August 12, 2008: Lunching, Walking, and Contracting (kind of)

So my August has been very interesting so far. I'm officially on maternity leave from work! While I have no complaints, I have had a little more down time than I would like. I'm trying to keep up on some of my school stuff, and of course filling my time with random errands and stuff around the house. However, the highlights of my week have been my lunches. Yes, I'm a lady who lunches...alot. I average about 3 lunch dates a week with all my girls: Kate, James, Annie, Kel, UCLA girls (Jen, Julie, Jen, Laynie, Afshid, Emily)...I even got a lunch at Drew's work with him and Liz. If you live in the LA area and would like to do lunch, I'm available!! It's too bad Nick works so far away, because it's just not possible to meet him for lunch. However, we've started a great routine of walking every night when he gets home. I would like to say it's because I'm so healthy and trying to stay in shape...no, it's cause I'm trying to induce labor. And because my walks usually point towards ice cream (but hey I'm still burning something off!) So far the walking is only bringing on alot of Braxton Hicks contractions...which means my whole stomach gets really tight, but they are not really effective (or painful) contractions. Not that I'm looking forward to the pain, but at this point, I'd rather have the real ones that are going to do something!

I also have been getting a little swollen, especially my hands and feet. I was worried about my rings, because while I could still get them off (barely), they were getting tight. I didn't want them to get stuck and then have to be cut off for some reason, so I finally took them off. I hate not wearing my rings, especially since I already look young and didn't want to be taken for a baby mama :) So Nick went and bought me a fabulous 5 carat ring....CZ, of course! I mean if I'm going to wear another ring for a month, it might as well be huge and fake. It was really cute of him.

Okay so we are now officially going to the doctor's every Tuesday to check doo's progress. I didn't update last week, but there wasn't much to say. This week we got a tiny bit of news. To deliver doo, I need to be 10cm dialated and 100% effaced. Well I'm still not dialated, but I am 20% effaced. Which isn't much, but I will take it at this point! Anything to indicate that I will not be pregnant for the rest of my life, which is sometimes how it feels. We didn't get any new measurements on doo, but I'm sure he's pushing about 10lbs....okay maybe not but at LEAST 6lbs. You can judge from the belly photo yourself. I also included a pic of our new glider that Nick just put together. I think that is the last piece to complete doo's nursery. Do you hear that doo? We are READY for you...seriously, anytime now.