Had our last bi-weekly appointment today, which went really well. My weight was a nice, normal 2 pound gain (three appointments in a row wooooo!), blood pressure was 116/70, urine was good. The baby's heartrate never settled on anything, ranging from 145-150, which is higher than the past couple of appointments. Dr V did the Group B Strep test. I'll get the results from it next week at our appointment. She also checked my cervix and found it still closed and not effaced at all. Oh, and she said the baby is head down and is unlikely to flip at this point, though of course, anything can happen. I've been pretty sure that s/he is head down - and has been for quite a while - because of the kinds of kicks I feel on top of my belly vs underneath, but it was nice to have confirmation of it. Our next appintment is a week from today - in fact our next four appointments are scheduled, on all of the Thursdays in March.
I am round. Want proof? See the new belly picture.
In this exciting edition of Allie's Belly, you can also get a sneak peak at the baby's area, as well as a bonus picture of me with Shannon (who by the way will, one way or another, have her baby in her arms this time next week!).
It's really painful to walk today! Or even stand up for that matter. I've got a terrible pain all around my pubic bone that doesn't go away after a few steps like the low back and hip pain does. It has me walking verrrrry slowly today and with even more of a waddle than normal. Coming in from the parking lot this morning was hellish. People were passing me left and right. The security guard, who must have watched my long, arduous trek up from the street, looked at me and said with alarm, "You're not gonna have that baby today are you?" I laughed and assured him I have another month to go. It's odd, though, I've had two or three other people ask me that today. Maybe they know something I don't! Ha ha!
By the way, happy 35 weeks and start of the 36th week. Movin' right along. Thursday we have our next appointment and will have the Group B Strep test and a cervical check. I'm getting a bit excited to see if there's anything going on down there. I'm not expecting anything, but you never know.
It's kind of hard to believe that as of tomorrow there are five weeks until our dute date. Five weeks is roughly how far along I was when I found out I was pregnant back in July. How strange to be on the opposite end of the time scale now! It seems far too soon, and yet at the same time, it seems as if it has taken far too long to get where we are.
Saturday Shannon and I went shopping at Babies R Us. I spent a couple of gift certificates and bought some of the things that I wanted/we needed for the baby that we hadn't received as gifts. The rest of the gift certificates we'll hold off on spending until after the baby is born and use to buy some girl or boy clothes. I also bought two unfinished wood shelves, but was unable to find paint for them, so that was one plan that I wasn't able to follow through on for the weekend. Next weekend I hope to be able to start painting them!
Yesterday I tried packing more things in the hospital bag, but didn't do a very good job of it. I just sat and looked at the list, and did very little gathering and packing. In fact, I don't think I packed one thing. How very productive of me.
Last week I told my boss of our plans for me to stay home after the baby is born. I waited longer than I had initially planned for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was to make sure that Jason's job was stable. No sense losing my spot here only to have him lose his and us both to be out of work with a new baby! Sometime this afternoon, my boss will be sending out an email to the department informing them of my decision. I'm not looking forward to that. I don't like having that kind of attention thrust on me, especially when I know that people will not be very happy to lose me and will tell me so - nice things to hear, but it only makes me feel bad about having to leave!
Last week the baby was extremely wiggly. It went through more frequent periods of activity, and was far more active during those times than normal. Today it seems to just be active nearly constantly with few sleep breaks. I'm always feeling a little bum or knee or foot poking up against the top of the uterus, too, regardless of whether the baby is awake or asleep. Once this morning I rubbed whatever little baby bit it was sticking out there and must have scared the poor thing, because it jumped and pulled that little bit away from my hand so fast!
One pregnancy related thing I've forgotten to mention recently is stretch marks. Specifically, how much worse they're getting. Until about three weeks ago they were limited to my legs and bum, but now I have them on the underside of my belly, too. I have hopes they won't get any worse, but I suspect they will. I was doing so well, too! I count myself lucky that they aren't worse than they are, but it's still disappointing when I had thought I'd escape with none on my belly!
I have officially grown out of another pair of preggo pants. I have been keeping them closed with a large safety pin because the little hook-and-eye part fell off several weeks ago. This morning the safety pin keeps popping open every time I lean forward. I just wore these on Friday and they were fine. No popping pins. Time for another trip to the store.
Last night was our second childbirth class. We covered hospital-related topics - procedures that are followed throughout the course of labor, delivery, and post-partum care, what to pack to bring to the hospital, what to expect once you get there, and so on. We also had a tour of the maternity ward. The discussion of what to expect and the procedures that the hospital follows was useful, especially when combined with the tour. It was a little comforting, a little overwhelming, a little exciting to see the labor/deliver/recovery room, knowing that in mere weeks we'll be there in a similar room. Knowing that is where our baby will be brought into the world.
On Friday, the women in my department gave me a baby shower. They were so generous, giving us several more of the large items we need - high chair, baby monitor, and exersaurcer, as well as some clothes and toys. One woman even crocheted a beautiful baby afghan, which completely blew me away. I have pictures from the shower in another Ofoto album (see link under Pregnancy Pictures).
Over the weekend I sorted through all the clothes, blankets, and so on that we've received, exchanged some things for different sizes, and did heaps and heaps and heaps of laundry. We now have a fully stocked changing table, complete with all kinds of diapers and diaper paraphernalia, onesies, sleepers, socks, blankets, towels, washcloths, and just about anything else the baby will need. Now that I've finished that, I'm at a loss for what to do with my time. (An exciting Valentine's weekend, yes? Actually, we had a nice day on Saturday, going to COSI, a local science museum. That's where we went on our very first Valentine's Day 12 years ago. Awww.... how romantic! And tonight we're going to the Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant, with some friends, as the finishing touch to the weekend.)
As of today we're 34 weeks. There isn't much new to report, pregnancy-wise. Just that in the last several days, it has really started to hurt way down low around my bladder (and other parts) if I'm walking and I have to pee the least little bit. It makes getting around such a joy, since I pretty much always have to pee at least a little bit. It has started me thinking that I'll be real happy to be done being pregnant. The thought of up to seven more weeks of this, combined with all the other joys, makes me feel very tired.
I have mixed thoughts when thinking about being almost done being pregnant. On the one hand I can't wait to meet the baby and start getting to know it, and I will be happy to be able to start "getting my body back," so to speak. But on the other, I'll really miss having the close, very personal relationship with it that I have now. I'll miss it moving around inside me, and how its movements make me smile and laugh and feel warm and maternal and special. I'll miss the feeling of being solely responsible for protecting and growing this baby, of knowing that I, and I alone, can do the job I am doing for this baby. Once it is born, I know logically that there will still be plenty of special, just-me things that I will do for it, but those things are very distant from me right now, and so different in concept from the closeness of carrying the child inside me.
Another completely normal, relatively boring appointment. Jason wasn't able to go, unfortunately, due to a meeting at work. This is the first appointment he has missed, and he was upset about it. Everything was fine - blood pressure was 120/70, urine was fine, weight gain was around 2 pounds (for the second appointment in a row she said it looked great! wahoo!). The baby's heart rate was 141, where it has been consistently for the past several appointments. I told Dr V about my recent increase in swelling, but she wasn't concerned since none of the other symptoms of high blood pressure or pre-eclampsia are there.
I didn't have any earth-shattering questions this time around - or rather, there were some, but I forgot all about them. My next appointment is 2 weeks from today on Feb 26. That'll be my last bi-weekly appointment, and also the first appointment where she'll check my cervix for dilation and such. She'll also do the Group B Strep test.
We had our second meeting with the doula tonight. I do feel more confident in our decision. She is a really nice, sweet person, and I'm positive that she can provide us what we need as far as support during labor.
Today we also finally got the second of our diaper orders, the one that had all the actual diapers and covers in it. So now I need to start washing them and getting them all ready for the baby. I've suddenly got a ton of laundry to do. Except for the diapers, which will need to be washed several times before they're ready and at their peak absorbency, it won't take long, but looking at it from here, it seems like a lot.
I had that sniffly cold last week, which was annoying but never really got bad and finally petered out over the weekend. Now I'm sick again, with an upper respiratory thing that's awful similar to what I had earlier this winter. I would so much rather have a sinus cold again than this! I hate hate hate this rattling in my chest and the constant fear that any given cough will block my ability to breathe. I guess I was really traumatized by that when it happened the last time. Every time I cough I get almost panicky. Not good.
In the last five days or so, my feet have started swelling up like mad, so much so that I couldn't tie my shoes over the weekend. My hands and face are fine, with no excessive swelling that I can see, so I'm not worried, but I'll mention it at our appointment with Dr V tomorrow. Also, I think my belly grew overnight. This morning it felt different and looked bigger to me. I'm not sure what's different exactly, it's just different - I think part of it is that I have more of a "shelf" at the top under my breasts than before, when it was a nice gentle slope.
I always assumed I was a normal kind of person. Or normalish, at least. Until now, when I've gotten irrationally upset due to pregnancy hormones, it has been over relatively reasonable things - frozen puppies stuck on ice in the middle of a river, commercials on TV, sappy parts of movies or TV shows, anything to do with babies - especially sick or hurt ones. That was until yesterday.
Picture this... We're in the grocery store, innocently shopping in the produce section. I decide some bananas sound like a great idea. I begin to pick over the bananas, looking for the good ones - no green, just starting to get brown. As I do this, a store employee wheels up a cart and starts pulling out all the good bananas and tossing them into a box. It was obvious he was culling the herd, so to speak, removing all the sickly bananas no longer worthy of sale. I stood there for a moment, watching him with growing horror, and then I walked away. Several minutes later we were in the frozen food aisle, the image of the Evil Produce Overlord plucking those poor bananas from the shelf still running through my head. I said to Jason that I was really bothered. He asked why and I described the atrocity I had witnessed. And then I promptly broke into tears. I stood there wrapped in Jason's arms mourning the fate of those bananas - those poor, poor bananas, whose lives were cut off just as they were reaching their prime! - while surrounded by curious shoppers and frozen waffles (waffles which, I might add, would be greatly augmented by said terminated bananas, had they only been given a chance). I realized the outrageousness of the situation even at the time, so I was alternately sobbing and laughing, which because I was still sobbing, came out in rather loud hiccupish bursts. Eventually I was able to wipe my tears away and we moved on. Those poor, poor, bananas. Sniff.
It was a very long week at work. Even though the days went by fairly quickly thanks to the 600+ page report I was working on that had to go out today (thank goodness it is only a preliminary draft!), the week seemed to drag on and on and on and on. I'm just disliking working more and more every week. I still love the people, and most of the time I don't mind the work. It's boring, but not mind-numbingly dull. But knowing that such a big change is looming so near on the horizon is making me restless, anxious to get to that point. Of course, part of me is happy to enjoy these last few weeks of baby-free life as they come. The rest of me, however - particularly the sleep-deprived, hips-and-back aching, swollen-feet, can't-bend-over part of me - is ready to get on with this whole baby thing. I might be off work once the baby comes, but I know I'll be experiencing a whole new kind of work (and sleep deprivation). At least the new kind of work that comes with the baby will be heaps more rewarding than fighting with Word and Powerpoint all day and ordering 5,000 pizzas every month for meetings I don't get to attend.
So tomorrow is the baby shower! I'm looking forward to it and am getting pretty excited about it. We're going over to Jason's grandmother's house early with Shannon and my mom (who are throwing it for me) so they can decorate and get things set up, and then the shower is at 2:00.
I got one of my diaper orders in the mail today. Naturally it was the one that didn't have any diapers in it, but it did have a large nylon bag, which fits absolutely perfectly in the diaper pail we bought. Also, completely unrelated, but we've gotten some baby things from people recently. The other day we got this from April, and stepmom Barb gave us this (it's entirely handquilted - she rocks at that!). And no, I probably won't take pictures of every gift I get, I'm just being particularly dorky tonight. Be glad I didn't take a picture of the diaper pail!
Speaking of quilting, I still have the quilt I started making last autumn to finish. I lost interest in it because I've never tried hand quilting before and found that it's really hard (well, DUH) and I wasn't very good at it (again, DUH). I know I should keep at it and I'll get better, but... but, but, but. I did crochet an afghan for the baby last week, though. I think it turned out really well, as long as it doesn't fall apart in the washing machine. It's in the laundry right now or I'd take a picture. How about a picture of the half-finished quilt instead?