Getting ready!

It's been fun doing things like hanging art in the baby's room and all of that, but I guess it's time we get down to the nitty gritty. Jen and I spent part of the night talking about what we wanted to pack in the birth center bag and made plans to get that done over the weekend. We had to hit Target tonight for cat litter, so while we were there we also got some travel-sized toiletries (just toothpaste and deodorant, as we have tons of little shampoos and lotions from hotels) that we can slip in the bag as well. It's amazing to think that sometime soon we will be heading to the birth center to meet our baby!

I also bit the bullet and ordered a diaper pail and some other supplies for cloth diapers and wipes. Some people say we're going overboard with the buying but honestly I don't think anyone is going to buy us a diaper pail for our poopy diapers, and that's not the kind of thing you want to find yourself without when the kid shows up, you know? Besides, we're the ones that want the hippie products, not anyone else. ;) (And hey, the truth is that most people want to buy onesies and blankets, not things dealing with baby poo.)

The little baby clothes are all washed and put away in the dresser, but I still have to wash the diaper inserts and covers and doublers, and then find somewhere to put THOSE away. I guess I didn't realize there was so much STUFF. And one of us needs to install the car seat base just in case there are any "early surprises."

Things are really starting to come together around here, which is exciting and scary all at the same time. I was trying on a pair of maternity shorts at a store today (it's starting to get hot around here) and caught a sideways view of my belly in a full-length mirror. Wow, it looks kind of weird to be sticking out so much. :)

Addendum to Midwife Visit 34w, 6d

When the midwife asked us what our birth plan was we really didn't have any thing to add...and then I realized something from my conversation with the midwife before the last ultrasound and my knowledge of Jude...so I turned to the midwife and said:

"Jude likes to ask lots of questions and when she does ask them - she wants real answers."

She nodded and wrote that down and we talked about how I will need to be able to ask those questions if/when Jude cannot during pregnancy.

On a side note I have been having very intense daydreams where I am holding our baby - I can feel the curve of her back, the weight of her little body in soft yellow footie pajamas. P'raps I am going a leetle....cookoo!

Midwife visit, 34w6d

I saw TMIL today. She was chipper as always and because the nurses were on lunch, she did everything. It was so funny watching her fumble with the scale, running around doing urinalysis, and expressing nervousness about using the sphygmomanometer. As if she's never used one before!

Anyway, she started out the visit asking if the ultrasound helped us feel better, and then apologized that she hadn't known before that we had friends with personal pregnancy complications that were reminding us of our situation. Which, of course, she couldn't have known, but it was nice of her to say that if she had known people with a similar situation, she would have done the same thing. She's nice. I like her.

Anyway, when SHE took my BP it was totally normal. The ultimate in normal: 120/68. So I bought myself more time without a "blood pressure talk." Yay!

She asked if I wanted to switch to weekly visits or if I wanted one more two-weeker. I chose the two-weeker, so I'm off the hook until June 11. WOW! I'll be 36w5d then! Holy carp! And then she asked me if I wanted to do the Group B Strep test today or wait until next time. (I love all of this, "What do you want to do?" stuff. LOVE.) So I said that I knew that if I went into labor before 36w they would do prophylactic antibiotics anyway, so we might as well wait until next time. And then the best part! She said, "Would you like to do it yourself?" She handed me a tube with a swab and a lab slip, told me to swab myself at home and then bring it in with the correct date on it. HOW COOL IS THAT?

I asked Jen on the way home, "What if I do it wrong?" She said, "I guess it will say you don't have Strep." Heh, I guess so.

Also, the ute measured 3cm larger and I gained 0 lbs. Not too shabby! Time for more ice cream!

She asked what sorts of things we wanted them to do for the birth in terms of setting up the room or making us more comfortable. Umm, how do you even answer those questions when you've never been in labor before or even witnessed a birth? I have NO idea what I want! Can I tell you when I get there? Heh. I guess we have some thinking to do.

~//~

We're going to have a BABY soon. Yikes!!

Three Pee Night

Last night was a Three Pee Night... one of those nights where it does not matter how many hours you have actually spent in bed, you never feel rested. I was up at 12, 2, and 4:30. Aaah, good times.

I am ready for a nap.

I thought your body was supposed to be conserving energy for labor? Not likely!!

Impending babies and baby books

Yesterday we hit 34 weeks. This means that in three weeks we will be considered full-term. That is kind of terrifying! I am perfectly prepared to go over 40 weeks but I refuse to prepare myself to go under. I guess I should work on that. We're actively making preparations this weekend, since we thankfully have no plans. We've got to wash oodles of baby stuff (after cleaning the old soap residue out of the washer), do some more work in the baby room, and do SOMETHING with our nasty, nasty yard. I hope I have tons of energy and lots of nesting foo over the weekend, because my list is LONG.

We received a baby book as a gift yesterday, which was very sweet. It's actually the one we registered for based on how it looked on the outside. We never opened the package to look inside, because I figured they all looked largely the same, and problems with one would be problems with another. I really love the Todd Parr baby book but that was discontinued ages ago and is a bazillion dollars on eBay. So, we were stuck.

Anyway, we get this baby book last night and I open it up and it's all "Mommy" this and "Daddy" that. At first it didn't seem too daunting to white-out the Daddy parts and change them to Mama... but then I realized that there is a lot of stuff about "when Mommy's water broke" or whatever... and I'm the one with the water, but Jen is Mommy! So we'll have to white-out that stuff, too!

I'm starting to wonder if it's worth it at all to have this baby book. But I still think that others are not going to be much better. Does anyone out there in the IVP have better baby book suggestions? I am SO all ears. I didn't really have a baby book (second kid, parents were getting divorced) and I really want to be all sappy and stuff with this baby.

Thanks!

33w3d

See? It's a lot bigger than it looks. But the kid... oh, the kid! She likes to keep her knees and/or elbows waaaaaaaay over down low on my right side - like right over my right hip. I'm pretty sure my uterus doesn't WANT to stretch that far to the side.

Owwwwwwww. But it's okay, because she's cute.

Babymoon and Baby showers

Jen and I went away for a little weekend in Mystic, CT. We can't afford it, not by a long shot, but we thought it would be nice to spend some alone time before we're a family of three. This is likely our last opportunity to go somewhere before baby comes, and I doubt we'll be B&Bing it with an infant.

Unfortunately we have continued our tradition of taking rainy coastal holidays. It seems as if reserving a B&B is akin to doing a major rain dance. This has happened so many times I can't even tell you. This past weekend was no different, 50° or so, rainy, windy, blustery, awful. But we still got some alone time, that was nice! (And being away from home means you're not tempted to do chores.)

We had a good time just toodling around (in the cold rain), having fun at the aquarium, and eating chocolate covered bananas. And taking naps. And eating ridiculously unsensible breakfasts full of sugar.

And then came back on Sunday to a little, intimate baby shower, where we were positively spoiled. My aunt brought the hugest gift bag full of stuff from our registry, my grandmother gave the baby one of Vovo's (my great-grandmother's) rings, and our couch looked like a pink onesie explosion. I have never seen so much pink in my entire life. My kingdom for some blue or green!

But it was all very lovely and now our house is stuffed to the gills with picnic food. We are having people over again tonight to hopefully make a lot of it go away. The good thing about working with college students is that they are always hungry and will eat anything... so hopefully we can not only feed them lots and lots but get them to take home leftovers. Fun times!

My girl (I .hope. she is a girl after all of this pink!) is an early bird and tends to do an hour's worth of moving around 5am. She seems to have been discombobulated by our little holiday and decided to do her morning calisthenics at 3:30 instead. 3:30! We are doomed.

Growth Scan Results!

(Sorry friends. We were cleaning the house all night.)

There's a real baby in my tiny little gut! For reals. She's estimated at around 4lbs 7oz (49th percentile for size), head and abdomen are measuring together (neither is bigger than the other), everything looked good.

SHE HAS HAIR!
SHE WAS BREATHING AMNIOTIC FLUID!

Oh my gosh, I had no idea late u/s could be so exciting! It was like a real little kid in my belly doing goofy kid things, like bonking herself in the head. I couldn't even believe it.

Baby is head down, way head down, butt and feet are up in my ribs (which I can't feel), knees and elbows together on my right side (which I /do/ feel), spine along my left side. All baby is accounted for.

I'm thinking I might have a tilted uterus. I think I remember them mentioning it when I got my HSG and it would make sense. Where the u/s tech found the kid's butt was a good bit higher than the midwives have been measuring my uterus. I'll have to mention that.

Thanks for the support, IVP. xo. We really appreciate it.

Growth Scan

(Apologies to anyone who reads both blogs.)

Jen spoke to the midwife on the phone today. I wanted her to get the info first hand in case I either wasn't saying it correctly or that I had missed something. Apparently the midwife was nice and reassuring to Jen and said that she was pretty sure everything was fine with the growth, she had no reason to suspect otherwise.

Jen explained to the midwife that some friends of ours went through a similar situation last year and ended up with a bunch of complications down the road that were scary, even though they all turned out fine. She told her that our friends told us that in hindsight, they wish they'd been a little more proactive and a little less willing to take the reassurance. That's actually all we could think about last night, for the most part. The "what if."

The midwife offered a quick ultrasound if we wanted it, and Jen said that she thought it was a good idea. We swore we wouldn't have any more ultrasounds, and I know that ultrasounds aren't really all that reliable in terms of guessing fetal size, but I think we would be able to see /something/ if something was going wrong, like low fluid or really small baby or whatever. The ultrasound folks called right away and we're going tomorrow at noon to see how big the Frankinator is.

I am hopeful that everything will be fine, but of course nervous that maybe something isn't. It's better to know, right?

Midwife Visit, 32w6d

Ambiguity does NOT make me feel better.

I saw The Midwife I Love today, and even TMIL does not make me feel better when she is being ambiguous.

BP is still weird. The systolic BP (top number) is still creeping up, has been for several weeks, and is still in the 130s. The diastolic BP (bottom number) has not budged and is still in the 60s. WTF? I have gone from, "This is no big deal," to "We should watch this." Great.

Fundal height measured 29.5cm. As in 29 weeks. At 33 weeks tomorrow, this is concerning to me. TMIL says, "Well, you have always measured about 3cm behind." I have? Haven't I been asking about being small from like Minute One? And I thought 2 weeks ago I was 29cm, that's what the other midwife told me, but TMIL said I was 28cm? TMIL says, "Since I last saw you 6 weeks ago, you have grown 6cm." She says it is not a big deal, but I could get an ultrasound if I wanted to.

Of course I don't want an ultrasound if I can avoid it. I want someone to tell me the baby is FINE!!

In good news, baby was head down today. So there is hope on that front. You know, if I don't end up induced from HBP or IUGR or whatever. *sigh*

Mama's Day

Happy Mama's Day to everyone in the IVP¹! And yes, you ALL deserve it.

I love you guys.

----
¹Internet Vagina Posse. Source: Calliope.

Bloggers in Action!

Eryn from Two Moms Are Better and her wife, Amy from Fumbling on Track came over a couple of weekends ago to help us assemble baby furniture.

They are so saucy when they're working the IKEA action!

Some belly action

31 weeks, rockin' the maternity overalls:



32 weeks, rockin' the weird face:

Choo Choo!

Tomorrow is our first birth class. We're taking private (not in the birth center) hippie classes and the instructor sets up the schedule based on everyone's availability. So there's no nice, routinized schedule, which makes me a little twitchy. I'm much more the "okay, next 5 Thursdays" kind of person. But aah well.

So we have birth class tomorrow night, then Saturday afternoon, then nothing until May 28 and 29 (something like that) and then one day in early June. WACKY. After tomorrow night we will have 1/5 of the Zen Knowledge of Popping Out Babies. Or something.

~//~

Today my grandmother told me that she "hoped I would be bigger." Umm, sorry to disappoint, Grandma. ;)

Transverse baby

I'm really stressing about this transverse baby thing. My doula sent me some info to look over about things you can do to try to turn a baby, and all of the info said that a baby should not be transverse past 30 weeks. It makes it all sound really bad and unfixable and en route to a c-section. This freaks me out because I want to avoid a c-section as much as possible and am really nervous about things like surgery and anaesthesia!

I am thinking about calling a chiropractor. But I'm nervous because I've never been to a chiropractor ever and because we can't really afford a chiropractor. At all.

What to do, what to do...

31 weeks today!

Here's a little photo history of the past few weeks:

- 28 weeks!

- 29 weeks!

- 30 weeks!

Midwife Appt - 30w6d

Wow. I switch to biweeklies now. I have to go back in two weeks! That's just nuts!

Anyway, the nitty gritty:

- Up 6 lbs. from last month, total gain 17-19lbs. depending on where you start
- BP 130/64 - wtf?
- Urine good
- Fundal height 29cm
- Baby's HB good
- Baby still sideways with head jammed into my right hip. Midwife says, "We will worry at 35w."
- Nurse says, "Your chart says 30w6d but you have such a tiny tummy!"
- Midwife in a hurry, stayed for like 5 mins.

More detail:

1. What is up with my BP? It is usually a pretty strict 120/70, at least in pregnancy. (Pre-PG was lower, around 110/60.) Last month it was 124/70, this month 130/64? Is it creeping up? Is it a fluke? Am I going to be a BP problem? I don't want to be a BP problem. I want a natural birth, dang it! No protein in urine, no swelling, still have ankles. So I'm trying not to think about it.

2. When is this kid going to get the memo and go head down? HB is still found below my navel and kid shows no intent to stop lounging on mama's hammock. She said in two weeks we could talk "tricks" and then by 35 weeks start talking more seriously.

3. Grumbled about nurse's comment, asked midwife if I should be concerned about being "too small." She told me that my belly is now Public Property and that everyone should stuff it. She said she was not at all concerned about my measuring 29w at 30w. But I'll be 31w tomorrow. Oh well, it keeps going up so I guess that's what matters. I wonder if I will get another scan before it's all over.

4. I wanted to ask some questions about some cramps I've had, and about how delivery will be impacted by my non-absorbed twin (will they have to check for it?). But midwife was rushed and didn't have time. Oh well, I'll ask in two weeks.

TWO WEEKS? That's soon!!!