The Bailey Chronicles

On Wednesday John and I took a trip to my sister's house for a pumpkin carving party. First we stopped by Tom Thumb to pick us up some pumpkins, however they only had 4 left and they looked pretty pathetic, all small and not round. I was very disappointed and told John we had to find great big ones the size of my belly LOL. He didn't think it could be done but just across the street at Kroger we scored two really gigantic pumpkins, and got a great deal on them because some lady was griping about how the bin was marked wrong! I was pleased at our luck! We headed to Candi's with our giant pumpkins and sat on the floor with the kids scooping out pumpkin guts. Bella and Skylar took a lot of time carefully emptying out their pumpkins and reminisced over last years pumpkin gut fight in the front yard.

After successfully ridding our pumpkins of their guts we all sat down to a yummy new fall recipe of Pumpkin Chili. Delicious! Then it was on to carving. John and I had picked up some pumpkin stencils at Kroger so we attempted some challenging designs. I had a tarantula dangling from a web and John picked out a haunted house design. Unfortunately for John his little poker tool did not leave strong enough indentions in his pumpkin for him to adequately see the design. He put a lot of effort into it at first, but then his patience and his eye sight wore him out and he failed his mission :o( It was his first time using one of those kits so maybe next year he will be better prepared. Mine was a success, but I did tire out at the end and had Candi finish my spider. Bella and Skylar were creative enough to come up with their own designs which Candi and Kobi happily carved out for them.

And finally our completed pumpkins! Mine is top, Skylar's is in the middle and Bella's is on the bottom. John's didn't make it :o(

Friday I had my 34 week check up. Everything looks good, but the baby is still measuring ahead. The new estimated due date is November 28th... black Friday! GREAT! I hope she is earlier or later than that, because that date is just not good for us LOL. Poor John, if she comes around that day he will feel so conflicted about his obligations as a store manager at Best Buy and his excitement about wanting to stay home with his first baby. So we pray that he is not put into that bind, and that he can enjoy this special time in his life without work robbing him of that joy. Her meaurements put her closer to 36 weeks and she is supposedly weighing 5 pounds 8 ounces. I am glad that she is healthy and growing like a weed, but at the same time it does worry me because I don't want to be pressured into an induction. I would prefer the birth to come naturally when she's ready. We'll see! This is her latest sonogram pic. I don't think the Doc is very good at them because this is the best one out of 15 if you can believe it. She really doesn't have duck lips, the doc said her hand was resting on her cheek so I guess that's her finger. This bottom one is her spine.

On Saturday we had the Dallas baby shower. My sister picked up a really cute cake from Sam's and Mom set up the buffet table. Fortunately it was a beautiful day because we held the shower outside by my apartment's pool.

I just got back from Austin, visiting family and had a blast. My sister and I desperately wanted to make it down there to see our cousin Molly, who has been very busy the last few years building an impressive resume in her career as a kitchen manager/ chef by traveling to fun places like Alaska and New Zealand. She has returned home for the holidays so we planned to visit, but sadly our schedules are conflicting and the only weekend I can make it down there just so happens to be a weekend she had an out of town job interview :o( We decided to go ahead and make the trip because by the time my weekend schedule clears it puts me very close to my due date, makes it risky for travel. Anyway, we had a wonderful time hanging out with my uncle, my dad and his other half Andrea. We even got to visit with my other cousin Sally, her husband Justin, and sweet little baby girl Annie on the last day of our trip. None of us took any pics of the trip, so I can't post any photographic updates this time around, but we still had an amazing time!

I have to say the highlight of the trip was when my sister was shaking my baby bump trying to get Bailey to wake up. My Dad freaked out at the sight and couldn't believe his eyes which cracked me up and then on top of that their was Andrea's funny moment. She politely asked if I minded if she felt for the baby, which I of course didn't. And gently placed her hand upon my stomach close to Candi's. At that exact moment Bailey kicked and Andrea jumped back with a look of horror on her face, completely grossed out LOL. She commented "ewww something's living in there!" LMAO! I guess she wasn't fully prepared for that kodak moment, but it was then when I realized why her and my Dad are so perfect for eachother. It was priceless.

October 2008: 8 months pregnant

I finally sucked it up and went to the lab yesterday morning for my three hour Gestational Diabetes test. It kept getting postponed because we were in the middle of the move and all that packing and unpacking kept us pretty busy their for a minute, but then I realized I had run out of excuses for not setting up the appointment. So like a big girl I arranged for the appointment... or maybe I was worried that I would get in trouble with the Dr. LOL. Either way the deed has been done. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Turns out I only had to drink one of those awful glucose drinks, not three of them, and it was the same size as the original one. I did end up having to wait around at the lab for four hours instead of three because their was a mix up with my paperwork at the beginning, but after the appointment I rewarded myself with yummy Mexican food so it was quickly forgotten. They stuck me in the same arm and the same vein 3 out of 4 of the times so my left arm is feeling a little sore today, but at least they found my veins quickly without having to be stuck extra times and no fishing around. While the experience wasn't particularly delightful, it wasn't really bad either. The lab staff was hilarious and I was waiting around with my best friend and another preggo patient that was pretty funny too, so no complaints!

I had my prenatal appointment this morning and it turns out I passed all 4 of the blood tests this time around! NO Gestational Diabetes for me! This is very relieving news to me. At first I thought I had nothing to worry about, but then I discovered that Diabetes runs on both sides of my family which puts me at a higher risk, plus I am over weight which doesn't help. Then I looked up the symptoms of Gestational Diabetes to see if I could rule it out, but they were the same as pregnancy symptoms so that didn't help one bit. And then finally with the move I started feeling cramping and stiffness on my right side, swelling and plus I kept seeing spots and bubbles over the last two weeks which are all symptoms of Eclampsia another pregnancy problem closely related to Diabetes. But my Dr. assures me that it was the strain of the move and my growing baby, and I have nothing to worry about because my blood, urine and blood pressure are all good. The baby is still very active, and the cramping/stiffness I feel on my right side are her little feet digging up into my ribs. Apparently they nestle themselves in to areas where there is more room, and since I have one less organ on my right side she has taken a liking to that area. She is also still ahead on her growth schedule, but I guess is slowing down a little as far as length goes. She usually measure a week and half to two weeks ahead, but this time she only measured a week ahead. We have been through a lot together, but luckily she has remained unaffected by everything. She seems to be getting plenty of nutrition according to her growth and activity, which worried me earlier on in pregnancy since I could keep much down for the longest time. I should be getting my third trimester sonogram next appointment, in two weeks!

Now that the apartment is completely unpacked and we are all caught up on bills, we finally have a chance to work on the nursery. The fun part! John and I put together the crib over the weekend, which was actually really easy and it looks beautiful! We have arranged her room but still have a long ways to go. Projects that I will tackle this month are: painting the walls yellow, a restoration of a vintage chandelier, wallpaper art, and hopefully the construction of a dresser if we can squeeze that out of next pay day. We are starting to plan for the Dallas baby shower, so that will either fall at the very end of this month or early November.

The Chandelier Project is what I am currently tackling. I have seen a trend in girl nursery themes having a small chandelier hanging over the crib instead of a mobile. Candi had sent me a bunch of links to decals for wall art, and the one I had liked the best was the chandelier. But then I decided I could probably find a real one, a cheap fixer upper at a salvation store or ebay and custom design it around the nursery. I told my mom my plans for it because she likes to hunt Craigslist and ebay regularly for fun so I figured I could keep her on that hunt while I shopped around, but as luck would have it she already had the perfect solution. Her mom had given her a chandelier when she was young that she had no place for and has been in a box in the garage for decades, but she was too attached to completely get rid of it to a total stranger so it's just been in storage. She was pleased to be passing it on as now a family heirloom, and she didn't mind at all if I gave it a face lift. Perfect! Free fits in my budget, because now I can spend more on crystals and embellishments for it. Plus it's a piece that will have a little history behind it so it will be special. I can't post pics of the nursery yet, because it's not close to being finished at all, but I will post before pics of the chandelier and what I have done so far. I have ordered new crystals, so construction of the piece has not officially started. But I wouldn't want to give out an update with no pics to leave y'all with ;o)

These are the before pics. The fixture has three lights behind the band. Crystals can be hung from the top spokes, from the band, and from the base. The middle pic is after it had been spray painted black to match the nursery. And the bottom pics are the new crystals I have ordered for it so far. I have to re assemble the small octagon crystals because a lot of them where detached... so it's a work in progress.

We have had a successful move over this weekend, and though I can't do heavy lifting I have still been busy busy busy with unpacking. The nice thing about moving is it gives you a chance to do a thorough clean out of all unnecessary clutter, the bad thing is it is such a pain! I have unpacked the entire apartment except Bailey's room and I still have some pics to hang in our own room so those pics will be added later. We also have no decor for the extra bathroom yet because we are used to having only one. Hopefully we can get some drapes some time because we have tons of awesome windows and to give the place a little more color. John's major accomplishment was setting up the wall mounted TV and all the components/gaming systems on the shelves. He did everything possible to hide wires by drilling through the walls and built in shelves... he could care less about the decor as long as the electronics have a nice display LOL.