baby is still baking away. just in the past week or so, my back has REALLY started to ache. last night, i woke up about 4 times to use the toilet and try to get comfortable in bed again.

i'm planning to go to SEMA in las vegas in about a month, and to be honest, i'm kind of scared! i've put on about 13 pounds, and gaining about 1 a week. if i'm already uncomfortable and slow at 13 pounds, how am i going to manage at 18 or 19?! haha. but i'm feeling good otherwise. happy. excited.

we've started all the plans for the nursery. we live in a house that is sooo big...haha. ok. that's a lie. it is a nice, modestly-sized house that is the perfect size for raising a little family. but we do have 4 bedrooms, and we feel fortunate that we've got a few bedrooms that we rarely go in. so it is exciting to be bringing purpose to another one. we've consolidated most of the furniture from the room that had been serving as a secondary guest room/craft room into our office...which will now be an office/secondary guest room. the craft goodies will go into our primary guest room.

jeff will begin painting soon. we've picked a fun, gender neutral theme that should turn out super cute, and be flexible enough to be lived with for a number of years. the crib and mattress we ordered are just waiting at the store to be picked up! we've got a ton more to research and buy, but it's starting to come together.

we'll be starting our birth preparation class in about a week and a half. it's a 9-week course, put on by my doctor's office. i had a chance to talk briefly with the instructor, and from what she said and from what i read in the course description she sent me, i'm becoming more and more comfortable that we'll be properly prepared for when the big time comes.

i'm most definitely not a tree-hugging hippie, but i am definitely the most comfortable with the philosophy of going through the the process with as few interventions as possible. i was a little nervous, because i hadn't thought to ask my doctor any questions about that kind of stuff (she had come highly recommended by a coworker, and she had been wonderful when i went through my loss last year)...so i was so relieved when i had a chance to ask her a few questions at my last appointment to find that it seems she is all for letting nature do its thing. no rush to induce. very low c-section rate. and the instructor she works with for the birth prep class is very involved with the natural birth groups around town.

believe me, i'll be very happy to be giving birth next to a great hospital, because i have absolutely NO problem with putting my trust in modern medicine. but...i'll be happy to have an opportunity to give it a try the way people have been doing it since people have existed.

so other than physically and mentally preparing, we've enjoyed spending our time as our little family of 2 before we become 3. we took a 4-day trip to South Florida a few weekends ago. a short trip to fort lauderdale, then down to key west and back, but it was a lot of fun. such a wonderful, relaxing time. we managed to see and do so much (including nap!), that we felt nice and refreshed by the time we got home.

i'll wrap this up for now. i've got a 24 pack of break-and-bake tollhouse cookies calling to me from the fridge. getting my hair did in the morning, and then i'll be off to the speedway for bratwursts, dirt track racing, and a demolition derby. :)

camilles (7:15pm, 9.30.11)

jeff is sleeping in, recovering from the bird/swine/asiatic flu bug that he brought back from his recent trip to taiwan and korea. while i was sitting here in the living room, surfing the internet, our little guy/gal who is in residence in my gut started kicking (or punching?), which reminded me that i should probably make a better effort to document this experience.

up until about 2 weeks ago, i'd tell you that being pregnant hasn't been any big thing. but now, it's different.

for the first several months, it was actually just a mix of stressful and boring.

i was pregnant a year ago, and we were super excited. but as God and nature have their own plans, it wasn't meant to be. to say it was devastating wouldn't even begin to capture how low that low was. even now, my heart aches for what a sad experience it was, and as short of a time as it was that i was carrying that first baby, it's something that will always be a part of me.

so there was obviously that time for mourning and recovery, and time to reflect on how blessed our lives are in every other way. we moved forward, thankful to have been given an opportunity to strengthen our relationship and to continue feathering our nest (we've done a TON to our house in the past year, and it's been awesome). we spent more time celebrating special events with our friends and family, and sharing in all the other joyous moments that the time that passed brought.

anyway...back to the stressful/boring time of the first few months of being pregnant. it was obviously a thrill to find out we were expecting again, but this time around, it was a lot more tentative. it was a lot of watching the days go by, and then hitting the week milestones. it was a lot of brief moments of "what did I just feel? was that a cramp? is that normal?" and then a lot of trying to relax when those little, normal twinges of having a changing body would go away.

i don't want to say that i wasn't every bit excited about this pregnancy as i was the first time around...but i think it was tempered by the fact that my eyes had been opened to the very real possibility that it could be a fleeting thing.

but over those long days and weeks of wondering, the signs were there that this one was here to stay. and i think the joy began to peek out through the haze of uncertainty.

a joy which i promptly celebrated by taking a flying leap into a parking lot, landing flat on my stomach as i tackled leilani after she tried to make a break for it while i was trying to get her groomed at petco...

that sucked and it was scary. and i was worried with my whole being that i had just done something horrible. but the doctor reassured us that the baby was still tucked safely away, deep inside me, and at the next appointment, i heard the heart beating strongly.

but now, the stressful and boring time is over. it has now been taken over by the stressful and much more exciting time. which goes to show that i think i should just figure that baby related "stress" is just something that will inevitably be a part of my life from here on out. :)

my belly is starting to get big. i've outgrown all of my pants. i can feel this little guy/gal wiggling around, doing all of the things a growing baby will do to grow and get strong for the day it decides it has gotten too big for the confined quarters i can provide it, and moves into the slightly less confined life that jeff and i will give it.

the next few months are going to go by, SO fast.

camilles (10:19am, 9.11.11)