Our last “family of three” vacation

So yeah, almost a month with no update. I’m awesome. BUT I have lots of great excuses…

So first for the fun excuse–we went to Paris! It was beautiful, breathtaking, romantic, fun, vast, and tiring all at once. We were there for four days and tried to see a little of all the major things. One day was spent at the Louvre drooling over amazing artwork. The other days, we managed to hit up the Montmartre Cemetary, the Sacré-Coeur Basilica, the Jardin des Tuileries outside of the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower of course (at night–wow!!!!), Paris children’s museum, a boat tour, a ton of yummy food stands, some great restaurants, and we managed to do a little bit of shopping. Whew, that was tiring just recapping it! Seriously though, we loved every moment of it. And the people were fantastic. Sooooo many kindnesses towards my big preggo self. I rarely had to wait in line for anything or stand up on a train. And it never seemed out of pity, but out of genuine friendliness.

Annalie had a blast and still talks about going back to Paris. She went with the notion that she would meet “The Aristocats”, since the movie takes place in Paris. We didn’t want to ruin her dreams, but we didn’t want to lie either. So we felt incredibly lucky when, on the first day at the cemetary, we saw a ton of stray cats. She immediately identified each movie character and was satisfied for the rest of the trip. We also had a lot of interludes for her so that she wouldn’t just have to do all our boring adult stuff. We went to some lovely gardens, let her feed ducks and watch toy sailboats, went to a fantastic toy store and museum, and let her jump on the bed nightly to get any extra energy out. She was happy.

Check out our Flickr photos, and enjoy this fun video of Annalie at the Jardin des Tuileries enjoying the world’s sweetest chocolate ice cream:

So, after good times were had by all and we came home, life was about to go back to normal. But it didn’t. So, here’s the not-so-fun excuse–I started having some issues that gave us a little scare, and ended up having a fun hospital visit. That visit led to more midwife visits, a doctor visit, a new doctor visit, and a bunch of different “diagnoses”. Each one basically said the same thing though–I am not to do much of anything until I get to the 37 week point (November 25th) for fear of early labor. The baby is totally perfect, my health is just fine, the placenta looks great, but I have a rather weak, wobbly cervix in need of some down-time. My old doc actually tried to hospitalize me! With the help of my wonderful friend Karo I was able to tell him heck no, and he actually made us leave! Super-turd, huh? So now I have a great new doc, much closer by, whom my midwife seems happy with, and who actually scoffed at the hospitalization idea. So I went from “be careful”, to strict bedrest, to fear of hospitalization, back to be careful. I’m being way more careful now, to say the least!

So the past week has been Don at home doing all the work, and my pitiful butt is either on the sofa or in our bed. I’m fine with it most of the time, but sometimes I get pretty down about everyone having to care for me. But I have a fantastic support system, some of the best friends anyone could ever have (Kelly and Karo–love you!), and the most incredible family in the entire world. Right now, they’re out at the Gonsenheim Wildpark feeding deer and goats. Needless to say, Annalie is having a BLAST with Daddy to play with and Mommy for the occasional snuggle.

So thirteen more days, and I’m free from my forced resting. I’ll be allowed to take walks in the crisp German air, hit up the Christmas market, do a little nesting, and HAVE A BABY!!!!! Life isn’t so bad, after all. :)