Dr. Visit

I guess the stress of it being a Monday morning caused my blood pressure to be high or possibly just being anxious for this kid to come out. Who knows? The doc required me to stay at the office an extra 30 minutes to lay on my side and relax until my blood pressure went down. It did.

Other than that, I am 60% effaced. That's progress from the 33% I was at last week. And I have dialated a little less than a finger tip. Yes, I know that's not much, but it's progress from last Monday. The doc also said that he probably weighs about 6.5 lbs to 7 lbs now and could come out around 8 lbs or a little more....Yikes! Everyone stop what you're doing now and say a prayer that he doesn't get much bigger than 8 lbs at least for my sake.

Since my blood pressure was high I'll need to be checked again this Thursday. I'll keep you posted how that turns out.

Here's a few pictures I took this evening....I prefer being behind the camera more than in front of it nowadays.

Tom finished the bench. Just needs to be stained, and I need to cover the cusion that goes on the top. He's so proud. And I'm proud of him too.

This is our front porch. See the table/ottoman in front of the rocker. That's what caused his honey-do list to expand.

Tom hard at work. Oh, yeah, did I mention that it takes less than 15 minutes to mow both our front yard and back yard.

That's all for now. Later taters!

Handy Man

Thursday afternoon I sorted through the mail after work as usual and found the new Pottery Barn catalog. If you didn't already know, it's one of my favorite stores. So, while I was relaxing on the couch flipping through the catalog, I found a storage bench and coat rack that I've been eyeing for some time now. I showed it to Tom and asked if he could make something like it. (BTW, he made the mistake of building this really beautiful table/ottoman for our front porch about a month ago, and his honey-do list has trippled since then.) Well, on Friday I called to check in with him and to pass the time at work b/c I knew he was at home on his day off. He said he had just been to Home Depot to pick up the supplies he needed to start on the bench. I love Tom. Sure, I thought he might get to it one day, but the next day exceeded my expectations! He's been working really hard on it all weekend, and since I have no baby news for you, I thought I would share some pictures of him hard at work. Did I mention I love him?

Just for kicks...Do you see that small white box with a little bit of green on it in the back ground just above Tom's right shoulder?....That's the sprinkler timer I fixed....hahaha! Sorry, couldn't resist!

38 weeks

So, let's take a stroll down memory lane. I was once thin and 40 lbs lighter.

This is me at 15 weeks---just barely starting to show.

Flash forward 23 weeks....

Yes, that's me...and Micah at 38 weeks. This one's for you, Dawne.

Sweet Pea has been gaining sympathy weight with me. Of course you can't tell b/c my big belly is in the way, but she has.

I've been avoiding cameras for a few weeks now, but I guess it was time to give in. My reasoning comes from my co-workers. It never fails that I will have at least 10 of my [approx 30-40] co-workers look at me in shock and say something everyday like, "When are you due again?" or "Wow, how much longer do you have?" or even "Gosh, you look like you're about to pop. Weren't you due weeks ago?" Yes, I'm tired of saying August 28th. I'm to the point that I want "Not today" tatooed on my forehead so people would stop asking me.

There has been one person that brightened my day almost to tears of joy. Tom and I were sitting in church several weeks back and I was exhausted from the chair olympics, and I'm sure anyone could tell by the look on my face how I felt. It was right before communion when everyone turns to their neighbors and shakes hands and says "Peace be with you". You Catholic folks know what I'm talking about. Anyway. The lady sitting directly in front of me turned and shook my hand and instead of saying the normal response, she said, "you look beautiful". This meant a lot to me coming from a mother with 5 children of various ages crowded around her like little ducklings. She truly knew what to say to lift my spirits. She made me happy. I smiled.

So, next time you encounter a pregnant lady, don't ask her when she is due. Just say something nice or encouraging. Our hormones are all over the place. Do you really want us to talk bad about you in our blogs?

37 week check up

Yesterday the doctor confirmed that I have made no progress since the last visit. Micah is ripe and I feel rotten. Micah seems to be doing fine, but I have not dialated any which means this could go on for another couple weeks. Keep your fingers crossed that he'll decide to make his move soon.

Nursery

The nursery is 99% complete. Whew! I still need to put a few things away and organize his closet, but other than that....We're done!

Broken water?

I love it when men lie straight through their teeth and say they read the manual. I especially love it when they say, "I read the manual backwards and forwards 4 times. I know what I'm doing" only to hand you the manual and say, "if you think I'm wrong, then you figure it out." Honestly, I wish I would have done that to begin with. It would have saved us $250 on our water bill this payment cycle.

When I got our bi-monthly bill, I couldn't understand why we had used 61K gallons when we normally only use around 10K gallons. (By the way, we live in a desert and are on water restrictions. We are only allowed a certain budget of water per month and anything over that budget gets charged an extra fee per gallon.) I guessed it was the sprinklers, but how in the world were we using an extra 40K gallons? Turns out that Tom accidentally set the sprinklers to go off 4 times a day instead of one time a day. Did I mention he finally admitted to not reading the manual? So, there goes $250 down the drain...litterally. I forgave him for lying, but I fixed the timer myself...after carefully reading the manual from front to back.

Now I just need to get my hands on the thermostat timer manual. I bet I could solve our A/C issues in a snap.

So, I'm sure you're wondering how the doctor visit went this morning. Dr. Bergstrom walked into the exam room and said, "Congratulations, you've made it to 36 weeks." I no longer have to take procardia pills to stop contractions and I can resume all normal activities. I can walk again. You have no idea how frumpy and huge I've been feeling. Now that I can get some exercise I might be able to sleep a little better, not to mention, Micah may come a little sooner. As far as progress goes, Dr. Bergstrom said I haven't dialated any so far. So, there's still a long way to go.

Tom and I took a walk this evening. It was great to get out. The walk didn't result in any contractions, but I'll keep trying.

36 weeks

If this doesn't prove that I'm huge, I don't know what will.

The next doctor's appointment is tomorrow morning. I'm hoping I get the word that I no longer need to take pills if I have contractions. If that's the case, I plan on doing a lot of walking this weekend.