How to make a pregnancy fly by

1. Be your ward's Primary President: Actually, I don't recommend this. It's a lot of work. A great experience, but hard. It certainly took up time that could have been spent obsessing about pregnancy (or at least documenting it in a blog). I've been in Primary since Annabelle was born, and I'm going to miss those kids, their awesome comments, and wiggle songs. Relief Society chairs are uncomfortable. I'm not going to miss the Saturday night/Sunday morning emails and texts scrambling to find subs.

Our new house, Dave, me, and the watermelon I'm holding in my shirt.

2. Buy a house: When not spending Annabelle's naps doing Primary things, I've pretty much spent the last year watching the real estate market, waiting for the perfect house to pop up. We had narrowed down our search to pretty much 2 neighborhoods, and then kept second guessing ourselves when what we wanted wasn't showing up in our price range. We made two offers last summer; one was a foreclosure that we were outbid on, and one was regular sale we weren't willing to go up to what the seller wanted. With the pregnancy and the owners of our house getting ready to move back in, we were a bit more motivated this spring. Then a house came on the market that had a lot of what we wanted, but was much bigger and priced well over our max. I ignored it. But then we saw that they were dropping the price a lot every week. Figuring they were motivated, we low balled, they countered, and we were able to reach a middle ground. And while the price was on the higher end of what we were looking to spend, with the way interest rates have changed, our monthly payments are what we would have paid for the foreclosure I was so sad to lose last year. And we got a lot more! Definitely worth the wait.

In their new outfits Grandma Ostler made. Annabelle kept running
around saying, "I a pincess! Ooooh la la!"

3. Have two older kids: These girls keep me on my toes, but when they're not fighting and yelling, they are adorable and so much fun. I just look at Mabes and wonder when she got so big. And Annabelle has the funniest personality, I could (and sometimes do!) just sit and watch her all day.

Playing. On a makeshift slide. Because that's what you do on Saturday mornings.

At Mabes' end of year party at school. Annabelle was mildly happy to see Mabes.

4. Move into said house 2 weeks before due date: We closed and moved in the next day. I had originally wanted to take more time, but that just wasn't happening. And with the way my body is, I was having regular (but not painful) contractions the week leading up to closing, so I wasn't able to pack as furiously as I'd liked. But the baby stayed in, we closed, and had a crazy weekend of moving. In the week that followed (last week) we finished moving out of the old house--all the little things under sinks, in closets, etc., cleaned it out and turned in keys Saturday. It was a huge relief to be done with that. I'm still surrounded by boxes and we can't find lots of things, but we're slowly making progress. The upside is that I'm so uncomfortable, I can't sleep much anyway, so I have more time to unpack.

5. Stay active: At the beginning of this pregnancy, I wanted to try to be stay active and see if that made pregnancy, labor/delivery, and recovery easier. "They" say it does, but "they" say lots of things that turn out to be total crap. Plus, I was in a regular routine and figured I could modify it pretty easily. I'd been training for a half marathon when I found out I was pregnant, and my doctor was supportive of me continuing that. I had to modify my pace, but I did it. I had to stop running around 18 weeks, due to Braxton Hicks contractions, but kept up with cardio and weights. A few weeks ago, I was mad that despite regular workouts, I felt like crap and was getting huge. My belly is bigger than it was with Annabelle. I wanted my early mornings back. But now, looking over the last few months of craziness, I'm thinking there's no way I could have survived (especially running boxes up and down stairs) had I quit exercising early on.

So here I am, 39 weeks and 2 days pregnant. At my appointment last week, my OB said I was ready to go and predicted I'd go before Father's Day. That freaked Dave out a little, because he had some stuff he needed to wrap up. I assured him that Dr. B did us a favor because whenever a doctor says that, you always have at least another week or two. We needed it! At my appointment Monday, he admitted he was surprised to see me, said I'd made even more progress and he was willing to induce me if I wanted. (Both girls were fast and bigger; I was induced a few days early with Annabelle and it was a great experience.) Today (Tuesday) was the only day open, but I turned it down. As much as I want to hold my baby, I feel like this pregnancy has flown by and I'm not ready to force him out. I'm extremely uncomfortable at times, but not miserable yet. I still haven't packed my hospital bag, and I have plenty to do around the house. So I'm staying busy today and frankly, I'm pretty content to still be pregnant. It's really hot today and the crampiness/achiness has picked up, though, so I may start getting antsy soon.