OK, no more looking at baby registries. My shower is on Sunday, so I have reached my cutoff where I don't allow myself to look anymore. Last time I cut myself off on Thursday, but I don't have a whole lot of willpower. My mother-in-law is having this one for me, which is great, but it is a bit awkward when you're getting stuff from a bunch of people you don't know.

Today I was sitting there at work and started feeling intense pain in my tummy. It kind of came and went in waves and was kind of debilitating. It only lasted about 15 minutes and then went away. I was slightly concerned, but I know that pregnancy pains are pretty normal and you generally shouldn't worry. They MIGHT have been Braxton-Hicks contractions, but those are supposed to be painless. At any rate, I hope that doesn't happen again. I have had an extremely pain-free pregnancy, and I don't want to start now.

I have been entertaining the idea of having the baby naturally. It's kind of like deciding to join the band in college. It was never even a consideration, just like it was always a given I would get an epidural. Then I was just sitting there and this little inkling that it was a good idea came to mind and just kind of grew from there. As you know, I did end up in band (and would probably not be sitting here blogging about pregnancy if I hadn't).

I don't know...I think that I want to go in assuming that I will have an epidural, and then when the time comes to get it, if I feel that natural birth is something I'm strong enough to do, I'll just decline the epidural. I don't want to get dead set on a natural birth and then not have the option of the epidural available. I think my only reason is that I see the epidural as kind of a hassle.

His kicking has been painful every now and then. He's hurting me right now. Last night I was lying on my side again, and he decided once again that he didn't like that. He was literally wedging some sort of limb in the space between my side and the bed. It was really painful, so I had to turn over and give him his way. I'm like, "don't get used to getting your way like that all the time, baby." I feel like I'm already conditioning him subconsciously, like I have to keep him happy but still not give in to him all the time.

I have signed us up for a childbirth class at Northside. It's 4 Wednesdays, 2 hours, starting on the 28th. I was unsuccessful at searching for childbirth classes outside the hospital, so had to snatch up one of the last two slots since it was the only one we could do before the baby is born. It's kind of weird to be at a point where we are actually running out of time on stuff.

That just means that it's time to call it a Friday night and postpone everything till next week! Or the week after...