Fun stuff!

So, the past week or so has been filled with a lot of fun stuff for us!

They threw a surprise shower at work for me yesterday. That was so sweet, especially since I've only been there for a little over 2 years. I had some really interesting conversations with some of the women who have kids - the joys of pumping in the office, bringing breast milk through airport security, that kind of thing! most of the women in my office have already had their kids, so I have a lot of good resources to draw upon!

I've also been getting so many guesses and predictions about the baby, that I setup an online baby pool. You guess the gender, birth date and time, length, weight, and then once the real stats are entered, it calculates a score based on how far away your guesses are. We're going to give little prizes to the top winners. Our friends and family are having so much fun with it, and we're having a blast when we check it and see new entries and the comments people make!

And then probably the most fun was last weekend, when we had our maternity photo shoot! The photographer came to the house and setup a studio - backgrounds, lighting, it was really nice. Then he spent about 3 hours taking all kinds of shots. Unfortunately, I don't think he had a lot of experience with maternity shots, as the poses he suggested did not come out that good. But I had printed a bunch of images I liked from the internet, so we still ended up with a lot of good poses. Here are two of them...

This weekend should be fun, too. My mom and stepfather are coming over for breakfast tomorrow to see the nursery and playroom. And then the balance of Saturday I will FORCE myself to finally get the car seats installed and my hospital bag packed. All the decorating must go on hold until we get the basics done! And then on Sunday, we have an all day birthing class, including a tour of the maternity area. I'm really looking forward to that, although all day might be a lot!

I'm really happy that I've been able to push aside my nervousness about this pregnancy and really enjoy it. DH and I were talking the other night about the contrast between me and my other good friend who is 2 weeks ahead of me. Unlike me, she was able to get pregnant very easily, but had two early miscarriages before this pg, where she's now at 36 weeks. She just hasn't been able to shake her negative feelings, and is really not enjoying her pregnancy at all. I almost feel bad talking to her about the fun things I'm doing, or to let my excitement for both of us show, because she is just not feeling the same at all.

She's always been very similar to me in her need to do research and understand everything, and she's doing that when it comes to things like baby gear and work benefits/disability, etc. But she's completely ignoring anything to do with the medical side of things, like the birth process, pain meds, even things happening in her pregnancy. It's almost like if she ignores it and doesn't question anything, then any potential issues will go away. It's very strange and very unlike her. I'm really hoping that her birth goes smoothly and the happier friend I know will be back in a few weeks!