The Day Has Arrived

Courtney told me to update my blog today, so I decided to do a short entry. Brian and I will be leaving for the hospital in a couple hours. I feel like I should be doing something productive, but everything I need to do is done. I'm hanging out with my three pups and reading a book as the minutes tick away. I'm very nervous and excited. I'm dreading the hospital and the needles, pain etc. that come with the experience. I keep reminding myself to focus on the positive instead. I keep trying to think of Catie and how ecstatic I will be when I meet her.

Well, this marks my last blog as a pregger person. We'll see what life has in store for me next.

The Big Day Approaches

Over the last several days, the entire family (or more accurately stated-the women in the family) have been nesting crazily. My sister, my mom and I have done more organizing, rearranging and decorating than I thought was humanly possible. Never in my life have I been so overcome with the desire to get things organized. Our entire garage is stuffed with trash bags, boxes, and all other bits of miscellaneous junk you can imagine.

Courtney taking a break from decorating to antagonize Abby!

Fortunately, this frantic cleaning resulted in a much cleaner house and a beautiful nursery. My sister and my mother deserve ALL the credit for creating the nursery. Being the lump that I have become, I couldn't do much to help. They worked for 6 hours straight on Wednesday and they're putting the final touches on the room today. I am so excited to bring little Catie home to such a beautiful and lovingly put-together room. I'm incredibly grateful to my mother and my sister for all the help they have given Brian, Catie and me.


Before and after shots of the nursery--final nursery pics. coming soon.

I've also been extremely lucky because Brian has had time off from work. He has been off since Wednesday and will be free until next Wednesday. We've had more time together than we've had since last Christmas break. It's been wonderful to have a few days to be together before our life undergoes a giant transformation. We've been going out to fun dinners (and ice cream), relaxing together and hanging out with our pups. It's been such a blessing!

Now that it's Friday, I have a few things I want to do before I feel completely "ready," if there is such a state. Other than these minor odds and ends, I just have to be patient and remind myself that anxiety at this point is worthless. Life is moving forward and there's nothing I can do to slow it down or speed it up. It's such a challenge, though, when I'm so anxious to meet my baby girl and so nervous about the birthing process.

Brian and I enjoy the Riverwalk.













Brian and Sadie taking a well-deserved snooze.

Fat Feet

My feet are so huge, it's unbelieveable. They are so oversized, my toes appear not to fit on them at all. It's a very odd sensation walking around feeling like my feet may explode at any moment. Yet another joy of pregnancy!

Well, the countdown is on. 7 more days! I don't know exactly how to feel. Most of the time I am overcome with a mix of excitement, nervousness, shock and bits of denial. Although, my ability to deny the existence of a belly this size is becoming less and less possible. Brian actually used the word "huge" in a description of my belly. Needless to say, I was nonplussed by his comment. It's such a shame men don't have to endure the wonders of pregnancy.

As the days pass, I find myself at a impasse. On the one hand, I want to speed this process up so I can meet my little girl. On the other hand, I feel the need to slow this process down because I have NO idea what I'm actually in for. Since neither of these options is possible, I sit and wait. Without work to distract me, sitting and waiting is quite a challenge. I've never been the patient type!

Over the next week, I'll be trying to distract myself with good books, delicious food and family.

BED REST

So, the big news for this week is that I was put on bed rest, not strict bed rest, but low activity. This was NOT my plan. I wanted to teach up until Thursday, spend the weekend with Brian in Houston and Austin, and do all kinds of work on the baby's room. Unfortunately, the doctor said that my overly swollen feet and thinning cervix put me at risk for delivering early.

So.. here I sit in my house on a Wednesday. I never realized how much I dislike sitting. I'm definitely not cut out for low activtity. Nonetheless, I'm forced to relax, which is a good thing.

The even bigger news is that we have scheduled an induction for December 1, 2008. If she decides to wait, Catie will be born in about 12 days! Wow, I can't believe it. I'm getting very excited to meet her, but not so excited about the process I'll have to go through to get her here.

Catie's daddy has been busy studying for his board exams. As of this afternoon, he will be done. We were planning to celebrate by taking a weekend trip, but as I mentioned earlier that was not meant to be. I'll be sitting in San Antonio alone, hoping the baby waits for her dad's return on Saturday. Poor me!!

I'm thrilled that my parents and sister will be coming to visit next week. I don't enjoy being alone and Brian will have more trips then.

The final bit of news is that I have some cyst on my wrist that hurts terribly whenever I move my hand. I have to go see a hand specialist next week. What fun!

About to Burst

I made Brian take some preggo pictures of me because I thought Catie might want to see them someday. They are not my favorite, but they mark the moment for posterity.

Now that I've officially hit 36 weeks, I feel like I've been stretched as far as I can go. My stomach feels like it's going to burst open at any moment. Little Catie doesn't seem to mind the tight fit. Brian and I see her little hands and feet pushing against my stomach constantly. Unfortunately, she still loves nudging me in the ribs. Ouch!

I go in for two appointments this week and two more the next week. After that, I will see the doctor's in the hospital. I haven't really come to terms with the fact that this is really happening. It's a bit too surreal for me.

I've been organizing my house and my classroom like crazy. It's like I'm some kind of robotic organizer. I just can't stop cleaning and rearranging. My good friend, Lisa, helped me clean out the baby's room on Saturday. She's amazing at helping me throw out junk! While I want to keep every little thing that may be of sentimental value, Lisa's response is usally, "When will you ever use that thing?" or "Do you plan on ever looking at that card again?" Because of comments like these, we ended up creating 5 bags of trash. It felt fantastic to see all the junk disappear. I still have loads more to go, though.

My final four days of work are this week. For the first time, I'm ecstatic that tomorrow's Monday because I will be one day closer to a much-needed break. Brian and I have planned an overnight trip to Houston this Thursday for one of his interviews. I'm looking forward to the time alone with my hubby. Usually, we are trailed by three hounds wherever we go. Soon, we'll have a baby, as well. YIKES!

Dogs, Dogs, Dogs

I'm exhausted tonight and ready to curl up in bed. I was thrilled to find out that the doctor plans to induce at 38 weeks. That means I have less that 28 days to go. Knowing this is fantastic and stressful at the same time. Fantastic because I get to meet my new baby girl- Miss Catherine Rose. Stressful because I have five zillion things to do before I can feel even halfway ready.

Before I retire, I thought I'd post pictures of my dogs. They were taken in the car on the way to and from Austin this weekend.

Abby pics. Sometimes she reminds me of a cow!

Lily and Sadie resting.

Trying out the pics

This is me with Sadie, our most loving dog.




















This is Lily, our biggest, wildest dog.

First Post

Hmmmm...I'm sitting in the kitchen at Brian's house, feeling Catie kick me, eating peanut butter and wondering what I'm trying to do. My lacking technological abilities are keeping me from understanding how this whole blog thing works. I'm assuming this will appear on my page, but I don't know for sure.

This blog will be a test-run. I'll have to look for pictures tonight. Thanks to mom, I have a new camera with lots of pictures on it.