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Yeah… no baby. Everything is still going swimmingly, but no baby.

Well,

I think this is when people start saying, “Any dayyyy noooowwww!” but I have a strong feeling that Grey is in there saying, “HA! HAHAHAH!”

I’m still feeling okay- the hand swelling/pain is not fun. I repeat. Not Fun. I’ve been getting on the elliptical for way too many minutes a day (any minutes are too many minutes at this point) as that’s the only relief I’ve found. The belly, on the other hand, is fine. It gets in the way- I’ve noticed that I bump it with pretty much every door I walk through- but it’s not doing anything painful, so there’s that!

The kid is more responsive than ever! If he’s sleeping, I can rub his little feet or bum and get him to wiggle around. It’s way cute. Even Luke can play this game. He was tapping my bellybutton the other day and awoke the beast. They then had a few moments of communication (tap…KICK! Taptap… Squirm!)! That was a little spooky, but I figure he’s got to be bored in there and more willing to play along.

So at this point the bag is packed, the carseat is installed, and the nursery is set up. Now we wait… =)

Here are the pics from this week:

Black is not so slimming if you hike it up! Wooo Boy! That’s a belly!

When I look down at my belly, it doesn’t seem possible that there’s a full sized, chubby little boy in there. When I look at a picture, there is OBVIOUSLY a full sized, chubby little boy in there.

So there you have it. Possibly the last of the pregnancy posts. Likely the last of the “happy” pregnancy posts. Ha! We’ll do our best to keep y’all updated. Wish us luck!

Hello! I’m alive! Baby is still on the inside! I’m just having a very tiring couple of days… I can only imagine it’ll be getting worse. 🙂

Luke and I had a fantastic week off together. Lots of relaxing, me hanging in the yard while he built me things and played on the tractor. You know, normal stuff. For mother’s day, he solved my biggest complaint about our house here in New Hampshire. I’ve been bummed that we don’t have any bug-free outside space for me to hang out in. His solution was to build me a deck (!) to put a screened canopy on! I’m psyched we’ll have a place to bring Grey where he won’t have to wear a teeny netted hat!

I’m so lucky. 🙂

Other than that, no new updates. Little dude is still hanging out in mostly the right place, and still hasn’t dropped. Luke says my belly looks “more pointy”, whatever that means! I think it looks the same. Lots of braxton hicks (practice) contractions, lots of hiccups. Luke and I caught him breathing the other day. I had to Google it to be sure, but apparently at this stage in pregnancy, they will “practice breathe” for about 20 min per hour. My belly pulsed just like a little baby back/tummy when they’re breathing. A very good sign, indeed!

Also, a belated happy mothers’ day to all my very important mamas out there! Hope your weekend was wonderful!

It was a wonderful weekend to live in New Hampshire! 65 and sunny, slight breeze, Town Docks is open for ice cream (the best ice cream ever created), and we had a blast at our Cinco De Mayo baby shower thrown by my one and only Heather!

Because we HAD to have a pinata, RIGHT? Huge props to our resident annihilator, Rachel Davis, for taking one for the team and beating the crud out of Pancho the Burro. =D

Turns out Heather rocks at decorating cupcakes too!

Note to self: Do not frost hot cupcakes. If necessary to frost a hot cupcake (ie: emergency cupcakes), do not use bright blue frosting.

How cute is this?!

We decorated onesies for the little dude- they turned out AWESOME! One of my favs: “Don’t hassle me, I’m LOCAL!!” Ha! This is such a great one for our little tourist town. =)

Me and my Buddy. Grey is already a bit of a camera hog…

Annnnd, the belly shot. If only it weighed as much as a basketball and not a Thanksgiving turkey…

I’m 35 weeks now, and I can feel every day. I’ve been swelling for several weeks now, and we made the delicious mistake of eating chinese food yesterday. Well, even my flip flops are tight this morning. Whooops! Guess that’s off the menu for another month or so. I also have developed a lovely head cold/ wicked allergies/ pregnancy “cold”?!?! over the last several days. I’m thinking it’s just allergies but it’s thrown a pretty solid wrench into my sleep patterns. It’s all just practice for when baby comes, right?

Regardless, I’m feeling as great as I should be, and getting more and more excited to see the little guy. Our hospital bag is packed (thanks to Luke getting on my case about it) with essentials, we have some itty bitty sleepers, a swaddler (thanks Heidie!!), clothes and toiletries for me, and a handheld swamp cooler (aka: evaporative cooler). All that’s left to pack are snacks. I’m thinking a carry-on sized bag will be sufficient for that, no?

I’m headed outside now to see what that handsome and handy man in my backyard is up to. We have the whole week off together and I need to go enjoy it!

Love to all, and happy Monday!

Hello!!

I’m all done working and am now allowed to go into full-on “Nesting Mode”…

anytime now…

how about now?…

No? OK. Couch time for me. The great thing is that Luke has been nesting since that first test showed 2 lines. =)

Grey has everything he needs to survive in The Wild that is the Stafford Family Poorhouse. He has a crib, diapers, food, and love. I plan on starting the laundry this week so he’ll have clean fuzzies in which to be swaddled.

Now for the fun part: Luke and I were waiting for the cars to be inspected (in NH, they have a full emissions and SAFETY inspection every year and it takes forever) and we just happened to be right next to his hospital on a weekend. We then arranged a Win-Win barter. He sneaks me in to take a peek at Grey on the OR ultrasound, and I bake him his favorite cake! I don’t know that I’ve ever made a better deal, because I also got some cake out of it, and Luke got to practice on the ultrasound and check out his boy!

Luke was able to find pretty much everything- from his little pumping heart, to his boy parts, to his gigantic feet (really! They’re like 2 inches long already!). We also saw his vertebral column, and his little face and hands! He’s now hanging out in the PERFECT position (head down with his back to my left and his feet sticking out my right side/ribs), blinking, opening and closing his mouth, and putting his hands to his mouth. It wasn’t very clear, so we didn’t get pics, but in real time, all of this was easy to see.

Side note: Luke wasn’t expecting his… ahem… gentlemen’s nuggets to be so… large. If I had looked closer, I swear I would have seen him puff up a little. 😉 But seriously, we ran into an OBGYN (one of Luke’s favorites) who confirmed that this is totally normal.

We’ve hit the 2nd to the last weekly milestone- at 34 weeks, surfactant is present in his lungs and Grey will have a MUCH easier time breathing if he were to come early. All we have left is FULL TERM in 3 weeks!

Grey still hasn’t dropped, which is a good thing- it’s hard enough to get around as it is! I’ll take the shortness of breath and heartburn over peeing every 5 seconds and painful walking for the time being. My bellybutton is popping out at random intervals- based on how full I am (I still drink about 1.5 gallons of water a day) and where Grey is hanging out. I’m swollen but only noticeable by the color change in my hands and feet. Other than that, still feeling good! Unfortunately, I’ll need a round three for maternity clothes. This expansion is getting rather expensive! I’m thinking Day of the Week Mu-Mus, Yes?

Most of you have heard the stories of our obscenely obese cat. The reason she got as fat as she was is because unless she was free-fed, she would prowl the kitchen and chew through food bags (mostly carbs- fat Kitty likes bread/bagels and such). I would wake up in the morning to either: a. a catastrophic mess- if she found oats or anything else that came in little pieces, or b. chunks chewed out of our bread products.

There was one morning I awoke to find that Apple had peeled back the foil on a brand new batch of corn bread and eaten off the entire top. Ugh.

Well, a few days ago, it happened again. *sigh* this is our penance for wanting a cat who can clean her own butt (long story).

Whew! I’m in the middle of my last workweek and it is sucking the life out of me! The good part is that I’m just covering another nurse’s vacation, so it’s an isolated week that has a finite end. =) Here’s a few pics from last weekend:

ROUND

This is kind of random, but we saw a HUGE snapping turtle on the side of our road the other day. Of course, we had to pull over so Luke could poke it with a stick and I could take pictures of it. 😉

Oh, and if you didn’t catch it, I whacked off all my hair again, and couldn’t be happier to be back to normal!

I’ll have a real post for 34 weeks. Until then, toodaloo!!

Not this girl! This is a good thing, since I can no longer *reach* the coffee table without a loving shove from Luke. 😉

We’re slowly getting back into our routines since Scotty left. Our house is clean, mostly organized, and devoid of any unfinished projects. Well, Luke would probably beg to differ on that last point, but I’m more than happy to let anything that isn’t done REMAIN UNDONE forever.

The dogs love the fenced in yard even though it’s full of ticks. THIS is what I hate about NH. Apparently the tick season is going to be horrible this year due to our mild winter. We are in the midst of a week of 70 and 80 degree weather, and so we shaved Z to check her for ticks. Really, this is the only way to go because of her super thick hair. We found 4 of the nasty creatures. This is AFTER advantix or whatever that Rx flea and tick med is. So, we either spray the yard with the most eco friendly spray we can find (HA!) or adopt a big family of guinea hens and let them do the pest control. Good idea or Bad? They’re loud, and another animal to take care of, and we’ll have to train Buddy somehow. BUT, they’re funny, we might get eggs, and it would be very satisfying to see all the ticks get picked off one by one.

YUCK.

On to the fun stuff. Here is my 32 week pic, plus a bonus pic of me and Scotty (blurry, but eh.):

I’m still feeling pretty great, for a lady with 30 extra pounds suspended in front of her. My belly button is barely in, my rings are never on, and that kid does NOT stop moving during daylight hours. I’m gonna need the monkey backpack, I can already tell. I can walk for about 30 seconds before the waddle emerges, and managed to eat approximately 10 servings of chocolate cake yesterday. We had a BBQ for Luke’s coworkers on Friday and there was 3 separate chocolate cakes left behind. They all taste different, so I just rotated all day. Whoops! There’s even a longer skinny one that balances on my belly. Now THAT’S class.

These were taken along the Kangamagus Highway about 30min north of us. Very VERY beautiful drive that is teaming with trailheads. I can’t wait to go back and explore.

On Saturday, Luke and I had our childbirth class. It was mostly useless, but we learned some stuff (maybe we should have stuck with an infant care class?). The best part was the empathy belly. Luke was a great sport:

Silly (and blurry again- BAH!), but a welcome break from the actual talking. What matters is we got the invisible certificate that says we are qualified to endure childbirth. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Anyhoo, Hope everyone is well.  I’m off to enjoy the sunshine and 80- something degree day. =)

A quick update on the progress we’ve made so far- Scott has been such a huge help! Between him and Luke, much of the work that needs to be done (before you-know-who arrives) is complete!

The Crib is assembled!

Nursery shelving has been painted!

All the nursery needs is a rug and to be stocked up!

Here’s me “helping” the guys work on the fence (which is now FINISHED including gates)

Hopefully this is a video of the dogs using the ramp to the deck. This ramp will prevent me from having to go down the scary carpet steps to the basement every time the dogs need in or out. A huge preventative measure for me, as I’m now about 2 years since my last tumble down the stairs, and I don’t care to reset that counter. =)

Our pretty gate:

Also, much organization and storage has occurred, which is HUGE. Our bedroom is now looking like a bedroom. Will post pics of that soon. We’re still waiting to mount the cake table on the wall. Tomorrow, perhaps?