38 Weeks...

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Most importantly, we passed the 37 week mark which means the baby is considered full term and now is welcome to come at any time! I'm still 2 weeks away from my actual due date (Feb. 22), so we may still have a little while to wait. Kirk had a huge youth fundraiser last Saturday and that was the last major youth event we were hoping to make it through before the baby comes, so now we are just waiting on her to decide she's ready.

2 Sundays ago, the church threw us a wonderful baby shower. It was fun to celebrate with them and they have been so supportive and excited for us. People were so generous and we were able to get pretty much everything we needed for her. They played a game where we gave them a sentence that contained all the letters of Baby Tate's name and they were supposed to guess what the name was. No one guessed! We wouldn't have told them anyways, but it was funny that no one got it. It's not a weird name either! I promise! :o) It's driving people CRAZY that we aren't telling the name, but I'm so glad we're keeping it a secret. It's fun to keep it between us and not have to hear any opinions about it! :o)

Kirk's parents and grandparents came up for that weekend so they could come to the shower. It was fun to have them here and of course we made a trip to the baby store at the outlet mall and stocked up on some more clothes for her. They also helped us finish up the nursery. We assembled a bookshelf, hung shelves and hung up the quilt my friend Katie made us. We still have the final few things to put away (not sure where to put everything!) but her room is ready for her. There's a picture posted below for you to see!

I'm feeling very uncomfortable and am pretty much exhausted. I pushed it a little to hard this past weekend helping with the youth event and am still paying the price for it. I have a bad hip already and it's been killing me! I also have heartburn and I get it no matter what I eat. She also hasn't dropped down yet, so my poor ribs are still taking a beating. BUT - it's all good! It's totally worth it and it's much easier to stay positive about it all when the end is in sight. Plus, I still love feeling her move around so it's totally worth the rib pain!

We see the doctor again on Thursday. I'm not having any contractions or anything so it should be just another uneventful check up. The nurses who teach our baby class at the hospital said the next full moon is February 18 and they said that they see a lot of women go into labor on the full moon. We'll see!

Here are a few pictures...

Here I am at 38 weeks ... I feel huge! :o)

Here is the nursery. Once she comes and we tell her name, I'm going to ask my friend Becky to paint cute letters of her name to go on the wall between the shelves and the quilt.

Here is a new member of our family...our awesome new camera! We have wanted one FOREVER and a bunch of people from church went in together and got us it for our baby shower! I'm excited to learn about all the neat stuff it can do!

Motivation

Kirk was checking facebook this morning and saw that one of the other couples in our childbirth and parenting class who was due a week after us is at the hospital because she's in labor!!!! Needless to say, we'll be working on the nursery today :o) I'm praying that our little one doesn't decide to make an early appearance. If she's anything like Kirk or my dad - she'll be early. Hopefully she'll take after me, who likes to be on time - not early, not late.

For those of you who are harassing me about it (hi sisters!) I'll get the picture up later today. Hopefully there will be some pictures of the nursery to go a long with it!

24 Weeks

We went to the doctor this morning and had a great appointment! I always get nervous before going to the doctor. I'm not sure why, I think it's just a fear of them telling me something is wrong. The baby's heartbeat was nice and strong - we both love being able to hear that! Kirk was talking about stealing the thing they use to hear the heartbeat so we could hear it whenever we want. The doctor said my dates all look good and that I'm measuring about a half week ahead of my due date. My favorite part was when he told Kirk that rubbing my back would help with my back pain, so now I can tell Kirk that it's doctors orders that he does that! We got the go ahead to drive to Chicago later this month - we just have orders to stop every hour and a half for a couple minutes for me to stretch my legs to prevent blood clots. It sounds like a lot of stopping, but with the baby kicking me in the bladder so much - we'd probably be stopping about that often anyways.

Our friends who are giving us a bunch of baby stuff are bringing the crib and some other things to us this Saturday, so we can start working on the nursery. I think getting the crib, plus knowing the baby showers are coming us is motivating me to start on the nursery. I'm getting excited to get everything ready for her! Anyone have any creative do-it-yourself nursery decoration ideas? We can't paint, so we have to be creative.

We are pretty sure we've decided on a first name for her but are still working on a middle name. We aren't telling anyone the name though...we want to keep that a secret until she comes. We truly value everyone's opinions and advice...we just don't want to hear them about the name choice! :o) Don't worry - it's a good name - nothing weird!

I know I keep saying it - but I'm so excited to go to South Carolina and Chicago this month. Because of the baby showers and Thanksgiving - we seriously get to see almost all of our friends and relatives! I can't wait!

I'll post a new belly picture once I remember to take one! I'm not so good at remembering things right now...

Issues

I'm having a slight issue with clothes right now. I'm 22 weeks prego and not really showing yet. I definitely am getting bigger, I just don't have a cute baby bump. I just kinda look chubby.

But here's my issue. I don't fit in my normal pants anymore but maternity pants are too big. I was wearing my normal jeans with a rubber band around the button and thru the button hole since I couldn't button them, but that's not working anymore. So I tried using the belly band (basically an tube top that you wear around your waist to hold up pants you can't button anymore, but that's not really working since I don't have enough of a baby bump to hold my pants up. So I am trying maternity pants, but again, there's not enough of a bump to hold them up. Maybe this is just an excuse to wear my super comfortable black sweatpants everywhere :o)

I realize that no one really cares about my problems with this, but not much else is going on so I didn't have much else to write about. I can still feel Baby Tate moving around in there. I've been pretty uncomfortable as my body is adjusting to make room for baby. It gets painful at times but I guess it's all part of the deal.

I'm also hoping my nesting instinct kicks in soon since currently the baby's room looks more like a storage closet. There are suitcases everywhere, my wedding dress is in there as well as the couple of boxes we haven't unpacked yet. We should be getting the crib that some friends are giving us soon, maybe that will motivate me a little!