Truthfully, there have been more than five times that I've wanted to sit down and update you all on life, and every single time what has stopped me is the fact that my startup disk on my laptop is full. Basically that means I had no more space to airdrop photos from my phone to my laptop and then upload them onto this blog. And a blog without photos is just a diary entry—how boring. So I finally sat down to figure out a workaround for the time being just for the sake of getting back on here and sharing the latest.
We married Lindsay off! In a span of two weeks we hosted her Austin bachelorette party, a work shower/goodbye party,
and we got her down the aisle. May was a big month!
Her bach party was
so fun because she had the MOST fun group of girls as her bridesmaids! But of course, I had to have a personal drama get in the way. Roughly two days before the party I started noticing one of my hips was giving me trouble—which is 200% normal for me off and on throughout pregnancy, so honestly I was completely unfazed. When we made it to Austin on Friday evening, I started noticing it flaring up more and more until about 11 p.m. that night when I finally felt something basically pop out of place. This pain far surpassed "ouch" and went straight into "Holy moly how am I supposed to get out of this bed and walk to the bathroom to brush my teeth." Every time I put weight on it, it sent an intense shooting pain up my back.
At about 3 a.m. I was laying awake texting Drew in a tizzy because I couldn't even sleep on it without it hurting. By 8:30 a.m. we'd hatched a plan for him to drop Arden at his parents' house and come pick me up for an emergency visit to our chiropractor and family friend's office in Temple. He picked me up by 11 and we were at the chiropractor by lunchtime. Turns out, I completely threw out one of my sacroiliac joints, which you really need to be in place in order to walk or bend over.
I will forever sing the praises of chiropractors. They are magicians. When I got there, I literally could not walk and when I left, I was taking laps around his office. Steve, you're my actual hero!
That evening I got myself dressed and Drew took me back to Austin so that I could partake in group photos. Then he took me straight back to Waco. No more partying for this prego.
A few weeks before the big day we threw LD a wedding shower at work!
She also picked up the most beautiful dress in all the lands, and of course, Arden needed in on the action.
We REHEARSED. AHH.
And then FINALLY FINALLY the big day came!
Everything was perfect and she made a beautiful bride. It rained sideways about an hour before the ceremony, but completely cleared by the time the ceremony was over. Arden was even surprisingly good as flower girl... she didn't throw her flowers, but she did walk with me down the aisle and stood next to me quietly for the entire ceremony!
The rest of these photos are completely random memories off of my phone and are also TERRIBLY out of order, but that's alright. You'll get the point.
Here is Arden and Drew playing sidewalk chalk in the backyard.
Drew's parents' wedding venue is coming right along, and we stopped in one Saturday to check out how beautiful the river was and to see how construction was going.
Everything is looking great, and we especially love this beautiful property it sits on!
Since the hip incident at the bachelorette party, I've been a regular over at Armstrong Chiropractic. And this lil redhead loves to be my date.
Somehow we are old enough for a TEN YEAR REUNION.
We drove to Dallas on a very rainy Saturday a few months back so that Lolli could get Arden her (very) belated second birthday gift—an American Girl Doll! Arden loves this thing. Her name is Blair and she has curly red hair just like Arden's.
We started POTTY TRAINING a few weeks back. Which feels huge. These days she runs around just in her "big girl panties" more often than not and she eats a ton of "sour candy" aka Sour Patch Kids as bribes, but I'm telling you—it is clicking. She rarely has accidents, and I am pretty dang proud. I won't tell you that it isn't exhausting—it is. And on top of potty training, we are also slowly phasing out the paci (she already only gets it at bedtime, but now we are trying to move away from it completely). Both of these big transitions at the same time have been surprisingly hard to tackle, and we're still in the thick of it. But we're hoping it all pays off when little baby girl joins us and those big things are already out of the way.
On Father's Day we went skeet shooting with Daddy! Arden was into it for like twenty minutes. Then she was way more excited about picking up rocks and drinking Gatorade (we only drink water and milk, so the Gatorade was a big treat and she was very interested). BUT Drew had fun and so did I
We spent a sunny Saturday at Big Poppa and GG's pool eating watermelon and swimming the other week.
As I write this I am 35 weeks pregnant. I took the photo below in an Old Navy dressing room yesterday and realized looking at it later on that—OH MY—there's definitely a third trimester bump happening there. Funny how you don't realize how pregnant you are until you see a picture.
Things are going okay except for a lot of rib and middle back pain and just pure exhaustion. We've moved into the phases of chewing ice 24/7 and swollen extremities. After sitting at my desk all day, my ankles are usually giant. I've also switched to a rubber wedding band, which is surprisingly comfortable. Also nothing appropriate for work is fitting well—truly nothing—which is why I was in the Old Navy dressing room to begin with. BUT other than a those things and a few other completely normal third trimester pregnancy symptoms, we're making it!
At our 32 week MFM ultrasound we found out that baby girl is breech. No one was all that concerned then, but turns out that she is (most likely) still breech at 35 weeks, which becomes slightly more concerning by the day. Basically the bigger she gets, the less room she has to flip and the less likely it becomes that she'll successfully do it on her own. Next Monday we have our 36 week routine appointment where we'll probably have another ultrasound just to confirm her position. If she still is wrong side up, we'll schedule an ECV where they manually flip her from the outside (yes, ouch for me). If that works (50% chance), we're in the clear! If it fails, we're looking at a scheduled c-section. It's been pretty upsetting for me because after being induced with Arden, I was really looking forward to trying to go into labor on my own this time. And it just isn't looking good that I'll have that opportunity.
I've been trying to focus on all the positives—and they are many! For example, the doctors were concerned that the high AFP levels in my blood could mean spinal tube defects for baby, which PRAISE GOD, after seeing the ultrasound is no longer a real concern. They were also monitoring a bright spot on baby's heart, but her heart has developed healthy and strong. They were monitoring me for placental abruption because of some weird risk factors, which obviously has not happened. I was at a higher risk for pre-eclampsia, but no real symptoms yet. Baby was at risk for what was described to me as her growth stalling out around 30 weeks, which also never happened. Talk about abundant blessings.
We've been through a long list of maybes and this child has put us through the worry wringer! If there was ever a doubt this would be our final addition to the family, there definitely is no doubt after this roller coaster! But if, at the end of the day, the worst of it turns out to be a scheduled c-section for a breech baby, I will be grateful to God for a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.
I was SO glad to get this dumb gestational diabetes test out of the way at 27 weeks. It actually revealed that I'm hypoglycemic—meaning my pancreas actually works a little too well. Basically this test is looking for your glucose levels to be too high after drinking this super sweet drink, but mine were a bit low at 64. Doctor said although it's not the best result ever, it's far better than gestational diabetes. Honestly the worst of it is that after eating a big meal or something really sweet, I get to feeling really sleepy—and though it's annoying, I can handle it.
People ask me all the time if the nursery is ready, and to be honest, it could not be further from it. It is currently being used as storage for my maternity clothes and a lot of odds and ends, but I do have this one organized drawer full of baby girl's stuff that I love to just go stare at. A lot of nights I'll go in there and dream about how crazy and wild and beautiful life will be when she gets here. We are so ready for her—even if the nursery is not!
Drew and I celebrated ten years of dating on June 17th, so I decided to throw in this photo of us from the summer of 2010 for a good laugh.
She's cute.
Planting my new rose bushes. Arden LOVES to help Daddy with plants.
Last weekend Drew had a bachelor party in Austin, so it was a girl's weekend for us. I won't lie, it was surprisingly difficult without Drew's help to be 35 weeks pregnant and solely in charge of a potty training toddler. BUT we made it to the museum, we romped around Baylor's campus, we got Chick-Fil-A (which Arden is obsessed with) AND we got ice cream. I felt like the fun mom.
At around 31 weeks we had maternity photos! Will try to post more soon.
Told you these are out of order—here is Easter. :)
After learning that there was candy in the eggs, Arden was OBSESSED with the egg hunting. She only just recently stopped talking about wanting to "eat Easter eggs."
I find pictures like this in my phone regularly. We may have a budding photographer on our hands, folks.
Weekend Zoo day a few months back.
Bluebonnet romp.
Drew's uncle's wedding. Another flower girl gig for Arden back in April!
Arden's first haircut, courtesy of my mom.
Back in April Drew and I went to California for our babymoon/my birthday, but I'll post more about that later. The short of it is that it was so fun and so relaxing.
Work is absolute insanity lately and is not showing signs of slowing down. As you can imagine, that is extremely stressful for me as I try to get ahead before heading out for maternity leave. And of course, I'll keep grinding and do my very best, but please also be praying that space would be made which allows me to leave feeling good about where I've left things and that also allows me to fully enjoy my break. I'll be gone from July-October, and I really want to go in peace.
Okay I THINK that's about it. Wow, that was a lot. I'll try not to wait quite so long next time. ;)
