Midwife appointment

We had our home visit today from the midwife, and it went well! The main thing I was worried about for today’s visit was the blood test that would check my iron levels. My iron was low before, and if it got any lower before birth and stayed that low, I wouldn’t be able to have a home birth. However, when we tested it today, it had gone up a lot! I’m now at 11.4, and (according to my internet searching) it is normal for pregnant women to have a level anywhere from 11 to 12. The nice thing was that I didn’t even have to take extra iron supplements to get it to go up to that level. I just took my regular prenatal vitamin regularly, and I was sure to take it with something other than milk. (Before about a month ago, I took my vitamin with milk, and the calcium apparently kept the iron from being absorbed.)

The rest of the appointment was pretty routine. We talked more about what the home birth will be like, about the roles of the different midwives who will be here, and about what Bryan and I are expecting and wanting to have happen that day. I was also given an herbal supplement to start taking each day that is supposed to help prepare my body for giving birth.

With a little less than a month to go before the due date, I have all the preparations completed that I absolutely wanted to have done before Baby’s birth. I have small things that still can be done, like freezing a few more meals or cleaning our guest bathroom really well. These kinds of thing can keep me busy for the next month, and I also plan to do a lot of knitting and crocheting. Believe it or not, I still haven’t made a baby blanket for Baby yet!! My list of things to make includes finishing knitting a blue hat, knitting a pink hat, knitting a white hat, either knitting or crocheting a white blanket, and possibly crocheting more baby booties. If I complete all of those and still Baby hasn’t arrived, I’ll have to find something else to make!

Completed Soaker!

Sew Crafty Friday

Earlier this week, I completed my first soaker (and my first complete knitting project!) for our little one. I’m considering making one more before Baby comes. I’m excited it turned out this well!

Front of Soaker

Back of Soaker

This week’s belly shot

35 weeks

Here’s my most recent belly photo!  Bryan took this for me last Friday.  Baby’s really growing!!

More freezer cooking

Yesterday I spent the afternoon busy in the kitchen. I used more recipes from Frozen Assets and ended up with many more meals that will be ready for when Baby comes. I started the day by browning ground beef to make an “all-purpose beef mixture,” and then I used this mixture for four different recipes. I made Spaghetti Pie, Baked Ziti, Texas Chili, and Sloppy Joes. I ended up with many servings of each, and I’m looking forward to having these ready for serving with minimal preparation! I’d also planned to make three kinds of chicken dishes, but since we had our childbirth class last night, I ran out of time. I’ll post again when I’ve finished the chicken.

Childbirth class went well last night, as did my appointment with the midwife afterwards. Baby is growing and has dropped low in preparation for birth. My next appointment is next Wednesday, and my midwife will come to our house. She’ll be making sure she knows how to get here, we’ll have a regular checkup, and she’ll be checking my birth supplies to be certain I have everything we’ll need. From now until Baby is due, we’ll have weekly checkups, and if Baby is late, we’ll eventually start having even more frequent checkups to make sure everything is ok. I’m so thankful for the easy pregnancy so far, and I’m really looking forward to meeting this little one!

Soaker for Sew Crafty Friday

Sew Crafty Friday

My time has been quite full lately preparing for Baby’s arrival. Along with the usual nesting activities like washing baby clothes, cleaning, and organizing, I’ve been inspired to really learn to knit. My grandmother gave me a nice set of knitting needles two Christmases ago, and I learned to cast on, knit, and purl using some excellent online videos at knittinghelp.com. However, I didn’t really use these new skills for anything other than a swatch that became a scarf for my niece’s baby doll.

One part of my preparation for baby has been collecting supplies for cloth diapering. I’ve looked at lots of options and gotten advice from my sister Hallie who has cloth diapered her boys. I’ve decided that while I want to have a few store-bought covers for the cloth diapers, I also want to make a few wool ones myself. Here’s where the knitting comes in. I joined a wool soaker group on Yahoo, and I crocheted a pattern from that site, but then it said you should knit around the leg holes and waistband to make cuffs. In the last year and a half, I’d forgotten most of what I’d learned, but I picked it up again pretty easily after watching the online videos. I completed that soaker/cloth diaper cover, and I decided I wanted to try one that was completely knitted. So here is what I have so far: half of a soaker, still in the works.

Back of Soaker

Front of Soaker

Side ribbing of Soaker

Now I’m at the point where I will add in the “gusset” or the connection between bottom front and back, and I will add cuffs for the legs, and then I think I’m finished! I’m really excited about this project because I got to learn a few new knitting tricks, like adding short rows to make the back of the soaker bigger (taller) than the front. I’ll post more pictures when I’m finished!

Freezer meals

Today I began to stock my freezer with meals for after Baby comes. We found a good deal on ground beef, so I got out my freezer cookbook and discovered a useful recipe using ground beef. It is a recipe that makes three meals of meatloaf and four meals of meatballs, and then you make different sauces to go with the meatballs. So far I have mixed all the ingredients and baked the meatballs which are now cooling, and I’m baking the meatloaf. We’ll eat meatloaf for dinner tonight, and I’ll freeze the other two and all of the meatballs. That will mean with one dinner’s worth of cooking, I’ve put aside six main dishes for another time! It only took a little bit more time than making just one meatloaf since the meatballs had to be formed individually. I’m excited to try our dinner tonight, and I’m looking forward to the meatball meals since I’ve never made those before. The cookbook has at least 7 different ways to prepare the meatballs, which means we won’t get tired of the same old thing. I’m going to try to use more of the recipes from this book. It really seems useful!

Here’s a link to the book, Frozen Assets by Deborah Taylor-Hough.

Texas heat

This afternoon around 2 I ran out of blue acrylic paint, and so I decided to go to Walmart.  I decided to get the other groceries we needed along with some supplies on my list for our home birth.  This was the first time I’d been outside in the afternoon since we’ve been back from Iowa, and WOW was it hot!  Before we left I think it had been in the 90s regularly, but now it’s been around 100 each afternoon.  I got into the store and stopped for some toothpaste, and Baby started squirming as I had a contraction.  I was fanning myself with my grocery list, and I must’ve put my other hand on my belly, because the woman on the aisle next to me said in an alarmed voice, “Honey, you’re not hurting, are you?”  I laughed and told her I was just hot, and she assured me that I probably would be for the rest of the pregnancy.  So I think I’ve officially had my first instance of scaring someone that I’m going into labor (even though I knew it was just my feisty little one kicking my ribs!)

Oh yeah…

Here’s my most recent belly picture!

Nesting

Two weeks ago, we had the annual summer meetings with our missions organization here in Dallas.  People came from all over the world to attend and teach classes, to present information about their specific branch in the large group meetings, and to make reports to the board.  The purpose of the week is to recruit new missionaries, to teach current recruits more about our organization, to have important meetings, and to enjoy fellowship together as an organization.  We really loved seeing friends of ours who have been overseas or out of town raising support or learning languages.  We are particularly close to one couple that was here who are expecting their first little one about two weeks after our baby is due.  It was SO good to visit with them and to get to have a baby shower for her.

This past week, we traveled to Iowa.  I’d never stopped in Iowa, although I think I’ve driven through before.  We were a little nervous about what the week would be like, but we ended up really liking the people and enjoying the trip.  Bryan preached for the first time in years, we led Sunday School, and I did the children’s sermon.  We told the church about our organization and Bible translation, and Bryan preached about how it has been God’s plan from the very beginning that his people would make his name known to the nations.  Sunday afternoon, we traveled 2 or 3 hours to a church camp where we were to be the camp missionaries for the week.  The camp that week was for 6th to 8th graders.  What fun little people they were. :)  They are still at an age where they can be goofy and crazy without worrying about what other people are thinking, but they also have very serious thoughts and are ready to be challenged during teaching times.  We loved getting to spend the week with them, although they completely wore us out!  At the end of camp, we traveled back to the church, and the next day we met with the missions committee.  They aren’t ready to choose someone to support yet, but that took the pressure off of us and allowed us to answer questions and help them think through the kind of support they’re wanting to give.  We were able to explain Bible translation in more detail and to show them why going through a missions organization is so helpful (instead of just sending an independent missionary like they’re used to.)

Now we’re home again, and I’ve been nesting for most of the week. :)  As soon as we got back, I knew I wanted to jump into preparations for Baby.  I’ve made lists, started gathering things for our home birth, washed Baby’s new clothes, and started knitting another diaper cover.  It’s very exciting to have Baby’s birth be so close!  I’m currently 33 weeks along, so we have about seven weeks left.  I want to try to have everything ready early so that I won’t have to worry about anything as the time gets closer.

We had our first childbirth class last night, and it went well.  We went over very basic things about anatomy, nutrition, exercise, and a few complications.  Most of it was review for me, but I learned some interesting things about the way the muscles in the uterus change their position during labor and eventually pile up behind the baby to help push him out.  Bryan was very interested in the placenta and how it keeps the baby’s blood separate from the mama’s, and he asked our midwife more about that at our appointment afterwards.  It was fun to see him so interested in all of it.  I’d asked him before if he’d want to see the placenta when Baby’s born, and he seemed a little grossed out at the idea, but last night after learning some about it and becoming so interested, he decided he’s going to remind the midwife to show it to him.

After all the baby talk yesterday, I had all sorts of dreams about Baby!  In the one I can remember, Baby was a boy and was born on a Saturday, and Mama and Daddy were with us in a house that was supposedly ours, but was really more like our old house on Sherwood Place.  We woke up on Sunday and were rushing to get to church (as if I’d really be going to church the next day!) and I realized that I hadn’t fed Baby all night!  That’s a constant theme in my dreams about Baby.  I’m not used to having a baby yet, and so I forget to feed the baby and can’t hear him crying for some reason or another.  Silly, I know.

Lots of pictures!

Well, here I am again after a long absence. I have been busy growing our baby, as you can see from this picture! Bryan is finally home, and I’m SO glad to have him back again! He had the camera with him while he was gone, so I saved up all sorts of things to take pictures of and post once he got back. My blog has started doing pictures differently since the last time I posted, so we’ll see if I can get it to work correctly.

One great blessing while Bryan was gone was that Mama was able to come visit me for almost a whole week! We had a wonderful time together, and I really enjoyed her company! We got SO much done while she was here. We reupholstered a rocking lounge chair that I will use when the baby comes. Unfortunately I don’t have a before picture, but here is the finished product!

I think the new material makes a huge difference in the appearance of the chair, and I’m excited that it matches in my living room where it is now as well as in our bedroom where we will put it soon.

Another thing Mama and I did was plant a vegetable garden. I finally have pictures of my little plants. I’m putting a lot of small pictures below, and you can click on them if you want to see larger versions. (If you look at this page on Internet Explorer instead of Firefox, you should see the captions so you’ll know what plants they are. For some reason Firefox isn’t showing the captions on my computer.) I’m very excited about the cucumbers. The first time I planted the seeds, they didn’t spout because I had them in too much shade. Now they are in full sun, and they’re finally sprouting!

That final picture is in our back yard instead of the side yard with the other plants. I trimmed a rosebush just after Mama left, and it’s sprouting again. I also planted the mint when she left. At the very top of the picture, you can see some rocks and charcoal along with a grate. I bought some steaks for Bryan to have when he got home since he hadn’t eaten much good meat while he was gone. He surprised me by cooking the steaks on the ground as he had watched people do on his trip! Those steaks were SO delicious! I was impressed.

In order to have a place for Mama to stay, I worked on organizing the guest room/baby room. It’s a little crowded with the exercise bike in there, but it seems to work alright.

We received the pack ‘n play in the mail the other day, and I already have it set up in our bedroom! (Thank you so much, Debbie!) We’ll keep Baby in with us until family finishes visiting, and then we’ll probably move the pack ‘n play into Baby’s room.

On one of the nights just before Bryan’s return, I was running out of things to do on my to-do list before he got back, and I was feeling somewhat creative. I decided that our bedroom looked bare and boring, and that I wanted to paint something to put up on the wall. The lady who lived here before us left a lot of pictures and picture frames, and while I disliked most of the pictures, some of the frames were nice. I decided to take one of the large ones and paint over what was inside. (Don’t worry, it was just a print that had a price tag for about $10, so I didn’t paint over anything valuable!) I decided that I would focus on putting paint down on the paper instead of letting my perfectionist tendencies get in the way like I usually do, and that I would have something to put up by the end of the night, no matter what it looked like. Usually I spend days or weeks on something and am never satisfied enough to actually display it, or I never actually complete it. But this time I was surprised with the result! I still see flaws in it, but I can more easily accept them. Bryan is encouraging me to paint more of these, and I just might.

Now that Bryan and I have had some time to catch up, we’re starting to get back to regular daily life. So this afternoon while I was taking pictures, I thought I’d get a shot of my dear husband as he worked in his garage. (Yes, he still has the goatee!) I’m so glad to have him home!