Week 32 Checkup and First Swim

This morning was our 32-week checkup. I gained a whole pound since the last appointment 3 weeks ago. The doctor made a joke that it was clearly all in my belly. Peanut is 4 lbs already! The baby is still head-down and now starting to move farther into the pelvic bone area. It's hard to make out much in the ultrasounds anymore because the baby is so big. Based on the head size, the doctor thinks Peanut will be around 6-7 lbs, which is perfect for me!

After work today, Kim and I decided it was time to hit the pool. Thanks to my friend Myleen who loaned me a suit that fits, it was time to see if Peanut enjoyed swimming laps. We got in the water and started swimming and I felt like a normal person again - couldn't tell I had a big belly on me cause I floated about the same. My goal was to do 4 50's and then a 50 of kicking with a kickboard. Well, I felt so good I kept going at the end of my first 50... 100 here we go!! But when I got to the 75, I felt a small cramp in my abdominal area. I decided not to push it, so I stopped at the wall. I guess that was a good thing because it got worse. A LOT worse. I was basically buckled over hanging off the wall waiting for it to pass. It took quite a while - like 2 minutes (which when you are just floating by a wall seems like a very long time.) I was finally able to swim my last 25 back to the starting wall. I rested a little and then decided I needed to stick a little closer to my original game plan. So I swam 3 more 50's, then kicked for 2 50's, then swam another 2 or 3 50's. I was so happy to get that exercise!! And Peanut did just fine. The fun part was then getting out of the pool with this big belly. I quickly realized I wasn't able to pull myself up the side (cause I tried and wound up back in the water). So I had to cut over 2 lanes and use the ladder. How funny is that!!! But I'm excited to have another form of exercise that seems to work well with Peanut, so we'll be doing that once a week.

Save My Back!

Well, I thought Peanut and I had an appointment today, but apparently when we scheduled our "every other week appointments", the girl didn't count right, so Peanut will be checked out next week. I decided to take the opportunity to go see another "doctor". I call him my own personal miracle worker. His name is Noel and Kim found him a few years ago. He's about the only person that seems to be able get my hips inline to relieve pain.

So today I went to see Noel. He said my hips were badly out of whack (which I assumed since I had such bad pains lately in my tail bone area.) My arsenal of tricks to realign my hips myself have been failing, and getting out of the floor positions apparently makes me look like an 80 year old woman that fell and is trying to get back up. (Graphical description courtesy of my husband!)

Noel worked on me for about an hour. He did what he could, but you know, there's a baby in the way so he can't exactly get to all the muscles he wants. He said he's hoping the hips will stay put, but at this point in the pregnancy there is no guarantee. Tonight I am finally home from work and icing my back. I'm hoping everything stays somewhat straight, but I have the feeling I'll be visiting Noel in another couple of weeks. We'll see. All I know is that I now look more like a 50 year old woman getting up after falling! :)

30 Week Show and Tell

Finally, we have some more pictures. Words can get so boring... :) So, here is the 30 week baby belly, and oh yea, the new hair. (Although I have to confess, this was actually one of those bad hair days.) Enjoy!


p.s. 2 days after these pics were taken I removed the belly ring.

Peanut is Still On Track

Today started our last trimester appointments, so we'll be seeing Dr. Plimpton every other week. Peanut is doing great. The baby has turned head down. I thought that was great - no breech, but Dr. Plimpton said the baby has room to turn back if it wants, so we'll just keep waiting to see.

Peanut is 2lbs 14 oz and is on track to be a 7.5 lb baby if we actually do deliver around May 20. So now I'm hoping for maybe May 7 or so. That should give us a 6 lb Peanut, right!?!?!? :)

I've gained 15 lbs so far with the pregnancy. This visit we asked more questions, like about circumcision if we have a boy. We talked about the Braxton-Hicks contractions I was having and if they were a sign of problems. (BTW, I have a great doctor. He said that throwing someone on bedrest isn't the best thing all the time, so he wouldn't have done it anyway unless the contractions didn't stop on their own.) We also talked about C-section for just in case - I wanted to make sure I had a good stitcher for a doctor! :) My glucose tolerance test came back normal, so no problems with gestational diabetes. We're looking good. Doc said I didn't even need him. I told him I needed him to catch. :)

The Buzz

I've done what is expected of every new mom... I chopped my hair. Call it a whim, call it "something to do", call it "wanting to have a very easy do for when I don't have time to really put in the effort", or call it "this is what happens when you come back from vacation".

I seem to change my hairstyle about every 6-8 months anyway, so this really doesn't seem like a huge thing. But it is a bit shorter than I'm used to wearing.

Here's my thinking... Kim and I just got back from a short vacation in Hawaii. We were there for a wedding. Well, the humidity in Hawaii makes it so I can't do much with my hair. It just curls the way it wants to go at the bottom, and the top just sags. Ugh! But, I managed to spend about 5 minutes or so a day on it and make it look relatively cute. When we got back home, I was spending a good 15 minutes or so a day on my hair only to find it just looked "okay". Granted, it was time for a haircut, so that didn't help. I decided that if I could spend 5 minutes a day and most of the time it looked cute, that would be a good thing. I mean think about it - you spend 15 minutes and you don't like your hair, what a waste. But you spend 5 and you don't like your hair, you just say "oh well - what do you expect when you only spend 5 minutes on your hair!".

All I know is now my husband now looks at my hair and calls me "fiesty". :)

The Baby Business - Part II

Last night, someone reminded me that I never did finish my story about the baby business since at the time of the posting, we hadn't visited the other hospital, St. Joe's. Last Sunday, Kim and I went to St. Joe's. This hospital actually approached the baby business a little differently. We weren't wined and dined (ie. no cookies and refreshments), there were no "gifts" (ie we didn't get a goody bag), and the "tour" only lasted an hour as opposed to two. Maybe it's because St. Joe's is so much bigger and they need to "advertise" their baby business because people just go there. Regardless of the reason, it was not a similar tour.

The information presented was roughly the same, although John C. Lincoln definitely went into more detail about, well, about everything. I was glad we had gone to the John C. Lincoln tour first because I felt it was better organized. St. Joe's took us through trama, surgery, all the bad things that could happen, and then oh yea, if you have a normal birth, this is what you can expect.

When we were done with the tour, we realized that both places had different nice-points and it was pretty much a toss-up as to where to deliver. That being said, it took us a few days but we have decided to deliver at St. Joe's. The main reason was because of the carpool lanes. Sound odd? Well, no knowing when in the world our little Peanut will decide to grace us with his or her presence, we wanted to know that we wouldn't be stuck in traffic regardless of the time of day. The drive to John C. Lincoln would take mostly highway, but that highway is mostly a parking lot both in the morning and at night (it doesn't seem to matter which direction you are going). And there are no carpool lanes. The drive to St. Joe's is also mostly highway, but only one stretch of the way is a slow-moving mess in the mornings only, but it *does* have a carpool lane. So, that was our main deciding factor.

That being said, St. Joe's offers lots of classes as well which both Kim and I will be attending. The first class will be Kim's and it will be in March - Daddy Boot Camp. Our next class will be an all-day birthing class in April. Oh boy - can't wait for that! While we could attend similar classes at a hospital closer to our home, I thought it might be good to be more familiar with the St. Joe's campus so that when everything is a blur, we will feel a little more comfortable. So, let the driving begin!

In the Home Stretch

While it's hard to say exactly when your third trimester starts, I believe we are there. "What to Expect When you are Expecting" says week 27 starts it. We are at the end of our 27th week, so I'm gonna say we are in the home stretch.

The baby is doing great, but I think this child is going to be just like me. My mom said I really didn't sleep much as a baby, and I think little Peanut is going to be similar. From what I've read, by this time in the development you can tell sleep patterns in the baby. Well, the sleep pattern that I'm noticing is basically AWAKE ALL THE TIME!!! So don't be surprised if Kim and I look like death warmed over for the next two years. ;)

On another note, I think I have found that my problem with the Braxton-Hicks was due to hydration. I've been on a couple of walks since, one with water and one without, and there was definitely a difference. So I'm working more on electrolyte balance than more water in-take since I'm drinking (and peeing) like a fish. (Do fish pee?)

Hydration, Stress, or Just Too Much?

Last Saturday I had my first "scare" in the pregnancy. After being on the go for most of the day, Kim and I took Bagheera on a little hike. We were out for about an hour, then came home, made dinner, and were sitting down to a movie. I was getting Braxton-Hicks contractions. Not a big deal, as the doctor had told me that would happen every now and then. But I realized that I was getting an awful lot of them. Then I realized they were coming very periodically, about 12 minute apart. Now, I knew I wasn't going into labor or anything (they definitely weren't strong enough to birth a child!), but I was a little worried that this might be a sign of premature labor tendencies. I got nervous...

Sunday I thought I was taking it easy, however I wound up with more B-H contractions. These weren't so close together, but still quite a few of them. I was nervous that I would wind up on bed-rest, and I would surely kill someone if that happened...

Kim and I started researching the B-H contractions. We found that dehydration can be a cause of them. Maybe I hadn't had enough water on Saturday? Maybe my very stressful week that I had just ended at work was taking more of a toll on me than I thought? Maybe I had to change my life habits for the rest of my pregnancy and be a bit more lethargic?? Yikes!

Kim and I decided to test a few things out. First, I started resting more - like hanging out in the living room and reading magazines instead of finding things to do around the house. Next, I told my boss that I was going to try to keep my stress levels down a little more. (Yea, we'll see if anything changes there. I'm not very good at letting things slide.) And finally, I decided that not only would I have to drink more water, but I may have to drink something like Gatorade or the likes as well since my body was being so weird about the hydration.

So, after a week of trying these things, I have found that the B-H contractions are decreased and back to what the doctor described - once in a while. I still haven't figured out the exact cause, but I'll be monitoring a little more closely what I drink and stress about. And maybe I'll actually sit and read a few more nights out of the week while my wonderful husband cooks dinner. :)

The Baby Business

Since Kim and I picked a doctor that is nowhere near our house, we also have to choose a hospital to deliver at which is nowhere near our house. Our doctor delivers at John C. Lincoln, St. Joe's, and Good Sam (for those who live in the area). Kim and I have decided to tour the birthing centers for John C. Lincoln and St. Joe's. Well, our first tour was this past week at John C. Lincoln. To us, it looked pretty much like a hospital, but they took us through lots of information, like how private the rooms were, to how security worked, to what to pack for mom and baby. We also got a few free gifts. It's very interesting when you are "looking" for a hospital how the baby business is approached. There was nothing wrong with John C. Lincoln - in fact I liked it a lot and am swaying towards it without even touring St. Joe's, although I'm interested now to see how St. Joe's will approach the same "tour". Kim and I just figured there is some good money to be made on birthing babies these days.

Great Leg!

Yesterday was Peanut's 25-week appointment. Nothing very exciting happened in this visit really. The baby is moving like crazy these days and I got the talk about feeling the baby move every day throughout the third trimester, which "officially" starts the end of February. We found from the ultrasound that Peanut is "swimming" in the fetal position. It was quite impressive to see a hand right next to a foot during one of the angles. (I just assumed that's because mommy likes touching her toes every morning, so Peanut is following suit!) We also got a great profile of a leg during this visit. Now, I have to say, if you've ever looked closely at my legs and Kim's legs, they are shaped distinctly different. This ultrasound was a very nice looking leg, so I'm assuming it's Kim's. After discussion, Kim decided that he wished his legs only on a boy. :) I guess we'll find out if we're going to have a husky legged boy or girl come the end of May, but at least we know that whichever sex, Peanut has good lookin' legs!!