Lots of Pictures, A Few Words

Well, if there’s anyone out there who actually enjoys reading my weekly updates, I have to forewarn you that this week’s is going to be heavy on the pictures, light on the words.  For a few reasons – I’m EXHAUSTED and in a lazy mood and too tired to type, and I have so many pictures to share it just seems like the words would be a waste of time this week. J

So enjoy the picture dump.  I’ll begin with pictures from another INCREDIBLE baby shower!!  My mother-in-law threw me a jungle-themed shower in Burlington this weekend, and she did not disappoint!  It was a day that was very overwhelming and humbling, a day I will never forget – a day that will forever be so special to me and our little bug!

The adorable invitation!

Table of goodies

CUPCAKES!!!

Handmade chocolates to look like jungle animals

Handmade chocolate-covered Oreos!!

A glance of the room

Every table had a different centerpiece

So cute!

Diaper cake, made by my mother-in-law!

LOVED my corsage!

Mother-in-law on the left, my mama on the right, Babe Peele in the middle!

The wonderful hostess and her soon-to-be grandson/granddaughter!

2 of my sisters!

Mama :)

My other wonderful mother-in-law!

33 weeks and 20 weeks!!

While words don’t do my appreciation justice, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to my mother-in-law for hosting such a perfect shower for us.  And THANK YOU to all of my family members on my side and my hub’s side who made the trip to celebrate Baby Peele.  It truly means so much to me to be surrounded by you guys during this exciting time.

The next picture dump will just be a few highlights from my maternity photo shoot.  I wasn’t planning on doing maternity pictures, but if you read my last post, I was lucky enough to meet someone who wanted to do them for free!  And now I’m really glad I did them.  I have to say, they did a great job editing. J  Enjoy!!

Check out the photographer's website:  www.urbanbloomphotography.com

I apologize again for the lack of words (and abundance of pictures) on this post – The hub and I had a long day today of working on the nursery and getting even more prepared for our son/daughter!  So I’m off to relax before another workweek begins.  And in case anyone is interested, I am now officially counting down the workdays, because 10/7 will be my LAST day before maternity leave!!!  29 more days!!!

33!!!

Baby Peele in white!

Paradox

So slow, but so fast, too.  So close, yet so far away!

That’s how I’ve felt throughout this entire pregnancy.  Time seems to be going by SO slow, but also SO fast – the day when we finally get to meet our sweet bug feels so close, but also so far away!

I think it’s because when you’re pregnant, there are certain milestones you can’t WAIT to reach, but they seem like they’ll NEVER get here – getting into the next trimester, reaching “V day,” feeling consistent movement, getting to full-term.  But then, as the end is in sight, you feel like it’s coming too fast because there is still so much to do/buy/accomplish in order to feel ready to be a mama!

Anyway, that’s where I’m stuck right now – between feeling like time is going by SO slow (because I just want to make it to the safety of “full-term”) and feeling like time is going by SO fast (because I don’t think we’re quite ready yet!).

But the truth is, other than taking care of myself to the best of my ability, Baby Peele is going to make his/her debut when he/she is ready.  There’s nothing I can do and no way for me to control the way things go over the next seven and a half weeks.  So right now I’m just trying to focus on staying calm and stress-free, being as lazy as possible and productive as possible all at the same time, and enjoying all of the incredible movements of Baby Peele (that I’m going to miss so, so much).

We had our 32-week checkup this week and all is well!  Belly is measuring right on 32 weeks, weight is up (I’m not too far away from weighing as much as my hub!!), blood pressure is good, and heart sounded strong.  Also, the little bug is head down for now – hopefully he/she will stay that way!  (By the way, it’s crazy to me that when I lay on my back, the doctor can just feel around and tell how the little one is positioned!)  As I’ve written about before, we’re now on the two-week schedule for appointments, which is SO much better than having to wait a month between visits!

This week was also a wake-up call in terms of how much I’m having to slow down.  The weather cooled down a bit and I decided to take my 4-mile walk outside instead of on our basement treadmill.  I set out to tackle a loop that runs through Wake Forest University and neighboring roads, and about 2 miles in I was s-t-r-u-g-g-l-i-n-g.  Unfortunately, I didn’t really have a choice other than to keep trucking along!  I was pitiful – literally almost in tears – because my back, hips, and pelvis were killing me!  Luckily, my hub’s good friend happened to drive by around mile 3 and a half.  He stopped to say hi, and my response was, “This whole exercising while 8 months pregnant thing is way overrated.”  “Want a ride?” He replied.  “Yes please!”  I said.  So he drove me home, where I showered, got in my pj’s, and parked my ever-widening butt on the couch for the rest of the evening.  This experience, along with feeling utterly exhausted on Friday after my first full week back at work have both solidified that it’s time to turn it down a gear!

The good thing about being this pregnant is that people are SO nice to you!  Every time I go to the grocery store now, the employees are always jumping right in to take my groceries to the car for me!  And I don’t even protest. J

In other pregnancy news, we had a maternity photo session yesterday!!  This guy from my grad school cohort and his wife have recently started a photography business and are trying to build their portfolio.  So they asked if they could “borrow” my bump!  They did all of the pics for free and are giving us a cd with all of the edited images!  They put a few teasers on Facebook last night, and I have to say, they sure know how to make a pregnant girl look good.  I’m not sure if I’ll be mounting 16”x20” picture of my 32-week pregnant body in my house anytime soon, but they got some great shots. J  As soon as we get the cd of pictures, I’ll be sure to post some on here!

Big week ahead for Mama and Baby Peele… school starts for kids on Thursday, so life is sure to get even more busy and exhausting from here on out!  But in exciting news, our next baby shower is Saturday!!!  My mother-in-law is throwing one for us, and I can’t wait!!!!!  Next week I’ll be sure to have tons of pictures!!

In the meantime, I’m going to attempt to enjoy the paradox of time flying by and creeping by all at the same time. J

32!!!!!

32 under a maternity shirt that used to be HUGE on me!

It's a GIRL!!!!!!!!!

Not my baby, of course.  Baby Peele’s gender is still only known by him/her and the big man above.

         The GIRL I speak of is my soon-to-be NIECE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! J J J

I posted awhile back about my sister being pregnant, and you’ve seen our bumps mashed together in previous pics.  We are exactly 13 weeks apart, and she decided to have a 3D ultrasound to find out the sex of her bambino bambina early, and I am so so so so SO excited to finally be able to announce that I’m gonna have a NIECE!!  With two nephews (who I absolutely adore), I can’t wait to shop in the baby girl section.  I already bought her two outfits with cupcakes on them.  (Duh.  Have you seen the title of this blog?)  And, I can’t WAIT to watch my sister be a mom to a daughter.  She is going to be incredible.  I tear up just thinking/typing about it!  (Dang pregnancy hormones!)

As far as Baby Peele and his/her mama go, we’re truckin’ along.  I started back to work this week, which wasn’t quite as painful as I thought it would be since I now know I’ll only be working for – at most – 8 and a half more weeks. J  (Until I return in January, of course.)  I had a little scare mid-week when I had constant sharp cramps and pains in my lower stomach.  I finally called the nurse, who didn’t ease my anxiety when she said, “You need to come in right away so we can make sure you’re not going into preterm labor.”  I immediately drove over there (luckily it’s about 5 minutes from my school), and got checked out.  Thankfully, it is just a bladder infection.  Still painful, and annoying, but much better than the alternative!

So I’m now on antibiotics to hopefully kick this nonsense to the curb.  I’ve got enough pregnancy aches and pains – the bladder infection is not a welcome addition!

Speaking of pregnancy aches and pains, this week has been sort of a doozie.  Let’s see… I’m already starting to swell like crazy in my legs and feet, my limbs fall asleep all the time, my back kills me by the end of the day, my tummy is streeeeetching (which isn’t always a fun feeling), and my previous wake-me-up-every-hour-on-the-hour-hip-pain has returned full force.

Hm.  Complain much?  Funny thing is, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.  I still LOVE being pregnant right now.  I love feeling the bug move around in there, which has actually changed quite a bit lately.  Instead of sharp kicks and punches, I now feel a lot of shifting, elbows/knees/arms/feet sliding across my belly.  It’s pretty cool!  I guess he/she is running out of room.  Also, the bug gets the hiccups all the time!!  I try to picture him/her in there with the hiccups, and it puts the biggest smile on my face. J  I especially love going out in public (now that I have a life since grad school is o-v-e-r!) so I can show off this bump!  I wanna look at everyone around me and say “Yes, I’m pregnant and due in about eight and a half weeks and we don’t know what it is and it’s our first and we’re so excited and we think we have names but we can’t decide on middle names and yes you can touch my belly and omigosh did you just see him/her kick?!”  But I don’t want people to think find out that I’m crazy.

I did go shopping today!  Boy how I miss shopping!!!  I was VERY fortunate to have a lot of maternity clothes lent to me, so I haven’t had to do much shopping since January.  The purchases I have made have been mostly online.  So on Saturday morning as I was getting ready for our breastfeeding class, I went to get dressed and the outfit I had picked out didn’t fit.  Hm, that was strange, I must have shrunk it accidentally.  So I tried on another shirt.  No way Jose.  I tried on another, and another, and another, until I realized that move of this summer I have walked around the house in a sports bra and shorts and maybe a tank top… Unbeknownst to me, as I was strutting my half-clothed self around the house, I was quickly outgrowing about 80% of my maternity clothes stash.

So anyway, I didn’t want to go on a major shopping spree since I’ll (hopefully) only need maternity clothes for about 8 more weeks, but I have to have SOMETHING to get me through the rest of my rounded-belly days!  So I ventured to Motherhood Maternity and omigosh thank goodness I didn’t go into this store earlier in my pregnancy or our bank account would have been in TROUBLE.  They have the cutest stuff!  I limited myself to a couple tshirts… and then bought myself some new perfume (not from Motherhood Maternity, of course).  You see, I have a thing of perfume that is almost completely full that I got for Christmas.  Unfortunately, I used it during my first trimester when nausea was a constant force.  Now, the smell of it makes me want to hurl.

Anyway, I’m sure you could care less about my tshirts and perfume.  And the news just informed me that there’s a tornado warning for my county, so I’m outta here.

31!!!!

31 Week Bump Under Cover!

"Back to life... Back to re-al-ity."

That song played over and over in my head as the hub and I drove home from a weeklong vacation at Carolina Beach.

The bad news?  Our vacation, which I had been looking forward to for SO long, was over.  The good news?  The “re-al-ity” we were heading home to is pretty awesome.  While it stinks that vacation is over, it means we’re that much closer to meeting our son/daughter!

         But let’s rewind a bit.

We had a quick doc appointment before we left for vacation.  Everything looked great, and we’re now on 2-week visits until we hit 36 weeks.  Yippee!!

I took my 29 week pics at the beach to keep up the tradition:

29!!  Last week in the twenties!

29 Weeks under the "Clay" shirt!!

And we had a BLAST at the beach.  Get ready for a picture dump!

My idea of bliss.

Long story about the matching shirts... GREAT idea babe!

Girls' day in Wilmington!

Sweet, adorable Banks!

Out to dinner at Elijah's!

Some of my favorite memories of the week were just sitting back and watching this little guy!

Baring 30 weeks of baby bump in a bikini with my HOT husband!!

Cornhole!!

All the good lookin' ladies!!

Me and my mama!!

The boys

Banks and his Uncle Dame

The whole crew eating at Havana's!

Good lookin' ladies again, fully clothed!

Me and my HOT hub, once again!

From pulling an awesome prank on my brother-in-law with matching tshirts, to surviving a waterspout, to endless cornhole games, to fun and sometimes heated rounds of CatchPhrase, to soaking up every ounce of my adorable nephew Banks, to sitting for hours on the beach with my toes in the sand and a good book, to getting my first jellyfish stings, to delicious crab legs, to laughing so hard my stomach hurt, we had an absolute blast. J

And now we’re back home, re-focused on getting things ready for our little one and getting back in a work frame of mind.  Yep, that’s right, I go back to work this Wednesday.  This has been the SHORTEST.SUMMER.EVER.  And while I can’t complain, because most people don’t get six weeks off for summer, it has FLOWN by.  I think with counting down the end of grad school (FINALLY FINISHED, with a 4.0 TOO!!! J) and working so hard to get ready for Baby Peele, summer slipped through my fingertips.  But as I said before, there’s a positive element to time going by quickly when you’re knocked up.

So, understandably so, I’m going to give myself a license to be lazy around the house during my last couple days off.  Other than laundry, groceries, cooking, and working out, I fully intend on soaking up mindless hours of dvr’d trash.  (Although, every time I set out to do just that, my mind won’t turn off and I end up being productive… so we’ll see!)

And as for workouts?  Yeah, those are getting MUCH harder.  My lung capacity is obviously limited now, my tailbones and hips ache, and my back is soooo sore.  I really hope to continue exercising up until my water breaks, so fingers are crossed that I can keep it up!

Other than that, I am constantly praying that our little bug stays put for at least 6 more weeks and makes it to full term!  It feels like everywhere I turn, I hear stories of people going into labor extremely early.  So thoughts and prayers for our little bug to grow strong and healthy enough to kick the world’s butt are appreciated!! J

30 Weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

30 weeks covered up!!