40 weeks.

And yes, I am still pregnant. Baby Girl has given me no signs that she's even remotely interested in coming out to meet us anytime soon.

*sigh*

So at my next appointment, which is next Wednesday (assuming she hasn't made an appearance by then), I'll have a non-stress test done to make sure all is well w/her, and we'll schedule an induction.

And the longer this goes, the more and more paranoid I am becoming about the actual birthing process. Maybe because she's just going to be that much bigger? I'm not sure why, exactly. But the paranoia is there nonetheless.

39 weeks.

I took this Thursday morning before we went to the hospital. Needless to say, I still look about the same right now. Not a great picture, but it gives you an idea of how much my belly has grown since the last photos I posted at around 30 weeks.



In other news, a red-shouldered hawk landed on the corner of our deck this morning, which was pretty neat. He was a big fella. I didn't have my camera handy, sadly.

I am not at the hospital. We did go there this morning, but are back home.

She flipped, and is now head-down.

And while I know that's ultimately the best thing for her and for me, I am so so disappointed right now.

Happy b-day to me!

So, I'm 31 today. That seems much older than 30.

Usually, I start building up to my birthday at least 2 weeks beforehand. This morning, I woke up and didn't even realize it was today.

Guess I have other stuff on the brain these days ;)

For those keeping track, I've not had any more contractions since Sunday evening.

Baby update

I'm just back from my final doctor's appointment this morning, and everything looks good!

I've been sporadically having some pretty intense lower back pain over the past few days... it'll roll in, hurt REALLY bad for anywhere from like 10-30 seconds, and then roll out. This was only happening like 1-2x a day at the most, so I wasn't overly concerned. Plus, I wasn't having any sort of abdominal pain to go along with it.

Same sort of pain woke me up in the middle of the night last night...scared the crap out of Jon. It's happened a couple of times this morning as well.

When I mentioned it to the doctor, she said it very well could be contractions, even though there's no abdominal pain with it. She said if it starts happening more than 5x in an hour, or if anything else obvious happens, like my water breaking or something, then I need to head to the hospital straightaway. Since she's breech, they don't want to mess around (and frankly, neither do I).

Keep your fingers crossed that Little Miss decides to stay put until next Thursday!

Do people just take leave of their senses when talking to a pregnant woman?

Sometimes, I really have to wonder.

Over the past couple of days at work, I have had various people:
-tell me I look miserable.
-tell me I look like I should have had the baby LAST week.
-ask me if I'm having twins.

*blink*

Really? How are any of these things OK to say?

I'm not miserable. Nor am I, compared to a LOT of 38-week pregnant women, that big. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, I had people telling me how good I looked and that I looked nowhere near as pregnant as I am.

Have I really deteriorated that much in the course of 2 weeks? I'd like to think I haven't, but I could be wrong.

Or it could just be that people feel like they can say whatever they like to a pregnant woman, and it's OK.

We are go for baby.

June 26.

9:00 am.

Hic!

The baby has the hiccups... it's making me giggle :) She's only had them a couple of times altogether, so it takes me a minute to figure out what's going on.

I'm thinking I'm going to go out on leave on June 23, assuming my section will still be scheduled for later that week. That means I won't go back to work until October 13... woohoo!

I'll be leaving work with a lot of things up in the air, though, which I'm not really excited about, but unfortunately, it's all out of my hands. The position I'm working in right now is cross-training, meaning it has the potential to become permanent, but at the moment, it's not. Chances are, if there's an option for it to become permanent, that will open up while I'm out on leave, so I'm not sure how I will handle that.

Additionally, the plan right now is for me to go part-time upon returning to work. But that may not be an option in the department I'm currently in due to already high staffing, even if I am full-time at that point. So that leaves me going back to my old position, which would allow me to be part-time w/o a problem, but I would be taking a pay cut.

Lots to think about, and all of it out of my hands. Oh well. No need to dwell on it...what happens, happens. I'll have bigger things to deal with here in the near future, even though they'll be in a much smaller package :)

The countdown is on!

We had an appointment yeseterday w/my regualar doc at my OB practice, and after discussing our options, we are going to go ahead and schedule a C-section for either June 26 or 27. If I go into labor before then, obviously, she'll be here when she gets here, but otherwise, Jon and I will have our baby girl by June 27!

In case you don't have a calendar handy, that's 2 weeks from today. Holy cow!

The doctor felt like that was a very reasonable option... she said at the point I am at now (37 weeks), 97% of babies are positioned where they are going to be for the rest of the pregnancy. In other words, there is only a 3% chance that she would flip at this point.

I was initially just going to schedule for my actual due date (July 3), but that didn't work, as our doc will be out of town from June 28-July 7. And I'm not trying to wait till after July 7 to have this baby :)

Baby showers!

I would have posted about this earlier, but a nasty head cold has beat me down. Summertime colds suck... summertime colds when you're 36 weeks pregnant suck even more.

Anyway, I had 2 baby showers last week! The first one was last Tuesday, given by the folks on my team at work. I knew they were going to throw one for me, but they really went above and beyond...it was really nice. We got lots of good loot and some Amex gift cheques as well. Can't gripe about that!

The second one was on Saturday...a big ol' shindig thrown by my aunts. We decided it would be easier to do one all-encompassing shower for both friends and family, so we had everyone over to my parents' house for a very casual BBQ. Jon and I were both SHOCKED at the amount of stuff people got us. Amazing. We have some seriously generous people in our lives...we're very lucky :) Here are a few photos from the event:





And here is the cake made by the incredibly talented Sara...it matches the bedding we picked out, and she did it all freehand!



From what I can tell, the baby is still head up, so no change there as of yet, anyway.

The verdict is in.

We have ourselves a perfectly healthy, active baby girl...

...who happens to be sitting on her butt with her head right up in the air. Yep, she's breech.

So what's next, you might be asking? At least that's what we were asking today at our appointment. Well, we have a couple of options...we can do nothing, and see if she decides to turn on her own, or we can try an external version. Basically, that consists of the doctor trying to manually turn the baby from the outside.

Right now, I'm leaning towards option #1 for a couple of reasons:
-Depending on who you ask (or what you read), the success rate ranges anywhere from about 35-58%.
-It's painful.
-It's not entirely risk-free (ie: it's possible it could send me into labor or cause issues w/the placenta and I'd have to have an emergency c-section).

She still has time to turn, and she apparently has plenty of fluid to work with in there. So I'm thinking to just let nature take its course, and what happens, happens. At the end of it all, we'll still have a baby.

We have an appointment next with my w/regular doctor (as opposed to one of the midwives we've been seeing) to discuss our options a little more at length.

In other news, she's weighing in right now at about 6 lb 4 oz, and has a head full of hair (which amazes me that they're able to tell that, but they can!). We did get some U/S pictures... none are particularly outstanding, but I'll try and scan in a couple of the better ones tomorrow.

Right way 'round or wrong side up?

That's the question of the moment.

At our doctor's appointment this past Thursday, Vicki (one of our fantastic midwives) tried to mash around on my belly to determine if the baby was head down, like she should be at this point. Well, the belly-mashing was a success, but she couldn't tell which way around the baby is. And I can't tell...she whacks at me from every which way, and I have no concept of what little parts are punching and/or kicking me.

So. That leaves us wondering if we have a rebellious little breech baby on our hands.

We'll find out next Thursday, as Vicki said we should go ahead and have another ultrasound, so we can see if we do in fact have a geographically challenged child, and if that's the case, figure out what we need to do about it. And I'm not going to turn down the chance for us to get a little sneaky-peak at her a few weeks before she gets here :D

Jon now has a feeling (and he actually told me this before we found out she could potentially be breech) that I'll be having a C-section. Pretty much EVERYONE, myself included, has a feeling that this child is going to show up before July 3. So we'll see what happens.

Our shower is next Saturday! Should be fun...friends and family, BBQ, and no shower games that no one wants to play anyway :)

Lack of sleep.

It's killing me.

I can't get comfortable, and I'm unable to sleep for more than 1.5-2 hrs at a stretch. I'm supposed to sleep on my side, and I wake up and my back is killing me, along with the leg I'm laying on. I sleep w/a pillow between my knees, and I try and prop up my belly on a pillow as well, but it doesn't seem to help.

This stinks.

I don't do well on low amounts of sleep...although I guess I should get used to it, huh?

Happy Mother's Day!

So it's not really Mother's Day for me this year, since I'm still a mother-to-be at this point (and hopefully for a few more weeks... I don't need any early arrivals!).

Jon told me earlier this week that he'd been racking his brain for the past few weeks trying to come up w/something to get me, but wasn't hitting on anything. And frankly, I couldn't think of anything either, aside from getting the nursery furniture put together. So that's what I told him :) The crib, bookshelf, and toybox (save the lid, which arrived w/a chunk broken off it...we're waiting on a new one to be shipped) are all together at this point. Just the changer/hutch are left!

I just kind of peer in the doorway sometimes... it's still really odd to me to have a pink room w/a crib in it :)

And why didn't someone tell me that I would be so freakin' EXHAUSTED during the 3rd trimester? It's light-years worse than the 1st 3 months. I fall asleep at the drop of a hat... and it's not just dozing. I'm OUT, sleeping hard. It's like this all the time, no matter how much sleep I get at night. *yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn*

I've been trying to stay off my feet more, when I can. I've been having weird tingliness in my thighs when I do a lot of walking (or lately, not even that much, really), which apparently is a result of the baby smooshing my sciatic nerve. It kind of feels like they're asleep when it happens... pins & needles-ish. Annoying more than anything, really.

I was doing the math last night, and unless she makes an early appearance, I have only 7.5 weeks of work left before I'll go out on leave! Holy cow... that's kind of snuck up on me :)

By request...preggo pictures.

This is me 1 day shy of 30 weeks. They're not the greatest quality, as I took them myself w/the computer. And I'd just gotten home from work, so I wasn't lookin' all cute.

Enjoy!

Second guessing.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm having second thoughts about the name we had picked out for the baby.

Leave it to me.

I still *like* it, but I'm just not *positive* that it's her name anymore. Am I insane?

So we've decided that we're going to have several names that we like, and when she's born -- when we SEE her -- that's when we'll know who she should be.

Again, I ask -- am I insane?

Baby update!

By some miracle, I actually PASSED my glucose test, as was confirmed yesterday at my appointment. Don't ask me how. Given my PCOS and pre-existing insulin resistance issues, I thought surely I would have to take the 3-hour follow up test, at the very least. But everything was fine! Amazing.

We were told everything else is in good order as well. The midwife tried to tell which way round the baby is in there, and she *thought* she was head down, with her butt kind of on my right-hand side, but she wasn't 100%. I have no concept of what's kicking or punching me.

I dreamed the other night that I couldn't remember what we'd decided to name her... so strange.

We're all signed up for our Birth and Baby classes up at Women's Hospital as well. Five weeks of classes starting on May 8. Jon is also going to be taking a Daddy Boot Camp class one Saturday next month.

I can't believe we only have ~11 weeks left! Let the panic set in... :)

Some general updates

The child has been doing some internal gymnastics today... either that or she's just trying to pummel me to death from the inside :)

I discovered tonight that I have the grossest varicose vein on the back of my left calf. At least I think that's what it is... it's hard to see. Yay pregnancy! From what I've read, though, it should go away after I give birth.

In other news, I'm liking my new job at work quite a lot (aside from one woman I have been dealing with who is SUCH a thorn in my side). So that's a good thing. I don't know yet if it's just the allure of doing something new, or if I really like it. Hard to say this early on.

I've been cleaning (okay, nesting!) more over this past weekend. The desk is FINALLY organized, save a stack of papers I have to file. I got a new (bigger) organizer caddy thing at Target, and it's awesome... just what I needed. I've been keeping the kitchen much cleaner.. dishes in the dishwasher every night when I get home from work, counters tidy. And I cleaned out and organized the fake closet off the kitchen last night... you can actually FIND stuff in there now, which is a minor miracle. I had done a good deal of cleaning in what will be Eleanor's room a few weeks ago, but there's still a ton of work to do in there, so I think that's my next project.

Eleanor got her first piece of mail today!

It was a package from Miss Gracie :)

Inside was a precious pink UNC onesie and a teensy UNC cap...cute!

Thanks Gracie (and Sara and Randy, too)!

Last night's hockey game...

...was so weird. Aside from the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad officiating (of which there was A LOT), there were random other mascots there. Muddy the Mudcat was there (and on ice skates, believe it or not), as well as this strange Sumo-type mascot for Sports Clips, the haircut place for guys. He could only wave to people from the elbow down... no shoulder motion.

Also, last night there were no less than 20 little girls, all with ponytails and ribbons of various colors sitting down a few rows in front of us. Turns out they were the Rec Zone skaters, and did a little performance after the 1st period, but MAN, some of those kids needed some discipline. I know they were excited to be there, but they were screaming and shrieking (in that piercing pitch that only tiny girls can achieve) and standing in their seats... they had adults w/them, but apparently, they couldn't be bothered to keep the kids in check, as this went on for quite awhile. People sitting in front of them soon began turning around and shushing them. It was bad enough from where we were behind them; I can only imagine how loud it was in front of them.

Our seats our on the very last row of our section, and back up to a box. A kid in the box last night had a duck call (and no, we weren't playing Anaheim) and kept blowing it right behind us. Sheesh.

See? A weird night. But we won, and 2 points are 2 points at the end of the game :)

Before we headed to Raleigh yesterday, we had a doctor's appointment... I can't believe I'm already 23 weeks. Ack! Where is the time going. She'll be here before I can turn around good. Anyway, everything is going fine and moving along just as it should be. Always helps to ease my paranoid mind to hear that.

ETA: I *did* ask about my teeth moving, and that actually is NORMAL, believe it or not. Basically, when you're pregnant, there's increased blood flow to your gums (and nose), which is why your gums bleed more when you brush your teeth. But that increased blood flow can also kind of soften things up and cause things to shift around. Weird, huh?

So I guess I'm just going to keep an eye on things, and if it seems to be getting worse, I'll go get a new set of retainers made.