Yes I'm still pregnant

What a crazy week it's been.  I have a Doctor's appt today and I'm afraid to step on the scale.  Between Thanksgiving, Farrah's party, the leftovers from the party, and then a memorial service and reception yesterday with lots of food, I'm dreading that step on the scale.  I'm contemplating not even looking at the number.
Anyhoo, I'm officially 39 weeks and 1 day pregnant.  And I feel every minute of it and then some.  This past week has been pretty rough on me physically.  I was having lots of contractions last week but they were inconsistent and then they just went away.  Then I started getting shooting pains on the left side of my butt.  I believe it's from him sitting right on a nerve that causes the shooting pain.  The major swelling started this past weekend too.  My feet were so swollen last night that my ankle was actually wider than my foot.... hot, I know!  I woke up last night and my left hand had felt like it had fallen asleep.  It was tingling and quite frankly pretty painful.  I've been dealing with pregnancy related carpel tunnel for the past 6 weeks or so, but this took it to another level so I was actually a little nervous about it.  I can handle aches and pains, but I get worried about what it all means for my health or the health of the baby.  Luckily I have my Doctor's appt today so she can tell me like it is and help me stop worrying. 
So after all the griping, how about a Thanksgiving recap! :)
I lurrrvvveee me some Thanksgiving!  Fall is my favorite season and Thanksgiving is the most fall-icious day of the year in my opinion so I'm all about it.  This year we went to my parent's house like we've been doing for the past few years.  Farrah is the only kid in the family, so it's interesting trying to entertain her.  Luckily my kid is very food motivated so Thanksgiving is a good fit for her.  I made my pumpkin cake because it was requested by my aunts and then I tried a new corn side dish that was amazing!  Thank you pinterest!  Then my dad did most of the rest of the cooking.  Their kitchen is a little limited on work space and my dad gets easily stressed which never works out for the holidays so I offered up my house for Christmas this year.  It's a pretty good house for entertaining.  And quite frankly, I'd rather have it at my house this year than have to pack up all the newborn stuff and head to someone else's house.  So hopefully that works out. 
We also celebrated Farrah's birthday this weekend even though her actual birthday isn't until Dec. 3rd.  Didn't want to risk baby dos crashing her party.  It went really well but I'll hold off on details and pics until the next post.  I have more pictures to upload. 
I realized I hadn't taken any pictures the entire day on Thanksgiving so when we were about to leave, I forced my sister to attempt to take some pictures of us.  Farrah has been making picture taking difficult.  She makes ridiculous faces everytime. So the following sequence of pictures were our best attempt.  There were actually many more that were worse than this believe it or not.  And if you're wondering what that purple thing is on her head, it's her headband that she made that I can't seem to separate her from.  She loves that thing!  We get interesting stares from people probably wondering where I would buy such a thing. 

I hope you all had a wonderful day with your families!

38 weeks

38 weeks!  I never thought I'd see the day!  This pregnancy has been nothing like the first one, but as long as I get another healthy baby out of it, it was worth it!  This is a crazy week for us.  Of course we have Thanksgiving Thursday and then Sunday is Farrah's birthday party.  Her birthday isn't until Dec 3rd but I didn't think it was a good idea to wait because I might either be in labor, or have a newborn, and either way, I didn't want to deal with it.  So let's just keep our fingers crossed that this little guy can hold out until after Sunday so Farrah's party doesn't get disrupted.  She's so excited.  When trying to come up with an easy theme, I finally decided on purple.  She LOVES purple.  Like I've never seen a kid love a color so much for so long.  So far, this isn't a phase... knock on wood.  She's loved it since she was learning her colors back around 15 months.  Everything has to be purple.  So needless to say, she's excited about her purple party.  I however, hope I can deliver a halfway decent party.  I didn't think about the fact that shopping around Thanksgiving is a nightmare.  Grocery stores are crazy and everything else is going to be crazy after tomorrow too.  I'll brave the craft store today to see what I can find. 
Here's an update on the pregnancy:
38 weeks:

• How big is baby?
  Your baby's the size of a pumpkin!
  Baby is about 18.9 to 20.9 inches long and weighs about 6.2 to 9.2 pounds. His head is now about the same circumference as her abdomen.

• Total weight gain: about 30 lbs.  I lost a lb this week which I'm pretty stoked about because all throughout the pregnancy I wasn't gaining much and then these past 6 weeks I've been packing on the weight.  I was hoping to stay at about 30 lbs so I'm still holding out hope!
  

• Maternity clothes? When I leave the house yes, otherwise it's my husbands big shirts and sweatpants.

• Stretch marks? Still have the ones on my stomach and hips from last time, but it doesn't seem like there's any new ones thank God.  I think I already have my fair share. 

• Sleep: Turning over in the middle of the night quite a bit which is a chore itself.  Trying to flip this big belly over is no easy feat!  Plus I get up at least twice to pee.
  

• Best moment this week:  Having my husband home yesterday as well as Thursday, Saturday and Sunday coming up.  I can't remember the last time he had a Saturday off.  I'm clinging to every moment.
  

• Miss Anything? I'd like to have a glass of wine (or 2) tomorrow with my Thanksgiving feast so I'll say that's what I miss :) 

• Movement:He's run out of room so it's significantly less than his acrobatics from before but still feel him moving pretty often.  Always on my right side because apparently he's sideways and that's where his limbs are. 

• Food cravings: No real cravings... just general overeating :)

• Food aversions: Nothing really.  It all sounds good. 

• Gender: Still boy!

• Labor Signs: some contractions here and there but nothing significant.

• Symptoms: Back aches and I've got a major waddle going on.

• Belly Button in or out?  It's not really in or out, it's totally flat. 

• Wedding rings on or off? Off.  Darn!  Was hoping I could keep them on the whole time.

• Looking forward to:  Family time this week before the craziness of 2 kids begins. 

So that's it for now!  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  I'll be back with updates from the holiday and the birthday party.

"Those days"

Every mom knows what I'm talking about.  One minute, you're staring at your child in awe of what a miracle they are.... and then you have one of "those days."  One of those days in which you wonder how you got yourself into this mess.  Pregnancy is definitely different the second time around.  For the majority of this pregnancy, I would forget I was even pregnant.  I was so busy taking care of my toddler that it would only cross my mind a couple times a day.  But towards the end is when it really hits you.  I'm huge.  My body is feeling it.  But instead of resting like I could do last time around, I have a preschooler to take care of that still needs to be fed, bathed, played with and not made to feel like her new sibling is already taking all the fun out of mommy.  So needless to say, while I'm holding on to these few moments I have left as a mommy of 1, I'm looking forward to having my body back. 
This past weekend, I had one of "those days."  Well really, one of "those weekends."  Abe was working 2 back to back gigs which meant he was gone from early morning until about 2:30am both days so Miss Farrah was going to be solely my responsibility all weekend.  Sounds easy enough I mean, I am her mom right?  Sunday afternoon is when the efforts of the weekend started to make my body hate me.  And of course, in true kid fashion, my kid decided this would be the perfect time to act out like I've never seen before.  My normally non-bratty child became a full blown fan of the word "no" combined with a stink face.  Did not cooperate and instead of going to sleep like she normally would, decided to scream her face off, and then when I went to check on her after a while, bolted out of her room and into my bed.  I finally caved after 2 hours of this back and forth, not to mention 2 hours of me crying out of frustration and exhaustion, and put her in our bed and went to sleep with her. 
It's these days that make me question what's to come with 2 kids.  If I have days like this with 1, what are my days going to be like with 2?  I wish I had the answer, but I guess I won't know until I'm faced with it.  Until then I'm comforted by the days that are much more common around here.  The ones where yes, I'm exhausted at the end of the day, but still have a smile on my face.  The ones where she tells me she loves me and that I'm her best friend.  The small bits of appreciation and cooperation are all it takes to recharge my batteries. 
Here's a glimpse into that weekend:

Yep.... that's her finding a bottle of my lotion and squeezing it all over.  I probably should have stopped her instead of taking a picture but I needed some type of evidence for my gripe session with her daddy when the weekend was over ;)  Mommies of 2+, tell me it's not as bad as I'm imagining it's going to be.

Only a week late

 Happy Belated Halloween!  So much has happened this week I don't know where to begin.  Let's start with last Tuesday.  I had another ultrasound because my doctor wanted to see one last time if the placenta had moved out of the way before the scheduled the c-section and wouldn't you know it, that dang placenta finally moved out of the way.  Nothing like waiting until the last minute.  So the good news is, I'm officially in the clear and off bedrest.  I can finish the rest of my pregnancy as usual and have a natural delivery whenever he decides to make his appearance instead of a c section next week.  We were all shocked, even my doctor.  So I'm back to business as usual.  It took me a few days to get used to being up and moving around.  That first day when I had Farrah and we went to run a few errands was such a shock to my body I had to lay down the rest of the day.  I guess I overdid it that first day :)  But I was so excited to go to the grocery store, target, and just be a normal mom with my girl.  Things you take for granted.
So the next day was Halloween and I was so excited that I was now able to attend her preschool costume parade and go trick or treating with her.  In true Farrah style, she wanted to be Ariel.  She loves her some little mermaid.  She was excited when we first got there, but then when the parents left to line up on the street she got upset that we were leaving and started crying, hence all the pictures of her looking sad in her costume.  It was our first time actually taking her trick-or-treating and we didn't want her on sugar overload so we just took her to a few houses in our neighborhood of people we knew.  She thought it was the coolest thing that you could knock on someone's door and they will give you candy.  She didn't quite understand it's only on Halloween and has been asking to go trick or treating again.  She inherited my sweet tooth.

On Sunday my friends threw me a surprise "non-shower."  I gave specific instructions that I didn't want a shower this time because it's my second time around and I already have everything we need.  We got everything in gender-neutral colors last time for this reason.  But there was a knock on the door Sunday afternoon and I, in my huge fat pants and shirt opened the door to find 10+ of my closest friends yelling "Surprise!"  Needless to say, I was surprised and embarrassed at my appearance.  But if I'm keeping it real, all of these close friends have seen me looking like that and worse many times.  So I scurried upstairs to change and came back down to hang out with everyone.  We got some adorable little boy clothes and boy accessories.  We are going to have one well-fitted little man.  I just love little boy clothes.  I'm glad it wasn't a traditional shower, and I'm glad I still had a chance to see all my friends before he arrives. 
That's all I'll share for now.  Hoping to have more time to post this week.  Lots more on my mind.