This may have been me two and a half months ago, but I don't look toooo much bigger than this now. Thing is... I started having Braxton Hicks this weekend. I'm 33 weeks along (which means I have a little less than two months to go). But now that the B.H. have started, she could come in the next 2-3 weeks.

I haven't even had a baby shower yet!!

Sorry I've not been posting much, Ladies. I'm a little preoccupied.

I feel like a total hypocrite, lol. I tell you that I don't post forwards, and here this is my second in one week!! I admit to you that I was emotional this week, and here I am giving advice to conquer that!!

I'm part of an email mentoring group found at flylady.net. She's absolutely wonderful and I'll post a long post about her some other time. But here is an email that one of the "flybabies" who has a disability sent. Everything that she talks about also helps with depression. (I'm not going to bother editing her grammar/punctuation/spelling. You can enjoy her in her original.)

--Love, Adriel

Dear FlyBabies,

When we are depressed, dejected, in severe pain or loaded on meds, we
hole up in our beds WAITING for it to get better. What we forget is
that most our world experience is merely a reflection of what's going
on in our heads and our bodies.

I'm no expert, but my Dad teaching me that Pride and Gratitude go hand
in hand has always proven itself to be true. He also taught me that
all character traits are learned by doing them and eventually you
BECOME them.

Starting today, I want you to experience both Pride and Gratitude.
This is going to take courage which begets pride and faith….not just
in yourself but in life itself. (Remember your life is a reflection of
what's in you already or what you decide to put in there!) Courage
isn't only learned by obvious heroic acts like pulling someone out of
a fire. Courage is learned incrementally day by day, by bucking up and
doing what you know you aught to be doing when you MOST DON'T WANT TO
DO IT!.

The gratitude comes in my thanking yourself for turning around your
depressed or severe pain into a venue of calling up your courage.
Here's the perscription I use on myself.

When I'm suffering I allow myself to take to the bed when I deem it
the proper way to care for myself but……and this is a HUGE but……I set
my alarm clock for the top and sometimes also the bottom of the hour
for every hour I'm in the bed.

When the alarm goes off, I use my minute timer and do SOMETHING I know
I should be doing for the full minute or keep on while it beeps for
the extra minute before it sets itself back.

Sometimes I get lucky and jumpstart myself into a small time pod of
productivity and sometimes not. It's of no real importance because I
did accomplish the most important purposes……I'm teaching myself that
even in the worst of times I can call up my courage and do good for
myself.

After you've done a unit of courage, I want you to feel the pride and
gratitude. Let it permeate your brain. Allow this moment to gel into
your expanding self-concept. Now I want you to spend an additional
minute and reach out into the world's bounty. Call someone. Write a
note and give thanks for the bond your share. Give your dog tummy
tickles for a minute. Sit on the stoop and watch the clouds while you
sip on a drink you lovingly poured for yourself. Or write a small list
of one/two minute courage/pride builders for the successive hours and
future times. On the back of that list, do the same for some one/two
minute gratitudes that immerse you into the blessings of life.

The world is going to keep spinning no matter what you do or what you
feel like. Isn't it nice to know that at least 2 minutes an hour even
in your hardest times, that you can count on yourself to call up your
courage and your gratitude? When you return to your bed for the
remaining 58 minutes of that hour, your pain or fatigue may well not
have abated but you can lay your head on your pillow feeling comforted
by your own courage and your own gratitude.

Like the minutes adding up doing your routines, the minutes add up
building your rapport with yourself and fortifying your character for
when you next will need it. And your gratitudes with morph into love
for both yourself and life itself.

Rest well, dearie, you deserve it.

Vickie