Almost to the end of this pregnancy!!

I have reached 38 weeks and am almost to the end. Very soon our baby will be here in the world!! The week was pretty uneventful. We worked all week and that was about it. I had a few contractions through out the week but nothing significant or regular. I had a doctor's appointment on Friday. This appointment was with a different doctor then my regular OB though. My regular OB, Dr. Steele, wanted me to meet another doctor in the practice, so I saw the one that was on call over the weekend just in case I went into labor over the weekend it wouldn't be my first time meeting her. I am now 2 almost 3 centimeters dilated and 50% effaced. This doctor also said that my cervix is very soft and not to be surprised if my water breaks. Now with two doctors saying that Jonathan is wondering if he should make me sit on some plastic instead of the couch or bed, lol. We were very excited to hear that I was making progress. While I know it could still be awhile and that some women can go several weeks dilated before having their baby its still nice to know my body is preparing itself for it's upcoming job. Over the weekend I cleaned our house in hopes of getting labor started but nothing happened. I guess that the baby decided he wasn't quite ready after all. I definitely feel more pressure down there though so that's a good sign. Besides that, nothing else is going on. We are just waiting for baby Ryan to make his appearance and that's hard because I am not a very patient person. Hopefully it won't be much longer!!

A picture of me at 38 weeks

37 weeks!!

We made it to 37 weeks yesterday!!! That is a big milestone, our baby is now considered full term (even though we technically still have 3 more weeks to go). We are so excited we have made it to this point and I am now ready for this baby to come out. However, it seems as if the baby has a different thought in mind. At my doctor’s appointment on Friday everything went well and the baby is doing great. His heart beat is wonderful. I was hooked up to the monitor for about 30 minutes and he was moving like crazy. My doctor checked and I am not dilated at all though so it will probably be awhile still before this baby makes his appearance. My doctor did say that my cervix was very soft and not to be surprised if my water breaks before I go into labor. I am not holding my breath on that one though. I believe it’s only like 12% of women who have their water break before they are in labor so the odds are not on my side for that to happen; which Jonathan is very thankful for. I am very excited about this baby coming and so done being pregnant (at least with all the pains and aches that come along with it). Hopefully it won’t be much longer. We had our car seats checked on Friday as well to make sure they were correctly installed. That was the last thing on the list to do before the baby arrived. Now we are just waiting. We enjoyed our weekend relaxing and realized it will probably be one of the last ones we have without anything to do for quit some time (which means we slept in a little longer). My next doctor’s appointment is Friday and my regular doctor wants me to meet another doctor in the same practice who is on call next weekend so that appointment is with her. Then my doctor went ahead and made another appointment for the following Friday (the 31st) as well (apparently she is pretty confident the baby won’t come before then) with her after I see my high risk doctor. Besides that, nothing much has been going on or changed. The baby is still moving and kicking like crazy. I think my insides constantly stay bruised. I don’t know how he thinks it’s comfortable in there with no room but apparently he does. I will keep everyone updated as much as possible over the next few weeks if anything changes and of course on Ryan’s arrival (whenever that may be).

Me at 37 weeks, ready to pop.

Busy week

We have been very busy this past week. Work through out the week; which is still going well. I do miss being at home and not having to deal with all the aches and pains that come along with being pregnant and sitting at a desk all day. My feet and ankles are very swollen now that I am up all day. I try to sit with my feet up at work as much as possible though; which is helping a little bit. My back hurts a lot as well from being in an uncomfortable chair all day. I am just reminding myself that it won’t be much longer before our little guy is here and I will wonder where the time went. My brother Chris and his two little girls came down for the weekend. I saw them Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Aubrey, who is 3, and Hayden, who is almost 11 months, are both growing like weeds. They are both so adorable and sweet. Aubrey knows exactly what to say to wrap someone around her finger. But who could resist someone so adorable and sweet when they see you and say “Becca, I missed you so much!” and wrap their little arms around you. I spent most of my weekend down at my older brother Kenny’s house watching my nieces and nephew swim and play. It was very nice. Besides that, nothing much is going on. The baby is still moving constantly. Hopefully he is getting ready to make his appearance. We have a doctor’s appointment on Friday so we will find out more about how I am doing and my progress then. I am hoping that we get good news and that I am progressing well. I am really not enjoying these last couple weeks of pregnancy and I am ready for this baby to be here.

Here are a couple of pictures I took this weekend.

Chris, Aubrey and Shelby swimming.

Hayden in her float.

And of course a new one of me at 36 weeks.

Back to Work

Last week was my first week back to work in 11 weeks. It was nice to be out of the house and back to work but I was very tired by the end of the week. Monday and Tuesday were not too bad because I was excited to be back. The excitement got me through the days; however, by Wednesday that had worn off and I was very tired Wednesday night. My back hurt pretty bad from sitting in a chair all day and my feet were really swollen. Thursday wasn't much better but it was only a half day (I had to leave early for two doctors appointments, get to those in a minute) so it went by quickly. Doesn't seem like much has changed since I have been gone so it was easy to get back in to the swing of things. And thankfully they have kept my work up pretty well and I didn't have it piled up when I returned. Now that I am back though, I must admit that I am ready to have this baby and be back at home. It is not fun sitting at a desk when you can barely reach the keyboard. And I can't sit too close to the desk because baby Ryan gets mad and starts kicking the desk; which does not feel good. Plus, my feet and ankles have swollen so much my shoes don't fit. Enough complaining, I really am glad to be back and into a semi-normal routine again. Working will help pass the time and before we know it Ryan will be here.

Thursday after leaving work early I got to have lunch with both my brothers; always a nice treat when we can get together. Chris was driving through on his way back home from military training and Kenny met us in Lexington for lunch before my doctors appointment. I had two doctors appointments on Thursday. The one with my regular OB went just fine; everything is going well. Baby's heart beat is still strong and I had no contractions while I was hooked up to the monitor. The appointment with my high risk doctor went well also. However, they did tell me that I have a double lobed placenta but not to worry about it. They said the only thing they had to do was make sure they got both parts out when I delivered. We didn't get to see Dr. Campbell as he had an emergency with another patient so we are going to ask my regular OB some additional questions about this at my next appointment. We did get some new ultrasound pictures taken but I haven't had a chance to scan them in yet but I will try to get to that this week. Friday was a day of relaxing. On Saturday my dad and his girlfriend came down from Illinois to visit for a couple of days. It was nice to see them and to spend some time with them. My dad hadn't seen me pregnant yet so he was glad he got to come down before the baby got here and plans to come back once he makes his appearance. Saturday night we had a cook out down at my brother Kenny's house for the 4th. Yummy food, great time with lots of family and a few fireworks; couldn't ask for more. My dad is leaving today to go back home so last night we all got together at my grandmother's for dinner. Once again there was yummy food and time with family, very nice ending to a Monday.

We will see what the rest of the week holds. Rumor has it my brother Chris is coming back down for a visit with his two little girls on Thursday for a couple of days but I am not getting my hopes up yet as he is still contemplating the best way to get a 3 year old and a 10 month old down here by himself (his wife, Nikki, has National Guard training for 2 weeks). It would be wonderful to see them! My maternity pictures are up on our photographer's website. Go to http://carlislephotography.smugmug.com/Proofs, click on Johnson maternity and the password is johnson if you would like to see them. Let me know what you think and if you have any favorites. For now here is a picture of me at 35 weeks (yay, not much longer!).

34 Weeks!!

Yay, we made it! 34 weeks is a big milestone for us. 11 weeks ago we weren’t for sure we would make it this far in our pregnancy and now we are here. Today officially ends my modified bed rest and I am now able to do normal activities and go back to work. I am anxious to see what the week will bring and how I will handle it. I am hopeful that things will go well and that I can go a couple more weeks before the baby comes. This past week was my last week on bed rest but my doctor told me to slowly increase my activity so that it wouldn’t be all at once. So I did some things around the house and with the baby’s room. Tuesday I had lunch with friends; which was nice because who knows how long it will be before I get a chance to do that again. Then on Thursday I went up to Frankfort with Jonathan for the whole day. I wanted to see if I could stay up that long and I did. While he went to work I went to visit my Grandmother. Then I had lunch with some co-workers and after lunch visited with others that didn’t go to lunch. After lunch Jonathan’s work had a baby shower for us. It was so nice of them to do and we really enjoyed it. It was nice for the attention to be on Jonathan for a change (even if most of it was still on the mommy-to-be at least the daddy-to-be got some as well). We got some nice gifts and of course had cake and punch, yum. Later that night was our last child care class. This class was at Central Baptist and was a basic child care class. We were only taking it at CB because it was free there; however, we left in the middle of the class because it wasn’t very helpful, the class was too big to learn anything. Friday was our 5 year anniversary. I can’t believe it’s been 5 years since we got married. We didn’t do a whole lot that day but we did go see the Hangover. Jonathan had really wanted to see it and he did enjoy it (I didn’t think it was as funny as he did but it had its moments). Then we enjoyed a nice dinner at home together. On Saturday we had our maternity photo shot. That was a lot of fun and the photographer will hopefully have the proofs online within a week. I will post as soon as they are ready. I’m hoping we get some really good shots. After our photo shot we went to dinner and shopped a little bit. It was nice to spend the afternoon out together, something we hadn’t been able to do in awhile. Today (Sunday) we went to Sunday School and church and are now relaxing before my big day back at work. This coming week will be very busy with me back at work along with family coming to visit, I am looking forward to it!

Here is a picture of me at 34 weeks. I think this will probably be the last time I wear this shirt. It has gotten too tight and is a bit short now (crazy that a shirt is too short for me, who do they think would wear it, lol.).

33 Weeks

Well, it's been 10 weeks since we first started having problems with our pregnancy. 10 long weeks off work, extra doctor's appointments, worrying and bed rest. We weren't for sure if we would make it to this point and are so thankful to God that we did. Our baby is growing and developing every day and these past 10 weeks have been such a help for him. At my doctor's appointment this past Thursday my doctor told me that I could start increasing my activity and go back to normal activity and work next Monday. Bed rest will be officially over on Sunday at our 34 week mark! I am excited and nervous at the same time. I'm excited that I get to go back to work and try to resume some what of a normal life. But also nervous because I know my body is going to be weak and I will get exhausted very easily (not just from being on bed rest for 11 weeks but also being big and pregnant). We will have to see how it goes. Hopefully we can make it several weeks at work before Ryan decides to make his appearance.

This week we finished our 4 week child birthing class. We really enjoyed it and learned quit a bit. I'm not for sure how much of it will actually be used while in labor but I hope I can remember some of it to use to keep me relaxed. Either way, I am glad we did the classes because I prefer to be educated as much as possible. We also had a breast feeding class on Wednesday that was helpful and will come in handy when Ryan gets here. This coming Thursday we have one last class, a child care class. Jonathan is really looking forward to this one so he can learn how to give a baby a bath.

Besides that we have been busy trying to get all the final items for Ryan's arrival and put some final touches on the nursery. I think we have just about everything we need for at least the first couple of months except for the monitor; which we are picking up this weekend. Although I am sure we will continue to buy things because we are already spoiling him. We have our delivery bag packed (one of the requirements for our last birthing class was to take it with us). We want to be prepared because we don't know what will happen once I return to work. Now we just have to wait for our baby to get here. While I feel miserable because I'm getting so big I still don't want Ryan to come too early.

Here are some pictures of the updates we have made to the nursery this week. This is our new bedding set. We switched and bought the Fisher Price Precious Planet bedding set, it's much better. The colors are so bright and the animals are adorable.

The crib sheet and bumper pad.

The mobile we bought. This is so cute! It plays music, nature sounds and a heartbeat. However, the best thing about it is that it has a projector on it. At first it will project animal images on to the canopy of the mobile and then once the baby gets big enough to sit up you take the canopy off and it will project on to the ceiling.

The comforter from the set. We decided to hang it on the wall while Ryan is little and can't use it.

A picture of the wall the crib is on. We have added a border to the top of the walls and an elephant and monkey wall hang.

We hung letters spelling Ryan above the dresser/changer and added the changing pad.

We hung a picture frame above the bookcase with three ultra sound pictures from each trimester. Along with a basket filled with teethers, rattles, etc.

And here is a picture of me at 33 weeks. I'm going to try to remember to take a picture every week now that we are approaching the end.

32 Weeks

Well, I have made it to 32 weeks in my pregnancy; a big mile stone. Now the baby has a much better chance of survival if for some reason he was born early (some research shows a percentage as high as 90%!). However, everything seems to be going very well. The modified bed rest seems to be working and doing its job of keeping the baby in. The doctors have been very happy with my progress and don't seem to have many worries any more. I get to go back to work in two weeks, at 34 weeks. At that point they will go ahead and let me have the baby if I go into labor again but I am hoping to make it a couple of weeks back at work before that happens. I can tell he is growing like crazy inside and he is active. I have another doctor's appointment on Thursday and then will have to see both my doctors again in two weeks after I have been back at work for a couple of days so they can measure my progress. We will have a better idea at that point of how I am doing back at work and if it seems like I will go into labor early.

We had a nice relaxing weekend and our church Sunday school class had a baby shower for me yesterday after church. It was so nice of them to throw me a shower and it was great to see everyone and have a bit of girl time. Getting together with everyone reminds me of how much I miss being active and seeing people. I want to say thanks to everyone who helped out with the shower and got us gifts. We feel so blessed to have such a wonderful church family. I have included a few pictures from the shower.

Here is a picture of the beautiful cake Erin made for me. She did such a great job!

Beginning to open presents.

A picture of me holding up the sweater Krista made for baby Ryan. There is also a matching hat. Krista has made it a new tradition to make each baby in our class a sweater, she does a great job on them.

Yay, our Diaper Gene! Hopefully we can eliminate some of the foul smells with this.

Here is a picture of some of the ladies that got to come to my baby shower. A few are missing since they had to leave before we took the picture.

And here is a picture of me at 32 weeks!