I took an awkward prego pic to document the belly at 32 weeks and when I uploaded it to my computer and saw it on the big screen, I looked so huge and puffy that I couldn't bear to share it. Luckily, I haven't gained a lot of weight for a pregnant woman, but I feel like I've got the puffy-face baggy-eye humongo-belly thing goin' on, and it's just not working for me.
Anyways, "Junior", as Scott's dad likes to call him, is definitely growing big and strong. He is very active in here. A future "triple-jump Olympian", says Scott. Feeling this kid moving around and hiccuping is one of the coolest/weirdest/most uncomfortable/best things ever. Sometimes I can feel the actual little limbs poking out and it reminds me that I have a real-live human in me. It kind of freaks me out. It's like a Sci-Fi film or something, but I love that I get to experience this. I know that not every woman in this life has an opportunity to experience having a baby inside them and so even though I am constantly complaining about how uncomfortable it is, I am so grateful for this experience. It is way cool.
Along with lots of bodily changes, many other changes are happening/coming up in our lives. The first of many changes was the big move to a townhouse across the parking lot from our old townhouse. The landlord of our previous residence decided to put the house on the market. A couple weeks later, on a Monday, the "For Sale" sign went up and people started coming by to check out our place. By Friday, that same week, the house sold. Luckily, we had already found this new place to live, which was more expensive but considerably bigger. So, we tried to be excited. Unfortunately, instead of being an exciting move like we had hoped for, it was more of a nightmare...
Upon moving in, in addition to the sub-par cleaning job (there were cobwebs, dead bugs covering the dining room ceiling, gross orangish grime slimed on some of the walls/doors, and lots of filth everywhere) we found that the toilet had leaked to the downstairs ceiling causing a discolored bulge complete with mold, a broken garbage disposal that sprayed water under the sink when turned on-more mold/water damage, a leak under the bathroom sink upstairs, the clothes dryer wouldn't turn on, the right knob on the sink downstairs wouldn't work, and to top it all off, we had no hot water. The culmination of finding one broken or gross thing after another led to multiple breakdowns that weekend. So much for the two inspections that the management company said the place had-what were they inspecting?! I wanted to move back to our other house.
But a midst the horrors, tender mercies and living angels saved me. We had generous friends and family that came and helped us move in. Scott was supportive and consoling and stayed up super late (even though he had a track meet the next morning) moving things and washing our bedding, while I slept on the floor in my misery. My sister and mother-in law came the next day and helped me unpack. My mother-in-law literally stayed all day. I would have lost my mind without her. I found a long-lost Sees Candy gift certificate that we received when we were married and haven't been able to find since (I looked everywhere for that-literally everywhere, finding it that day was a miracle, I'm convinced). My mom brought over all my siblings and they helped us scrub down our other place. There is no way that we could have done it without them. And when I did a final walk-through of the place and saw how nice a job they all did, I cried. Then, my gracious in-laws let us stay with them for a few days until we got hot water.
Miracles. I am so so so grateful to our families and friends that were literally our angels that week.
A couple weeks later, and the house is almost all fixed and finally feeling live-able, thankfully.