The home stretch

My pumpkin on Thanksgiving Day.
Just in case you missed it, UT won!

So pregnancy is going well.  I'm currently 36 weeks, which means I'm 4 weeks from my due date.  Everyone keeps telling me that I'm not going to make it to January, which is kind of fun ... I wouldn't mind if baby came between Christmas and New Years.  But the fact of the matter is, no one knows when baby is going to come.

We have an appointment tomorrow, and normally this is when the doctor starts doing weekly pelvic exams.  However, my team of certified nurse midwives don't do pelvic exams (unless you really want one) until you are past your due date.  The reason being that it's not that great of an indicator: some people sit at 2cm for weeks, some go from 0 to having a baby in a day.  I assume like most things in pregnancy that most people are somewhere in between.  The bummer is mostly for the first group.  I'm sure knowing that your body is dilating causes quite a bit of excitement, and it would make the last weeks feel even longer.  I don't know, I've never done this before.  In order to combat the overwhelming opinion that baby is coming early, I have changed his due date to January 16th.  Why that date?  It's the longest my midwives will "let me" go without inducing.  January 16th seems like a nice day to have a baby and who wants to stress when the "due date" comes and goes without a baby!  Not me.

We are very excited.  Ready enough, but I'd still like at least another 2 weeks to prepare.  Mostly I just don't want to be in labor on New Years Eve.  A very good friend is getting married and the Hubs is supposed to play it.  It would be really nice if I could attend and even do some dancing!! :)

I was honored with another "shower" up at the dance studio.  It was a week long event, where the teachers and staff took turns putting out snacks and a nightly game for parents to stop by, eat and play.  I got tons of wonderful things!  Now it's just a matter of purchasing the last things for the room.  Crib mattress, sheets, and a few decorations.  Fortunately I have a small fortune in gift cards to Babies R Us (unfortunately: the crib mattress & sheets aren't sold at babies r us).

Tomorrow I will be packing the hospital bag, finishing up some thank you notes, and Hubs will be installing the car seat.  This is the last week at dance, and next Monday is my last day massaging (other than a few friends, who I'll massage at home).  WOW, Christmas is just around the corner. Maybe I should work on buying some presents?  But really, isn't gestating a grandson/ nephew/ son enough of a present?

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Dancer Prancer Boxer Brown

With all this baby talk, I feel the first baby in my life deserves a full post.

Dancer Prancer Boxer Brown walked into our life May 22nd, 2010 at around 1:30am.  I had just produced a show in town for a youth company that I directed, and then went out to dinner with the family to celebrate: the show, BILs b-day, my parent's anniversary, and my b-day.

We pulled into our neighborhood, and at the end of our street, running around in our park, was a small dog.  I told the hubs to pull over and see if the dog had a collar or tags.  The dog ran away.  We pulled into our drive way, I hopped out of the car.  While waiting for the hubs to pull in, I grabbed our now broken vacuum that now lived in the garage, and was pretending to vacuum the concrete as I watched him pull in. We walked to the door, pushed the garage door button, and went inside.  Just a moment later I turned and said, "don't forget to get the laptop out of the trunk."  Hubs turned opened the door to the garage and then turned around, back to me, and shut it.  He looked at me and said, "there's a dog in there!"  He said she looked friendly, but we didn't quite know what to do.  And how did she get in there, there was a max of 30 seconds she could have walked in before we hit the button, and not tripped the sensors.  Crazy.

Anyway I told him to go out the the front and open the garage door that way.  A minute later he was back inside, "There's another dog in our front yard."  All of this was too strange to me: 3 stray dogs in 10 minutes.  Since it was so late I thought it best to try and get them into the back yard and decide the next day what we should do.

I turns out our boxer friend in the garage was in heat, and her skittish black lab friend was hoping to be her suitor.  I went and bought them collars & leashes.  Hubs took them in to SNAP Houston to be scanned for microchips, vaccinated, and tested.  The boxer, Dancer, had fleas, but other than that was in good shape.  The lab, who we were calling Dasher and is now known as Shakespeare, came back positive for heart worms.

We decided that day that we were going to keep the boxer.  The lab bounced from house to house, since we didn't want the two to procreate, as we searched for a home for him.  SIL decided she wanted to adopt him.

People are so sweet and talk about how lucky the two dogs were that they found us.  But as ridiculously cheesy as it is, we are the lucky ones.  We love our Dancer Prancer Boxer Brown, who constantly makes us laugh and brings smiles to our faces.  And we know Master Shakespeare does the same for SIL.  A year and half later, and we can't image life without her.

And on a personal note: Please don't buy dogs from breeders.  There are so many dogs out there that need homes.  If you are looking for a specific breed, size, disposition ... most shelters will work with you over time to place you with the perfect dog.

Also, please spay or neuter your pet(s).

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