la nostra bella vita: car rides are not for preggos

we made our last long road trip this past weekend to frisco where my sister and her family live. my parents drove in from waxahachie friday night and we had a nice cook out at amber's house. it was so nice to all be together and to visit with mom dad, amber dustin and precious skyler. i have to say that i have hands down, THE cutest nephew in the entire world. he is suuuch a beautiful baby. on top of him being so darn cute he is also so well behaved. this kid wakes up and falls asleep smiling and laughing, literally. ohhh he just melts my heart. it makes it hard to imagine loving my own little baby more when i meet her soon. i love her so much already, but i can only imagine the way she is going to flip my world around as soon as i lay eyes on her. same goes for her daddy! we are just so excited. the trip was wonderful and we had such a great time, despite the horrendous car ride! i just don't think women that are 34 weeks pregnant are supposed to sit in a car that long :)

this week has been tough. my lower back aches. my uterus is tightening and cramping with braxton hicks contractions, i'm sleeping very little and light and i am so busy with work. emotionally it is all trying to catch up with me. but i am still holding pretty strong...i think so anyhow :)

matt and i finished our childbirth class on tuesday. we had a little graduation ceremony and our amazing teacher, bobbielynn, even printed us a diploma - so cute! we really are so glad we went to this class. our teacher was incredible and we learned so much about the natural process of birth. i am encouraged and empowered with the knowledge i gained in class and from LOTS of reading i have done in my own time. i know matt feels more comfortable too having watched videos and talked through many different scenarios. i am sure knowing that i am a type A super planning nutcase makes him feel very good too :) speaking of plans...we presented our birth plan to my doctor last week. she was actually more supportive than we anticipated and only had a few points she wanted further clarification on or to discuss options of flexibility. all in all we were both relieved and happy with the discussion and the reaction we received. tonight i packed our hospital bag and this weekend we will put the carseat into the 4 runner...talk about "making it real!" i am sooo excited.

next wednesday we start our "weekly appointments" until this little stinker arrives. i am going to go ahead and have them check me for dilation at that point as just in the past couple of days i have started to feel like she is going to fall out of me. if you have been pregnant, you likely know that feeling. i think she must have dropped sometime this past weekend. you can sort of tell even just in the pictures of my belly. i will be 35 weeks on saturday. at the appointment on wednesday we will also have our FINAL U/S. one last time to see our baby angel dancing on the big screen before she is safe in our arms. i am hoping they will give us a "guesstimate" on her size/weight at that time too. it is all happening so fast.

i started reading an amazing book - "bringing up Girls" by James Dobson - it is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. if you are a parent of children at ANY age i would recommend picking up a copy of this or "bringing up Boys" or both! i could blog for days about just the first couple of chapters. but i will not ruin it for you and instead just tell you it is a MUST READ. i am loving it. matthew is definitely going to read it when i am done. it has opened my eyes even more to the incredible responsibility we have as parents to nurture, protect, discipline, teach and above all LOVE our children. what an honor to be chosen by God to provide all this for one of his precious children. i am so touched when i think of how truly special the times ahead of us are...

oh and a couple of preggo facts...

i gained 1 more lb at my last appt. i think that puts me at a whopping 26lbs!
baby is kicking, and rolling all over the place. you can see her from across the room when she really gets going :)
i married an incredible man. he is loving, godly, wise and i adore him. i cherish these times we have together as "two"
my family is amazing. i miss them dearly and live much too far away from them
did i mention my nephew is the most adorable little boy EVER?

34 weeks with baby pea and precious Skybear