Bad blogger!

---THIS POST WAS ACTUALLY DONE IN NOVEMBER 2011---

I can't believe I've let 2 months go by without posting anything.  I guess I got so wrapped up in prepping/nesting every free moment I had that I always let the "update blog" on my to-do list fall through the cracks. My apologies. Due to this fact, this may be the longest post I ever do. I plan to cover all the exciting happenings over the last two months to the best of my memory (which we all know is not the greatest), hence why I need a blog to begin with to serve as my memory bank for this time in my life.

The Showers

Friends/Family Shower:
This marvelous shower was at 2:00pm on Saturday, October 8th in the wine room at Trezo Mare. I won't go in to too much detail about the decor because I think the pictures below say it all. It was, of course, beyond my expectations and I was in awe at all the work that went into it. I am so grateful for all 10 of my friends as well as both of our moms for making that day so special for me and Micah. I loved that everyone brought a book with a message inside instead of a card. Renee gave me such a precious gift of a quilt that my great grandmother made and had the whole room in tears with the poem that she wrote to Micah in honor of my mom. In true Renee form she was so thoughtful and selfless. I love how she's always included my mom in the big moments of my life (Christmas', graduations, weddings, etc.) Megan and I are so lucky to have her. Mike came towards the end to say thank you and help load the car. When he walked in to the shower I had a "Is this really my life?" moment. Am I really pregnant with Mike's baby and at my shower with all my closest friends/family at the same place where we had our wedding reception just months prior? I guess there are still times that I can't believe how my life with Mike has turned out after 7+ years of ups and downs. I never thought all my dreams would literally come true.

Cousin on the way:
At my shower I announced the wonderful news that my baby sister is expecting her first baby on May 2nd, 2012! She is now 16 weeks along and they are finding out the sex on 12/12.  I can hardly wait to introduce Micah to her new cousin. I love love love that they will only be 5 and a half months apart in age.  My parents are super excited about having two grandkids from each daughter in such a short amount of time.  My how life has changed for them in the last year and a half. Both of their daughters have gotten married and pregnant! Plus my dad is on the verge of retirement.  Yea!

Work shower:
Our admin Cheryl and Heather Watts were so nice to organize a work shower for us!  Mike came too so it was fun to have him involved in the excitement.  I'm very lucky to have work at such a great place with great people the last seven years!  Good ole HRB has seen me through a lot thus far in my life.

Side effects of the third trimester

My doctor's appointments have continued to go great!  My feet have continued to swell with no mercy.  I have this new habit of breathing heavily and my laugh has changed towards the end of my pregnancy.  It's a deeper, more robust sound.  I actually like it.  I feel it expresses my deep happiness at this point in my life. Ha!  I can tell Mike doesn't know how to feel about it.  For his sake I hope my original laugh returns, along with my normal sized feet.  The itchy rash has stayed away as well! Fingers crossed it's gone for good.

Yes.  Those are my feet.  Lovely.

A couple of my favorite recent photos

 Mike, me and Dad at Tyiler's wedding.  

Leslie's wedding shower and bachelorette party in St. Louis

The Nursery
After months of designing, ordering and creating... the nursery is finally done! It turned out even better than what I had envisioned!  Thanks to Dad, Renee and Marsha for making it become reality.  Mike and Megan helped with the three whale canvases that we re-created from a lady's artwork I found from Paris on www.etsy.com.  At less than half the price those puppies were made with love & they turned out even better than the ones we copied. Thank goodness for the creative folks in my life.  What would I do without them?

Preparation
We've spent the last few weeks nesting our aces off!  From washing all Micah's clothes in Dreft to putting everything together to creating a new baby budget, we seem to have everything covered!
I have recently decided to go part-time at work after maternity leave in order to attend grad school to pursue a degree in couples counseling!!  I'm super excited about it but all I can focus on is Micah coming right now.  I am trying to be smart about buying her clothes.  I can see where it is addicting to buy girls clothes but it's hard to justify when they wear them for such a short amount of time.  So I bought a bunch of clothes all the way up to 2T of Sophie McCarty's.  We hit the Baby Gap jackpot!  I've also made a few visits to the Mom-2-Mom sales.  You can find some great consignment deals nowadays and the clothes look brand new.  It's kinda fun to bargain shop!

The inside of my car after our buy all trip to Babies R Us.  See Megan back there?

Mike putting every last thing together.

The end result!

Organizing clothes we bought from the McCartys.

All these girl clothes make me so excited to meet the little booger!

Capturing the belly
Renee was kind enough to fulfill my request of taking a few shots of Mike and I with my belly before Micah arrives. I just didn't want to spend an arm and a leg on the typical belly pictures.  I'd rather save the money and spend them on the newborn, 6 month, and year package that I bought for Micah pictures once she's here. I have it all set-up and outfits/props are picked out.

We used my new nice camera that the rents bought us as wedding gift and I was able to edit them on Picassa.com. We took about 50+ but only a handful turned out to be decent.  I just don't look my best (I'm growing out my hair, etc), Mike hates taking pictures and we aren't professionals so we are lucky to get a few that we like enough to print. Mike was a good sport and we had some laughs with some of the poses that I came up with for us.

Last few weeks of belly pics

Waiting..... tick tock
Today is the 17th of November and I'm on eggs shells waiting for this little lady to make her entrance. She is doing her best at teaching me patience. I'm so ready to finally hold her in my arms and become a mom! I know I still have a week left to go before my due date but I really thought that she would be an early bird just like my sister and I were for my mom. Our 39 week appointment is today and we could discuss the possibility of inducing since I was progressing nicely week to week.  My appointment isn't until 4pm so I made arrangements to meet my parents and Mike for lunch to eat up some wait time. Tomorrow is officially my last day at work until I return on February 20th, 2012. I've wrapped everything up that I possibly can and now waiting is all I have left to do. Every morning that I wake up with no new feeling I say to myself "Here we go again." Another day of walking around in my big ole fake Uggs boots at work because they are literally the ONLY shoes that fit me (which I wore to the Willis wedding last Friday-yes...true story). Another day of feeling like a bowling ball is being tossed onto my uterus each time I stand up. Another day of not looking into my girl's eyes. I just can't wait to finally know what my daughter's face looks like.

UPDATE:  My blood pressure is a little elevated so they are inducing me early tomorrow morning! Ahhhhh!
By this time tomorrow we will have met our daughter.  Mike and I are SO EXCITED!!! We're ready for you Micah! Come see Mommy and Daddy safely.

The last belly picture

Our last supper before parenthood at Stroud's.

The countdown begins...

As of today we only have 10 weeks left until our little Micah J. is scheduled to arrive. I am officially 30 weeks along! In some ways it's all still very surreal. My doctor's appointments are now every 2 weeks and starting at 36 weeks I'll go every week until I pop.  I'm so thankful that I have a husband who has come to every appointment so far with me. He's already a good daddy-o!

The doctor was very pleased with all my numbers.  Her words were, "Your heart rate, your gestational diabetes results, your weight gain thus far and the baby's heart beat are all beautiful. You win the best pregnant woman award for the day." It was good to hear that everything is going as well as it could to this point. Micah is positioned where she should be (head down) and my belly measurement was average. My tailbone pain has started flaring up again and the doc said that could get worse as I encroach upon full-term. I will whimper uncontrollably when it slips out. Mike's stopped reacting urgently and asking me if I was okay each time knowing exactly what it is now. The PUPPPS rash has been unbelievably calm the last few weeks. I feel like I need to say that in a whisper in case my skin hears me. :)

Micah's kicks and punches are getting stronger.  I can actually see my belly move and watch lumps appear throughout the day. We took an adult/infant CPR and choking class this week and I was more enthralled with watching my belly move than the details of the class. It may have been a little A.D.D. kicking in at that point as well. We are taking a Beyond Birth class this Saturday morning to learn how to care for her as well as get a tour of the labor/delivery unit at NKC Hospital. My parents plan to take a grandparents class too just to brush up on their skills since they are watching her two days a week once I go back to work.  The other three days she'll be at the Montessori school my sister works at that one of my mom's good friend's now owns. Although I have a great babysitting situation, I'm sure going back to work isn't going to be easy!

Other fun pregnancy side effects that I've been experiencing are as follows; light spots on my cheeks, intense calf cramps in the morning, continued "airyness" (as I like to call it), bloody noses, leaky nipples (yes-I've already started lactating), breakouts on my back and neck, dark line down the center of my belly, and an inability to form intelligent sentences at times (pregnancy brain). Fun fact that I just learned - women have multiple holes in each nipple. In fact, we have holes galore on those suckers! My "hole" life I thought we only had 1 little opening where the milk would gently flow out in a nice solid stream. Heck no! It's comes out like a shower head! Who knew? I felt like superwoman when I discovered this phenomenon and immediately had to show Mike. He wasn't as impressed as I. So far so good on stretch marks.  I haven't been the best at putting on cream/oils because in the end I feel like it's majority hereditary so why bother? My dad said mom only had them on her hips and I have them there already from growing, so I won't care if I just acquire more in that general area.

The nursery is 80% done but I don't plan to post any pictures until it's fully complete. Renee, Marsha, my dad, sister and Mike have all played different parts in bringing my vision to life and I can honestly say that it has turned out better than I ever expected.  I think Micah is going to LOVE her room! I know I do. We are still awaiting the arrival of one dresser and I need to wash her sheets and all of the clothes I have for her thus far. I can't wait to put them all away in her closet and organize them in her drawers. It's the little things!

I received the cutest shower invitation this week to my baby shower! I remember when my shower seemed so far away and here we are only three weeks out from it. I'm so lucky to have such good friends who are so good at throwing showers. We're all old pros at showers at this point!  I actually just went to St. Louis for the weekend over Labor Day to throw a shower for my dear friend, Leslie. It was a good time! They also had their annual flip cup tourney that same weekend so Mike came in and we stayed Sunday night so we could attend. Mike and I joked that it was our babymoon since we don't have plans to go anywhere else.

Micah Baby in 3D!

I woke up early yesterday just like I did as a child on Christmas morning. I couldn't help but smile as I was getting ready just thinking about what we were about the experience. Mike and I have literally referred to Micah for so many years before she ever existed and there are still times that I pinch myself over the fact that she is actually going to be here in 13 weeks! We are about to finally see this little angel that we somehow knew would be in our lives someday. I feel so blessed and thankful at this time in my life. What an incredible year this has been. Yesterday was our 6 month anniversary. I purposely scheduled the 3D ultrasound for that day as a little gift to ourselves. (We also went to a nice dinner and a movie that evening to celebrate!)

I ate waffles and orange juice for breakfast. Then before I walked out the door I grabbed two mini chocolate donuts and another glass of orange juice with a bottled water. I was doing everything I could to get her up and alert for her shining moment. We picked my parents up that morning and Mike's mom met us there. I was a little nervous walking in that we wouldn't be able to see much due to my anterior placenta. I read on their website that the placement of the placenta can really effect the quality of pictures that you get.

We walked into this really nice boutique in Kansas and the backroom was basically a mini movie theatre with a huge screen, two couches and a bed for me to lay on. I loved the feel of the room and knew right away it was going to be a good experience. The music that was playing when we walked in captured our attention. It was Nat King Cole and his daughter singing "Unforgettable" which has meaning to our family. Then the Kenny Loggins song "How Sweet It Is" came on that my sister and dad did their father/daughter dance to at her wedding, which just topped it off. I am a big believer in signs and I couldn't help but think that is was my mom's way of saying she was there. I hope I feel her presence more and more as I become a mother.

Once the tech started the ultrasound we could tell Micah needed to be moved into a better position so she had me lay on my side to get her to move around the placenta so we could see her face. Her head was down and her feet were up towards my ribs. She said that she should stay that way until I deliver but as we know she can also turn at any given moment and become breech. As the tech pushed on my stomach it was cool watching her react to what was going on outside the womb.

She moved into place pretty quickly and as soon as I saw her I thought "holy lips!" She has really full, nicely shaped lips. Her nose was distorted the whole time so we couldn't really tell what it looked like. It appeared to be much larger than I expected. We were all laughing because in the pictures she totally looks like a little sista with her full lips and nose. Ha! The tech explained to us that her nose will look nothing like this and it's the only feature that doesn't come in clearly because of it's shape. The next feature that I noticed right away were her cheeks. She definitely without a doubt has mama's mammoth cheeks. Papa couldn't help but laugh since I inherited those beauties from him. I guess those squeezable cheek genes are strong!

The tech checked for her lady parts and confirmed that she is indeed a girl! Her little legs were crossed at her ankles and at one point she spread her long toes out really far and we thought we saw a gap between her big toe and second toe, yet another trait from mom. It was so neat to watch her open her mouth, practice inhaling, rub her eyes, kick her feet, etc. My favorite part was when the tech would hold the wand still and we'd just all watch her movements. I'm still in awe of this 3D technology. Both grandmas swore they saw a dimple! I didn't get a glimpse of it but I'd love it if they were right.

My gut says that she has Mike's lips (only fuller), chin and nose with my cheeks and feet. The tech said she had a really nice face shape and that her features were well proportioned (she probably says that to everybody but it made me feel good). Her eyes were always kind of blurry but the tech said she opened them a few times. I'll take her word for it.

I like the idea of writing down all of our feature descriptions/guesses so we can compare when she's actually here and see what was right and what was way off.  We looked at Mike and my newborn pictures when we got home and neither of us really look like ourselves until we're a few months old. Babies just change so much so who knows who she will look like in the end, but for now it's fun to guess! Without seeing her eye shape, my guess is that she will look mostly like Mike in the end. Many of my friends look like their dads, including myself, so I think Micah will be the same way.

Overall it was a good experience! I'm glad our parents were able to be there with us. The tech said that we got some really good pictures, considering the location of my placenta, so I was happy. The pictures honestly don't do it a bit of justice but the DVD is really neat! It gives you a much better idea of what she may look like than the still shots.

I've attached a few of the best pictures below so you get the idea. I wish I could post the whole DVD.

Showing off her flexibility



Sweet little face



Arm and fingers are all there!

You can see the cord over her right shoulder

Making a funny face

Big yawn with those big lips!

Eye rub

Good cheek shot!