Week 34

Last Saturday our church had a baby shower for me! It was really fun to see everyone and celebrate with them. I had a few students from my English as a Second Language class
Last weekend we bought a crib!! We were talking to some people at church and they asked if the nursery is ready and we said not quite. They said they were trying to get rid of a crib so Shamus and Jim went to pick it up on Sunday and we put it together! Yay! Now we just need to get those pink dressers painted white and moved in there.
This week we went to a new shepherding group through church because the other one is so far and the new one is so close. I've been praying about finding a mentor since the ladies' retreat and it turns out that 3 of the ladies I met at the retreat are in this shepherding group! Maybe God is setting up his answer to my prayers. :) One great thing about the new group (for now) is that it meets every other week and our old group meets every week. So we can go to both! I'm not sure how well we'll do going to both after we have a baby. But I just can't see leaving the other group for good! I'm sure someday we'll have to because of the distance and because of our desire to lead our own shepherding group... but I'm really going to miss our time with the other group. Hopefully we'll continue to see each other at church and at Bible studies. Right now I'm doing the church ladies bible study on Carolyn Mahaney's Feminine Appeal which is about Titus 2:3-5: "Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled." We're spending one week on each characteristic to strive for. I've read this book before but our ladies Bible study teacher does a lot of extra research and adds to Carolyn's teachings in such a way that I feel like this is my first time through. I highly recommend this book! It continually reminds you of your high calling as a wife and mother and how by God's grace you can do all of the things listed in the verse. Today was a big day in the life of a pregnant woman: We went to our birthing class! All day we were at the hospital learning about labor and delivery. We watched videos (everything from Bill Cosby's stand up to a c-section to a natural delivery) and discussed. We practiced breathing and different positions... but only for the part of labor that you're at home. I've read about the other breathing (the hee-hee-hee-hoo stuff) and that it's for when you want to push but the doctor wants you to wait. The teacher had our husbands massage our feet, backs, necks, arms, and hands and then made us tell our husbands how to improve. It was wonderful! I think Shamus enjoyed it overall, too. The only downer was that it was only one day so we didn't really get to meet anyone and make friends like so many other couples do through birthing classes. One thing that was really weird was that the teacher told us she usually has classes where about 90% of people are having the same gender baby. Our class was boys. There were 2 couples who didn't find out the gender and only 1 expecting a girl. Out of about 18 couples!! After the class, I have mixed feelings about labor. Part of me doesn't want to go through that so I started telling the baby he can just stay in there. But a bigger part of me wants to meet this little person and take care of him and watch him grow. Hopefully the whole "I don't want to give birth" thing will go away before it's time. I'll be praying about that.
This week, Bartok is just chunking it on. He's getting fatter. With fatter arms and legs comes more intense punches and kicks! So I'm betting that if my baby is fatter than yours then he can beat yours up. But we'd rather they be friends so I guess we'll never know!