Sunday, May 1, 2011

3rd trimester and other fun!

So it has been awhile since my last update, life has been a bit crazy. It's hard to think that the baby will be here in 3 months! We are still very busy around the house, mainly with finishing up our home projects, TONS of yard work, my new job, and Nick's transition into a new job in about 2 months. And yes - I graduated! After all the worrying I managed to finish my thesis ahead of schedule and graduated without any problems on 24 March 2011. I am very thankful for the way the timing worked out for this pregnancy, and very grateful I was barely sick at all. But I will say I felt like a waking zombie at times, barely able to function and work on school because I was utterly exhausted. Jogging and doing pregnancy exercises was the only thing that kept me going - that and paying attention to what I eat. I will try to include some pictures of graduation when my husband finally gets them off his fancy camera!

To be honest 2nd trimester flew on by fairly quickly. I think I was anxious as I knew the scariest period had passed (the first 13 weeks) but I still was a bit unsure of everything as far as baby's progress goes. Plus it took a long time for my belly to show. BUT...as soon as I started to feel the baby I think it was better (with a caveat). This was around 17.5 weeks. I felt reassured every time I felt her but when I wouldn't feel her for a day or so I became just a little worried - even though at that stage I knew it to be completely normal. In fact, one's not even supposed to start recording fetal movements until 28 weeks - yet I couldn't help it sometimes. I will say that as the pregnancy goes further I am starting to worry less and less. To that I will credit my awesome hubby, who always reminds me of the things I simply cannot control and to let go. Also, at 19 weeks we were told it was most likely a girl, and this was again confirmed at my second ultrasound a few days ago, at 26 weeks 5 days.

Our nursery is just about completed! All we need is a glider and ottoman, which we are buying from a friend. We did have to add in my dresser and bookshelf from when I first graduated from the Academy just because the baby girl already has too much clothes! Yup...it's a sad Brownheim fact, we all have way too much clothes. So we have told family and friends to 1) not buy clothes, 2) if they must, buy size 2T and up, preferably something more like 3 or 4T. We are so lucky we have wonderful friends with older baby girls who have passed down quite a bit of stuff to us - I've only bought 3 sets of clothing at a Mommy sale for something like fifty cents each! On another note, the book shelf is getting filled with books as well, so I'm so glad we'll have a variety to read at night!

Nick and I decided to take a babymoon end of April down to Destin, FL at our friend's mother's condo. It was beautiful down there and we also got to see a few friends. It was nice to catch back up with Chris and Jackie P in Auburn, AL, Chris and Jodi W, as well as my friend from my career field school Mike in the Destin area. We had a lovely time but I started to get antsy towards the end. My constant need to "accomplish" things drives Nick crazy sometimes, but I'm just a very goal/task-oriented person, and it's hard for me to break from that sometimes. I think I get it from my mother, who's always running around the house too. Now if we can just take another week off to do our yard life would be good!

So I was slated to go down to San Antonio for the Basic Instructor Course (BIC) from 11 May until 16 June. While I was looking forward for some time to relax from all the projects of our house, I knew I would have to be in the heat too. After all my funding, trip details and reservations were submitted I was told that to save money they're bringing up an instructor up from Lackland. While I really wanted to check on our rental house in San Antonio, this really makes more sense rather than sending 10 people to Lackland at probably 5K a piece for a 5.5 week class. So I won't get to see some friends as well as the house in San Antonio but I'm actually most grateful for our comfy bed and the fact I'll have Nick close by for support.

Our niece Hayden Isabella turns 1 year old on 8 May and we're so excited that Nick's parents, grandparents, aunts and uncle, as well as Brie and Hayden can come to Ohio and we can all celebrate. It has been a bit rough for Brie with Nick's brother Nate being deployed so we're glad we can all be together this coming up weekend. Speaking of deployments, we averted another deployment for Nick, who was tasked to go in less than a year after coming back in 2010. With less than a week to spare we had initially decided for him to get out of the Air Force, as he would have needed additional training and would miss the baby's birth and essentially the first 7 months or so. We were thrilled however when we found out he got an assignment at the AF Institute of Technology (AFIT - where I just graduated from) to teach cyber-security technical courses for AF officers! So the deployment is averted and he'll be in for another 2 years at least! We're in a take-it-as-we-go mentality right now, especially since his career field has gone to a 1:1 home/deploy ratio, meaning he's home for 6 months, gone for 6 months. This equals total awful-ness for family life!

Another item on the agenda I'm extremely happy and relieved about is the fact our friend Bekah will most likely be taking care of the baby. She and her husband Jon are adopting a sweet little boy from Taiwan and will hopefully be picking him up soon! Between my maternity leave and the 2 weeks Nick will have we're hoping to take our baby girl to her starting around October. That'll give them a chance to get acquainted and into a routine before we add our bundle of joy to the mix. I am so glad this will work out as I'm super particular about food, and this way I can make my own food for the baby later as well as try cloth-diapering - which saves both money and diapers from the landfills. Yes, I'm a bit of a tree-hugger, even before I was an environmental engineer!

So I think that's all the festivities for now. We still have some major projects around the house, including having new skylights installed (one started to leak with the monsoon season Dayton has been having), our crazy yard which we have improved in a major way but still needs lots of work, new wood flooring, taking down wallpaper and painting in the dinning room, and some trim work in the kitchen. But we'll just have to take it one step at a time...until next time...

~V