Evicted!

Shim is now 4 days overdue and was officially served with an eviction notice this afternoon. I went back to the doctor this morning because they watch you like a hawk once you are overdue. I won't go into great detail here, but they did some testing in the office to monitor baby's heart rate. Those tests looked fine and normal but they also sent me to a specialist for an ultra sound just to make sure. Based on the US results, everything is fine BUT that doctor did say that I could not go past the 41 week mark. Soooooo, that means that Shim has until Sunday evening to decide he/she is going to come into this world on his/her own or else the doctors will begin the induction process.

My hope is obviously that Shim will send me into labor naturally but if not we will get to meet him or her on Monday. In the meantime, I will be here eating eggplant, lots of spicy foods, walking, and doing jumping jacks (totally serious).

Mom and I came up with what I thought was a fool proof plan yesterday in hopes that it would yield a Shim. We had planned a long time ago to paint my belly like a beach ball at the very end of my pregnancy and take some pictures of it. Just for something fun to do. Anyway, life just got in the way and we got so caught up with other things and totally forgot to do so until one of my cousins reminded Mom the other day. So I decided that if we made definitive plans to do something that SURELY Shim would "ruin" these plans for us by deciding to come on out. With this in mind, Mom went out and got all the supplies we would need and I made plans to go up to my sister's house after work to visit with Ellie and to get my belly painted.

Naturally, Shim outsmarted us and didn't come today like we were hoping but on the bright side we did get to take some cute pictures.

Shim Shady

Ben and I had quite a busy weekend, but still no sign of Shim. We just figured we needed to keep ourselves busy to avoid sitting around the house and waiting! Friday night, we went to Scalini's where I tried the Eggplant Parmesan. Supposedly, something in the eggplant somehow helps labor get started. If you go into labor within 48 hours of eating Scalini's eggplant parm, I think they give you a gift certificate for a future meal or something. Turns out that it was a total fail, but at least we enjoyed a good dinner.

Ben got invited to play golf on Saturday in honor of a friend's 30th Birthday. Initially, I think he was afraid to commit to golf because he was worried that I would go into labor but I reminded him that the chance of me needing him within that exact 4 hour stretch was pretty slim. He did end up going of course and just had his phone with him so he could be on standby. (Go figure that I wasn't thinking and called him near the very end of his round! Needless to say, I think I ruined his concentration on that hole). I spent some time looking like a beached whale at the pool with friends and getting some much needed sun on my pasty legs and arms! Then Saturday night we went to a surprise birthday party. So it was a pretty full day -- we were both exhausted by the time we got home.

We got up this morning and went to church. I had to go through about 4 wardrobe changes before I could find something that fit okay. These last days of pregnancy sure don't do much for your self-esteem! After church, we went out and had the BEST lunch at Fox Brothers BBQ. I'm not normally a huge BBQ fan, but this place is excellent. I took a picture of the fried ribs appetizer that we shared. To say they were good is a tremendous understatement. (And to our friends who were supposed to meet us there and ditched us -- you missed out!!)

I don't really know why I'm still posting pictures of myself at this stage -- I think I look normal in the mirror and then see myself in a picture and realize that I am absolutely ready to pop! Oh well, here is a picture of Ben and I after lunch today - officially 40 weeks. Let's just hope we don't make it all the way to 41!

I go back to the doctor in the morning. They will do what is called a non-stress test on the baby to monitor his/her heart rate and make sure things are still okay. As long as they determine that the baby is still safe and getting plenty of oxygen in the womb they will allow me to go on for about 10 more days. (I think I've said all this before, sorry if I'm being redundant)

36 Weeks!

As Ben says, we are busy these days just Waitin on a Shimmy. The nursery is 99.9% complete, everything is washed and put away, we have installed the car seat, put together the pack n' play (that was TOUGH) and bouncer, and tonight we are going to put the swing together. Oh, and finish packing our hospital bag so that when the time comes we'll just have to grab the bag and go. I don't think I've discussed this with Ben yet but we are also going to make a trip to Babies R' Us this weekend to get the last-minute necessities that Shim will need once he or she arrives. The plan is to be totally ready after this weekend but I have a pretty strong feeling that we're going to be waiting around for the next several weeks. My official due date is May 16 and my personal guess is that it will be somewhere around the 20th or 21st before Shim decides to make his grand entrance into the world.

I'm seeing the midwife every week from here on out. This is fun because I like hearing the baby's heartbeat each week and this past Monday I even got to see the baby via ultra-sound! (She had to make sure head was down. That is probably TMI but trust me that is the extent of any 'medical details' that I will ever post on this blog.) Although I will be seeing the doc on a weekly basis, it is a little frustrating that they can't really tell you a whole lot. I mean they can give me the medical facts of my progress, but that doesn't really tell a whole lot .... certainly doesn't do much for predicting exactly when the baby will arrive.

I did decide that this child is most likely going to come out with an addiction to hot sauce. After I ate lunch today, I realized that I have eaten something with hot sauce 3 out of my last 4 meals! What got me thinking about that is the other day at Chick-fil-a when I asked for some to go with my nuggets and the cashier said "be careful ... you're going to give that baby heartburn". I could probably curb my own addiction fairly easily, but I've been eating it frequently throughout my pregnancy and haven't hurt the baby yet so I guess its not really a big deal.

What I am not ready for, however, is to leave my office to be out on maternity leave for 6 weeks. That isn't to say that I'm not looking forward to the time off to recover and take care of my baby, but just that no matter what I do at work to get ahead and get organized for the people taking over I can't seem to get things ready. Oh well. I guess since Shimster is giving me a few more weeks, I will get things to a point where I feel comfortable leaving. I think that is mostly the control-freak in me that wants things to continue EXACTLY my way while I'm out. Most likely it won't, and I will just have to deal.

That is about it for this week's update!

Shimster stuff

I am now 24 weeks along, and my belly is HUGE. I think I say this each week but it continues to grow with each passing minute. I can already tell that I'm not going to be very comfortable the last 5-10 weeks of my pregnancy! Here is a picture of my belly as of last night. (No stretch marks ... yet. But I'm sure those are coming).

I don't really have a ton of baby updates. I have another Doctor's appointment next week but honestly those are always just quick checkups to make sure things are measuring correctly and my blood pressure is okay. I never have much to report after my appointments but I guess that is a good thing! I'm feeling kicks and lots of movement from Shim and at this point have his/her routine pretty much figured out. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I really really love to feel each movement that Shim makes. Sometimes I even shake my belly a little bit if I haven't felt him in a while. I just like to know that he's okay in there! Ben doesn't really appreciate it when I do that to our child - he says the baby will get me back tenfold after it is born for all these months of me pestering him/her! And Ben is probably right.

I did decide on all of Shim's room decor and Mom ordered all the furniture last weekend! (Thanks Mom -- Shim will love it, I know!) I think I am most excited about the Glider that we picked out -- it is soooo comfortable. Hopefully it will make those late-night feedings a little easier to bear. I bought all the bedding and really like what we ended up choosing. The room will be yellow and the wall with the crib on it will be (large) black and white stripes. Sortof a french theme, I guess. Becky did a little rendering of the room and here is what she came up with! (Gives you a little bit of a visual since I won't have any of this done until the LAST minute)
The house is still progressing along. Neither Ben or I have had a chance to see it since we had our pre-drywall walk through with our builder late last week but I intend to go by to check on it today. I'm guessing that by now all the brick will be complete and the house will be dried in. As of last Friday, the builder felt that he was on target for an early April closing date so that was good news. I have heard that things slow down quite a bit once the house is dried in. Here is a picture of Ben and I at the house from a few weeks ago.

Oh! One more thing, and this is totally off-topic, but did anyone besides me notice Barry's terrible makeup last night during his State of the Union Address? He was ORANGE! I think they got a liiiiiiiitttttle carried away with the foundation. Totally not his fault, but I just felt the need to point out that he looked like a pumpkin!

19 Week Update (Because I Can't Think of a Creative Title)

I'm finally calming down from our hell week last week. I literally had to leave work early every single day for something related to the baby, moving, or closing on our condo. We also were supposed to have a meeting with our builder, but fortunately Ben took the reins on that as I just couldn't miss any more work that I already did. On top of that, I was trying to finish packing up all of our belongings in a very organized fashion so that I would be able to find things as we needed them. I started out pretty organized, but got pretty sloppy in the end in an effort to get everything moved out. My parents came down a few times and ended up being a TREMENDOUS help. I tried to do as much as I could by myself, but one pregnant woman can only do so much! On top of that our buyers were pretty nit-picky about things so I ended up having to fight with an HVAC company to get them to come back out and re-do work they had already done in order to satisfy the buyers. (More on them later) Everything ended up working out smoothly and we closed without a hitch so it is a relief to have that off our plate!

Ben and I went to the doctor last Tuesday for my 2nd trimester ultrasound. This is the big one where they do a full anatomy scan of the baby to make sure everything is healthy. This is also where you would be able to find out the sex of your baby, but of course we didn't chose to do so -- they told us when to look away and we both did! So that means there is no going back now -- Shim is officially a Shim (she + him) until May!! Anyway, the doctors say that everything looks great with Shim and even though we really had no cause to be concerned it is still nice to hear that from a doctor!

I need to get some better 19 week belly pictures done, but for now here is a picture of me this morning.

Now, I KNOW that I am getting bigger. I think I've gained about 10 pounds, which may be a little on the high side considering I'm only 19 weeks, but I think most would agree that it is typically best to not point that out to any pregnant woman. Fortunately, I haven't had too many people make annoying comments to me, but the few I have heard have reeeeelllly set me off! For example, I was at a family Christmas lunch the other day and someone who I hadn't seen in a while said:

"So you're only 19 weeks, huh? Do the doctors say you're going to have a big baby?"

Now, I'm fairly certain she wasn't trying to insult me. BUT was that really necessary to say? I think not! I was polite in my response but I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from snapping!

There are 3 people in this world that can get away with making fat, pregnant comments or jokes to me: Mom, Sister, Doctor. Anyone who doesn't fall into one of those 3 categories should probably stick with more generic comments.

Other than that I feel like my pregnancy has been fairly boring - no major cravings other than cookie dough. I got so excited yesterday when I was reading a sugar cookie dough recipe because I didn't see where it called for an egg but then I realized that had to be a mistake - I highly doubt there is a such thing as an eggless cookie! Although I say my pregnancy has been uneventful, I will admit that I have a major case of prego-brain. The other night after dinner with some friends I went to leave and couldn't remember where I had parked my car. I literally walked the parking lot, in the cold, for 10 minutes searching for it! I've also noticed that I've been a little more ditzy/forgetful than usual but apparently that is something everyone experiences. (Right????)

17 Weeks Update

When thinking back to some of my friend's pregnancies and also my sister's, I remember I always looked forward for their weekly blog updates so that I felt like I knew what was going on in their and the baby's life (even if I already knew, its just fun to see the blog update with pictures). But with my pregnancy, I just don't feel like there is all that much to update from week to week. I mean, my belly is definitely getting bigger as evidenced in this picture


and I have my regular doctor's appointments and stuff like that but no major news. Its maybe a little harder that we don't actually have our house yet so it isn't like I have little nursery updates to talk about. I'm pretty sure we're going to close on the house about 5 minutes prior to Shim's arrival so that means we're going to rely HEAVILY on Meme (my mom) and Aunt Kimmie to help us throw it together!

I do have my big ultrasound appointment on the 15th, and this would be the time to find out the sex of the baby. But we aren't finding out so this appointment is mainly an anatomy checkup to make sure Shim has properly functioning organs and such. Speaking on the sex of the baby - if you have a second go to the poll on the right hand side of this blog and vote whether you think its a boy or a girl if you haven't already!

You know what I really really really miss and never thought I would? Cookie dough and cake batter. Those aren't things that I eat all that often but just the fact that I am unable to eat them right now drives me crazy. It is one of the few cravings I've had and the only one I'm unable to feed. I don't really miss wine or beer unless I'm in a social situation or if I've had a particularly long day. I do sometimes wish I could take a mucinex or sudafed but I wouldn't say those are things that I necessarily miss -- just necessities during this sinus season but I've been able to get through without them.

Only other update is the fact that our whole life is packed up in boxes. I literally spent all last week packing things up room by room. I'm to the point now where there isn't a whole lot I'm going to be able to do until the very last minute which is rapidly approaching. I'll be so much more relaxed once we get through the closing. Then maybe I can stop to enjoy the fact that it is Christmastime!

30, Pregnant, and Homeless

Geez! We have been so, so so busy. This post might get a little long, but I'm going to try to update what we've been doing for the past couple weeks! We have so much going on, and I really just haven't had much time for blogging.

A few days after my last post, I turned 30. I've been telling my parents for years that I was 'pushing 30' but now it is official, I am old. However, just because I'm old doesn't mean that I can't have multiple birthday celebrations like we used to do in college. Ben's parents were even sweet enough to drive down to Atlanta for the family celebration! We enjoyed a fabulous dinner at La Grotta -- even Ellie joined in the fun! Here is one of the only pictures we have from the night. Notice my new Tahitian pearls? Ben did a FANTASTIC job on my gift (and so did his mom as she was the one who shopped for them!)


In the midst of all my birthday celebrations, we have also been frantically looking for a house. I hadn't wanted to mention anything on the blog until our contract was binding, but we ended up getting an offer on our condo and are scheduled to close on December 17. Although it is a good thing that we have a contract, it also really put the pressure on us to find something.

The weekend of my birthday, Ben and I were driving to meet our realtor at a house that we both really liked but I knew it wasn't going to work for us. We both really wanted to make it work, because we were just so discouraged about everything we had found up to this point and this was a really great house. Anyway, on our way to the house we drove past a neighborhood that we have both always loved. Long story short, the old builder went bankrupt and had built out (and sold) about half of the lots. A new builder came in and bought the distressed land and is about to start construction. The downside here is that there is no standing inventory so that means we have to build! That sounds like so much fun to everyone, but the reality is that when you build, you wake up in the middle of the night worried about silly things like where to put cable jacks and whether or not you chose the right tile in your bathrooms so it really isn't all fun and games. The upside is that we will end up with a great house that we both really love. As of now, our tenative closing date on the house is April 8.

Just in case you forgot, Shim is due to enter the world May 16. So, yeah we're literally going to close on our house and move in about 5 minutes before Shimmy is born! Awesome. At least I won't be expected to do any heavy lifting! But yeah, just to reiterate I am 30, pregnant, and (almost) homeless. That sounds like a really great TV show doesn't it?

Shim Shady

I've been slacking on my blog again. And I need to get better at doing that because I'm not keeping any kind of pregnancy journal or anything (yet ... I'm sure my sister will fix that as soon as she reads this post) so I'm thinking this blog will be a journal of sorts for me. Like I said earlier, I'm sure this won't all be baby stuff but we'll see. That is pretty much the main thing happening in the Longmire household right now so it is on our minds all the time!

We're still looking for houses. Still a stressful process. Everyone says we'll find the right house but that hasn't happened so far. Our Realtor sends us emails every day with new listings and we just don't seem to like many of those. We're looking for a certain thing and in a certain area and I'm thinking it maybe we need to relax our criteria a bit. Problem is, we want something that we both really love. We don't want to settle. A house is a major investment so why should we buy something that we're not both 100% in love with?

Not a whole lot of Shim updates today. I went in a few weeks ago for my 1st trimester screening -- just a quick blood and ultrasound test where they screen for chromosomal abnormalities. At my first appointment, Shim just wouldn't cooperate and get into a good position for the doctors so I ended up having to go back about a week later for another ultrasound. It turns out it was a good thing, because Ben was able to make it to this appointment and see Shimmy on the monitor. This was a more detailed screen and also Shim has grown significantly since the very first ultrasound so we could see his fingers and nose, and all the details of his little body! He even had the hiccups while I was having my ultrasound! I have a picture to share, it isn't the greatest quality because I couldn't get the scanner to work right. I took a picture with my regular camera so sorry about the flash -- you can't see well enough in the no flash picture. And he/she doesn't have a club hand even though it may look that way in the picture. (I'm pretty sure both hands are above his face)



In case you haven't already figured this out, Shim has lots of nicknames ... he/she started out as just plain ole' Shim and now his or her nickname has morphed into about 12 variations of Shim and depending on who we are talking to Becky-Rebecca or JoBeck. When I refer to it I tend to call it he. That is more because I don't want to refer to my baby as "it" all the time and less because I really have any inclination as to the sex. We'll all find that out in May!

That is all I've got for today. Fingers crossed we'll find a house soon so we'll have a home to bring Shimmer home to!