Nesting and Stuff

Good Monday evening to you. My husband went back to work today. All was calm on the home front. Blissful routine. Breaks from it are nice, true, but it always feels good to get reacquainted with it, yes? It's like sleeping in your own bed again after a few weeks on the road.

I am seriously nesting right now. I worked on organization and cleaning for two hours, checking my blood pressure every fifteen minutes, to ensure I wasn't overdoing it. My blood pressure is always good when I'm up and working, for whatever reason. But, shhhh, don't tell the Doc. I stayed down as much as possible after that, just to be on the safe side.

Someone from church brought a meal tonight. I was so pleasantly surprised and blessed! We haven't been attending there that long; it felt so nice to be remembered. Having the meal already prepared kept me off my feet for quite awhile in the evening.

Today Anna Grace's nonstress test was non-reactive again, but the ultrasound showed all is well. He blames it on the medication and wants me back on Thursday in the afternoon, which is the time of day her strip became reactive at the hospital last week. The ultrasound suggested a weight of 5 pounds, 13 ounces - give or take a pound. Judging from the number of "you don't look very big" comments I'm receiving, I'd say she is probably around 5.5 pounds. At least no one is currently saying, "Boy, you're carrying low". She has risen! LOL

Did you get the stuffy nose symptom while pregnant? I have every time, and it ends up being the one thing that drives me continually nuts. I can't wait to breath freely again! I now have the humidifier running every night. It's helping me sleep better. Pregnancy causes the nasal passages to swell in some women, leading to stuffiness.

If the strip is non-reactive again on Thursday, I have a hunch he will induce (I'm 37 weeks, 6 days on Thurs.). Sensing that, I am trying to prepare the house and my hospital bag. I've been blessed enough to find a whole lot of very nice baby clothes for Anna Grace at thrift stores over the past few months. They've been washed, but I've been needing to work on separating them by size; we are low on closet and drawer space, so I'll be keeping out only what she'll need for the first couple months. I have about five preemie outfits, which I'm sure she will need. All my kids have needed them - even Daniel used a couple with a birth weight of 6.6 pounds. They were all nineteen inches long.

I had gotten rid of Emily's 0-3 month things. I found nice replacements for those, plus nice dresses and outfits in various sizes (3-12 months). Dressing girls is fun. Kind of an extension of my own girlhood Barbie days? Probably. My sister and I loved dressing our Barbie dolls! And they didn't squirm like Miss Rose, which was nice! LOL

We needed a can opener very badly, and milk as always, so Don dragged himself to Walmart last night. No luck on finding a new rolling pin there. I guess the holiday bakers beat us to it; they were out of stock. Daniel, who as I mentioned can't wait for ANYTHING, is driving us nuts with his often repeated, "When can we make the gingerbread men?" In addition, since I mentioned stringing popcorn and making paper chains for our tree, he has repeatedly asked when we will get to the teacher store for the red and green construction paper. Needless to say, my sanity depends on getting around to these errands before the baby comes, as Don will surely NOT enjoy being sent to the teacher store, or on a wild goose chase for plain, popped popcorn in large quantity. My hunch is that part of the reason we won't be having anymore kids is that my husband can't stand the thought of once again being forced into the family shopper role. LOL

Yet the thing is, I feel guilty about shopping while supposedly being on bedrest. Really, I do. I'm half afraid to run into one of the nurses or my doctor. Perhaps I'll send my dad to the teacher store, who has an affinity for shopping. Only with Dad, one can't count on receiving just red and green. He'd bring back oodles of paper, despite the cost. For Heaven's sake - I should just learn to keep my mouth shut about what activities I have up my teacher sleeve. I learned that once, but I've been out of the classroom far too long. I'm losing my edge.