Michael Robinson Photography!

Michael and I did our own photo shoot a couple of weeks ago (at 35 weeks). We had some professional photos taken early in the 2nd trimester and had good intentions of doing the jumbo bump shoot towards the end of my pregnancy but we had to make some choices/cuts somewhere. This week alone, we're paying for cord blood banking which is $2195. I put that in case anyone else is considering it and wonders what the going rate is...we were shocked! We went with CBR as a recommendation from our doctor. I felt strongly compelled to bank the blood - I hope that my gut is wrong and it is a total waste! But it will be there if Reid ever needs it. Oh, and if anyone reading this decides to bank with CBR, please let us know and I'll serve as your reference ($50 kick-back!). We also just had our air-ducts, upholstery, tile, grout, and dryer vent cleaned plus our A/C serviced. Now our neighbors are suddenly ready to replace our mutual fence. Oh and that little thing called a deductible/hospital stay! Ah!!! Anyhoo, where was I before I went off on my tangent? Oh yeah, so we decided to skip at least one expense and take some major belly shots ourselves. Michael downloaded Photo Shop but I haven't edited any of them yet. Mike really worked hard running back and forth between camera and posing. We actually hiked down by Lake Lewsiville. It was a trek but good exercise! We wound up laughing really hard and having a good time at our own idiot selves...trying not to fall, Michael directing me like I am a model and not 9 months pregnant, critter avoidance, sweat, etc. Everything is kind of gray since we took them before everything started blooming but I can't control the season, lol! I would try if I thought I'd get anywhere! I forgot to take a 36 week photo and took a 37 week photo yesterday (below). The sun was in my eyes but I'm a rare color of ash posing indoors these days so squinty eyes won out over ash skin.

37 weeks

All is well. I'm having contractions but there is no consistency. Reid had a quiet day yesterday which freaked me out but he's kicking me in the side right now so he must have just been sleepy yesterday. Mike is having insomnia due to being on baby watch. Poor guy - it's like watching paint dry! We're just so darn excited and ready to meet him!

I decided to share my blog publicly on FB yesterday and have had some wonderful feedback. I went back and read over some early entries. It's still very fresh. I realized as I was reading over it that I really left some gaps in the last 1.5 years, but such as life. I left a lot of gaps in the pregnancy account too. If you can't tell, I'm trying to make up for lost time with all the recent posts since I know it will be all about Reid when he gets here!