Oh baby

I haven't done the weekly update from babycenter for a while, so I thought I'd add that today.

This week, your baby weighs almost 2 pounds (like a head of cauliflower) and is about 14 1/2 inches long with her legs extended. She's sleeping and waking at regular intervals, opening and closing her eyes, and perhaps even sucking her fingers. With more brain tissue developing, your baby's brain is very active now. While her lungs are still immature, they would be capable of functioning — with a lot of medical help — if she were to be born now. Chalk up any tiny rhythmic movements you may be feeling to a case of baby hiccups, which may be common from now on. Each episode usually lasts only a few moments, and they don't bother her, so just relax and enjoy the tickle.

In other news... the baby is moving ALOT! I'm feeling more and more when I'm up and doing something, as opposed to only feeling movements when I'm sitting and relaxing. Justin's getting better at 'catching' the baby move at night, and now you can see it move under my clothes when I'm resting. It's providing me with some distraction during meetings at work. The rest of the baby furniture hasn't arrived yet, so we'll hopefully get that soon and finish setting up the nursery.

Doctors and Patience

I had my monthly doctor's appointment on Thursday (which will now be occurring by-monthly now).

Two things... one, is that my glucose test came back normal (no gestational diabetes).

The other is I was reminded how much I really like my doctor. For those of you who I talk to, you probably already know this. She is (1) and she, (2) a mother, (3) has excellent bed-side manner, and (4) an 'everything' doctor. I've been seeing her just myself for almost 4 years, she'll deliver our baby, and be our pediatrician. I'm sure there are reasons why it might be nice to have 3 different doctors for all of those things, but I'm enjoying having someone know me (and my family) so well.

We had a LIST of things to go over with her, information that has come up during our Bradley classes, and I was worried about asking too many questions during one appointment. However, it didn't seem to phase her when, between Justin and I, we asked her about: fetal heart rate monitoring, IV's in the delivery room, episiotomy, breast feeding on the delivery table, how long to wait to cut the umbilical cord, circumcision, how long we have to stay after the delivery, exams leading up to birth, my diet, asking for nurses who 'enjoy' working with unmedicated births... I think that was it. There were probably more.

Good news... she passed with flying colors and didn't seem upset at all that we were taking more of her time than usual. I guess now that we're going every other week I could have spread out my questions, but my guess I'll continue to have more.

100 Days

According to the ultrasound, the due date is December 3rd, using a calender, it's November 26th, and my medical file has November 28th written on it -just because that's Justin's birthday, and it was close enough.

So... whatever it's worth to put an actual date for when the baby is due... it's in 100 days from now. That's deserving of a post, right?

I wondered if I could make a list of 100 things, either that I'm looking forward to or I'm scared of, or don't want to think of... I'm not sure if I can make it to 100, so , maybe I'll try 10 -10 things I'm looking forward to, and 10 things I'm NOT looking forward to.

First... the 10 things I'm looking forward to in the next 100 days (and maybe a few days following that).

10- Looking more pregnant. When I look at myself, there's no question of whether or not I'm pregnant. However... it still seems to escape some people, and they must just assume I'm fat.

9-Finishing the nursery. I've had fun over the last few months slowly purchasing new furniture and it kind of weird to look into the room now (we used to keep the door shut) and see a crib with bedding in it. Like, all it's missing is a baby or something.

8- I like the reactions we get from people when we tell them we're not finding out what we're having. People closer to our age think we're nuts... and the ones a little older seem to respond by saying, "Good for you".

7- I also kind of like the reactions from people when we mention we are planning on a non-medicated birth. It's always interesting coming from mom's who have been there -I don't think they believe me. I guess we'll find out in a few months.

6- I really like our birthing classes, the instructor and the people in class, so I usually look forward to attending our weekly sessions.

5- Monthly massages from now until the baby is born. I'm spoiled, I know. Who knows... my pregnancy might just END with a massage, because I'm going to try to be induced naturally (using pressure points) if it gets to the point that the baby needs to come out, and my body won't cooperate.

4-Feeling the baby move more and more, and letting other people feel it. I know I've mentioned my issues with people just touching my belly, but I don't seem to mind it when the baby is moving and permission has been granted for touching.

3- I really like my doctor, so I don't mind my monthly appointments. It's always nice to hear the heartbeat and find out that things are going the way we expect them to.

2-People's guesses on the sex of the baby. I've heard it all -and some people are just SO SURE of themselves. For the record, I get more people saying it's a girl than a boy.

1- Having a baby at the end of all of this!


10 Things I'm NOT looking forward to in the next 100 days

10- Swelling -hands, feet, nose, face, other joints. You name it, and I'm assuming it's getting larger as we speak.

9- Decreased energy. I have to take a little rest after going up the stairs even at this point. Pathetic.

8- Breathing difficulty. I enjoy breathing, call me crazy. When you look at pictures of your insides getting all squished up together, it makes me feel claustrophobic.

7- Same goes with the bladder. I've seen the pictures, it's going to get squished.

6- Early morning work schedule and a growing pregnancy. It's pretty tough getting up as early as I have to now at this point... so I don't have high hopes for a month or two from now. Same goes for the 10 hour work day.

5- Inappropriate comments. You've all heard them, I'm mentioned a few, and I'm sure they won't be the last.

4- Fatness. This is different from the swelling, although it's similar. I don't need to explain.

3- Other physical ailments, mostly with my skin. I'm not sure WHAT'S going on with all of my 2,000 parts but it's not pretty, and it seems to be getting worse.

2- I'm afraid that my doctor will be eating her Thanksgiving dinner out of town when I go into labor.

1- Speaking of labor. Just about everything that goes along with it. THIS I could probably list 100 things I'm not looking forward to. There's the ripping, the tearing, the cutting, the pain, the emergencies, the length of it, and any other number of unknown and known things that go along with that.

There's my list. 100 days whether I like it or not, and life as we know it will be forever changed.

A place to lay your head

We did some receiving (thanks, Lisa and Dave), purchasing (those will be here next week) and some light contruction this weekend. This is what we came up with...

6 months

Depending on how you count (it seems like all books and websites do it a little differently during these 40 weeks), I'm six months along.

Six months. That's a lot! It's quite misleading to say I only have 3 months left, because I really don't, it's a week shy of 4 months, but it still seems like I've reached some sort of milestone.

My uterus is about the size of a soccer ball. And I feel every cubic inch of it. Last night before Young Womens I thought I had a hernia or something because 'something' was sticking out from my lower abdomen. I'm pretty sure it was an elbow or knee or something -it really hurt! I've been enjoying the day (the second day a week hasn't happened yet) I get in the pool for water aerobics, because you can't feel how heavy things are. But... I've been exercising almost every day (last week was 5, this week should be 5 or 6) and started doing a yoga/pilates dvd that does a lot of stretching and strength training, which usually feels really good too.

The other night when I was home watching TV (before we started working 10 hour days, because now I haven't even turned the TV on for 3 days) and I'm pretty sure the baby had hiccups. I could barely feel any movement, but my stomach was moving up and down rapidly for a few minutes, it was kind of fun.

Now that Justin is home for the rest of the summer (except for a few days next month) I'm hoping we'll start making some progress on the nursery. A crib, rocking chair, hanging of pictures (uh oh, more nails)... so hopefully I get some photo's soon.