Christmas Cranes

picture taken around 32/33 weeks along

Tomorrow I'm 35 weeks along in the pregnancy! Only 5-ish more to go! Feeling mostly good. More tired lately, more hungry, more heartburn, more big belly. But other than that, it really has been a great pregnancy so far. 
Hashtag blessed. 

We went to the beach around my birthday (a few weeks ago) and took fun pictures. This is one of my favorites.

Our midwife is so awesome at helping us be proactive in our pregnancy. I think a lot of people who are having hospital births expect that they don't need to do much for themselves or for baby during pregnancy because they expect to be medicated and everything will be fine. This experience has opened my eyes up even more to the medical aspect of everything. While I may not know what it's like to have an OB doctor for this pregnancy, I know that going to most doctors is a quick in and out appointment with most time spent with a nurse or nurse tech and very little time with the actual doctor. Having a midwife has been amazing because all of our time and appointments is with her, the actual person who will be delivering our child. She gives tips and suggestions on better eating and exercising. She is trained to know what to feel for to know what position the baby is in and what I should be doing to ensure he's in the right position for birth. Which, by the way, our little guy is posterior, meaning his back is aligned with my back. He needs to turn over so that his back is next to my stomach. His head is already down, so that's a good thing. While him being posterior is not exactly the worst thing, it does mean if he doesn't flip over the right way soon, he will have more room to get a lot bigger, making delivery worse. I've been doing certain yoga positions to get him to flip...hopefully it's helping! I feel some big movements but I can't really tell what part of him is where. I do think he's in the process of flipping though.




Ben and I went walking yesterday around our neighborhood. We have quite a few sandhill cranes that live in our neighborhood. I'm not really a bird person, but I really love these cranes. They're probably about 4 feet tall, maybe in between 4 and 5. They travel in pairs and small groups. They have a loud honking sound when flying overhead and kind of look like geese when they're flying. Their wingspan is huge. They seem to not have a care in the world, which is one reason I love them so much. They just do their thing and not much bothers them. I got some neat pictures of them yesterday while walking around. We have a few gorgeous trees that changed colors (dude, it's almost like it's fall in Florida or something! We don't get to experience the color change down here.... and now that I think about it, I think today marks the first day of winter. Guess it will get cold in a month or so.). 

CHRISTMAS IS IN 4 DAYS!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!!

33 weeks!

32 weeks!

{I'm such a slacker on posting weekly pregnancy pictures! Coming soon...hopefully!}

At 32 weeks, still feeling great! Lots of movement. Lots of hiccups for the little man (they don't seem to last too long). 

We went to our birth class a week ago. Lots of good info for both parents...so glad Ben is just as excited and interested to learn about all of this as I am. I definitely wouldn't have the courage or faith to have a homebirth on the first go-around (or likely at all) if I didn't have him. And just so we're all clear, he never swayed my decision about where to give birth, he said it's my decision, he wants me to be as comfortable as I can be and he would support any decision. 

For all the people shaking their heads at me as I choose an unmedicated natural home birth (and because I just said he wants me to be comfortable, which by default, "unmedicated child birth" and "comfortable" do not go together), I am almost 100% certain I would be more uncomfortable in a hospital setting even with an epidural than I will be at home. I would literally have performance anxiety if I was in a hospital, with all of the different strangers coming in and out of the hospital room, checking all my lady parts, having all these fun beeps from all of the equipment, having wires and tubes in my arms, and then the strangers giving me all sorts of commands about when to push or when not to push. At home, I will have at most 1 stranger there (that is, if I'm not able to meet the midwife's birth assistant before the Big Day). At home, I can walk around, I can turn the lights down low (or have them all on and bright if I choose), I can EAT (they don't let you eat in a hospital!), I can take a bath or shower whenever I want, and the only people there will be the people who have been taking care of me since the early stages of the pregnancy. People who have seen lots of births and won't judge or care with how I end up dealing with the pain. 

Sorry to get off on that little tangent. 32 weeks and still going strong! After our birth class, we went downtown to take fun pictures. I wanted to play with the manual settings on the camera to understand better how to get crisp pictures at night with a tripod. It was a little difficult being both the photographer AND the subject....therefore some of the pictures are not quite in focus. After Ben and I started playing with the camera settings, we realized we could make "ghost" pictures. You'll see what I mean when you scroll down... one or both of us literally looks like ghosts. Kinda neat, eh?

Baby Bump comparison at 31 weeks

Ben and I are out of focus in this picture because we had the shutter speed very high and then we were not completely still. Anywho, you get the idea of whose bump is bigger.

Favorite "ghost" picture:

The shutter speed is at the highest setting here, which means while the shutter is capturing the image, you must be completely (I repeat, COMPLETELY) still. This is an example of me not understanding that and coming into the picture and moving while the shutter is still capturing what is going on.


More pictures to come! Sleep is calling my name at the moment...