30 weeks down and only 70 days left!

We are 30 weeks today. 30 weeks down and only 10 to go. I am a little sad when I look at that last sentence. I am ready to meet Avery, but time has gone by so fast. I am really trying to savor every moment I have left of being pregnant with her. It has helped this week that I've been on light duty. At my monthly appointment last week, my blood pressure was high for me. My doctor wanted to run some more tests and such to make sure nothing else was going on. So I did the tests and went back on Friday to check my blood pressure again. Well, it was the same on Friday. Everything else in this pregnancy so far has been pretty normal, so the doctor said as long as I could work from home he wouldn't put me on bedrest. I just had to go back in one week and monitor my bp from home for a week.

Then on my way home from the doctor and headed to buy a bp monitor, Randy calls. He says, "You'll never guess what happened this morning?" I said, "Please tell me we got the house." All the while, having a very emotional moment. :) "Rachel, I'm at school, how would I know if we got the house?" "Well, I really need some good news right about now." At that point Randy realized something wasn't right. After I told him about my bp results, he apologized for leading me on and told me our offer had been accepted! He had taken a "bathroom break" to answer his phone during class and had found out our offer had been accepted. We were so excited! That evening we met with our realtor and signed our part of the contract. Ahhhh!!!

And this is where I'm a little more real in this post. The last 6 months have been quite a journey in looking for the right house for us. When we started looking in August, we never imagined it would take this long. We've looked at so many houses, we can now drive by a house and almost tell you what it will look like inside. After finding several houses we liked, placing offers on them, having the offers rejected or coming in 2nd, we were really at the point where we didn't know what our next step was supposed to be. We knew God had something in store for us, it just didn't seem like we were moving anywhere in that direction. Our lease was up in January, so we knew we would have to go month-to-month or find another place to stay. We have room for a baby here in our current apartment, we would just need to seriously downsize our stuff. We took a break from house hunting around Thanksgiving and Christmas just to breathe for a while. House hunting is tiring! Then after the first of the year, we found a new realtor (thanks Brad!) and started the search again. There was a little more urgency this time as baby girl only had 4.5 months until her arrival and our lease was up at the end of January. We put in an offer on one house we thought would be perfect, but it wasn't accepted. Then we found another one and the day we went to put in an offer, they accepted another one. I'll be honest, at that point I didn't know what God was up to. I was frustrated and tired. But God was working! He always is. :) I just had to let go and trust him. Then the house that God had for us came along. We saw it and loved it. It is a foreclosure, but extremely clean. Like so clean it only needs carpet cleaning and a few paint touchups. Trust me - foreclosures like this one are RARE! No closing date yet, but hopefully soon! God is good - and always has the best for us if we just wait.

Ok, back to the baby info. I went back to the doctor today and my bp was still a little high, but lower than last week. The doctor wants me to keep monitoring my bp and to continue taking it easy. Baby Avery is doing great and growing on track. My 30 week email said she weighs about 3 lbs and will gain 0.5 lbs a week from here until week 37. No new symptoms. I still have my appettite! I did finish my pillow so sleeping is hopefully getting better. Stay tuned for pictures later. Haven't had time to take them yet today. :)