38 weeks

I’m sure the whole dress over jeans thing probably isn’t in style anymore, but I had nothing left to wear and we were already running late to church so I had to make a decision.

Our associate pastor was talking about pregnancy this morning… he was like, “How many of you women would say being pregnant was the best year of your life? Probably not many. First you’re sick. Then you feel kind of OK for a month and then the last trimester comes. My wife was getting kicked in the ribs all the time and could hardly sleep. She would cry and say, ‘I feel like a fat cow and nothing fits.'”

I realize that I’ve not gotten as huge as some people, but I still feel huge and uncomfortable. I have never weighed this much in my whole life. It’s hard work getting up out of bed, off the couch and just moving around in general.

I’m just ready to have this baby be on the outside of me. Maybe it will happen… Stephen’s fortune cookie today said, “You’ll be able to handle whatever comes your way this week.”

Complaining…

She kicked and moved ALL night long last night. My ribs and pelvis are so, so sore. And she’s still going at it.

I woke up feeling nauseaus this morning and don’t have much of an appetite today.

I know I only have two weeks left till the due date, but I am ready to be done already!

Preggomotional

It feels like every time I walk out of an OB appointment I have the craziest pot of mixed emotions boiling up inside of me.

Today was no exception.

Yesterday when we had our appointment with our midwife she told me that she really wanted me to get copies of all my labs from the pregnancy. I need to have them on hand in case we have to transfer because there are four other hospitals that are much closer to me than the hospital my OB has rights at.

While I am a bit of an introvert, I am usually a pretty confident person who isn’t hesitant to share an opinion (as evidenced on more than one occasion on this blog). Except when it comes to the doctor. At the doctor’s office I am always reduced to a trembling mess. So even though I knew this needed to be done I began working up the whole senario in my head. I was totally freaking out about it, mind racing on every possibility (which didn’t help with the trembling mess situation one bit).

After getting weighed, poked and prodded by the nurse I made my way into the examination room where I had to strip down below the waist and wait under a paper sheet. This also didn’t help with the trembling mess that I was becoming.

My OB comes in and asks how I’m doing and if I have any news for him. I say I’m doing great. He then point blank asks me where we are going to deliver. I fess up. I say, “We’re going to have her at home.” He then proceeded to make sure I knew the risks associated with my choice and all about how he performed two emergency c-sections this week. I nod my head about a billion times through his speech to signal that I understand his concerns.

Well, with that out of the way I let him know that I’m going to need copies of all my labs today in case we do have to transfer. He says that it is no problem and I just need to fill out a form with the receptionist. Then he measures me and uses the doppler for the heartbeat. Everything is all good.

Then I get the lovely “check” and OH MY GOSH did it hurt like heck! I am currently 1 cm dilated, 30% effaced and she’s at -2 station, just in case any of you are wondering.

After that he says, “We don’t want this baby to get much bigger. She’s about 6 lbs according to the ultrasound.”

He says he’ll see me in a week and gives me a hug before walking out the door (not weird, he usually gives me and even Stephen a hug at the end of our appointments). The receptionist is all ready with my appointment set up when I get out and a few minutes later I have a stack of labs in my hand.

So I feel like all weird now that I’ve had a little time to process everything.

Getting the labs was the easiest part of the appointment… why did I build it up so much in my head?

First thoughts regarding the “bigger” comment… a) that’s a pretty good thing to hear for someone that was sick most of the pregnancy and was afraid of the baby growing at all, and b) you are not going scare me into a c-section or induce me early because the baby is “too big” for me to birth, buddy.

He really thinks I’m making a dangerous choice, yet unlike most OB’s I’ve heard of that are anti-homebirth I still have an appointment with him next week and he gave me a hug at the end of the appointment. He didn’t even storm out of the room!

Well, I guess I got what I wanted. I just feel weird.

37 weeks and nursery stuff

This is my belly at 37 weeks:

So tired of being pregnant today. Belly was getting in the way when I was trying to do stuff. I could barely waddle around the stores we had to go to today.

Had some mild low cramping after our shopping expedition. Stephen freaked out about it and made me call our midwife. She basically said it could be nothing or it could turn into something and to go home, rest and drink plenty of water. The cramp went away about 2 minutes after I got off the phone with her. I laid down for an hour, drank a bottle of water and felt fine.

Kind of is surreal to me that this little girl could show up any time at this point.

Anyway, we made a little more progress on her room this weekend. We got the closet system installed, I bought a bunch of baskets from World Market and filled them with all her stuff. I can’t believe such a small person has so much stuff!

These baskets will go in the changing table that Stephen’s sister is giving us. They’re filled with all kinds of diapering goodies already:

This is the closet system with all the baskets and clothes in:

Next weekend we’re going to get the chair rail done and set up the crib. Well, you know, provided I don’t go into labor early or anything.

Health update

Last night we had another midwife appointment and today we had an ultrasound. So lots to talk about!

At my last OB appointment he agreed that it would be a good idea for me to have a late pregnancy ultrasound. The ultrasound tech was unable to find a goiter. (Yay!) The baby is also still a girl. We got a couple pictures, but they aren’t very good because she’s getting so big that she’s kind of just smashed in there. I can’t scan them either because our printer/scanner/etc is not working and we still haven’t replaced it.

The ultrasound showed she weight 5 1/2 lbs right now, but ultrasounds late in pregnancy to determine the weight of the baby are not that accurate. She was also measuring a week behind according to the ultrasound, but again it is based on averages (Stephen and I are not exactly huge so our baby will probably be on the small end anyway) and they aren’t that accurate at this point. The baby is “sunny side up” or posterior. The baby scored 8/8 on the biophysical because the ultrasound tech witnessed hiccuping, plenty of fetal movement, fetal breathing, and I forget what else made up the points scale. So all around a healthy baby.

Last night at my midwife appointment she confirmed that the baby has dropped a bit like I thought. She said that the baby’s head definitely felt lower than it did last week. When she measured my belly it also measured a little smaller, another sign of the drop. She said that the baby isn’t completely “engaged” yet though (which is good because we want her to turn anterior before that happens). She said in first time moms the baby tends to “drop” about 2-3 weeks prior to the birth. I also finally weighed 2lbs above my pre-pregnancy weight which means I gained 2 1/2 lbs since last week. That’s just crazy to me because I even threw up once last week.

So anyway, everything is good.

Some nursery items

First of all thank God for sisters and communication.

Saturday Stephen’s dad came over in the morning so they could practice for children’s worship on Sunday. Well all that music playing sort of got Stephen in this music tunnel. He decided he wanted to add more songs to his iPod and make sure all the songs were at the same sound level. I was annoyed. Four weeks till the baby is here and there was tons to do!

Then he said he was planning on finishing up the painting and puttying on the entertainment center. We had already went ahead and moved a bunch of stuff into there even though the painting wasn’t done. We had to do this because my sister came to get our office furniture and that was the only place to put everything.

My crazy nesting-ness really could care less about the cosmetics of the entertainment center at this point. Stephen wanted to finish the first project we had started though. And he wanted to mess with his music.

My hormonal self could not handle anything condradictory to my plan and I broke down in tears. It was kind of silly. I was admittedly being a little crazy.

But like I said, thank God for communication. We made a list of everything that needed to be done and I got to rank their priority. We went to Target to get some organization bins for under the entertainment center so we could finish getting everything out of the office. We went through a bunch of junk. We found homes for it and threw a bunch of stuff away.

It felt good to make so much progress.

Sunday my sister, Andrea, came over and we started painting the office to make it into a nursery (finally!). We’re pretty much done except for the chair rail and a few touchups.

I think if she hadn’t come over we probably would have wound up just watching the Olympics for the rest of the day. And I would have felt even more flustered.

Something about my sister coming over just really helped get things moving. Today Stephen called me up to let me know I could go buy a closet organization system for the nursery. So I went ahead and took care of that this morning. We’ll get that installed this week.

I’m getting started on all the laundry that I need to get done too.

Last week when I went shopping for all the items we still needed to get, I changed my mind on the bedding again (I already went from sea life to pink and brown stripes). They didn’t have the most recent bedding I had picked out actually in the stores at Target or Babies R Us. I saw this stuff and could not resist, plus it still matched the color scheme and it was cheaper.

So that resulted in a change of plans for the mobile. I found this pattern for a little stuffed bird and got to work.

My birds are little more goofy looking than the one from the pattern, but I like them.

So that’s what’s been going on around here.

36 weeks

She’s definitely dropped a little. We did some shopping today and there was so much weight and pressure on my pelvis.

My stripe idea for the nursery is a flop. Our walls are far too textured for it to work properly. The tape just can’t stop the paint from bleeding. Plus it kind of looks like a circus tent. So we’ve narrowed it down to the lighter brown and pink for above and below the chair rail. We’re going to try and get it done tomorrow.

Following directions = success!

My attempt at making a diaper bag was a complete and total success!

I credit this to the fact that I didn’t deviate from the instructions, even the ones that I felt like were a little reduntant (i.e. sewing the same seam 2-3 times).

Just take a look and I think you’ll agree:

A diaper bag attempt begins…

Today I took all my gift cards to Target and Babies ‘R Us to purchase all the items that we still needed.

One of the items I still needed was a diaper bag. I did not get my dream diaper bag (which at $158 I definitely did not expect to).

I looked at the ones they had available at both stores. I’m sorry, but they are just ugly. They’re huge and industrial looking. I couldn’t find a single one that I liked even remotely. I thought about going to JM’s, but I had already been there a few weeks ago and knew the prices were not what I was willing to spend even though they do have cute bags.

So I decided to head over to Beverly’s and see if I could find some fabric and maybe a pattern to make one myself. Well, I found a pattern pretty quickly:

And I was able to find some fabric and vinyl too:

The pattern has instructions for a changing pad, diaper bag, tummy time pillow (basically a Boppy with toys attached), bib, and a pacifier holder. I’m just going to attempt the diaper bag and the changing pad for now.

I really hope these turn out well. My previous attempts at sewing have definitely left something to be desired. But since this is one size and I’m holding myself to following the pattern very closely I hope I can pull it off.

I took 4 years of 4-H sewing for gosh sakes, I should be able to do this.

Also in other pregnancy news, since Saturday I’ve been getting tons of Braxton Hicks contractions. I even had to sit down in the fabric store for 15 minutes today because my stomach was so tight it made it hard to breathe. It doesn’t really hurt though, just a reminder that I need to not overdo myself, drink lots of water and take rests.

One for cake wrecks… how appropriate for my shower

*Just from the outset I should point out that I have permission from my MIL and mom to make fun of this cake. No feelings will be hurt. I am not the pregnant version of “bridezilla”.

If you don’t know, one of my favorite blogs to read right now is Cake Wrecks. The awful cakes and the commentary are so hilarious. You really ought to head on over there to check it out.

My MIL, my mom and my friend Erin all got together to throw me a baby shower at our church. It was really nice and they all did a great job. I got so many great gifts.

I believe my MIL ordered the shower cake from Costco. She wasn’t into the preset stork design that they offered for baby shower cakes though. So instead she decided to get a little creative. She took a picture of this stuffed baby rattle thing that was going to be incorporated into one of the center pieces and asked them to recreate it on the cake:

This is what they came up with:

Gotta love some hot pink baby!

Now one of the things about Cake Wrecks that she always points out is the misplaced use of quotation marks. In this case, it does kind of make sense though. See the shower was the day before my birthday. My MIL figured there would be plenty of cake leftover after the shower and that she could get double use out of it at the little family birthday party that was held that night. So birth is in quotes I guess to sort of alude to my birthday and the fact that we were celebrating the impending birth of my child.

Oh well. The cake was actually great tasting. My favorite was the strawberry cream filling. I could live off that stuff.

Needless to say with all this weekend’s festivities it was not a good time to be tracking my diet for our natural childbirth class.