a little bit of everything...

My sister mentioned to me that I hadn't updated in a while and I am embarrassed that it has been over a week since my last post. My absence is not without reason... I have been busy with wrapping up my internship, writing papers, and the general day to day busyness. A lot has happened and while I'm exhausted from all of it, I'm excited, too! Anyways, without further ado, here is what has been going on:

-MBL was gone in The Netherlands two weeks ago. He had a business trip that came up last minute and was gone from Saturday to Friday. When he came back, I had to work Saturday, and so the first time we really got to spend any sort of time together was last Sunday. During the time he was gone, my grandfather passed away and two close friends announced pregnancies. It was a lot to deal with entirely by myself. The hardest thing being trying to process my grief when my biggest support person was thousands of miles away and completely unreachable. I was quite surprised to find that with the pregnancy announcements I was completely happy for both people! Seriously, not even a hint of jealousy/resentment, which felt good. I may feel a little envious as it gets closer to their due dates, as we will likely be back on the TTC wagon again, but I'm keeping everything crossed that we get a miracle BFP for #2.
-I finished up my internship this week! I am officially done with 50-60 hour weeks!! I now only have to worry about work and a girls group that I am coaching. This means that I have 5 full days a week to devote to preparing our house/lives for the baby. The people at my internship asked me how I would fill my time and I nearly fell on the floor laughing. I have been pushing myself for 8 months now... I have stacks and stacks of laundry, paperwork, clutter, and other "stuff" that has been neglected nearly that entire time. I also have a baby room that has absolutely no furniture in it and stacks of baby clothes that need to be washed and put away. Plus a whole bunch of serious organizing to do. I will have absolutely no problem filling my days :).
-We had our monthly baby check this week and everything looks fantastic! I only gained 1 pound over the past four weeks, so I was pretty happy with that. I am at a 16 pound weight gain overall (according to my home scale). I was dealing with some pretty wicked swelling and a serious lack of energy, so I did my best to step up my game over the past few weeks... I've been walking at least 2 miles 3 times a week and watching what I eat (just making healthier choices) and I feel loads better! If my belly had measured small, I would have asked the doc if I needed to put on more weight, but I was measuring right on, so I'm happy :). We asked about my GD screening because they forgot to draw me right when I got in (at our last appointment) and we just wanted to make sure that I had missed the cutoff by a considerable amount and we were happy to find out that my level was 79 and the cutoff is 139, so it seems pretty obvious that I do not have GD. I just can't believe my body is handling pregnancy so well... after 21 months of TTC, I was convinced my body was broken, apparently I need to give it more credit!
-At our appointment I also asked my doc about how long she lets her patients go past their due dates. I have friends/coworkers that have had amazing births after going nearly 2 weeks overdue, but some of the reading I have done says that going more than one week over can be risky and I am just so paranoid about things going wrong! I have absolutely no qualms about what other people choose, but for me, I don't want to go past 41 weeks. So, I asked my doctor about it and she says that if I haven't had the baby by my 40 week appointment, then she will schedule an induction! She does that for all her patients, unless they are really trying to avoid medical intervention and then she works with them (doing NSTs and ultrasounds to make sure the baby isn't under distress). She also mentioned that she will strip my membranes at my 39 week appointment in an attempt to get things going. Overall, I was very happy with her approach and I can't believe I'm at a point where we are talking about these things!
-Speaking of labor, MBL and I had birth class this weekend. Our hospital offers week night classes over several weeks or a weekend class that is Friday night and Saturday day. Due to other responsibilities we have during the week, we decided that the weekend class would be best. The women on my due date board all said they didn't like their birth class, but I found it to be amazing. I had no idea what to expect and I was pleasantly surprised by how much we covered. The biggest surprise? That the class focused almost exclusively on natural childbirth. Apparently the hospital we have chosen strongly advocates for drug free births. So, we learned a lot of coping/relaxation techniques that would help us accomplish that. I was excited about the techniques I learned and I will definitely use them, but I'm nearly 100% sure I will still be getting an epidural :). I am going to try and make it to past 5cm before I get it so that I can continue to walk around and have gravity help me get the baby in the prime birth position, but it's very likely I will end up with the drugs before I get to the pushing part! I was really impressed with MBL at our class, he was so attentive and did a great job listening to what I wanted. It made me realize that going through IVF really helped us get in tune with each other and I am excited to go through the birth experience with him. I have absolutely no worries about the support that I will get from him.
-Finally, a week from today I will be on my way to sunny Flo.rida!! MBL and I are taking a little babymoon. MBL has to attend a conference the first 3.5 days, but then we will be going to Disn.eyWorld and possibly the Kenn.edy Spa.ce Ce.nter. After how busy we have been, I am really looking forward to this time away and getting one last trip in before the baby gets here!!

Oh, and this week we got our first two gifts for the baby!!! The staff at my internship got us a very cute pink and green polka dot stroller blanket that I just adore! AND, my sister and her husband got us our Snu.za. The Snu.za is a device that you tuck into the baby's diaper and after 15 seconds of no movement/breathing, it vibrates and after 20 seconds it sounds an alarm. It was something that we decided was a must, so it was SOOOOO amazing to get it as a gift!! It will definitely help me sleep better at night (you know, during the little sleep I get). All in all, things are going really well and I am just so grateful!