Tomorrow is the big day (40 wks, 5 days)

We've been trying to celebrate every night, knowing that the baby could come at any time (yeah, right). Here was our Memorial Day feast:


Dave is disgruntled with the little grill:

The "grill master":

This is why the grill scares me (and probably why we're not supposed to have one on the balcony). The coals have to burn for a while before you can start:

My feet swelled up yesterday. They look like Fred Flintstone's feet. It's kind of hard to tell in the pictures, but normally the top of my feet are bony, and here they just look all smooth. They suddenly got puffy.

The belly doubles conveniently as a table :)

Dave hurt his neck :( I don't think that sleeping at the hospital is going to do it much good.

So, tomorrow is the big day. We have normal appointments and tests in the morning and will then be induced either tomorrow afternoon or evening. So the baby will be here sometime on (ideally) Friday or (not as ideally) Saturday. I was ready to trust my body through a natural birth process, so induction was not my ideal outcome. I'm nervous. I've spent all day thinking about it and being nervous . . . now I'm tired and just wish that we were already at the hospital and getting this process underway.

40 weeks, 3 days

3 days late, still no baby . . .

We've had a lovely weekend. Saturday we went out to breakfast, went for a walk around the neighborhood, then headed into the city. We walked around Central Park for a while and then went out to dinner.

Sunday we went to a street fair, then when it started to get too hot we went to the Met and walked around there for a little while, then out to dinner with Dave's parents.

While in line for the bathroom yesterday at a bookstore, a mom and her daughter (5 years old, maybe) started talking to me in line. The mom said "How many months are you?" I replied "All of them." She asked if I knew what I was having and I said no, and she said to her daughter "Feel her belly and guess what she's having".

!!!

I couldn't believe that she would tell her kid to touch some stranger. Out of all of these months of being pregnant, I've only had 2 strangers touch my belly, and both have been little girls in bathrooms at bookstores. I guess that's not too bad. At least no grown strangers have tried to acost me. Not that it matters, but asking first would be nice.

Appointment update (39 wks, 6 days)

A quick update:

The tests today went great. The baby is doing well (they're estimating maybe around 6 lbs 12 oz now) and fluid, bloodflow, etc was all great. No induction necessary this weekend!!!!

While some people may find that disappointing, we are SO happy. I really want to feel like we had every chance to do this naturally (as long as the baby is still fine). We were offered the choice to go in and induce tonight but said "no thanks!"

I have more tests scheduled for next Tues & Thurs, to check on everything and make sure it's all still fine. The latest that I could still be pregnant would be next Friday (May 30th)---then they would definitely induce. I'm really hoping to go into labor over the weekend, and avoid the extra appointments next week altogether :)

Now I'm totally exhausted and going to take a nap!

Appointment update

I had more tests yesterday--all went well. They didn't measure the baby's growth (that will happen again on Thurs). The baby got a perfect score on it's milestone assessment again (that's the one that checks the swallowing, breathing, grasping and movement). The non-stress test was also totally normal.

At the midwife appointment we confrimed that not much is going on with me. I'm slightly dilated, not having any contractions at all . . . which is the same as it's been for about 4 weeks now.

I get the feeling that the midwife is leaning towards inducing me soon. She would only let me go 7 days overdue before inducing anyway---and that would entail a long weekend, then two more perinatologist appointments, and two more midwife appointments. Maybe if I'm suddenly having contractions or am more dilated by Thursday's appointments then we'll wait, but otherwise I'm getting the vibe that Friday may be the day. I think that the baby would be content to stay inside forever.

I'm trying to be equally fine with whatever happens . . . going naturally, being induced soon, or being induced another week from now. We're just trying to be patient and wait and see. I still get nervous before each set of tests . . . Thursday is the next round.

(If you didn't see the updates from the weekend, there are new posts & pics below)

A million pictures

*There is a new update post below this one. These are a million pictures from cleaning out my camera*

This was over spring break, when we were trying to clean out the apartment. Here's Dave in the guest room, going through boxes:



This was my favorite find of the cleaning project. An old wrestling t-shirt. I tried to explain that it's not quite as impressive if you're the champion, but they put the word champion in quotes. That would be like saying that I'm the "queen" of the universe.

Some of the garbage that we got rid of over break (along with my big self):


Our new grill! We're not supposed to have one, so it's got to be little enough to hide. Dave is the grill master. Or should I say "grill master":

My first non-stress test. Here I am hooked up to the monitors:

And the computer, you can see that at that moment the heartrate was 131 bpm.
Out to lunch on Mother's Day with Dave's parents & grandma:


The nursery, basically complete:

The baby's closet:

We can't use the bumpers once the baby comes, but they make the crib look nice now:
The dresser that used to be in our bedroom is now the baby's dresser/changing area:

I put the swing and bouncy seat together all by myself:

Car-seat carrier (stroller #1):

Jogging stroller with car seat attachment (stroller #2)--I put this together myself too!

This was the chart that my sister made for my shower. People who thought I would deliver early are dropping like flies:

And here are pictures of the rest of our apartment. I never finished putting them up after we moved in. I didn't take pictures of the 2nd bathroom, or the closets, but here you go:

Coming from the master bedroom & nursery, towards the main apartment:

The living room:

Standing in the living room, looking towards the kitchen/hallway:

The guest room:

Inside the guest room, looking out:

Kitchen:

39wks, 2 days

For the record:

I feel fine.

No, I haven't had the baby yet.

No, I'm not "desperate to have it out", "ready for this all to be over", "feeling huge", or "miserable".

My first week of maternity leave is done . . . and, as it tends to happen every single time I have a break from work, I got really sick. I'm not sure how much is actual illness, and how much is allergies, but I started antibiotics just in case. I've spent most of my time off just sitting around, realizing how miserable I would have been on bedrest. The first 2 days of not working were relaxing, but after that it was mostly boring. The highlights of my day are naptime and milkshake time . . . I'm not sure which one is better.

Here are some other highlights from the week:

-Tuesday: I went to a store called "The Upper Breast Side". Seriously. (It's a breastfeeding/nursing supply boutique). There motto is something like "You bring the breast, we do the rest." I couldn't make this stuff up.

-Wednesday: Dave & I went to the midwife & perinatologist. After lonngggg appointments & tests the consensus is that the baby isn't drastically small, but it's abdomen is measuring little (in the 13th percentile). Everything else is perfect (it scored an 8 out of 8 on some development tests). So I have to go get the tests repeated on Monday and Thursday to make sure baby is continuing to grow properly. Here are pictures from one of the recent sonograms:

Profile (baby is looking up):
Baby looking straight at the camera:

-Thursday: My mom came to visit and help clean. She got an amazing amount done as I mostly sat in the chair and stared at her sleepily. I don't know if it's the pregnancy or the sickness, but I am totally exhausted this week. It was really helpful to have her here.

-Friday: Dave & I went to dinner with his mom. We're trying to squeeze in some more dinners out before the baby arrives.

-Saturday: We spent the day hoping that the baby wouldn't come so that we could just enjoy the day and get things done. We barely managed to get our errands started, however, as I became starving in the car. (I seem to quickly get so hungry that I'm nauseous, which also happened back in the 1st trimester.) So we went to a drive-thru and got french fries. I thought it was photo-worthy. (Neither one of us could remember the last time that we had been to a drive-thru. I think mine was probably when I lived in Baltimore, which was 5 years ago.)


Today we got some more stuff around the apartment done. I finally uploaded the camera to my computer too.---See the pictures in the post above!

Ultrasound/Non-stress Test Update

Quick update before I head out.

Our ultrasound & NST yesterday both went great. The technician was really nice and spent a good several minutes after she was done just mapping me out for Dave (the head is down here, this is where the knees are, etc etc). Dave was surprised how low the head is, and how thin the skin/muscle is between the outside and the baby (only 2.8 cm separate the outside of my skin from the baby's foot, which was pressed right against me, like it was trying to kick it's way out).

We could see the diaphragm & chest moving, which means that the baby's lungs should be healthy and ready to breathe whenever it's born. It has hair! We could see the hair kind of floating like a fuzzy circle around it's head. I think it will have thick hair like I did---the wive's tale is that hair causes heartburn, which I have a disgusting amount of :)

The fluid level was great, and the placenta & umbilical cord were working perfectly. Then I was hooked up to the monitor and we listened to the heartrate for around 15 mins. It varied from the low 140s all the way up to the low 160s when it was moving around, but all of that is normal. No contractions at all (still fine by me, I have a busy week to get through).

Everyone that we come across, from all the way back to the 12 week ultrasound, has told us "Wow, this is a really active baby!" I'm not sure if we'll be able to keep up with it :) It rolled totally over from one side to the other---the tech seemed amused watching it wiggle around so much.

They didn't check the baby's weight . . . they have to wait 14 days from the last measurement. So this coming Friday we go back to have it all done again, plus a weight calculation.

I'm off to work for a few hours. I can't believe that this is my last week. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with how much stuff I'd like to get organized and in order before my departure.

I'll try to post something with pictures today or tomorrow!

You've GOT to be kidding me

WARNING: Be forewarned, this entire post is digusting and way TMI. Read at your own risk (I wish the damn email I got this morning came with the same warning).

I get email from various pregnancy websites every Friday, when my weeks change (37 weeks today! Only 3 left!). This gem of an article was in an email that I got this morning:

"Some women will experience anal incontinence after giving birth. In general, this means they’ll have trouble controlling gas or less commonly their bowel movements. Anal incontinence can occur if your sphincter is torn during birth—as a result of a big baby, assisted vaginal delivery (with forceps), or if you have episiotomy (an incision between the vagina and anus to enlarge the vaginal opening)."

ANAL INCONTINENCE?!?!?! Are you joking? People keep saying to me "Oh you're almost done!" "You'll be much more comfortable soon" "Soon you won't be running to the bathroom as frequently" <--I swear, someone at work said that exact one to me yesterday. She must not be aware of the joyous possibility of anal incontinence.

Anal incontinence . . . for when regular incontinence just isn't embarassing enough.

(Ultrasound & nonstress test are this afternoon at 2)