Belly Shot and Medical Update

The belly is finally coming in! It's amazing that at 8 months, Mama still weighs less than she did pre-pregnancy!! 1st trimester morning sickness (and losing 15 pounds) does that to you I guess. Lydia is definitely running out of room because Daddy can see her round little head poking out on the right side of Mama's tummy.

Lydia is quite the music fan as well. We have found that she LOVES Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds. This makes Mama very happy as Dave is one of her all-time favorite musicians. But Lydia definitely gets to dancing any time she hears Dave sing and Tim strum the guitar. Too bad she won't still be in the womb when Mama and Daddy get their first date night and catch the Dave Matthews Band playing live.

As far as medical updates...high blood pressure (or the thought of it) can be a pain in the patooty. Poor Daddy has had to rush Mama to Gadsden (satellite office) and the regular doctor's office on several occasions because of the fear of high blood pressure. Obviously seeing dark spots isn't a good thing in the medical world when you're 8 months pregnant. Thankfully, all is well...even if the doctor and nurses are a bit over-protective. Mama's pressure got high only once, but quickly went down when she left work (imagine that!). We have an appointment with the opthomologist on the 25th to see if the "spots" are floaters (not sure if this is a medical term, or one my OB decides to use) or if it's related to blood pressure.

We're thankful that there's only a few more weeks left until we get to meet our sweet girl. While we've enjoyed being pregnant, Mama is ready to FINALLY be able to sleep on her side again...and eat a steak...with a glass of wine...or two (Daddy will have the breastmilk stored and ready to go!).

We will post again soon with updated pictures of the room (and the AWESOME closet Daddy put together!). We're in the process of ordering bedding for the crib, so once it's in there will be new pictures!

Wow...it's been a while!

Sorry for not posting anything in forever, but things (as you can imagine) have been quite hectic!! Daddy and I have been busy, busy, busy working on the nursery, going to parenting classes, and dealing with medical scares. Thankfully, things are starting to slow down a bit although there's still A LOT to do around the house to make sure things are as perfect as can be for Lydia's arrival.

Here are a few pictures of the main project that has taken up a lot of our time:
This is how the nursery began...my once fabulously pink office (yes...it was messy, but I'm not Betty Homemaker!).









The first coat of paint....











Preparing the stripes...if we only knew how difficult this would be!! Mama and Daddy are waaaaay too Type A for it not to be perfect. After purchasing a fancy laser leveler, taping the stripes went along MUCH faster and with a lot less tears.






The darker stripes go on....











We have furniture!!!!!

Otis standing guard over his little sister's room.

33 1/2 Weeks!

Baby’s senses are continuing to improve -- when light peeks in through your (extremely) stretched belly, those tiny eyelids and irises blink and dilate. And, baby can now recognize and react to simple songs… time to start practicing your lullabies! Growth (at least inside your womb) is starting to slow, and you may notice baby descend into your pelvis at the end of this month.

34 Weeks Pregnant

Your baby kind of looks like she's coated in a layer of cream cheese these days. The thick, white substance that protects her skin from pruning in the amniotic fluid is called vernix. When she's born you'll probably see some vernix lingering in her "hard-to-reach" places like under her arms, behind her ears and around her va-jay-jay, if she's a she.. Other news from the womb this week:

The soft fur, lanugo, that covered your baby's body for much of her stay in the womb is now almost completely gone. Your baby begins to develop her own immune system, instead of relying solely on antibodies received through the placenta. This will come in handy when some grubby relative manhandles the baby without washing his hands first.

This week, your baby measures about 17¾ inches, as almost as long as an American Girl Doll (!) and weighs almost 5 pounds, as heavy as a bag of sugar, minus the cup you put in your decaf this morning.