Awake

again. I know this is my body's way of getting ready for the sleepless nights to come, but I HATE it! I'm sleepy, and I want to sleep, but I can't seem to relax. I guess I should've gone to bed right after dinner at 7:30 when I could barely keep my eyes open. But I just knew that if I even took a little snooze, I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. A lot of good that did me, here I sit, at nearly 1 a.m., blogging. I had intended to post earlier today, but never got around to it.

Since going out with the girls is probably going to be a little more difficult in the few months ahead, I wanted to have one more girls night out before the baby came. So, Lisa, Rebecca and I scheduled my "last hoorah" for Friday night. Well, actually we had scheduled it for a few Friday nights ago, but for some reason that didn't work out. I don't remember why. Anywho. I didn't really want to do anything too strenuous (not that we probably would have anyway), so we decided dinner & coffee would be great! We went to Zaxby's for dinner and it was so good! I could just about eat myself sick there. It was so nice to just sit & chat with no real time limit. Rebecca got a new car this week, and it needed a name, and I think we came up with the prefect one. I'm sure she'll blog about it, so check it out! It's a really fun story. We closed the place down and headed over to Starbucks for coffee. Well, Lisa & Rebecca had coffee. I'm not a coffee person so I had my favorite. A Double Chocolate Chip Frappucino! YUMMY!

We sat in a spot off to ourselves and just had a great time hanging out. Lisa & Rebecca are definitely two of my best friends. I am so blessed to have them in my life. I can always count on them for lots of laughter and even more good advice.

Starbucks closed at midnight, so we headed out just before then. It was such a wonderful evening, and a great way to celebrate my "last hoorah"! Thanks girls for a great time!

Well, I'm going to try and get comfy in the recliner and see if I can't catch some Z's as they float by.

Saturday

Today was a really nice day. Our little friend Emily came to stay the night, she's going to Regan's birthday party with us tomorrow. The main event of the day though was Haley coming over to be our photographer. I've always regretted that there aren't any pictures of Chris and I together from our honeymoon. I really wanted to make sure that we had some nice photos of us together during the pregnancy, so we went to the park & had a little photo shoot. Here are some of my favorites:

I think Haley did a great job, don't you? Also, here's one of the pictures of Emily... I can't believe she's six already!!!

Well, we have less than two weeks to go until the due date, and that's really hard to believe! We had our 38 week appointment, and as is common now, everything is still going well. My blood pressure went down some, to 112/72, he didn't mention my weight, so I assume all is well there. From what I've read, my weight shouldn't fluctuate too much at this point. He reiterated that basically we're just playing the waiting game at this point. So,now I'm on the lookout for any signs that I might be going into labor. I have been having a lot of contractions the last few days, but there hasn't been any pattern, I guess my body's just practicing. Whenever the baby decides he/she's ready, then I guess we will be too!

I'll probably blog again tomorrow because last night was my "last hoorah" with the girls, and we had a great time... so tune in again!

Progress

Finally, some progress on the garage door situation. Doors by Mike came out today to measure & give us a quote. They're going to be replacing it one day this week, probably Thursday or Friday. I can't even say how glad I'll be once it's fixed. You never realize how you take something so simple for granted until you don't have it for a while.

Still pregnant. I think I may have had some contractions today, but I just really don't know. If they were in fact contractions, they were about 4-5 minutes apart for about 30 minutes. Once I rolled to the other side they seemed to stop though. I just really don't like the whole "unknown" part of this process. I'm too much of a control freak to not know how this is going to work. I really wish my water would just break on it's own, as that's a definite sign that something is happening, but that only happens in about 15% of women. I have to admit, it's kind of freaking me out a little bit that we basically only have 2 weeks until the baby is due. Life is going to change so drastically, I just hope we're ready for it. Can you ever be ready for it? Probably not.

My scrappy friend Kimberly is going through a rough time right now with her oldest son. Please keep her in your thoughts & prayers.

Off to bed, I want to get up early so I can stop by Wal-Mart on my way to work & pick up Clay's new CD.

Just browning

I had my 37 week appointment today. Everything went well, as usual. This week I was down 2 pounds, but since I think last weeks weight was off, I'm not sure how accurate that is. Dr. Doris said I'm still doing really well with my weight & to keep up the good work. It really hasn't been any "work", as I can't honestly say I've changed anything. According to the doctor's scale, I think my weight gain is right around 27 pounds, and I'm pretty pleased with that. Considering I was quite "fluffy" going into the pregnancy, I think it probably could have been much worse. Blood pressure was still good, 128/88 today. I did ask him if the fact that the bottom number keeps going up is a concern, and he didn't seem to think so. He said that if I had protein in my urine (sorry if TMI), or the top number was 140 or over they'd be worried. I've been having some swelling of my ankles & hands, but that's to be expected. As long as don't start "swelling up like the Michellin man" (his words, not mine), everything should be okay.

He also informed me that as of today I'm considered "full term." Which basically means that there shouldn't be any problems with the baby being born from here on out. We're just playing the waiting game. My mom put it very well today I think. She said, "So you're done cooking the baby, now you're just browning it." Ha! Good analogy mom.

Thankfully it appears that the insomnia was just a fluke. I actually slept pretty well last night. Well, that is other than dreaming about Nip/Tuck all night. I don't know what my deal is, I guess I shouldn't watch TV before bed. I've already had to stop watching Dog the Bounty Hunter because every time I did, I'd be chasing bad guys in my dreams & wouldn't rest all night. Then, the last two Monday's, I've dreamt about Prison Break. It's really hard to rest when you're reliving TV shows in your dreams. We'll see how it goes tonight, I didn't really watch anything too interesting, maybe I'm good to go.

I'm going to go test it right now... Nighty night.

Insomnia

I really hope this isn't going to become a normal thing. I'm tired, even sleepy, but I can't seem to go to sleep. My mind is just racing, and my body won't relax. Grrr. I was awake from about 4-5:30 last night/this morning, and now it's happening again. So, what am I doing.... blogging. It's been a few days, and now seems as good a time as any.

I had my 36 week OB checkup today. Everything looks good. My blood pressure was 126/80, which is good, unfortunately according to their scale I gained a few pounds from last week. I'm not really sure how many, but more than one is too many in my book. I wasn't expecting that at all because my scale at home shows I'd actually lost a pound. Oh well, not much I can do about it at this point. I did find out that I tested positive for Group B Strep. According to what I've heard, during class & from the doctor today, it's not really a big deal. Basically they'll just give me antibiotics in my IV during labor to protect the baby. Apparently it's pretty rare for the baby to have any complications from it. I have my next appointment on Wednesday, 9/13. Lets hope it's a good appointment too.

Tomorrow/today is Emily's birthday party. I'll have to get her mom's permission so I can post some pics of her here. Emily has kind of been our "surrogate" daughter pretty much since she was born. I worked with her mom, Amy, at Hitachi several years ago, and when Emily was born, she just stole my heart. We kept her overnight for the first time when she was 3 months old, and have been keeping her pretty regularly since then. She's just the sweetest little thing, she was a great baby, and is a great kid too! I can't believe she's 6 already and just started kindergarten! My, they grow up so fast.

One of my best friends, Rebecca, was in a pretty bad car accident this week. Thankfully she doensn't have any "major" injuries, but she's really sore, and her car is probably totalled. I know she's not looking forward to trying to find another car, but the important part is she wasn't hurt badly. LYLAS!

I guess that's enough for now. I'm going to try watching whatever "crap" is on TV at nearly 1 a.m., and see if that will put me to sleep.

Realization

I had a realization last night, one that should've come some time ago I think, that pretty soon it won't be just Chris and I anymore. While I'm looking forward to this new chapter in our life, more than I can say, I have to admit it made me a little sad to think about it. We've been "a couple" for so long now, being able to concentrate only on each other and take care of each others needs. Things are about to change in a very big way, and it's a little intimidating. I know we'll make every effort to stay attentive to each other & not lose what we've had. We're very blessed that our families are close by, as that will give us plenty of chances to spend some time alone when we need it. And I really plan to take advantage of that, I don't want to lose touch with him. I was his wife long before this baby came into our lives, and I'll be his wife long after the children move out & start theirs. This became a bit of a ramble... sorry about that.

This is completely off topic, but I read this morning that Steve Irwin, "The Crocodile Hunter" was killed today! Click here for the article. I just thought this was so sad, but at least he was doing something he loved. Let's all keep his family in our thoughts & prayers.

This is....

my kind of to-do list:

1. move sewing machine
2. put stroller in closet
3. wash pillow cases
4. straighten up nursery
5. clean out car
6. put extra cell phone chargers in bag
7. put Debora on call list
8. clean out fridge

It feels so good to cross items off a list, even if they're really small, like most of these were. But I knew if I didn't write them down, I'd likely forget. I'm sure I'll be making plenty more to-do lists over the next few weeks, but as long as they eventually look like this one, I'm okay.

Tonight is game night, and I'm really looking forward to everyone coming over. Michael & Lisa have a new board game called Imagineiff. We played it last night and had a great time.

My friend Laurel started her own blog the other day, go check it out:
Happiness is... Blogs are so addicting, I love reading about what's going on in everyone's life... even if I know most of it already.

I guess that's enough for now, I'd better go get ready for the day. Have a great holiday weekend!