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We are on a final countdown.  I will be holding our precious little sweet pea one week from today at the latest!  We decided last week that August 1st would be our induction date, unless baby decides to come earlier.  Honestly, I hope that s/he comes on its own....but I'm not holding my breath.  I want to max out the time I have with him or her, and this is my last week at work.  Judge me if you like. ;)

Right now I am thisclose to just chugging some castor oil and hoping for the best! lol

In the meantime, let me entertain you with some updated pictures of the nursery!

I think we are finally ready for the baby!  Obviously, there will be some additions/changes to the nursery once we know pink or blue.  Plus, I plan to commission a name painting to match the owl/quote painting above the crib.

I'm actually more excited to post pictures once the baby has been here for a couple of weeks and we've been able to theme it more. :)  I'm quite happy with everything so far!  I really wanted a calm, but fun environment, and I feel like this is a great start.

The waiting game

And, that's where we are now.

I started having contractions yesterday, and really thought that I might go into active labor.  Turns out, not so much.  My contractions have not stayed consistently regular and close enough together.  For most of the day, they were 4-9 minutes apart.  Then, last night they were 10 minutes apart for a little over an hour.  I went to bed thinking that we might be making a run for the hospital before the morning.

Well, morning came.  No baby.

The little booger is still moving around, so no worries that anything is wrong.  Guess my body is just getting ready.  Koopa has been really clingy with me the past few days, too.  Plus all of the other signs/symptoms from over the weekend have had me convinced that I will have a baby before this week is over.  I hope I'm not wrong!

I would really like for this baby to come on its own.  I have my 38 week appointment tomorrow, and I'm hoping for some good progress news!

Couch Potato

I have officially transitioned from the bed to the couch for sleeping purposes.  Last night was the second time, and I definitely notice a difference in the physical quality of my sleep.  I do miss my bed though - VERY MUCH.  Michael is such a sweetheart.  He made a pallet on the floor next to me and refuses to sleep in the bed unless I'm there with him.  And, since I've slept better on the couch, he thinks we should continue this until the baby arrives.  I love my man.

I am officially full-term today!  Eek!  And, today was the first time in three weeks that I've had no progress.  I am still 70% effaced and 2cm dilated - not a bad thing.  I am just ready to meet our little booger!  He said we can talk about induction dates next week.  Michael and I can pick any day between the 27th and August 3rd to have our baby (if I don't go into labor on my own).  I was kind of thinking maybe we could go in on Sunday, July 31st; and then baby can decide if he or she will squeeze out on the last day of July or the first day of August.  Decisions, decisions. ;)  The more I read about the months and days, the more I lean towards August 1st.  In all honesty, I hope the baby decides to come on its own and not make me pick a birthday!

In the meantime, I just sit and wait!

Ugh.

Today is just one of those days.  Seems like "those days" happen more often than not now!

Sleep does not exist anymore.  I had coffee this morning.  I was quietly daring someone to say something.. lol  So, please excuse any ramblings below that may not sound rational or make any sense whatsoever.

I learned something this weekend - In the last month of pregnancy, Chinese food might taste like heaven, but it will make you hate yourself the next day.

We have 3 weeks and 2 days until our due date.  That's 23 days until I have a little person who knows me as "mommy".  552 hours until I am 100% responsible for the care of another life in this world.  And, for some reason (possibly the level of "over it" I am at), I'm not terrified.

I updated my iTunes and created my labor play list last night.  I hope those songs don't come back later and make me twitch from the memories of pushing a child out of my lady part.

I think that's all for today.

Maternity pics are up!

So, I have to turn into a little attention whore for a second. :D  Our maternity session has been posted!  Our friend/photographer featured us in a blog (amandablythe.com) and I also have a link to the rest of them for anyone that is interested.  I cannot express enough how much I love them!  She did such an amazing job, and I could be more pleased with the result.  We will treasure these for many years, and now I am even more excited for the baby to arrive!  I cannot wait to see the beautiful work she will do with our little one.

Down for the count!

So, yesterday was 35/35 (35 weeks pregnant and 35 days left to D-Day)!  I also had my first weekly "check" at the doc's.  Turns out I am 70% effaced, but not dialating yet.  That could mean baby is coming sooner than we anticipated, or it could mean nothing at all.  Fun, right?!  And, if labor does start at any point from now on, they will not stop it.

I guess what freaked me out the most about it is that my mom's best friend's daughter-in-law was two weeks ahead of me, and after being given the same news, went into labor about 2-3 days later.  She had more going on than me (i.e. diabetes, older), but still.  It definitely sent me into a little bit of overdrive!  The bedding arrived yesterday, so I got that and all of the initial clothes washed.  I set up the bedding, and LOVE IT!  Thank God! lol!! (see below)

Please excuse the small black spot/stain on my floor. :)

The carseat will be installed & inspected on Friday after work, and we have already started packing.  I also went ahead and ordered the pack'n play and video monitor.  I had planned to wait a little longer, but the sale will be over on Saturday; plus I had received my completion coupon from Target.

Michael is so excited and I am still extremely nervous!  Work is not quite set up for me to leave, but I am taking no chances now.  Eval numbers will be turned in today, and the manager binders I started will be thisclose to finished by tomorrow afternoon.  The last thing I want to do is stress out now!  I need to relax as much as possible to keep this kid inside me for at least another week or 2! :)

Well, that's just swell!

And, I do mean SWELL!
I have definitely started to have a little bit of water retention going on.  I can still fit my rings on and off without trouble, so that's a good sign.  However, I woke up this morning feeling like I had a hangover without the fun party the night before.  That sucked.

According to our countdown to D-Day, we are 44 days away.  That means that at any point in time from now until the baby decides to make an appearance, we can go register at the hospital!  When I realized that this morning, I about peed myself.  Literally.  I already had the urge to go anyway. ;)  But, really.  That was kind of crazy to realize.  I mean, I know that we're close to the end, but the hospital is a scary place!

On to a happier note - we took maternity pictures this past weekend!  I am so excited to see how they came out!  I really wanted something kind of different in addition to the stereotypical, slightly romantic maternity shots.  And, I definitely knew I didn't want any bare belly ones.  Thankfully, I have developed zero stretch marks so far, but I'm still not a big fan of the naked belly pics.  I guess I just think that unless you are or have been pregnant, those can make people uncomfortable.  I don't know, maybe I'm weird!
Anyway... I wanted something quirky and fun - like us! ;)  I really liked the idea of having a graffiti wall that we could spray something about the baby on.  The usual spot for that downtown is kind of sketchy, so our wonderful photographer (Amanda of amandablythe.com) suggested checking out another spot.  We did, and to our pleasant surprise, there was a huge graffiti display of the word "Bunches" in blue with pink around it!!  Talk about awesome!  We had brought along some sidewalk chalk as another idea, so we added our own twist to the wall.  I used pink chalk and Michael used blue to write "We love you" on top of the "Bunches", and then we wrote out Ethan and Aubrey.  Seriously, I could not have asked for anything better.  After we got home, I wished that I would have snapped a pic of the wall, but oh well.  I'm sure we'll see the pics soon enough!  We also got some over by the old arsenal that were a little softer.  I changed into a maxi dress and we took some with baby books and booties.  And, of course, we got a couple of Michael kissing my belly. :)  I forgot to mention that Koopa came along for the ride!  We were able to get some "family" pictures as well, which made me very happy. :)  Koopa is just as much a part of our family as our baby!

Then, yesterday was Father's Day.  I had a nifty basket delivered to Michael last week with assorted nuts and Dad's root beer.  He loved it!  Then, Sunday morning I made him pancakes before we went to church.  Once we got back to the house, I told him that I had a dream that the baby left him a present in the crib.  (Silly, I know.)  I filmed him going to the nursery to find his gift.  "The baby" left him a note and pictures of Mommy. :)  I was FINALLY able to give him the boudoir album I did at the end of January!  I was 13 weeks pregnant at the time, but I felt incredibly sexy.  I told him that I would capture that sexiness again, promise! :)  He was quite the happy daddy-to-be.

I think that about wraps it up for now.  Hope everyone has a fantastic week!