Baby Johnson: 37 Weeks

Well, I’ve made it to 37 weeks, full term!  Now, Baby Katy, COME OUT!!! 

Yesterday, I had my doctor appointment, and the doctor says I am a good 4 cm dilated. 

I had my usual NST, and baby is sounding great and doing wonderful with her kicks.

The doc also “stripped my membranes” – which is essentially separating the amniotic sac from the cervix from what I can ascertain from online sources.  It wasn’t the most pleasant experience, but wasn’t intolerable either.

I have been pretty miserable this week, I haven’t been sleeping well, I am up way too many times to pee, and just cannot get comfortable in almost any position, sitting up, standing or lying down. 

I’ve had a few contractions, the monitor at the doctor’s office has confirmed them, but they aren’t all that painful and they don’t last very long. 

I’ve been told I’m lucky so far, progressing to 4cm without having the pain that goes along with it.  I will keep this in mind, but I just want her to come now. 

I’m working from home today, so that I can be closer to the hospital just in case something happens, but with my luck, I’ll still be in this same situation come next Tuesday, and I’ll go ahead and come into work if that’s the case.  Working on Tuesday and ½ day on Wednesday, then we’ll be heading into the hospital on Thursday for induction.

Here’s this week’s comparison photo.  I won’t make it to 38 weeks with Katy either way, but I’ll try to take a picture if I make it to Thursday for one last comparison, even though Thursday will still be only 37 weeks 6 days…..

Here’s the progression photo:

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!!!

Baby Johnson: 36 Weeks

The countdown is on – and I am getting anxious, more excited and super ready!  I am officially going into the hospital for induction on the 30^th which we all knew, but here’s the kicker……  My doctor thinks it’s very possible that I go into labor before that. 

I had my two appointments this week, the usual NST on Monday and then doctor appointment and NST yesterday.  The doctor checked me for the first time this pregnancy, and turns out, I am already 3 cm dilated and 80% effaced.  I wasn’t checked until 37 weeks with Cooper and I was only 2cm.  I was 3 cm at 38 weeks, and 70% effaced at that point.  So, I am definitely progressing faster than I did with Cooper. 

Next week, the doctor says she’s going to strip my membranes, whatever that means, so that she can perhaps kick things off.  I guess sometimes this really helps start the process and sometimes it doesn’t do anything.  We’ll see I suppose.

Things have really been status quo around my house this week, busy as usual, running errands, swimming lessons, baseball games galore.  Tonight Cooper and I are going to watch Tim umpire his baseball game, and tomorrow night I’m hoping we hang out at home and do a whole bunch of nothing while Tim’s at his game. 

I still need to get another load of laundry done for Katy, and then there are a few more things that Steph gave us this week that need to be sorted through and put away.  TWO more boxes of clothes, but I think they are for later, so I’m not going to worry about washing them yet at this point. 

Tim is going to get the blind this weekend (I hope) for her room, and I’m planning to shop for a table to replace the one I’m taking out of Coop’s room to put in Katy’s room. 

Other than that, I really hope to get our house cleaned this weekend (between Tim’s double headers on Saturday AND Sunday, a birthday party late Saturday afternoon, Church and grocery shopping on Sunday I’m not sure how much of that will get done…..).

Newborn photos are not quite scheduled yet, as we’re not sure when Miss Kathryn will arrive, but we’ve lined up Kerri Sparks Photography to take pictures in our home.  I just love Kerri, she’s an amazing photographer!

Weekly comparison…

   

Weekly progression as usual!

Have a great Friday and happy weekend to all!!!

Randomness

Cooper made this at his preschool for me for Mother's Day. I am blessed. I didn't include this in my weekend post because I didn't see this until Monday..... I cried when opening it. I am complete mush these days.

Have you tried these??? They are awesome! A great way to change up how you make chicken, pork, or fish. We've only tried a few of them and only with chicken, but we've liked them all, and this one is our favorite so far.

We do a picture of each person on their birthday with their birthday dessert of choice, and it has to say their age. We mostly use candles, but I got creative with Ryan's peanut butter pie this year. We are only going to have one slot left very soon..... Sooner or later I'll have to add another frame. I just updated this with this year's spring birthdays, Ryan, Tim and Andrew. Next up is Katy, then Soup, then the rest of us in the fall. Do you do anything like this in your family? This frame hangs in our kitchen. I love seeing these photos every day.

I saw this idea somewhere, probably Pinterest, but I like it. I hope I can remember it for Katy's first birthday party. A pennant banner with each monthly photo. So neat!

It's getting closer.......

Have a great Thursday Ladies!

Fears

I’m fearful.  I’m excited, but fearful.  This baby is going to be here in the next couple of weeks, and to be honest, it scares me to death.  I have so many crazy, unfounded worries and fears that I really haven’t discussed with anyone. 

I worry.  I assume that most second time mothers have these worries and fears, or something close to it. 

I worry about how we’ll all adjust to a new baby in our house.

I worry about having a girl, I am used to having a boy, and he’s a stubborn thing, but I understand him.  I understand his love of all things sports, his need to be tough and fight with his daddy, and how he’s all boy.  What will it be like to have a girl around?  What if she’s a girly girl and likes playing with Barbies?  Whatever will I do?  I didn’t like Barbies as a child and cannot imagine having to play with them as an adult……

I worry about Cooper. 

He is such a good boy 99% of the time, will that change for the better, or worse or not at all? 

I worry about how Cooper is going to deal with not being the complete center of attention. 

I worry about spending enough quality time with him.  At least not as much as he’s used to.

I worry about how he’ll deal with mommy and daddy being in the hospital with a new baby while he is at home with Nana or at Steph’s house.

I think of how much I’m going to miss him for the few days that I’ll be in the hospital.  I worry that he will be okay and I won’t.

I worry about getting postpartum depression again.  It was horrible with Cooper.  I didn’t even realize I had it, I was crazy, looking back that’s definitely what it was, but at the time, I had no idea.  I will absolutely be asking for medicine if I have that this time.

I worry about being able to keep up with two kids.  About making sure the laundry is done, the house is livable, and that we are all fed, bathed and taken care of the way we are today.  I worry about being spread too thin.

I worry about loving another child as much as I love Cooper.  I’ve discussed this with a few other moms and they all say about the same thing, your heart grows, and you love your second child as much as your first.  I am sure they are right, I still fear that for some reason this baby girl will never measure up to my Cooper.  In the end?  I know she will.  She will fill my heart with as much love as he does!

I realize that my fears and my worries are for not, that everything will work out the way it should.  That we will have our rough times, but we’ll be happy more often that we aren’t.  We’ll grow as a family – not only in number, but in love and in happiness.  We will not only survive, we will thrive.  Cooper will be fine.  He will have to adjust, as we all will.  His adjustments may be difficult on him, but he will be a wonderful big brother.  I have no doubt. 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” –Jeremiah 29:11

I will keep this verse in mind throughout the next few weeks and through our adjustment period as a growing family.  There will be sleepless nights and difficult days, but each one is for a reason, and I trust in God and depend on him to show us the way.

Weekend in Review

I rarely post anymore, I don’t really know what my problem is – but I want to post today, about this past weekend.  To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this weekend, I wasn’t really anything about it.  I didn’t know how it would turn out.  I knew Tim had a double header scheduled on Friday night, another double header scheduled for Saturday afternoon, that he had to work at his day job around 10pm Saturday night and would return sometime between 4-8am Sunday morning, and then we had Steph’s graduation ceremony on Sunday morning/afternoon.  I knew it would be busy, I knew I’d have lots of Cooper/Mommy time.  I always want to be so productive and play with him so much during these times.  We usually end up playing and I get nothing done.  Hence why my house can never stay clean nor picked up.  Cooper’s toys are absolutely everywhere all of the time, and underneath the table where he eats, there are more crumbs than I can keep up with. 

Friday morning at Cooper’s school they had muffins with Mom.  We didn’t quite make it in time to sit down and have muffins, but I did stay around a few minutes and talked with him and he showed me around and just hung onto me.  One of the teachers was nice enough to take our picture.

Anyway, the weekend started off nicely for me (insert selfish grin) because it started pouring down rain just a few minutes before Tim was supposed to start his double header on Friday night.  Both games got canceled because the field was flooded.  Basically the same thing happened on Thursday night also, and you know the nice thing about that???  If he shows up, he gets paid, so between Thursday night and Friday, he got paid for umpiring 3 games that he didn’t have!  It was nice.  A blessing really.  Tim came home Friday evening, and he brought me my mother’s day gift!    While Cooper and I waited for Tim to get home, we played his Dr. Seuss matching game.  He’s really into puzzles and these types of games right now, and that’s awesome, because they aren’t physical, so I can really play with him!

I’m pretty much a major nerd, but this gift is EXACTLY what I wanted.  I did give him a major hint that I wanted it, but I still didn’t expect him to go out and buy it.  He gave it to me on Friday night so that I could have time to use it over the weekend, and because he knew we wouldn’t really get to celebrate Mother’s Day much on Sunday due to the graduation festivities.  Then, he and Cooper took me to my all-time favorite restaurant.  Bravo!  I’m not really sure what was going on that night, but it wasn’t our best experience there, and I think we’ve all but decided that we’ll have to visit different Bravo!s in the future due to our experience at this one that night, but regardless, Tim was super sweet to take me!  I really wasn’t expecting that, and had it not rained, we couldn’t have done it.  So, I’m thankful.  After that, we ran a couple of errands to return some stuff, then headed home.  Perfect night with my boys. 

Saturday ended up being pretty good even if it wasn’t at all what I had planned.   This girl just has so many good intentions – and I seem to fall short with nearly all of them!  Tim’s games were at noon and 2pm, so I had planned on going to his game at noon, then going to Target to shop around a bit, then home for a nap, OR to Target first, then to his game, then home for a nap.  Either way, the Target trip didn’t happen.  I was tired Saturday morning, so I pretty much just hung out around the house until getting ready to go to Tim’s game.  Then I was even more lazy and stopped at McDonalds to get Cooper a happy meal so that he could eat while watching Tim umpire.  We ended up getting there about 45 minutes into the first game, got to visit with him after the game was over, then stayed for a couple of innings of the second game before heading home for a nap.  One glorious two hour nap for Coop and Mommy!  It was 5pm before I woke up, and Cooper was still sleeping (right next to me, we like taking naps together,  but ONLY naps), and so I checked my phone, texted Tim and found out he was on his way home.  Yippie!  When he got home we headed downstairs to eat dinner together, then Tim had to nap.  He had to be at work by 10 or so, and since we had to be up early for the graduation ceremonies on Sunday and he probably wouldn’t get home until 5am or so…. He needed the rest.  Cooper and I played with play dough, we played puzzles, watched some wonderful children’s television and read books, and he showed me his umpiring outfit – then he went to bed, and I changed up my blog a bit.  I went to bed pretty much right when Tim was leaving for the night.

Sunday was graduation.  CONGRATULATIONS STEPHANIE!!!  Then lunch with the Bram Fam, then home for naps for Tim and Andrew, while Coop and I played some more.  We made it home around 3pm, Tim slept until about 6, then it was mass chaos around our house.  Laundry to be done, cars to be cleaned out, the house to be picked up and dinner to be made.  I forced Cooper to pick up his toys (oh! The tragedy!) and I picked up the rest of the downstairs while Tim cooked and we both did laundry.  I have been pretty behind in folding laundry.  It gets washed, but then ends up in a pile on our couch until I get the desire to fold it.  Sometimes, it happens, I cannot help it.  When it actually does get folded and makes its way upstairs, it ends up living in a basket until the next time I have to do laundry and I finally put it away.  Laundry might be the death of me.  Thankfully, Tim made dinner last night.  And then, he pulled out a DQ ice cream cake out of the outside freezer, and we each had a piece, oh my goodness, that man knows me well.  He got a Oreo Blizzard ice cream cake.  Look at this beauty!

Wow, if you stuck with me throughout this entire post, I want you to pat yourself on the back, I was pretty wordy! J  It was overall a good weekend, I got to spend lots of time with my sweet Cooper and those precious just the two of us moments are going to be few and far between after baby sister comes. 

Did you have a good weekend?  Any big events in your lives?  How did you celebrate Mother’s Day? 

Baby Johnson: 35 weeks

Thirty-five weeks.  Yippie Skippy! 

Kathryn’s room is done, her clothes are washed (except a few things that appeared out of nowhere over the weekend). 

The house is ready for a baby. 

Now, I just have to get through the next 19 days.

I already feel like I’m living at the doctor’s office.  Two visits per week really sucks the time away.  One visit usually takes about a half hour, but the other, well, this morning I was there for about an hour and a half.  That is the doctor visit one.  It’s crazy how much longer it takes when I visit with the doctor.  My blood pressure was slightly elevated this morning, but as long as my vision isn’t blurry and I’m not having headaches or any other high blood pressure symptoms, the doctor isn’t too worried about it.

Next week the doctor is going to check on the progress of things and to see if I need antibiotics during delivery.  I can’t wait, NOT.  But, it just means that I’m getting closer to when she’ll arrive and I’m happy about that.

This week, I have some stuffiness and drainage – my throat is really hurting, but I’m pretty sure it’s just the stuffiness/drainage and I’ll get over that soon.

Craving a cheeseburger this week, other than that, no food cravings.

No other pregnancy updates – just the normal stuff going on – Cooper’s exceling in swimming lessons twice a week, and Andrew moved home from school for the summer.  Life is busy with Tim umpiring every night, but it seems to be making the time pass quickly and I’m thankful for that – especially for the next couple of weeks!

Pregnancy comparison picture for week 35:

Pregnancy progression photos….

Happy Friday!

Katy's room is finished!

We finished Katy’s room this weekend!  I was really going to wait until I had better pictures, these are just from my phone, but after reviewing them, I thought they looked alright, so I decided to share with you today!

As most of you who’ve been reading my blog know, I’ve been working on this room with assistance from my hubby and mom and aunt for just over two months now.  It’s crazy for me to think how long it’s taken to get to this point, but it’s finally finished (well, all except a small table that will go underneath the window for me to put her bottle down on while rocking her, etc). 

A few things to note….  I bought this packages of images on Etsy, and found a butterfly image that was free – these are what we used for the wall images.  We used a projector to project them and drew the images up with pencil, then painted them in with different paints.  The drawing part didn’t take all that long, a few evenings, it was the painting part that took forever!  The curtains and crib skirt were done by my Aunt Sheila and my mom.  The crib skirt was no sew project, from a tutorial I found here.  The fabric is from here.  We used a little over 5 yards for the curtains and crib skirt.  I ordered 7 total yards and have a little under 2 yards remaining for some future project…. But I don’t sew, so we’ll see about that!

Tim did the background colors (blue for sky and green for grass) in one weekend, bless his heart, and the following week during the evenings we did the projections and drawings, then started the painting the next weekend.  I’ve posted a few sneak peeks, but here is the finished product!

Details…..  The ladybug light came from IKEA as a gift from Erica and Mel, and I love it above her changing table.  It’s so neat in the dark!  Gives off just the right amount of light to be her night light in the future.  The rocking chair is the same one I used for Cooper, and it was the same one my mom had to rock my brother and I when we were babies.  I am so fortunate to have it handed down from my mom.  The dresser/changing table and crib are the same that we had in Coop’s room.  The dresser/changing table used to be a rather large chest, but before Cooper was born Tim cut off the top two drawers and took the top off and put it on top of these three drawers which made it the perfect height for a changing table.  Then I painted it to match the crib.  The crib came from Target before Coop was born and is made by Graco.  It was a drop side crib, but that part was recalled and was since made into a non-drop side crib.  The plant stand with lamp and bunny will also house the baby monitor (not setup yet), the stand was part of a set of furniture that Tim had before we got married and never used.  I simply painted it to match the crib. The bunny came from our neighbor and Cooper’s little friend Alexis who lives two houses down.  She got it for Katy as a gift.  Alexis is such a cutie pie!   The table that will be coming into this room under the window was also a part of that set and it is in Cooper’s room now until we find him a replacement table.  I also painted it to match and I will add a picture of it is at the very bottom of this post later when I find one.   The lamp was part of a two piece set that was originally in our house somewhere else, I simply painted them this green and white combo and had both of them in Cooper’s room, but he hasn’t used it since we took the plant stand/monitor/lamp out of there when he started walking. 

I still need to get pictures of her closet, which is pretty stinking cute too for a closet, if you ask me, but I didn’t do that yet. 

Hope you enjoy the tour!!

The door is to the far right of this picture.

Back/crib wall.

Window wall (still missing a small table to go under the window, coming soon)

Closet wall.

Close-up of the light above the changing table. (taken in the dark with the light out)

So, what do you think?!?  Was it worth all of the time (hours and hours and hours) and energy that we put into it? 

Baby Johnson: 34 Weeks

Exhaustion.  That is what I would call 34 weeks. HA!  But seriously, I’m not kidding.  I am so pooped, it’s not going to get any better, so I’m just hoping for a few good night’s sleep between now and when little miss Kathryn arrives.

This week has been busy.  A good, productive busy, but still, BUSY.

Our storage room, AKA Andrew’s bedroom, has to be cleaned out by this coming Sunday, May 5^th because he’s moving home from school, soooo, that means I have been determined to get Katy’s room done.  As of last week, Andrew’s room was filled with Katy’s stuff.  Clothes, bedding, bottles, in general, baby stuff.

I finished the painting in Katy’s room on Monday night.  I started sorting and washing clothes, sheets and other baby goods that night as well.  I started going through the mess that has accumulated in Andrew’s room. 

Tim finished painting the closet in her room, and finished putting up the shelving this week.  Now I can start filling it with clothes, diapers and other goodies that little miss has already collected.

Tomorrow my mom and possibly my aunt Sheila are coming up to sew the curtains and to work on the crib skirt. 

I bought the curtain rod and the new blind for her room today. 

I plan to have her room finished by the end of the weekend.   I just need to put stuff away and have Tim put the new ceiling fan in.  So let’s hope for a post on her room next week!

I’m seriously on the count down at this point.  I have 16 ½ days left of work. Pretty exciting!!

This week, I started the twice weekly visits to the doctor.  Baby looks great from my doctor’s perspective, her weight is on target and her kicking is fabulous!

Food Cravings: Blizzards from DQ and chips with salsa, guacamole from Qdoba.  Both have been satisfied this week.  J

I’m sure there is more, but I cannot think right now, I’m SO TIRED!!  Here’s the comparison picture to Cooper.  I’m telling ya, I’m a house!

Lastly, the weekly progression pictures!

Happy Friday & Weekend ladies & gents!