weeks 35 & 36

Not a whole lot has changed in the past few weeks. I am just getting more and more uncomfortable, I am sweating like it's my job, I am not sleeping as great as I have been (that's probably an understatement), and I frequent the bathroom approximately every 30 seconds. No joke.

At the end of week 36- severe discomfort really set in. Last weekend in particular, I hit my breaking point. I was frustrated because nothing really fits anymore, there isn't a comfortable position to sit in or lay in, I go to the bathroom so often that getting anything done- even if it's sitting through dinner- takes forever and feels impossible. I am feeling better about it all now- even though the discomfort level hasn't changed at all. I guess I am just not crying about it today. I think the lack of sleep at night doesn't help matters, so usually the day after a decent nights sleep I feel much more optimistic.

We are getting very eager to meet this little guy! We have everything ready, my hospital bag is packed, everything is set up, so now all we need is him! Even though I am uncomfortable and we are anxious to meet our son, I am still trying to savor as much time as I can with Lee. Knowing that we won't have time like this again, where it is just the two of us, I am soaking up each minute as best I can.

Here are some bump pictures:

* side note: I seriously have the most thoughtful friends. I had mentioned briefly about not sleeping well and about how I was kicking myself for not investing in a pregnancy pillow sooner when I was texting with them last weekend. (I don't even fully remember mentioning it, to be honest. It was so vague and brief, I am not sure how they even picked up on it.) On Monday, which happened to be me and Lee's anniversary, when Lee got home from work he said he had a surprise for me from my friends. They had called a store in Charlotte and bought me a pregnancy pillow, and asked Lee if he could pick it up on his way home from work for me. Isn't that the sweetest?? I am so grateful! I have been sleeping much more comfortably- thanks to their thoughtfulness! I obviously had to try it out as soon as Lee gave it to me. :) 

love letter.

Dear baby G,

Today is mommy and daddy's third wedding anniversary. I wanted to take a minute and write to you about our love, for each other and for you. Three years ago we made a promise to love one another forever. To put each other first and to put God at the center of our marriage. I want to make that same promise to you. We promise you, that we will love each other and put our marriage first. We want you to see and feel the love that we have for one another. We want you to grow up knowing what love and marriage mean. We want you to see how putting God at the center of your life, and your marriage is essential. We want you to know that we take the commitment that we made to one another three years ago very seriously and it is important to us that we take the time we need to to invest in it. We promise that we will invest in our love for each other, because we know that our love for one another will help our family to grow in love too.

Not only do we promise to love each other, but we promise to love you. With our whole hearts. We promise to teach you about our Heavenly Father's love. We promise to help you grow into a strong man of God- a man full of Godly character. We promise to pray for you, every single day. We promise to teach you how to pray and we promise to pray with you. We promise to read the Bible with you and teach you from His Word. We promise to nurture your learning, answering all your questions the best we can. We promise to support you in all that you want to achieve. We promise to encourage you to be the best that you can be- in anything and everything; school, sports, music, etc. Anything that you set out to do, we will guide you and instruct you, and we will be there to cheer you on. We promise to be examples to you of how to have compassion and show kindness to others. We promise to hug you and tell you that we love you every single day, sometimes multiple times throughout the day. Even if you're 14 and don't want to hear it. We promise to say it anyways. We promise to love you sweet boy, forever and ever.

We are so excited to meet you. We thank the Lord every day for blessing us with you. You already illuminate our lives, we can't wait for all the adventures to come where you will continue to bring smiles to our faces and joy to our hearts.

We love you to the moon and back!

Love,
mommy and daddy

joy.

     "We are going to have a baby!"                         "I am going to be a mom!"

Those two thoughts cross my mind at least a million times in one day. Every single time I feel baby G move, I smile from ear to ear because I am reminded of the sweet miracle growing inside me. I literally sit and watch my stomach all day long. And if someone else is home, I shout and say "oh my word! you have to see this!" because it is so unreal watching him (especially since he is so big now) flip around inside of me. (I am going to miss that- seeing him and feeling him move around inside of me. I know that it will mean that I will get to see him and watch him move live, but I will still miss our intimate moments each day where it was just him and me, and I was his only audience member watching the shows that he put on.)

I am getting so eager to meet him. I can't wait to hold him, to see his perfect little features, to snuggle with him, to soothe him, to love him, to watch him grow and change, I can't wait for it all! I am so excited! If you asked me a month ago if I was ready, I would have said "I am ok if he stays in there a little while longer" because I didn't feel ready- and was a bit afraid of it all. (see how that has changed here) But now? I am 150% excited and ready and can't wait!! We have everything we need for him once he arrives. Everything is set up and ready to go- now all we need is our boy! Sometimes I will walk by his crib and turn his mobile on and just listen to the sweet lullaby and think how soon I will be turning it on to help him fall asleep. I get a little emotional when I do that.

In fact, I get emotional a lot. I know I am hormonal, but the joy that you feel while waiting for your child to be born- it's indescribable. Each step of the way it builds and builds, and now I feel like I am about to burst with joy. I love this little boy so much already!

It is overwhelming when I think about all the blessings in my life. The other day I was driving in the car and all of a sudden I was hit with "I am SO blessed!" I have such an amazing husband, who loves me and loves our little guy so much, and he shows it every single day. I have such an amazing support system around me- near and far. I serve a mighty God who is always there and always provides. And I have a miracle growing inside of me that I have dreamt about my entire life. I got super emotional, thanking the Lord for all of these blessings. Sometimes I can't believe He blessed me with such a wonderful life.

The amount of joy that I have in my heart- there isn't a term to describe just how big it is. The best I can come up with is that it is overflowing. I can not wait for this baby to arrive- I am sure once he's here, my heart will literally explode with love and joy.

peace.

A few posts ago I mentioned how scared I was feeling for the whole labor/delivery part of this whole experience. Because if you think about it, it is scary. But the truth is- I was actually really afraid of it all. Labor/delivery is scary for obvious reasons. But raising a little life? Teaching him right from wrong in a world that can be so evil? Bring on the fear for this mom to be! Being a parent is such a huge responsibility, it is hard to even fully wrap my mind around it all. There are so many things that will come up that I won't feel prepared for, and won't feel like I am even qualified to handle. I remember reading a friend's blog a few years ago about teachable moments- knowing when it is the time to teach your kids a valuable lesson and when it is time to cut them some slack. I remember reading that post and realizing- there are SO many tough calls in parenting. Little things, big things, and everything else in between. Being the imperfect human that I am, I am not sure I am equipped to make those calls. I am bound to mess up. I am bound to fail.

But over the past few weeks, I have been filled with an immeasurable amount of peace. About every aspect of parenting, labor, and even life as Lee and I know it right now. I am at peace with it all. I feel so calm about the whole giving birth part. I know that I can do it- I AM strong enough and I know that I can handle it. I feel at peace with the responsibility of raising this little life, teaching him all the things that matter and are important. I am even at peace with the fact that I am going to fail, because I have confidence that even when I do fail, with the Lord's strength and guidance I will get back up and continue to give it everything I have. I feel at peace with where we are in our lives as precious baby G enters the world. I am at complete peace with it all. And I know with 100% certainty that all the prayers that we have felt and that we have prayed ourselves have given me that peace.

The peace that I am feeling reminds me of what a gracious and loving God we serve. One who cares about everything we have going on in our daily lives- no matter how insignificant things may seem. He cares. A God whose love is so great and mighty, that in times of fear and doubt, I can literally feel His arms of comfort and peace around me. I am so grateful that we serve such a mighty God, full of love, mercy, and compassion. Without Him, I wouldn't be able to do it. Without Him, I wouldn't have this peace. Without Him, I wouldn't be strong enough. Because He is my strength.

I want to add too, that I am beyond grateful for the support that I have received over the past few weeks. I am blessed with some amazing family members and friends who are beyond encouraging. The tearful text conversations, the frantic phone calls, the skype conversations, the facebook messages, and the encouraging bible verses sent in the mail-  all of which reassured me that I CAN do this.

We love you all!

3.5 more weeks! :)

baby shower.

I am so thankful for the friends that Lee and I have made since we moved here last July (almost exactly one year ago!). We feel so blessed to have met so many genuinely kind people that we have loved getting to know. Being so far away from family and friends I have known my whole life while being pregnant has been hard, but what has made it so much easier is all of our friends here in Charlotte. Their genuine excitement and joy for us means so much and we love sharing in it all with them.

A few of my friends threw us a baby shower last weekend. It was such a wonderful afternoon! It meant so much to just be together with friends, but to have them all share in our joy made it that much better. It was such a fun time, with great food, a fun onesie decorating activity, gifts, and cake. The afternoon was just so great and we are beyond grateful to those who put so much hard work into throwing the shower, and to those who celebrated with us.

I didn't take any pictures of the group (I am not sure why I didn't) but I do have a few of the amazing cake that my friend made and some of the onesies that were decorated for our sweet boy.

(Isn't that cake amazing? I thought it was from a bakery!)

(This was such a fun and practical activity- I love that our boy will have a personalized gift from each lady who made him one!)

Thank you again Charlotte friends, we love you all and can't wait for you to meet baby G!

maternity shoot

My cousin Kristi (who is a mom of FOUR and a photographer) offered to take our maternity photos for us. I was so thankful and I love how they turned out.

Here are a few from the shoot:

(I had taken my shoes off because I was too tall for one of the poses we did and then forgot to put them back on!)

Thanks again Kristi!

weeks 32, 33, & 34

Here is what has been going on around here the past few weeks:

- I am incredibly hot all the time. It is hot here (80's/90's) but I feel like I am always sweating. Even in an air conditioned place. Before getting pregnant, I was always cold. In the summer, I would always bring a sweater with me when we went places because I always got cold in air conditioned places, so this is all new to me. The less I am wearing, and the lower the air conditioning temperature, the better I feel. 

- I stopped working at 34 weeks. It was very bittersweet for me. I was getting more and more tired, and it was getting harder with the 1 year old I watched, picking him up/etc. but I grew so attached to the kids I watched/family I worked for, it was hard to leave. I know it means I am closer to meeting our son, but it was still really hard for me to drive away and not see those sweet faces every day. Thankfully, I know that I will continue to see the family and I know they will remain a part of our lives.

-I get so tired, so easily. After I take a shower, I feel like I just ran a marathon and need to lay down. I have heard from a couple other people that a pregnant woman's body at rest is working so hard, it would be equivalent to a non pregnant woman's body hiking a mountain. That makes me feel so much better at how tired I get doing the littlest things. 

- I often have a hard time breathing, mostly because he is getting so much bigger and is hitting my lungs. I hate that feeling though- like you can't breathe. 

- I am pretty sure I have been having Braxton Hicks contractions. It is hard for me to know if that's what they are since I haven't ever felt them before and don't know what to compare them to. But based on what I am told they are and will feel like- I have been having them fairly regularly. I don't experience any pain with them, they are just uncomfortable and sometimes take my breath away. 

- I make frequent trips to the bathroom, all day and all night long. I am up a minimum of three times a night, and I usually have to go every 30 minutes (or less) during the day. It makes getting tasks done a little more difficult. And it also makes sitting through a church service, almost impossible. Sometimes I feel like all I do all do is go to the bathroom. 

- We bought and put together his crib and dresser/changing table. I am super excited about that- it makes it all very real. 

- One thing I really miss, is going running. I didn't think I would miss it as badly as I do- but I really miss it. (Remind me I said this in a few weeks as I am laboring through the getting back into running phase.)

- He is moving SO much! He twists and turns and flips all around and I am in love with just sitting and watching him in action. I am really going to miss feeling it- I know it will be amazing to see him and watch him move around in person- but I will still miss feeling it inside. 

- He gets the hiccups at least 1-2 times a day. I feel so bad when he gets them. The first time I felt them, I was very concerned that something was wrong. Since it is like a consistent kick, I thought maybe he wanted to get out and wasn't comfortable in there any more. I was literally almost in tears, Lee was assuring me that he was very comfortable and didn't want to come out yet, when I realized "he has hiccups!" I felt so silly that I got so upset, and ever since that night he now gets them daily. 

Some bump pictures: 

(not sure why that one is so blurry!)