Girls Weekend and Kidney Stones

I can't even find the right words to describe how grateful I am for these women.  My sisters (including SIL's), my mom, my grandma.

Thanks to the famous Oscars selfie, we were confident we could get a good selfie of us all.

These are my Japanese nieces and nephews.  I miss them.

They left their families and came from all over the world to have a girls weekend, and threw me a baby shower while they were at it.  It was so much fun. I'm also grateful for my brother's (including BIL's) for managing their families alone for the weekend so we could do this.  Here's a special shout out to Scott who had 7 kids including 1 year old twins who weren't all the way weaned and sleeping through the night yet. Way to go man. Hands down, my sisters, mom and grandma are cooler than yours.

I had kidney stones last weekend. That was awesome. And by awesome I mean totally NOT awesome. I did get an ultrasound out of it though, and we got to see our cute little boy move his lips. To me the coolest part of the experience was that I could be writhing in excruciating pain and my baby was virtually unaffected.  That is pretty amazing.  I've noticed a few things haven't quite been the same since 'the stones'.  I'm not sleeping well anymore, and my energy and emotions are a lot more up and down than before.  I was practically dead until Saturday and then all of a sudden felt like I had a 32 oz Dr. Pepper.  I was bouncing off the walls and stayed up late sewing. By the way, I did NOT have a 32 oz Dr. Pepper. It's also harder, mentally, to accept that I still have 6 weeks left of this. I'm hoping my belly grows a bit bigger to give more room for me, the baby, all my organs, and the food I apparently have to keep eating.  We're a little crowded right now.

I look a little crazy-eyed.  It was hard to be happy. The monitor was showing I was having regular contractions, but they were so small....I couldn't even feel them. In fact, I still don't know what a Braxton Hicks feels like, even though I know I'm having them.

6 weeks and we'll have a baby; 8 weeks and we'll live in Maine. I usually try not to think about it because every time I do it gets harder to breathe.