Week 34 Happy Easter!

I can't believe it's been 4 weeks since my last post. I will also post pictures tomorrow of my 34 week belly. I feel HUGE! I feel huge because I AM huge. My skin is literally stretching. Other symptoms include shortness of breath from the baby pushing against my diaphragm/lungs, exhaustion at the end of the day, and irritability. The irritability just started this past week because as I get extremely uncomfortable, I get irritated. Just bending down to pick up something is a big deal and difficult. I am most comfortable laying down on my left side with a pillow between my legs and pillows behind me to keep me propped up. Honestly, I don't see baby Cruz making it the full 40 weeks, but for his best interest I am hoping he waits until he is full term to visit us. Fortunately, my back pain has not been as bad as it was around January to early March. It started feeling better mid March. It is still painful, but not as bad. My feet and ankles also hurt if I stand on them for too long, due to the 30-34 pounds extra I'm carrying around! Surprisingly, my ankles are not swollen. They were with Karmella!

I had April 21-25 off work for mini spring break #2 so I washed all baby Cruz's clothes, blankets, bibs, etc. It took about 4-5 loads to wash the new items I received from my baby showers and all the stuff my brother, Tony, gave me. I also have a bin of clothes from my cousin, Sarah, but fortunately I don't have to wash those since they are all clean! Thanks Sar!

A lot has changed with our living situation, again. Well, we thought we were closing on a house April 30, but that deal fell through. It was a beautiful, big house but it needed a new roof and there were some other issues. I am okay with us not getting it; I never felt 100% excited about this one from the beginning anyway. We thought we made the decision to just stay in our current home and we were going to set up Cruz's bassinet, changing table, dresser, and other necessities in our master bedroom this weekend... BUT, then a realtor I had spoken with a couple weeks ago called me and we decided to take a look at ONE more house. Well, we ended up loving the house and after meeting with the realtor and seller, this might just be the one. We will meet them both again this Tuesday and talk about terms, etc, but I have a feeling in my heart about this one that I haven't had with any of the other houses I've seen. If everything is in God's will for us with this house, we will be moving about the time when my school year is ending and around Cruz's due date. WOW, lots of stresses all at once, but definitely manageable if this is what God wants for us.

My last appointment was at 32 weeks: 4/12/2011. Baby's heartbeat was 144 bpm. My belly was 35 cm (so about 3 cm larger than average, which is why the doctor did another ultrasound at this appointment). Weight gain: 31 pounds for me. The ultrasound at 32 weeks showed that Cruz was measuring a week bigger, which is within normal range. My belly is just really pooching out making him seem bigger, but apparently he is not abnormally large. I asked if I had more than normal fluid, he said no. I guess I'm just big! The ultrasound said he was probably about 4 pounds (this was at 32 weeks) and Dr. Ezell said he didn't see Cruz being bigger than 8 pounds at full term. I don't know, I think it's hard to speculate anything about the baby's size. We won't know for sure until he's born. There is nothing I can do about it. My eating is not outrageous or unhealthy, so he will end up being whatever size he was meant to be.

My 34 week appointment is tomorrow at 9:20 AM.

Happy Easter! It is today. We started the day with church, as we do every Sunday. This holiday is a true holiday for Jesus and I've been thinking about the meaning of Easter all month, actually. My parents came up last night, so they came to church with us, then my mom whipped up an amazing ham dinner with all the homemade sides, including strawberry shortcake for dessert. In between cooking, she managed to clean my whole house, as usual. She is amazing. I don't know how she does it all. It helps me so much when she cleans my house when I'm this pregnant. Karmella had such a fun weekend! She opened her baskets from the Easter bunny this morning, hunted Easter eggs in the yard, and yesterday went to 2 Easter egg hunts around town.