23 weeks - More Big Purchases and Birthing Classes!

Movement is picking up!  I feel bouts of movement several times each day now - most commonly during/after eating.  I'm soooo happy to finally feel her - it's just such a comfort to feel her in there doing well and have that reminder.  To not have to just assume things are fine just because nothing bad has happened, etc.

According to the books, she now weighs about a pound, which for some reason seems monumental to me.  We're no longer talking about fractions of ounces anymore, but measuring in actual baby weight measurements!

We have also been working on our registries some more, and finally have a fair amount of stuff on there.  We may still add something here and there, but we've made the bulk of our decisions and between Amazon and BRU are pretty much covered.  Soooo glad that's over.  It's very hard to think of all the things and then to pick between the gazillion options out there and what's the best/safest one to choose?  How do you know?  What's just a gimmick and what's for real?  It's crazy out there.

Some of the biggest news is that we purchased our crib and ordered our dresser!!  The crib was almost a disaster to try to get home - it didn't fit in the back of my full sized SUV!  I couldn't believe it!  It takes a pretty big box to not fit inside the back but there was no way it was going in.  So they got us some rope and we did a bang-up job tying a ton of knots to secure it to my roof-rack. I canNOT wait to put them together.  I'm in love with them.  So pretty.  The crib will become a toddler bed, day bed, and full sized head and footboard as well.  They truly are gorgeous!  We got an awesome deal too - between the two pieces we saved $200 with a $100-off coupon plus a 10% off coupon that worked on your entire purchase when you add to your registry in-store. 

Now THERE'S a story - adding to our registry.  Doesn't seem like something that would imply a story,  right?  Yeah.  So we spend like an hour and a half

walking around with the little registry gun and wound up adding about 54 items.  We go to turn in our gun and the registry they print out and hand us?  ISN'T OURS!!!  They programed the wrong registry into our gun so we'd just spent all this time adding things to someone else's registry!  The "good" news was that this other girl's due date was in 2009 so it wouldn't affect hers, but we wound up having to sit at the registry desk, checking off each item we thought we added to the registry so that someone could manually add it to ours.  The confusion came when she found someone with the same name living in MA.  I apparently set up the registry under Nikki and not Nicole.  And the fact that this chick's due date was last year didn't register I guess.  So yeah.  Craziness.  And definitely NOT something that happens when you register for stuff online!!  lol.

Other things going on with me are that after my last midwife appointment we decided that I would get an upper abdominal ultrasound to screen for gallbladder problems.  I've been having this awful ache way high in my right ribs, right under my boob, that seems to start after eating.  I have it every day, usually multiple times a day, and have since just before Christmas so definitely been a while at this point.  The thing with the appointment is that it's supposed to be an 8 hour fast beforehand which obviously makes for some cranky pregnant ladies if the appt is not in the morning.  I was supposed to have it scheduled on the 28th at 2 in the afternoon but because of a scheduling snafu it is now scheduled for Feb 4th instead and now it'll be at 7:30 in the morning which of course is much better in terms of fasting.  I'm fairly convinced at this point it's NOT a gallbladder issue as the pain does not fluctuate in intensity or frequency based of the fat content of what I'm eating.  I can get it after a bowl of chicken soup or salad the same as I do after a burger and fries.  Nothing is different about it.  My hypothesis is that my stomach has squashed up into a bad spot and presses in on my ribs when it expands with food and that is causing the pressure/pain.

Also!  We started our birthing classes!  I randomly happened to contact a local Bradley class instructor to find out when her next session was going to start on Friday the 15th, and come to find out it was supposed to start that Monday the 18th!  There was some snow on the 18th and so the first class was postponed until this past Monday the 25th.  It's at the instructor's house in Newburyport and there are 3 other couples in this session.  I'm the second earliest due date in the class!  That's something.  The first class was good - I'm actually the only one giving birth in a hospital setting though!  Two couples are using the free-standing birth center in Stratham, NH that I was going to look into if I didn't like Anna Jacques at our tour, and the other couple is having a homebirth.  It's costing us $350 and classes will be once a week for two hours and last 12 weeks.  I've heard so many good things about how Bradley classes really help a couple have a natural birth and so I'm hoping it really works out for us as well.