Thursday, June 28, 2012

28 Weeks



And boy does she kick.

And punch.

And all kinds of moves where I just say "Alice! What on earth are you doing in there!"

On the plane ride to California she learned to push her feet into my right rib cage.  Not the most fun for me.

I do love feeling her move.

Stephen and I always laugh when he will put his head on my belly and she punches him in the face.

 (Funny how outside of the belly that act would cause a very different response :o)

I am officially big enough for people not to hesitate on commenting on my pregnancy.

Thankfully I have yet to have a stranger touch my belly, I hope it stays that way.

Other than the heartburn the pregnancy is still going great.

I have met my new midwives (there are 3, one who has her license and 2 who are about to get theirs, they all work together).

They are very nice and I am excited to do my home birth with them.

It's still so hard to believe that in just a couple months we will be holding our little Alice!



Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Moving (again)


Well, a lot has happened in the last month, but I guess I will start with the move, which was madness.
June 1st
The movers came and took all our furniture and the kitchen items.
The rest of our stuff we wanted to move ourselves because the Army will pay you to move your own stuff so it's a nice way to earn some extra money.
Also, most of our stuff was still in boxes anyways.
June 2nd
I drove to Jefferson City and took my Marriage and Family Therapy licensure exam.
It was really hard.
I was so happy to be done with it.
I will find out if I passed sometime in August.
June 3rd
The lovely ladies I met in Ft Leonard Wood thew a little baby shower for me and a couple other ladies that are pregnant as well.
It was very sweet and a lot of fun.




June 4th
I drove up to Columbia Hospital for my follow up appointment.
I still had (and have) contractions but they are more irregular now.
The doctor said my cervix still looks good so I am good to move and to fly.
June 5th
My midwife came for a final prenatal appointment.
I passed my glucose test, but I am anemic. Bring on the iron supplements.
I am going to miss my midwife.
June 6th
Stephen had his graduation that morning.
I wasn't able to go because I still had too much packing to do.
The housing person came to inspect the house at 3 but we were way behind schedule so she offered to come back at 5.
Stephen had rented a 17 ft u-haul and it's a good thing we didn't have anymore stuff and that Stephen is apparently a real life tetris master because that truck was completely packed.
We passed our home inspection and headed out on our way to Clarksville, TN.
I drove the car with the dogs in the back and Bagheera in a crate on the passenger seat.
Stephen drove the U-haul with Giselle and Tiger Lilly on the passenger seat (they were in a crate but Stephen of course felt bad for them and let them out)
About 20 minutes into the drive Willow threw up all over the backseat, and then an hour later threw up again, that was fun.
We drove about halfway to Clarksville (3.5 hours) and stopped and stayed at a hotel in Mt Vernon, Illinois.
June 7th
We headed out first thing in the morning for Clarksville.
I was stressed out the whole time that one of the dogs was going to throw up again.
Bagheera decided he had enough of driving and howled the entire 3.5 hour drive.
Also the AC stopped working the last half of the drive so I had to open the windows (not fun when going 70 on the highway).
This of course made Bagheera howl all the louder.
So when we got to Clarksville at noon I was not in the best of moods.
We drove straight to our house that we had been told would be finished and ready for us to move in.
I about had a breakdown.
The fence wasn't built.
There was no front door.
The walls still needed another coat of paint.
The carpet wasn't in yet.
The hardwood floors weren't finished.
There were no door knobs.
Stephen called the realtor and he said the house would be done for sure by 3pm the next day and that the builders would pay for us to stay in a hotel for the night.
I didn't believe the realtor at all. There was no way they could do all the work in such a short period of time.
But we had no choice but to hope they were right.
June 8th
We hung out at the hotel till we had to check out at 1:00 and then we went and parked at the neighborhood community center and pool that is just down the street from our house and waited till 3pm.
While we were waiting Stephen was walking the dogs and he came back to the car in a hurry and said “There is a baby bunny in the pool!”
So I ran over to the pool with him (there was no one else there) and I realized that the bunny couldn't get out and would drown of exhaustion.
Stephen, the animal hero, of course had to do something.
He grabbed the pool skimmer but it was missing the net part and couldn't get the bunny with it.
While he was trying, the bunny swam near one of the vents on the side of the pool and got sucked in!
I started freaking out.
Stephen quickly opened the lid over the vent and we saw the bunny getting tossed around in the water drowning.
I was horrified but yelled at Stephen not to touch it because I was afraid it would bite him and give him rabies or something.
So Stephen quickly took off his shirt and grabbed the bunny and put it down on the cement.
It was very dramatic.
The bunny was breathing but seemed to be in shock so Stephen picked it up and put it far from the pool in the grass.
I really wanted to keep it but since we were leaving the next day for California, that really wouldn't work.
So 3pm came and we walked down the street to our house and got a walk through from the builder and amazingly enough, it was all done and looked great!
Stephen and some guys that the realtor knows unloaded the U-haul into the garage in about an hour.
The pet sitter we hired came over so I could give her instructions on the pets (the dogs were going to stay in the backyard and cats were staying in the house).
Right as we were about to leave to take the U-haul in, our neighbors let their dogs into their backyard.
This was when we discovered that unfortunately the neighbors have 2 little dogs which is bad because Willow has lately developed an aggression for little dogs (why, I don't know) and went nuts barking at the fence. So we knew we would have to do something to keep her from barking all week while we were away (we have a spray collar but she will still bark with it on).
On our way back from dropping of the U-haul we picked up a shock collar.
I felt really bad putting it on her but it worked.
Then we packed for our trip to Napa.
June 9th
Flew to Napa at 7:45am
More to come on our Napa trip soon!