Issues

Okay...I'm ready to have a baby now! Hehe, if only it were that easy. I would have to say that so far my pregnancy has been fairly easy, up until this week. I have now become so uncomfortable poor Tom is probably getting really tired of hearing my constant complaining. Oh well. Only six days left if Bear is on time. I really can't over emphasize how slow the time is going now. Most of our days are filled with movies, books, and strange conversations seeing as even venturing outside is hard due to the extremely icy roads and sidewalks. I just love Michigan winters.

As you may have noticed, the template for my blog has changed several times within the last few days. I have tired to use several different layouts created by independent people but each one has had its share of bugs. Being rather inept when it comes to computers I didn't have the patience to figure out the what the problems were and reverted back to one of Bloggers basic templates. Unfortunately I really can't stand the way it looks now so it will probably change several more times before too long.

Merry Christmas

*Sigh* Well this was probably the quietest Christmas I have ever had. Being only 10 days away from our due date, we weren't allowed to go anywhere. We did make a really good dinner and I made my first cheese cake...yay. While shopping for the ingredients for this Christmas dinner I became thoroughly disgusted with my fellow Central Michiganers and the whole "holiday" season in general. It took me nearly two hours to complete picking up the items on a relatively small list at our local Meijer. Every isle of the store was packed with angry people who were fighting over the last one of "this" or the missing "that". We've also been watching a lot of TV lately due to the lack of anything else to do in East Lansing during Christmas. This depressed me even more. For the last week we have been bombarded by commercials counting down the number of shopping days until Christmas. And then the day after Christmas it's all about the after Christmas sales...spend, spend, spend. ahh! Even if you aren't a religious person the holiday season should mean something more than this...it's just depressing. For two people who can't be with our families this Christmas, the season has taken on a whole new meaning.

We had another appointment today and everything is still going really well. Bear's heart rate has slowed down and he's still in the right position. Now if we could only get him moving...10 days to go and counting. I think we have decided on Connor Elijah Nance. We have been working on this name forever and this one has finally stuck. We have also decided to take Spring semester off and come home for awhile so we can spend time learning how to be parents and let everybody else meet the baby. It looks like I will be flying back with the baby in early February and Tom and one of his friends will be driving the car back shortly after. It will be so nice to be back in the Northwest!

Almost there...

Ugh! Two weeks and five days to go and boy am I feeling it! Everything seems to hurt and itch at the same time. It's all worth it though. Every time he moves I'm reminded of how awesome this whole process is. Pregnancy and delivery aren't miracles in themselves, but the entirely new individual that is produced from the process sure is. Even though he hasn't made an appearance yet, he obviously has his own personality and likes and dislikes. I can already tell he loves to hear music. Whenever he's moving around like mad all I have to do is sing to him and he gets really still. After which he usually ends up with the hiccups. I can't wait to meet him!

We had a doctor's appointment today and everything is still going great. He's still in the right position for delivery and has a really strong heartbeat. We also toured the birthing center where the delivery will take place. I've never been excited about delivering in a hospital but the rooms are really nice and they seem to be committed to providing a mother centered experience. Too many hospitals and obstetricians still prescribe to the view that women need to be rescued from the labor process. This usually results in a lot of medication and superfluous procedures. The way I see it is that women have been doing this for...well...forever. So why mess up such a natural process if not absolutely necessary. We'll see though. I could be like one of those women from the movies who are screaming for an epidural two minutes into labor. =)

Busy, busy, busy

Wow! Life has been moving at an incredible pace these last few weeks. Can you believe it....we have exactly four weeks to go until the due date! In one week he will be considered full term so the doctor told me to start expecting him sometime next week all the way through January. I am so not patient enough for this! I'm seeing the doctor now every week and the bear seems to be doing just great. He's already in the right position and is gaining weight every day! Or maybe that's just me. =) Anyway, he still moves quite a bit although I think the dancing and kickboxing is over for now due to lack of room, thank goodness!

Our trip down to Mississippi for Thanksgiving went really well. Mississippi is actually really beautiful at this time of year. The day we drove down there it was 80 degrees and I was thinking that it was really weird to be having this kind of weather for Thanksgiving. The next day, however, we woke up and it was a beautiful clear 40 degree day. Now that's Thanksgiving. Another new Thanksgiving experience we had was having collard greens with dinner. These took me by surprise. Dinner, however, was wonderful and we had a lot of fun spending time with Tom's family. I was so glad we were able to make the trip down there. The entire ride home I sat in the back seat with my feet up asking Tom a bunch of really stupid questions to keep him awake.

School is finally almost over! I only have a take home test to finish and an impossible statistics paper to write. I'm so close to being done I can almost taste it! Overall, however, the semester was actually a pretty good one. I enjoyed most of the classes and met a whole bunch of really great people. I'm even getting excited about continuing in the field of forensic anthropology and starting my Master's research. Who knows though, I may yet end up back in medicine again. I just have too many interests. =)

Well happy holidays everybody. After I finish my last paper I will be able to write more often and keep everybody informed on how the baby is progressing. We're almost there!