For the most part my pregnancy has been progressing pretty quickly. BUT within the last few weeks or so it seemed to just be at a halt and seemed to be dragging on and on. But now, it's back to the quick progressing seeing as how I'm already 36 weeks now! Well, actually I'm 36 weeks and 3 days along now! That means only 4, well less than that now, days till I'm officially "full term". So that means he'll be ready to come out anytime now!!!

 

Here's a little info on the baby who's now in his 36 weeks of developing. :D

 

How your baby's growing:

Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds and is a little under 19 inches long. She's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement.

At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) Most likely she's in a head-down position. But if she isn't, your practitioner may suggest scheduling an "external cephalic version," which is a fancy way of saying she'll try to coax your baby into a head-down position by manipulating her from the outside of your belly.

How your life's changing:

Now that your baby is taking up so much room, you may have trouble eating a normal-size meal. Smaller, more frequent meals are often easier to handle at this point. On the other hand, you may have less heartburn and have an easier time breathing when your baby starts to "drop" down into your pelvis. This process — called lightening — often happens a few weeks before labor if this is your first baby. (If you've given birth before, it probably won't happen before labor starts.) If your baby drops, you may also feel increased pressure in your lower abdomen, which may make walking increasingly uncomfortable, and you'll probably find that you have to pee even more frequently. If your baby is very low, you may feel lots of vaginal pressure and discomfort as well. Some women say it feels as though they're carrying a bowling ball between their legs!

You might also notice that your Braxton Hicks contractions are more frequent now. Be sure to review the signs of labor with your practitioner and find out when she wants to hear from you. As a general rule, if you're full-term, your pregnancy is uncomplicated, and your water hasn't broken, she'll probably have you wait to come in until you've been having contractions that last for about a minute each, coming every five minutes for an hour. Of course, you'll want to call right away if you notice a decrease in your baby's activity or think you're leaking amniotic fluid, or if you have any vaginal bleeding, fever, a severe or persistent headache, constant abdominal pain, or vision changes.

Even if you're enjoying an uncomplicated pregnancy, it's best to avoid flying (or any travel far from home) during your final month because you can go into labor at any time. In fact, some airlines won't let women on board who are due to deliver within 30 days of the flight.

 

And as much as I love having my little one inside of me, I am more than ready for him to be out! lol I'm kinda tired of sharing my body with him :( lol. I'd much rather he be in my arms but I am definitely willing to wait a couple more weeks for that since we're not completely ready as of yet.

 

And everything is fine over here, Stephen and I went to a movie tonight, "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" and it was pretty good. I'd probably say better than the first. And I can't believe how loud they play movies sometimes, I thought I was going to go deaf tonight and seeing as how my ears were almost blown out, I felt bad for my little Christian. :( So no more theater movies for him lol. And although the movie was good and all, I wish the whole movie experience would've been better seeing as how everyone decided to bring their little babies and little children along. Stephen and I both had two kids kicking the back of our chairs, I wanted to scream. I not only had one kid kicking me in the back, but my kid kicking me in the bladder on top of that so that was fun. :P And speaking of pregnancy and fun stuff, some Japanese lady I saw today at the shoppette starting talking to me in Japanese (it's funny how I can fool the Japanese people into thinking I'm Japanese but hardly any Americans are fooled with that :P), and when she realized I couldn't speak Japanese, she said "Baby? When is the baby due?" And I don't know if she's deaf or just dumb or what but she must've not understood that I'm in my last month or something. I told her July 31st and she's like "oh. Twins?" And I laughed it off and said "No, just one!" :P I seriously wanted to deck her though lol. I don't know if she was doing that to be funny or rude or what but who knows. :P I mean I am big, but not THAT big lol. Not twin sized big, that's for sure. I've seen plenty of women who are not as far along as me and are bigger so there! lol So either the lady is a dummy or she didn't realize I'm about to give birth within the next few weeks. :P Either way she made me feel like a fat ass and made me question my hubby a few times on whether or not I really look like I'm carrying twins lol.

 

And oh yeah, we found another gecko in our house (mommer knows what I'm talking about). I don't think I've blogged about finding geckos as of yet but I just remembered todays incident so time to blog about it I guess. We've found like 2 geckos before, all in one night actually, the same day we talked to our neighbor and told them about these chirping noises we had been hearing in our house, and then he informed us they were geckos. Well sadly, that same day, we ended up catching two of them. Weird how that works but yeah lol. I proceeded to lock myself in the bedroom while Stephen took out a Glad container and caught those little guys lol. Well we realized that these geckos aren't to be feared but that we should embrace their prescence in our house since they like to eat spiders and like to eat little ants. And since Okinawa is filled with ants and spiders and lots of other weird things, we shouldn't bother with the geckos 'cause they help us out and we help them out by letting them stay lol. But anyways, back to today's incident. We ended up seeing a little tiny BABY gecko, it was kinda cute. Stephen tried to catch it but he wasn't able to so we just decided, we'll let him stay. I don't mind the geckos as long as they don't bother me and although I prefer them to stay in the ceiling, I guess I won't mind a little baby one roaming around too much as long as it doesn't bother me. I'm sure it'll end up finding it's way back to the ceiling anyways since they love to climb walls and stuff like that. And last night as Stephen and I were sleeping, we woke up to a chirping noise coming from our ceiling or maybe he was just in the room (not sure), we were thinking maybe it was the baby gecko but maybe it was the mommy or daddy gecko, I guess we'll never know. :P

 

So there's my current update for now...be sure to check back soon for other updates. :P

I am 35 weeks today! Although half way through the day I'll be 35 weeks, 1 day lol. :P Here's a little info on the baby and me that I got via email. :)

 

 

 

How your life's changing: Your uterus — which was entirely tucked away inside your pelvis when you conceived — now reaches up under your rib cage. If you could peek inside your womb, you'd see that there's more baby than amniotic fluid in there now. Your ballooning uterus is crowding your other internal organs, too, which is why you probably have to urinate more often and may be dealing with heartburn and other gastrointestinal distress. If you're not grappling with these annoyances, you're one of the lucky few.

From here on out, you'll start seeing your practitioner every week. Sometime between now and 37 weeks, she'll do a vaginal and rectal culture to check for bacteria called Group B streptococci (GBS). (Don't worry — the swab is the size of a regular cotton swab, and it won't hurt at all.) GBS is usually harmless in adults, but if you have it and pass it on to your baby during birth, it can cause serious complications, such as pneumonia, meningitis, or a blood infection. Because 10 to 30 percent of pregnant women have the bacteria and don't know it, it's vital to be screened. (The bacteria come and go on their own — that's why you weren't screened earlier in pregnancy.) If you're a GBS carrier, you'll get IV antibiotics during labor, which will greatly reduce your baby's risk of infection.

This is also a good time to create a birth plan. Using our form will help you focus on specifics — like who'll be present, what pain management techniques you want to try, and where you want your baby to stay after you deliver. It will give you a starting point to discuss your preferences with your medical team. Childbirth is unpredictable, and chances are you won't follow your plan to the letter, but thinking about your choices ahead of time — and sharing your preferences with your caregiver — should take some of the anxiety out of the process.

Time for another entry since mommer thinks I need to update this more. :P

 

Nothing new with me really, just same ol', same ol'. I just got done cleaning a whole crapload of dishes, including the 93749374397 dishes I had to use to cook tonight's dinner so that was fun. :) (Not really, but yeah.) I made cream of mushroom chicken, mashed potatoes, and salad. Dinner was good. The baby seemed to enjoy it. :) Usually he moves around and kicks around a little bit when he likes something, so that's how I know. :P Speaking of the baby, only 2 more weeks till I'm officially "full term" and only 5 more weeks till my due date. :D Craziiiiiiiiiiiiiiness. I can't wait to meet my little one and see his little face and his little toes and his little fingers. :) He's going to be a little cutie pie. And I will DEFINITELY have my work cut out for me then, I thought I had it bad now, but nooooooooooo I definitely don't. :( I just can't wait to have my body back again and be able to function like I normally can and I can't wait to hold my baby in my arms, not my big belly. :) Only a few more weeks... :)

I haven't updated this thing in a longggggggggggg time so I thought I should update now. I've been here in Okinawa, Japan since April 12th! So I've been here for a couple weeks now. I'm still somewhat adjusting to the new place but seeing as how I have moved a lot in my lifetime, it's been pretty easy for me. :) The plane rides/waiting time weren't really fun but it was all worth it once I saw my hubs standing there with two bouquets in hand lol (one from him, one from a fellow Army friend of his). :P His two Sgt.'s were there also and one ended up driving us home. I guess they didn't feel too good about letting Stephen drive so far in the city since he hadn't been driving here for very long. :S

 

Everything's been really great with us! It's been nice to see my husband again and to be able to spend time with him, especially since we have only a few more months of alone time together before our little bundle of joy arrives! :) Christian Taylor will be making his debut in late July! But I have a feeling he won't be waiting too long before he comes, I'm guessing mid July he'll be making his debut but we'll see I guess! I have my first overseas Dr.'s appointment tomorrow! I'm hoping I'll like the Dr. and that everything will go well with my appointment. :) I can't wait to hear his heartbeat again, it's been over a month since I last heard it (not counting me listening to his heartbeat via a recording a week or so ago). :P Stephen really seems to get it now, that we're pregnant and soon going to have a baby! He's been really caring and sweet with me since I've been here so that's nice lol. :P He also listens to the baby, I tend to ask him to do this a lot since I'm always curious as to what the baby's doing in there. :P He tells me he hears a lot of "swooshes" as he describes them and he can sometimes even hear a kicking noise when occurs right when I feel the kicking obviously. :P What's funny though, is that a few times when Stephen's put his head on my belly to listen to the baby, the baby's kicks him in the head lol. :D The first time Stephen kinda freaked out about it but after that, he kinda got used to it lol. :)

 

We still haven't gotten our furniture from Texas yet but we should be getting all that shortly, I'm hoping atleast. :) We have some loaner furniture for the time being and I'm definitely looking forward to laying in my bigggggggggg bed again! We'll probably start to buy the baby furniture soon, maybe this weekend or the next. I definitely can't wait to get the whole house situated. :) And that's all I have to update about for now...

Just thought I'd write a new entry to let everyone who actually reads this, in on what's going on around here. My parents are working on the wood flooring today. They're hoping to finish it today before everyone comes over tomorrow for the Superbowl party we're going to be having. Hopefully it'll all get done soon. It's looking nice thus far. Nothing really new going on with me. I've been feeling pretty good for the most part as of late. Everything seems to be going well with my pregnancy. And I can't wait to finally be able to go to the Dr. on the 12th. FINALLY!!! Everything seems to be good with Stephen although it's kinda hard to say since we don't talk very often. He doesn't have a phone over there and has to call me from pay phones. We talked for a couple minutes yesterday though and he seemed to be good. He'll be letting me know all the info I need to know in order to go over there. I already got my overseas paperwork filled out but I have to get some dental form thing filled out and he's gonna find out what form number that is since the Air Force overseas lady on base didn't know. I gotta get my physical which is going to be from the Ob/Gyn appt. I'm going to on the 12th. And then I gotta go pick up my passport which should be arriving anytime now. Hopefully everything will continue to run smoothly. We'll see I guess.

I was bored so I thought I'd make a new blog entry seeing as how I haven't done that in a while. I finally got my Tricare crap situated and now I can go to a Dr. I won't be able to go though till the 12th which is when I have my appt. I'm excited and scared all at the same time. I wonder what the appt. will be like and I wonder if I'll have an ultrasound. :O According to my baby-gaga ticker, the baby is currently 15 weeks and 5 days old! So that's pretty neat. I wonder if the rest of the pregnancy is going to zoom by. :P And I wonder when I'll be finding out the sex of the baby. I want to know beforehand so I can go out and buy stuff specifically for a boy or a girl. Stephen wants a girl, and I want a girl so we'll see how that goes.

...since I've updated this thing! Sorry about that! I just haven't really came around to doing it since I have 2 other blogs on two other sites and I kinda prefer those over this one since this one gets screwy at times. :) But anyways, I'm back! I'll be moving to El Paso, Texas this month (hopefully), probably late August. I'm excited and happy! I finally get to be with my husbee again! Yayyyy! Sorry for lack of updates!

I have not updated my space in a long time! I've been back from Fort Bliss, Texas since the 5th of July but for some reason haven't gotten around to updating this thing so sorry about that! I had a really great time. It was nice to be up there with my husband. We went to a lot of places and just enjoyed ourselves. We went to the PX a billion times, we went to the commissary a few times, we went to Cielo Vista Mall, we also went to Olive Garden and we went to a movie theater down there to see Superman Returns, which was a good movie. It was funny though 'cause at the only quiet part of that movie, someone decided to fart lol. And me being the dork that I am, I could NOT stop laughing and Stephen was able to but since he heard me laughing like crazy beside him, he couldn't help laughing. I found it hilarious for some reason lol. But yeah I definitely had a great time. The only thing that sucked was the drills were being assholes and didn't let us see our soldiers as often as we were supposed to, but luckily in the end, they got chewed out by the captain since they were doing what they were not supposed to be doing. I'm sure a lot of families, and also myself, were upset that we spent a lot of money to come down to see our soldiers and didn't get to see them as much and didn't even get to spend 4th of July with them which in my opinion was dumb! But it doesn't matter 'cause my time spent with him there was worthwhile and I'm thankful I went. The weather down there was niceeeeeeeeee! Way nicer than it is here in Arizona. I could actually walk outside without dying of heatstroke at 9 a.m. in the morning lol. I decided to move down there. I was undecided about it 'cause I have family here and my niece that I won't be seeing more than likely once I move to Stephen's permanent party but he's my husband and we're newlyweds so we should spend as much time as we can together so I decided to move down there. And since Phoenix is only a 5-6 hour drive from El Paso and since it's only a under one hour flight, I always can come back to visit with my family sometime so that's good. The weather is also nice down in El Paso and I like the area so that's another reason I want to move down, although my area is nice around here, I need a little break from the over 100 degree weather lol. But anyways, I hope you all had an enjoyable 4th of July holiday and I hope you all are having a great week! Take care and God bless!

 

-Melissa

I haven't updated this in a little while so I thought I would update it now. :) Nothing new really going on here. I'm just really excited since I'll be seeing my love soon. Only 5 more days! Well less than 5 days now. :D We're both really looking forward to it. I know I definitely can't wait. :D I went to church today, it was a nice service as always. I also went to the bx today and got some things that I will need for the trip and I also got "Desperate Housewives" season one on dvd. I've been meaning to get this but kept deciding not to, till today. Stephen saw it at his px and told me how much money it was so seeing as how I would be saving almost 10 dollars if I were to buy it there, I decided to go ahead and get it. :) I just don't want to go spending crazy right now 'cause of the trip that I'll be taking shortly but it's fine. I overworry sometimes. :P heh My weekend was nice, I did a bunch of nothing, as always lol. I talked to my love though so that was nice. We got more time to talk to one another surprisingly. I felt so bad the other day 'cause Jennifer, my sister in law told me how my niece was throwing up. :( Luckily her sickness lasted shortly since she isn't throwing up anymore. I'm just glad she's feeling better now. :) Anywho, I hope you all are enjoying your weekend! Have funnn! Take care & God bless.

Only 8 more days till I'm with my love!!! Yayyyyyy! I'm getting closer and closer to being/seeing him! I talked to him briefly today and it was kinda hard to hear and understand him well 'cause I was on my way back home from Jeremy & Jennifers and we were on the highway but it was nice to finally hear his voice. He said he got "smoked" today since he forgot to bring his i.d. and I told him I bet he won't be forgetting it anymore! lol He has that PT test that determines whether or not we'll be able to spend much time together, coming up this Saturday! He better pass dangit! lol But I'm not worried 'cause I know he will. :) I'm sooo happy 'cause Stephen got some passes for this weekend which means we'll be able to talk longer than we have been able to as of late which is good. I'm not really fond of our 5 minute convos that get interrupted 'cause of idiotic people over there that decide to talk to him while he's on the phone! So it's good that we'll be able to talk longer, so I'm definitely looking forward to that! I was sooooooooooooo tired today for some odd reason. I felt like I was gonna pass out any second but I still had to help mom with the cooking since we were gonna be bringing a crapload of food over to Jeremy and Jennifers. We had a fun time over there, I didn't want to stay too long 'cause I was tired and wasn't feeling all that great, the same with my mom so we decided to leave after 45 minutes or so. It was a fun time though. Mikeila is sooooo cute and soooo smart. She's 9 months old and is soooooo close to walking! She loves to talk too! She stood up today by herself and just stood there, not holding onto anything for about 10 seconds, I was like whoa! She's such a smart baby girl. I'm proud to be her Auntie. :) But anyways, I hope you all have a great weekend! Stay safe and have fun! Take care and God bless you all!

9 more days till I see my loveeeeeee! In 3 hours it'll be 8 days. :D It's crazy how fast time flies. Today was such a boringggg day. I didn't do much of anything. I watched some of Pearl Harbor though and it made me cry so I turned it off lol. It's a great movie though and I'll probably finish watching it tomorrow. 2 more days till the weekend! I'm hoping this weekend will be better than the last and that Stephen will get some personal time to call me and to have time to do things he wants to do rather than clean for hours on end even though everything's already clean. He passed 2 parts of his exam, I think there's one more part to it but I could be wrong. He missed one on the first part of it which was yesterday, and todays part he got 100%. Yayyy! I'm happy for him. :) I just hope he passes his PT test 'cause I think that helps determine how much time I'll be able to spend with him when I go down to see him. I'm sure he'll pass it with flying colors as he always does so no worries. I just hope to be able to sleep with my husband finally since I wasn't able to while I visited him in Oklahoma. Anyways, I hope you all are having a good night. Take care & God bless.

 

Stephen and I finally got our new cell phones!!! I love my new cell phone, it's awesome. It has a lot of cool features and it's cute and I love it. :D And I also bought my plane ticket yesterday so I will be seeing my husband in 14 days!!! I'm sooo happy & excited and I can't wait to see and be with him again, this time no dads or dad's fiances around heh. Hopefully there will be some fun things to do in El Paso, Texas so we'll see. He wants me to look up some fun things to do so hopefully I'll find some good things to do. Anyways, I hope you all have a great weekend! I can't believe how fast time flies, I can't believe it's already the weekend again! But anyways, I hope all is well with everyone and I hope you all have a great weekend. God bless.

 

And I decided to attach some photos of my new phone!

I haven't updated this in a few days so I thought I would write another entry. Nothing much going on here. I actually hung out with my best friend yesterday and her family since it was her little brother's bday. I cannot believe that I have known them all for 8 years! It's crazy how time flies by. Stephen and I should be getting our new cell phones soon. I called our old phone company that we were supposed to be done with in a few days but it turns out I have more crap to deal with from them. I hate TMobile! It seems like we always have problems with them, from the day we first signed up with plans it seems like they've been giving us trouble, right from the very start. So since we put his phone on military suspension, the lady that did that for us failed to tell us at the time we were doing that (around March before Stephen went into BT) that if we were to do that then his contract would be extended for the months that it was on suspension so now I have to pay for it till September 7th ALONG with our new phone bills that we'll be getting from Verizon which sucks. I guess it's better paying 30 bucks a month 3 times rather than paying $200 to shut it off now so I guess I'll try to look on the better side of things. I'm gonna hate to have to tell this to Stephen since he, like myself, is fed up with them. And today I might be going over to my brother and sister in law's house today to hang out and spend some time with my niece today so that'll be fun. But anyways, I hope you all are having a good day and I hope you all had a good weekend!