The birth month is heeeere!

I can't even tell you how excited I am that JULY is finally here...assuming this young man doesn't keep us waiting too long.

My 'replacement' at work starts next week so I can try to transfer my wealth of knowledge to her before my water breaks.


The official due date is July 25, but who knows when the kid will arrive. Maybe I'll get a better idea after the doctor on Friday. Or maybe you have a gut instinct or mother's intuition and can tell me via the poll I put up.

I'm still working up the courage to go in the pool. Today I put my feet in. Supposedly it will make me feel a lot better and by better I mean lighter which would make me very happy. But I'm a little self conscious of the whole 9 months pregnant in a swimsuit idea so stay tuned. If I feel anything like I did on the way home from work today (which by the way took nearly 90 minutes!!) I will gladly sport the suit with no shame. I just need to get myself so miserable and hot that I don't care anymore which by mid-July should not be too hard.

Derek and I were thrilled to find out that it's almost Baby Week on the Discovery Health channel. (When I say he was thrilled, I mean he was sitting on the couch with his laptop and rolled his eyes when we saw the commericial.) Anyway, I am planning on screening the shows and watching all the ones that have positive, happy endings to get myself fired up. Hopefully it will 'fire me up' enough to finally pack my hospital bag too.

The home stretch

This weekend marks my official 9 months pregnant mark (I think anyway...I've had some major issues with this counting weeks and months thing). What I DO know for sure is Baby A is officially due in 4 weeks. Which means we have 4 weeks to organize his room. 4 weeks for me to train in a contractor at work. 4 weeks to agree on a name. and 4 weeks to enjoy sleeping in until 9am on Saturdays (which, by the way, was so great today).

I wish he would come sooner than 4 weeks for the selfish reasons of back pain and not being able to breathe and excessive back sweat during my commute home, but when I think of everything else that needs to be done before D day, 4 weeks doesn't seem like enough time to fit it all in.

Which is why if you have any name suggestions, we'll take them. I also am willing to accept backrubs, baked goods, and prayers for an average sized baby with an average sized head.

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who came to our shower in Waukesha this weekend! We had such a great time with Derek's family and friends. His parents have the best backyard - pool, volleyball, horseshoes...it was so much fun (although I steered clear of putting on a swimsuit. :) It was so nice to meet more of his family and be able to finally put faces to names. I can't believe how generous everyone was too - I told Derek on the way home that I can't think of one thing that we "need" and didn't get from one of our showers. Derek's car was literally packed to the brim and it was a long, crowded ride home, but so worth it. We really do feel lucky to have such great family and friends to support us and the baby. Special thanks to Derek's parents for putting it all together!

(and as a side note, Derek is very excited the baby now has an equal amount of Wisconsin gear to sport including a Packers jersey, Brewers "uniform", and PLENTY of Badger get-ups.)

Here are some pics I stole from the Palese sisters.

Baby Prepped

I think Derek and I have both gained 200% more knowledge in the past 3 or 4 days than we had before. We took an all day "preparing for childbirth" class on Saturday which was good to hear about all the medications and know when to go to the hospital, what to bring, etc.

We also took the tour of the hospital I'll be delivering at and we decided it's more of an office building/hotel mix rather than a hospital...not a bad thing! It's super nice and they make it so simple and non-intimidating. There are 8 labor and delivery rooms, 2 c-section rooms, and a ton of post-partum rooms. All the rooms are private and have giant flat screen tvs that have cable (yay!), movies, music channels, relaxation channels, and "informative" channels on how to take care of a baby. They also each have a nice pullout bed, giant whirlpools in the bathrooms, etc. They promote "rooming in" with your baby so you get to have your baby in your room as much as you want or you can send him to the little nursery across the hall to get some sleep. There was only one tiny little girl in there when we passed by, so cute and fun to see! Basically the place is awesome and we will be bummed to only be there for 48 hours, assuming all goes as planned. It'll be a mini vacation with the minor additions of coming home with a baby and experiencing the worst pain of my life...:)

Derek has mastered the side street route to the hospital and it takes maybe 6 or 7 minutes to get there. Even though I know labor is a little more lengthy process, it's nice to know we're so close.

I have another doctor appointment this Friday (with Mpls/St. Paul's #1 OB/GYN I might add) and then I'll start going every week in July. It's hard to believe it's only a matter of weeks until he gets here!

Not so hard to believe for people that I work with though because today I was asked by the mailroom guy if I had the baby yet. Let me point out that I am CLEARLY pregnant. I waddle, no clothes fit me, I have bags under my eyes, swollen ankles, and can't see my feet. He was looking right at me and asked because he saw a big Congrats, it's a boy! sign in my cube leftover from my work baby shower. Boys.

Anyway, we also are working hard (or hardly working?) on the baby's room. We set up the crib on Sunday night and I've rearranged a bunch of times already. I can't decide how I like it so my guess is it will be a work in progress until the big guy arrives. Derek's main contributions to getting the room ready have been putting money in the Green Bay Packers bank and putting together a baby bouncer. Oh, and donating his troll doll to the toy basket. I guess I'll have to get a little more bossy once I make up my mind how to set it all up. My guess is he is just doing his best to avoid my moodswings....smart kid. :)

We are both excited to head to Waukesha this weekend for the baby shower at his parent's house, although I'm predicting double digit rest stops on the drive there! Maybe that's exaggerating a little much, but it sure feels like I'm making a beeline for the bathroom more often than not. All in a day's work!

Things are slowly but surely coming together! My dad hauled all the baby things we've been collecting over to our apartment last Saturday and my friend Kristen helped me sort and organize baby clothes for the afternoon. It was much fun to see everything that we have for him! We'll be getting the crib set up sometime this weekend and I think then it will finally look like an actual baby room (as opposed to just an empty room to throw my junk in and Derek's games/sportsish stuff). My mom and I also picked out curtains and fabric for the rocking chair this weekend so it'll be fun to get that all up as well.

I meet the pediatrician tomorrow and then we have our first of two classes this weekend. I'm sure Derek is super excited to spend 9am-4pm learning about labor and delivery. :) I guess it will be good for us both to feel a little more informed about the whole process!

The funniest thing about being pregnant is the kinship that other pregnant women and moms seem to have with me. I can hardly go to Target or the mall without someone striking up the "when are you due, is it a boy or a girl, is it your first, what will you name it" conversation which usually ends with little pieces of parenting advice, which is of course, always welcome and appreciated.

So there's the update! Hopefully by the time we get internet this weekend we will have made some major progress on the baby's room AND be well informed for D-day.

Moved In

We officially moved in to our apartment this weekend. We had a ton of help from our families (thank you everyone!) and I can't tell you how happy I am to not have to think about moving for at least 12 months. We are still in the unpacking process, but I'm sure the official "nesting" of the baby room will begin for me soon enough. When that happens, you can expect an update in pics of the new "crib" complete with the borrowed actual crib.

In other news, DEREK HAS A JOB! He starts Monday already and I'm so happy for him. Now I won't feel guilty leaving him every morning to fend for himself trying to pass the time without cable and internet and trying to navigate his way through the suburbs.