Let The Coundown Begin!

I just noticed on my ticker this morning that I'm in the single digits - 9 days until my due date!!! I really hate this waiting stuff. Although at this point I'm glad it looks like I'll make it to May... I'll be a May mommy after all! Jeff will be glad he doesn't have to buy me a diamond - only an emerald! haha.

Although, if life wants to make things complicated for us, today would be a "great" day for me to go into labor... Because it would be the ultimate in inconvenience! Jeff doesn't have a car today - he went to work with a friend because he's going to a Texas Rangers baseball game with a bunch of friends this evening. So if at any point I go into labor today, I'm on my own until we can figure out someone to go pick Jeff up downtown (or in Arlington at the ballpark) and bring him to me!

Of course I know that's not going to happen, because I want it to! haha. I'm so ready to have this baby, and have my body back! My belly has been very itchy the last couple days - it looks horrible with all the stretch marks I have. It's not a happy camper. I'm thinking about taking a bath today, that sounds nice and relaxing. My next appointment is tomorrow morning, I hope my doctor's intuition was right but at this point, I'm certainly not feeling like I'm on the verge of delivery or anything!

38 Week Picture

Here is 38 weeks! When I look at the 37 and 38 week pictures side by side, Baby has definitely "dropped!" Woohoo!!!



I hope this is our week! My family has decided Thursday would be great. HA!

38 Weeks!

Wow, I'm 38 Weeks today!! I can't believe it. Time is running out!

I had a checkup this afternoon as a follow up to some possible amniotic fluid leakage problems earlier this week. The test came back negative again, so that's good! I'm still 2 cm, 50% effaced. He said the baby's head was pressing down pretty hard today. (whatever that means!) He told me in case something happens this weekend, he's not the on-call OB, but he talked to the on-call OB about me, and said if I go into labor, he wants a call so he can come in to be with me. I was pretty happy about that! But he said that his "doctor's intuition" tells him that my time is the end of next week. So we'll see!!!

Real Nesting?

I woke up at 3 am last night, wide awake. Jeff was sleeping in the guest room because his throat hurts and he thinks he's coming down with something. I watched TV for about 10 minutes, got bored, so I got up and started cleaning our room. Anyone who knows me knowing this is NOT my idea of a good time. Top to bottom, I cleaned up, dug through all my maternity clothes, sorted them out into piles of who I'd borrowed from, bagged up the borrowed clothes, wrote thank you notes for the borrowing, etc etc etc. Worked until 5 am then went back to bed! So I'm wondering if that was REAL nesting! There was nothing forced about it, I just felt compelled to do it. Hopefully that means Baby is just around the corner. :)

Today's Appointment

Another week, another doctor appointment. It went well! The baby looked good once again on the NST, but we did need to use the buzzer. Apparently it was NoahKate's naptime!

My doctor asked me what our baby names were, and he liked Kate a lot - he said his wife's name is Kate! :) I'm 2 cm and 50% effaced. He said that I could go into labor at any minute... Or it could be two weeks. He said it's just a matter of whether my body is going to kick in and do it, or make us wait. So we'll see! In the mean time, I think I might start training for a marathon... haha

That's about all I've got today. Last night wasn't good, I didn't sleep well and was having some swelling, dizzines, and headache issues. I was up until 2 unable to sleep, but I'm doing a bit better today.

Forced Nesting

I'm nesting today. I really don't think there's any huge hormonal or biological push making me do it... Just the knowledge that at this point, the pregnancy is finite and I want to bring my baby home to a cleaner house than we're living in now. Plus, it's just weird beginning a week without a job for the first time in 4 years, 6 really if you count the "work" I did in college. At this point, for now, my home is my job.

The week started with a bang... Bailey and I woke up to see Jeff off to work, and then settled back into sleep after he was gone. An hour or two later, we are JOLTED awake by the smoke alarm going off! Bailey jumped up from under the covers and ran straight to me, I was sitting up and trying to get out of bed as quickly as possible without hurting myself, then BAM a charlie horse hits! Nice. So first priority was stretching that thing out, and the alarm stopped a few seconds later. I never figured out why it went off, but there was certainly no going back to bed after that!

The weather through Wednesday is supposed to be nice and warm, in the middle 80's, but it's very cloudy this morning. I'm hoping it clears up a bit this afternoon so I can go down to the pool! I went on Saturday but the water was FREEZING! Way too cold to get in. I'd love to have a swim and get all this weight off my joints. Hopefully these next few days will warm up the water a bit and allow me to get in. :)

A few weeks ago I mentioned my 3 black dresses that people had better get used to because they were so dang comfortable. Well, I wore one yesterday! I had Jeff snap a picture so we could remember it forever. haha.

Jeff's Fortune

Jeff and I met my parents for lunch today after church at PF Changs. After the meal (YUM!) they brought out fortune cookies, of course. Jeff's fortune read:

"Good news of long-awaited event will arrive soon."

I sure hope so!! Now let's just define "soon" ....

Here is my 37 week picture. I'm getting bigger all the time!




My poor belly is completely covered in stretch marks now. What no one ever told me about stretch marks is that they HURT!!!! Badly! If anything rubs against or scratches my lower belly (where most of them are located) it's serioiusly painful. And after a shower, they burn for a while. Not fun. My poor belly wants a break!

My acid reflux has also been worse than ever lately. The other night I woke up having involuntarily thrown up in my mouth... Fun stuff let me tell you. Supposedly reflux is supposed to get better when the baby drops, so I hope that happens soon!

37 Weeks

We made it to 37 Weeks!!!! Wonderful! It's nice to know that we have a full-term baby on our hands now. I had a doctor appointment this morning, and once again not much to report! The baby looked great (for once) on the non-stress test. They didn't even have to buzz NoahKate! My doctor seems a lot less concerned, both now that the baby is looking better and that I'm 37 weeks. He seems to think we could go closer to term now. Oh well! I think the whole "false alarm" of a possible imminent birth over the last week or two was due to several factors, but the main one being that the baby just wasn't responding well to stimulation... And at some point they were wondering if they were just going to have to make an executive decision and decide the baby was better off out in the world than inside. But now that everything is looking better, we're more able to wait it out and let things happen naturally. So that's great!

Instead of 3 appointments per week, they only want to see me twice next week! haha. They do want to run a blood sugar test on me... Apparently for the last several weeks I've had too much sugar coming out, so they're somewhat concerned about my levels. Jeff says I'm eating too much fruit. (It consists of about half my diet! I just crave it constantly!) So I'm going to concentrate on getting more protein this weekend.

In the back of my mind, I'm trying to figure out what I want to do for my next job. If I ever want to change things up, now's the time. Unfortunately, the DFW area is a sinkhole when it comes to Meteorology jobs... They just don't exist here. And I enjoyed my recent job as an Environmental Scientist enough, but I'm just trying to decide if I want to attempt to do the exact same thing somewhere else, or get creative with my degree and experience once again. I did find one interesting job posting - the Dallas Independent School District is hiring people to be math and/or science teachers, with no teaching experience or certification required. They'll hire you first, then put you through the necessary training. That might be an interesting path to follow... Never thought I'd be a teacher though. I don't know if I'm assertive enough!

Yesterday's Appointment

Sorry I haven't updated in several days. It's been busy!

Yesterday was my last day at work. So I was busy with meetings, packing up, and leaving. Plus I had a doctor appointment. On to that...

Really a whole lot of nothing to report. No weight gain in 2 weeks! Woohoo! Baby is lazy as usual, they had to use the buzzer to get a good heart accel, but once they used it, it was fine. He didn't check my cervix, he didn't think it was necessary at this point. The ultrasound looked good, fluid levels were still looking good, so that's great. Baby is hovering right around 6 pounds. We've got a lightweight on our hands! Although extrapolating 3 weeks out to the due date, that would be about 7.5 pounds at delivery. He said the baby is looking "great." And the longer we go, the better. That being said, he wants to see me again on Friday. So I guess I'm having 3x a week appointments until Baby comes!

36 Week Appointment

Not much to report! There won't be a baby today or tomorrow, that we know of!

My doctor seemed surprised by the amount my cervix had effaced, but I'm not dilated any further. He still thinks I won't be pregnant long, but wants to get every day out of the baby that we can. He said based on my ultrasound from last Thursday, some evaluation of the placenta (I won't pretend I understand it) indicated that if the baby had been born that day, it would have had pulmonary issues. However, that was before the steroid shots had been in my system 48 hours, so hopefully we're in better shape today. He set up another ultrasound for Wednesday to check on fluid levels (make sure they're still down) and check out the placenta. After that, we're just taking it appointment by appointment.

That's all I've got for today, I'm off to take a nap!

As if I needed more stress in my life...

I got word this morning (via email of all things, when my boss is sitting in his office 20 feet from me) that as of Friday, I no longer have a job. What great timing. Especially considering that he had verbally assured me SEVERAL times through the pregnancy that I'd have full time work from home after my maternity leave.

It just makes me mad. Now instead of enjoying the first few weeks of my baby's life, it will be spent job hunting and having Nana come over to babysit while I go out for job interviews and daycare hunting. I know daycare isn't the end of the world and SO many people do it, but it's not what we were planning on. I wanted to be home with my baby, yet working at the same time. I'm not going to find that situation again.

I wish this baby would come ASAP so I can just get the heck out of here and be distracted by my new little one. So, just be praying for us. This comes as a huge mental and financial shock, and we don't have much time before I'll need to be doing something else for work.

I had a sort of exciting night last night... I woke up at 1:50 to a contraction, and got sort of excited, but of course tried not to get my hopes up and laid there waiting for the next one. 5 minutes later, I had another. 5 minutes later, another. After half hour of timing them, I was getting excited, they were coming regularly every 5-6 minutes but I didn't know what to do, so I just laid there for another half hour. Even my lower back was getting in on the action, it would HURT when a contraction rolled around! But the contraction itself didn't hurt, I'd describe it more as uncomfortable, once again the crampy "ugh" feeling. So after an hour I was too bored/excited to keep laying there in bed, so I decided to get up and get on the computer or something to kill time. They kept coming for about 30 more minutes, but as we approached 2 hours, they started to die off and just turn into regular BH. Boo. So I went back to bed.

Nothing to report this morning, still semi-frequent BH but that's nothing new for me!

I can't wait for my Dr appt this afternoon!

36 Week Picture

Here is my "official" 36 week picture, and a few others I had my Dad snap of me last night. I really am looking big, aren't I??? :)








Jeff and I are going out to dinner tonight. We've had countless people tell us to enjoy the last days/weeks, and go out to eat and spend time alone. So that's what we're going to do! I wouldn't mind stopping in at Target while we're out, and wandering down the baby aisle to see if there's anything we're forgetting that we'll need at the house when Baby comes home. After that, we're going to stop at Kroger to pick up some groceries for the upcoming week. I'm craving some yummy fresh fruit, as usual! Pineapple and Canteloupe sound particularly good.

No labor news today! Just playing the waiting game. I'll have occasional feelings of crampiness or twinges of pain, but nothing that stays or comes back at regular (or even semi-regular) intervals. At this point I'm just looking forward to my doctor appointment on Monday, so I'll have more news (hopefully) to report! Baby is being very active today, which I'm appreciative of, so that at least I know he/she's doing ok in there.

36 Weeks!

Praise the Lord, we have made it to 36 weeks! It's a comforting place to be. Of course things would be best if the baby could hang out another week or so, each day buys us more mature development... But a 36-weeker is hardly considered overly "early" anymore. So I feel like we can breathe.

My hips hurt a little bit from the steroid injections and I still have my 'roid sunburn, but other than that, no ill effects! And after 3 nights in a row of ~3 hours of sleep, I got a GREAT night's sleep last night. It felt so nice to be able to sleep again. I don't know what changed, but I'm not going to complain. I'll take the sleep whenever I can get it. My back didn't hurt as badly last night as it had been recently, so maybe I can attribute it to that.

In potential labor news... I lost my MP this morning. For those of you who don't know what that is, keep yourself blissfully ignorant, it's TMI anyway. But, for many women, when they lose their MP, labor is not too far off at all. I have one friend who went into labor 2 hours later, another friend who went into labor within a day or two. Then there's always those people who lose it 2 weeks before going into labor. So, to recap, it could be hours, days, or weeks! ha! How's that for "hurry up and wait!" I have a feeling that I still have days (or more) though, as contractions sure haven't started up and it's been almost 12 hours.

Finally Some Good News!

I had my follow-up Level II ultrasound with the Perinatologist this afternoon to check up on the baby and the polyhydramnios. Mom got to come with me because Jeff was unable to get off work. First of all, they hooked me up to a non-stress trest and the baby did great! Heart rate was resting in the 140s (wow! So relaxed!) and during activity, the heart rate jumped into the 160's, I think it reached 170 one briefly. So we got a few good accelerations! Wonderful! I'm wondering if it's because when the perinatologist tests me, I lay back in a HEAVENLY LaZBoy... That thing is wonderful. So comfortable. I feel like if I had one of those, I certainly could sleep! And anyway, when I have a non-stress test at my OB, I'm just laying back on a regular OB table and I almost always have a heart & breathing "episode." So I wonder if the baby is reacting to my internal stress when that happens? Not sure. Because both times we've had the NST at the Perinatologist, we've gotten great results. Interesting.

Anyway, the ultrasound went great. I asked the doctor if he could tell me my amniotic fluid "number" - he'd told me last week that I had excess fluid, but had never given me the official number. He said last week I was a 25... Which puts me at a mild case of polyhydramnios, and this week, I was a 20!!!! That brings me down into the normal range! And he said Baby is head down and partially engaged, and that I should have no fear of umbilical cord prolapse... He doesn't think the baby is going to move out of this position, and there's no way for the baby to even try anymore. So that is such a relief! I don't have to panic now if my water breaks! He said everything looks great and all we need to meet Baby is to get some contractions going.

So YAY for some good news for once!

It's Always Something...

I had an eventful evening and overnight.

I was in our office last evening and it started pouring. Our treadmill backs up to the window, so I stepped up on the treadmill to watch it rain for a while. As I turned to step down off, my ankle that I broke in 3rd grade decided that would be a good time to give out (which it does periodically), so I fell off the treadmill! Thankfully I landed on my hands and knees, but I did feel lots of pelvic pressure the rest of the night. The baby was moving normally, so I wasn't too concerned.

Once again I didn't fall asleep until about 2 am... I'm just so dang uncomfortable! Especially my back. Then I woke up at 4 am with some "real" contractions, I think! They weren't overly painful or anything, but definitely different from what I've been experiencing. They were starting out like a BH, but it spread downwards, while staying hard at the top too, then the last 5-10 seconds was a crampy "ugh" lower uterine feeling. They came every 7-10 minutes from 4-5 am, then I fell back asleep until 6, when I said screw it and got up. So, my grand total of 3 hours of sleep! I think I need to get used to it. That was the third night in a row. It's probably a combination of physical discomfort and mental over-activity.

THEN, I go into the bathroom, and am about to step in the shower when I notice that the front side of my body looks like I spent the night in a tanning bed! I look sunburned!

So I was supposed to just get my steroid shot this morning and not be seen by the doctor, but with all my stupid high-maintenance-ness, he wanted to see me. PLUS, when I got there, my blood pressure was skyrocketed... Whatever! They had me lay on my left side for a few minutes, and it came back down to where they wanted it to be. I'm not sure what that was all about. She asked me if I was nervous, and I wasn't... So I don't know.

He said the "sunburn" is probably a reaction to the steroids, and said that as long as it's not bothering me (it's not) we're best off continuing with the second shot, so we did. And he said I'm stable, not dilating anymore. As far as the contractions, my body is likely just gearing up and practicing. Fun stuff.

It's nice, he told me he's the on-call doctor for this weekend, and said "Now that doesn't give you permission to go into labor..." haha But if I do, he's the one who will be taking care of me, so that's comforting! He was making fun of me for falling off a stationary treadmill and told me that I'm not supposed to be performing acrobatics while pregnant! :) I really like him. He has a great sense of humor and makes me laugh. He likes to give me a hard time anyway because my pregnancy was so quiet and textbook until about a month or two ago, now I'm one of his most high-maintenance patients!

Steroid Shots

Today's appointment went well. The baby "passed" the non-stress test, not with flying colors, but good enough. They like to see 3 good sponaneous movement/heart accels, and we only got 2... But we didn't need to use the buzzer this time, so my Doctor was really happy with that. He said the baby is fine. He thinks that one reason we have a problem with the NST is because of my extra fluid - the baby has so much more swimming room than normal babies, so he/she can swim around, making it harder to track the heatbeat.

I'm still 1-2 cm dialated, which is good that I haven't progressed further since Monday!

At the last appointment and this one, I had sugar in my urine. They did a blood sugar test on me and it was low, so they said they weren't really concerned. But that sort of makes sense, an inability to process sugar goes hand in and with the polyhydramnios... I told them that before the last appointment I ate a fruit rollup and before this one I drank some Dr Pepper to wake the baby up and get it kicking, so they said that the sugar could just be spilling over for whatever reason.

At the end of my appointment, my Doctor says, "Well, I'd like to get another week to week and a half out of this pregnancy." I asked, "Meaning what, you think I'll go into labor?" And he said yes, he thinks there's a fair chance I could go into labor or my water could break soon! Yikes! So he said in case something happens in the next few days, he would want to try to slow the contractions or try to stop them, just for a few more days. If I can make it 1 more week he won't try to stop anything. And also just as a precaution he gave the ever-fun steroid shot to help the baby's lungs. I go in tomorrow for another one. He sent me home and told me to take it easy especially in these next few days, (the steroid should be in your system for a full 48 hours for optimal lung maturation) but he'll have no problem if we can get another week or so under our belts.

So.... Yikes! I'm really excited, but also trying to remember that this isn't a guarantee... I could still go all the way to 40 weeks theoretically, then I'd be upset! ha! That's all I know for now, we'll take it one day at a time! Looks like this could be an April baby though!

Appointment Update

We have one uncooperative baby on our hands!

Well first of all, as the nurse calls me back she says "Well, you're still pregnant, that's good!" ha! You think?

I'm down 1.5 pounds from a week ago! Woohoo! I was afraid of the crazy weight gain I'd been having. Maybe that means too that the amniotic fluid isn't increasing?? Because if the baby is supposed to gain 0.5 pounds a week, then that means I'm sort of down 2 pounds!

Anyway, they hooked me up to the non-stress test, and just the same as last week, baby didn't cooperate. Heart rate was pretty high, resting in the 160's, and baby wasn't kicking or moving around much. And when he/she did, the heart rate didn't jump like they want it to, it pretty much just sat there. I even ate a fruit rollup before the appointment to give it a little sugar high! Even the buzzer didn't get much response this time. The doctor seemed mildly concerned, but not to the point of immediate action. He wants to repeat the test in 48 hours, and said in the mean time, if I notice a decrease in baby's "normal" activity at home, load up on sugar, give the baby a bit to get active again, but if it still seems sluggish, to call him immediately. So far baby has been really active at home, so let's hope it stays that way. It just seems like as soon as I'm lying on that table at the doctor's office, baby just goes into stunned silence! Baby kicked like crazy the whole drive home. Figures.

I did make some progression over the weekend... I'm dialated 1-2 cm!

I think that's all we got out of this appointment. They're keeping a close eye on me... So that's good!

35 Week Picture

Here is 35 Weeks!



I feel like my face filled out a little bit this week. Boo. Over the weekend I was feeling a bit of on and off possible contractions (in addition to the nearly constant Braxton Hicks) but they never lasted long, nor formed a pattern. Starting to feel more and more pressure.

We got our carseat installed on Saturday! Yay! That was fun. It was very easy to do... Surprisingly easy. Thankfully Steve (our brother-in-law) showed Jeff how to do it when they were in town last month, so it was a breeze! It's fun to drive around, look in the backseat, and see the infant carrier sitting there! Bizarre.

Last night I stayed up late working on my iTunes Labor playlists! I have three different playlists going, dependent on my mood and mental status at the time. :) I have one playlist of calming and relaxing music, one of music that I like, but isn't quite calm yet isn't totally upbeat, and the one of really fun, energetic songs (for post-epidural, I'm sure!) I must have had too much stimulation last night or something, because it ended up being an awful night of sleep. I went to bed around 11 pm, but the last time I remember looking at the clock before I went to bed, it was 2 am. I finally did fall asleep, but didn't sleep particularly well, and had to get up at 6:00 this morning to get ready for my doctor appointment.

I was supposed to have a doctor appointment this morning, but when I got in, they told me that Dr. Rovner had been called out on emergency, and they didn't know when he'd be back in. So we made a tentative appointment for this afternoon, hopefully he's in by then. I'm anxious to get checked out!

35 Weeks!

Well here I am at 35 weeks! I still can't believe how quickly this is going. I think all the "excitement" and doctor appointments make things seem to go faster.

I'm hitting new levels of discomfort lately. Fun stuff. I can't imagine how much bigger I'm going to get in the next 5 weeks. Right now my most comfortable position is leaning over, on anything. A countertop, back of the couch, the bed, etc etc. I'm not sure why it feels so good, I guess because it takes away the downward pull on all my muscles and stuff. I'm starting to get minor back pain too. I love going to bed every night, it's the only time I'm truly comfortable!

One of the funniest things for me is seeing Jeff and me trade places in terms of our body temperature. This baby sure generates a lot of heat! I think next time I want to deliver in the middle of winter, so I'm nice and warm all throughout the cold season! I get SO HOT at night. For instance I woke up last night 3 times just drenched in sweat! We have 2 fans running in our room. In the mean time, I look over at Jeff and he has pulled an extra blanket over his side of the bed. HAHA! We have completely traded places. Hopefully I'll go back to normal after the baby is born. I hate being so hot and wet at night! It's gross! Either that or our A/C bill is going to skyrocket. :)

I told Jeff we had better get serious about packing our hospital bags this weekend. I KNOW I could very well (and probably will) go completely full term without a problem, but I just want to be prepared. I don't want my water to break or go into labor and feel completely panicked, like "I'm not ready for this..." It'll be a lot better for my mental health if we can just have a plan of action and have our bags ready to go. So if something does happen before we counted on, I'll at least be prepared.

Yesterday I did some reading up on polyhdramnios (extra amniotic fluid.) It seems that poly patients tend to deliver a bit early. And it turns out my friend in Houston had polyhydramnios with her son born a few months ago... Sure enough her water broke at 35 weeks and she had her baby boy! Thankfully he didn't even need a NICU stay! That gives me a lot of hope! Reading anything medical online is dangerous though, it's way too easy to scare yourself. Among poly patients, there is also a higher incidence of c-section delivery. Some of the reasons being umbilical cord prolapse, putting distress on the baby, early placenta abruption, and umbilical cord accidents in the womb because the baby has more room to move around, bringing the need for an emergency c-section. For the mother, increased bleeding and/or hemorrhaging is possible because of an over-stretched uterus. For that reason, sometimes they consider induction early, around 37 weeks or so.

So anyway, I guess just be praying for us. It would be great to keep the baby "cooking" for at least another 1-2 weeks, the longer the better. Also be praying for a complication-free delivery!

No Bedrest!

I had another doctor appointment this morning. The best news is, I'm not on bedrest! I think I'll sort of just self-impose some rules on myself and take it easy a bit though, but it's nice to not have any official restriction.

I got the results back from the fFN test from Monday, and it was negative! So that's good! It means that I have a low risk of going into labor in the next 7 days.

The doctor ran another fetal non-stress test, and Baby's heart rate was good, actually a little too lazy! It was resting in the 140's to lower 150's, and they like to see a good 20 bpm (or more) jump when the baby kicks. We were only getting readings of about 160 bpm when Baby would kick, which was somewhat infrequent. He/she was sleepy this morning! So my Dr came in with this buzzer and buzzed my belly... The baby sure reacted to that!! Scared the crap out of the poor thing!!! Heart rate went to 179 bpm!! My dr says they like to call it "stimulation" so they don't feel mean. ha!

Some other good news - I was DOWN a pound and a half since Monday! Woohoo! I'm sure it's just scale reader difference, but I was glad to not see an increase for once, especially in 3 days. :)

The most interesting news of all - on Monday, my cervix was long, hard, and closed. Today, he said that my cervix is soft and about a finger tip dialated!!! Yikes!

So we're keeping my appointment for Monday, he just wants to keep a close eye on me for the next little bit and see how it goes. So that's all I've got for now!

34 Week Ultrasound Photos

Here are baby's pictures from yesterday!

Cute little foot! (Actually it looks pretty big!)



Baby's profile. Look at that adorable nose!



Looking at Baby's face straight-on.



In other news, my first stretch marks appeared overnight, about 5 of them, over the lower half of my belly. I'm not amused.