Living the Smith Family Dream: Countdown: 3

It is officially week 37!! Which means I am officially FULL TERM :) yay!!! But actually we're already 4 days into week 37 and just 3 days away from week 38!

I left off the last post on Sunday which was mine and Justin's one year wedding anniversary. We had plans to attend a cookout at his aunts house, and what a cookout that was. It was actually not a cookout at all, but a suprise baby shower for me from his side of the family. There were also a few of our friends there. It was definitely a nice suprise and beautiful day for it. When I got there everyone was waiting on the porch for me and then we were ushered inside for sandwiches and gifts. I got, again, a lot of great things and even a few great homemade gifts. Among the gifts was a diaper cake my mom made, a lennox noah's arc clock from justin's parents for the nursery, a really soft and gorgeous handmade blanket from justin's aunt barbara (the shower was at her house), a very nifty handmade carrier that straps the baby on a couple different ways from Justin's Aunt Sharon and cousins, and so much more. Krysta, the bartender at Ramshead who put together the shower there was also at this shower. She put together a few baskets of things and each basket had a poem for that talked about the things in that basket and correlated to a certain age group. It was a lot of fun to open and it included a lot of great things. Another gift we got was a gorgeous cradle. Justin's grandmother gave this cradle to Justin's cousin Stacey for her son Owen. She decided that she wanted the cradle passed down to all of her great grandchildren so Stacey had a a plaque put on it that is engraved "The Great-Grandchildren of Ruth & Bill Waicker" and another plaque with Owen's name and birthday on it. I'm very excited to use this cradle in our room with Jackson for the first few months and then to pass it down to the next Waicker baby that comes along.

Because it was also our one year anniversary, Justin's mom brought the top tier to our wedding cake which has been in her freezer for a year! (We actually ate half the day after our wedding so it was half of the top tier). We were shocked to see how well the cake held up and suprisingly, the cake didn't taste that bad either. So, I guess the lesson here is that everyone should order their wedding cakes from sugarbakers! The raspberry amaretto is my favorite.

That night we went home and we were so exhausted we attempted to go to bed as early as possible. Unfortunately I had a horrible time sleeping which was a bummer since I had practicum in the morning. Practicum was quite interesting on Monday actually. We had a lot going on and ended the day with a patient who just didn't seem mentally right! I wish I could share the details, but I can't. I can say though, it made for one heck of an experience.

Tuesday was my official 37 week day! I was supposed to have practicum but my preceptor was on call and didn't get called in, so I slept in. I didn't do much during the day, but I did work the Plain White T's show that night at Ramshead. On Wednesday I worked a 92Q talent search at Ramshead which ended up being a talent search for a bunch of kids, so really, I didn't do much. But on Wednesday my headaches started. While I was at work, I started getting a headache and got hot, but tylenol seemed to take care of it. I had practicum on Thursday, which lasted four hours longer than I expected because I felt bad leaving a patient who planned a vaginal birth but had to have a last minute c-section. While at practicum, I started getting a headache again and felt hot again. My preceptor said we'd take my blood pressure but I never got around to it.
On Friday I went to a info/lunch with my mom and Justin's aunt and driving home from dropping my mom off the headache started again and this time it was really bad. I was driving through the tunnel next to a tanker that smelled like gas, so that just made it worse. By the time I got home the headache was really bad and I was really hot and my face was beet red. So I took my blood pressure and it seemed to be approaching 130/100, which is really high for me. So I called my doctor and he told me to go to Labor and Delivery to be monitored. Of course when I got there, my blood pressure had calmed a little to 132/86. They had me lay down and drink water and about 45 minutes later, my blood pressure was back down to 98/68 so they let me go home. It was kind of funny because not knowing what to expect we threw all of our stuff (suitcase, diaper bag, etc.) in the car before we went. But it was also kind of sucky because I felt so stupid going home like I made a big deal out of nothing. The midwife (who actually had the patient I was with the day before) told me to watch my salt, so no more crab dip for me. Unfortunately though, despite trying to stay away from salt, my headache and the hot flashes have come back today.

Speaking of today, my wonderful sister in law offered to come over to help me clean. While she scrubbed the bathroom, kitchen and dog room and vaccumed the whole house, I worked hard on cleaning out the closets in the nursery and trying to get everything in place, and I'll tell you, my lower back is not letting me get away with working so hard! Around 5:30, our friends Jared and Kris brought over their youngest Joey. He's about a year old and so adorable. We offered to watch him for the night while they went to their daughter's dance recital. Joey absolutely loved Justin and he even loved the boys. And even better, the boys seemed quite okay with him as well. After dinner and helping me give Joey a bath, Justin went off to work and I attempted to put Joey to bed. Unfortunately though, he was MUCH more interested in the TV, but it was very cute watching him sitting up watching tv but nodding off every now and again because he was so tired. Speaking of being tired, he's currently sleeping with his butt in the air in the "frog" position. Definitely very cute. Oh, and speaking of Jared and Kris, Kris was at the shower on Sunday too and she made us a very nice anniversary gift (she framed our wedding invite in a shadow box with flowers) and she made us a baby shower gift too (one of our sonogram pictures and one of our maternity pictures framed with a poem). They were both very nice and definitely worth mentioning.

Tomorrow is Father's Day so we'll be celebrating Justin's first Father-to-be day! We'll start with church and then hopefully end up visiting both of our dads as well. He doesn't know it yet, and I doubt he'll read the blog tonight, so in the morning he'll be opening his gifts. The first is a shirt that has the superman symbol, but instead of the S, it has Dad written in it. I also got him a blue t-shirt that says "Like son" and I got the matching 3-6 month t-shirt for Jackson that says "Like father". I can't wait until he opens them because I know he'll love them. Since our first anniversary was technically the "paper" anniversary, I ordered a calendar online for him. It's a desk calendar and each month has a picture next to it that corresponds to that month during our first year of marriage. October has a picture of us dressed as ceasar and cleopatra from last Halloween, November has our first sonogram picture of Jackson, and February has a picture of our 20 week sonogram when we found out that we would be having a boy!!!! Each month also has a lyric from our wedding song or some other words like "It's a boy". It definitely turned out to be a very simple but nice gift.

Anyhow, I wish I had a doctor's visit to update about but the doctor said he didn't need to see me this week. But I do have one during week 38 and hopefully I'll have something exciting to update about, maybe a couple centimeters or so. That would be great!!! Wish us luck.

37 weeks, 2 days in hospital scrubs.