg with her was (still is) amazing.  Holy heart melt!

Allie also received her first non-family visitor late afternoon- Kelly!  Kelly was doing a little practice run, in case you haven't heard, she's pregnant too!

The next couple days and nights at the hospital are kind of a blur of nurses checking on me and Allie, lactation consultants, doctors, pediatricians, my parents coming back and forth from the hospital from my house, holding and feeding Allie, hospital food (which was actually pretty good), a million texts, emails, phone calls, etc...  Lots going on as we adjusted to life with a baby and I recovered from child birth.

By Friday morning we were all ready to go home.  We suited up Allie in her monkey onesie with one of four hats the hospital gave us over the course of our stay.

A nurse snapped our first family picture as we were heading out!

My birth experience was probably about as good as I could have hoped for.  I am sore and know that my physical recovery still has a ways to go, but mentally, I feel as prepared and happy about motherhood as I'd hoped and everything is going really well.  I will share more of this journey as we go!

Birth Story Part 1

Well, pardon my absence and lack of 37 week recap, but as you might have guessed (or seen, if you follow me on Twitter), I had the baby this week!

37 1/2 weeks pregnant.

So as not to leave you all hanging til the end of the birth story, here is our little girl- Allison May!  Born February 13, 2013, 7 lbs 13 oz, 19 inches long.  We are so in love :)

Allie's birth story really began early Monday morning, around 2am.  I started getting contractions and had them up til when I got up to get ready for work.  I also lost my mucus plug (or sometimes called "bloody show")!  I wasn't sure what to do, so I got in the shower and proceeded with my normal routine.  Greg thought I should try going to work and didn't believe it was the real thing.  By the time I was leaving for work the contractions were pretty much gone and I worked all day.  I saw my chiropractor on Monday and he told me that if the contractions weren't the real thing that the a shower or bath kind of makes them stop- interesting.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning and the same thing basically happened AGAIN- around 2am I started having contractions again!  I dealt with them for a while and then around 3:30-4am, Greg suggested I try taking a shower like my chiro had mentioned to see if they went away again, but this time they didn't.  If anything they got more intense and closer together after I got out.  I used a contraction app on my phone to track them and and one point they were about 5 minutes apart and I could tell Greg was taking them seriously this time compared to yesterday and was frantically packing a bag, cleaning our bunny cages, and doing any last minute things he could think of in case we headed to the hospital.

I called my OBGYN's after hours line and explained what was happening, from the mucus plug yesterday to the frequency and duration of the contractions.  The nurse I talked to told me to hang out for another hour or so and call back and see where I was at.  In the meantime I called my parents, who want to be here for the birth and filled them in.  They decided to wait and see how things went as well.  When I called my office back the second time, I was still having the contractions regularly but at the same time, I didn't feel like it had progressed to a level of "GET ME TO THE HOSPITAL NOW".  I feel like the second nurse picked up on this and advised me that she thought I should keep laboring at home and see how things went and go to my schedule OBGYN appointment at 11am to have my progress checked.

In the mean time, Greg and I finished packing, ate some breakfast, and decided to take Clyde for a walk around the neighborhood, because the second nurse mentioned walking and standing would help things progress.

Clyde was really worried about me all morning.

Finally 11am came and we were seen at my doctor's office.  I was 80% effaced and 3cm dilated.  My doc said I should probably head home for a while and see if the contractions picked up and if I made it to 5 minutes apart consistently, I could come back to the office for a recheck if it happened before the office closed.

We headed home and I was exhausted.  I have had two nights in a row with really interrupted sleep from the contractions.  I took a bath and then tried to take a nap, but again, that's hard when you're being woken up with contractions every 6-10 minutes.  It didn't really work out to get much sleep.

We thought about taking another neighborhood walk, but I honestly wasn't sure I could do it since the contractions were getting more difficult to get through.  We decided to run to the grocery store, because I got the idea in my head that Popsicles sounded good, and we were low on TP anyway.  I used a cart so I could bend over the handle and get through the contractions when I had them, even though we only got a couple items!

I got my Popsicles, and Greg and I went home and watched some Walking Dead on Netflix (we just finished Breaking Bad and have moved on to Walking Dead as our new series to watch together) while I talked with friends and family on and off throughout the afternoon.

I used a contraction timer app on my phone, but it relies on you to be really good about starting the timer when they start and stopping it when they stop to get your accurate average of how far apart the contractions are, which didn't always work out when I was on the phone or forgot to turn it on or off once in a while, so I never really could tell if I was really at 5 minutes apart for contractions or not, they would fluctuate anywhere between 4 1/2 minutes apart and sometimes closer to 10 minutes apart.  It was pretty confusing and I never ended up going back to the doctor for a recheck because I didn't know if the contractions were close enough together.

Finally around 3ish, I talked to my mom and we decided they should head up from Hilton Head because my contractions weren't going away, seemed as strong or stronger, and I just had a feeling that this was really it and then we'd be heading to the hospital that night.

My parents arrived around 8pm, and pretty much right when they arrived we decided to just head right to the hospital, which ended up being the right decision because in the 15-20 minute drive to the hospital I had about 4 pretty strong contractions.

To be continued...

My Thirty-Sixth Week

I'm 37 weeks pregnant!  By all accounts I am considered full term now.  Wow!  I still have three weeks til my official due date, but I could go anytime and the baby would probably be pretty healthy.  I am a ticking time bomb now!

I have a cold right now, which is not great timing.  I somehow managed to avoid getting one most of the winter when everyone else around me was coughing and sneezing all over me, but now I have one out of nowhere.  Ick.  I have a sore throat, cough, and feel pretty wiped.  I really hope I kick it before going into labor, because I can't imagine the exhaustion of giving birth while sick, let alone the logistics of having a new born with a new immune system around a sick mama.  I'm home sick today to try and nurse myself back to health.

I'm definitely feeling all of 9 months pregnant now.  My standard responses when people ask how I'm feeling are, "Big!", and "Uncomfortable".  That pretty much sums up this stage.  I can see why pregnant women get antsy at the end.  It's definitely crossed my mind that it would be more comfortable for both me and the baby if she were outside my body soon.  I can't bend over without feeling like I'm squishing her and it's really tough to put socks and shoes on (especially sneakers).  Getting up from a chair or from bed is like an acrobatic feat now.  I'm also really sick of my maternity clothes and feel like a lot of them are tight and uncomfortable, which is funny because at one time, I was swimming in them!

I finally had my first "under the hood" appointment this week.  The baby's heart rate was 145.  My iron level was about 13 (I think you're supposed to be over 11, so that was good- must be the cheeseburgers!).  They had my weight at about 30 lbs gained (my scale still says it's higher, but I'll take it!).  As far as what's happening down under- I'm 75% effaced and my cervix is soft.  I don't think I'm dilated at all and she didn't say what station I was, but I know the baby is head down.  She wouldn't give me any predictions, but I'm guessing I still have some time til the baby is coming out.  I know that can change quickly though.  I think it would be good if she hangs out in there for a little longer based on our schedules and for her to get the benefit of being closer to 40 weeks.  Greg still has a bunch more flying scheduled this month, and if I go early, it'll push me back into July for when I have to go back to work, which isn't a huge deal, but wasn't really the original plan.  Anyway, I now get checked weekly, so I scheduled all my doctor appointments up til my due date.

Greg put the car seat in this week.  Well kind of.  Our car situation is not ideal for a baby.  Greg has a Honda Element, which I think it kind of a nightmare car for a baby because of the suicide doors and having to climb into the back seat.  I've been saying for a while that I didn't plan on using his car much with the baby because I have no desire to climb into the back every time I want to put the infant seat in, I want to just be able to open the back door and drop it in.  So, the plan has been that we'll primarily use my car for the car seat, which is an Acura TSX.  It turns out, the Acura isn't really ideal either.  It's slightly smaller for a sedan and Greg had a hard time getting the car seat to fit behind the front seats.  The only place it will fit is on the rear passenger side because we can move the front passenger seat up more.  I'm not even that tall (5' 3"), but my driver's seat is too far back to fit the car seat behind and it doesn't fit in the middle, which I know is supposed to be ideal.  We were both pretty frustrated about this.  I've been saying for a while that I think we're going to need a new car sooner than later, and the Element might become Greg's Houston car.  I think he's finally starting to agree with me and will see it even more once the baby is here and he sees the challenges that go with our cars and baby stuff.  I predict that my car will also be on the smaller side for hauling all the necessary baby gear around.  Once you put a stroller in the trunk, I don't think much else is going to fit in there.  I see an SUV in our future.

The Pack N Play and baby swing were also assembled by Greg this week and have taken up residence on our first floor.  The pack and play is Clyde approved.  He liked the cuddle cove/bassinet.

I also printed off and filled in most of the paperwork I need to add the baby to our health insurance.  I can't submit it til we know her birthdate and some last minute information, but I can leave it with our HR people and call with that when the baby comes so they can add her.

I had my second baby shower at work yesterday and was humbled and so grateful to everyone that came and all the stuff they got us.  My trunk was completely full of baby presents when I left work!

I'm still procrastinating a little on finishing packing for the hospital.  I have most of my stuff in or near the bag, but need to go through and make sure I have all the stuff I want to bring.  I will make myself do it this week! Greg needs to pack his bag too.


How far along? 37 Weeks
Maternity clothes? Yes, unfortunately.  I'm pretty much over all of them and looking forward to wearing more normal clothes again.
Stretch marks? Nope.
Symptoms: heartburn, movement, swelling in the feet/ankles, feeling huge, frequent urination, Braxton Hicks (hard belly).
Best moment this week:  Probably the doctor's appointment, hearing the heartbeat, and finally hearing what's going on down under.  Technically, the baby shower was in the 37th week and I'm late posting, but that was awesome too.
Miss Anything? Sleeping well, not having heartburn, running, having distinct ankles, having abs.
Movement: Yup, she is rolling around in there, but you can tell she has more limited room now.
Food cravings: Cheeseburgers (yup, the craving returned), then mostly sweets- cake, peanut butter brownies (I made some for a Super Bowl party and they were so good), fruit (my redeeming craving), animal crackers.

Pineapple coconut cake I got to go from Big View Diner on a date night with Greg.

Anything making you queasy or sick: nope
Have you started to show yet: Yes, duh. I feel extremely huge.
Gender: Girl
Labor Signs: Braxton Hicks, but it doesn't feel like labor or anything, just hard belly.  75% effaced, cervix is soft.
Belly Button in or out? It's out!
Mood: Good!
Looking forward to:  Meeting the baby of course!
What I am NOT looking forward to: Feeling heavier, more tired, and more uncomfortable in the coming weeks.  Kinda scared of labor, but I think I'll get through it.  I really hope Greg is home when I start labor too.
Weekly Wisdom: Um, hang in there?
Milestones: Weekly doctor's visits, "full-term" (37 weeks), counting days instead of weeks...

My Thirty-Fifth Week

Hey all!  Well, I've made it to 36 weeks!  

It's been a decent week in pregnancy world, with the usual ups and downs.

I was supposed to have a pre-natal massage this week and scheduled it about a month ago.  Well, it appears the place has gone out of business, because the day of my appointment, I left work early, went there, and found the doors locked and no one home.  Fail!  Good thing the chiropractor has helped with my back issues, or I would probably be more upset.  It doesn't look like I'll experience a pre-natal massage before the end of the pregnancy, but oh well.

I forgot to mention that I spent a while last week researching my options for learning breathing/labor techniques.  I have basically given up on getting into the childbirth preparation class at our hospital- they are booked through April and the last person I talked to when I called said it was pretty unlikely that I'd get in (there's only one class left before my due date now), but not to worry- the nurses are great and will get me through.  I did email some Lamaze coaches, and one got back to me and is a doula and basically offered her services as a doula.  I'm not sure if I want to/need to go that route though because I plan on having Greg and my mom there to help me during labor and doulas are kind of expensive.  All I really want is just some short instruction on how to breath and deal with labor til I get the epidural and I can't find much like that.  My mom found a video called Lamaze Laugh and Learn online and it's pretty comprehensive.  There's really only one segment I care about (the Lamaze breathing) watching but you have to buy the whole thing and I feel like a lot of it would be redundant and stuff I already know.  Also, I have searched YouTube and online videos, and I'm not sure if YouTube is just really hard to navigate now or what, but I didn't find much, just a bunch of short videos that teach Yoga breathing and stuff like that.  A couple of my friends have just winged it with their births and done fine, so that helps give me some confidence that I'll be ok without tons of instruction.  If you guys have any suggestions, let me know. 

I bought a "baby's first year" book for the baby at the beginning of the week.  Greg and I got take out burgers and were waiting on our order, so I wandered into the Hallmark store next to the restaurant and found this cute baby book for 50% off.  Parts of the cover/back are are even peach colored!  I love it :)

I also did a Target trip and got a couple things I thought we might need that we don't have yet like a cute little hoodie/jacket for the baby, disposable nursing pads (I have re-usable ones already), nipple soothers, a cotton bathrobe and nightshirt (I usually wear pajama pants, but a lot of people recommend a night gown for the hospital), and a new pair of cozy socks.  I am slowly working on packing a go bag, so a lot of this stuff will go in the bag.  I also tried to get together some baby clothing/blankets to take to the hospital for the going home outfit.  Since I'm not sure how big she'll be it's hard to decide what to bring.  Also, the temps in Charlotte vary between like 70's and 30's this time of year, so who knows how warm the outfit should be, I have everything from fleece to light cotton.  Right now I have about 4 onesie options laid out and a swaddle blanket, hat, and will probably bring some mittens.

Physically, I'm okay.  I'm feeling lots more discomfort under the belly.  I got in 3-4 walks this week, so that was pretty good.  I did have some bad middle-of-the-night acid reflux one night when I forgot to take Zantac before bed, and that sucked.  I'm finding myself just increasingly bigger, and getting more and more comments about it.  This week I got "are you having twins?" and "your face looks fatter" among others.  Thanks people!  I have trouble tying my shoes and getting socks on at this point.  Swelling is still better for the most part, but I had a couple days or nights when my feet were a little more swollen.  I think it has to do with how much I'm on my feet, how much water I drink, whether I wear heels, etc...  The baby is still moving a good amount, but I feel like she's running out of room in there so it feels kind of different now.  I also haven't mentioned it, but I think my eye sight is worse.  For a month or two I have noticed I can't see as clearly.  I hope this goes back to normal after the pregnancy! 

I also had lunch with Erin and baby Michael yesterday, which was so fun.  He is a really good baby!  I hope my baby is like him!

Some things on my to do list are:
-Install the car seat (base).
-Finish packing for the hospital.
-Print out a birth plan (I'm probably going to use a template with things checked on it).
-Make a list of people to contact when the baby comes.
-Change my out of office email/voice mail at work.
-Iron out my Time and Attendance and how it will be handled when I'm out of the office.
-See a movie with Greg and maybe go out for a nice dinner one night.
-Buy Pack-N-Play and swing.  We actually did this last night.
-Possibly clean my closet, if I have time.
-Finish thank you notes and put away presents.

How far along? 36 Weeks
Maternity clothes?  Pretty much all maternity and some of that is feeling "small".  Yikes!  Still stealing Greg's clothes for bedtime and walks.
Stretch marks? Nope.
Symptoms: heartburn, movement, swelling in the feet/ankles, feeling huge, frequent urination, Braxton Hicks (hard belly).
Best moment this week: I had some fun dinners/lunches with friends this week.
Miss Anything?  Sleeping well, not having heartburn, running, having distinct ankles, having abs.
Movement: Yup, she is rolling around in there!
Food cravings: fresh bread and butter, Cinnamon Life cereal, chocolate, fruit, animal crackers.
Anything making you queasy or sick: nope
Have you started to show yet: Yes, duh.  I feel extremely huge.
Gender: Girl
Labor Signs: Braxton Hicks, but it doesn't feel like labor or anything.
Belly Button in or out? It's out!
Mood:  Good!
Looking forward to:  My work baby shower is next week.  Spending time with Greg this week (he's got 5 days in a row off, which is rare).
What I am NOT looking forward to: Feeling heavier, more tired, and more uncomfortable in the coming weeks.
Weekly Wisdom: Um, hang in there?
Milestones: One month left!

My Thirty-Fourth Week

Alright, I know I say this every week, but I really can't believe I'm 35 weeks pregnant.  It seriously feels like our baby could be born really soon now!  I have a lot of friends who have gone into labor a few weeks before their due dates, and that's getting VERY CLOSE now!

It's been a pretty good week.  Dare I say that I feel like my swelling isn't quite as bad?  I have been taking B6, as suggested by Tanya, and also sitting with my feet elevated a lot.  I also really tried to keep drinking a lot of water and also some Gatorade from time to time, because I had heard that sometimes helps.  Also, the weather finally got a little nicer (we had about 4 days straight of rain) and I did some more walking than I was able to before, so maybe that helped too.  Whatever the reason, I'm hoping to keep the swelling at bay.

I figured out that I actually have been having Braxton Hicks contractions, they are just not what I thought they would feel like.  My belly gets kind of hard, but it doesn't hurt at all.  I feel it at nighttime a lot when I wake up to roll over.  Weird.

I had to pee a lot this week.  I had one day where I swear I went every hour, which is unusual for me.

I was also pretty exhausted a lot this week.  I had a couple days where I was struggling to stay awake around mid afternoon and went up to bed early.  I'm glad we have a lot of our prep out of the way, because I definitely don't have energy to get a ton of stuff done in the evenings, on days I work, anymore.

I'm going through the crazy huge pile of gifts from the baby shower and have been slowly putting things away.  One thing I may do a dedicated post on is how I still feel a little superstitious about it all, despite being huge, feeling the baby move, and having every indication that everything is fine.  I have drawers of clothes, sheets, blankets, and other baby stuff, that I've basically been afraid to wash and prep for the baby, "just in case".  I know it may seem crazy, but when you've had the kind of of tragedy like we've had, sometimes it's still hard to believe this is real and we're really going to have a live baby.  I'm still scared and think...what if?  Anyway, this week I finally made myself do a load of baby laundry since I can barely hold everything in the dresser with all the packaging.  I took the tags off things, threw away packaging, and topped off the washer with Dreft.  I consider that an accomplishment.

 In other news, I went to a fun event with some of my baby-mama friends at The Baby Grocery Store on Saturday night.  This event was for new mom's or expectant mom's, so I was excited I could participate.  There was food, dessert, massages, facials, and swag bags.  My mama friends have a Facebook group that they added me to a couple months ago and I'm really looking forward to joining the play dates they organize once the baby is here.  The Baby Grocery Store is neat- they have a lot of baby products, but also a room you can use for play dates and they host a lot of events like the one I went to.  I won a some products and bought some nipple cream my friend Lindsay recommended.

I had a doctor's appointment at 34 weeks 5 days.  I was thinking this would be the first in which they'd check "under the hood", but I found out it that it was just an easy check up, measuring the belly and checking the heartbeat with the Doppler again.  At my next appointment they do the Group B Strep test and check my progress down under and that's in two weeks.  Seems kind of late to me, but what do I know?

Following the doctor's appointment, I had a chiropractor appointment.  My chiropractor told me at my last appointment that if I still didn't know from my OBGYN, he could check my tummy and confirm whether the baby was head down or not, so at this appointment he checked and she is indeed head down.  I have suspected for a while that she was because I typically feel more leg-like movement in the top half of my belly, but it was still nice to have further confirmation.

Finishing off the week, Greg and I attended Infant CPR and Safety at our hospital last night.  It was held in the maternity ward conference room, so it was kind of surreal to walk through the halls of the maternity ward and realize then probably in a month or so we'll be in there again to have our baby.

How far along? 35 Weeks
Maternity clothes?  Pretty much all maternity and some of that is feeling "small".  Yikes!
Stretch marks? Nope.
Symptoms: heartburn, movement, swelling in the feet/ankles, feeling huge, frequent urination.
Best moment this week: Hearing the heartbeat is always the best!
Miss Anything?  Sleeping well, not having heartburn, running, having distinct ankles, being able to work out hard.
Movement: Yup, she is rolling around in there!
Food cravings: fresh bread and butter, peanut butter panda puffs, chocolate, fruit, animal crackers.
Anything making you queasy or sick: heartburn has made me have pukey burps (sorry, gross I know!) a couple times but I didn't throw up this week.
Have you started to show yet: Yes, duh.  I feel extremely huge.
Gender: Girl
Labor Signs: Braxton Hicks, but it doesn't feel like labor or anything.
Belly Button in or out? It's out!
Mood:  Good!
Looking forward to:  Maternity leave and meeting our baby.
What I am NOT looking forward to: Feeling heavier, more tired, and more uncomfortable in the coming weeks.
Weekly Wisdom: Um, hang in there?
Milestones: Five weeks to go?!?!

My Baby Shower

I have to say, my baby shower was a real milestone for me.  There was definitely a time when I thought that I might never get to this point- to have a party celebrating a baby growing in my belly.  The day definitely felt far in the future for a long time, like a dream or goal that I didn't know if I would ever achieve.  I've been to tons and tons and baby showers over the last couple years, and I often wondered if I would ever have one.  It's crazy to me that I did!  Having the baby shower was just another thing that made all of this feel more real.

Awesome diaper cake Kelly made me!

Kelly has been offering to throw me a baby shower since my first pregnancy.  I've often laughed at how excited she's been about it and remember many times when we'd be out to dinner or something and she would whip out her phone and show me pictures she'd pinned on Pinterest with ideas for my baby shower.  She was just slightly enthusiastic ;)  She's exactly the kind of person you want planning your baby shower though- thoughtful, organized, and creative.  She definitely nailed the theme of lambs/peach (like our nursery) and made everything delicious and gorgeous, with the help of my mom and a family friend who are also excellent cooks.

Great minds think alike- she brought a bunch of lanterns to hang that looked similar to the ones we have hanging in the nursery.

The shower was a brunch theme, which was great, because I LOVE breakfast food!  We had ham, biscuits, pimento cheese, egg bake, french toast, munchkin donuts, baked fruit, mimosas, and the cutest cupcakes ever, made my Kelly's aunt.

My plate of food looked similar to Jen's (many of these pictures are borrowed from Jen and Brittany).

We were going to play games but that fell by the wayside when present opening and nursery tours ensued.  Our baby girl is spoiled, she got some great stuff!

A lot of the gifts are now piled in my dining room as I sort through, put them away, and write thank you notes!  So many cute baby things :)

It was really fun to see all my friends.  We got a shot of a bunch of us at the end.

Also, baby girl was moving a bit and at one point I had about 5-6 hands on my belly so my friends could feel her :)

The shower was so much fun, and kind of a blur.  I wish I'd taken more pictures myself, but I was too busy socializing, eating, and enjoying the experience to go too crazy documenting it myself.  We did get a couple pictures after of me with Kelly.

Oh wait, we probably should get the belly in the shot, huh?

And my mom...

Seriously, I thought it was the most beautiful baby shower I've ever been to, and I really can't thank Kelly, my Mom, and everyone who came and celebrated the baby with me enough.  Having this shower meant the world to me and I'm so thankful to all of you that were a part of it :)

If you want to see/hear more about the baby shower, check out:

Jen's post

Kelly's post

Brittany's post

They all got some great shots and descriptions of the day!