Stress and stretchmarks

25w1d

I guess it's been a crazy week.  I've been stressed at work (in Virginia, we have standardized testing that takes place next week and I'm one of the people at my school responsible for making sure it all goes off without a hitch...stressful), my friend is here to visit (good stress, but still a change in routine), and I have the two upcoming showers to worry about. 

My family shower is in Buffalo in July and my mom wants to make sure it's everything that I want it to be so she asks me about every detail.  Plus I'm the person she talks to about all that kind of stuff so even if she was planning a shower for someone else, she'd be discussing all the details with me.  And I appreciate that she wants it to be perfect, but I have so many decisions to make right now, I would prefer if everything just got done without my input.  I'm sure it will be lovely no matter what.  The problem is that the restaurant that it was supposed to be at is closing so she's scrambling to find a new venue.  So she's stressed and I get it.  It'll all work out though...

My other shower is here and we're sort of throwing it ourselves with the help of some dear friends.  The reason we decided to go this route is because we really want to have a huge celebration and I can't ask my friends to do everything that we want to do.  The shower will be on a Saturday night and it's for couples.  Invitations went out this week (THANK YOU Katie!!  They're awesome!!) and it turned out that we invited 80 people!  I hadn't anticipated that the list would get that long, but it did.  And, quite honestly, every person on that list is near and dear to us.  I didn't even invite people because I felt obligated (you know how if you invite one person, it means you have to invite a few others from that "crew" of friends?)...everyone has truly been there throughout either our marriage and mostly our IF journey and now it's time to PARTY!!!  We've hired bartenders and I'm working on the menu.  (I haven't told my dear, dear friends (are you reading this Cher and Emily???) that the list is up to 80 people...they've offered to make the cupcakes and I can't possibly ask them to make 80 so I think we'll do some cupcakes and supplement with another desert...)  So my whole point is that how could I have possibly asked friends to do all this stuff for us?  When people offer to throw you a shower, they are thinking 20 girls on a Sunday afternoon.  We've waited too long for this and it will be a blow out!  I'm so excited!  (We live in a high rise condo that has a beautiful posh club room where we'll hold the event)  I wish everyone reading this could come!!!  Wouldn't that be the BEST?! 

And now onto me and the baby girl I've got growing in here.  Craziness has come over me this past 24 hours...she just doesn't seem as active as usual.  I feel her from time to time, but she had had a few days of crazy movement and there's a contrast now.  I keep thinking that she must have moved positions and is facing my back which would mean I don't feel her as much.  I'm not getting too nervous but if she doesn't start dancing around like usual soon, I might panic.

I've been having contractions on and off.  I'll go a couple days without one and then I'll have 3 or 4 the next day.  They don't hurt and only last about 10 seconds where I have trouble breathing and just sort try to breath slowly until it's over. 

And here's something new.  Remember last week when i wrote that I hadn't discovered any stretch marks???  Well....they've arrived.  I don't know how it literally happened overnight but it so did.  They are purple and plentiful.  And I wonder if some had been there all along and I just thought it was marks from my waistband because a lot of them are right there, where you have marks anyway from your pants.  And usually I look at night when I'm changing my clothes.  Russ says he doesn't remember seeing them at all, so the instant appearance theory seems the most accurate.  My bikini days were over anyway, so I'm not too concerned.  I just didn't think they'd be so purple!  I know they'll change as time goes on.