29 weeks-The Past and Present

Today I am 29 weeks pregnant. Overall, I must say it has been a pretty smooth ride so far. I am so thankful for this! There have been a few bumps in the road but nothing serious.
Physically, my health has been pretty good. I have had very little sickness. The worst of it has been some killer headaches. I also found out last week that I was anemic. So, iron pills were added to my daily diet. This is honestly the 1st day in a while that I have had some energy. It feels like it is flying by and Anna Claire will be here before we know it. She is moving strongly all the time now. I LOVE to feel her little jabs. Lately there have been less jabs and more large strong movements. Weight gain wise is great. 9 lbs. I think this is one of the funny things about pregnancy-any other time I would have been upset over 9 lbs in 29 weeks. Now that seems great!
Emotionally, this journey hits me in stages. Excitement has been from day one that we knew. However it has grown and still developed as I have realized more and more the changes that are occurring in our lives. I get excited over all the future moments that are to come. It is fun having a January baby because it is easy to think about how old she will be around different times in the coming year-The start of football season in 08-she will be about8 months old. (We already bought her an Alabama outfit to wear) December of next year, she will be crawling/moving around in various ways around the Christmas tree as a 12 month old. There are also times where it is completely overwhelming to think that I am about to have this responsibility for the rest of my life. I sit in meetings with parents and kids and either thing " O God, please don't let it be like that" or " I hope I have a good relationship like this one." But, I have come to also realize that be it a "good " or "bad" child or parent. There is always an amount of love that is amazing. Even if it is misdirected. I have looked at several parenting books and every one is so different in what they think is needed. I guess that is where prayer and some good common sense comes in. I am sure there will also be many calls for support/ advice.
Soon we are going to start on her nursery. This will be quite a project but fun as well. I was blessed with an awesome deal on her bedding! I went into Pottery Barn Kids just to look for ideas. It turns out they were having a Huge sale and I bought everything for $55. This was amazing because it normally would have cost $275. I love that it is simple and contains many colors.
We have also been blessed with a great shower from my people in Atlanta and some other family friends (I'll post about them later) who decided to bless us. We have received alot of things on our registry but also some other great things that were not on there, that will be wonderful for us. I feel so loved and blessed by this amazing outpouring of love from everyone for us! There are still some things we would like but nothing we can't live without.
Well I am off to bed. I have to give the ACT tomorrow morning at the school. It is an early morning but... you make great money to stand there for 4 hours!