TEX is going away!!! Nooooooooooo... (if you didn't go to UT or at least work there - my apologies. this will mean nothing to you) I have such memories of TEX. He made me happy. He made me cry. "The class you have requested," [pregnant pause] - will he say, "has been added" or "is full"? Alas, TEX will be laid to rest on July 15th at 5 p.m. In the words of William Livingston (the voice of TEX), "An era has passed."

Now all the registration and grade checking, etc. will take place on the Internet. The Internet just thinks it's *so* cool... It's a bit uppity, if you ask me! I suppose there are those who thought the same of TEX when he replaced the standing-in-line-for-hours method of registering, but he was the one for me!

"This is the Texas Enrollment Exchange for The University of Texas at Austin. ... Goodbye and Good Luck!" [sniff]

For this week's pregnancy update: I'm now at 33 weeks and seems to be going well since I was released from bed rest. Lila should weigh a little over 4 lbs now and be about 17.2 inches long. I have this fear that she's getting huge in there, but hopefully she's just right on track! She should be filling out and losing the wrinkly, alien look that babies have for much of their time in the womb.

Also, her bones are hardening. That is, with the exception of her skull, which will stay soft until after birth. And the woman who has to squeeze her through the birth canal says, "Thank you!" I am definitely waddling now and my belly has gotten wider. It's very round and seems to be taking over the rest of my body! Sleeping is getting less comfortable, but it's not so bad that it's keeping me awake.

Oops! I forgot to post after my appointment with the doctor yesterday. I was too busy eating a big, giant chocolate shake! :) Anyway, I have been taken off official bed rest. I still can't exercise and am supposed to "take it easy", but I don't have to stay sitting or reclining all the time anymore. We've been thinking about ways that I can get back to my normal routine, but without overdoing it.

Things seem to be going fine with baby and me. I haven't had any more bleeding since the first bout tapered off and I haven't developed any other unusual or worrisome symptoms. I have been doing the bed rest thing like a good girl all week and surprisingly haven't gotten *too* stir crazy yet. I go back to the doctor this afternoon and will post again afterward to update you on what she says... :)

For those who haven't already heard I'm doing alright, but it's been an "exciting" week. On Monday afternoon, I started bleeding a little bit so I called the doctor's office. She said to come on in, so I did and Doug met me there. I didn't seem to be in preterm labor, but she couldn't figure out why I was bleeding and my blood pressure was a bit high. So, to be safe, she sent me to Labor & Delivery to be monitored overnight.

By the time I got admitted and into my room at the hospital, the bleeding was already stopping and my blood pressure quickly came back down. They hooked me up to a monitor and for the next 12ish hours the baby was quite active and looked totally fine. All my labs came back normal and I seemed to be okay, so the doctor sent me home yesterday morning. I see her again on Friday and am on bedrest until then (at least). Who knows... :)

We're at 32 weeks now and it's getting awfully snug in there! Lila should weigh almost 4 pounds and be almost 17 inches long. The average woman should be gaining a pound per week now, but I've been gaining two per week. My doctor is still saying not to worry about it though. Hopefully only a normal amount of that is going to the baby and she's not working on being huge! I really don't know where all the weight is going!

Baby should gain one-third to one-half her birth weight in the next seven weeks as she fattens up for life outside the womb. That just seems crazy after the tiny gains in size she's made over the past 32 weeks! Thankfully, my body hasn't been hurting too much lately, despite my growing belly. If I sit in one position too long, my back and or tailbone may start to hurt, but not as bad as a month or two ago. :)

I'm suffering from the "Pregnancy Blahs". I know that it's perfectly normal to get sick of being pregnant around this time. It doesn't help that I'm prone to depression in general. As the reality of actually having a child draws nearer, I get more freaked out about it! And since I'm tired much of the time (due largely to being big and pregnant), I'm more susceptible to feeling scared and down.

Sometimes I just want to think about anything except the overwhelming life change that I'm facing, but when you're this pregnant it's what everyone wants to talk about! :o)~ So, it's not so much that I'm bored and want the baby out, it's more like it's finally starting to sink in that this is real! The good news is, while depression is not something everyone deals with, these basic feelings of fear are quite common.

Well, I'm feeling better now than I was earlier, but this still goes down as one of my worst days ever. It wasn't my fault that I hit this animal (i never saw more than a flash out of the corner of my eye), but I still feel like a criminal. I'm praying for its human family to be comforted as they grieve their loss. :(

I am having my worst day ever. I hit something with my car this morning (not a person) and I don't want to talk about it. Just pray for me because I'm really sad and I can't stop thinking about it. :(

I'm 31 weeks pregnant now. That means we have about 9 weeks left to go. That's a single-digit number. And that's a little freaky.

Lila should weigh just over three pounds now and be a bit more than 16 inches long. That may not sound like a lot, but try having three pounds sitting headfirst on your bladder all the time! She moves a lot now, as she has for a couple of weeks. Thankfully she's not so active that I can't sleep, but sometimes she does move so suddenly and forcefully that I actually make some audible noise because it startles me.

I still really like it when she moves because it helps me know that she's healthy in there. I always worry if she hasn't moved for a while. I've been having a few normal "practice contractions", but they aren't painful. They aren't even uncomfortable - it just feels tight.

Cute photo of Cordelia. "Why were you taking pictures of him? I'm cuter!" :) 

Cute photo of Charlie. He loves to snuggle with my pillows after I get up! :) 

Cute photo of Cow Kitty. Please note that he's resting his head on a rock. :) 

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of the vacation photos. If you are still interested, there are more (e.g. from our trip to ellis and liberty islands). Just let me know and I'll either post them or send you some. In the meantime, no more! However, I might be forced, in the next couple of days, to post some photos of my extremely cute kitties! :)

You know, given the fact that I'm normally a clumsy person and the fact that I'm pregnant (which can make it worse), I'm surprised that I haven't bounced Lila off any door frames or anything yet! I have gotten up a couple of times in the night to go to the restroom and walked into the wall next to the doorway, but my belly never made contact. It might help if I didn't try walking with my eyes closed at night...

These are a bunch of yucky looking things like gigantic crabs. I think they are actually fake, but they are supposed to have the same size and appearance as the real things - oogie. 

This is a picture of a dike in a a granite. Molten basaltic rock forced its way through a crack in the granite to form this dike. 

This is a garnet. Or, rather, a garnet-bearing amphibolite. 

This is another banded iron formation. The color on this one seems to be a bit more true. 

Now we're at the Natural History museum and this is a banded iron formation. It was more red in person - this photo makes it look rather orange. 

Well, it's been another busy week so far, but today is looking to be a bit slower. I spent 2.5 hours trying on maternity clothes yesterday. It was really a pretty frustrating experience. I'm big enough now that I'm outgrowing a lot of the things I already have, but I know I've still got 10 weeks of growing yet to go. It seemed that all of the things at the store either fit, but didn't leave room to grow or were just way to big in the shoulders. I found a few things anyway.

I'm starting to feel conspicuously large. If I weren't rather freaked out by the thought of squeezing out a baby, I'd say that I'm ready to get this kid out now! Actually, I decided yesterday that I'm not ready to have a child because I'm not grown up enough. Doug said it's too late for that! :o)~

This is a shot of the main lobby of the Met. It was right before closing, so there weren't too many people there. 

This is the last photo of old instruments that I'll make you look at. We spent a long time in this section! :)  

Yep, it's another old instrument. I'm not sure what this one is. 

And here's another old instrument. It's called a "kanun" and they've been around (though not this particular one) since the 13th century. 

This isn't the greatest picture, but I thought it was the wackiest looking old instrument we saw. I don't know what it is - sorry. 

I thought it was time for another set of pregnant belly pictures. I've grown a bit since the last batch... :) If I look a bit tired in these photos, it's because I am. For one thing, it was morning and I hadn't showered yet. Plus, I've been excessively tired the past several days.

I found out this week that Lila opens and closes her eyes in there now. That's kind of crazy to think about. There is a theory that babies can actually see at this point too. They don't know how much they can really make out though (and what's to see inside the womb, anyway). As I mentioned, I'm feeling extra tired lately, which is normal. The books say I should be feeling extra clumsy at this point too. What they don't know is that I was quite clumsy before I got pregnant!

Angela at 30 weeks - The Belly. Notice the black blob behind my butt that is Cordelia trying to get in on the picture action. 

Angela at 30 weeks, side view. Charlie is tickling my knee with his wet little nose during this shot. 

Angela at 30 weeks. Front view. 

I can't believe it's already Friday! I'm not complaining, it just came so quickly... Doug would disagree. When I said last night that today was already Friday, he said that's alright because the week had been long enough. He's stayed quite busy cathing up at work after our vacation. He's also had to take care of stuff like renewing his driver's license (which expired before our vacation!) and getting his vision checked.

I had another doctor's appointment yesterday - my first two week check! (it's been every four weeks up until now) I only gained 1.5 lbs this time! Even with all the pizza I ate - yipee! I can't believe how soon we are going to have a child. It's just weird. Ironically, one of the things I'm most nervous about is how difficult breast feeding will be for the first couple of weeks. Oh well, I'm determined!

And still more wacky old instruments. The thing with the tassles is a panpipe from Korea. 

Another wacky old instrument. Don't know exactly what it is or where it's from, but it's sticking its tongue out at you! 

This is a wacky old instrument. It's some kind of harp from Burma. 

This is the Arms and Armory section of the Met, taken from the floor above. Even if we hadn't spent so much time with the musical instruments, it might have taken us an hour just to find our way down to that section! 

This photo was taken inside John's Pizzeria. I said this before, but we think it used to be a theater and it is huge for a New York restaurant! 

Another shot of Times Square at night. This was taken pretty late at night, so there aren't as many people there as earlier in the day. 

This is Times Square at night. Well, part of it anyway. 

The bass player was not the person who normally performs with this group, but he was quite good. Here he is singing and playing (solo) a funny song he made up about trying to travel by airplane with a bass. :) 

These are two of the guys who were playing along with him. There was a guy on piano too, but we didn't get even one good shot of him.