Bump Day: 36 weeks!

Another sneak peek from Nary:)

Happy Bump Day everybody. Today marks the 36 week gestation period, meaning I have 4 weeks to go until my due date. However, I’ve been keeping two countdowns in my head simultaneously: 

1) countdown to due date (4 weeks) 

2) countdown to full term baby (1 week!). 

My goal is to have all major tasks completed and in place by next Wednesday. I have heard a lot of people speculating that our baby boy is going to be an early bird, so I want to make sure we are ready to go at a moment’s notice. 

Our hospital bags are packed. Our nursery furniture is assembled. Our car seat is ready for installation. Today I am finalizing my *birth plan* (aka ‘give me the drugs!’) which I will review with my midwife tomorrow. A lot is getting done and yet I feel like every task on my to-do list is a three headed monster. As soon as I accomplish something, I think of 3 new things that also need to be added to the list. 

I’m sure it’s normal to feel unprepared and overwhelmed. I’m just glad my nesting instincts finally kicked in because for a while there I was pretty good at procrastinating. We had some pretty gloomy weather yesterday evening, so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to move our weekly photo session indoors, especially since I had a brand new backdrop to pose in front of. So here is what baby boy (and his tired momma) looks like at 36 weeks.

Sign, Sealed, Delivered!

Me: I look like a whale.
Jonathan: Yea, but one of those really cute Beluga whales. You know, the ones that can paint. 

Do men seriously not realize what they are saying before it comes out of their mouth? Confirming that a woman looks like a ginormous mammal is never complimentary. But I guess, at the very least my hubs thinks I'm an adorable and artistic ball of blubber. Even I have to admit, belugas are pretty stinkin' cute. 

SOURCE

In other news, WE GOT OUR BABY SHIPMENT THIS MORNING!! I'll give you a more detailed look once the nursery is in prime condition, but for now, here is a sneak peak at some of our loot. 

Check back tomorrow for Bump pictures at *36 weeks*.

One Month Til D-Day!

As of today, we are officially *one month* from baby boy's due date. Though the last 8 months have drug on and on, the past few weeks are flying by at record speed. It seems impossible that we'll be ready for the little guy in 4 weeks time, but ready or not- he's coming soon! 

Appropriately, I had maternity shots taken today by my dear and talented friend Nary. It was a *picture perfect* day in Aberdeen, and we had a blast snapping photos of the bump in some of my favorite neighborhood spots. I can't wait to see all the photos she took, but until then, here are a few sneak peeks that she sent my way. 

I'm so excited to see the rest! Thanks Nary! You are a truly incredible friend and an amazing photographer! Thanks for making my dreams of becoming a model come true:).

Thoughts On Turning 30...

On the drive to my 30^th birthday dinner celebration, Jonathan asked me ‘how it felt’ to be 30. As a 29 year old, he hasn’t yet faced the number 30 and was curious about its emotional impact. I told him it felt the same. Perhaps because my birthday is being overshadowed by baby boy’s imminent arrival, I just haven’t given ‘turning 30’ much thought. 

He asked if I had everything I wanted by this point in my life and I answered yes. I guess I thought I might like to have an established career by now, but I don’t miss working and I don’t pine over all those mental health clients I’m not counseling. I guess all I ever wanted out of life was to be happy, and how that happiness came to me was irrelevant. 

All I ever dreamed of was a good man and a comfortable lifestyle, surrounded by good friends, enhanced by travel, and hopefully with a kiddo or two joining our family along the way. Well...I have all that. 

I guess I thought by the time I was 30, I’d be done having kids. But I probably came up with that arbitrary timeline when I was 22 and thought 30 was much older than it actually is. I don’t regret waiting until 30 to have children. I had my 20s all to myself, and now it’s time to focus my life on someone else. 

I think what can make turning *30* difficult, is how fresh *20* still feels in our minds. I remember it like it was yesterday. A song comes on the radio and I am instantly catapulted back to life as a Junior at LSU. 

It doesn’t feel like 10 years ago. Does time pass that quickly? When I turned 20, my life as a 10 year old seemed so far away, like that decade of my life had inched by at a snails pace. But yet, at 30 years old, I can still remember exactly what it was like to be 20 and that girl doesn’t seem all that different from me. Sure, she had a higher tolerance for alcohol, functioned much better on 3 hours of sleep and was a tad boy crazy, but she was still me. I recognize her and relate to her and sometimes, I miss her. 

I could easily fall back into a life of Final exams and sorority formals and LSU tailgating from dawn til dusk. If I time warped back to 2003 and woke up one day to find the last 10 years had all been a dream, I think I’d jump right back in to life as a 20 year old and rock it. 

But yet, I don’t want to. Yes it was fun and I felt alive and every day brought promises of endless possibilities. Yes my skin was fabulous and I looked great in a bikini and I thrived as a student. 

But I wasn’t any happier then than I am in this moment. I don’t miss having my heart broken or breaking others’ hearts or waking up for 7:30 am math classes or stressing about money. I don’t miss the drama of sorority life or rebound relationships. 

Each stage of life has it’s time and it’s place. I was a pretty awesome 20 year old. I don’t have many regrets because somehow every choice and mistake I made in the past 10 years led me here. And at 30 I am blessed with a good man. 

A comfortable lifestyle. 

Surrounded by good friends. 

With abundant travel opportunities. 

And a kiddo on the way. 

So it turns out, I make a pretty great 30 year old as well. So here’s to a new adventurous decade, one for which I won’t set any other goal for myself than this: to be content and grateful and open minded and unafraid of leaving my comfort zone. If I can manage to accomplish those things, I think that at 40, I’ll look back at the past decade and think, “I did just fine.”

Bump Day: 35 Weeks!

Today I am 35 weeks pregnant. This is a big milestone because, as my Doctor friend Talia said, “If you went into labor today, they wouldn’t try to stop it.” I’m still hopeful that baby boy will wait at least another 2 weeks before making his entrance to the world, but I’m so grateful that we’ve at least made it this far. 

Every day I get a bit more and more uncomfortable physically. Jonathan took me birthday shopping last weekend and I had my heart set on a new pair of UGG boots. Only, when I went to try them on, I was physically unable to bend down far enough to put them on, much less, zip them up. It resulted in some tears and a bit of blushing from embarrassment. 

I’ve decided to wait until after baby to make any big boot purchases, especially since my feet are constantly fluctuating in size and who knows how big they will be when this whole ordeal is over. I’ve also started having some pretty severe back pain between my shoulders. It’s just uncomfortable! It hurts to sit, it hurts to stand, it hurts to lie down. 

And the constant urge to pee is getting old. And the frequent karate chops to my ribs aren’t so cute anymore. There is a ton that I can complain about, but yet, when people ask me how I’m feeling, I can genuinely answer with, “Pretty good.”

Honestly, I’m feeling really blessed these days. All in all, I’ve had a pretty amazing pregnancy. So far I haven’t hit any of the pregnancy pitfalls that have struck many of my friends. I’m hoping that my good luck will follow me into the delivery room and then continue right along while I’m trying to get baby boy into a good eating and sleeping routine. 

Our baby shipment supposedly arrived in Aberdeen on Friday, but we’ve heard no word on it’s progress through customs. I feel a bit nervous that the nursery is still pretty much empty, though I know little man will be sleeping in our room for the first few weeks anyway, so having the crib set up isn’t such a priority. Still, I think it would help me feel more prepared to see his room set up the way I envision it in my head. 

In the meantime I have made a list of tasks to complete before baby’s arrival and God has blessed me with the energy to get a good chunk of it done. This is what it consists of:

• Hire a maid
• Take driving lessons
• Take UK driving test (October 9)
• Order a glider for nursery
• Remove office furniture from nursery
• Put together nursery furniture and wall hangings (this week?)
• Pack hospital bag for Me and for Baby
• Send off my Strep B test (Friday)
• Take Sam for a heart check up (sad news..will blog more later...and sad news means he needs another check up in 4 weeks so I guess this one is still on the list)
• Schedule Sam for a pre-baby haircut
• Get a haircut myself (today!)
• Choose a name(Yep, our baby has a name...a secret name:)
• Wash baby clothes (0-3 months are done, 3-12 months are in the wash as we speak)
  
• Take maternity photos (hopefully in the next week or so)
• Organize and plan for all documents needed for baby’s USA travel documents (Jonathan is on it)
• Make circumcision arrangements (blah)
• Hire a photographer for newborn photos
• Get and install infant car seat (today hopefully!)

Are you overwhelmed yet? I am! I feel like the tasks are accomplishable if baby stays in the womb until around his due date. I am definitely feeling pressure to nest, nest, nest and each day I’m able to get a few more things taken care of. Hopefully our furniture will arrive *any day now* and then setting up the nursery will be priority number one. Here are the bump pics from week 35. Baby boy is pretty darn big and I have no clue how he’s gonna make room for himself over the next 2-6 weeks.   

P.S. I’m playing around with changing my blog format so if it looks different every day, it’s because I can’t make up my mind on what looks the best.

The Big 3-0!

Let me start off by wishing a very happy birthday to…MYSELF! Yep, today is the 9^th anniversary of my 21^st birthday, meaning I am officially a grown up (aka 30!). Since I am heavily pregnant, we won’t be celebrating in any crazy and wild fashion, but I expect that Sticky Toffee Pudding will somehow be involved. My special gift from Jonathan was a new pair of ‘work’ shoes, aka, UGG moccasin slippers. 

In the past year and a half of being a housewife, I’ve completely blown through the sheepskin lining of my original pair so it was time for a replacement pair. I especially love that he appropriately got me a pair in burgundy, which will be camouflaged perfectly with the carpet that has become the bane of my existence. 

But that’s okay, because my other special gift is a maid! Yep, our new housekeeper starts work today, which means I can just kick up my cozy feet and watch someone else do my dirty work.  

I kind of feel  like hiring a maid is cheating on my housewife duties, but since in about *one month* I will be promoted to my new position as ‘Stay-at-Home’ mom, I’ve got to start delegating some of my responsibilities…and I choose to delegate scrubbing toilets and vacuuming burgundy carpet. Now I just need to hire a dog walker and pooper scooper and I’ll be all set! I hope you have a very happy my birthday!