Baby Girl

I haven’t done a lot of updating about my pregnancy here and several have asked, so here we go.

The pregnancy is going great. I had my 34 week check-up yesterday and ‘Baby Girl’, as she’s come to be known, is doing great. Both yesterday and at my 32 week checkup the Dr. and Nurse Practitioner were surprised at how low she is already. The Nurse Practitioner told me yesterday that she was already below my pelvic bone and had ‘dropped’. That doesn’t necessarily indicate anything about when I’ll deliver but I don’t remember that happening so early with my other 2 pregnancies. I can definitely feel pressure when I stand, after sitting for a while. Sleeping is becoming a little more of a challenge but still doable. My chief complaint has been sciatica, which as I understand it is basically a pinched nerve in my lower back that radiates down my right leg. It aches more as the day progresses and is definitely most prevalent on days when I spend more time on my feet. It’s more annoying than anything; it hasn’t slowed me down too much.

We have successfully finished cleaning out Baby Girls room. The room that is to be hers, was the 4th bedroom that has been a catch-all since we moved in the house. It housed all the nursery furniture so we had that going for us, but it also had lots of other ‘stuff’ too. Including all Lance’s photo equipment (lights, backdrops, stands, etc.), a file cabinet and stacks of photographs and paintings. It’s taken several weekends to get it all clean, but we have finally got it done. All that remains to be done is assembling the crib, which I hope Lance can get done this week, and moving out the file cabinet. The file cabinet was too big for Lance to move on his own, so we’ll tackle that the next time we have an unassuming male visitor to our house. No hurry though, it’s not in the way of anything we need to do there.

I’m looking forward to decorating, that will be the fun part. I ordered the bedding this weekend and it should be here later this week. I have a cross-stitch that hung in mine and Alice’s bedroom that my grandmother made, which will be hung in Baby Girls room. I also hope to have a print that hung in my friend Julie’s room as a baby, that her Mom has offered to let me hang in the room. So although it may not all match her bedding exactly and look like the room in the catalog, there will be some very special things adorning Baby Girls walls.

We’ve also been blessed with bags full of clothes. Most of the clothes are from a coworker, who has a daughter that will be almost exactly 1 year younger than our Baby Girl. As well as a few hand-me-downs from our niece who will be 4 this year. And we’ve held on to most of our baby gear from the boys (highchair, swing, bath tub, booster seats, etc.). Some of it is really worn and needs replacing, but most of it, after a good cleaning, still has enough life left in it for Baby Girl.

The boys are both very excited. Riley includes ‘our baby’ and Momma in his prayers every night. No one has told him (at least not that we’re aware) that childbirth is painful, but every night he prays for Momma to be OK when the baby comes out and for the baby to come real soon. Owen hugs me now and his head is right at my belly and he always says he’s giving his sister a hug too. A couple times he’s even ‘tickled’ his sister through my belly and wondered if she was moving around and squirming as a result. They’ve both felt the baby move a couple times which did not impress them as much as I expected. I guess each time it happened and I called them to come feel my belly, I was interrupting a game of army or football. They are still boys after all.

I’m still working and hope to work as close to the due date as possible. Any time I take before hand will take away time I get after the baby arrives, so I want to save as much as I possibly can. The date is quickly approaching and our anticipation is building. We are excited and so thankful for the blessing of this new little one.

(And because I know someone will ask, we do not know her name yet.)