Cant� it really be all down here from now on? Baby can come at any time and would do fine but I need the time to get tons of work done and get through opening the residence halls here. I spent the 4th of July weekend with my sister and her husband, working around on their farm and riding the John Deer trailor. Watch out � pregnant woman in control on LARGE machine. He he he!!! Karl�s off on an Alaskan cruise with his family. So lucky! Missing him and talking to someone around here but before long there�s be a little one to talk to ALL the time. I had a check-up doctor appointment and everything is looking good and now I will have an appointment every other week then after 36 weeks every week. Might as well sleep at the doctors. I visited my mother on Friday and she had gone crazy making sheets, blankets, and outfits for Lukaroo. Whole cow! This baby will have one outfit a day for the next six months that wouldn�t get repeated. Lukaroo is now making stronger moves around its home that you can see from a few feet away, especially in the evenings. Loves being active! I think I might have met my match in the energy department. Poor karl!!!
I forgot one important thing that started this week � the start of childbirth class. Not a breathing class but an education class on what happens during birth. Since Karl was out of town, I went by myself and my lovely pillow. The class is small � only 3 other couples. It happens that 3 of us have the same due date, and one has the same doctor as I � better not go in labor at the same time! Class is every Wednesday this month and lasts for 2 hours. We have a very nice instructor who started us off on explaining the class and services provided at the hospital. Then we learned about the different stages of labor (4 for those who don�t know) and did some relaxation techniques. But the highlight of this week�s class and the only way to start a class like this is to watch an actual birthing video � NC-R rated! There were several humorous parts in the movie like when the announcer would say �As the baby�s head emerges through the vaginal canal, you might experience a slight burning sensation�. You think???!!!!!! Look at that thing � it�s doing things to your body that you NEVER thought you could do. A slight burning sensation � heck I was in pain just looking at it. Heck I�ve been watching Baby Story and am very comfortable watching a woman go through the pains and actual birth of a child. What I have never seen was the birthing of the placenta. Whole cow!!!! Stop reading here if you don�t want more details����
It looked like a slug crawling out of your �hmmm�. With a tail being pulled by the doctor. �The birth of the placenta will be quite different and you might not realize it when it occurs�. I�m sorry but you just pushed a huge living being through your �.hmmm� and you don�t� think you can feel that coming out. Come on!!!! Your body is in overload and depending how much drugs you are, you can feel everything. Now I haven�t done this yet so I�ll give you all the details on how it feels then but I�m taking a wild guess here that you�ll feel that slummy thing crawl out of you. After the video, the class was over. Karl missed out on this but I�m going to try to find a birth video for him to watch � if we all had to endure it, he will too.
Now here comes the truth of pregnancy � all those �stereotypes� of being pregnant and stories�. They DO exist � only it�s in the last few months which is the last thing you really remember about the pregnancy. The swelling, the tiredness, the unbalancing�. Everything is now coming to the forefront. O boy!!! I�m also getting bigger � there�s almost a daily change now with the belly. Very strong kicks too and movement by baby lukaroo.
The biggest part of the week was the surprised baby shower by my sister and Karl given on Saturday, July 16, 2005. Check out the Baby Shower page for details and shots.
In this week�s child birthing class, we got to see a video about C-section, an epidural, and having an episiotomy. O the fun!!! Karl missed the epidural video with the needle going into your back (he was running late from work). Luck him! But got the other video about the C-section. The video wasn�t too bad since it was animated operation and not the real thing. Even the animation didn�t help the avoidance of how intense a C-section is. Then we got a tour of the labor and delivery area and room. It�s very large and very homeyish. After seeing all this, I have decided there�s no reason to have to go through all this. There has to be an easier way, right?? I have changed my mind � this is not going to be fun and all this stuff you need to know. Do we really have to go through this?........YEP!!! There�s no turning back now. GREAT!
The rest of the week went very well. On Friday, July 22nd, I had scheduled a lunch meeting with my two supervisors and another colleague who is also pregnant within the same timeframe of being due as me. So we met and talked about the plans and then were told food is ready in the conference room. So we walked to the conference room and SURPRISE!!!! It was the entire department personnel surprising us � it was a work baby shower. We had no clue � it didn�t seem unusual to eat and work over lunch � that�s how we always work with food. Two baby showers in one week!! It was so awesome! Actually it was a baby/dog shower since one of our supervisors, Jim, just got a dog. There was lots of food and then presents. Jim went and got his dog and it went crazy opening presents. We got lots of nice stuff � between this and the other shower baby luka is set to arrive. We feel so loved and supported by family and friends to help us through our next phase of our journey.