35 Weeks!!

Okay so so far Week 35 has been good. Busy busy, but very good and bittersweet.

Ben and I are almost done with emptying our apartment of any signs of life and it is sad. We've come to love this little place we've called home. While we are definitely so blessed to have a new place to go to soon, and to have sold our contract earlier than we expected, we will definitely miss the memories we have made while being here.

We have three more days until we have to be out and most of those will be spent cleaning and cleaning, and cleaning to get it ready for the new tenants. Saying goodbye to our friends at church and knowing that it was our last Sunday with them was hard too. We weren't there super long, but we felt a lot of love and enjoyed the spirit that was there.

As for my pregnancy: I am still doing well. Still getting bigger, and I am tired a lot, but I couldn't feel more fortunate even with all of the weird things that have been going on since getting up to school. I have been having some strange intense contractions that only happen once a day but definitely are a lot more heavy duty than a normal braxton hicks, and I have had a lot of pain whenever my bladder even gets a couple of drops of fluid in it. After checking my blood pressure today before my doctors appointment I was concerned because it was higher again like last week. When we got there they took it a few times and it finally went down a little. Not down as far as it is normally for me, but a lot better so I don't know if their machine was off, or if my heart is enjoying making everyone's blood pressure rise. After checking my urine though we found that there weren't any traces of proteins (yay!) and my feet are hardly swelling at all again (knock on wood). We did find that the pain I have been having and possibly some of my strange intense cramps may have been caused by another UTI. Yes, I seem to be the UTI queen, and since the last time I got one it started early contractions, my doctor put me on antibiotics right away. So, I am doing what I do best: taking it easy, and hating not being able to as active as I want.

I just have to say also, we have the best doctor for us. I wrote a birth plan yesterday and brought a copy of it with me to our appointment so he could go over it and let me know if there were any changes I should make or if there were things that were unrealistic. It was two pages single spaced and very long winded, and he read the entire thing and made sure everything was great. He thought it was very good, and said that it sounded like I worked in a hospital the way it was written. (yay for the medical assistant in me!). I was impressed that he read through it all, and answered all of my questions. He did an exam on my tummy (I am on track) and checked Finch's heart beat and everything was fine. Finch is still head down, and doing so well. I was told to behave myself for the week and he'd see me next week. He really has been an answer to prayer and I couldn't feel more blessed in knowing that the Lord knew who would be the right doctor for us. When the Lord knows it is important to you, He definitely helps you to figure out how to make it work out. So, we just keep counting our blessings that we have a doctor who listens to us, takes the time to help and get to know us, and trusts us when something isn't right.

Finch is the size of a honeydew melon this week and should be weighing in around 5.25 pounds. I definitely feel him sitting in my pelvis all of the time and I am definitely getting ready for when he can be in my arms instead of in my belly. He kicks me often, and always lets me know that he is there which I love. I know I'll miss feeling him move inside of me when he is out. It's hard to describe that feeling unless you have experienced it, but it makes all loneliness go away.

35.5 Weeks!

My foot swelling has gone away, and besides feeling very full of baby, and the UTI, I am doing really really well. Once we get through this week with moving, I can just settle in for a few weeks and relax as we count down the final weeks until Finch's arrival. I have his hospital bag packed, and am finishing up the final touches to my bag and Ben's bag so we can leave at a moment's notice. We also just got our newborn cloth diapers in! I am so excited. We have felt it would fit our lifestyle a little better and would be better for our check book and the environment (yes, in that order), and we will just use disposables at night most likely, and when we travel. We definitely have enough of the disposables from the baby shower to last us many nights and many trips :)

We just feel very blessed. I keep looking back on my days and weeks and see miracle after miracle and blessing after blessing. Life is certainly not easy right now and it is so hectic, but I really feel like we have so many people that we can't see on our side, as well as many who we can who are there to help us all of the time, and we definitely can testify that God hears and answers prayers :)

Thanks for reading, and have a fantastic rest of your week!

Love,

Liz, Ben, Finch, and Zola