37 Week Belly

I got back onto Facebook, just to give me something to do while on maternity leave.  One of the comments was to "see" the belly, so I took a self-portrait trying to show the basketball that has replaced my stomach.

Here's what I got:

Next checkup with the doctor is tomorrow.  Keeping my fingers crossed that labor will start soon.  I keep having stronger contractions, but nothing strong enough to push a baby all the way out, and definitely not consistent.  Keep trying baby!  We are all anxious to meet you!

Week 36 Checkup

We didn’t get very good ultrasound pictures this week, mostly because the head is half way down the birth canal and the baby is all squished.  The doctor said he would guess I would be able to make my appointment with him next week, but probably won’t go much past that.  I think this weekend sounds like a good time to start labor.  :)

Everything in general looked good.  Baby is estimated to be 6lbs 7oz.

Ready or Not, Don't Come Out!

This pregnancy has been a little more of a rollercoaster than my last one - you know, with a scorpion sting, the baby dropping at week 31, contractions so early, etc, etc, etc.  I've been saying "throw caution to the wind" as soon as week 36 starts, and the doctor gave me the "ok" sign for this weekend.  And now it's almost here and I'm having second thoughts.  Why?  Not because I'm not ready to meet the little gem that's in my belly, but I'm not ready for the little gem to come out and be exposed to the things floating around our air...

Over Labor Day weekend, Alli got sick.  Nothing big - she stayed in PJs all day on Saturday and watched TV - didn't want to do *anything* and didn't eat very much.  The next day she woke up with a croup cough.  Well, we know how to deal with that, so honey/lemon water for cough, Little Noses every night before bed, Vitamin C.  She was feeling much better by the end of the weekend.  The cough still lingers (yes, even still), but it's not bad.  But then I got it.  So by Tuesday, I had a congested head and a cough.  And that went on til about Friday and then by Friday, I really felt sick.  Saturday I slept the whole day (yes, the whole day).  I only got up once to force a peanut butter and jelly sandwich down my throat cause I figured I needed some kind of food, and then went back to bed.  I was pretty much in bed through Monday, so 3 full days of sleep and I wasn't getting better very fast.  But finally I've turned the corner, and while I'm still coughing and don't feel 100%, I'm much better.  But on Tuesday Gage (Marcie's youngest) came down with a super high fever.  He's been bed-ridden since.  And now Marcie has it - the cough, the fever, the congestion.  And she never gets sick.  They have 5 people in their house that this "disease" will go through.  Ugh.  And people at work are dropping like flies as well.  Some get the high fever symptom, and some don't.  Our family was lucky in that we didn't.

But do I really want this little baby to come out and experience this little epidemic that seems to be going around?  Hell no!  So here it is, my weekend to throw caution to the wind, and I'm probably going to do my best to let the baby sit in my belly a week or two longer, hoping this "disease" passes through the community and is basically gone before we welcome our newest family member.

Alli Reads Her First Book

Thanks to a wonderful preschool teacher, Alli is starting to read.  She and her teacher have been working on this book for a few weeks now.  Mind you, her teacher pulls her aside individually to teach her reading because so far, nobody else in the class has been assessed to be at the same level.  We are very grateful for the attention Mrs. Gyger gives to all of her students.

(We tried to upload the video, but it didn't take, so a picture is going to have to do...)

Spirits of Parties Past

In getting the house ready for another tenant, we are trying to clean
*all* cabinets. This is what we decided not to keep from our liquor
cabinet.

Getting Rooms Ready

I'm finding it harder this time around getting a baby's room ready.  Maybe it's because we had a spare bedroom when we were creating Alli's room, so everything just naturally moved into there.  Now we are taking our last room and converting it into a baby's room.  It's not quite as easy...  We still have a queen sized bed in the room, and a TV on TV stand in the room, neither of which we are planning on taking down before Christmas because of company.  (The baby will be in a cradle in our bedroom anyway, but still - no crib will be set up til then!)

Also, a lot of the room decor has still been decorating Alli's walls, so we can't just rip it all down and say "too bad - it's all going for the baby now".  So, we've done a bit of swapping.

First, we bought a new changing table/dresser for the baby.  And then we moved some of the wall decor.

Here are a couple of pictures of the baby room.  The crib will eventually go along the wall where the bed is...

And Alli and Mommy went through her bedroom and converted it to butterflies and princesses, thanks to wall decals.  Alli did a great job with the alphabet decals.  I would have probably selected a different spacing for the jewels and flowers around the princesses, but it's her room, and we wouldn't let her try to place the larger decals.  :)

34-1/2 Week Checkup - Baby in the Hole!

A few big things from the doctor’s visit today.  First, I still haven’t gained any more weight.  The baby however, is up to 5 lbs, 9 oz according to his measurements, and has rolls of fat.  Yes, rolls.  We could see them.  Belly rolls and jowls!  I figure this must not be*my* child, cause I’ve never seen rolls before!  ;)  Just kidding.  He said I don’t need to feel like I have to eat for the baby, cause it’s doing just fine and definitely won’t starve.  :)  hahaha  And I'm definitely thinking boy, cause I just can't picture a baby girl with jowls!!!  :)

The other thing the doctor said was that the baby’s head is in the birth canal, poised, and ready to go.  Everything is set for the launch! :)  He also said that we are currently in a gray zone if I went into labor now.  He said that the baby may or may not have lungs developed enough to skip NICU.  They would have to do an amnio, which I would much rather avoid.  But he said in 9 days, we should be in a safe zone as far as lung development, so 9 days and counting!!  I figure come September 15, I’m going to start going on walks again, moving furniture, etc.  :)  (Ok, just kidding again – at least about moving furniture.)  But I am going to throw caution to the wind!

The other good thing that we saw was the practice breathing.  We have actually seen that the last couple of visits.  The doctor said that’s both a sign of maturity, as well as the fact that the baby is not stressed.  Both very positive things.

And then after our appointment, we headed to St. Joseph’s hospital to pre-register.  Ah, the memories that brought back!  We were surprised we remembered so much of the layout of the hospital once we saw it again.

And for the final treat of our morning, In-n-Out for lunch before heading to work.  :)  What a great way to start a day!

Preemptive Strike

At my Week 32 checkup, I mentioned the baby had dropped quite a bit.  The doctor submitted the paperwork to the hospital, and I was actually getting a little nervous about the baby coming too early.  Like your typical engineer, I started looking for patterns.  I found that when I went for my 3 mile walks, I would have lots of strong Braxton-Hicks contractions, which didn't push the baby out, but definitely were pushing the baby south.  So, I stopped doing my walks.  (Bummer).  But day by day, things seemed to get worse, not better.  I would sit at work and have contraction after contraction.  I could feel the pressure in my pelvis as the baby kept pushing lower and lower.  Not good.  To be frank, I was getting more and more worried that we would have the baby sooner rather than later and we would wind up with a little one in the NICU.  Ugh.  Not the way I would prefer to have this baby.

So, we have found some ways to reduce the contractions, and thereby (hopefully) keep the baby inside my belly til at least week 36.  We tried to change my focus at work so that I wouldn't be as stressed, but we quickly found that it really wasn't the stress, but the mere walking around the building!  So, now I work from home, thanks to everyone in the management team that thought that would be a better alternative than me having the baby early.  They have authorized me to work up to 40 hours per week at home, although I do try to go in to the office once a week.  This has been the biggest help so far!  It's Thursday and I haven't had many contractions this week.  (First time in over 2 weeks I can say that.)  Usually, by Thursday, I'm staring at the calendar wondering how in the world I'm going to keep the baby inside of me for another 3 weeks.  Now, I'm thinking "no problem", and in 3 weeks I'll be back to walking around everywhere!

The other small thing I found was the mere act of cooking dinner.  Yes, but the end of the day, even though I work from home, standing in the kitchen and preparing dinner brings on contractions.  Granted not as many as when I work a full day at work (and I'm starting the dinner process already having quite a few contractions), but they do show up.  So after dinner is spent laying on the couch while Kim cleans up.

But all I need to do is last 3 more weeks and we should be very safe.  Now we just have to prepare a hospital bag and pre-register at the hospital...

Alli the Dancer

Yesterday we had Alli try out a dance class at a local dance studio where some of her friends go.  This class is for 3-5 year olds, and they teach both ballet and tap (in 50 minutes)!  Alli absolutely *loved* it.  She wanted to stay for another class, even though there were no other classes for her.  When we got home, she wanted to play “dance party”.  And then again this morning wanted to play “dance party”. 

Thanks to Marcie’s hand-me-downs, we actually had some dance-wear that Alli was able to wear to the class.  And once I found she liked the dance class, we went through more hand-me-downs from Marcie’s girls and found a pair of tap shoes that fit.  Now she walks around the house in tap shoes all the time so she’s ready to dance!  We just have to get her some tights and some ballet shoes, which we will do soon.

32 Week Checkup

Today was my 32 week check up.  The odd thing about today’s checkup was in the weight.  The scale said I lost 1 lb over the last 2 weeks so, of course, he asked what changed.  I said I eliminated my protein shake in the morning and I made sure I didn’t eat any pasta at lunch (cause our cafeteria is serving a lot of pasta these days).  That’s all I’ve changed, and that was due to the glucose test.  He asked if I felt tired, or hungry, or anything like that and I said no, I just made sure I was eating more like I did when I was carrying Alli.  So we moved on to look at the baby.  This baby already has chubby cheeks and a double chin!  My goodness, what a big baby!  And based on the ultrasound measurements, the baby weighs 4lbs, 7oz.  Holy cow!!!  (To give you an idea, most babies weigh 4 lbs at 32 weeks, and Alli was right there at that time.)

Last Thursday, the baby dropped – like a couple of inches in 1 day.  I mentioned this to the doctor and he said that the baby would be fine to come out now, it’s just that it wouldn’t get to go home with us, so if I started to go into labor, they would do what they could to stop it.  He also said that dropping so early is a pretty good indicator that we won’t make it to my due date – that the baby will come early.  And, he decided to submit my paperwork to the hospital now, because we could have a baby in 4 weeks!  Wow!!!  Not sure we are ready for that, but bring it on!