fridizzle

There are so many reasons that I'm glad it's Friday. For one, I get Justin all weekend. We can finish our monster of a guest bathroom. We can eat breakfast. We can make smoothies [that might just be me. Hello smoothie kick.] We can tandem do homework. Ahh like the good old days when we met. But I think he did the homework and I played solitaire on his computer while singing along to whatever was on his iTunes. 

For the record. 20 year old Justin had the BEST iTunes library. From excellent rap remixes circa 1994 to Freebird to everything Kenny Chesney ever sang. 

Tonight we're going out to dinner with friends to celebrate being almost 36 weeks. But also one friend has a birthday tomorrow. And also we're halfway through the worst two months of the year [I loathe the uarys]. So hell! Let's celebrate. Except Megan's clothes don't fit... 

Sunday is the Super Bowl so I'm making a crock pot 'o' chili and we're trucking over to a Super Bowl party to eat and carry on. However, I doubt I'll eat much. I'm still weirded out by chili and my appetite wanes as the day goes on. I heard a rumor that there might be a smoked rib cook off though. Justin is excited. And dang I want a smoker. 

Ollie is getting bigger by the day. My stomach and liver can attest to that. And the contractions are starting to change too. A little bit more pain is coming with them now and a couple of them made my face flush and I got too hot. Weird. I'm pretty certain he has dropped, or is dropping because my belly looks lower and my heartburn isn't such a nuclear burn anymore. We have an appointment next Tuesday to check positioning and do the dreaded swabs [shudder]. I'm half tempted to have them check and see if there are any changes, since I'll be disrobed anyways... We'll see. And now I leave you with this. 

Someone needed attention. 

817

There were 817 photos on my iPhone when I emptied it this evening.  That's a lot considering I've done NOTHING lately...  I'd say 87% of them were of a certain pit bull that is currently trying to get into trouble in the kitchen.  Here are some of my favorites.

Bathroom mirror situations.  I can't resist a huge mirror...

Various Lady Pictures

This...

Friends!

He's still so cute.  Can't wait to meet him!

Lady needing a cuddle.

Little green jeans.  I'm dying.

35 weeks pregnant and I accomplished this.  Proud?

The nursery coming along.

And the real user of the pregnancy pillow.  Sorry she's not sorry.

email of desperation

I sent this to my mom last night.  It explains how crazy pregnancy hormones are.

[censored version]

The following are reasons why I am going to lose my $h!7:

1. The faucet drip drip dripping. It's becoming more frequent and louder. It's like the crocodile with the clock in his belly and I'm Captain Hook. My mustache is twitching.

2. I have an intense amount of acid that's trying to make me vomit. Every burp is perilous. I took a tums. The 34$74rd was orange flavored. I hate orange flavor.

3. Did I tell you I bombed a quiz today. I'm so pissed about it.

4. My stove. The jerk stays clean for 5 minutes and then is dirty again. Why did anyone think white appliances were a good idea.

5. I'm gestating a baboon. He is swinging off my entrails like they're vines. Also he has the hiccups again. Their rhythm doesn't match the dripping of the faucet. Which. Makes. Me. Crazy.

6. I cleaned out three dresser drawers tonight, but my dang closet is still making me crazy.

7. Everything hurts. Every time I move, it hurts.

8. Laundry. I did four loads today and I already have another load I could do tomorrow. And I never change clothes. So is lady wearing my clothes??

9. I'm so jacked up right now that all I can think about is how bad I want to clean. Kitchen cabinet overhaul namely. And I want to scrub under my house plants [what the heck?!?] but I am also tired.

Seriously though. I might be up in the middle of the night scrubbing under houseplants.

Can I be done being pregnant now?

Drip.

Drip.
Hiccup.

Drip.

Hicdripcup.

Losing. My. $h!7. Up. In. Here.

internal assault

I've been under an internal assault.  This kid is out of room, and we have weeks and weeks to go.  

He's been hooking his feet under my ribs and dangling.

He sticks his limbs waaaay out my belly.

He's so big that he smashes into my stomach making me mad nauseous and causing heartburn so real that it wakes me up at one in the morning whimpering.  I had to sit up last night to try and coax the acid back down.  

My ribs hurt.  My back hurts.  My hips hurt.  My pelvis hurts.  

I'm done.  6 weeks left and I'm done.

How long have I been saying that?

The stripes make it look even bigger.  It has 6 weeks left to grow.

Also I gained almost 4 pounds in two weeks by having no appetite.  I have a true talent.

on sharing your pregnancy pillow

My pit bull thinks she's pregnant. Naturally. She sleeps all day long, after having slept all night. She expects to be waited on hand and foot. And worst of all, she expects to be allowed full use of my huge pregnancy pillow whenever her little heart desires. Which is often.

We're currently sharing it. I'm lucky I got her to move for long enough to squeeze myself into a spot. She's sleeping like a champ. I'm not. 

My graduate school classes started yesterday and I'm already overwhelmed about how I'm going to keep up with everything and take care of a baby. I just keep telling myself that it's been done before. 

We hit 33 weeks this week. I can't believe how much better my attitude is about 33 weeks than it was about 32. I got over the hump and now it all seems downhill from here. Except for the sharp incline right at the very end.... Oh we'll make it. And it will be wonderful!

Check out my killer puppy pants. Be jealous. 

Pregnancy pillow love. 

Lady needed a hug the other night. Seriously, too cute. 

thursday state of mind

It's already Thursday!  Praise the Lord!  That means one more day until I don't have to spend my whole day with just a pit bull.  She's not always the most social, although she did entertain me for about five minutes today when she tried to convince herself that she likes green peppers.  She tried her darndest, but could not get herself to chew it.

Tuesday was my midwife appointment and it also happened to be the day that Justin's friend's  wife gave birth to her little boy.  To say that I was green with envy would be the greatest understatement of the century.  I was so jealous and down on myself that I cried multiple times throughout the day and was ready to give up.  Why did she get to be cuddling her little boy and I had to suffer through this discomfort, just laying around for another eight weeks?  Poor Justin had to eat left overs for dinner when he got home to his moping wife.  He was so sweet about everything and told me that I was doing a good job, which always makes me feel better.

I got over my bad attitude finally, and channeled Scarlett O'hara yesterday and today and I've had a much better attitude.  Today I visited my doula and got another abdominal therapy.  I was worried it would cause me to have contractions, but it did the opposite.  My uterus hasn't been so calm in weeks.  It's back to its usual antics now, but I think that those therapies will be really beneficial.  Plus my sweet, wonderful doula made me feel better about being only 32 weeks along by making it seem like I don't have an eternity left in this.  She also reassured me that my child will not be neurotic from this crazy pregnancy [a very real fear I had].  And then that my next pregnancies won't be this hard.  I hope so much that that's true!

The theme of my next couple of days are GOOD ATTITUDE!  Plus I get to go meet Justin's friend's baby this weekend and I'm just jumping out of my skin to get a little preview of what it's going to feel like in a couple months.  Also I'm going to make banana bread.  How can you not have a good attitude when banana bread is involved?

blog from bed

Because I'm beat and my back hurts.

I may have dusted today.  And I may have wiped up the kitchen twice... or thrice.  I've lost track.  I also may have started the laundry, and baked two dozen monster cookies.  But no one can be sure.  Lady is my only witness, and she'll never tell.  Plus she stayed in bed until 12:30 pm today.  She hates the cold.

When I got up, it was 18 degrees below zero with a windchill of -43!  Hooo mama that's cold!  It's currently 11 below with a windchill of -37.  It's this horrid out and I didn't even notice until after noon that I forgot to turn my heat up, it was only 61 in the house.  I turned it up for Lady, but I felt fine.  Being pregnant is weird, have I mentioned that?

Tomorrow I have my 32 week appointment.  I can't believe it's so soon.  I feel like I was just there.  I doubt they'll tell me anything new.  They'll just tell me to hang in there and keep resting.  I hate resting  I felt like garbage all weekend.  Today was the first time I've felt good since Thursday.  I honestly thought I was in labor the other night because my contractions were so uncomfortable and regular.  Luckily they stopped being uncomfortable, went back to their normal selves,  and I was able to sleep.  I'm so excited to meet my little guy and have him outside.  It's amazing that I'm growing this little human, but I'm getting ready to meet him.  I had a meltdown last night that I technically still have 20 percent of this pregnancy left.  That feels like eons, despite the fact that 80 percent of it is behind me.  20 percent is still a decent chunk.  Plus I still have to make it through the delivery!

Our bathroom is making progress.  Justin sheet-rocked this weekend, so there are no more gaping holes in my wall.  It's beautiful.  I can't wait to get it all painted and put in our new toilet and vanity topper.  It's going to be a classy little guest bathroom.  Justin found the most perfect farmhouse near Des Moines yesterday and emailed it to me.  Naturally, I'm heartbroken because there's no way we could move there now and by the time we do get to move it'll be gone.  It's the house of my dreams.  Oh perhaps someday we'll find another...

Weekend phone pictures, etc. COMMENCE!

Lady needed to cuddle hardcore this weekend.  And pillows were a necessity.  Please excuse the dog toys and clean laundry.  

Extremely blurry.  And orange.  But here's the bump at 32 weeks.  80% there.  It still has 20% to grow.  Oh yikes!

two thousand fourteen

As per usual, I've made the resolute resolution to not make a New Year's resolution this year.  It's not my thing.  I fail myself all too often, and I'm hard enough on myself already.

This year looks like it's the year though.  The big one.  2012 was pretty big.  I had my first career.  I married the man of my dreams.  We bought our first house.  And got a mangy pit bull that turned into a beautiful stripey doofus of a pit bull with some love and nourishment.  2013 was a rebuilding year.  I tried to get healthy in the beginning, and then felt like it all came crumbling down when I had a cyst rupture on my ovary.  My Gram died in March, which wasn't unexpected, but it was significant nonetheless.  Then once barely recovered from the cyst explosion, and while riding the waves of a vegan diet gone horribly wrong leaving me feeling even more unhealthy, we found out about our little baby growing within me.

Both of us were scared.  We were concerned that the pregnancy wouldn't hold.  My body was a mess.  I had spent the last two months wracked with anxiety [the combination of a very bad situation at work and the scary cyst rupture did my nerves in], I lost a significant amount of weight and was registering on the BMI chart as "underweight."  Could my body take it?  It obviously hasn't been easy.  Luckily the Zofran helped me gain weight, and gain, and gain.  And the anxiety has slowly dissipated [though I fear that may be due to the pregnancy hormones and I worry it will come back with a vengeance when Ollie gets here].  None of the medical professionals were worried at all.  And I had no complications in early pregnancy.  If it hadn't been for the nausea, I would have been convinced at my 12 week ultrasound that there was no way I was growing another human.  But alas.  He was there.  Moving around more than I could have imagined, but not surprising me in the slightest just confirming that he is his father's busy child.

We found out he was for sure a he.  We've had our scares, but we have made it to 2014.  Still pregnant.  Thankfully, still pregnant.  We need to hold out for a few more weeks and then we can have our little guy whenever he's ready to make an appearance.  My dream would be that I could have as natural of a birth as possible, but if it requires medical intervention to make it safer, so be it.  I just want my guy safe.  In two weeks I start grad school.

So my un-resolutions overall are to be the best person I can be to be the best wife, mother, dog mother, student, etc. I'm doing this for me.  I'm going to try and be healthier, but that's always the goal, isn't it?  We took a step in that direction by purchasing a half of a cow and throwing it [with ridiculously pregnancy inspired organized fashion] in the most glorious and HUGE deep freeze we could buy.  I reasoned with Justin we needed a huge freezer because I plan on producing a lot of boob juice.  I'd like to start a backyard garden this year not only to be self-sufficient and try and save money on vegetables, but also to encourage myself to be outside in the sun to help myself and Ollie soak up some vitamin D.  We're getting a beautiful stroller with off road tires so that we can go on walks with our stripy pit bull both on our street and on the amazing trails by our house.  I've had such a hard time being positive that I'm going to try and see the best in situations instead of my normal drama queen meltdowns.  That one will require years of work, Rome wasn't built in a day...

This year will be hard.  No doubt about that.  The first month not being allowed to work.  Sitting at home trying not to be depressed about being bored.  Then finishing up a hard pregnancy and dealing with the sure exhaustion that comes with being new parents.  School is going to be harder than I can even imagine right now, especially with the aforementioned exhaustion.  Pathophysiology is no joke.  That being said, I'm ready.  I feel I've mentally prepared for what's ahead as much as possible and the rest of it is just going to be a complete leap of faith.  Let's do this 2014.