Taking Care of Business - Kathryn

I had a blog post written and ready to publish in early June called “Taking Care of Business”, all about how I was coping with pregnancy and working full time. Needless to say, things were VERY busy and I never got the time to finish and post it. Throughout the month of June I attended 4 bridal showers, 3 bachelorette parties, celebrated 4 family birthdays as well as fathers day, participated in 3 graduation events for my grade 5 and grade 8 students – all while writing report cards, applying for jobs for next September and packing up my classrooms.

Fun at one of the many parties we attended in June

In the midst of everything that was going on, I began experiencing pain in my side. It was a dull pain at first, until suddenly one day, while teaching, the pain became so bad that I felt like I would pass out. I ended up going to the hospital and, after being tested for kidney stones, was told it was probably just ligaments stretching. A week later I was back at the hospital with the same pain, which had moved more into my back, making me convinced that it was kidney related. Again I was told it was ligaments and was sent home to lay down with a hot water bottle. The pain persisted off and on for about 2 weeks, causing me to miss about 2 days of work. Later in June and into early July, the pain moved into my back… just in time to host my sister’s bachelorette party and attend her wedding as maid of honor. The timing was terrible, but it made me realize a couple of important things. #1 – I definitely DO want some sort of pain relief when I go into labor. #2 – I’ve had things very easy in this pregnancy and I am very blessed to have been relatively pain free up until now. Another positive thing that came out of the experience was having an introduction to the labour and delivery ward. Having visited twice now I feel MUCH less apprehensive about labour and about what's going to happen when the time comes. (Not to mention Jose finally got to hear the baby's heartbeat when we were there!)

20 week ultrasound

I am now in week 28 and starting to get pretty big, but experiencing very little discomfort lately. It’s been three weeks since my sister’s wedding and in that time I’ve started to get down to business and prepare for baby. I’m starting to see God’s wisdom in a 9-month pregnancy. I feel like it took the first 4 months or so just to adjust to the idea of having a baby and to become more excited than scared. I’m now getting down to the physical preparation – cleaning and reorganizing rooms, unpacking boxes that never got unpacked, setting up a baby registry, and buying some furniture. I’m very blessed to have the summer to prepare because doing all this while working full time would be very difficult! I’m looking forward to getting everything else together and finishing our preparations as summer vacation continues.

Getting Prepared: 12 Hashbrown Casseroles to be put in the freezer for when the baby is born and the baby's room (where we can finally see the floor!)