Bumpdate {33 Weeks}

I write to you today with a heavy heart. My family lost a very dear friend yesterday. I grew up alongside his children, and his wife has been one of my mom's best friends since they were in high school together. Their family is more like an extension of my own family, rather than simply just friends. Of course, I am deeply saddened that I cannot be with the family this week to attend the funeral services. However, they live in Chattanooga, Tennessee and I am way too pregnant that my doctor won't allow me to travel that far away from home. I send my love and prayers to their family from afar, and part of me is filled with joy knowing that my dad and his friend are together again in our Lord's Kingdom.

God works in mysterious ways. I was reminded yesterday that although the Lord does take cherished lives away from us here on Earth, he also blesses us with new ones. Not only did my family lose a very special man, but we gained a new baby boy all in the same day. My best friend, Casey, delivered a happy and healthy baby boy, James Thomas, last night. Mom and baby are both doing great and I can't wait to meet this little dude!

I've said it before here on the blog and I'll say it again...tell your family and friends that you love them and don't take them for granted because tomorrow isn't guaranteed for anyone.

Week 33: April 16 - April 22

Week 33 Milestones:

- I realize that I probably should have put something about Easter on the chalkboard this week, but I totally forgot that Easter was actually occurring during this week until after I had already taken this picture earlier in the week. Fail. Let's just blame the pregnancy brain.

- I must officially be in mommy mode now because I literally could have cared less that my own birthday occurred this week. I was more concerned with getting things ready for Peyton and going to the doctor to find out how she is doing. I didn't even write a blog post about my birthday this year. Hey, I'm turning 27, I'm large and 33 weeks pregnant, I can't drink or do much of anything else exciting. So what's there to write about? Peyton's impending arrival is much more exciting to me right now, so sorry birthday, maybe next year.

- Baby is the size of a durian fruit this week? Is that even a real thing? I feel like there has got to be a better food comparison out there than that, but hey we can all Google what the heck a durian fruit is and learn something new today! Baby now keeps her eyes open all the time whenever she is awake. I kind of feel bad for her because having nothing to look at inside my uterus all day must get boring. Her skeleton is hardening, except for her skull which will stay separated into smaller plates until after birth so that her head will fit through the birth canal. That's a terrifying visual.

- My total weight gain thus far has reached 37 pounds. Aside from my giant basketball belly and my swollen feet, I don't really think I look that humongous. Thankfully, I have a full 5 feet 10 inches of height working to my advantage here in dispersing all of this weight. And the belly button is still in, hooray!

- She is officially taking up every square inch of available space inside my belly. My doctor gave me a surprise ultrasound at our appointment on Thursday because it was my birthday. It was mildly disappointing. She is so jam packed in there that you can't really see anything at all. We kind of got to see her smushed face for a second and then the only other thing we could actually see at all was her butt.

- We currently sleep with the air conditioning on 68 degrees at night and I still wake up sweating. My body temperature is so warm now that we have to keep the air conditioning cranked down all the time. Jared loves it because usually he is the one that's hot, but recently he says that he feels like Steve Martin in Father of the Bride Part 2 when the wife and daughter are laying on the couch sweating and Steve Martin is running around in a parka freezing to death. Sorry, but my body is busy baking a human being in there so it's gets a little warm.

- All of those pregnancy symptoms that you hear about before you actually get pregnant are only about 1/4 of the actual symptoms that you will experience. Literally every single part of your body is affected by your pregnancy and the most random things that you would never expect to be associated with pregnancy happen. Darn hormones.

- Warning: this gets a little graphic. Don't say I didn't warn you. Two freaky and not so pleasant sensations that I have had the joy of experiencing recently involve her really getting herself into the down and ready position for delivery. The instructor in our child birth class showed us how the pelvis (yes, like the actual bone structure) will expand to make space for the baby to get into position to descend through the birth canal. Do you know what it's like to feel your own pelvis actually expanding? Yeah, it's a new one for me too and man is it freaky feeling. So occasionally when I'm up walking around, I can feel my pelvis expanding. It's just weird. On an even more delightful note, I sometimes also feel her headbutting me in the pelvis/cervix (sorry guys, I know, over-share) which makes it feel like she is going to fall out. Let's just say I was a tad bit on the panicked side when that happened for the first time. I literally said to her, "oh no, stay in there, it's not time to come out yet!" My doctor reassured me that she is well secured in there and is not going to fall out just yet. Sometimes I wonder what is must be like to be an OBGYN and have people come in your office all day saying ridiculous things; you must get a lot of good laughs. My doctor and his wife are both OBs and I can just imagine what their dinner conversation must be like every evening. I know he definitely gets some good laughs out of me and my insane questions, but hey, I've never had a baby before so I don't know what the heck is supposed to be going on, that's what I pay him the big bucks for.

- Fun fact of the day...did you know that carpal tunnel is like an actual tunnel/canal in your wrist? I always knew that it was a syndrome, but I guess I never thought about the fact that it's also a structural piece of your body. So I have been waking up every morning with achiness, numbness and pain my fingers and wrist and I couldn't figure out why. I literally wake up feeling like I'm 100 years old. Apparently, this is yet another one of those pregnancy symptoms that no one tells you about. Just like how my feet are retaining fluid and swelling, the same thing is happening in my hands. And in my right wrist in particular, my carpal tunnel is retaining fluid which causes pressure on the nerves that run through this tunnel, alas the weird pains that I keep having in my wrist when I move it in certain ways.

- Food preferences: Aside from my indulgences of waffles and coke icees, I basically eat like a bunny all day. I'm really into green apples, salads and raw veggies like carrots, cucumbers, green peppers, etc. I will admit that I have been enjoying an excessive amount of Hershey's chocolate eggs this week as well. I have no idea why, but when a Hershey's kiss is shaped like a tiny Easter egg and wrapped in pretty pastel foil, it just tastes better for some reason.

Happy Easter from the Roche family...and my giant Easter egg belly!

Congratulations to my best friend, Casey, on this adorable little nugget born yesterday!