Shower Time!

(37 weeks down, 3 to go!) We had the last of our showers yesterday and I must say it was a great one! I want to say thanks to Lindsey, Jenny, Val, Kath, Tina, Connie, Erin, Sheila, and Dee for planning the showers and doing so much work to make them happen. I know it takes a lot of time and effort! I'm just thankful, and very lucky, to have you guys in my life! They were great showers and it was so good to see a bunch of people who care about us in the weeks before baby comes along! Thanks to everyone who came and made them special experiences for me!

Also, we had our second childbirth class yesterday. We saw a video of a birth and it made us both feel WAY better about birth! Ian looked away in disgust as the baby was crowning, so maybe it's still hard to handle that part...but it was just so different then any of those birthing shows you see. On the shows there's always people like huddled around the mom and they're all loud and counting and practically yelling at her to push. She's just confined to this bed and all drugged up. That's what made me kind of nervous about labor is that there were going to be all these people yelling at me and counting and stressing me out. We got to see how calm labor can be and even practice some different things to do during labor. I'm getting excited to actually do this in the next few weeks!

Love the hospital!

We visited Mercy Fairfield's Family Birthing Center today and I have to say that I'm very impressed by the way they run their maternity ward. It seems very different than most other hospitals which I am grateful for! We really liked the jacuzzi tubs in every room, and that everything happens in one room. They call them labor, delivery, and recovery rooms, so it's good that it can all be done there. Also, they are one of the only Baby Friendly hospitals in the area, so we're just excited about going to the hospital now instead of dreading it.

The room in the basement is almost complete! And they are making progress on the bathroom too! So it's possible that we will be able to start on baby's room next week. I will definitely be posting pictures when rooms are done because it will be a big celebration in this house!

Dr.'s appointment

We had a doctors appointment on Monday and everything is going well! My measurements (of my uterus) are perfect and I'm feeling pretty good. My doctor will be out of town at the end of July/first week of August so here's hoping I don't go into labor that early. Also, I wrote a summary of this parenting book I read so that Ian could read that instead of the whole book. He's learning a lot about babies! He was a little freaked about that fact that it's normal for a baby to cry from 1-4 hours a day, but he'll be alright. We start birthing classes on August 4th. The most fun thing for me about that is how much I know it's going to gross Ian out ;)

Maine!

We just got back from our week and a half trip to Maine/Boston and it was wonderful! We're at 33 weeks today (that's a little more than 7 months) and we have a doctors appointment later so I'll probably post on how that goes. Anyway here are some pics from our adventures:

We'll do funny ones first. Here's Ian on our hotel bed in Boston, then when we went outside for the first time we couldn't have looked more tourist-y:

Here's baby's first time at the beach, then baby getting a kiss from Daddy:

Here is our Beckham family picture:

And finally, here's a good sign we found. I don't know about you, but I've never met any animals who can windsurf!!!

And here's a slide show of the nicer side of Maine and two Boston pics:

A week with 120 high school students!

It's now been 6 and a half months (30 weeks) with baby. The three of us just got back from a great week at Lake Champion. I have to say it was one of the most tiring, but also one of the best weeks of my life. We saw so much growth in many different students and a lot of them began a relationship with God. It was great, and baby definitely enjoyed his/her first time at a YL camp. Who wouldn't? Here's a picture of the family:



And here are a few pictures from the week:

Only 12 weeks left!

6 months (28 weeks) down! Only 12 weeks to go! Here are some recent pictures from a wedding we attended. In these pictures Ian thought it would be a good idea to take close up pictures of each other, here are my favorites:



And here is a picture of me and my friend Theresa (another mommy to be!) along with a picture of the daddies:


That's right folks, he's going to be a dad.

It's not a beer belly...

People are definitely starting to notice that I'm pregnant. Yesterday Amber and I took two walks around the neighborhood. On the first, one of my neighbors asked us how we were doing and then said, "well you three have a nice walk!" and then laughed and said, "you're pregnant right?" I told him yeah then thought about what a risky little question that is! I've been very tempted to tell people I've just been drinking a lot lately. On the second walk we passed another neighbor and he said, "Walking him out?" and then laughed at himself and kept walking. I can only assume he was talking about the baby...

So it's just weird to me that people are noticing now, and commenting on it. I like it because I definitely feel more pregnant, but I didn't realize I was big enough for people to think, 'oh she's definitely pregnant.' Who knew?! I'm also trying to think of some fun come backs to the "are you pregnant?" question from strangers. Anyone have any ideas?