I Love This!

  Here are some of the things I was going to blog last week ~ Although yesterday was our anniversary (Wooo, 6 years and growing stronger all the time!!) I had a few hours to blog about my hospital stay because Michael was out running errands and picking up things we still needed for Emma from Babies R Us and Buy Buy Baby. "Needed" being in quotes because all a baby really needs is diapers, milk, and love, right? ;)  His next project is converting her closet into the changing area and we bought shelves on Saturday, but they were 1/4 inch too wide so they didn't fit and we returned them. About two weeks ago he decorated her room and this is what it looks like now:

^^ This frame was wood burned by Mia! It's so pretty and creative ~ I love it!  The arrows are painted onto the wall. They came as decals as part of the 5 piece bedding set, but since the wall isn't completely flat, there was not much to make it stick. So instead he put the decals on cardstock, cut them out as stencils with an exacto knife and then painted them on with a tiny roller.

  The mobile is from her Uncle Parker. That was so nice of him. He got Emma a matching plush Indian fox toy as well. You can see a little bit of the birch tree decals that are on the wall behind the crib. Michael put three trees up and I think they look really good with the green leaves.

  ^^ Looking for the stork? Ha!

   Also since I never showed a good picture of the kitchen table that Michael and I bought in Cleveland, GA while on our Babymoon, I took a couple pictures of that in our house (below). Michael wants to decorate the wall behind it so it doesn't look boring, but I think the flowers help. I feel bad that he's been so stressed- mainly more knowing that Emma will probably have to be delivered in the next 2 to 5 weeks, but I keep trying to remind him that he still has 8 weeks to get stuff done, since Dr. Greaves told us that most babies get to go home on their due dates, if not before. However, maybe he is keeping in the back of his mind that all the "construction time" he would have, will want to be spent visiting Emma in the NICU? He's also stressed about his weight though. He got down to 185 a couple months ago (I've been so proud of him!!), but the pounds have creeped back on since our Babymoon. And I know how that can mess up the whole flow of happiness. I'm pretty fine gaining weight now though since its "for Emma" and I don't think I really look like I weigh 127 pounds. ;)

   I have been thinking a lot about getting a C-section, since that will most likely be how Emma is delivered. I feel like the more information I have, the more my brain can process it so I'll be pretty calm when they tell me because I know how it's going to happen. That's the way the planning part of my brain likes to work. My friend Whitney had her C-section at the end of March and was really sweet about answering a lot of the questions I had too:

   - Takes about 3 to 5 minutes to get the baby out, then around 45 minutes to get the placenta out and sew (or staple) me back up.  I will feel it happening, but it won't hurt due to being numbed.
  - Recovery time is around 4 days in the hospital and 4-6 weeks at home. (But due to limited FMLA time, I'm hoping I can go back to work after the first week or two that way I get a good chunk of weeks off to actually spend with Emma after we bring her home. Again, more planning. I'd be really sad if I had to spend 6 weeks at home alone and then only get 3 or 4 weeks with her before my FMLA time is up. That is probably my #1 main concern right now.)
   - The scar can get almost "invisible" after a couple years. Mine will probably be vertical.
   One positive that I thought of today about having a C-section, under our conditions, would be that I should be recovered by the time we bring Emma home. So I would have more energy and enjoy my mom's company more when she comes to help us out for a week in July. And now we can plan a little better for her to be here the first week of July rather than guessing if Emma will be born at 38 weeks or 42 weeks. As of right now she definitely has to be born by 37 weeks, according to what Dr. Greaves was telling us last week, but we'll see what my next ultrasound shows on Thursday.

 This was one of my most recent bump pictures, from April 26th (30 weeks + 3 days). She looks bigger than 2 pounds to me! Below is a picture I posted on Facebook around the same time, joking that 30 weeks was when we transfer the baby to the dad, just like seahorses! I had been waiting six years to post that picture! Haha. It was taken at Cocoa Beach by our friend Dawson a few days after we all graduated from Full Sail (April 2011).

 ^^ Alana sent me this cute picture of her and Michael when they drove up for the baby shower two weekends ago. I sure am glad I had it when I did. Originally I had a second one planned for May 20th, but now we know it probably wouldn't have worked out anyway.
   On Sunday after the baby shower, I was back home with Michael so we were able to drive up to Mount Dora and finally go to the antique shop called Renniger's  that he had been wanting to go to for months. We didn't go to the Farmer's Market side that day (we were planning to this past Saturday, but you know) because our main purpose of going was to find some old windows to hang up as decor in the dining room. Michael gets a lot of his ideas from Fixer Upper and Pinterest. The indoor area wasn't our favorite, but we found what we were looking for in the garden neighborhood area:

   We did end up buying 3 windows for $20 each. Two of them are already hanging up in the dining room and Michael has been thinking about how he wants to decorate them. We saw a few other cool (more expensive) windows in one of these little "houses" that had chicken wire on it with a berry wreath, so maybe we will do something like that too?  It might not get completed anytime soon, since Michael also wants to build and paint valances to go over the curtains in the living room, but I'll post more pictures when we do.