Baby Shower & 33 Weeks *Important Note*

First of all, thank you to everyone who attended, planned, and/or sent gifts to Ryan and I for our baby! We are so thankful, to have so many amazing people in our lives! The only thing I regret is not being able to say hello and/or talk to everyone who came!

I actually didn't get any pictures from the baby shower, so hopefully anyone who did can send them to me? I stole this one from Ryan's mom, Sue! (Thanks Sue :) )

Ryan and I before the Baby Shower, he only stayed for a few minutes, he was a brave man to even enter that room in the first place!

Ryan and I will be moving apartments on Thursday/Friday, so we will be in #21 instead of #70, as an FYI. If you have already shipped something, let me know and I will keep my eye out for it to make sure that we get it! I am going to set up mail forwarding at the post office, and will look into if UPS does something similar to make sure we get all our bases covered.

The past week went by pretty well, we had a minor "scare" I guess on Wednesday when we went to our 32 week checkup. My blood pressure was very high, so after checking it a couple times at the clinic they decided that I needed to go over to Labor & Delivery at the hospital to be monitored. Our doctor wasn't very optimistic about us being able to travel for Thanksgiving and warned us that this might mean bed rest...Of course, this didn't help my blood pressure any and I was immediately in tears. Ryan, being the amazing guy that he is, remained calm (one of us has to right?) and drove us over, called my mom, and kept saying everything was going to be fine. He was 100% right because by the time I was hooked up to the external fetal monitor and BP monitor, my levels were completely normal. The kept me for about an hour or so, took some blood work and monitored my blood pressure and the baby's heart rate periodically. In fact, by the time we were about to leave, I was so relaxed that the alarms were going off on the monitor that my blood pressure was too low. When the blood work came back normal, I was released and given permission to travel, with the expectation that I would come back to the clinic for a follow-up appointment as soon as I get back.  Whew!

Hopefully by this time next week I will have a couple of nursery pictures and new apartment pics to share! I am not looking forward to moving but I am looking forward to set up and put away all of our fun new baby stuff! 

8 months....only a little over 1 to go

We have our next doctors appointment on Wednesday, and I assume that from here on out we will be going either every other week or even once a week. I wish we could get another ultra sound but I don't think they do that until the last week or so, if at all. The baby has been good, as far as I can tell, and has been as active as ever. I think he is the most active at night, sometimes it will either wake me up, or keep me from sleeping. I've been having a difficult time sleeping, mostly because I have to either move around so much, which is getting more and more difficult, or because I have to wake up to pee every 1 to 2 hours (seriously 6 times a night at least...). Bending over is getting to be a challenge, and I was laughing at myself trying to tie my shoes this afternoon. On the bright side though, I have been able to feel the baby's feet and knees pushing out which has been really cool and slightly weird and Ryan has been able to feel more movement as well. I can't believe we are going to be parents in just over a month, it is so surreal.

Ryan and I went to the Marine Corp Ball last night which was at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, CA. We drove up with a couple of Ryan's friends. It was a celebration of the Marine Corp Birthday, they had a ceremony and a couple speeches and then a "fancy" catered dinner. It was nice to meet a lot of the people that Ryan works with and fun to get dressed up for the night, although my feet still hurt from the heels I was wearing...I guess that's what I get for being 8 months preggo and wearing 3 1/2 inch heels for 7 hours.

 Ryan and I at the cocktail hour at the Marine Corp Ball on 11/19

 Saying that I am married isn't really weird to me anymore, but being a Mrs. is....

(More pictures from the ball and more can be found here.)

We are heading up north for Thanksgiving, which we are both SO FREAKING excited about. Although, before we leave I suppose I should begin packing up our apartment a little bit (insert my sarcastic excited face here). We move into the new place on the 1st, luckily it's only across the parking lot, so we won't have to pack up the entire apartment as we can just carry most of the stuff as is. The two best things I can think of moving are a.) finally getting to set up a nursery and b.) getting the hell away from our freaking neighbors and their yippy f-ing dogs; the neighbors who live in one-bedroom just like us, but have at least 6 people living there, who have at least three dogs, who slam their doors and decide to be loud starting at 8pm.

31 Weeks

Only 9 more weeks to go!

Well, most of the symptoms that I had in the first trimester are back...the headaches, queasiness/nausea (luckily, not as bad as before), among with backache and pain in my hips/pelvis. I've been a lot more tired as well, but for the most part holding up pretty well. I've been sleeping pretty well, so I hope that keeps up for a little while longer!

Ryan and I move into the new apartment on Dec. 1st, and I can't wait. I am very excited to get everything put together and start to feel like we are at least a little prepared. Our living room is starting to look more like a storage unit, we have the crib, mattress, play yard, three boxes of clothes/misc supplies, box of diapers and a Christmas tree still in the box all stacked to the ceiling in the corner. I can't remember if I said this last week or not, but Ryan and I finally bought our first baby item, a little onsie from the GAP...of course...it says 50% like mommy, 50% like daddy, 100% AWESOME. Super cute.

This week went by incredibly fast. Ryan had a "three" day work week, with holiday for the Marine Corp Birthday and Veteran's Day however he got stuck with being on duty for 24 hours from Friday am to Saturday am. That was pretty lame, as it is his third or fourth time getting duty for 24 hours while others haven't even had it yet. But...oh well, what can you do? At work for me, we had a huge project going on, and I ended up working some ridiculous hours as well. We both slept in until 10am this morning, which hasn't happened, ever since being down here, it was very nice and much needed!

The baby has been good, and is getting bigger by the day. I keep wondering how he is going to get any bigger because there is no room at the inn! He has been really active and hasn't been kicking the ribs or internal organs too bad (yet)!

We've both been in the holiday mood lately, and I've been trying my best to at least have our apartment feel like fall. We have some yummy fall candles and just bought a couple more today. Right now our apartment smells like apple cider and this delicious bread.

30 Weeks - Only 10 to go...

You know, to be honest, for such a mile-marker week, I don't really have much to update! I wish I had fun nursery pictures to share, or something like that, but that will just have to wait a couple more weeks! Ryan and I went to Babies R Us on Saturday to pick out a glider/rocking chair, and I showed Ryan the stroller that my parents are going to get us.

November is going to be a very busy month! Ryan gets a four day weekend this week, as he gets the Marine Corp Birthday off as well as Veteran's Day. I have a huge project at work this week, The Home Depot Foundation is bringing in over 100 employees to do a couple volunteer projects on our property and of course this is happening when my boss is on vacation- so I am heading the project up... Then we have the Marine Corp Ball coming up, and good news, I finally got a dress to wear! I thought it was going to be this horrendous shopping experience, filled with tears and many expletives, but I literally found it at the first store, the first try-on. Also, it was on sale and I saved almost $70.00, boo-ya! And the week after that we are coming home for Thanksgiving!!!

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How your baby's growing:

Your baby's about 15.7 inches long now, and she weighs almost 3 pounds (like a head of cabbage). A pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds her, but that volume will decrease as she gets bigger and takes up more room in your uterus. Her eyesight continues to develop, though it's not very keen; even after she's born, she'll keep her eyes closed for a good part of the day. When she does open them, she'll respond to changes in light but will have 20/400 vision — which means she can only make out objects a few inches from her face. (Normal adult vision is 20/20.)