Weeks 35-36

How I am feeling 

Overall I still feel very good, but I am definitely feeling bigger!  It is getting harder to do certain things, but so far I haven't slowed down too much.  In fact, as you can see from doubling up on my blog again, I am staying incredibly busy.  The past two weeks have been the busiest I've been during my entire pregnancy I think.  This weekend was the run of the production I directed, "You Can't Take It With You" which meant 4 hour rehearsals every night, plus it was EOG testing for the other tracks at school so we had students straight until 2:30 and only a 25 minute break.  Let's just say that this was wreaking havoc on my back to the point where I went to a professional massage therapist on Wednesday to try to help, but in some ways it made it worse because my muscles were even sorer after she worked on them.  Darren has tried to work the kinks out as well, but he has to press so hard his hands get tired pretty quickly.  I guess if some back pain is all I have to complain about for my entire pregnancy, I am getting off easy.  And truly, I am not complaining.  I am so thankful for Lilly and I would go through 9 months of this back pain and more for her. 

Here is what I look like at 35 weeks:

Here is what I look like at 36 weeks:

 at our staff baby shower

my bare belly!  

Baby movement:

At my last doctor's appointment, the midwife said her head is down and she is in a good position.  I was pretty excited at first, but then she told me that is very normal at this point for a first time pregnancy.  I am still excited though, because we only have about one more month to wait before we will finally get to meet our little girl!  I could cry with excitement right now!  I am just so ready to be Lilly's mom!  I am already completely in love with her.  I love every little (and big) kick, nudge, punch and swirl that she makes.  I feel so lucky that I get to experience this.  I know Darren jokes that we would never have kids if he was the one who had to be pregnant, but I wouldn't trade this for anything.

I have figured out how to make her move when she is awake and stirring.  If I rub my belly on the right side, she starts to kick and squirm on the left.  It was really working the other night when Darren was feeling her move.  He was completely baffled that the movements did not hurt and he was just awe struck by the fact that our baby is almost here and he was physically connecting with her.  I am glad he can connect with her in this way; it’s such a special time and I am glad he gets to share it.

Shout Outs

We are so lucky.  Have I said that on here before?  We have the most amazing people in our lives.  Our teammates at Holly Grove threw us a baby shower on Monday and we were literally showered with love by the most amazing staff ever.  I was so overwhelmed by the outpouring of love for Lilly.  So this shout out is for Sonya R, Kelly L, Carole S, Dave P, Shanequia H, Kim G and Amber C who threw this amazing shower and for all the staff members who celebrated with us.  We cannot wait for you all to meet the newest bulldog! 

Here are a few pictures from the shower:

Nursery:

We did some organizing today and are in the process of trying to figure out what we still need.  We are so lucky that we already have a lot of what we need for Lilly, but it will be fun to go shopping with some of the gift cards we received and buy some of the really cute things that we want!  I will probably recruit some mamas to come over and help me figure out what we need because I am still “in training” after all.

Labor and Birth:

Nothing has changed with our plans to have a natural childbirth and I am finding more and more people who are very supportive of this choice.  Granted, I still get people who think it’s fun to tell me their childbirth horror stories (really mamas…not the best topic of conversation for someone who is 9 months pregnant). 

I have been reading a lot more about breast feeding and talking to people about it to try to prepare myself as much as possible.  I really appreciate all of the advice people have shared with me because I know that the best thing I can do at this point is just learn what worked for others and prepare myself for the challenge.  I still welcome any other advice people have!