It's Been a While

Okay, I know I've totally slacked with the blogging, but for good reason. I finished my finals yesterday - thank goodness! I studied for four straight days for my advanced medical/surgical cumulative final and ROCKED IT! 97%! And I took the entire test while laying on the floor of my classroom because I was so nauseated and lightheaded that I couldn't sit upright in a chair. Ah, the joys of pregnancy and nursing school. I also had my advanced health assessment final yesterday (don't know the results of that one yet) and had to turn in my end-of-the-semester portfolio. Let's just say that when I got home from school last night, I was completely worthless - no, really. I went to Chipolte, got a chicken burrito with black beans, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, lettuce and cilantro rice, came home sat on the couch, ate the whole thing, and didn't move until I went to bed. My brain was mush.

Although the spring semester is over, I start summer school on Monday morning. Four days a week. Yippee (sense the tone). Summer school runs until the first part of July, then I have 13 12-hour shifts to complete during the month of July, also for school, so that I don't have to do them once the baby is here. My summer "vacation" will be a whopping total of 18 days...August 1-18, then fall semester begins, I have a baby and I find out what I'm really made of. Pray for me.

This morning I had a chiropractic appointment. I have been experiencing the most miserable sciatic nerve pain for weeks now, some days I truly cannot walk from my bedroom to the kitchen. I finally decided to try chiropractic therapy - I've been impressed. This morning was my third appointment and I've been feeling great. For those of you who don't know what sciatic nerve pain feels like, let me tell you: on my worst day last week I could not sit, lay on my back, lay on either side or stand without continuous sharp, shooting pain running down my left leg, starting at my glute and radiating to my calf. There was no position that helped it, but every movement hurt it. And because I am pregnant, there were no anti-inflammatory drugs that I could take for it. Just good ole Tylenol, which does nothing. It was lovely. But, I'm feeling much better.

The baby furniture and miscellaneous items have been arriving to the house, which is quite exciting. For those of you who don't know, my brother Bob has been staying with us; he's actually in the room that the baby will be in, so we have boxes of baby furniture strewn around the house and closets of stuff because there's no place to put it yet. We can't set the furniture up yet, because what are going to do with it? Leave it in the living room? Bob won't be with us much longer and then I can tackle the most exciting part of this journey: nesting. I love to clean and decorate and I am super excited about that. We have more stuff on the way. The nursery bedding will be arriving tomorrow, the stroller will be arriving on Saturday, the rocking chair and cushions will be arriving end of the month. I don't know where we are going to put all of this stuff in the mean time. Our entire garage is filled (literally every inch of it) with Bob's stuff...who knew one person could have so much stuff! [For the record, we totally love having Bob with us and he knows that he has a ton of stuff; I'm not in any way taking shots at my brother, so don't take it wrong].

Here are some photos I thought you'd enjoy.

This was taken on Sunday May 11; I was 23 6/7 weeks. This dress does not show how truly huge I am...


Closets of stuff:



This is our changing table. It's in the dining room. Beautiful, isn't it?


More nursery stuff. One of these boxes has the ottoman to my rocking chair in it.


This is the crib...


Lola was helping me this morning


Here's mattress and changing table pad, which are being stored behind my exericise bike, which is boxed in with all of this stuff. Not really being used much right now.


I took these this morning, using Bob's bathroom to aid in the one-person-photography trial...Not bad. See, I totally look like a bus.



And finally - the belly! And I know it's only going to get worse.