29 weeks

I've taken to writing these posts in retrospect of the week, meaning in reality, I'm 30 weeks today. I'm really sincerely excited about the big 3-0 (!), and the count-down is really, really on at this point, but I'll try to stick to posting about this past week for now...

Week 29 was another week with not a lot to tell. I do feel like I'm visibly getting larger almost everyday, and I've got an extremely active girl in there :) Leta's movin' and shakin' ALL the time, which scares me a bit for when she's on the the outside. They say that the baby keeps to it's schedule that it kept in the womb, and it seems like little Leta-bug takes very little downtime.

We had our childbirth class this past weekend, and I think it was fully worth doing. We opted for the one-day class, as, with our schedules, it's nearly impossible to coordinate a class that meets more than twice. I don't think we missed out on any crucial info, pushing it all into one day, and it was kind of nice to be around so many other pregnant couples. My other reason for choosing the one-day option was that after reading the description of the classes, it seemed like the several day classes (6 2 hour classes and what have you) were set up that way partially to focus on getting the dad ready for what was going to be happening in the delivery room. TJ has been there and done that and is really the least of my concerns when it comes to that aspect of it all. It's how we both adapt to being parents of a newborn when she comes home that will be more interesting :) It is comforting to know that I'm not going to have to deal with giving birth AND a husband that is squeamish or looking like he's grossed out at the same time. He was able to ask really thoughtful questions (esp. about the pain management aspect, which is what we were really interested in figuring out) when we were in the class, and I walked away feeling ready to go into this with him.

On the big "pain-management" front, we've settled on our decision to go with an epidural for the delivery and nothing else. There are other iv drugs available, etc, but we only feel comfortable with the epidural. There seem to be side effects for the baby with the other options and we're not comfortable with those. I am going to attempt to fully get into the midst of active labor before we start the epidural, just to make sure it doesn't slow down the process of early labor, and we think we're going to try to stay home for the whole early labor portion if at all possible. We'll see how this all goes once there. :) All told, the baby will be born because of me or despite me and my efforts!

I'm in this weird space in the pregnancy right now where I alternate between freaking out that the baby will be here so soon and we're not ready and desperately wanting her here now. I'm still leaning toward the "not ready" part more, and I keep trying to reinforce to myself that we have time. 10 weeks or a bit less of time really. Time. But, the planner in me looks at all the t's yet to be crossed and i's yet to be dotted and hopes that we're preparing as well as we should be. ugh.

In other news, baby shower invites have gone out and rsvp's have started coming in. The shower's Jan 11th at my mother-in-law's house, and I just can't wait to see all of my closest girlfriends together again. I had the feeling that it would never happen again after the wedding, and I guess I just wasn't thinking far enough in advance to this circumstance :) Leta will have the most wonderful women in her life and she doesn't even know it!

We're quickly approaching Christmas - the last Christmas of our lives without a child. Everything is about to change so drastically. It's crazy. A good thing, but incomprehensible fully till experienced at best.

On to the 30's!