Let's get started!

THE FINAL WEEKS OF PREGNANCY

• Tylenol PM is your best friend!
• swimming helps relieve pain and pressure all over your body. it's hard to find an indoor pool right now, but it'd be worth the search
• when you feel like throwing up if you look at one more glass or bottle of water, try a sugar free additive, like lemonade or a crystal light thing
• a hot bath every night will help sooth back pain and help you sleep, but if your feet and legs are swelling, it could make them worse (at least it does mine)

That's all I got! This one is hard for me, because it seems like forever ago that I was ending D'Laney's pregnancy, and it seems like I have forever to go in this one! And not much makes me feel much better right now, so y'all are going to have to help me!

ATTENTION!!! ADVICE NEEDED!!!!!

Got your attention, huh? I knew if I said I needed advice, I'd get more looks. Everyone is always willing to offer their opinion and advice about things, solicited or not. Well I am definitely soliciting!
My friend Susan is expecting her first baby in a few weeks, and we were talking the other day about the hospital stay, what I wish I would have done differently, etc. She said "if you have any more tidbits, pass them on!" She's so right, you can read all the books you want, browse countless websites, but there's nothing like real life experience advice from people you know. Those books and sites are written by people in LA and NYC anyway, what do they know about having a new born in West Texas?! So here's what I'm doing, and what I'm going to ask all of you to do: I'm going to break it up into several posts, and offer what little knowledge I've accumulated in my short time as a momma, things I learned with D'Laney and things I wish I'd learned that I can use this time around. I'd like for you to leave comments here, or even post yourselves. Tips, advice, tricks, anything you can think of. And this isn't just for Susan, no matter how new of a mom you are, you can always learn something new, or be reminded of something old.
Here are some of the categories that I'll touch on:

• surviving the last few weeks of pregnancy
• what to take to the hospital
• what to do at the hospital
• the first few weeks
• navigating the cold and flu season
• out and about town
• breastfeeding tricks

That's really all I can think of right now, but I'm sure each of you could add more, so DO!!

I'll start later tonight, right now I have to make a dash to walmart for some dimatap and a humidifier! (tip: already have these things!!!) I'm excited!! I can't wait to hear what everyone has to say!

name origins

I am TOTALLY avoiding a disaster of a kitchen right now and what seems like a years' worth of laundry!

On one of my baby websites there was an article about choosing your kiddo's name and what your naming style is, blah blah blah... I learned that I have a classic style where I place importance on family names and traditions, like I needed them to tell me that. I do choose some pretty crazy spellings, but those spellings are based on family names, too. (well, my name!) I was curious about the origins of our names, though. I've known mine since I was little, but I wanted to see what the rest of ours meant.

Cameron Dale: of Scottish origin, and means "crooked nose", and of old English origin and means "one who lives in the valley"
Amy D'Lynn: french (yuck!) and means "beloved" (of course!), and of course I couldn't find anything for my middle name because it is a contraction of my parents' names, Dana and Lynn
D'Laney Dale: Irish, means "dark challenger" (the challenger part is so appropriate!), and of course English "valley"
Brynna Belle: Irish, and had two meanings "little drop of water" and "raven-haired" (and our spelling was actually listed!), and French (yuck!) and means "beautiful"
Holifield: I couldn't find a meaning, but the origin is old English

See the trend? We're definitely Irish in this house! Which we really are, both Cameron and I have a ton of Irish blood (that and Indian, I'm Cherokee and Cameron is Apache, how's that for a temper combination!) Both of our girls' names are very traditional Irish names, which wasn't planned but I love it. Cameron is a very traditional Scotch name, which is pretty close. My name is French (I'm not a fan of the french, can you tell?) but it is one of the top 5 most popular names in Ireland these days.

OK, I've avoided my chores long enough. I just can't get motivated to do anything these days!

catching up on posting all in one day... yeah, right. I should have known better.

I still haven't started on Brynna's room. We were waiting until after the open house, and when no one showed up for that, I decided we could go ahead and just plan on being here when she's born. However, before we could do anything we got a call from the realtor and she had someone to look at the house this past weekend, and I think it would show better with a guest room instead of two little girls' rooms, so we left things as they were. The people who looked loved our house, and have narrowed it down between ours and one other here in Stanton, and we're still waiting to hear. It's driving me crazy! Just when I think, OK, this is the house we'll bring the baby home to, I can start planning for that, this comes up and we still might be moving. Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited, but at the same time, I'm extremely apprehensive. Brynna will be born in a little over 7 weeks, 7!, and we don't have much time to pack, move, and get settled before then. It can be done, if the house sells it will definitely be done, but it's still scary.

Today we're at 31 weeks, 54 days left! And Brynna is really letting me know today that she's ready to get out of there! My whole stomach is moving around, an elbow here, a foot there, she even mooned me earlier today, sticking that sweet little hiney way out. She's running out of room, and I think she might be a little claustrophobic.

Well that's really all I've got. Things are pretty uneventful around here right now. It won't last much longer, but for now, it's quiet. I don't have many recent pictures lately, either. Although, while out house was being looked at saturday, we went to the little park that's a couple blocks form our house. I was hot and miserable, but D'Laney and daddy had a good time. I put some of the pictures on facebook, and I don't want to post them on here, too, so here's the link:
FACEBOOK PICTURES
We're going to Iraan this weekend for a halloween party, so I'll have some good pictures of my little ladybug next week.

2 big milestones

I started this post on friday, it's now monday morning! better late than never! I'm going to try to catch up on blogging today, but not all in one post.

OK, so they weren't that big. Wednesday we hit 30 weeks, AND it so happened to fall on the 14th, which is exactly 2 months before Brynna graces us with her presence. The 30's is the last stage for me, I won't hit the 40 week mark, so I'm definitely on the home stretch. Just a few more weeks, but we're actually counting down by days. Even Cameron will say, only 6o some odd days left! I think he's as ready for me to not be pregnant anymore as I am.

I had a doctor's appointment today and everything looks great. Although I feel huge, I've still only gained 18 lbs at this point. I was a little shocked by that. I've been having a ton, I mean a TON, of Braxton-Hicks contractions, so she wanted to check me to make sure that they weren't real contractions and that everything was still nice and closed, which it was. I didn't think there would be anything to worry about, D'Laney was 9 lbs, a week over due, and I never dilated or thinned or anything, so I certainly didn't expect to be this time either. She does want me to be very aware of any and all signs of premature labor. Being the second kiddo, who is bigger than the first, apparently makes my chances go up, but she said she doesn't expect it, just to be aware of it. She said a woman's best friend, gravity, is to blame for all the contractions and ligament pain in my stomach and back. So I'll just have to tough it out, and it should all be fine as soon as Brynna is born. She put me on a few restrictions when it came to carrying D'Laney, mostly just avoid carrying her on the stairs and try not to pick her up too often during the day. I'll be on a whole lot after the surgery, so I'm trying to get as much cuddle time in as I can right now, even though D'Laney won't stand for it. It's just too dang bad, she's going to give me some hugs and sugars whether she likes it or not!

pic post

The pictures of Brynna did not turn out near as well as the ones we have of D'Laney. They're not as clear, but D'Laney was much more cooperative. I tried finding the disc so I could compare the pictures, but it's packed somewhere.
This was the best face shot we got.



This one is not good at all, except that Brynna is furrowing her eyebrows at us. Cameron said she really looks like me in this one.



Sunday afternoon we finally got to sit down for a while and watched the cowboys play. I had my feet up on the ottoman and D'Laney thought that it looked like the perfect place to lay down. Please pardon my expression, or really all of me, the 'boys really sucked and I was already feeling really bad, and my sister was supposed to be taking a picture of ONLY D'Laney.

D'Laney spilled strawberry milk all over her in the car, so we just stripped her naked and went on about our merry journey. She was mad that she didn't have anymore milk, though, so she got a sucker.



We got to see Eli and Landon when they came to watch Ryder play in Stanton thursday night. I'm not sure which of the boys this is, but D'Laney sure enjoyed playing with her cousins and giving them lots of lovin'!

"No wonder you're in so much pain..."

Whew! What a weekend! It'll take me all week to recover!
We had a weekend full of doctor's appointments, catching up with friends and family, lots of football, and a little shopping, but no rest! I enjoyed every second of this weekend, but I wasn't very kind to my circulatory system (quote from a movie, any one know it?!)
Friday's appointment went really well. Cameron was able to take off and go with me, and since he was there, we just kept D'Laney with us instead of having someone watch her. I thought she'd be really interested in the sono, she loves sitting with me at the computer and looking through old pictures, but she couldn't care less. Brynna looks great... well, what we could see looks great. She kept her hands in front of her face the whole time. My little wiggle worm decided to take a nap and not budge for the entire sonogram. We saw a pretty good profile, though, and she looks exactly like D'Laney! She's a little thinner in the cheeks, but through the eyes and nose and mouth, you'd think we were looking at a pic of D'Laney. It was awesome to see, even though I knew that's exactly what she'd look like. I told Cameron a while back that I think our girls will look like twins separated by 2 1/2 years. She is completely and perfectly healthy, and big... I mean BIG!!! On friday, her gestational age was 28 weeks, 2 days, and she was measuring 29 weeks, 6 days, which is huge right now. She weighs 3 lbs, 3 oz, but she didn't say and I didn't ask how long she is. That's a little bigger than D'Laney was at this stage! (you know, 9lb .4 oz, D'Laney!)
When we got in to the doctor, she said that she expects another 9lb-er. I said, well, maybe not since we'll take her almost 2 weeks early, and her response? Uh... if not, she'll be very close! When I was telling her about all the pain I've been having, the back pain, the Braxton-Hicks, what feels like a tear right above my belly button, she just smiled and said all of that was because I have another HUGE baby in my belly. She said the tear that I'm feeling is stomach muscles separating to make room for the baby, more like a hernia than a muscle tear, and that there's nothing to do for it, and it'll go back to normal after the baby's born. The Braxton-Hicks are nothing to worry about unless they become more painful and more regular, and the back pain will be around until I'm no longer picking up kids... ya know, 10 years from now! The whole visit, we had D'Laney in the room with us, and she was her usual busy self. She was very good, just busy, getting into things and climbing the walls, etc. As we were leaving, Dr. Hajovsky laughed and said, "No wonder you're in so much pain!" I agreed, and said that living in a 2 story didn't help things either, and she just patted my knee and said in her most sympathetic voice that I don't have much longer. I expect that it won't be too long before she'll put me on some sort of restrictions when it comes to carrying D'Laney, especially up and down the stairs, but she didn't say anything about it this time. This visit was the first of my every two weeks visits, and I don't remember when we'll start the weekly visits, but I don't think I'll have many of those since we're going in so early. Oh well, it's a good thing I like driving...oh wait, I hate driving!
I'd fill you in on the rest of the weekend, but it wasn't anything exciting. Dad had a kid break his arm really bad friday night, and I feel really terrible for the kid, but oh my goodness, it looked so cool! It was like, a Z pattern. He spent many hours in surgery friday night and saturday morning, and will set off a metal detector a mile away now, and I really do feel really bad for Zane, but he's a tough kid, and he's just a junior, so hopefully he'll be able to play again at the most, regain complete use of his arm and hand at the least.
I have some pictures of Brynna and a few from D'Laney from this weekend, but I'll post them later today, I've got too much housework to catch up on to spend anymore time on here!