Movements

I wonder if it is weird that I want to walk around with my shirt up over my belly so that I and everyone else can see my belly move when Sophia kicks me?

Overwhelmed

So Dooce had her baby girl this past week and she posted a video of her new baby. I cannot believe that we are going to have one of these little alien like creatures in approx eighty days. I am not sure how you are supposed to react when you finally get everything you have spent your entire life praying for. I know that may sound like an odd comment to make, I know that we of course spend our time saying "thank you God, thank you God, thank you God." But beyond that, I am not sure how to reconcile myself to the reality that we are having a baby, this isn't a cruel joke, no one else will take this child and raise her.

Brooke and I share custody of his daughter, she goes back and forth every other week. This arraignment can sometimes be difficult but for the most part it seems to work really well. There is a part of me that expects this baby to have the same arraignment, she will be shuttled off to someone else and we will get to see her when they need babysitting or want to have a play date. I will see her about as much as I see my nephews. I literally cannot seem to wrap my head around the fact that this child will never leave our sight if we so choose. She will never spend a single night away from us if we don't want her to, there is no one else that has a say in where she goes, or how we raise her. Yes, I know that she is God's child and that ultimately he will have the say but you understand the general point I am making. She will be ours. God has entrusted her to us.

I have always thought I would make a good mother, I have spent my life literally learning as much as I can from some of the most amazing mothers out there. Now that it is really happening I hope that I can live up to my own expectations, the expectations of my husband, Gods expectations for how this child will be raised. I am so honored, humbled and overwhelmed at the thought of being a mother, of getting to experience my child's firsts, of not missing periods of her life because I move away or because we have to share custody. When she cries for her mom, it will be me.

There is a part of me that cannot wait for this to start but then I have to remind myself that it has already started. She is with me everyday, I can feel her movements and she can here my voice. I am protecting her from everything and she is relying on me for life. We have reached the point in this pregnancy where we can stop holding our breath. She is healthy and if something were to happen and she was born tomorrow she would be okay, small and not out of the woods but she would have a fighting chance.

I know that before long I am going to be complaining about being pregnant in summer, in Kansas and without an air conditioned car but today I am thankful, I am humbled that God chose me to be her mother and I am going to keep protecting her for as long as I can and I will look forward to the day when we will meet face to face and I will have the opportunity to say, "Hello, I am your mother!"

Jumping Jelly Bean

My best friend Tracey calls the baby Jelly Bean which makes me think of a jumping bean, today Sophia has decided to live up to that name. Her movement has been pretty consistent over the last month or so, I feel her just a little bit in the morning but not much. Maybe she will be a morning sleeper which would suit me just fine. In the afternoons she spends an hour or two jogging and doing tai chi and then when I go to bed she wakes up, sweet girl. Several times I have been lying in bed with the remote on my belly and she has kicked so hard that the remote jumps. She is very clever and only does this when I am alone so Brooke thinks that I am insane.

This past weekend was spent in Salina at the Smokey Hill River Festival. Our normal routine was disrupted because I was awake more at night then I ever am and during the day I walked more then I usually do. Sophia I think was a little freaked out because she didn't move much the whole weekend. By Saturday night I was starting to panic a little that I hadn't felt her all day, Brooke kept reassuring me that everything was okay but I enjoy the thrill of the panic. After drinking some tea and lying down for about thirty minutes I started to feel some movement, not as much as normal but it eased my mind.

Monday Sophia wanted to reassure me herself that she was good so she danced quite a bit in the afternoon and evening. Today however I can not only feel her movements but her body parts. I am not quite sure what I am feeling but she is pushing against the top of my belly and I can actually feel the outline of something. A leg, perhaps an elbow, I am not sure but it is at once the coolest and the creepiest feeling. I love know that she is right there and that she can feel me push back but not knowing what I am touching is weird, Brooke hopes that I am not poking her eyeball.

Today at lunch he asked that I not move anymore for the next three months because he is worried that I will move and she will readjust and get the cord caught around some body part. I told him personally I would be okay staying at home for the next three months but shockingly that is not what he meant. So we compromised that I would continue to do what I have been doing and he would continue to worry that she is going to get caught in something. We make a great team of worry warts!

Two Down One To Go

So much to blog about so little interest in being witty... Yesterday was the first day of the last trimester of my pregnancy. There is a part of me that feels like this pregnancy has been creeping along, that part of me is incredibly inpatient and thankful that I didn't find out until the 15th week or I would have made myself and everyone around me crazy by now. Well crazier! On the otherhand, I feel like the end of summer will never come and there is a little part of me that is okay with just being pregnant forever...

My belly is officially and unmistakably a pregnant belly and yet I have not really purchased a whole lot of maternity clothes. They are expensive and awkward looking, that is when I am actually able to find them in Topeka. My friend Jessica told me about the Belly Band which has worked wonders on expanding all of my non-pregnancy pants. Yesterday there was an 8-inch gap that it had to accommodate for, God Bless the inventor of the belly band.

The feet love to swell, it is their favorite pastime. Yesterday I tried to wear loafers, at some point I slipped them off my feet while I was sitting at my desk and then I could not get them comfortably back onto my feet. I am grateful that I am pregnant in the summer when it comes to shoes, I can wear a variety of flip flops and my feet can swell to their yummy little delight.

We are getting baby stuff left and right lately. Brooke has a friend that had a baby boy about eleven months ago and he has been showering us with his leftovers. He has given us a Boppy Swing, a bath tub, a Boppy, a lovely Graco car seat and two bases and a very cool walker that looks like a red corvette. Tracey and Vicki went garage saleing and got us a ton of little clothes and me some very nice maternity clothes. And finally, Shellie took Isabelle shopping and they got some bute outfits and a ton of bibs. Brooke asked me the other day what we were going to register for, I think a car to tote this baby around.

I guess that is really all I had, I apologize for the lack of funny stories, this really is more a techinical update. Stay tuned though, I am sure that a whole summer of giant belly in Kansas heat will produce humor, at least for those around me.

Good Times

So here is my old blog... I thought that I had lost it and it made me sad :( Now I want a link from my future to my past!

Catching up

So I feel like I should go back and catch up on the everything that I didn't write about from the time we found out until now. We found out that I was pregnant on a Wednesday and we met with the Dr's office the next week. At our first appointment we thought we were about 10 weeks. The nurse definitely disagreed, she said that we were at 18 weeks or there were two. That was the first time that I had any morning sickness.

The next day we had our first ultrasound to see exactly how far along we were, seeing the baby was amazing. She is definitely Brooke's daughter, she bounced the whole time. Of course we didn't know she was a she yet.... we got some great pictures and the technician determined that we were fifteen weeks three days into the pregnancy with a due date of September 7th. Wow, I missed the whole first trimester...

Baby History

So I previously had a blog that was all about me moving to Pennsylvania, when I moved back to Kansas it seemed narcissistic to keep a blog going about myself. I kept telling myself that when I got pregnant I would start a blog.

Last December I was talking to my mom about how discouraged I felt about my life, I honestly was beginning to believe that I was never going to have a baby and that I was never going to get married (despite being in a 5+ year relationship). I had seen a show where a women made the comment that she prayed to God to take away her desire to have children if it wasn't what she was supposed to do with her life. She had four children and more then twenty foster children. So I began praying that if I wasn't meant to have kids that God would take away the desire. By the end of January I had come to accept that I may never have kids.

March 11th I found out that I was pregnant. March 19th we found out that I was fifteen weeks and three days pregnant which meant that I was pregnant all through December and January. God truly does work in mysterious ways.

Once we confirmed that we were going to have a baby in September, Brooke and I started talking about getting married. He wanted to get married in the church and I wanted to get married before the baby came. So we talked to our priest who said we could have both. A wedding in May in the church with three months to spare before the baby. On May 24th, 2009, I became Mrs. Brooke Estes.

Now we hurry and wait for the baby, a girl to be named Sophia Catherine Grace...