33 weeks

The countdown continues! We're now at 33 weeks, or roughly 7.5 months. I'm definitely not hearing "you still have time" from people anymore, and now it's a constant refrain of "wow! you're so close!" Ugh... don't remind me! I'm really excited to meet you, but also getting more and more anxious about being ready for you. Assuming you arrive full term, you could be here in as soon as four weeks! Yikes!

Fortunately, things are moving along. I had a conversation with my HR department at work this morning, about my maternity leave, and it went better than I expected. It looks like I will be starting my leave on July 2, and not returning to work until about October 8. Daddy is planning on taking off the two weeks before your due date too. So, assuming you don't come right at the beginning of my leave, it should give us a little time to finish getting ready. I'm trying not to count on it though!

Last weekend we weren't very productive (or at least, I wasn't). On Saturday, Aunty Alicia and Aunty Jess took me for a fun girl's day in Capitola. The weather was perfect -- warm, with a very slight breeze. We had lunch outside, at a place on the beach, and then did a little shopping at the cute stores in the downtown area. Then we bought some locally made ice cream and rented some beach chairs, and hung out on the beach for a little bit. We ended the day by hitting up the last few stores on the main street, winding up in this little surf shop where the shopkeeper, Vince, hooked Alicia and Jess up with a free beer, and then let us hang out on their nice back patio for a bit. Some other customers were back there too, so we hung out for a while chatting with them before heading home. It was a really fun day out!

Then on Sunday, Daddy and I took a trip to Ikea to pick up a few more items for your room. Afterward, we headed up to the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley to watch the annular solar eclipse. They gave us these special viewing glasses so that we could view the eclipse without damaging our eyes. It was a really neat thing to see! There won't be another one as good, in this area, until you're about the same age as Daddy and I.

Tuesday morning I woke up and noticed my belly was lower than it had been the night before, so I think you've dropped some. We had another doctor's appointment on Thursday, with Laura Ahn, and she said you most likely did. She also thinks you may be head down (let's hope!), but that we'll have an ultrasound in a few weeks to assess your position. You're certainly pushing on my belly a lot harder now, but still favor my right side, and love to forcefully shove what may be your butt right into the upper right corner of my belly. Sometimes I get what might be a foot firmly wedged on the upper left, until I poke at it and you move it away quickly. And then other times I feel these tiny little movements (almost like tickles) down near my pubic bone, and from what I've read it's possible that's your hands. And then just a little bit ago I ate a bunch of strawberries, and you started going wild in my belly for like half an hour -- hopefully that meant you liked them. Even though your movements are so pronounced now, it's still crazy to think that you're probably somewhere around 17 inches and more than 4 pounds already!

Taken at 32 weeks and 6 days

32 weeks

10...9...*8* weeks to go!

Last weekend was Mother's Day. Daddy and I hosted a barbecue at our house on Sunday, for Nana Shirley, Grandma Joan, Aunt Sandra, as well as all the family (Grandpa Rick, Uncle Jason, Aunt Yen, Uncle Andy and cousins Kayla and Lily).  I spent most of Saturday running around prepping for the party, and taking care of a few other errands. Even though I really tried to keep things simple this time around, I still wore myself out both Saturday and Sunday. Everybody seemed to have a nice time on Sunday, and that's what counts though.

I'm feeling more and more anxious about the long list of things that needs to get done before your arrival (or at least the things I think "need" to get done). I've compiled a list, so I can keep track of it all, and start checking things off. Hopefully that will help me feel like it's at least a little more under control. I feel like there are so many things I'm behind on though, because normally I'm the kind of person that would have already researched and decided on some of this stuff by now (like day care, and your pediatrician, for instance). I think I'm just feeling the tired and slowed down, and it's leading to me feeling a bit overwhelmed. I just keep trying to remind myself that everything will get done when it needs to be -- and if not, I'll figure it out.

Sleeping has definitely been getting harder. It's difficult to get really comfortable at night, and I find that I'm tossing and turning a lot. The advice is to not sleep on your back, because the weight of the uterus and baby can press on a large vein that runs from the lower half of your body to your heart, which can cause a lack of bloodflow and oxygen to both mom and baby. But, wouldn't you know it, I seem to frequently wake up on my back, and it often feels like the most comfortable position! There was a period where I got kind of anxious about it, but I've decided to just trust my body. I always make a point to fall asleep on my side, and I trust that if I roll over onto my back that my body will wake me if it starts to become problematic. Besides, I'm waking about every 2 hours to pee anyway!

31 weeks

The countdown continues... 9 weeks to go (give or take)! I'm starting to feel anxious about how little time is left, and how much I still have left to do. Finish the nursery, find day care for you when I go back to work, finalize my maternity leave details with work, work up my birth plan, read a gazillion more books to prep for everything, get all of the thank you notes out for the shower, select a pediatrician... not to mention all of the things Daddy wants to try to get done around the house before you're here too, some of which are pretty big projects. Ugh... how will it all get done!

Daddy made a really big dent in the nursery this last week! Over the weekend he finished prepping the walls, and we bought the paint for the nursery. When I came home from work on Monday, the nursery was all painted! On Tuesday night we built the crib. We still need to build out the closet (Daddy wants to redo the cedar floor, and we need all of the rods and shelving, as well as doors for the closet), and Daddy wants to repaint your dresser before we bring it into the room, and I have lots of decorative details to figure out, but I'm excited that we're now making good progress! Once we get the closet and dresser installed I can start organizing all of the stuff we have for you (which is all still flooding our back room floor).

Also this week, I noticed my first stretch marks (from the pregnancy -- I already have some from when I was a teenager) on the underside of my belly. At first just one tiny patch on the left, and then a couple of days later a tiny patch on the right showed up. Oh well... par for the course, right? I've seen some women refer to them as their "tiger stripes", so I'll just go with that!

We had another doctor's appointment last night with Dr. Pham-Thomas. Things continue to look good. I went back to give more blood last weekend, and my platelet levels only dropped a few points, which the doctor said she's not concerned about. She'll have me come back again in a month for another test, just to be sure, but she seems to be not worried. We also made some more progress on negotiating my birth plan, and she agreed to intermittent over continuous fetal monitoring.

And earlier this week we did the tour of the hospital where we're planning to have you. Of course, your mom was the only one asking a bunch of questions, but I left feeling more confident and clear about things. At the very least, it's one more thing I can check off my list!

30 weeks

Today marks 30 weeks... which means only 10 weeks left to go! It feels like an official countdown has begun, like at ten seconds before midnight, or right before they launch a space shuttle (a program that has sadly been ended in the US, making me wonder if you'll ever get to experience witnessing such a thing in your childhood, if not your life).

Last weekend was obviously the baby shower. Now the backroom floor is covered with all of the gifts. We need to really get started on the nursery, or otherwise this stuff is going to be cluttering up the floor forever! Naturally, Daddy isn't too keen on that idea, and I think the constant visual reminder will help speed things along. We've got a birthday party for Dan & Melinda's little girl Bianca (who just turned 2) tomorrow, but hopefully we'll be able to get started on the nursery this weekend at least. I'm excited!

Sleep has been getting more and more challenging, but otherwise I'm feeling pretty good. I'm finding that it's hard to stay comfortable in the same position for long, plus all of those trips to the bathroom at night. And then at least a couple of times a week now, it seems, I wake up to pee and cannot go back to sleep for at least an hour, if not more. That actually happened the morning of the baby shower, and I ended up lying awake starting at around 5:30 in the morning... after about an hour I gave up and went and sat in the glider in the nursery (one thing that is already in there), and wound up chatting via Facebook with another woman I know who is pregnant (and due right after you), who was also up at a ridiculous hour on a Saturday morning (for her, it was thanks to a disturbing pregnancy nightmare). We chatted for awhile, and I finally gave up on going back to bed. I thought I heard daddy stirring, so I went in to check on him (but he was still snoozing... punk!) so I started trying to figure out what I was going to wear to the shower (I had bought like 8 dresses to choose from at home!)

Also... I got a little distracted by the shower and everything last weekend, and failed to take my every-five-week picture, so I'm submitting this one a week late!