Well, this one has been a long time coming seeing as I haven't given the blog a good update in a while. A lot has happened in the last few weeks!
Mike and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary last weekend. We went to Disney with my old college roommate, Rachael, and her husband, Drew. We had a great time! We found a great deal on the hotel room ($35 a night--hotwire!) and so we decided it would be nice to take a final trip as a family of two before little girl arrives. We left mid-day on Friday, and spent Friday night freezing in downtown disney...42 degrees and all I had was a sweater and some hot chocolate.
We woke up early on Saturday and went to breakfast before hitting the parks. Now, before I go on, there had been bets placed on how long I would last before having to get a wheel chair to wheel me around and I was NOT about to let anyone win that bet. Being stubborn can be a pitfall but I love to prove people wrong. :)
We started at Magic Kingdom where the boys rode on Splash Mountain and Rach and I hung out and then we walked around there for a while. Next was EPCOT, which I now realize is the most friendly park for the preggos of the world because there is a lot more to do and see for those in my condition. We spent a good long while there looking at the countries and spending time in some of the shows, etc. After EPCOT we headed to Hollywood Studios for dinner and the lights show. I made reservations for dinner about 2 months in advance, made sure it was all set up and when we got there realized (after 5 minutes of searching) that our reservations were under a misspelled name. Then they sat us right next to the door at a makeshift table and froze every time it opened. This is the first unpleasant dining experience I've ever had with Disney...I may have to write a letter since I actually had made the effort to make reservations way in advance. Anyway, then we headed to see the lights show, which made it all worth it before heading back to Magic Kingdom for the parade/palace/fireworks. All in all it was probably about 4-5 miles of walking the entire day (12 1/2 hours) and I didn't sit in one wheel chair. I was very sore when we left, though!
I woke up Sunday, sore again, but took it easy hoping things would get better. Unfortunately, they have not gotten better. I spent all week in terrible amounts of pain which I have now been informed is a bad case of sciatica and this is right around the time in pregnancy when it normally hits. It was not caused by the walking, though that may have agitated the condition. Most of the things I had read prior to my appointment with the Dr. on Thursday said that if you do develop the condition it pretty much just stinks because it usually doesn't go away until you give birth. In fact, most of the stories that I read had women saying how relieved they were when they did finally go into labor because the back pain was finally about to end.
I was hoping the Dr. would have better news but he didn't. He said it usually sticks around and has periods of being really bad and periods where it is bearable but it's unpredictable. It happens a lot in girls who were fairly small before they got pregnant because the body is not used to all of the extra weight and mine happens to all be in the front which makes it harder. He went ahead and put paper work in so that if I go back to work in January and it's still unbearable (which it has been all week--I haven't been able to walk) then he'll put me on medical disability for the rest of my pregnancy. He says the stress hormone that is released when you have this kind of pain can be harmful to the baby and can help onset conditions like preeclampsia and pre-term labor which would not be good. Hopefully the two weeks off of work will help clear up the big time pain and I'll be able to work my last four weeks with little problems. Keep us in your prayers! We know God is ultimately in control and He has the plan worked out already.
Soooo, the next two weeks I'll be writing my 100 page sub manual in preparation for my leave time. I've met my sub, and those of you who have talked to me about it know that she is far from what I'd want in my classroom. She has no disciplinary skills, in fact, she has asked me to take kids off punishments when she's seen me at the playground in front of them. She doesn't know how to write lesson plans, has no idea how to handle a gradebook/grade papers (all of which she's told me) and it just altogether doesn't sound like I'll come back to a good class. So, I decided, to cover my own butt, I'll be writing a manual listing anything and everything she may need to know about how to run the classroom so that when I get back in April I can't be blamed for not leaving her prepared. As annoying as it is, I'll have a lot less stress knowing it's there than I would otherwise.
Phew! I think that's about it for the update on myself and Mike. Here's a quick baby update:
- Baby is healthy and has a great heartbeat.
- She was breach last Monday and has been that way for several weeks. This past Thursday at the appointment she was sideways. She has 2 weeks to turn before they go ahead and schedule a c-section so we're hoping that she listens and FLIPS! :)
- ONLY 6 MORE WEEKS!!!!!!!! :) :) :)
I'll post pics from our trip as soon as we have a faster Internet connection.
Christmas in our household was a little different this year as we spent it knowing that this would be our last Christmas together as a family of two and anticipating the years to come with new additions to our family. We were very blessed by several family members who gave us generous gifts for the baby (Mike is holding one of them in the picture above). With each gift that we opened that would be used by our baby girl in a few short weeks we smiled with the realization that our lives are about to change drastically. 
