our hospital offers tons of free (well, free if you deliver there) childbirth classes, and so the husband and i have been trying to take advantage of them, since we are really new to this whole thing!

however, since they're only offered on evenings and weekends, we've had to put them all off until these last few weeks now that our schedules are a little less crazy. but now we have classes taking over all our free time it feels like!

there's been some interesting stuff we're learning though for sure, but when i learn it i can't help but think of the bill cosby's stand up routine about childbirth, and how only "intellectuals" go to class to learn how to do something that happens naturally.



haha, anyways...gave me a good laugh this morning.
now off to class! ;)

this weekend i'll officially hit 37 weeks...which means this kiddo will technically be fully cooked!

i'm getting close to being ready. some days i feel like i'd be delighted for this baby to just go ahead pop out, and then other days i'm crossing my legs and hoping for a few more weekends to get stuff done.

people say that once you're this far along the baby doesn't move around as much since it's getting too cramped. i'm finding the opposite to be true though. well, maybe the baby isn't necessarily moving more, but i can feel almost every little movement at this point since it's getting so big! sometimes when it makes bigger movements, it almost feels strong enough to pop on out of my belly! i probably shouldn't watch too much sci fi when i'm preggo. :P

for me physically not a lot has changed since the 2nd trimester...except for the fact that i'm now huge!

strangers do not even hesitate now to comment on my pregnancy. it's that obvious!
even some of my maternity tops are becoming a little snug.



thankfully still no stretch marks. my skin is starting to feel super tight though. sometimes even just after i eat a meal i wonder if my skin can possibly stretch any further because it's feeling like its reached it's max. i hope that i can make it these last few weeks and still avoid the stretch marks, but if this baby keeps getting bigger then i don't see how i can!

the belly button is still an innie...barely. we'll see if this lasts till the end. i think one fierce kick could pop it out.

i've noticed some varicose veins popping up on my calves. :P boo. those seem to run in my family though, so i didn't think i'd be able to avoid them.

my hair is growing like crazy! last time i got it cut, the hair dresser mentioned that it looked like it had grown 1.5 inches in one month...normal hair growth is .5 inches a month! and it's getting thicker! too bad i'm not trying to grow out my hair or something...cuz now would definitely be the time!

i'm still having the same aches and pains (pelvis, back, round ligaments), but thankfully they haven't really gotten worse since the second trimester. it is harder to move now though. getting in and out of bed to pee at night is a chore. just rolling my body over is like trying to knock over a vending machine...it takes a few tries, and it's a bad idea to try and do it all in one move cuz my pelvis does not enjoy it.

the heart burn is a beast. i think i'm going to have to ban myself from my favorite spicy foods from here on out...it's just not worth it anymore. :P

but really over all i'm feeling pretty good (despite what just sounded like a list of complaints!), and enjoying this last bit of pregnancy.

we're cramming in all the prenatal classes from the hospital, so it's taking up a lot of our evenings and weekends this month. during the semester we hardly have any evenings and weekends to devote to anything outside of campus ministry...so as a result we're some of the furthest along people in our classes! haha. most of the others are a month or two behind us. it's been pretty fun and educational though.

life really is such a fascinating miracle.

so i'm not going to lie. most of 2012 has been kind of crappy so far.

however, in the past couple of weeks we've started to see a turn around, that i'm hoping will only continue through the rest of the year...you can still redeem yourself 2012!

as you know, my husband is from india. he's pretty proud to be indian too.

when we first married, he was pretty sure that he'd never want to change his citizenship, but over the past few years we started to see how it would definitely be a good practical move. even in the worst of times, US citizenship is as good as gold...which is something that i think us natural born citizens sometimes take for granted.

so we've been in the whole immigration process for awhile now. for someone from india or china, the immigration process to become and US citizen, or even a greencard holder, is SUPER long. this is because there's just a certain quota per country of people allowed to immigrate each year...and it's majorly backed up.

thankfully for us though, marriage does expedite the process...to about 5 years from what could easily end up being 15 or 20 years.

dealing with immigration can be kind of like dealing with the DMV on crack...sometimes inefficient, lots of bureaucracy, etc... things usually end up taking longer than you'd expect them to.

so when my husband got a letter to show up for his citizenship interview on april 26, we fully expected that citizenship was probably still 6 months away at best.

however, once he'd completed his interview, and taken a civics test, they asked him if he wanted to go ahead and swear in later that day...as in to become a US citizen!

so i quickly moved around my schedule, and called up a few close friends and family who i thought might want to be a part, and we made a day of it!



it was a pretty cool experience. apparently a few years ago, they would just have big swear in ceremonies every few months...but recently they had started having them 4 times a week!

for such a frequent ceremony, it was cool to still see about 85 other people take the oath with shomik. there were i think 36 countries represented, and i'm sure some of the people had been on a long journey to get to that day. it really was kind of moving.

so now our kiddo will have 2 american parents when he or she arrives in a few weeks! we'll have to apply for passports for both shomik and the baby now!



india doesn't allow dual citizenship, but shomik, the baby, and i can all qualify for basically the indian equivalent of a greencard, which means we can pretty much do anything in india but vote. and we definitely won't need visas to go.

so it's been pretty exciting! i thought somehow it would be a little more difficult and emotional for my husband to have to give up his indian citizenship, but he's been purely thrilled to become an american!

my grandma came out to see shomik swear in, and she said it was the best day of her life! haha. i hope that isn't really true, but it has definitely been a cool thing for everyone...my family included! :)

having a baby on the way has inspired a whole lot of home projects...not all even baby related. it's definitely put a fire under us though...i guess we figure if we don't get a lot done now, then when will we get a chance to do it?
i'm proud of my hubby. he's really stepped up to the plate and been super handy. in my large pregnant state i feel kind of bad sometimes these days since i'm limited in what i can accomplish on my own...i know it's putting a lot of pressure on him. but he's being a trooper.

plus, guys i gotta tell you...being handy is sexy!

check out the garage shelving my husband built!



our garage was getting overwhelmed with clutter, and there was no method of organization. with baby stuff like strollers and car seats, and all that fun baby stuff starting to accumulate, we definitely felt the need to get a system set up.

as a gift for our anniversary, my husband got me a bench tree swing that i've been wanting for awhile, so we got that all set up too. i can just imagine sitting there under the tree swinging eventually with the baby!



oh, and did u happen to notice any of my landscaping efforts there in the corner? i haven't been able to doing quite as much gardening this year, but a couple months ago we decided to extend our garden around the corner of the house. we planted a little japanese maple and some bulbs as well. i wasn't sure of the bulbs would bloom this year since the winter was so mild, and since i got them in the ground a bit late. but i was pleasantly surprised to see them pop up!



we've been doing lots of other productive stuff as well, like cleaning out the garden pond, organizing, getting the nursery ready, etc... we're definitely having to make the most of any and all spare moments right now. hopefully i'll have some pics of the nursery to share soon...it's just about done, and it's been fun getting together a nursery that's gender neutral.

so here's hoping we can get a lot more accomplished over this next month...we're definitely on a roll!

a couple weeks ago my hubby and celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary!

whenever we first got married, 5 years sounded far away. so we said that when we hit 5 years we should go on a Mediterranean cruise!

well, seeing how i'm 8 months pregnant, that goal wasn't physically or financially possible. but we still thought we should get away for a few days...even just to somewhere close by for a romantic getaway/babymoon.

we had some marriott points stashed from when shomik was having to travel for work a lot, so we decided to see where within driving distance we could cash those in!

we ended up at horseshoe bay resort, which is out in the hill country of texas near marble falls and fredericksburg on lake LBJ.



thanks to leap years, our anniversary landed on a saturday this year, and apparently april 21 is a popular day to get married, because there were like 3 weddings happening at our hotel that weekend.

so as a result, they moved us outside of the main tower, to their vacation condominiums. which was actually kind of nice since we ended up with basically a whole 2 bedroom condo for the weekend.

so we spent the weekend floating in swimming pools, exploring little german towns, and checking out some other fun stuff in the area.



we didn't realize we were going to be there during fredericksburg trade days...which is basically a huge flea market that happens once a month. i wasn't sure how excited my husband would get about going to a flea market, but i convinced him to take me. it was hilarious to see how much fun he had! he'd never been to one before, but he got all wrapped up in the bartering. maybe it made him feel like he was home in india.



there also happened to be a flower festival that weekend, so it was like everything worked out perfectly just for us.



we definitely needed a chance to get away and relax before the arrival of this bambino, so i'm really thankful that everything worked out for us to go!

well, here's to many more years! i can honestly say that we've already shared the hardest and happiest times of our lives together. life has definitely thrown some challenges, blessings, and heart aches our way during these years, but i can honestly say now that there is no one else i would have ever wanted by my side through it all! i'm so blessed to have found the one that my soul loves! :)