29w1d

We have SHELVES!! Hallelujah!! Woo Hoo!! We have now tripled, maybe quadrupled the amount of storage in the baby's closet. The way we ended up setting up the shelves we have one hanging bar that is probably 7 or 8 feet of space (it wraps around a corner), another that is three feet and a final one that is four feet.

PLUS there are shelves to put things on!! YEAH!! I was so excited to start putting things away but then once I sat down for a moment I realized exactly how exhausted I was so I think I will start putting things away tomorrow. The main thing is... WE HAVE SHELVES!!

As for the little man, he seems to be doing well. Moving around as much as ever. This evening while I was eating dinner I got a sharp pain in my ribs. It felt like a scrapping of bone on bone. I can only imagine that a foot or an elbow ended up under my rib cage and what I felt was him removing it.

I could go the remaining two and a half months without that feeling again thank you very much.

29w0d

Well the shelves are still in process. I left work early today to go home and see what I could get done on them. However I quickly discovered that my skills with a sawsall are not nearly up to par with what they need to be. So... I had to settle for marking the trim boards where they needed to be cut and waiting for Jake.

Much to my dismay when he arrived home he was tired and didn't want to work on shelving. How could anyone NOT want to work on shelving? How could he focus on anything else like say watching TV or sleeping when there is shelving to be hung? Apparently not everyone is as obsessed with getting this done as I am, huh?

So, about 7:30 I FINALLY convinced him to go upstairs and just make the cuts for me. I could hang the metal braces that the shelves hooked to. Knowing that he would be less than thrilled to do this little sawsall job I stayed away. When I heard the sawsall quit I thought, great... it's done.

No such luck. The battery died on the sawsall... yet AGAIN!! So I went up and started attempting to hang metal pieces. I got one hung and then got discouraged, since I couldn't finish anyway so I gave up.

About 8:30 when I went to lay down I noticed a rhythmic bouncing in my stomach. Is that what it feels like when the baby has the hiccups? If so, I think I just felt him hiccup for the first time, and it was pretty cool.

28w6d

Well, I forgot about the time change today so I got up thinking it was 7:30 when really it was only six thirty. Oh well, an extra hour to get things done. I started out by vacuuming the baby's room and then I had Jake help me move the dresser back across the room.

I was going to steam clean the little strip where the dresser was but I never got it done so if you come to visit don't get on your hands and knees and inspect okay? After I had the dresser moved back I went about starting to get things moved back into the room and getting things put away from garage sales and from last weekends shower.

About 9:00 Jake and I headed to Wal-mart to get him some bullets for target shooting and to look for shelves for the closet. I didn't see what I was looking for there so we headed over to Lowes. There I spent WAY more than I should have but got a shelving system and then a corner shelf to wrap around.

Of course I wanted to go home and put it together right away but Jake wanted to wait until it was dark. So, I continued unpacking when I got home and ended up getting everything sorted and in piles.

About one thirty I decided that I should probably start getting ready for the baby shower since I was supposed to be there at two thirty. We sent out 40 invitations for this shower so I was expecting a large turn out but that was not the case.

I think we only had about 15 people there. We did get lots of wonderful stuff and there were several gifts there from people who couldn't make it. When I went home I was kind of sad that we didn't have more people there until I looked at the guest list and realized that there were only about 10 people who hadn't either come or sent a gift. So...to those ten people... where were you??

Once I got home I wanted to start in on the shelving right away. Of course Jake took his sweet time getting home and so I was rather irritated by the time he got there. I had asked him to have his dad help him so that I would not be on the receiving end of any frustration. However, he seemed to think that he didn't need any help.

You know it's funny, I spent a lot of time handing him things and holding things for someone who didn't need any help. In the end we started cutting the trim board that runs around the middle so we could hang the shelving track and the sawsall battery died so we had to quit.

28w5d

Today was Race for the Cure day. This was the third year that Danette and I have done it together. Of course we walk and not run but that's not the point. We got there early to get in line for all the free stuff and to try to beat the crowds but it was FREEZING. We walked around for about 45 minutes and then decided to go to the car to warm up as it was only 8:00 and the race didn't start until 9:00.

As you can imagine once we were in the warm car the prospect of going back out in the 35 degree, highly windy weather didn't really appeal to us so we ended up just heading home. We both figured we had already made our donations so walking was just extra.

I got home around 9:00 and decided to start sweeping the baby's room and getting it ready to steam clean. I got everything moved out of the room and got the vacuum ran but then I was just TIRED!! I sat on the couch for a little while and then about 11:00 I got this feeling like if I didn't sleep right now I may die.

So I went upstairs and laid down and immediately fell asleep. Somewhere in there the phone rang, I ignored it. Then awhile later the phone rang again, I ignored it. Finally when it rang the third time and I ignored it I figured I should at least see who was trying to call. I had missed calls from my nephew and two of my friends but more importantly becoming conscious enough to notice this made me notice what time it was.

Three o'clock in the afternoon. Well... there goes my big plan of getting the whole room steam cleaned and all of the stuff put back into it today!! Seeing as how it was three I decided that maybe I should get up out of bed and so SOMETHING with the rest of my day.

Around 4:00 I actually headed upstairs with the steam cleaner and by 5:30 or so the whole room was done, except for a small piece where the dresser is sitting. I figure once the carpet dries I will move the dresser back and finish that little piece. So... at least I made SOME progress right??

28w3d

Today was the first time that I really felt baby parts sticking out of my stomach. The baby kept rolling over and I could feel a back or a butt or a head (it all feels the same to me) sticking out in one place or another.

In fact at one point I looked down and noticed that I was completely lopsided. He had apparently rolled and so my left side was noticeably bigger than my right. Good kid, your already making your mom look crazy.

Other than that, I went to my sisters this evening after work to get the steam cleaner. I'm hoping to get the room steam cleaned so I can start getting some things put back into it. Our house is a DISASTER and a lot of it is because baby stuff is taking over. SO, I'm hoping once I get the room put back together I can start to also reclaim the rest of my house!!

27w6d

Today I had my first baby shower. It was a small shower with just my aunts and one of my cousins. We got some very nice things for the little man but it all seemed very surreal. As I was sitting there opening things I didn't quite connect it with the fact that these are items that I will be using for MY son.

I kept opening up clothes and oohing and awing with everyone but I don't think it has fully hit me yet. It still seemed very much like I was looking at things for someone else's baby. So when does it start to feel real? When he's here?

Once I got home we unloaded all of the stuff and it ended up in the corner of our kitchen. So now the whole corner is full of baby stuff, the chair in our living room is covered in baby stuff and the office is full of baby stuff. We really need to finish the touchup in the baby's room so we can get the carpets cleaned and get all of this STUFF back into that room!!

26w3d

Today was my 26 week appointment. By all medical standards it went well. By time standards, it sucked... A LOT!! My appointment was at 11:00 but I had my 1 hour glucose test today so they told me to go to the lab first, drink the orange drink and then come upstairs. Their reasoning was that I wouldn't have to wait around doing nothing, instead I could have my appointment and then go back down and have my blood drawn.

Wow... don't we wish it was that easy. I arrived at the lab at about 20 till 11. Since they wanted to give me plenty of time to get back I waited until about 10 till before I drank the sugary substance. All in all it really wasn't that bad. It was REALLY cold but the taste wasn't as awful as I had anticipated. I suppose since my diet consists of LOTS of sugar that could be a factor.

After I drank the orange stuff I headed upstairs to my appointment. I checked in a little before 11:00 and began to wait. And I waited, and I waited, and oh yeah... I waited some more. They finally called my name at 11:35. I told the nurse that I needed to get back downstairs by 11:50 and her only response was if you need to leave let me know and then just come back to the room when you are done. Not, okay I will get the doctor into your room... no... that would be to easy.

My blood pressure was 110/62 and I had gained 4 pounds so she said all looked good there and off she went. So... I waited, and waited, and waited some more. Finally at 11:48 I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to leave and come back so that's what I did. When I got back from the lab the doctor FINALLY came in.

She listened to the little man's heart rate and experienced what we have known for a little while. He doesn't like to be disturbed. As soon as she put the doppler on my stomach he immediately gave it a good wack. Then we had to wait for me to stop laughing so she could finally listen to him. His heart rate was a lot faster than usual, 160, but I suppose it should have been considering he was all hyped up on sugar!! :-)

Finally we got down to business, my weight. Apparently she is concerned that my total weight gain is only 4 pounds. HOWEVER, what she is not taking into account is the 15 pounds that I gained between when we started on this trying to conceive path and when we finally got pregnant. Unfortunately, since I was in there every month their pre-pregnancy weight is me 15 lbs too heavy.

So, her suggestion to me was that she wanted me to gain 5 pounds between now and next appointment and I should do so by eating 6 meals a day. SIX meals? How in the world am I going to fit in six meals?

26w0d

Today I finally faced my fear of chiropractors and broke down and went. I got a recommendation from a girl I work with of a lady who had experience working on pregnant women but I had just been staring at the number for all of last week.

See the problem is that for about 6 or 8 weeks I have suspected that I had a rib out of place in my back. There is this random spot that hurts... A LOT... and this weekend Jake felt down my back and said that it does feel a little different in that spot. So, for all of these weeks I have been trying to ignore this pain but it has just gotten steadily worse.

Finally today I could take no more. However, it is probably a good thing that I called at 2:00 and they got me in at 3:30. Otherwise I probably would have chickened out again. As I was told, she was very nice and totally tried to put me at ease about the cracking of the back and neck in that she was not going to paralyze me.

She said that just by feeling she would guess that I was probably right about the rib. Obviously at this point we can't do x-rays so we are just going on what she can feel. Her deduction as to what caused it surprised me a little though. When I told her I had been sick she said that very well could have been the cause. I guess when I think about it it makes sense. Throwing up once sometimes twice a day for six weeks is a VERY violent motion and could probably cause all sorts of things to become out of place.

So... for now I'm adjusted and I have to keep going back until it doesn't hurt any more. I'm hoping that is soon because my sleeping is limited and my productivity while awake is limited when I am continually in pain.

25w6d

Today I finally convinced Jake to clean out the garage. It has been a NIGHTMARE for over a year now. Consequently when one of the garage doors broke I couldn't bring someone in to fix it because I was afraid they would get buried in the junk and never emerge again.

Therefore for over a year Jake and I have been parking outside even though we have a perfectly good garage. I finally put my foot down and said I was not going to be trying to load and unload the baby in the rain and snow when we had a garage I could be in.

So... today was the day. We started out with breakfast at Village Inn (A little bribery never hurt anyone) and then when we got back he went to work and I went to Hy-Vee to get a few things. Of course the one thing I can't find is the one thing he really wanted and so I lost it.

This is the first time I can really remember the pregnancy hormones getting the best of me. I just started crying and when he asked me what was wrong I just cried harder.

"You're mad at me because I forgot this but I went to the store to get you this and then I even picked up this that you really liked but your still mad at me. I keep trying to do nice things and you are still mean to me..."

You get the point. I finally just ended up going inside and laying on the couch. If I had laid there much longer I probably would have fallen asleep. So maybe it was a lack of sleep and the pregnancy hormones.

Either way I eventually calmed down and ended up doing some laundry and running to get cat food and the item I had forgotten. :-) Oh and pizza... did I forget to mention pizza? Can't forget that important detail.

25w5d

I found this Saturday just as unproductive as last Saturday. Well at least as far as housework is concerned. I do some book keeping for a friend and I was WAY behind, so I managed to spend most of the day trying to get caught up on that.

The only time I managed to make it off the couch was for Jake and I to go to a movie tonight. We went and saw Open Season. It was somewhat cute but not everything I had hoped for. The popcorn, however, was to die for!! Mmm... movie theater popcorn....

25w4d

Today I had to drive an hour and a half to Coralville to go to training. I have wondered about how car travel would be as I got bigger. Really, it wasn't all that bad. I was traveling into the sun so that sort of sucked but I didn't have to stop along the way to stretch or anything.

Once I got into the class the teacher was discussing cell phones and how he knew that for some people they might need to leave their phone on but that he would appreciate it if it was on vibrate or silent and you waited until you were out of the room before you answered.

Then he hit us with this. I am going to be leaving my phone on today also because my wife just found out that our third child that she was, well is, carrying.... there's something wrong with the baby. He didn't elaborate any further than that but my heart just sank for him.

As much as I complain about carrying this little man around I LOVE the fact that I am able to do it. I love feeling him move and I love the connection that we are building every day. Sometimes I take for granted that he is there because this has been such an easy pregnancy. I seem to forget that there are others out there who are not having such an easy time of it.

So for today at least I am going to take the time to remember to be grateful. Grateful for my son and to never take for granted what a wonderful gift it is that I get to carry him with me for nine months.

25w2d

Well, the wonderful sleeping was short lived. And I can't even blame Jake for this one either since I made him sleep on the couch again for one extra night of snore free sleeping. No this had to do with the little one deciding to practice his backflips at 2:30.

He's not big enough that he will wake me up with just one kick. However since he decided to bounce around for a good 10 - 15 minutes last night he did successfully wake me up. Once I was up I switched positions but was then unable to fall back asleep for about 30-45 minutes.

Also sometime last night, and I'm not sure if it was before or after the backflip incident I had this really strange dream that I was being chased by someone. All I remember was running, like in the movies where you keep running and running and dodging people. It was strange. I really wish I could get rid of these dreams for awhile and get some "deep" sleep!!

Since I was, once again, worn out our dinner consisted of little smokies that I threw into the crock pot around 6:00 and we ate around 7:00. Jake and I headed to bed at 8:00 and luckily when I closed my eyes around 9:00 there was no snoring coming from his side of the bed.

25w1d

Today I felt MUCH better. It is amazing what a little sleep will do for you isn't it? The last time I got up to pee was around midnight and I don't really remember waking up much between there and 6:00. Yeah me!!

I felt so good, in fact, that I felt it necessary to go to Dominos for lunch and eat half of a large thin crust cheese pizza and half to 3/4 of an order of cinastix. And while at the time it was WONDERFUL, I spent the rest of the afternoon a little miserable from my indulgence. I'm finding now that if I over eat I pay for it much longer than before I was pregnant.

Of course that little adventure was not enough to slow me down. Once I got home I decided to look through the Hy-Vee sale add and what did they have right there on the front page. Donuts. That was it... I decided I was having donuts for dinner. Unfortunately, the donuts do not go on sale until Friday, so I settled for going to the grocery store to get a few "essentials" instead. Yes, cake is an essential, no I didn't buy any. But I could have...

While I was not gone long to the store, I did realize once I was done that I am getting to the point where shopping trips are going to need to be a two person job. I was having some braxton-hicks contractions when I left and decided to go straight to the couch once I got home. So Jake put the groceries away and then we watched a little TV. I believe I may have seen 9:00 on the clock tonight!! :-)

25w0d

Wow!! 25 weeks!! It is really starting to hit me that I am on the downhill side of this slope!! Today was a day to get pretty much nothing accomplished. Jake's got some sort of sinus thing going on and so he snored most of the night. I think he woke me up every two hours all night long. Grrr!!

In between that if he wasn't waking me up my dreams were. I had a dream that I had the baby and he was big. Like 9 or 10 lbs. They put him on my chest and he had dark hair and Jake's skin tone. Then later I had another dream that we were at a wedding (perhaps my sisters) and he was 6 or 7 months old. In that dream he was blond with a lighter complexion and he was eating cake. See... a boy of my own heart... eating cake!! Mmmm... cake!!

So, needless to say, I spent most of my day in a daze. Once I got home I convinced Jake that if he didn't clean the bathtub right now I was going to do it and cause brain damage to our son. Which is false... because it wouldn't have caused him any harm... but Jake did it anyway so all was well.

A couple of hours later when he fell asleep on the couch I decided NOT to wake him up and instead took that opportunity to head up to bed myself. I believe the last thing I saw on the clock was 8:30.

24w6d

Today I got up around 10:00 fully intending to do nothing again. However, Jess called me and asked if I wanted to run to the mall and then my mom called and asked if I wanted to run out to Babies "R" Us and show her our stroller.

SOOO... I decided to peal myself off of the couch and all three of us went shopping for a few hours. While we were at Babies "R" Us I decided to look for a carseat to put on our registry for when this little man out grows the infant car seat. WOW!! Was that a chore and a half. There are so many choices and prices. Jake said buying a stroller was equivalent to buying a car and I think the car seat ranked right up there too.

Finally we picked one out and the three of us headed home around 4:00. I had, of course, planned to get some things done once I got there but of course that did not happen. I just watched TV and headed to bed around 9:00.