Almost done baking?

Tomorrow, August Isabella will be full term. If I were to go into labor anytime from tomorrow on, she should be completely healthy with fully developed lungs. I know she has been practicing her breathing for the last two months because she get hiccups all the time. She should be at least 6 1/3 lbs at this point, and to me she feels like she could easily be bigger than that. She could have up to an 1 1/2 inches of hair (or she could be almost completely bald with peach fuzz). Her eyes will most likely be blue and she will (hopefully) have 10 fingers and 10 toes.

I can't really sleep anymore. When I do drift off, I either dream all about being pregnant and wanting August to be born, or I am awoken by her shifting around and/or a contraction. Last night I had a dream that I was begging a doctor to help me go into labor. (sidenote: the doctor also happened to be a comedian that our family friends invited us over to watch in their private theater. who knows what that's about?) Anyway, the doctor/comedian gave me a pill and told me I should take it. He said that once I took the giant, purple pill I would feel nauseous and throw up that evening or the next morning. After I threw up I would be in labor. His advice didn't make much sense to me, and the pill looked suspiciously like one of my prenatal vitamins. I took it anyway. Well, I didn't get sick or go into labor. Maybe the comedian/doctor was being funny. After that, Tony took me to a coffee shop in the dream to get my mind off of going into labor. I couldn't order coffee, so I ordered chocolate milk and a sugar cookie. The woman at the cash register handed me a crisp $100 bill and said, "Here. That's for you." I told her I couldn't take her money and that I needed to pay for what I was buying. Then she said, "It's only half of what I made today. Take it." I told her that if she was sure, I would take it and buy her a gift with it. Then she took the $100 back and said I could just have my food on the house. So I went to sit with Tony and eat my cookie and drink my chocolate milk. We started talking about the baby, and the coffee girl came over and began talking again. This time she said, "Have you ever seen the Hollywood tree house?" I replied, "No, but I have been to Graceland and it's not all it's cracked up to be."

Then I woke up to my husband getting ready for work. Being the dork that I am, I googled "Hollywood Treehouse" and found this photo:

I think it's a music studio or something.

Speaking of music, I'm off to work on my labor and delivery playlist. It is very important to me to have good music for all of it, especially when she makes her debut into this world! My brain is totally on baby over-drive. Keep your fingers crossed that go-time will happen soon!

That bird mobile

I am still slowly working on the bird mobile that I want for August's room. For some reason I've had a hard time getting motivated to get it done. I bought some pretty fabric fat quarters yesterday to use, though, and Tony went and found some wonderful sticks in the backyard to use.

He, on the other hand, has been very motivated to get things done before her arrival. He replaced the broken vent fan in our hallway bathroom. It's been broken since we bought the house, and we moved in over a year and a half ago. Well, he did all of the wiring himself, and even added a light. It always makes me nervous when he takes on a job like that, as he is by no means an expert electrician. He even had to go up on the roof to cut a hole for the fan to be able to vent the air out of the attic. Luckily, it all works, and he is done. I told him he can't do anymore dangerous jobs before the baby comes. It makes me too nervous.

Since he couldn't rebuild something in the house, he got to work on painting and hanging wooden letters spelling out "AUGUST." He painted each letter a little differently, although all in white and lime green. Then he went with me to Hancock Fabrics and picked out a pretty turquoise ribbon with white polka dots. He hung the letters on the wall over the crib, and it is really so cute. I'm so proud of how crafty he got with that! Now he wants to go and get 4 small canvases to paint, and then he wants each canvas to have a handprint of a family member. He wants mine, his, August's, and Rocky paw print. Too cute!

I am so ready to have the baby. I want to make it through the next week so that she will be full term, without a doubt. Past next Saturday, though, I want her to get out here as quickly as she can. I'm ready. The house is pretty much ready. Tony is ready. And I am so tired of being pregnant. I am already not sleeping more than about 4 1/2 hours a day, so I feel like now is as good a time as any for her to come out with her crazy feeding schedule. I am planning on breastfeeding, by the way, but people keep telling me it's much harder than you expect. I took a class on it, and there is a ton of information to take in. I read a book that a friend gave me called "Nursing Your Baby" which helped me feel somewhat ready. I'm still worried that I'll have difficulty with it. I sure hope not.

I heart this birdie mobile! I found it first on Ohdeedoh.com and then followed to the creator's blog to learn all about it. I must make something similar for August's room! I am really in love with it.

The holidays were pretty good this year. Now we've reached New Year's Eve, and I am ready to jump into the new year. Tony and I are celebrating by cooking a really good soup tonight and hanging out watching movies. Neither of us felt like trying to do a big celebration with tons of people, and I'm so glad we agreed on that. I am making a pretty traditional New Year's meal tomorrow for dinner, as well. No ham, but the meal will be chock full of southern style vegetables (including black eyed peas) and corn bread. That has been one of the things I've enjoyed most about the holidays this year. It's one of the first times I've really allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted. I am eating for two, as everyone keeps reminding me. Luckily almost all of the weight has stayed in the belly area. Woohoo!

Alright, I am off to eat lunch and organize baby things (as always...the neverending job).

Happy Holidays

Tony and I have been very busy figuring out all of our Christmas plans for this year. Our travel plans have changed so often that I almost said, "Let's just stay here, alone...together." Instead, we are now planning on going up to Memphis, TN to spend it with a bunch of people in my family. We are staying with the pops and his wife, and most of my siblings will be around. That is very exciting, because I really haven't been able to spend much time with them lately. I haven't spent an actual Christmas with my dad in over a decade. Sometimes we see him around Christmas, but my family's years are usually spent with my mom. Cinci was just too far to travel at 30 weeks pregnant.

Yep, we are at the 30 week mark. Well, 30 weeks by the due date the doctor has given us. I am still convinced that her actual due date is about a week earlier. She was already measuring at 3 lbs at the end of 28 weeks. I guess I won't know until she is here.

I am so ready for August Isabella to be here! We went to Babies R Us this weekend to try and stock up on things we knew we would need that it looks like no one is planning to buy for us. You don't think much of your small cart-full until you get to the register and the total is $300. Oh, and there are still a whole bunch of things on the registry that you are needing. (Why doesn't anyone want to buy you a baby bath tub or crib sheets? I guess it's not as exciting as all the cute, little, girly pink outfits and stuffed animals...) I'm not complaining. We have had many generous friends and family members gift us with awesome things, and we are super thankful to all of them! I just want to warn anyone who hasn't had children: Babies Cost A Lot of Money Up Front! Oh, and then we have the diapers and other small things to worry about.

Random: Tony asked me the other day what I thought about the name August Ann. After being the biggest supporter of the name Isabella he suddenly thought we should maybe change it. I think that it is a pretty name, but we have been calling her August Isabella since way before we knew she was a girl for sure. The day after we found out we were pregnant we knew that would be the name if we had a little girl. So, it seemed really out of the blue. Ann was Tony's mother's middle name. I think that the holidays are bringing his mom to mind, and that is where it has come from. Also, the day she passed away was February 10th. Tony has brought up a couple of times how amazing it would be if August was born on that day. She would have to be 18 days early for that to happen, though. Maybe we can pull the 2 middle names thing. August Ann Isabella Intoccia.....August Isabella Ann Intoccia....:) Her initials would be AAII or AIAI. I don't know. Any thoughts?

Feeling the Monday Blues

It is freezing here in Jackson. It's supposed to creep into the 40s today, but the wind chill is still going to keep it feeling like the low 30s. This is not what I signed up for when I moved to Mississippi. I signed up for winters full of greenery and mild temperatures. I am pretty sure we are in for a serious winter this year.

Awesomeness: Tony has jury duty. He received something in the mail about it last week, and he never really looked at the dates until yesterday. Guess what! He had to be at the courthouse starting today. Hooray. He had to run down to work last night to shoot out some emails to make sure all of his patients were canceled today and so that his boss knew where he would be. This morning he is passing the time in a large waiting room by texting me about his surroundings and the other people on jury duty. It's funny, but he is only the second person I've ever known to have jury duty. He texted me a minute ago to say that the elevator music was playing Law and Order's theme song. That's a bit much. Come on Mississippi!

I have a 3 hour gestational diabetes test tomorrow. I'm really nervous about it because I didn't pass the first test (which was only 1 hour). I thought Tony was going to take me, but since he has jury duty that probably won't happen. So I'll have to drive down myself, a starving pregnant woman, and sit for 4 hours of no food or drink and lots of finger pricking fun. I'm not looking forward to it at all. My doctor doesn't think that I have anything to worry about, and he says he thinks the chances of me actually having GD is very low. The only thing is that 3 of the last 5 women I've known who were pregnant did have it, and they all had to have Cesarean Sections because of it. I am scared to death and very worried about it. I can't wait for tomorrow to be over with!!!

I am trying to pass the time by doing some knitting and embroidery for X-mas gifts. One thing that makes me happy is that I am almost done with my Christmas shopping and gift-making. Woohoo! (Of course, I'm still not sure if we are going to see any of our family for X-mas this year. Between divorce, pregnancy, surgery, possible cancer, work and a brand new bar/restaurant my entire family has way too much on their individual plates right now...)

Taking "Starting Over" to a Whole New Level...

It's been a long while since I have posted anything. Anyone who read my last post might have assumed I went on vacation, and then just disappeared into thin air. Certainly, I haven't been keeping my blog updated...at all. Maybe I have been extremely busy in my world of crafting madness. Maybe working from home has become such a drag that I can't place myself in front of the computer long enough to type out an entry. Maybe my computer broke.

None of those things are exactly the truth. The truth is, I am pregnant. Talk about starting over, for real...I found out about the pregnancy right around the time of my last post on here. So now I am a little over six months along, and growing very quickly. We are having a little girl at the end of February, so I have been busy with trying to get my life together enough to be ready for this huge (and I mean HUGE) change.

Tony and I never thought we were going to have children. In fact, any time someone asked us "when" we thought we would start trying, we would sheepishly look at each other before explaining that we didn't want kids. Neither of us had any problem with children. We have a niece and 5 nephews between us, and we love them all dearly! We just didn't see ourselves as parents. We would tell our family members, "We know that we are too selfish to share our lives with a child." Most people reacted exactly how you would expect. They would laugh, uncomfortably, and say something to the effect of, "Oh, you'll change your minds." Somewhere deep inside I wondered if they might be right, but I always figured we would adopt a child if, for some reason, our minds did change. There are so many children in this world who don't have families or homes. Tony and I were also not extremely thrilled about bringing a baby into the world as it is today. It can be a dark, mean, and lonely place at times.

Then, at the end of June, I started noticing some changes in my body. Don't worry, I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say that while in Birmingham the weekend after my last post, I decided I should be on the safe side and go and buy a pregnancy test. I bought a pack of two that would give you a pink horizontal line if you were not pregnant and a vertical line if you were. I took a test when we got back to the in-laws' house, and it looked like the line was vertical. It was a very faint line, so neither of us really believed that it meant I was pregnant. It must have been a false positive, and it would be better to take the test in the morning, anyway. We went out that night with some friends to a bar downtown called the Garage. I figured we'd rather be safe than sorry, so we chose the Garage because of its outdoor seating. I did drink a beer that night, but ended up nursing it because I was afraid of hurting a baby that could possibly be in my tummy. My best friend, Jenny, was about 6 months pregnant at that point, so I spent the evening drilling her about things like when and how she knew she was pregnant, etc. Somehow, she never picked up on my panic.

The next morning, as soon as I woke up, I went to take the second test. It came back with the vertical line (a little darker than the one the night before). That was it. I stood in the guest bathroom staring at this stick that was telling me about the future. My future. I felt sick, I felt scared, and strangely I felt relief. The relief was a huge surprise to me that morning. I realize now that I felt relieved that I would not have to tell Tony that the test the night before was wrong. Did I know subconsciously that he would be excited? Well, when I went back to the bedroom to give him the news, I sat on the floor shaking and showed him the stick. His smile was one of the best visions I've ever seen. My husband was thrilled!

We went to the doctor when I got back from my vacation a week later. I had been 5 weeks pregnant on the day that we found out. The next couple of weeks were filled with wonder, amazement, shock, joy, terror, and uncertainty. Would I make a good mother? Would I be like my mother? Would I be able to love a baby enough? What if we didn't have enough money to do this right? Would Tony love this baby more than he loved me? Would the baby love me?

Somehow, the idea of having a child went from the most frightening thing in the world to something I am very much looking forward to. I'm not exactly sure when the change occurred, but one thing I have been sure of from the beginning is that this baby inside of me is a part of me. She is a part of Tony. She was made out of our love for each other, and there is nothing in the world that I can think of which could be more beautiful than that.

Friday Favorites

It's Friday again. Time for some of my most recent Favorite things.

Favorite new find: She & Him. A collaboration between M. Ward (an awesome singer/songwriter) and Zooey Deschanel (Yes, the actress). I am fascinated by how good the new album is. I love her voice.

Favorite way to save money: I canceled my home phone today. We never used it, and we were paying at least $45/month for nothing. So, I got rid of it. I also cancelled about half of the tv channels we were getting. Who really needs 800 channels?

Favorite News: I'm going to be out of town for the next 2 weeks straight. I will be gone for work, and I'll be gone for fun. I won't have a lot of time to be on the internet so I won't be updating a whole lot, but I'm really excited for this trip. It feels like summer!

I am so glad that today is the first day of summer. woohoo