So THAT's the cause of all my hearburn!

It's been an eventful couple of weeks. I'll guess I'll start with today and move back from there.

We FINALLY had our follow-up ultrasound today. The bad news is the kidneys are still dilated. The next step will be an ultrasound on the kiddo when it's about a week old. If the condition hasn't resolved, he or she will be put on antibiotics to prevent infection and our pediatrician will have to come up with a treatment plan. We're meeting with her on Monday anyway (yes, I finally made an appointment) so we can get more details then. All the people who know what this means continue to act like it's No Big Deal so we're just trying to follow their lead. Not much else we can do now anyway. The good news is the baby looks really healthy aside from that. It is estimated to weigh 6 lbs. 2 oz. and it has a full head of hair and chubby cheeks. :-) I still can't believe you can see HAIR on an ultrasound, but she gave me a picture to prove it. I'll post it once I have a chance to scan it in. We managed to avoid finding out the sex. I actually doubt we could have found out if we wanted to. The baby is so squished in there! It's legs were all bunched up and it had at least one foot all the way up by it's face for part of the ultrasound. He or she has been crazy active all afternoon to the point it made me queasy once or twice. I don't know if it was the ultrasound or the brownie I ate with lunch that stirred it up, but it has been especially active and that's saying something for this little jumping bean.

M made an amazing discovery last night. If she presses her ear against my belly in the right spot, she can hear the baby's heartbeat! Pretty cool.

We had party at our house on Saturday night - probably our last for a while. :-) It was really fun and I'm glad we did it when we did. If it had been only a week or two later, I don't know how I would have made it through!

My body is starting to show signs of wear. Up until now, it's been pretty smooth sailing except for the lovely strech marks, but edema has officially come to town. My ankles and feet have started swelling up at night and it's pretty sexy, let me tell you! I've started chiropractic in an attempt to head off the hip pain that's been building over the last couple of weeks. Tomorrow will be my second appointment. It hurts. A lot. More than the pain itself. But hopefully it's also making a difference and getting things properly aligned for a smooth delivery. I've been spending a lot of time sitting on an exercise ball and that seems to be helping a bit too.

We had a surprise shower last week while my parents were in town. As I've mentioned before, our friends and family are spread from coast to coast and I just didn't think a shower was in the cards. Well, a friend had other ideas and she organized a "virtual" shower where our friends and family sent gifts to her house, then she brought them all over to small gathering with our local friends. There weren't a lot of people there in body, but there were so many there in spirit. It was really humbling. We got stacks of sweet cards and amazingly generous gifts. I think we're in great shape now - only a few more things to buy.

Speaking of being in good shape, the nursery is pretty much done. My parents helped out with the last of the furniture moving while there were here. We don't have much on the walls yet, but the major stuff is in place. I love spending time in there now, and not just because of the comfy glider/recliner! :-) It's just a neat room and I'm so happy with how it turned out.

We finished up our hypno.birthing classes last week. I'm feeling pretty good. I'm still nervous, of course, but I feel like we've done all we can to prepare and as long as we keep practicing, we'll be going in with some good tools in our belt.

And I think that about covers the gap! I have a new belly pic, but we'll also be taking another one on Wednesday so maybe I'll wait until then and post them both. That should give me time to scan in today's ultrasound pics as well. Wednesday will be 36 weeks. Hard to believe. There's gonna be a baby in this house before we know it.