Countdown: 7

Starting today we have just seven weeks or 49 days until baby Jackson greets us (hopefully not even that long).

And the way my mind works, in JUST 20 days (which is like no time) we'll have ONLY 29 more days left which is practically right around the corner, ha ha.

I didn't take pictures today because.. I just didn't. But I will take some tomorrow.

Instead I ran errands all day and will be doing the same tomorrow, starting with washing clothes at my brother's house since our washer decided to crap out on us this past weekend. Someone is coming tomorrow night to look at the washer though, so hopefully it's fixable.

On the pregnancy side of life, I've been feeling really crappy today. Comfort no longer exists, and neither do normal knees and ankles. At night I sleep with 5 pillows (two under my head, which is normal, one to squeeze, also normal, one between my legs and one wedged under my side/back). Walking is not soo fun now that my entire pubic bone hurts pretty much and when I turn in bed, I can hear my bones pop. FUN!!! My feet are tingly sometimes b/c of the extra fluid around my ankles and my legs are all together restless. Underneath the left side of my ribs is constantly uncomfortable (foot? hand? uterus? who knows). And Jackson's pushes/punches/kicks are definitely much stronger. They're not really painful, just strong and not what I'm used to. Oh.. and the stretch marks continue to be itchy and painful and the acid reflux has returned with a vengence. I'm not sure that over-dosing on TUMS exists, but if it does, I'm probably very close to doing so (or at least it seems that way with the ridiculous amount of TUMS I chomp down each day to control the reflux). I never really understood what people meant when they said the end of pregnancy is sooo uncomfortable, but I totally get it now!

On a good note (for me, not for Justin)... let the nesting begin. ha ha. Yesterday I told justin I wanted to repaint the living room/stairwell/upstairs hallway. He disagrees COMPLETELY. I also got his car washed on Friday. I cleaned all the upstairs windows yesterday (and will probably do all the downstairs windows tomorrow now that I've gotten some more window cleaner). I also folded lots of baby clothes yesterday and will fold more tomorrow after I wash them. On the "to buy" list is curtains for our room and the baby's room and some shelves for the baby's room. I also want to look into putting more rods in our closets (which Justin will probably also disagree with unless I just do it.. becuase I KNOW he'll like it afterward) and getting new bath mats. I'm hoping in the next month or two I can scrub the bathroom and kitchen, but I have to find someone to unhook the gas from the stove first because I REALLY want to clean under there because I KNOW it's gross. And finally.. the pool table just sitting in the dining room is driving me NUTS because we don't ever use it, but Justin wants to keep trying to sell it until the end of June which leaves us barely any time to find arrangements for it if no one sells it, which is what I'm anticipating.

So that's that. The nesting's begun, now I just need that nesting energy to get everything done!

Okay, that's all. The 50 day countdown is underway so look forward to a lot happening in the next 7 weeks!!

HOLY COW!!!!!

I totally JUST realized that TODAY starts our 50 day countdown :)

I'm completely tired after cleaning windows and folding baby clothes all day, but looking at the blog and seeing the big 5-0 definitely perked me up (even if just for a few seconds).

This past weekend has been good, but tiring. Friday night was a work night for the both of us (after finally having a morning off to run errands) and then it was up at 7am on Saturday to get ready to make the 2 1/2 hour drive to Frostburg for my sister's graduation. My sister's boyfriend Matt met us here and then we picked up Wayne and Wenke to make the trip together. On the way up we stopped at the Hagerstown outlets to potty and to return my Coach purse :/ So I did and I got a wristlet instead which was about $45 cheaper than the purse. I didn't really find anything else I wanted but Justin ended up finding quite a few pair of pants for work that were pretty cheap. We then finished our drive, which was very long for me since I was so tired.

We got to see Krista graduate with her master's degree and then they were on to the Undergrad degrees, so we dipped out for a bit until they finished. After graduation, we all went to eat and then Wayne, Wenke, Justin and I started the drive home. We again stopped at the outlets to potty and so Wayne could get some shoes. I ended up getting an outfit from Motherhood Maternity but it was definitely not cheaper than the regular store. Ugh. After we left there, it POURED the entire way home, which sucked because I have a really hard time seeing the lane lines in the dark so I pretty much drove the entire way using the reflectors between the lanes. Justin and I both crashed when we got home and even slept in late, missing church.

We then had to run some errands before my sister's graduation party at Wayne's house. It was soooo crazy cold out yesterday (and today) so I spent most of the party in doors. But despite the weather, it was nice to see some of the family and friends there. One of the best moments was with Gavrielle, the flower girl from our wedding. We were sitting there and she asked (she's three mind you) if I ate a lot of food would baby Jackson come out. I said no because he needed to get bigger still. Then she asked if I had a hole for him to come out of. I said yes and her response was "Can I see it." ha ha. So I looked at her mom and told her that was for her discuss with her. Then she asked when she came out of her mommy's belly. Well Gavrielle is adopted so I turned the question over to Nancy again, and her response was "You didn't come out of my belly, you came out of my heart". This was very cute, I thought, and very pleasing to Gavrielle as well. All in all it was a pretty good day.

Today I slept in again, as I've been pretty sleepy latey, and apparantly pretty swollen according to everyone else who looks at my knees and legs. But then my mom and sister came over and my mom cleaned all of our carpets (which isn't so bad since we only have carpet upstairs) while I cleaned all of the upstairs windowns and sorted through TONS of baby clothes.

On the menu for this week is plenty of relaxing, plenty of sleeping, lots of cleaning, and hopefully getting our washing machine fixed.

I'll leave with a pic of the graduation:

Countdown: 8

Better late than never! Hopefully Jackson doesn't take that frame of mind and decide to hang out longer than expected before he greets us! I just realized last night that I was in a crappy mood last week and NEVER posted any pictures. Shame on me. I was also very busy last week so that's probably the bigger reason. There's been a lot going on these days and it's so easy to lose track of time.

Last week started exams for me. I had two back-to-back presentations, an exam last Wednesday and an exam last Friday.. yikes!!! I want to say that I worked Friday night, but to be completely honest, I don't remember, ha ha. Regardless, the weekend was spent cleaning and studying and running errands. We FINALLY got all that card board off the porch this past weekend (you know... the HUGE boxes from the baby furniture that we got MONTHS ago). AND, I even weeded the garden a little while Justin cut the grass.

This past Sunday was my first mother's day-to-be celebration!!! We started out the day with church where we learned how mother's day was created and all the ladies received a carnation (the Mother's Day flower). Then we headed to my parents for lunch. It was practically a meal fit for Thanksgiving and it was quite yummy. I got cards for Mother's Day and we gave gifts to my grandma and my mom. (Our mom's got a great gift from Jackson this year: a sketchbook picture frame with a belly note from him in it).

My favorite thing about being there though was having my grandma there and seeing her eat an entire plate of food!!!! It's been difficult for her since her stroke but she even had an extra serving of bread afterward. :) After lunch we scurried off to Justin's parents in Havre de Grace to give his mom her mother's day gift. We had dinner here (grilled burgers and hot dogs... which was great because I'd been smelling people grill near our house and it makes my mouth water). We hung out for a bit and came home bearing some new plants/seeds. I got a Hasta root so I can attempt to make a yard destroyed by dogs presentable and she gave us some Black Eyed Susan seeds, which I plan to plant next week sometime. When we got home, I had some studying to do for my Monday exam and we had a few episodes of Harper's Island and Breaking Bad to catch up on.

Now... my Mother's Day gift from Justin: We had originally decided that instead of a gift, he might take me shopping for clothes, which seem to scarcely fit me these days. Well, he decided to get me a gift anyway, and after some advice from a female co-worker he picked up a very nice, compact coach bag for me while he was out on travel. This is the gift that all girls love.... All girl's except me. Unfortunately I think I'm the one girl in the world who is NOT a coach fan, mainly because of their prices: I just don't think that it's worth it! The bag is very nice, and I feel terrible about it, because most guys probably would not just go out on their own and get a girl a coach bag, but we decided we would try to take it back to the outlets this weekend. I'm hoping to find a wristlet instead (which I think will be easier to shove into a diaper bag or to take out to nice places) or we'll just return it and get something more practical for me (like a $20 purse at american eagle or something). Either way, he tried to make this day special for me, and i totally ruined his suprise, but it was special no matter what.

On to this week. I had three exams this week on Mon, Tues, and Wed and i also worked Mon and Wed night. On Tuesday, we had my first HUGE emotional pregnancy breakdown. We've been trying to let the dogs have run of the house when we're not home, yet despite the fact that we close all the doors and pick things up, they always seem to get a hold of something, and it usually ends up being something of Justin's. Well he decided that we would have to start locking them up again. When we lock them up, we put a baby gate up so Jiff has run of the kitchen, but Carlin needs to go in a cage because he jumps the gate. But, Carlin is severly running out of room in the current cage we have and Tuesday morning I just felt sooooo bad leaving him in there (especially when I knew I was going to be gone from 9 am until 6pm) so just as I was about to leave the house, I picked everything up and let them have the run. When Justin realized I hadn't put Carlin away, he was furious because "I never take into account what he says." I felt really bad because I knew he'd feel that way, but I also felt really bad about leaving Carlin in such a small space, so I just sat on the couch and cried. This of course made Justin feel bad and so we decided to look for another option. So... we will either have to buy a bigger cage from petsmart (which is crazy expensive) or we'll use my brother's method of putting up a plank of wood so that the gate can be high enought that Carlin can't jump it, which will give him run of the kitchen with Jiff. While at petsmart, we picked up the Kong (the rubber chew toy that you can hide treats in) to hopefully give them something to chew that's NOT the remote, or my Dr. Scholl's inserts, or Justin's work stuff, and so far, they love it.. but we definitely need to invest in another one so they don't fight over it.

Anyhow, after a long three days, it's needless to say I was pretty tired Thursday. We also decided to hang out with some of the other Ramshead crew after work this past Wednesday (the B-52's played) and Justin had quite a few drinks involving the new iced tea vodka. I wasn't sure he'd make it to work the next day, but he most definitely did! I had a doctor's appointment yesterday: my 32 week check up! And the doctor says everything is right on still AND I've not gained any more weight yet. I'm hoping to keep that up for another couple of weeks :) After the doctor's appointment we had some errands to run and some Hastas to plant outside, then Justin joined me to take a tour of St. Joe's Labor and Delivery and Mother/Baby Units. While we were waiting for one of the nurses, Justin started asking TONS of questions about how would they know if something's wrong, could they tell if he has this or that at this point. You could tell that just being in the hospital right outside of triage where a woman was being admitted because she was in labor made him REALLY nervous. More nervous than he's let on this WHOLE time. It was pretty funny. We also got to see the nursery which made him smile a little :) After our quick tour we grabbed dinner and headed to red box and home to watch Taken. And I must say, it was a very good movie. I questioned a lot of things after, but it was good.

Anyhow, so this past Tuesday was 32 weeks (and I did take pictures) which leaves us with just 8 weeks to go before Jackson. I'm hoping that I can get my practicum done as soon as possible, but I'm not to worried about it seeing as I'll be following a nurse who works at St. Joe's on the labor and delivery unit. So, if anything goes wrong, I won't have to go far :) This weekend is surely another busy one for us though. We'll be traveling to Frostburg tomorrow (after working tonight) for my sister's graduation from grad school and for a hopeful stop at the outlets. Then, it's back to Baltimore tomorrow night and then to my brother's house (about 4 minutes away) on Sunday for my sister's graduation party. On Monday we are excited to start our 50 day countdown (finally) and hopefully I'll be able to start my practicum next week as well. The next two weekends will just be work focused and then we have our baby shower on June 6th.. which I can't wait for. It's really hard to NOT buy things that we need but I know that I need to wait until after the shower.

All in all, I've been feeling pretty good, although increasingly more uncomfortable, but despite the discomfort, we are anxiously looking forward to July 7th!!!!

Here's some 31 and 32 week pictures! Enjoy the weekend!!!

31 weeks.

32 weeks, 0 days

Wednesday at 32 weeks, 1 day!

5/7/09

Today's May 7th which means exactly TWO months until Jackson's due date: 7/7/09. And according to baby widget on the blog, just 61 more days to go!!!

It still seems far away, but I have a feeling when I'm just 4 weeks away I'm going to gasp and realize how close we really are!

Countdown: 9

Just nine more weeks until baby Jackson is here :) Of course I'm hoping for only 7 more weeks, but we'll see if he's on time like his daddy, late like his mommy, or early... like the milk man?? ha ha.

Anyway. Not too much exciting going on today. Justin left for Pittsburg on Sunday for work and he won't be back until tomorrow. So it's just been me and my destructive doggies for the past two days. It's funny though... they assume that just because Justin's not home, they have a RIGHT to sleep on the bed. Last night I was barely in bed before they jumped up and laid down. I don't mind them sleeping there, it's actually more comfortable with them there, but man.. give me a chance to get comfortable first.

Today was my presentation for my Research class that I've been fretting over for weeks. And thank Goodness it's done. Now I have a heck of a schedule ahead of me: exam tomorrow morning and another presentation immediately following; ERI nursing exam on Friday morning; work Friday night; Exam on Monday morning; Class and online exam on Tuesday; Exam on Wednesday; Doctor's appt. on Thursday and I think our first baby care class AND the hospital tour; Friday = Freedom (and work of course). Then it's off to Frostburg for my sister's graduation from grad school and back to Baltimore for her graduation party next Sunday. Phew. I don't know how I do it!!!

I also paid for my summer classes today. $1500 for TWO classes. It's a rip off if you ask me, but what are ya gonna do!

Today was also a fed up kind of day. First... I'd like to say that one of my LEAST favorite thing about this whole pregnancy is my stretch marks. It looks like a tiger clawed my sides, seriously. AND now I'm getting them on the front of my stomach!!! And the one's on the front not only itch, but they actually hurt. I will take acid reflux daily for no stretch marks (heck.. I have acid reflux daily anyway).

And then, as if stretch marks aren't bad enough, I'm completely breaking down about this whole body thing. I'm not one to complain about weight, my body or anything like that. And frankly, it annoys the crap out of me when people do (mainly because many of my friends are ridiculously skinny and complain that they're fat... which makes me feel huge even without the extra person inside of me). But today, when NOTHING fit except for the one pair of jeans that no longer look good and the big puffy maternity shirts that I'm not a fan of, I was a little more than disappointed. I feel HUGE. Even my maternity jeans are tight, especially around my thighs which has always been a problem area, so when you pair that with really tight shirts that seem to be shrinking length wise on me, I look horrible. I can't stand it anymore. I just want my old body back. I was looking at our honeymoon pictures from last summer and was amazed that I ever thought I had a tummy or waist issue then. I looked great... and tan... and that didn't help. So while I can't wait to meet and hold this little guy, I'm saying now that it might be a while for baby number two. It's extremely difficult to go from being not super confident but never worried about my body to the extreme I'm at now. I've done really well at being composed about it this long, but today I just need to vent. The stupid rain and cold weather don't make it any better. If I can wear dresses or skirts and tank tops, I might feel better, but with this weather I have no choice but to wear jeans and it really sucks when they don't fit!

Okay.. that's my vent. I was going to post pictures but it took me forever to even sign on because for some reason it wouldn't let me. So I'll save them for another day!

Goodnight!

Pictures

So here's a sneak peak at some of the pictures that Candace took!!!! I'm so excited to see the rest. I can't wait :) She's so amazing and we can't wait for her to be able to take pictures of Jax when he's here!!! We love you Candace!

Updates!

I finally updated the last post (Coundown: 10) with a 30 week picture for comparison. It's all the way at the bottom.

In other news, I had my 30 week check up on Thursday. Everything went well, the baby sounds good, I'm measuring right on, my blood pressure is great as usual, and I LOST 2 LBS!!!! Yay! The doctor was very impressed with that. He told me if I stay right where I am weight wise for the remainder of this pregnancy, then I'm set! ugh. How on earth am I going to do that??? Oh well. I also asked him when he will check to see if Jackson has flipped yet (since he was breech at my anatomy scan sonogram). He said he could check now, but it wouldn't matter because he'll probably flip multiple times in the next month. So he said he will wait until the last month to check on that.

When I was done, I had a lovely soup, salad, and breadsticks lunch with Julie. And then Justin came home from work early so we could go meet the Pediatrician. We decided to go with one of the doctor's in the Pediatric Partners practice right in Towson. The doctor was great and Justin and I were both very comfortable with him. So we can check that off the list. Another plus is that when we met with Justin's cousin Candace later that night to take our 30 week pictures, she told us that she takes her son Tyler there and that Ty LOVES him!! So we are super pleased.

Now on to the pictures. We loved our first round of belly pics so much we knew we wanted to do more when I was much bigger (the first one's were taken at 20 weeks by Mandy Sroka... there's a link to them somewhere on this blog). We also LOVED our wedding pictures that Justin's cousin Candace took (Candidacephotography.com) and I was set on having her do some belly shots for us. So we finally got to do them this past Thursday as our 30 week pictures. We spent a good 3 hours taking pictures and I'm sooooooooo excited to see them as she uploads and edits them.

Friday was pretty relaxed. I started the day with school, as usual (but I must throw in that Friday was the LAST lecture of the semester for my Peds class, thank goodness), and Justin with work and then we came home to enjoy a Friday night off work together, which is the first in a while. We decided to head to Arundel Mills Mall so Justin could go to bass pro shops and I REALLY wanted some chili cheese fries and a chocolate strawberry shake from Johnny Rockets (which was delicious by the way). We then went to Sorrento's for our real dinner and to see all of my family that works there. We headed home late last night and crashed on the couch! It was a good Friday night :)

Today Justin is off playing kickball (after waiting up all morning for Comcast) and I have school work! We both have to work tonight, then it's church for us in the morning. Justin unfortunately leaves for a work trip tomorrow afternoon so for the next 3 or 4 days I'll be home with the boys studying for exams.. which start next week by the way! Then it's FINALLY summer time for me (minus my practicum that I'll be starting soon). Maybe I'll finally get to relax. Anyhow, here are some pictures to end the post with!

This is today, 30 weeks and 4 days!

And these are a few last minute pictures that Candace took with my camera as we were wrapping up the shoot on Thursday! I did the color and tinting adjustments... Candace's version of the night will be MUCH better!