Well, tomorrow I’ll be 39 weeks. I was really hoping baby boy would decide to come early like Annabelle did but no such luck, even with three bouts of false labor trying to suggest otherwise.
The first instance happened on our way back from Eau Claire on March 4 (I’ll talk more about that trip shortly). I had been feeling sick all day, with what I assumed was bad acid reflux. Once we got to around St. Cloud (an hour from home), I started having contractions every 5-10 minutes, and my back was killing me. I texted my friend Brenda to make sure she’d be around to watch the kids in case I got home and it was the real deal, but alas, when I laid down in bed at home, the contractions stopped.
The second was the following Wednesday night. We had gone out to dinner at a restaurant so I once again had fairly bad acid reflux (but it was from my favorite dinner of Tequila Lime Chicken Tacos, so #worthit). I was woken up around 2 am with contractions that were consistently every 8-12 minutes, but they didn’t increase in intensity or pain, so after about an hour, I stopped timing and figured if they were the real deal, I’d find out eventually. They pretty much continued the rest of the night, but when I got up in the morning to take a shower, they stopped. (So annoying!! I tried googling “Does acid reflux cause contractions?” but couldn’t find anything.)
The third time was the following Saturday night. I didn’t have any acid reflux this time, but was woken up by sharp pains on the side of my belly. I got out of bed to see if I could relieve the pain by a change in position, but the pain and cramping continued. I drank 3 glasses of water and tidied up the kitchen counter and downstairs to see if being up would make it go away, but it didn’t. Finally, around 4 am, I woke Travis up and told him to pack a bag just in case. No sooner did he have his bag packed than the pain subsided, and we both went back to bed.
Thankfully, since then, my contractions have been very obviously Braxton Hicks so we haven’t had any more fake-outs (even though some of them produce so much downward pressure that I’m amazed my water hasn’t broken yet!). It’s hard to wait when you keep being taunted!
So our trip to Eau Claire… we left Saturday morning and came back Sunday night. While we were there, we visited my brother, sister-in-law, and niece that was born in December. My dad was there too, and we saw one of my other brothers, sisters-in-law, and niece born in September on our way back through the Cities. The drive out there went well, and the girls had fun seeing their baby cousins. We booked a hotel that had a waterpark, and Emma had a blast swimming and going down the big waterslide. Annabelle, true to form, was more conservative and not so sure about all the splashing and swimming. The waterpark was definitely geared toward bigger kids, like Emma’s age.
My SIL in Eau Claire also threw me a surprise long-distance baby sprinkle by asking friends and family (info provided by Travis) to send gifts during the week of February 26. It was very unexpected but so thoughtful! We received several boxes of diapers and quite a few adorable outfits, plus a few extras like boy blankets, boy towels, baby sunglasses (I die!), and a picture frame. We’re borrowing boy clothes from friends who have 5 boys, but it’s nice to have boy clothes that we can keep, and Travis appreciates getting some hunting-themed ones. I got all the clothes washed and put away this week, and thank you notes written and mailed, so now we’re just waiting for baby boy to make his debut.
Last weekend, Travis took the girls up to Bemidji for our nephew’s Eagle Scout Court of Honor. I had been planning to go, but after the rough drive home from Eau Claire, I decided to stay home. I did our budget, took a long shower and a long nap, and did some shopping. It was a nice day!
OB Appointments
I’m going every week now, and my doctor has done 3 pelvic checks. After my bout of false labor on the way back from Eau Claire, I was dilated 2-3 cm. Jellybean’s head is very low and my waters are bulging. At my most recent appointment, my doctor said that I’m 3 cm and 50% effaced. Progress! With both girls, I was still at 1 cm, even when I checked in to the hospital after my water broke, so I’ll take any forward progress I can get (even if it doesn’t mean I’ll go into labor soon).
I tested positive for Group B Strep again. No surprise there. I’ve also decided that if I get to the hospital and am dilated to 6 or 7 cm, I’m going to try to give birth sans epidural again. But if I’m only 4 or 5 (or still at 3) cm, I’m going with my half-med epidural plan still. We’ll see how things go down, hopefully sooner than later! I’ve been doing some anecdotal research online about timing tendencies with third babies (because that’s what majorly pregnant women who are sooo ready to be done do), and read that the third child can tend to be a wild card, and not follow suit timing-wise. Emma was born on her due date, and Annabelle was born at 38 weeks 2 days, so Jellybean will either be born between them, or late!
Symptoms
Acid reflux has gotten better with the combination of Tums and Zantac (though I am still trying to be more mindful about what I eat for dinner).
I’ve had a little sciatic pain with Jellybean’s head being so low, but overall I’m still feeling pretty good (as long as I’m sitting down, ha!). I have a little bit of swelling in my legs and ankles, but I can still wear my wedding rings so the swelling is less with this pregnancy than with my previous ones. I have a very faint linea negra, and have noticed more stretch marks this time around (boo). Sometimes it feels like the skin on my stomach can literally not stretch any more, so I guess stretch marks are not surprising.
Jellybean still moves around a ton, and when he pivots his head, it’s not a very pleasant feeling (right on top of my bladder and pelvic bone), but it’s reassuring that he’s still healthy and active.
Sleep
My hips are definitely feeling the weight these days. I usually go to bed propped up against 3 big pillows, plus 2 smaller ones (one for head support, the other for lumbar) and sleep that way for the first couple hours. Then I throw the little pillows on the floor and sleep on each side as long as comfortable. Usually somewhere around 4 or 5 am, I get my pillows set back up for sleeping sitting up and stay that way until morning.
The weirdest thing about sleep (and actually about this pregnancy in general) is how sweaty I’ve been. I’m not normally a sweaty person (and wasn’t when pregnant with the girls), but I have been during this pregnancy. Usually in winter, I wear a long-sleeve shirt and pants to bed, but the last couple of weeks, I’ve been wearing either nursing tanks and undies, or nightgowns, to bed, and I still wake up sweaty. I can only imagine how sweaty I’ll be after Jellybean comes. 
Food & Cravings
Still loving cereal. If it were advisable to eat it for three meals a day, I would (but it’s not). And I’ve been eating more sweets lately (Girl Scout cookies, anyone?)… I’ve also been craving juice–specifically orange juice–but don’t dare drink it because of the acid. I can’t wait to eat cold deli sandwiches like they’re going out of style. (I’ve eaten a few this pregnancy, but am trying to behave.)
Nesting
I’ve been trying to do some cleaning and organizing as I have energy and time. I cleaned both bathrooms, the kitchen (including the oven), and the rest of the windows upstairs that I hadn’t gotten around to cleaning a month or so ago. I’m also wanting to figure out Easter and family picture outfits, but we’ll see. I did buy these adorable shirts from Etsy for the girls and Jellybean to wear in the hospital for sibling pictures (and probably for family pictures too).
After
Comforter is the Avondale Manor Ella Pinch Pleat set; bedroom set is the Audrey 5-piece Queen set from Costco
Prints from Hobby Lobby and cotton wreath from Amazon
I plan to replace the toolbox for Travis’ stuff once I find something.
Jewelry hangers from Hobby Lobby
Lamps from Target
Curtain rod and curtains from Kohl’s
OB Appointments
I’ve also continued my quest for maternity leggings and ordered 
We also made a playhouse for the girls under our stairs. The previous owners left a giant TV behind that was built into the wall. When we got rid of the TV, we had a giant hole to deal with. It stayed like that for oh, about 2 years, until I finally had the idea to just close the hole off with a homemade chalkboard. Easier than sheetrocking (which is our long-term plan, to be done at an unknown time in the future), but better than nothing. We turned the spot they had used for a DVD player and stereo into the kid door (there’s a real door too), added plexiglass to the speaker hole, and added some trim to the outside wall to make it look like a house. We painted the inside bright pink and bright purple (the girls’ choices), added some wall stickers and battery-operated lights from Costco, and three weeks later, voila! A playhouse. 
And that’s pretty much it for 9 months!
2017 was a crazy year…
I’m both ready and not ready to be done. Ready, in that pregnancy is not my favorite thing ever, especially the last few months. Not ready, in that the end of pregnancy means the beginning of taking care of a newborn, which comes with challenges and limitations of its own.
Size
Sleeping
Development
Her teacher Ms. Kayla says that Emma is the only student who writes her name with her last initial: Emma K. When she was still going to daycare, there was another Emma and so they learned their names with their last initial: Emma K and Emma V.
A few “firsts” for the girls that I haven’t mentioned here on the blog yet are that we took them camping this summer for the first time. We stayed at the Army Corps campground in Crosslake, which is about 30-45 minutes from us. The girls had a lot of fun, and we definitely plan to go camping again. Both Travis and I grew up camping, and think it’s important for the girls to have those experiences too.
A weird thing that happened when we were heading home after camping, though, was that Emma’s face got really red and swollen. We took her to the doctor several times to determine the cause and the best answer they could give us was an allergic reaction to the sun. We don’t really buy it, but it hasn’t happened before or since, so…???
Emma also tried ice skating this fall. We enrolled her in the Learn to Skate program, which met every Sunday evening for a couple of months. Unfortunately, after a few classes of falling down a lot, Emma decided that learning to skate wasn’t very fun, and started to refuse to get on the ice. It was a parenting conundrum for us, but we decided that we would still take her to the class and have her sit on the bleachers, and she could choose whether or not to skate. There were plenty of classes that she didn’t skate at all, but a few she did get out there, and the last class she did really well! So even though we didn’t sign her up for the second session of classes, there’s still hope for her learning to skate sometime in the future.
We took the girls to an Operation Christmas Child packing party at our church again this year, and Emma was super into it. She probably packed 20 boxes on her own! Each time she finished one, she raced back to the start of the line and packed another one.
Emma and Annabelle still get along really well, and often play together in the morning for almost an hour in one of their rooms. Their favorite games as of late are House (often overheard: “I’m the mom.” “No, I’m the mom!” “Two moms!”) and Doctor. They do fight fairly often over the same toys, but overall, they really love playing with one another.
Emma still does mischievous things, like covering her face in an entire tube of chapstick…
Or drawing on her and her sister’s face with marker…
But overall, her naughty antics have slowed down quite a bit. Which is good, because Annabelle has taken over that role.
This girl adds a lot of spice to life and keeps us on our toes, that’s for sure!
And that’s Emma at 4.75 years!
OB Appointments
Size
Eating
Sleeping
Development
She loves baby dolls, especially her Little Baby. While at my dad’s house for Thanksgiving, she found a little basket for Little Baby, and carried her around in that with Baby’s little blanket. So. Cute. She also loves pushing strollers around, and being pushed in them.
Annabelle also LOVES shopping and running errands, both the real thing and pretending. She often asks to go shopping, and if she hears that I’m going shopping without her, has a total meltdown. Luckily, she’s a pretty good shopping buddy and is fine with riding in the cart 80% of the time (especially when Emma isn’t there). Get the two of them together, though, and it’s game over. 
Annabelle doesn’t really have the attention span or muse for coloring, though she does like painting and doodling. Her new thing (that she picked up from Emma a while ago) is playing restaurant–sitting down with a pencil and paper, and asking us “What would you like today?” (though it comes out more like “Wha ya like day?”) And she gets very upset if we don’t answer her immediately. And she LOVES Playdoh.
I feel like we still don’t quite have a grasp on the things that Annabelle is truly interested in beyond baby dolls, shopping, and music (she loves singing!), because her most favorite thing to do is whatever Emma is doing. She goes along with Emma’s ideas 80% of the time, though there is still plenty of fighting over toys and “Annabelle isn’t doing x or y like I’m telling her to!” Overall, though, these sisters really love each other, and find some very creative things to do together.
Annabelle has started to be a good helper with picking up toys and putting things where they go, especially when there’s an incentive to do so (like helping mommy bake something). Often when we ask her to do something like pick up or to stop doing something like throwing pencils on the floor, she’ll say, “Oooo-kaaaay.” It’s so stinkin’ cute!
In general, she just likes climbing on people, and at night while she’s “falling asleep,” she’ll balance on her head and bounce her butt in the air, which inevitably leads to her falling over sideways into either the wall or your face.
Annabelle still loves being carried, and often says, “Carry me.” When I put her down after a while and say “I can’t carry you anymore; you’re too heavy!”, she responds, “No, I’m little! I’m little!”
We’ve unfortunately fallen back into the habit of watching technology right when we wake up, but it gives me a chance to drink my coffee and wake up before they demand too much from me. Annabelle often says when she wakes up and I’m still sleeping, “Mom, it’s wake up time!”
And that’s Annabelle at 32 months!
There’s not a whole ton more to talk about in the past 4 weeks that I didn’t address in my 
Life, Really Blog 