If I think it's been tough to blog BEFORE baby...

...I'm pretty much screwed, right?! Haha! I'm really sorry, friends. My blogging hiatus has really been a by-product of guilt more than anything. My evening/weekend to-do list is very simple: get some studying done. Oh, and write baby shower thank-you notes (yikes... a little behind on that!). After making dinner, of course. Having worked all day in my largely pregnant state and arrived home with little-to-no energy left for evening tasks, I'm sure it won't come as a shock for you to hear that I haven't been making amazing progress. So when I consider something like blogging, I immediately jump to "I can't very well sit here and waste time BLOGGING when I should be STUDYING" ...and so I don't blog OR study. It's dumb.

So, it would appear that I have quite a bit of updating to do! I'll give you the streamlined, bullet-point version:

• I'm 38 weeks pregnant! When did THAT happen?! I can't say I'm really feeling any "different" or any closer to delivering, and my midwives haven't done any "checking" yet so I can't really update you on where we stand. I will say that I'm still relatively comfortable and haven't hit that late-pregnancy wall that you hear so many women talk about (the "GET THIS BABY OUT OF ME!!!" wall). Sleep is getting more difficult (more aches + more heartburn + baby dropping onto bladder = more interruptions!) which is definitely getting irritating, so I won't be too heartbroken if he shows up a little early ;-)

37 Weeks

• Baby boy's bum kidney hasn't gotten any better or worse. His abdomen is a little bigger around than it should be because the kidney is enlarged, but it's not big enough to interfere with delivery or anything. As of our last sono a little over a week ago he weighed a whopping 7 lbs 4 oz, so we're looking forward to delivering a big ol' chunker of a baby! He's lookin' pretty darn cute, too...

Eli at 32 weeks

• The baby space is all set up and ready to go! Since we're still living in a 1BR apartment (more to come on the living arrangements!), we've had to "make do" with the space that we have. We're storing our dining room furniture at a friend's place and the dining area has become baby land, complete with dresser FULL of freshly washed clothes, pack n' play with changing table, newborn swing, and bouncy seat. 

 We decided to borrow Em & Josh's baby swing...

Baltimore-sports-themed mobile on the swing, courtesy of Uncle Josh

Yes, that's his dresser tucked away beneath the overhang of the kitchen counter!

• We're buying a house! Waaaahooooooo!!! After a LONG and disappointing experience with the short sale house (which fell through after 3 months of back-and-forth madness), we finally found an even MORE perfect home just when we were about to give up. It worked out well that the sellers are asking to rent back from us until mid-December, so rather than feeling pressured to rush and move before the baby arrives, we'll be staying put and getting to know our little man for a few months in our cozy apartment :-) 

• In case you were a little confused about the "studying" that I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I'm also enrolled part-time in an independent study elective for medical school to brush up on my first-year material during this year off from school. It's mainly Step One-driven ("Step One" being the first board exam that I'll have to pass at the end of my 2nd year in order to move on to clinical rotations), so I'm not just going back through all of my old PowerPoints - I'm working with Step One study materials to focus on the stuff that I'll really need to have down for the exam. And as I mentioned before, it's... slow going!

• Quite possibly the best news of all is that I'M DONE WORKING!!! SOOOoooooo fabulous :-) I truly enjoyed the group of people I worked with and adored being a part of such an active, successful CF research program, but DUDE. I have been TIRED. It's so unfortunate that we live in a culture in which it is virtually impossible for most households to survive on one income, which ends up forcing pregnant women to work up until their waters break in the middle of the office. I'm so thankful that I could take some time to rest up and relax before he arrives and that I won't have to return to "work" until school starts next year, but I REALLY believe that it should be standard for women to start paid maternity leave well before they deliver. It just gets downright inhumane to expect women to continue being so active and productive when they have about as much energy and as many aches as someone who is coming down with the flu! Damn women's lib movement. Don't even get me started.

Over the next few weeks (if I have that much time left...who knows!), I plan to do some sleeping in, some studying, some thank-you card writing, some visiting, and lots of RELAXING. As we await the big event, please say a prayer for a calm, peaceful, relatively uneventful delivery for us, and for a negative newborn screening result on the CF front!!! Thank you all for your love, support and prayers :-)