Notes from the Under-belly: Week 37

How far along? 37 weeks!
Total weight gain/loss: 37 lbs. (For those of you trying to do the math - I gained 9 lbs in 3 wks. I almost cried.)  

Maternity clothes? : Thats pretty much all I can wear right now - especially pants. Thank goodness I only have a few more weeks! 

Stretch marks? Still no new ones. 

Sleep: is REALLY hard to come by these days. Guess she's just preparing me for what's to come.  

Movement: She's still kicking! And now you can pretty much always see exactly how she's laying and where her little booty is. :) 

Food cravings: lots of sweets and Chik-fil-a's Deluxe Chicken Sandwich combo, with a large sweet tea - extra ice. :)

Gender: Considering the room is decorated for a girl, the closet is FULL of pink, yellow, and purple clothing (including an ADORABLE pink tu tu)...we're REALLY hoping that ultrasound tech knows whats she's doing. 

Labor Signs: Just lots of contractions that, according to my last appointment, aren't really doing anything but annoying me. ha! Sounds like the last month of my pregnancy with Cash... 
Belly Button in or out? pokes out a little, but mostly just flat. 

What I miss: eating spicy food, chocolate, and/or italian food without immediate indigestion, sleeping without someone sticking their tiny little foot in my rib cage, and being able to eat without taking breaks to make room for more food. 

What I am looking forward to: meeting my daughter! As weird as it sounds I really enjoyed the hospital time with Cash so I'm actually looking forward to that, and I'm really anxious/excited to see Cash as a big brother. I know it'll be an adjustment for us all but I think he's really going to handle it better than we expect...at least thats what I pray for daily. ha! Also, I'm getting pampered next week with a prenatal massage (compliments of the owner of the salon spa I work for!) and a pedicure. AHHHH! 

Milestones: We are less than 2 weeks from the big day! We have the bags packed, room mostly done - will hopefully have it done by the middle of next week, and are just waiting and anticipating the arrival of our second child...

T-Minus 3 weeks...

until our little lady makes her big debut. Unless she decides to come early, that is. Yes, we have scheduled the c-section for Thursday, August 6th. Its hard to believe that in THREE WEEKS....21 days...I will be a mother of 2. 

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the whole thing. Like pretty much everything in my life, how I feel about it depends a LOT on the day, weather, etc. (Gotta love those pregnancy hormones.) Somedays I'm so excited that I wish it were all taking place the next day. And then there are days when I wish I had 3 more MONTHS to prepare. And somedays the thought of it all just makes me want to cry...happy tears, mostly. :) 

I've told my mom (and several others probably) that I'd feel a lot better about the situation if I had some reassurance that Cash had a bit more understanding of the whole situation. He's only 14 months old so he literally has no idea what's about to happen to his world. We talk about "sister" a lot - which is what I've decided he'll call her since Corrinne is a harder name for a toddler to learn and she won't be going by Cori (EVER.) and I'm not really a fan of  "sissy" - and he knows that she's in my belly and will point to it if you ask where Sister is. Just this week he started hugging and kissing my belly when you ask if he loves the baby. Its really sweet but I still get the feeling he doesn't really know whats going on. I'm told this can be seen as an advantage when she gets here because he'll be less likely to be jealous than say a 3 year old might. 

I love Corrinne and know that I'd do anything to make sure she is ok...but I still have those fears that it just won't be the same as it was when I met Cash for the first time.  One of my best friends, Holly, had her 2nd son this morning, Beckett. I asked her if it was the same feeling meeting him for the first time as it was when she met her oldest and she told me it was. I guess its one of those things you can't really understand until it happens to you. 

But mostly I really am excited...last week a friend of mine had her 3rd baby, Maddox. He's adorable, to say the least and the minute I held him and smelled that newborn smell I was hooked. It made me SO much more excited to hold my little girl. I've been doing a lot of laundry this week -- so many loads of tiny little pink things -- and every time I hold a newborn sleeper I get this little twinge in my heart. She's gonna be beautiful, I'm sure of it. 

We're putting the finishing touches on her room, getting all her clothes organized and put away and will be packing our bags soon! We'd appreciate your prayers. :) 

Notes from the Under-belly: Week 35

Me & Holly, Beckett's mom, at 34 1/2 and 37 1/2 wks!

How far along? 35 weeks!
Total weight gain/loss: 28 lbs. 

Maternity clothes? : picking up a few things here and there, but I basically live in my goucho pants. 

Stretch marks? Not any new ones...

Sleep: Wish I had more of it. 

Movement: I'm starting to notice her awake times now...and apparently she's gonna have a late-night feeding around 11:30, and one at 3:30am. :)

Food cravings: chocolate, specifically Reese Sticks and Vanilla Coke

Gender: hopefully she's still a girl ;) But just in case, we did come up with a boy name, Brett Morgan.

Labor Signs: I have a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions but have even had some real contractions. Not too many though! 
Belly Button in or out? starting to poke out a little.

What I miss: cute jeans and shirts, being skinny, lung capacity...

What I am looking forward to: my friend, Holly's baby is due to be born any day now!!, and we're having a small get-together on Sunday to celebrate Corrinne's arrival. Can't wait to see everyone and show off her room! 

Weekly Wisdom: Let Drew do things around the house when he offers. :)

Milestones: 4 wks from Thursday is the big day -- scheduled c-section! She's approximately 6 lbs now. Wow!!!!

Summer fun...

Corrinne has lots of friends on the way: 

Baby Boy Adams - 21 wks

Avery Mae Richardson - 23 wks

Corrinne Olivia - 33 wks

Of course the men couldn't let us have ALL the glory.

The only time I've found cellulite cute. :)

Our pool boy. 

at The Indians game - Cash loved it! 

Well, Hello.

We are BACK! Cable guy came out yesterday and we are, once again, fully connected to the outside world. It was a long 24 hours but we made it. We went with AT&T U-Verse and let me tell you - I wasn't prepared for such a change. Mainly with the TV. We got the 200 channel package, however the "guide" lists every single channel available to mankind so you spend 20 minutes trying to find PBS.

(Seriously -- 200 channels?! Sounds ridiculous and I kinda think it is, but if we went with just 100 channels I wouldn't get my beloved TLC or Food Network. And I just wasn't sure what I'd do all day if I couldn't watch 15 episodes of  a Baby Story.) 

Anyways, on to my real reason for this post. 

Wednesday night was our last night in our first house. It was a rough night anyways because Drew had an overnight maintenance project at work so he was gone from 10pm - 4am. Even though we had a security system, I'm what some may call a chicken and HATE being home by myself...especially at night when all kinds of evil ensues. So my fear of some crazy stalker breaking in, raping me, and hurting my child overshadowed the reality of us moving the next day. I woke up on Thursday, went to my OB appt (everything looks good - I'll post about that soon enough) and then the moving commenced. Tony & Drew got 95% of the rest of the stuff out of our old house and into the new. I did a final walk-through that night to make sure we had what we needed for the evening and did not expect the tidal wave of tears that came almost immediately. It was just so weird seeing that house so empty. It was like a video montage of all the memories of that house playing in my mind: painting our room with Zach & Lilly the weekend after we closed on it, opening our wedding presents in the living room after returning from our honeymoon, hosting Thanksgiving and Easter dinners for my family, our first Christmas as a married couple, and then Cash's first Christmas. The tears really came when I walked by Cash's room and saw his "I am a child of God" on the wall above where his crib was. So many fantastic memories in that house and we were leaving it all behind.  

(Ok, so my in-laws will be living there and I'm sure we'll be back there on a semi-regular basis. So its not that bad. I realize this. But still.) 

For a split-second I was sad that we were going to be living in this fabulous, almost too-good-to-be-true new house. But I kept telling myself we'd make new memories. And since we plan on being here until Cash and Corinne both graduate from high school (at least) I'm sure the memories will be innumerable. (whoa. SAT word.) 

I was made certain of this when we pulled into the new driveway that same night. I was wearing my (ahem, maternity) swimsuit with nothing but a towel over me and had tear-stained cheeks and very puffy eyes when I noticed our new neighbor walking over to greet us! He's a really nice guy (and a cop, who parks his patrol car right in front of our house. Fine by me!) and introduced us to his 2 sons and wife. I just wish I hadn't been sporting a towel. That barely covered my belly. The only sigh of relief was that we hadn't seen our other neighbor that night - the pastor. 

Well I took care of making that encounter embarrassing as well when our neighbor "The Pastor" and his young family came by to drop off cookies last night. We welcomed them in, invited them to sit down and chat for awhile. Which was a very nice conversation...except that due to the extreme heat (as mentioned in a previous blog) I was wearing a tank top that mostly covered my pregnant bosoms. Normally I'm not a cleavage girl, but when its 90 degrees outside and "the girls" are ever-growing, its hard to contain them. It didn't help that when I asked Drew if I looked inappropriate his response was, "sometimes". Awesome.

"Welcome, Pastor Kip. Don't mind my cleavage." 

Thoughts from today. In list form:

1. Spaghetti sauce isn't easy to get out of eyebrows. Please note that none of the sauce actually entered Cash's mouth...it was used merely as a facial mask of some sort and/or finger paint. 

And while we're on the subject, can I just say that when once I thought feeding Cash was difficult during the infant (6-9 month) stage - because of all the restrictions, choking, etc - I was wrong. Totally wrong. My child lives on cheez-its, yogurt, cheerios, french toast sticks, and milk. Sometimes he'll wow us by eating some chicken or grilled cheese. I'll be thankful if he sees his 2nd birthday...

2. I knew being pregnant during the summer would be different...but holy NIGHT! Its horrible. I sweat walking to the car. Yesterday, I was actually sweating INSIDE my house where the AC was blasting. Its like the scene from Father of the Bride Part II up in here. Cash & Drew wear their christmas jammies each night while I'm trying to figure out how I can wear the least amount of clothing without showing off any accentuated body parts. I just might start wearing my bathing suit everyday. For real. 

3. Tomorrow is the last day I will wake up and go to sleep in this house. Its a weird feeling. While we haven't lived here a really long time, we still have had some major milestones in this house: This is the house Drew and I started out in... This is where we spent our wedding night (blushing!!! don't read this Dad or Grandpa), This is where we brought Cash home from the hospital...we painted this house together, we planted flowers together. We made it ours. And I know we'll do that at this next house and surprisingly, when we're there it feels sort of like "home" to us already. And we'll bring Corinne home to that house in just a few short weeks, so we're already making memories there. 

4. We bought Corinne's bedding this morning. I got a killer deal on it too! Love amazon.com and their free shipping! This is what we've chosen for our little lady's room.  

5. I ate an entire carton of strawberries in one sitting tonight. Sorry, Drew. 

...and that pretty much sums up today for ya! 

I would've said something about how I watched the one hour Jon & Kate +8 episode where they announced their divorce tonight and how it really saddens me. It does. And I can't stop thinking about it. 

So I guess I did mention it.

SOLD...to the lady with a big belly!

Its official - we have a new adddress! We got a couple loads of boxes and furniture moved over last night, but probably won't be living there until the middle of next week since we have jobs and stuff. (Geez...working is so annoying!). 

We are SO excited and thankful for this house. We both feel its a tremendous blessing and still can't believe its ours! Once we get some good pictures of it I'll post 'em. 

PS - Happy Father's Day! :)