FULL TERM! 24 Days and Counting...

Since I'm waiting for Ed to get home from work (he's working late tonight) and for our frozen pizza to cook, I decided that now is a good time to catch you all up on our last week.

Friday night, we went to the Cheesecake Factory to have a nice dinner and YUMMY cheesecake in honor of the fact that we've been together for ten years now. (What a great way to celebrate such a milestone this year - with a beautiful baby girl!) As always, the food was good and the dessert was even better.

Saturday, I was able to attend prenatal yoga for the first time in at least a month. It was really nice to be back, however, I'm definitely not as capable of getting into the positions as I used to be. It was emotionally hard for me, to be honest. I've been completely accepting of the fact that I can't be in dance right now, but I was not expecting to have any problems in yoga at all... and that was clearly not the case. Despite this though, I find it very comforting to be in that environment with other pregnant women, sharing this special time with me. I can't go back this weekend b/c Ed and I have our monthly (probably my last appointment before the baby comes) chiropractic appointment on Saturday instead; but I'm looking forward to being back in class next week.

After yoga, Ed and I went on a marathon shopping spree for picture frames, bed linens, and window treatments. (The nesting instinct isn't just affecting my need to have the nursery ready, but also my desire to have the rest of the house looking like adults actually live here.) It took HOURS, and we were both exhausted by the end of the night.

Sunday was a fun day for us. We had our last baby shower, thrown for us by the "Grand Aunts": Aunt Kimberlee, Elizabeth, and Cindy. It was really nice celebrating Baby Girl's impending arrival with the rest of the Reagins. They did such a good job on everything: the food, the invites, the decorations. We really appreciate all the work they put into hosting this special day for us. Unfortunately, we ended up leaving with only one photo from the entire event, so we don't really have anything to put on the blog from it. Maybe once the Aunts share some of their photos with us, we can post a couple...

Ed and I also really appreciated the thoughtful gifts the family honored us with that day. Malinda (Ed's Stepmom) made us a beautiful scrapbook that I'm sure took a great deal of time to make. Aunt Elizabeth also crocheted a lovely little blanket for our little girl that we can't wait to wrap her up in. We will gratefully use every gift each person was nice enough to purchase for us.

While I don't really want to get into it... Sunday night was not as fun. The long story short is that we realized almost every single component of the window treatments were wrong in one way or another, so we couldn't hang anything, AND we have to exchange almost everything. (The same is true for the picture frames we bought as well!)

Here's the good news though: I had my weekly check-up on Monday and DIDN'T GAIN A SINGLE POUND! YAY!!!!!!!!

Everything is still right on track. Ed is officially attending all these appointments with me now, just in case. We go back again on Tuesday. By the way, my calendar message today talked about how 85% of babies are born within 2 weeks of their due dates, either before or after. That means that our girl could come as soon as Saturday the 7th. That's barely over a week from now! (Don't get me wrong though, I'm not expecting that to happen - if baby girl is anything like her mama, she'll be late!)

Anyhow, it's time to eat now. I hope this long entry has fulfilled your quest for baby updates this week. If anything else comes up, we'll definitely post again. By the way, we completed our last baby class on Monday night (the breastfeeding one). So all we have to do now is read, read, read and purchase a couple of registry items... and WAIT.

We'll keep you posted... have a great rest of the week!
Katie

FIVE Pounds

To Whom It May Concern:

I gained FIVE pounds between February 4th and today. I should have gained no more than two pounds. Granted, I only gained one pound in the two weeks prior to this period, so we are technically only talking about two extra pounds total. But still... two times as much is not good.

I had to see a doctor at my practice today. (My midwife was out with a sick child, so this was my first time ever seeing one of the physicians in the three years I've been going there.) When we chatted about said five pounds, he asked me how tall I am. He then promptly, but gently, warned me to watch my portions because 'we don't want a 5'2" person having a 9 lb baby.'

Enough said. I couldn't agree with him more.

The baby and I are now mourning the loss of our dear friends, ice cream and sweet tea.

Just thought I'd share.

Love, Katie

Only 5 Weeks Left!

Hey, Everyone! Happy day after Valentine's Day. I hope you all had a good one. Ed and I spent most of the day laying around and doing absolutely nothing. It was wonderful! We did manage to pull ourselves together last night though and go to Rock Bottom Brewery (obviously, the only tasty beverage I enjoyed was a sweet tea!). We both love their Hazelnut Crusted Chicken, so it was a really yummy meal. We each received a Valentine from Baby Reagin and I think it's safe to say that this was both of our favorite parts of the day.

As you can see, I finally managed to share one photo from our maternity photo session with Nicole. She (and Amy as our trusted light-reflector holder) did a fantastic job! This is just one of the many really lovely photos that she took, and we are very grateful that she did this for us. We plan to create a photobook of the rest, so be sure to ask us to see it when you come by to visit. Nicole will also be taking our newborn photos and creating the baby announcement for us, so keep on the lookout for those things to come... just 5 more weeks (or 7, if baby girl decides to take her time)! Can you believe it!?! I can't believe how fast this pregnancy has gone by.

We have the first of a two-part breastfeeding class starting tomorrow night. This is our last childbirth prep class and then we're on our own. After that, we have a lot of reading and practicing to do. I have my last two-week OB appointment on Tuesday morning and then I start going every week thereafter. This is all happening so fast!

Unlike yesterday, we were very productive today. Ed finished the second dresser - that was a few-day ordeal that involved filling in old handle holes, sanding them down, painting them, then re-sanding and re-painting where necessary. He brought the dresser back inside after lunch and we replaced the baby clothes in their proper drawers. It looks so great - now both of the dressers match in both paint color and drawer pulls and handles. For those of you who know me well, this is a big deal for me!

We also finally hung up the remaining clothes in the closet. There are only a few more articles left to wash, which we may wait to do until after next weekend since the Reagin Baby Shower takes place then. (By the way, we received the invite for that last week and it is just too cute!) I'll be sure to blog about that after next Sunday.

In addition to our work in the nursery - which we've officially done everything we can possibly do for it as of today - we also rearranged the living room with the help of our kind neighbor, Brandon. Why you ask? Because the giant TV was on the other side of the wall that Baby Reagin's crib is on. Even when it was just the office, I could follow entire TV shows from across the room, so it had to move. Plus, now there's plenty of room for our sweet little lamb swing and the sweet little baby that will be using it soon enough!

We ordered more books today as well. I could keep going on this list of 'things we accomplished on Sunday,' but it's really only exciting to us. Just know that we did not waste the entire weekend. It is time now though for me to sit on the couch and try to breathe comfortably(it's not so easy anymore). I haven't relaxed yet today.

Once again, I hope you all had a great weekend and I will be blogging again soon.
Katie

Daddy's Corner

Well, shame on us again for letting 2 weeks go by without an update.

This time, we have a better excuse than just plain lazy... We have had 2 baby classes at Northside, a friend's shower, a maternity photo session, a girl's-night-in, a nursery chair pickup, and several long days at work for both of us.

First, let's talk about the classes.

We took a birthing and delivery course at Northside Hospital so we'd look like reasonably competent patients in the delivery room. This class was a primer of the delivery timeline, pain management, labor positioning, medical procedures, and practice sitting in uncomfortable chairs. During the eight hour marathon of class, we got to see three births demonstrating Lamaze breathing methods for pain management. There are certain things that should be left to the "mystery of womanhood" that the class completely covered in depth. I know it will be beautiful and joyous when it is my child, but I have decided that the only babies I ever need to watch being birthed are my own. I did learn that I will be an emotional mess when the baby arrives, mostly due to me tearing up while watching the births. It was just more confirmation about how excited I am to meet my baby girl. That being said, we got a lot out of the class, and we'll be practicing the calming breath and relaxation massages later this week.

The second class was baby basics. This class was about changing diapers, bathing, caring for clamped cords, swaddling, and general 'don't drop your baby' advice. This class was a much shorter 3 hours - the same unpleasant chairs became infinitely more tolerable for this class. For me, this brought back of a lot of the stuff I forgot in the 12ish years since Andy, Melissa, and Julia were babies (it seems like no time has passed since then!). I still think I have managed to avoid changing unpleasant diapers and only actually worked with the wet ones. I am sure that streak will end by the time I have been a daddy for 24 hours. The swaddling lesson was very helpful - my baby would have looked more like a taco-bell burrito than a papoose.

We have almost finished the furniture work in the nursery. Katie and I picked up the chair from Acworth last Thursday. Then, after much deliberation on Sunday, we settled on matching hardware for the two dressers. I am now in the process of some touch-ups then a final coat of paint, and all the furniture will be ready!

Finally, we had a maternity photo session for Katie and the Baby at the tail end of January. We used our friend's house on the lake in Buchanon, GA (that's just East of Alabama for those of you looking at a map at home). The session was a lot of fun for all of us. It was nice to focus on the preganancy in a different way. There were a lot of great pictures taken both in the house and at the lake. Katie is going to make a photo album and do some decorating with them. Once we get the digital set, we will be able to post a few here also.

That's pretty much it for baby-related info right now. My work is slowing down due to the recession, but I am learning about a whole new style of manufacturing management. Katie is about to cut her hours in the afternoon - apparently very pregnant people get tired after working all day... who knew?

We have our last parenting class at the hospital starting next week, too. It's Breastfeeding for Couples, but I'm pretty sure that Katie's going to have a lot more success at this than I am.

Happy Valentine's Day, Everybody!