Today I am 38 weeks pregnant and last night was the first night I’ve been in actual pain with regards to contractions. You know that cervical pain I’ve been mentioning? Well I’ve now decided it feels like Tater is poking or clawing at the cervix and that I’ll pop and gush water at any moment as a result, lol.

I know it is kind of a strange way to describe it all and technically Tater isn’t touching my cervix since my bag of water/ membranes are separating her from the actual cervix right now. She isn’t clawing the cervix so to speak but I am pretty sure she is stretching or pushing on it based on what it feels like and I am sure that is how it will feel right before my water breaks.

I am not leaking or bleeding and my membranes are still intact as far as I know but the cervical pain sure got worse than normal last night for a few brief seconds. I would not describe the pain as all encompassing or as debilitating by any means. It was more like a stabbing pain inside me where I think my cervix is. The pain would last a few seconds and then go away, like she was bumping something and it caused a stabbing pain.

Didn’t feel anything contracting or tightening during the stabs of pain (it would come before or after) but I did have some lower abdominal aching and some real back aching that N massaged away while I laid on my side.

It all came on late last night right after the tornado sirens sounded and I went out to secure the bunnies. I was making some spaghetti Alfredo (didn’t have fettuccine noodles) with shrimp and N was almost home from work. I took this video of the coming storm, the lightening was way cool. Make sure your sound isn’t on full blast when you play it though. The sirens are loud!

Anyway, I was having a burst of energy so I took a video, got the animals ready for the storm, was cooking dinner and then I even mopped the kitchen floor because there were ants coming in from somewhere and eating somthing off the floor that you couldn’t see.

I was having a few moments of “nesting” or whatever and then the weird pain and uncomfortableness began. At first I would find relief in sitting down but towards the end sitting or laying just didn’t do the trick. It was not like I was crying or screaming in agony like everyone perceives woman should be. It was annoyingly uncomfortable that is all. Not sure if that is normal or what but that is how I felt.

Oh, and how come nobody talks about the constant constipated feeling of late pregnancy when the baby drops? It is like people are scared to say that it feels like you’ve got a 10 lb shit chillin in there. Some have said it is like sitting on a bowling ball, others say you feel like you are trying to carry a bowing ball between your legs. None of those descriptions seem to fit what I am feeling.

After some internet searching I was able to uncover the fact that feeling like “you have to #2” all the time (when you really don’t) is an early labor sign. Yeah, okay so feeling like you need to crap 24/7 means something is definitely getting ready to come out of there (either baby or poo), got it. Was that so hard to say?

It’s like women are afraid to bluntly discuss the yuck parts of labor and pregnancy because they aren’t lady like or something, LOL. Well I am proud to say I lack that behavioral conditioning and I am all for being real about it.

Oh and anyone else have stabbing pain in the anus/ perennium when they bend over? I know this is related to the 10 lb shit I described above, just putting it out there as pretty annoying in my book.

So yeah, my ass hurts along with my tailbone my pubic bone, my belly skin and occasionally my cervix. I am happy to report no diarrhea or hemorrhoids though, what a silver lining huh?

My hormones are changing too. Just the other day I went from sweating my ass off to freezing ass cold in minutes. I stayed huddled under the covers all day and now I’ve got a cold sore coming in so it seems my body is making the shift from human incubator to no longer incubating spawn. Woot.

We are counting down the hours till we leave for The Farm, can’t wait to get this show on the road and to meet our little girl already!

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Calls for tablespoons of sugar, flour (specifically cake flour), cocoa powder, milk, oil and an egg. Seems simple enough but then you microwave it. Sort of strange if you ask me but what the heck?

So I combine my all purpose flour (didn’t have cake flour, is there a difference?) , sugar, cocoa and the egg.

Then I added the milk and oil and mixed the heck out of it as directed.

Popped the mug in to the microwave and stood back. Our microwave makes this strange sound when you nuke stuff, like it’s got a radiation malfunction or something. I never stand near it because of the sound. I am paranoid. LOL. Plus if the cake exploded I didn’t want hot nuked batter all over me.

When 3 min were up I took out my creation and inspected it, looks questionable. It has solidified though, I guess it could be good. Looks strange though, see…

Once it cooled, it came out of the mug and on to a plate. It had all these air bubbles and was a strange consistency from the looks of it. Still to soon to know if it is good though, the darn thing is piping hot!

I slathered some frosting on it, I tasted it and cut it in half for N and I to have after dinner. Upon first taste It wasn’t bad. When I cut it in half though it was pretty brick like.

I think it came out pretty dense and not as fluffy as I would have liked (you know like normal cakes). I bet it was the flour, had I used this flour substitution guide (or the flour they called for in the recipe) I would have been better off.

I had a few bites and was done, N ate his whole half. See, he always eats my bad food because he doesn’t want to make me feel bad. LOL.

It was a fun thing to test out but it did not cure my preggo cake craving. I guess I am a cake snob or something. Today I’ll make brownies to try satisfying that chocolate urge of mine since I seem to be bursting with energy.

I used that energy burst to get my bags packed and am just about ready to leave for The Farm this weekend. I am going to an Evansville BirthNetwork Meeting on Thursday to meet with some fellow mama’s, get some support for my upcoming delivery and to meet the local La Leche League leader.

Only base we haven’t covered is finding a pediatrician in the area for when we are home from The Farm and ready to think about vaccinations (oy). Oh and Gabby is finally out of heat and done with the pissing (I think), woot. We’ve gotta get her fixed after Tater arrives, her and Boner!

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In the meantime we have been trying to do things to have fun and to keep busy while we are waiting for Tater to do her last bits of growth and development. Things like putting the house together the way we’ll need it when Tater comes home, unpacking, organizing and even vegetable gardening have been a few of our pastimes these days (other than my excessive napping).

It has sure been quite a critter filled weekend for us though! Late last week we were out in the front yard planting some of the free iris’ we were given. I was working under the tree planting them and N was working under the mailbox.

All of the sudden this frog comes hopping out of the grass at me. I was pretty surprised by it but was also excited because I have never really played with a frog. We didn’t have many water sources in Arizona so in turn we didn’t have many frogs to encounter. Here with the water pond behind our house the frogs are everywhere so I got to play with one for a bit while gardening. Is this a frog or toad though?

Then on Saturday we were out on the deck enjoying the warm morning and planting some seeds when we noticed our outdoor cat, Haley, acting a bit odd. Dixie, our dog, was also quite interested in what Haley had going on. It turns out the cat caught a garden snake and was playing it to death.

N rescued it with a rake and we were sad that it’s head and body were bleeding. We grabbed it away from the cat mainly because we wanted to see if we could get some photos of it and figure out what kind of snake it was. The reason we were so curious about the type of snake is because we are pretty sure a much larger snake got Dixie a few weeks ago.

We noticed she was trying to get at something that went under the deck, she dug a huge hole that went under the deck. We also suspect she got bit while digging that hole. She’s been limping and babying her one paw for about 2 weeks. It is getting better now and she is doing fine but we are sure it was a bite of some sort. Hopefully not from a bigger snake!

Anyway, after taking some photos to reference and compare to what we’ve found online we let the poor garden snake slither off to safety. We still have no idea what kind of snake it is.

Haley was a bit bummed to have her torture subject freed but she got over it pretty quick.

We’ve got frogs frolicking in the back yard, snakes slithering in the brush and we even have huge scary spiders crawling through our grass (with egg sacks on their backs) as I discovered while putting a bunny out to run the yard. The critter fun never seemed to end!

The rabbits seem to be loving the supervised play time in the yard and Dixie is getting very good at not going crazy over the rabbits running free. I recorded a few videos of N, Dixie and Maybelle out in the yard.

Here N has a moment with Dixie, he is telling her how she’ll need to watch over Tater soon…

I also recorded a video of some crazy kicking of the belly while we were watching American Idol last week. The lightening is poor but you can still see the jabs and kicks (and you get to hear the song recaps too. LOL).

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Dixie now uses her nifty dog house for shelter from SOME of the elements. At night she does sleep in the dog house and she has figured out how to stay in it when the hard rain is falling. I still find her digging holes in the flower beds and laying on top of the plants for shade and cool, it is not even insanely hot here yet! So, we need to get some fencing around the beds already but having her sleep in her house is good progress.

Hailey is also getting the hang of her cat house outside. Like Dixie she would just lay out on the uncovered deck in the pouring rain and refuse to take shelter in her home. Now she is understanding that her food, water, blankets and the shade all are found in her cat house.

She too will take shelter in there when the weather gets real bad, yay for progress! On the flip side she is still not hopping the 6 foot wooden fence to let herself in and out of our yard. We have to let her though the gate and if she is still wandering the neighborhood and doesn’t get let in by dark she will yowl outside our kitchen window until we let her back in the gate.

So, the outside pets are getting in to the routine of things. We even have the bunnies out there for fresh air, though they do have to be tarped when it rains since their cages aren’t 100% enclosed. The rabbits even take turns “mowing the lawn” from within this movable gated run area we have set up for them. They seem to really like the grass and the room to exercise.

We’ve tried letting them roam the yard free (not together! We don’t want more dead baby bunnies…) but Dixie chases them crazily trying to “herd” them and they can’t handle it for an extended period of time.

So the routine is to feed everyone in the morning. The indoor cats have their food and litter box in the odd closet up in the master bathroom. They get fed (and hopefully scooped) in the morning. We’ve found that keeping their food topped off, by giving them food each morning has cut down on the vomit occurrences. Also, since switching to a food that is not bright orange the vivd shooting vomit has been much less of an issue.

Once the cats are fed we go out to feed the outdoor critters. Dixie still finds comfort in eating her food in her home so we take her a heaping cup of food out there to dump in her bowl, then we top off Hailey’s cat food and we give each of the rabbits some food also.

It is strange but routine is really one of the reasons why everyone is adjusting as well as they have. Having a consistant routine is a comfort for them I think and it makes everything else less scary in this odd time of transition. It is also a bit of parent training for us at the same time. I think kids like routine too huh? We suck at keeping with routines, so the practice is good

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The last few weeks have been filled with all sorts of crapola and it’s made us grumpy at times but we are glad to have gotten so much accomplished. Here is a recap complete with links in case you missed something or a bored and want to read our drama.

We got our taxes filed and our returns are on the way, we got our February rent check mystery solved with the bank, we got our march rent paid and sent off in this certified letter that still hasn’t been picked up!

We looked at so many home options, decided on and bought Tater’s nursery bedding, we rescued a bird from the wall of this house, delt with and remedied the broken garbage disposal, we finished Boners homemade cage but he managed to mate with Maybelle anyway and we are expecting baby bunnies in a few weeks now!

In the next two weeks I’ve got 2 prenatal appointments (one at The Farm with Pamela and one with the local OBGYN), I have a chiropractor appointment and my 27th birthday is March 20th.

Then we have the end of March and all of April to pack and move, again. In May I’ll be nesting and unpacking and then I am off to The Farm to have Tater in June! Time is just flying these days, unbelievable…

Oh wait, I skipped over the big news… We found our home!

Saturday we entered a verbal agreement and hashed out all the terms, now we are going back and fourth drafting up a contract. On April 1st we are making a down payment, moving in to the house and will have 12 months to take over ownership of it.

We are super happy and also pretty excited about it all. The place is just what we need right now! It doesn’t need major work to be ready for Tater’s arrival, it is in our price range and it is a pretty good investment for us. Here are some more photos of it from the weekend:

I think we will be very happy there and it is something we can call our own. After 5 years we’ve finally managed to find the right house at the right price and terms. I’ve always wanted to be in our own home before we brought home a baby too. It’s funny how it all works out in the strangest of ways!

Like I’ve said before the last six months have been quite the roller coaster ride for us! We went from making no life progress over several years to making tons of progress all at once within like 6 months. When it rains, it pours!

Oh and I am entering to win a Bumgenius over at http://hotbellymama.blogspot.com/, you can too. Here is how:

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