22 weeks

Well, um, I've got no excuse now. I'm out of school (for the holiday), and thankfully I passed all of my classes with a B or higher. Come Wednesday, I will be on a flight with Ellie to Sammamish, Washington to spend the holiday with Tom's family. Tom will be flying in the following Monday since his unit only approved a certain time-frame for the entire unit's block leave. We're kinda used to rearranging our schedule by now. We took our Christmas picture a couple of weeks ago and although I'm not a fan of ANY picture of me right now, the picture we kept of Ellie is adorable. I wish I could remember everything that was happening since my last post, but honestly, my brain is completely frazzled at the moment.

Ellie is doing great in school, and depending on what happens with Tom PCSing or not (we're really hoping he does), we may have her tested to start Kindergarten early. Her biggest problems are (1) cutting a straight line and (2) keeping her focus when other kids are talking. If we move, I'm not positive we'll worry about school simply because it just may be too much for her all at one time, but we'll see where the road takes us.

Tom is still Tom. LOL Nothing changes with him! We're hoping that within the next six months or so we'll be getting orders to leave San Antonio, but we're not really counting on it. Other than that, nothing much as happened with him.

Onto news about the pregnancy. For those of you who haven't already heard, we found out that we're having another little girl! We're both really excited about this, even if we can't agree on a name. I will be posting a poll to see what name everyone likes best, but I honestly don't think we're going to pick out a name until she's born... that's how torn we are with the names. Things have definitely leveled out as far as how I'm feeling. I'm still sore, but that's to be expected. I have also found that I am no where near as hungry as I was at the beginning of this trimester, so I'm hoping the weight gain starts slowing down a bit.

Other big news about the pregnancy is that we officially hired a midwife to deliver this baby... at home! That's right. We are having this little girl in the comforts of our own home. Our midwife's name is Salli Gonzalez and her website is Empowerment Birthing. There is a lot of information to view if you want to check it out. If we lived farther away from a hospital in the event of an emergency I'd probably not be as comfortable with our choice to have a home birth, but honestly I'm not worried. I know to some it seems new age to have your child at home, and for a long time, that was how I felt too. Now... it feels like the best option and most natural way to have this baby. There will be a birthing pool in the event that I choose to deliver in the tub, or even just as a source of pain relief. I asked a lot of questions about how to prepare Ellie, and what to do about our animals, and the germs in the house, and how to clean before the baby gets here, and what vaccinations I'm going to need, and the list goes on and on. In a nutshell, I'm in good hands. I will go into more detail in the coming weeks, with articles included to help back up what's being said, and hopefully help people see that I'm not absolutely crazy! LOL

I was reading an article on NPR about giving birth at home, and this is one of the quotes from the midwife that I love:

"People talk about how painful contractions are because they're so strong. But what we want woman to know is that the strength of that contraction is the strength of their own bodies. They are as strong as the contraction is. And so they are able to manage it."

Anyone who knows me knows I never do anything the easy way :)