Monday, June 20, 2011

37 Weeks

Seriously?! 37 weeks?! That's a lot of weeks. Here's a picture from last week because we forgot to take one this weekend.

36weeks


We're a bit distracted lately. Seriously. I have a hard time focusing and I'm blaming baby. I find that for cleaning, setting a timer for 25 or 30 minutes helps. Sadly, I discovered this after 3 unproductive hours of attempting to clean. Today has been pretty productive, but then I slept a lot last night. Maybe I just need more sleep, which is of course getting trickier because I keep waking up. I don't have to pee. The baby's not kicking. I just wake up. Actually, the past couple nights it might have just been our weather radio's fault. (We need to find the "Only Wake Me Up for Warnings" button because if I don't need to go to the basement, please just let me sleep.) The best sleep I've had I woke up to realize that *gasp!* I was lying on my back. (Don't worry, my midwife assures me that it happens and isn't a big deal if you sometimes sleep on your back because I don't have any risk factors that would make that extra dangerous. But should still be avoided. I didn't realize I was such a back sleeper until I realized you should avoid back sleeping during pregnancy.)

I think the impending baby is starting to take a toll on Lee's usually sharp mind as well. We left the house yesterday to run errands and we had decided it would be best to go to Fantastic Sams first and then Babies R Us. About a minute later, Lee is asking me the best way to get to Babies R Us and we are about 2 minutes from Babies R Us before we realized we were going to go to Fantastic Sams first. Not a big deal, but I had to rush through Babies R Us to learn that Fantastic Sams isn't open on Sundays. Lee thinks the order we took our errands turned out for the best, of course.

At least for now, I am loving washing the baby things and putting them away! I think this is about the only time I'll be able to say it so I'm trying to enjoy it while it lasts.

Technically, Elizabeth could arrive anytime between the next 1-5 weeks. What bugs me about this is that I'm starting to outgrow a lot of things. (Oddly enough, the things that fit me best at this point are a pair of pre-pregnancy sweat pants, a pre-pregnancy skirt and Lee's T-shirts from high school.) If it's just going to be another week or two, I can tough it out. If I knew now that it would be a month, I'd probably pick up a couple things. Let's think positively and stretch my stretchy skirt as far as she'll go!

I think I've decided what my absolute least favorite baby comment is. So far this has only come from strange old men, which might make it better? Or worse. But the absolute worst comments are "You know how that happened, right?" and the similar "What'd you get into?" Umm...I know my fingers are swollen so I'm not wearing a ring and I hear I look younger than I am, but what do you want me to say?! Yes, I had intimate relations with my husband of two years?! We are 27/28-years-old and have a house and that's our only debt and we are happy, responsible, God-fearing people. I guess they think they're being funny but I really don't appreciate what they're implying. It's just rude. And creepy. And if I don't know you, there's no need to say anything at all. Seriously, is there any way to even respond to those comments?

Speaking of implying things, I realized that I went out the other day without my ring (because of the swelling) in Lee's high school t-shirt. That probably looked kind of sketchy.

Last week I got the best package in the mail: One of my friends had organized a long-distance library shower. She collected books from friends from California to DC and boxed them up and sent to me. It was the cutest thing ever. If you have a pregnant bookworm friend I highly recommend you do this for her right now.

I'm trying to decide the best way to preserve Elizabeth's first year. I'm kind of obsessed with this daily baby photo project and Elise's wedding album. I've narrowed it down to doing daily pictures, probably in our arm chair so there's a size reference. I bought a cute 8.5 x 11 binder to store the photos in. I want to a sentence or two with each picture about the day. Now, do I do all the layouts electronically and print them like Elise did or do I want to scrapbook it a bit more so where would be handwritten notes, which seem more personal? Thoughts? Also, if your in-laws got you an awesome photo session for a baby gift, would you want those photos taken really early on, or maybe a few months out when baby starts to smile? I guess you run the risk of baby not smiling on cue, but I think I would rather wait a couple months for fun facial expressions.

For someone with good dental hygiene, my gums are receding a bit more than me or my dentist would like. Apparently this could be caused by grinding my teeth or clenching my jaw a lot. I'm pretty sure I don't do either, and Lee says he hasn't noticed me doing any of that. Yet for the past few days, I have noticed myself clenching my jaw a lot. Is this pregnancy related or am I just losing my mind? I ask myself that about a lot of things lately.

I don't know if I the whole "I'm having a baby thing" just hasn't hit me yet, or I might actually be feeling pretty calm about labor. I hope it's the latter. My main goal is not to panic. As you learn in Bradley classes, fear causes tension which causes pain. So no fear for me, please. Wednesday I have my "almost baby time" appointment with my doula and I'm so excited about it. I think she's super cool and if anyone can take me from "not too scared" to "genuinely excited that I'm giving birth!!" it's her.

9 comments:

Rebecca said...

Your paragraph about the creepy old men is hilarious! I'm sure you didn't find it hilarious when they said it, but still, your account is nice. Hang in there!

Han said...

Probably a bit of a late suggestion but my friend at church who delivered her 3rd baby about 2 months ago wore her rings on a chain round her neck when her fingers got too big from swelling.

Everyone will probably be taking pictures early on so I'd go around 3 months ish when baby starts smiling I think. Then again I'm not a Momma so I could be totally wrong lol.

Katie Earley said...

Yeah, it's a little ridiculous the things people think are acceptable to say and where they think they can touch you just because you're pregnant. Le sigh.

Katie Earley said...

I've thought about wearing the ring around my neck but for some reason I'm afraid I would lose it that way. I've also thought about buying a really cheap, fake one but if I haven't done that already then I'll probably just go without for a couple more weeks.

steph anne said...

You seriously look amazing! :) That's a cute daily baby photo project...maybe do weekly pictures instead of daily?

Katie Earley said...

I figure, especially for the first few months, I'll be taking pictures daily anyways, so might as well keep it up for a year!

Shannan said...

About the comments from old men.....Just be honest you are pregnant so whatever you say you can blame on hormones! I have started to do this. I am going to be getting the you're still pregnant comment here in a couple days so my answer will be yes I am still pregnant and Callie will come when she is ready.

About the pictures....We got pictures of Randi at 6 weeks and these are my favorite photos of her! No she didn't really smile but there is just something about them that I love. Maybe it's because it was our first pictures of a family of 3.

The rings....doesn't matter what people think. You know you are married and that is all that matters. With Randi I couldn't wear my rings after about 30 weeks but I really didn't get any comments about it.

Last thing.....Some people need filters!!!!!

Jamie said...

I sometimes can only fit in sweatpants and old t-shirts but the culprit is chips and dip.

What a wonderful idea for a bookwormy shower! I shall steal it.

erin stagner said...

go for early newborn pictures! you will look back on that TINY baby and want to eat her up. we didn't plan for professional pictures for two reasons. first, we bought our first house, moved, and i was admitted to the hospital on bedrest within weeks of one another. second, i figured that since i DO professional photography, there was no need to spend that money. wish i had. there aren't nearly enough pictures of harper when she was super new. sure, they aren't able to smile or pose, but if you use all the right tricks, you can get a naked, sleeping, content baby ... and that's NEVER going to happen again. :)