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!