...if you are having to tell your husband that he can't eat certain snack foods you just bought at the grocery store, because those are for the hospital bag.
...if you visit a model home, and the saleswoman is scared for you to take any of the stairs up or down (don't worry...no home shopping for Billy & I...we just wanted to check out the new construction homes going up in our backyard).
...if everywhere you go, people are finally allowing themselves to smile and ask you if you're having a boy or girl, if this is your first, and how much longer you have to go (people seem to wait until the baby is practically coming out of you before they'll say anything :).
...if you think of every meal as your potential last time to eat as much as you want without having to worry about "sucking it in" afterwards (oh, how I hope we make it to Thanksgiving...so I can eat all those yummy foods with no regrets!).
....if everybody at work refers to you as the girl who could "go down" at any moment...and starts to worry anytime you show any sign of discomfort.
...if you're the "oldest" in your prenatal yoga class (I remember being the "youngest" when I first started going to class!).
...if you've "graduated" from child birthing classes (woo hoo!).
...if every night you go to sleep, you wonder, will contractions start tonight?!?
...if your baby bump looks like this, and you can feel that your baby has "dropped":
Hello family & friends. I'm happy to report that all is going well. I'm definitely slowing down these days, but still feeling great. I'm able to get fairly good sleep at night and lots of rest in the evenings. My work is going very well these days, as I have a fantastic colleague replacing me for the duration of my maternity leave. She is new to my client, but has lots of construction management experience and is picking up the new work load with ease. It's such a blessing to have my firm and my client both be so supportive of my pregnancy and my upcoming leave. Between accrued vacation time, sick days, and short term disability, I will be able to take 10 weeks off from work to be home with lil' fryebaby.
I have stopped going to the gym in the wee hours of the morning. Sleep seems too precious these days to even think about getting up at 4:45AM like we were doing. And, although I love the cool weather, it's just too dark to go for an evening stroll when we get home from work. I'm going to try and get a walk in during my lunch hour every day...especially now that my work load has been mostly transitioned to my colleague.
No real news to report from the doctor's office. We are going weekly now, with our next appointment scheduled for Tuesday. The doctor's have continued to advise me to stay home as long as possible once labor does begin, especially since I'm trying to have a drug-free, intervention-free natural birth. They've told me not to come into the hospital until my contractions are 2 minutes apart...which souds like we'd really be cutting it close...but I realize they just want me to have the comforts of home as long as possible, since a hospital bed with no epidural is really not ideal for a laboring woman :)
Keep us and lil' fryebaby in your thoughts and prayers as we enter these last precious weeks of pregnancy. Thank you for everyone's continued excitement and love...it's been so wonderful to be pregnant and enjoy all the love and attention. I'm going to savor every last day of it!
Cheers!
