C'mon Bean, I'm ready for You!

Patience. I lack it.

On Friday, I will officially clock in at 37 weeks pregnant! Ding! Ding! Ding! That means baby Jack would not be considered premature if I had him any point after! That being said, bring on the bean!

I have baby on the brain, and that's about it. I find myself hoping each day will go quickly, because that means I'm one day closer to meeting this little guy. Do you realize how long that makes the work week feel? Today I thought it was Friday at one point... it's Wednesday. When I'm not at work, I just want to work on baby Jack's nursery, or clean (that's definitely me nesting because Lord knows, I'm not a neat freak, haha!). I hate feeling like this. I keep trying to remind myself that I need to enjoy some quality time with Aaron while it's just the two of us because those moments will be few and far between when the baby arrives. I just can't help all the butterflies I keep getting!

Have I mentioned that I have the best husband ever? The past few weeks have been tough because he's going back to school for his MBA, but he made up for it 10 fold this weekend alone. Before I even woke up Saturday morning, he already got the oil changed in my car and was going grocery shopping for me. Yes, he was GROCERY SHOPPING! He LOATHES tackling my 2 week grocery lists alone (I can't blame him, I hate tackling them alone too). Then, when he got back we both worked on painting. He tackled kitchen cabinets, and I started on the ceiling in the baby's room. We soon realized that I'm not good at painting the ceiling... so he took over, and I worked on baby shower thank-you notes. Aaron also knows I've been getting increasingly uncomfortable, so he takes it upon himself to give this sore mama a back massage. Anywho, brag session over, but I seriously don't know what I'd do without him. He's going to be such an amazing dad.

My aunt and uncle were also a huge help this weekend. They loaded up their van with all my baby shower goodies and drove it from St. Louis to our house just for the weekend. My aunt single=handedly organized all our mudroom (which was filled to the brim with baby goodies), and ran stuff either down a flight of stairs to the basement, or up a flight of stairs to the nursery... what a workout! We girls had to have some fun though, so we did a little shopping! I pretty much have refused to by any clothes for the bean since everyone else has done such a good job of that for me, but I caved when I saw a hilarious onsie at Babies R Us. It took everything I had not to buy the whole darn wall of clothes, including a ridiculously cute leather jacket (it was $36...babies just don't wear stuff long enough to make that price tag justifiable)!

Baby Jack will look like such a gentleman in his new onsie!

Next up on my to-do list... pack my hospital bag! Maybe that will encourage him to hurry up and get here, haha! But seriously, any suggestions of what to pack? I want to make the whole hospital thing as simple, yet comfortable, as possible.

Also, check out this story Eyewitness News did on the "Polar Vortex" baby boom. It's so true! I have a half dozen friends popping out children around the same time as I'm scheduled to!

Ready to Launch!

He's head down, folks!

The exercises my doctor told me to do to turn my breech baby around... worked! He told me last week that he felt like the baby had rotated, but today we got the proof thanks to an ultra sound. You know what that means? This girl's c-section has been canceled! Whew hoo! I'd do anything to have my baby come out safe and sound, but I'm rather glad that I don't have to dread surgery.

My appointment today was filled with fun facts! Baby bean now weighs a whopping 5 pounds 10 ounces, which puts him on track to weigh 7 pounds 10 ounces at birth (if he makes it the full 40 weeks). If you recall, my due date is September 5, but my doctor is predicting he comes on Labor Day... how appropriate, yes? haha! So far my doctor is 2 for 2 on his guesses (first guess was that the baby was a boy, second guess was that he had his head down), so I'm assuming he'll be right on this one too. The baby is sitting low, and I can tell! It feels like he's going to fall out sometimes when I get up out of my chair or when I'm walking around. I told this to my doctor and he said that would certainly be a first, haha! I'm so thankful my appointment went well today! God is looking out of my little family.

My goal this weekend is to finish painting Jack's room and get it organized. Neither of these tasks will be easy, but they both need to get done. Then, I'll just sit back and wait for this little guy to make his great escape. I'm so ready to meet him! I know he needs to cook longer, but I wouldn't be upset if he came early as long as I'm all organized and his room is ready, haha! Maybe I'm being selfish, but I'm ready to get my body back. It's amazing how the human body can grow another, but it also isn't the most comfortable thing in the world. Thank God I have a good husband who doesn't mind giving me a back massage, and co workers who aren't too weirded out by me producing a newscast standing on my knees to give my ribs a break, haha!

I'm officially 36 weeks which means the countdown is on. Moms and dads out there, what one thing would you make a priority before the baby arrives? Relaxation? Organization? Share your thoughts!

Showered With Love Part 2: Busy and Blessed

Two showers in two days = one tired mama!

My gorgeous shower cake!

Aaron and I hit the road this weekend for food, fun and lots of family! And what kind of adventure would it be if we didn't encounter at least one snag? Well at least it came early in the trip so we got it over with quickly. Bright and early Friday morning, Aaron and I grabbed our suitcases, packed up the car and pointed it south (ish) to Missouri, but we didn't get too far. We recently had the transmission replaced in our car (that's a whole other story), but to make a long story short, it started acting up again. We turned the car around, dropped it off at the shop and once again, hit the road. Sadly, that little excursion cost us a good 3 hours out of our lives we'll never get back, not to mention it tacked on extra time in the car that this mom-to-be was less than thrilled about (those seats are not meant for tall, pregnant women). Oh well, the transmission is covered under a warranty, and after our detour, we still made it to Aaron's family's house by about 6:30 Friday night. 

Aaron's middle brother started the weekend of baby parties off with one all the men out there can appreciate: a diaper party at a bar on a Friday night. Booze and babies? Who says they can't be combined... haha! His friends donated diapers of all brands and sizes, along with some wipes and dreft detergent. Not too shabby considering most of the party goers were dudes in their twenties. 

Saturday marked round one of the official celebrations for the bean. This party came complete with Aaron's grandma's AMAZING cooking! Can you say homemade Mexican food? What more does one need?!?! Aaron and I made out like a bandit! We got several things off our registry and his great aunt sewed us a whole box of homemade goodies! There's nothing better than crocheted baby blankets and soft flannel burp rags (among tons of other homemade stuff)! Aaron's mom planned out the party and didn't skimp on the details, like delicious bakery cupcakes and cute decorations. I'm so thankful I have great in-laws to party with and I know they can't wait to meet baby Jack.

Aaron and I hopped in the car and made the 1.5 hour trek to my hometown Saturday night so we could hang out with my family ahead of shower #2 on Sunday. When we woke up, right away the gift opening began! From cute clothes, to a diaper bag stuffed with everything a new mom needs, to a soft quilt with family connections, they spared no time spoiling the bean before his shower! And as far as the shower goes, no words can describe how truly epic it was. It was a Cardinals' fan's paradise! Cracker "Jack" and peanut party favors, baseball decorations, this shower had it all! My aunt planned out the party and I have to say, I'm pretty sure she should make a living out of work like that. My entire family made it out, some of whom I haven't seen in a couple years. Again, Aaron and I raked in the goodies, but I have to say, the best part was really just seeing everyone. 

My mom, AKA "Glam-ma" and I at the shower!

Thankfully, my aunt and uncle like us enough to see us again this coming weekend. They're bringing up all the goodies we couldn't fit in our car (most of which didn't fit). I can't wait to dig into everything and get it organized!

In the meantime, I have an ultra sound this week to see if baby bean has finally rotated himself in the proper position. I stick by my gut feeling that he's gonna come early. Did anyone else have nausea and side paints in the last trimester? I was lucky enough to bypass morning sickness early on but I feel like it's been catching up with me recently. I'm also tired 24/7. 

That being said, my eyes are rolling into the back of my head as I finish up this post. I'll leave you all with one more question: what was the shower gift you received that you found to be something you couldn't live with out? 

Showered With Love: Part 1

A "Jaxx" for Jack! 

Wow, what a weekend! I was lucky enough to have a few days off, and boy did I need it! I'm pretty sure the whole "nesting" instinct is setting in because at 12:45 Thursday morning, I painted the baby's room! I blared some music (the husband was out of town for work otherwise that would've never happened, haha), grabbed the roller, and went to town! Slowly but surely, I'm making progress on that room!

I got to show off my hard work to my sister, who showed up Thursday morning as I was finishing up the second coat of paint. She came to visit for a few days and let's just say, we can shop 'til we drop. For example, the two of us managed to spend a whopping 2.5 hours at an antique mall in South Beloit! Are we nerds? Yes. Did we drop a few bucks on behalf of the bean? You know it.

The productivity just kept going! Aaron and I met with the man who will be baby Jack's pediatrician! After hounding my coworkers, friends and even a city official for recommendations, we opted to go with Dr. Baptist in Rockford. I already couldn't be more pleased. He immediately put our new-parent nerves at ease and gave us a few bits of advice. One piece that stuck out was for us to forgo reading the child-rearing books. Instead, he gave us a pamphlet about the size of a church bulletin of do's and don'ts... and strangely enough, I feel satisfied with that (also because he said to never hesitate to call with a question, haha!). I think it's easy to get caught up in all the different opinions offered in online articles and books, and to feel very overwhelmed. As a journalist, I tend to seek out as much information as possible, but even I know that too much can be more of a headache than a help. Plus, as long as there have been babies, there have been moms... and I know that I'm going to be calling mine A LOT at first, haha!

Definitely the best part of my weekend came on Saturday. A couple co-workers organized a baby shower/get-together for Aaron and I, and wow what a celebration that was! I've always felt close to my coworkers, but never have I felt more loved by them. From my partner in crime, Nick Toma, to Ms. Mimi Murphy and her gorgeous family, to my boss, and everyone in between, we had an apartment filled with folks celebrating my kiddo! They showered Aaron and I with diapers, wipes, toys and much more!

Plus, there was delicious food, and as a preggo, that's always top priority!

Mimi concocted these delicious "hamburger" cookies!

One thing I did learn from this baby shower: we all need to keep our day jobs. A group of us went out to play a game of sand volleyball, and let's be honest, it was an embarrassing sight. None of our moves were legitimate. As long as someone hit it, we didn't care how the ball made it over the net. One ball that didn't make it over though came courtesy of my husband. He thought it'd be a good idea to try to overhand serve (when he's never done it) and he beaned Mimi right in the face! Good thing she doesn't need her face to look good for her job... oh wait... haha! Nah, she was okay, and we about laughed 'til we were in tears. As for my husband? I'm pretty sure he was mortified! It seriously looked like a scene out of "Meet the Parents", haha!

God has truly blessed me with great friends. I can't wait for all of them to be a part of my son's life once he gets here. Jack is going to have so many excellent aunts and uncles at WTVO/WQRF!

You might notice that this post is labeled "Part 1." That's because next weekend the festivities in honor of Bean kick into full gear, again! Aaron and I will head home to good ole Missouri for a shindig with his family and shower with mine! This week is going to crawl by because I'm so darn excited!

Alright, for now, I'm going to take a Tums (something I keep near me at all times these days), and hit the hay. See y'all on the tube!

That Can't Be Comfortable...

Last Friday, Aaron and I got to see what our little guy looks like up on the big screen - the ultra sound! It never ceases to amaze me how much he changes! I now have the pictures from my eight week ultra sound (when he really was a bean... sized that is, haha), my 21 week, and now, my 33 week. It's incredible the growth when you lay them all out next to each other! Anyways, with how this baby boy has been moving, I was definitely curious to see how he was positioned, and let's be honest... it was weird!

Baby Jack's little face!

As the tech skimmed over my belly with the ultra sound stick (I don't really know what it's called, but it looks like a stick), the first thing that was obvious was that this kid is still breech. He was breech during my 21 week ultra sound too. Clearly, he hasn't gotten the memo yet to flip over! But what was more odd? His feet were up by his head! That just can't be comfortable! Aaron and I got a pretty good laugh out of the image. Our baby is already strange like his mom and dad, haha! The ultra sound tech said if he stays in this strange position through the rest of my pregnancy and is delivered like that too, that for a while outside the womb, he'll continue to throw his legs up to his head! She said those were always the funny babies to look at in the nursery! It makes sense, and it's an absolutely a hilarious picture to imagine. I honestly doubt my little bean will stay in that position though, you all should see the way he moves! My stomach lurches side to side all day long! Even Nick Toma has witnessed it during our 9pm show! The baby seems especially active during the newscast and I can only assume that's because he wants to show off to the viewers; a ham just like his mama, haha!

In all seriousness though, I now have a c-section scheduled because baby Jack is still breech. It's not set in stone though. My doctor gave me some exercises to try and encourage him to flip around. I also have earned another two ultra sounds running right up to the due date. If he rotates, then I won't need the c-section, but my doctor wanted to play it safe and get it on the books because he says it's easier to cancel it than schedule it too far down the road. I fully trust my doctor and I know he's not just suggesting a c-section for the heck of it. He admitted that often times when babies are breech in first-time moms, there's a reason for it (as in maybe my body just isn't built to deliver naturally). He also said that trying to deliver a breech baby naturally can be extremely dangerous. So as much as I want to give birth "the normal way", as long as Jack comes out healthy, I don't mind being cut open. Whatever will be, will be.

In the meantime, I've gone into nesting mode. I've been working hard on the bean's nursery during my days off, and I've managed to wash all his little clothes in dreft (a lot of his clothes my mom and mother-in-law picked up from garage sales or are hand-me-downs from my cousin's kiddo). Let's be real here, washing baby clothes is the happiest I've ever been doing laundry... though I'm sure that will change once he's here and actually dirtying them up with bodily fluids. My sister is coming into town this week so I'm planning on getting crafty when it comes to decorations for his room. That's right, all those well-intentioned pins from Pinterest will finally be put to good use! Does anyone have good organization tips for a small nursery? I'm not the greatest at organizing and I want to set up Jack's room as practically as possible.

Well that's all for now, this mama is exhausted! I can't believe how terribly I sleep now that I have a bigger baby in my belly. Between my back or stomach hurting, getting up to use the restroom, or walking out a charlie horse, I wake up almost as tired as when I climbed in bed! But I do love waking up and feeling the little guy move around in there. I can't wait to meet him!

"Birth and You"... Say What?!

My husband and I took a birth class this weekend at SwedishAmerican Hospital, and wow what a class it was! It was taught by Cindy Boyle, a nurse with nearly two decades of experience in both hospitals and doctor's offices, including mine. What a patient soul she is. Not only was the class an all day affair (as in 9-5!), but she was teaching 9 scared-out-of-their-minds couples, including Aaron and I (more so me than Aaron, I think). I wish I could say after taking the class that I feel better, but while I feel extremely well informed, I kind of now feel a bit overwhelmed.

Let me start off by giving you all a little bit of background on my own pregnancy story. Aaron and I were blessed to find out about our little bundle of joy way back in January. I'll be honest, the baby was a surprise, but certainly a welcome one. Nothing was more exciting than going to our 8 week ultra sound and seeing the little bean-sized being, forming inside me. Ever since our doctor compared the baby to the size of a lima bean, the baby has affectionately been dubbed, "the bean"! I'll never forget shouting in the room that day that "I'm not crazy! I really am pregnant!" because three positive pregnancy tests just didn't have me convinced, haha! Fast forward to 21 weeks and we found out our little bean is boy! My husband and I have decided we like the name Jack, so Jack he shall be (or in my grandma's case, he'll be "little Jack bean", haha!).I'm now a whopping 32 weeks pregnant! I've loved almost every minute of my pregnancy. I've been blessed to have a relatively easy experience with virtually no morning sickness and no complications. I'm just hungry and tired all the time (not a good thing when your newscast is the last thing you do in a day!).

Okay, back to birth class!

The class started off with a bit of a female anatomy lesson. Man, they don't teach you this stuff in high school health 101! I learned so much about the beauty of the human body and what it's capable of. I also learned about all the weird stuff that comes along with pregnancy, and those first signs of labor. I feel like in pregnancy you know what to expect as you go along trimester by trimester, but I simply can't wrap my brain around this baby leaving my body, and it's method of doing so. Whatever happened to the stork?! There's so much to think about just in the labor process alone: do I want pain medicine? If so, do I want a narcotic or epidural? do I want to just grin and bear it since the latter two options can often make the labor process go slower (which I learned in my birth class, who knew?!)? My instructor was very fair while explaining all the options, not giving her opinion, just the facts of each method. She also gave great pain management advice, including the goofy breathing techniques. Honestly, I'm not sure what I want to do. I think I want to hold off taking any pain drugs for as long as possible, but I'm also not a martyr to pain. So ladies, let's be real here, how miserable were you if you opted out of the pain med department? And if you chose to go with an epidural, did it slow things down to a glacial pace? I know everyone is different, but hearing what worked best for other people brings me comfort for some reason.

Later on, we got to tour the labor and delivery wing at the hospital which was awesome. I liked seeing where I'll be holed up for hours on end. I was also impressed with all the amenities they provide like the bathtub with jets and the exercise ball. Clearly we modern mamas have it good! Did you know Swedes delivered about 2500 babies last year? That's more than any other hospital in town! I promise that's not me plugging them because I've been told to, I was just honestly impressed by that statistic! But with that stat comes the reality of many hustling and bustling nurses and doctors barreling down the hallways. I'm a rather modest person (and listen, I know that goes out the window during the labor process), but did anyone out there feel like their privacy was ever being interrupted without just cause?

At the end of the class, the 18 of us got a quick video on a few child-rearing basics. They included bathing, diapering, and sleeping. It's that section that left me feeling the most overwhelmed. I quickly realized how little I know about what to do with such a tiny little human! Diapering? Well I've changed a few... when I was a 13 year old babysitting in my church nursery! Bathing? Nope, never bathed a baby... but I imagine newborns don't like it. And does anyone else feel like the whole "baby sleeps on tummy vs. baby sleeps on back" is a lose-lose situation? In theory, they could die in either position! That's terrifying! And don't worry, I'll be going with the recommended baby-on-back method since that's what's popular with docs right now, but i'm just saying, not long ago and the other position was recommended.

Overall, I feel like I learned a lot, but I also feel like there's not enough time in the day to learn all I need to learn before birthing this baby boy.

This is my first blog posting and I'd love feedback on it and all those I post in the future. I know I won't see eye to eye with everyone all the time, that's the beauty of being different, I just ask that everyone remains respectful in their posts and comments.