Maternity Photo Session

My good friend, Alison, took some fabulous photos of me and the belly today.  We went to Highland Beach Park, which is a great beach just down the street from us.  At first I thought I might be a bit apprehensive about flaunting the belly in public, but it turns out I am obviously not that shy.  Pregnancy is such a special time and I am so thankful that I was able to have this moment captured.  Alison did a wonderful job photographing it.  The pictures speak for themselves, so enjoy! :)

37 weeks with a big belly

Disclaimer... Some details from my doctor's visit will be found in this post so if you don't care to read about that click away now or just skip the first section... :)

37 Weeks with a BIG belly

So I am now 37 weeks and went for a checkup yesterday with my amazing OB.  I have been having a lot of inconsistent contractions the last week or so.  At my 36 week checkup I had already dilated 1.5 cm and  was 50% effaced, so I was anxious to know if these off and on contractions of late had actually caused any further progression.  Well, they obviously had - at least a little bit.  I was 2.5 cm dilated and 60% effaced yesterday and the doctor seemed a bit surprised.  She upped my delivery date from the 21st to the 14th and told me to "take it easy" so that I would make it until then.

I really don't know how you "take it easy" when you have other children, ongoing construction and a 14-day to do list that now has to be crammed into 6 days, but I will prevail.  I know I have to get more realistic with my to do list and not worry about the parts of the construction that won't be complete before Emma comes home, but I want it all... You know I am the "have my cake and eat it too" kind of person.. Not necessarily a terrible fault, but not the best attribute to have either.

Emma's nursery is 99% complete. It would be 100% but Pottery Barn Kids threw a huge wrench into my plans.  I had ordered an adorable table lamp and shade over two months ago and the shade was on back order (of course) until March 3rd. No big deal, right?  I mean my due date is toward the end of the month, so no worries... Well, that was the case until I got an e-mail update from PBK telling me that my adorable shade had been delayed again until April 4th.  What?!?  So as of now I have a lamp base with no shade... not very pretty... but I am going to look for a temporary replacement shade today.  I say "temporary" because I still want this adorable shade from PBK (of course - the whole cake thing applies here too)...  Isn't it precious?

It goes very well with the rest of Emma's decor and will perfectly complete the nursery, but not until April ,I guess. :)  Anyway, I hope to get some photos of the nursery posted soon... So be on the lookout for those...  

Oh... Another update is that I had to unfortunately cancel my maternity session for the 17th because, well, let's face it, I won't be pregnant anymore... But I have a good friend, Alison, that is going to take some photos of me and the belly at the beach this week. She has great talent for photography and, even though she doesn't, she really should consider doing it professionally... So I will have maternity photos to post soon and I have a newborn session scheduled for Emma when we get home from the hospital... I am really looking forward to both of those shoots...

36 1/2 weeks...

 

Wow!  Where has the time gone?  It seems like we just found out that we were expecting and now we are just over two weeks away from Emma's arrival!  While I didn't think it was possible, my belly has grown bigger.  She has also dropped a bit which is nice for my breathing but not so great for my bladder ;)  Overall, I am feeling really good.  I get tired quicker but nothing that a short session of feet propping doesn't fix.  Brock jokingly reminds me that I now have a full-on waddle walk but what do you expect with a big belly and hips that are getting ready to birth a baby.  He also tells me how beautiful I am and that makes me feel very special. I love the way he and the girls love the belly.  Claire gives Emma kisses every day.  The first time she gave my belly a big hug and kiss the conversation went like this:

Claire:  (Big hug and kiss on the belly) I love you!

Mom: I love you too Claire!

Claire: I wasn't talking to you Mommy.  I was talking to Baby Emma!

Mom: Oh...

Everyone is getting excited about Emma's arrival and we are very close to being ready -- if you can ever actually be "ready".  But the construction is nearing the end and is almost finished on the inside -- just a few small details to complete.  The house may not be painted and the landscaping will probably not be completely installed before she gets here but I guess I will have to just learn to live with that.   Her nursery is complete so "Victory!" there. But I still have two weeks and a really big belly to convince our contractor to move quickly.  So maybe it will all work out and I can have my cake and eat it too. :)

Audrey and Claire attended a sibling class at the hospital, where I will deliver, a few weeks ago.  We toured the maternity wing, saw a brand-new newborn (a nice refresher of just how small newborns actually are), made onesies for Emma with their handprint and talked with the nurse about what you can and can't do with a new baby and how they could be big helpers to Mom and Dad.  It was a fun class and they both had a great time.  We have also made a countdown chain to countdown the days until Emma's scheduled delivery.  Did I mention that?  Our doctor has picked the 21st of March to be Emma's birthday.  It is also the first day of spring.  Yeah! Anyway, the countdown chain counts down the number of nights that the girls have to go to sleep before Emma is born.  We make these chains for things like this and other events like counting down until grandparents visit, etc.  It is fun because every day you get to see the chain get shorter and it helps the kids, especially Claire, visualize how much longer we have to wait.  It also helps me not have to answer the never-ending question of "When will Baby Emma be here?"  A photo of the countdown chain is below...

 Another thing that I am very excited about is my maternity photo session that I have scheduled for March 17th (so I hope that Emma doesn't come before then).  I am excited about the session because I love my baby bump and look forward to having it professionally captured.  We are going to shoot the maternity session at the beach -- I mean, that's where we live and what an amazing background to be able to use.  So pray for a sunny day with blue skies and no labor! :) The photographer is also going to shoot a newborn session of Emma at home so be on the lookout for those great photos later.

I will try to get more blogging in before Emma's delivery, so stay tuned!