That's Supposed to be a Squash? Really? (Week 29)

Well, we finally get a new food this week! I don't know about you, but I was getting tired of looking at that same eggplant. I'm sure I'll feel the same thing about this... well, they say it's a squash but it's the funniest looking squash I've ever seen. I guess I'm not very well versed in my squashes. Oh well. It's a little scary to think that there are only two more after this one! I can't believe that we are 29 weeks and only have 11ish to go.

So, what's Ms. Lily doing in there?

"Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. Her muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and her head is growing bigger to make room for her developing brain. To meet her increasing nutritional demands, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because her bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby's hardening skeleton each day."

So, I guess I'll be upping my intake of milk over the next few days. Another update I get says that Lily should be settling into more consistent sleep-wake cycles which is very true. I feel her in the morning for a few minutes when I'm lying in bed... truthfully, when I'm trying to deny the fact that I have to get up and go to work. Then I feel her again sometimes mid morning around like 9 or 10. Then for a little while after lunch around 1 or 2 and then I feel her a lot when I lay down to go to sleep. This schedule seems pretty normal from what I've read since babies tend to be most active after mammas have eaten a meal or are resting. When I'm active and walking around I'm basically rocking her to sleep. When I'm still is when she wakes up. She really likes to wake up and bounce around when I'm trying to practice my Hypnobabies hypnosis, but I guess it gives me good practice learning to tune out the sensation in prep for the whole labor and delivery.

How's Mama doing?

I'm pretty good. I had a great appointment with my psychiatrist last Friday. He assured me that the fears I am having about the post-pardom time are perfectly normal and as he put it, "not your illness speaking. These are the fears of every first time mother." That made me feel a lot more relaxed. He did recommend that I get back in with my psychologist before the birth so that I can have another pair of eyes watching and another member of the team to help me through those tough few weeks when I'm getting very little sleep. He said that best thing I can do is plan ahead. Plan to have Jay take a couple of weeks off (which we are already planning on), plan to have my mom on speed dial in case I start to feel overwhelmed and need help, have the rest of my friends and family on alert for those first few weeks in case I need immediate help, plan to see my psychologist in those first few weeks for a check in, have the psychiatrist on speed dial in case I need to let him know what's going on, plan to enlist Jay's help in keeping the extra guests at the house to a minimum so that I can rest when she's sleeping instead of entertaining, plan to have friends come over and help us with the daily chores and bringing us/making us food. AND THEN.... ANTICIPATE THE BEST! He said the best indicator of how I will handle things is how I've handled things up to this point and so far I've handled everything beautifully. Don't get me wrong, it's a struggle sometimes and some days are better than others. But on the whole I've done beautifully. So, there's no reason to assume that I'll do any differently after Lily gets here.

I had to make my first parental decision over the weekend. My mom and I were planning on going to the mountains to see my cousin and her brand new baby, but when we got up on Saturday, we realized that the weather was turning bad and only looked to get worse the further west we went. So after a few phone calls and some surfing on Weather.com, I had to decide to call off the trip. I was really bummed because it was one of the only weekends I had left open before the doctor starts talking about travel restrictions, but I also knew that even the slightest fender bender could be really bad for me and Lily and on top of that ice and snow are not a pregnant woman's best friend. I'm not usually a clumsy person, but I tend to not be careful and not go slow and am really worried about falling and busting my butt this winter on the snow and ice. Thankfully my cousin, being a brand new mom herself, was very understanding and we are going to try for a couple of weekends down the road. But now, that weekend is starting to look icy so we'll have to see.

How's daddy doing?

Jay's wonderful as usual. He talked me down off the ledge the other night when I was having a freak out over whether or not we were going to have enough money to cover bills while I'm on maternity leave. I'm hoping to take 8 weeks and from my calculations it looked like we would need an exorbitant amount of money to make up for my lost income, but after listening to his math and factoring is some things I hadn't thought of it all sounded much more doable.

I think that's about it for this update. I can't believe I'm almost a week late again this week! And once again I forgot to take a weekly belly picture. :-( Oh well. I think this 3rd trimester thing is really kicking my put harder than I ever expected it to. And with all the holiday preparations and such the time just seems to fly by before I know what's happened! I can't believe we will be at 30 weeks tomorrow! I have an appointment with the midwife on Thursday and they will be very 2 weeks after that.

Have a good week everyone! Hopefully, week 30's update won't be quite so late!