Lots of Catching Up To Do

In usual slacker style, I have failed to update my blog even though I promised I would after Kreat and I went to Breckenridge. Well, I'm still a loser, but enjoy my photos:

The day we left for Breckenridge we had a 4D Ultrasound (I take it you have seen the images from that). Here's me at 30 2/7 weeks awaiting the big moment (I look so fat, it's hilarious!):


View from our hotel room and the super gorgeous drive through the Rockies:












A few weeks after returning from Breckenridge, Kreat celebrated his 31st birthday. To my surprise, he picked a chocolate-on-chocolate cake; I'm not sure if that's what he truly wanted or if he was just trying to make his super pregnant wife happy - either way, it was delicious.




And as promised, here's my ever growing belly. Pardon the no-makeup look, but I took these on impulse for your viewing pleasure. I'm 33 1/7 today and have gained 31lbs. I know, it's ridiculous. I've come to terms with the fact that I will gain an easy 40lbs with this baby...whatever.






Other than the above activities, not much else is happening with us. I started painting the nursery yesterday. I figured that this is my first baby and I better just do it so I won't have any regrets. Right now, I'm regretting the decision to paint the stupid room. I'm tired, my back hurts and I'm sick of climbing up and down the damn latter every five minutes because the phone rings constantly. I swear, no one calls me when I'm doing nothing but the second I undertake a project that I'm trying to make stress-free and enjoyable - every one wants to talk. No offense to those who have called mid-brush-stroke, I love you all, but you climb a latter fifty thousand times with 31 extra lbs strapped to your butt. When phase two of the nursery is done, I'll post photos.

Summer school officially ended the first week of July, but if you recall, I was going to do a bunch of extra stuff this summer on my own so that I won't have to do it once the baby gets here. So I am currently in the middle of completing 116 hours of clinical time in Labor & Delivery, NICU, OB and Pediatrics. I'll be totally done with all of that garbage on the 26th. Putting the time in isn't so bad, but the 125 pages of careplans, worksheets and evaluations is killer.

There is an end in site! To those of you I haven't spoken with in a while (Susan...Berkley...Cecilie...) know that I love you and am thinking about you. Susan, let me know when you deliver Lincoln, no matter what time it is.

Until next time...

Would You Like to Meet Our Son?

So I thought I wasn't going to be able to upload these images until we got home, but thanks to WiFi, you are all getting an extra special glimpse into my womb a little earlier than anticipated. As you know, we had a 4D ultrasound yesterday before leaving for Breckenridge. This was a truly amazing experience.

Here are a few great photos for you all to enjoy.











This is a really cute video clip of him. It's hard to believe that he's really inside of me...Kind of makes me feel like a mama alien.

The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back

Holy sh**. Just when I think that my life is calming down to a reasonably stressful environment, it gets sky rocketed back to unbearable, completely intolerable, 10/10 on the stress-o-meter bad. Kreat and I are supposed to go out of town tomorrow for a lovely, stress free weekend. I got up this morning, started on a bunch of homework that I needed to turn in this afternoon, ate breakfast with Kreat...everything was fine. Kreat went on his way to work.

I was playing with Lola and ruffled her head in my hands, like I do all the time. This time, Lola whips her head back, yelps in pain and tries to bite my hand. Now, for those of you who know Lola, she is not an aggressive dog; she has never, under any circumstance tried to bite a human, not even a kid. I knew something was wrong. I sat her down, wrapped my legs around her tightly, so that she couldn't wiggle out, and began examining her ears. Turns out, her right ear was so swollen on the inside that I could not look down into it. Her outer ear (the part that sticks up) was not inflammed, but the base of her head and the inside of her ear were huge, comparably. "Oh goody" I thought, "just what I need today."

I called our vet that has seen Lola for 4 years and I brought her right in. They called me about 30 minutes after I returned home from dropping her off and this is what the doctor says to me:

"Lola's right ear is encompassed in a hematoma (a collection of blood underneath the skin). Has she been scratching her head or ears a lot lately? [Yes, I reply] There appears to be a foreign body stuck in her ear, which has caused irritation and the subsequent itching of her head, and that itching has broken blood vessels, causing the hematoma. I will need to do surgery to drain the hematoma, cut out the damaged tissue and remove the foreign body. I'll call you when I'm finished."

Super. So $200 later, I bring my heavily sedated dog home from the vet with a viking horn bandage on her right ear. She hates this bandage; I went to pee, come out and the bandage is 2/3 of the way off - Lola is passed out on the couch. Screw this, she's getting an E-collar. Kreat's going to pick it up on his way home from work. In the mean time, Titan thinks that Lola's viking horn is a chew toy. If I leave the room for more than 1 minute, he is found chewing on it and trying to pull it off. He's not helping.

I don't know what I did to Karma in my life to deserve all of this crap, but whatever it was, I think I've paid my dues. Now, Lola has to go to the kennel tomorrow so that we can go out of town - which makes me a total anxiety stricken mess - but she has to wear the E-collar, which means I have to trust the staff at the kennel to keep it on her and they also have to administer her antibiotics three times a day. I don't have a whole lot of faith in people who's big ambition in life was to work at a bording kennel, so I'm guessing that I will return on Sunday to a dog with a massive infection, which will then turn septic and my dog will die. All because I tried to go on a nice weekend vacation with my husband.

The viking hat, poor Lola is so out of it:


On the lighter side, Titey thinks it's funny to sleep in our bed when he thinks no one is looking...

A Hallmark Day

Today marks a great day in my pregnancy. I am 30 weeks along - I can't believe that in 2 months, give or take, I will be having a baby - but more importantly...Kreat and I have officially named the passenger! Yep, today we came to agreement on a first and middle name. Our child is no longer "baby" or "the kid" but he's a real-named human. I'm so excited. Sorry to disappoint, but we are not releasing the name until he makes his big debut. We will give you a very broad hint: he will have the same three initials as one of his grandparents. We weren't trying to make it that way, it's just how it ended up. The name possibilities to figure that out are endless, we know, but it's all you're getting from us.

I know I haven't blogged in a long time, but life has been ridiculously busy and has brought me to tears many times in the last three and a half weeks; things are starting to lighten up, but the outlook continues to be overwhelming. I'm trying to take things one day at a time. I will blog more after this weekend - Kreat and I are going on a get-a-way to Breckenridge this Thursday-Sunday; we should have some beautiful pictures and I'll be sure to take one of my GIANT belly. This baby is going to be huge or I'm going to have lots of lb's to lose postpartum. Oh, on Thursday morning on our way out of town we have a doctor's appointment to have a 4-D ultrasound done - the pictures from that should be amazing - we'll post any good ones we get. Love you all and sorry for being a blogging loser. I'll get better when life calms down (in mid December).

Nursery: Phase I

Remember the dilemma I was having over what to do with the nursery furniture that was boxed all over my house? Well, about a week ago, I moved my brother's stuff into the front bed room and began phase one of Project Nursery. I assembled all of the furniture, by myself I might add, and set everything where I wanted it. The walls are still bare and paint less and there are no drapes on the window, but that will just have to wait. At least I don't have giant boxes strewn all over my house. It's nice to actually have a space for my little nugget of joy, even though he's not here yet.

The crib:


The most comfy rocker ever!



Changing Table:


Car Seat - This was a gift from my mom.



Summer semester is in full swing. I hate it. I'm keeping my eye on the prize, working hard and doing my best to remain focused. I finished last semester with decent grades; I knew I wasn't going to get a 4.0 this time and I didn't even try. I just could not put in the emotional and mental effort, I took my 3.75 with a big smile on my face and said "Two more semesters to go!"

Question: Why do people think that they can touch my belly? For those of you who have experienced this, please comment. People who normally don't talk to me (and perfect strangers) are now touching my belly - why? I would never walk up to a fat chick and start rubbing her flab, so why do people assume that they can rub my belly? Just because there is a baby in there doesn't make it any less awkward. When my son is born I certainly don't want people touching him without permission, so why wouldn't they ask before they put their filthy, nose-picking fingers on my belly? It boggles me.

The belly: 26 4/7 weeks




P.S. Don't judge my dirty bathroom - I asked for it to be cleaned two weeks ago and I refuse to break down and do it myself. It's the principle of the matter...

While I Have the Time

I figured I should put up a few photos of what we did this weekend, considering I go back to school tomorrow and life is about to get very hectic.

My stroller and the nursery bedding arrived right on time, so naturally I had to get it all out and play with it. I pushed Lola around in the stroller, she wasn't impressed. I made Kreat feel all of the pieces of the bedding and "ooh and aahh" over how soft they are; he didn't really care, but went along with it to make me happy.





Yesterday (Saturday), I planted our small, yet enjoyable garden. Due to the configuration of our yard and the fact that we have two dogs that love to dig, we plant our vegetables every year in whiskey barrels. It's not much, but I love doing it. This year our theme is "Salsa" - totally influenced by my Mexican cravings. Our goal is to grow our own ingredients to make our own salsa...wish us luck.

Cilantro: According to the little plastic stick in the soil of the plant, each of these tiny little things will grow to fill the entire pot...


Onions: Each little green thing is the start of one onion. We planted 27 of them.


Tomatoes: We only planted two; that should be plenty.


Peppers: Mucho Nacho's and Jalapeno's...delicious. We planted six plants. Notice the chicken wire surrounding the plants? The dogs LOVE peppers and without this reinforcement, they will eat any pepper that grows on these plants.


Lola and Titan weren't very productive as I schlept dirt and plants around, they were more interested in watching us.




This photo was taken today - 24 5/7 weeks; my son is almost viable. Explanation: at 25/26 weeks fetus's are considered "viable" meaning they can theorectically survive outside of the womb. And because I have taken care of 26 week babies in the NICU, I would really like my son to remain in-utero for a long time to come; no preemie please.

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.