Appointment and Class Update

There is nothing new to report from my doctor's appointment Monday. Everything still looks good!

Our first childbirth class went alright. It was odd when she dimmed the lights and had us do some relaxation exercises. I can't say that I really intend to use visualization during labor, but I guess you never know until you're there!

Friday night is our Trunk or Treat. Ours is a little different than the one Pam explained on her blog, if you read that. The main difference is that we aren't decorating our cars - we are dressing up ourselves though! The Trunk or Treat is intended to be an outreach to the community during the trick or treat hours. Our main attraction will really be a bounce house, but we will also have carnival games, a photo booth, and cars with open trunks from which we will hand out candy. I'm excited to see how this turns out. It's impossible to know how many people will show up. Tim and a team of people from the church have been working really hard on the details for a few months now. We will be handing out little cards about the church with the candy, and we plan to follow-up with people at their houses afterwards to deliver the pictures taken at the photo booth. Pray for us this Friday!

That's it for us right now!

New Diapers, Pastors Appreciation, & Big Ole Belly

I made it back from the womens' retreat. It was a really great weekend. I especially enjoyed hanging out with the women from our church and getting to know them better. Retreat is just a special time of bonding that you can't get anywhere else. It was a lot of fun.

Tim enjoyed his eating this week. He'll probably do more in the week ahead.

Here are some pictures to show what is new in our lives!

First, we have Da Monkey and Buckeye Bear

modeling new baby diapers that arrived in the mail this week. We have been talking about the possiblity of using cloth diapers for the baby, so I ordered a few to test out. These are BumGenius diapers, and they look really great. They are one-size fits all, so Baby could wear them until he/she is potty trained. I like how they look on the animals. :) We'll wash them a few times and see how absorbant they are. I told Tim the only thing I don't like about these is that we don't have a baby to try them out on yet!

Next, we have Tim with his stack of cards. This month is pastors appreciation. The people of the church have given many cards and gifts to show their appreciation for Tim's hard work.

Finally, we have Big Ole Belly. 30 and a half weeks along! We have a doctor's appointment tomorrow morning and start our childbirth classes tomorrow night. I'll keep you posted if anything interesting happens!

29 weeks

We had a checkup last Monday afternoon that I never posted about. Tim was able to go to this one with me, since he didn't have to work that day. I still get a kick over the fact that he was able to go to this one - it was the first "negative" appointment I have had to date. My weight was up quite a bit from last month, so the doctor gave me a little lecture about cutting out fats and sugars. Bye-bye Pepsi. :( I must say that I deserved this lecture after our visit to Ohio. There was a lot of good food there! :)

I have done much better this week. I have been tracking my calorie intake off and on prior to these changes, but I never really realized how many unnecessary calories I was taking in! So - I have been able to stay in the recommended ranges this week and actually ended up losing 2 pounds. While losing weight is not my goal, it's good to be back on track!

Everything looked good with Baby at the appointment. He or she was kicking away the whole time. We are now in our third trimester, which means our appointments increase to every 2 weeks. I have never been so excited to go to the doctor before!

Dreams about Baby are in abundance. I had a dream that we had a boy. He was born early, so we planned to hide him in our car for a week so people wouldn't know we had found out the sex of the baby! Dad D apparently had a dream that included the sex and name of the baby - which he won't share until the baby's born. I guess he wants to see if he's right. Tim had a dream we had a very smart baby girl. As a newborn, she called Tim "Papa" and knew Drew's name. Pretty amazing!

Well, this week is full of fun stuff for both of us. I get to go out of town for the weekend. Our women's retreat is Thursday through Saturday. Tim gets to eat. He has a pastors' breakfast this morning, Golden Years Fellowship Friday, Men's breakfast Saturday, and Pastors' appreciation potluck Sunday. As he put it, this is not a very healthy week for pastors.

Ohio Trip

We are back from Ohio! We got in last night around midnight our time - 3 am Ohio time. Tim had a very good idea when he said we should come back in time to have a recovery day before heading back to work. We are going to need it!

Ohio was great. It went way too quickly though. We were able to see pretty much all of our family while we were there. I think we only missed one niece on the Farley side. My 2 brothers and their families who live close enough to drive to Ohio were able to visit for a day or two as well. Josh and his family weren't able to come. Hopefully we will be able to work something out for after the baby is born!

My mom did an excellent job with the baby shower while we were there. The dinner was delicious, the decorations were beautiful - she's good at that kind of thing! One of the games we played was predicting the baby's sex, birthday, length, and weight. My personal favorite prediction was by 2 1/2 year-old Gabriel: "It's a girl! Birth date: Friday. Length: 6 inches. Weight: Kinda heavy." Anyone who was not at the shower is welcome to join in that game! Just leave a comment or send an e-mail with your guesses!

Mom Farley made a delicious Thanksgiving dinner Saturday. It was very yummy. There were even football games on TV to make it feel like actual Thanksgiving. However, the temperature in the high 70's reminded us that it wasn't really November yet.

Here are some pictures from the trip:

Spending time with friends: Tim, Rachel, Brian, Janine, Rick, Heather, and Dawn took the picture.




At the shower - under one of the beautiufl signs Rachel M. made




With one of many gifts - this one was handcrafted by Aunt Diane. Isn't it beautiful? There were many other beautiful gifts - unfortunately, all the pictures are on Mom's camera and I can't post them unless she sends me copies! (Hint, hint)




With Baby's jungle dirt. Rather than cake, Mom made my favorite dessert and topped it with jungle creatures.

27 weeks

We're finishing up the second trimester already?! Where has the time gone?

Rachel's belly is still growing:

Though Tim's seems to have stayed the same:

5 More Days...and a story about a hungry man.

We're counting down to our trip to Ohio! We are very excited. Woo-hoo!

I had an interesting day at work on Monday. I took care of 3 very easy, compliant, non-needy men who made my day very relaxing. It was a nurse's dream. Then at 6:00 one of them was being discharged and needed oxygen set up for his home. Of course the case managers who normally handle those details are off at 5:00. My charge nurse helped me get all the details ironed out, and I was trying to get his discharge instructions ready for him. As I was working on this, I received a phone call from a patient's wife, who was distressed about a situation with her husband. I talked to her for a few minutes and then went down to talk to my patient. To make a long story short, the man started throwing a fit about the diet he was on and the fact that a surgeon had not come to talk to him yet. My explanations about the necessity of that diet for his condition and about the doctor being in surgery and then at his office all day were not satisfactory. It was a long, busy last hour of work trying to get him happy again and get my other patient discharged. Fortunately, the doctor arrived around 7 and sent my hungry man home. He was very happy after finding out he could go home and told me I was a sweet girl. :)

So yesterday at work, I was sitting at the nurse's station doing some charting. A volunteer came up and asked which one was Rachel and presented me with this:

Needless to say, I was very surprised to read the card and find it was from my hungry man. :) I have never received flowers from a patient before. It was kinda cool!