31 Weeks! 8 To Go!!!!!!

Hey there little one kicking me in the tummy....as you can see, I am a day late this week.  I have a good excuse though, promise!  Tuesdays are always busy days for me during the day, but your Daddy and I also had our first child birth class last night for THREE AND A HALF HOURS.  And, we have two more nights to go!

And get this, we left an hour and a half early to get to the hospital (yep, the one where you will be born!) because we wanted to grab something quick to eat, Phoenix rush hour traffic, etc.  This should normally be a 30 minute drive....BUT....it had been a day with crazy weather (storming and dumping rain one minute and a rainbow the next), so it figured we would run into some weather.  It's not all sunshine and pleasant days here in Phoenix (well, maybe 95% of the days, but the other 5% are weird and wacky!).

So, on our drive down I-17, the clouds looked really funky.  Not the kind of weird clouds that your Mommy usually hates (because tornadoes FREAK ME OUT), but still freaky just the same - like a big ol' wall of white clouds - not puffy and pretty clouds, but almost block-shaped clouds (if that's possible?).  So, your Mommy told your Daddy that we should pull off the freeway while we still could (out of shear fear!) and grab something to eat now.  And we did...and right when we walked into Wendy's it started hailing.  I could handle that hail...marble-sized pellets, not too windy.  Then, the sheets of rain came with wind.  And then, the freight train came and was running somewhere above the roof of Wendy's.  The hail got a lot bigger and outside was completely a mess - you couldn't see a thing.  And did I mention the freight train sound?  Holy moly...that noise is something I never want to hear again.  I was so scared.  When I lived in Illinois, I had to worry about tornadoes all the time...but here in AZ?  Yeah, right!  Well, your Daddy and I both think there was something above that roof in the clouds similar to a tornado that was making that HORRIBLE noise.  And your Daddy didn't want to freak me out, I could tell...but his face gave it all away.  I just kept telling him to "hold my hand, hold my hand".  And then I prayed to God for protection and really thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown at the counter of Wendy's!  Generally, living in IL, I have been well-trained to go to the basement.  Well, first of all, no basements in AZ, and second of all, we were in a Wendy's.  I felt so helpless...and we were.  We were at the mercy of the weather, whatever it decided to do.  Thank goodness, we made it through just fine and even got some food after it passed.  The view outside was incredible, as all the hail almost looked like snow on the ground and then God even gave us a double rainbow when we were driving away.

 This is right after the worst of it went through - so it looks a lot calmer than it was!

All the white stuff is the hail

All that said and done...we went to get back on I-17, just to see a sign saying the road is now closed.  Oh boy.  So, all traffic had to exit (you can imagine how long that took at 5pm on a weekday!).  It took forever.  We then had to dodge streets filled will rivers of water and hope we wouldn't get stuck in the high water.  Phoenix has NO DRAINAGE systems (gutters in the curbs, etc.) for rain....because it's always sunshine and pleasant, right?  Wrong-o.  So, when it does rain, it usually dumps sheets of rain instead of fun, light sprinkly rain and the roads are a mess.  Needless to say, were a good 45 minutes late to our class.  Probably fine in the end though, because I didn't learn a whole bunch new last night.  We did get to see the typical birthing video that was extremely graphic and was probably supposed to freak you out, but it didn't bother me too much.  I think it bothered the dads in there more than the moms.  

Oh, and on the crazy drive down, the neighbors by your Pa and Mimi's rental house here in AZ called to say that they had noticed some broken windows and that the screens on the windows looked like there were rocks thrown threw them.  They said there was golf-ball sized hail up there.  They were going to go and check stuff out for sure for us and then cardboard up any windows that needed it.  Nice people.

They only kept us until 9pm and not 9:30pm, so that was nice...we got in the car to head back up I-17 and guess what?  Yep, still closed.  We found out later there were power lines that got uprooted and toppled over.  So, we took city streets home....well, tried to.  Many of these major city streets were closed due to flooding as well.  And, power was out all of the place, so there were no stoplights.  It was kind of creepy (especially in some of the parts of town we had to drive through!).  We eventually found our way back to our neck of the woods.  And were a little scared of what our house looked like since we are just three miles from Pa and Mimi's.  Lo and behold, God blessed us because we had no windows or screens broken.  Crazy how the weather works around here!

Let's see...other than our crazy night, the last week with you has been great.  Mommy's feet are still swollen, but that has become semi-normal for me now.  And you are your usual mover and shaker in there.  You gave me a huge blow last night in bed....I think that was the biggest one so far...it kind of hurt!  Oh, and you have definitely had the hiccups a lot lately.  On my lower left side of my tummy (which is where your head has been the last couple times at the ultrasounds), I feel the rhythmic bumps for a few minutes.  Yesterday you had them twice and today you have already had them once.  They say it's a healthy thing, showing you are developing correctly, but it makes me feel bad for you in there!  And you can tell you get a little annoyed with them because after a couple minutes of having them you start squirming around and kicking more.  

Here's more about you this week:

As far as growth goes, you are still on a roll, measuring an impressive 17 inches and weighing in at more than three pounds (probably more like 3.5). You will still gain at least three to five pounds, possibly more, before you we get to meet you.

Your brain is working overtime these days, developing faster than ever.   Connections between individual nerve cells are growing at a frenetic clip, and you can now perceive information from all five senses. Sure, you can't smell anything right now, but that's only because you are still submerged in amniotic fluid and need to be breathing air to get a whiff of anything. Lucky for me — and you — my smell will be one of the very first scents you breathe in, a scent that will hopefully quickly become your very favorite.

So what's little Avery Jo doing all day long? Making faces, hiccupping, swallowing, breathing, pedaling with little hands and feet along my uterine wall, and even sucking your thumb (didn't they forget sucking your feet too?). In fact, some babies suck their thumbs so vigorously while in the womb that they're born with a callus on their thumb (or toes!).

A loud noise near me may cause you to jump (and I think I have noticed that before). You may move to the rhythm of music (how cool is that?  I'll pay attention to this now!). Studies with heart rates show that you may also prefer some types of music to others at this stage. Your eyes can now completely open and the irises are now responsive to light, dilating and contracting as needed.

In other words...you are such a little person now!  I didn't get to see you at the doc's appointment last week (pretty uneventful really - oh, my A1C was 6.0, up a little with all the stubborn insulin resistance kicking in, but still in a great place for you in there!).  But, I start having appointments weekly (sometimes maybe twice a week even) to measure your heart rate, movement, and general health....so, that will start next week and I think includes a growth ultrasound...so next week we get to see you again!

On the home front here, your Sister, Kyndall has been having ankle issues in cross country, so she went and got an x-ray the other day - she has a stress fracture!  She had shin splints since the summer, so this is just sometimes what happens with shin splints - they turn into this.  She has to wear an air cast for two weeks and her cross country season is pretty much over with this news.  Kind of sad, but we just want her to get better and heal.  I think she will be going out for track in the spring too, so you'll get to come along to her track meets then and watch her with us!  Megan is good too - she's just a busy little thing lately.  She is taking a cooking class after school each week, she is in student council and is in something called "Character Counts", which meets and does volunteer work every other week.  This week, she had cooking on Tuesday after school, she has a student council meeting today after school, and then "Character Counts" tomorrow after school - whew!  And she just said she thinks she wants to go out for basketball again, which starts in a few weeks.  Nothing like being born into a busy time!  =)  This means you'll get to see some of her basketball games too!  You'll already be one sporty little girl by the age of 6 months!  =)

Okay, to end this long blog today (sorry!), I'm going to continue with my countdown for the week - which is EIGHT today.  In honor of EIGHT weeks left until we get to meet you, here are EIGHT reasons why I have loved being pregnant with you!

8.  I have felt like a champ throughout the whole pregnancy - no morning sickness, food aversions - really not too much of anything but feeling normal!

7.  I like it when people rub my belly.

6.  I get special treatment and nice looks from strangers

5.  I just feel special  - like I (and you) were uniquely chosen for this job

4.  I like the anticipation of imagining what you will look like, laugh like, smile like....and then I get impatient!

3.  My belly - I just love it.

2.  Your kicks - I will miss them even when you are in my arms!

1.  The miracle of God's creation is right here happening within me - there is absolutely no denying that there is a God when something so intricate and incredible is being developed in my body.  It is truly an amazing thing and an entirely new face of God that I never knew of before because it can only be experienced with pregnancy.

I love you baby girl - can't wait for week 32!