38 weeks - Now only 5 days to go!!!

38 weeks today and our c-section date has been moved up to Tuesday, July 5th!! Woo-hoo!!! And it's not because anything is bad. It's just because the hospital had a scheduling conflict for the 7th and therefore, Dr D decided to go ahead with the section on the 5th. Can anyone say EXCITED????

So before I got this exciting news I had an ok morning. I was super tired because I literally got just under 4 hours of sleep last night thanks to some wicked heartburn and insomnia. I've been really lucky only having had heartburn the last couple of days (versus my SIL who had it relentlessly during her pregnancy) so I can't complain too much. I got to the doctor's and started with my NST. Maribel was not cooperating much this morning with activity. They had me lay on my side, had me chug water, and even used a little thing to "buzz" my belly to try to get her to move more - yeah, she just wasn't having it. She'd move a little and then go back to being lazy. So I probably spent a good 35 minutes on the monitor today until they were satisfied with her activity level.

Then I moved onto the u/s room to have them check my amniotic fluid level. That was looking good today and to double check on her, since she was somewhat sluggish on the monitor, they used the u/s machine to watch her breathe. It still fascinates me that she's in there, with fluid all around her and yet she's in there making breathing movements. Amazing! After watching her breathe from different angles they were happy with the results and I was free to go wait for Dr D.

Now remember, Dr D was actually out of the office this week but was going to come in for my appointment. They were going to call him so I waited in the waiting room, thankful for having remembered to bring my library book. After an hour I checked at the desk to make sure someone really had called him and the receptionist (who I've never seen before and who I think just liked to yap on the phone rather than work) said "Oh are you Amanda? Dr Davis called twice to see if you were still here but I told him you'd come and gone." I was like "Um I'm still here. I've been here since 8am (it was now 10:30) and have been in the waiting room since they finished my u/s at 9:30." Not once did that woman call my name and she knew it. She said "Dr Davis wanted me to give you his cell phone number" to which I replied "Already have it" and gave her a partially evil glare. Then in front of her I called him and before walking away to talk to him, I said "I've been here all along" so she'd hear it.

So anyways, Dr D couldn't make it in but no worries since everything ended up looking good in the end - NST, u/s, urine, BP, etc. And as we talked, that was when he told me the good news about moving the c-section date. His first words, after apologizing for the receptionist not calling my name to see if I was still out there waiting, were "We can't do your c-section on the 7th." I will admit tears filled my eyes as I thought I was getting pushed out beyond the 7th. But then he said, "How would you like to have that baby 2 days earlier instead?" Hell yeah!!! I'm all for it!! So we're scheduled for the 5th at 11am. We discussed what time we should arrive, the no eating/drinking after midnight, etc, and then we'll just finish up the hospital paperwork on the 5th.

I am beyond excited I tell you!!! Only 5 days until our little girl is here!!!! Sorry I'm so exclamation point happy but damn, I cannot wipe the smile off of my face right now.

37w6d - Meet the pediatrician day

Hello all! Let me start by saying today was a MUCH better day than yesterday. Ten fold, a hundred fold, a million times better - I felt like myself today, thank goodness! And this afternoon I spent a leisurely hour-plus sitting on my patio with a nice breeze, a cold glass of decaf iced tea, and a book of crossword puzzles...ahhhh relaxation at its finest!

So this evening I went to meet one of the pedatricians at a practice just down the road - literally one quarter mile away. I liked the office a lot. The doctor I met with spoke about the practice and gave me an opportunity to ask my questions and I just felt really comfortable there. The practice has 4 male docs and 4 female docs. They have a call-in hour from 8am-9am each morning in case you just have general questions you want to ask a nurse and/or doc (nutritional, behavioral, etc) which is really nice. Two nights a week they're open until 7pm at our nearby office and another two nights a week they're open until 7pm at their other office in the next town over. They're also open for sick visits on Saturday and Sunday mornings (HUGE plus!) And you can talk to their lactation counselor M-F between 8am-5pm (again, nice!) So we'll see the hospital's pediatrician where we'll deliver and then when we're discharged we'll start going to this practice I visited for Maribel's care.

Now, onto two other bits of good news that I must share. First, I told you about my former IVF cycle buddy N - her u/s today went great! She and her DH were able to see their little bean on the screen with a beautiful heartbeat of 142. I kept refreshing my screen all afternoon waiting for her message to come in and I was overjoyed at the news. So big congratulations to N & her DH!

My other congratulations goes out to K. K is the message board friend who originally saw my post about my non-existent cervix and sent me a message telling me about the TAC and recommending I reach out to Dr D to discuss it with him. She had her TAC placed in September after previously losing twins to incompetent cervix in the 2nd trimester. If it weren't for her noticing my post that day and giving me Dr D's contact information, well, I don't know if we'd be here today just 1 day shy of 38 weeks pregnant. Anyways, K just had her baby this past week. She delivered a little early, at 34w3d, and her little girl needed a little help breathing from the NICU but the fact of the matter is, she has a baby girl that she'll be bringing home. Another TAC success story.

The other soon-to-be TAC success story on my IVF board is A who had almost all of her cervix removed when she had cervical cancer. She's due a few weeks behind me and while her cervix has shortened and she's on Procardia & strict bedrest, she's at the 32 week mark so it looks like all 3 of us TAC sisters are going to be success stories. And I think back to that stupid OB/GYN that I first saw who said their practice "doesn't believe in cerclages." God I'm so glad I ditched that practice in a hurry and took the aggressive approach!

Ahhh, it felt good to write about good stuff today, especially after yesterday's toxicity. First thing tomorrow I have my appointment with Dr D so I should have some details on next week's c-section. Just think, a week from tonight I'll be double checking my hospital bag, eating my last food before the cutoff of no food/drink, and wondering if I'll sleep a wink that night. It's really only a week away...WOW!!

37w5d - A peek into the mind of a hormonal pregnant woman

Oh boy, today was not a pleasant day and I'm blaming pregnancy hormones. Some people may not realize just how crazy these hormones can make a woman feel and act so to get an insider's perspective, simply read on.

The day started just fine. I woke up, walked the dog, drank my 2 cups of decaf, ate my peanut butter toast and string cheese, watched the Today show. All normal things. Then I completed my project of the day, changing out pictures in my collage frames around the house. All the pictures I had in those frames previously were soooo old. They needed some more recent pictures and I was so happy to now see current pictures of the kids, grandkids, and the rest of the family now filling those frames. Ahhh, wonderful!

Then the day went to hell in a handbasket...

There is no explicable reason, nothing that set off the downward spiral - it just happened. As I got up to go to the bathroom after lunch, I was in so much pain I felt frustrated and angry and damn I'm just tired of feeling so sore. This led to me looking at DH with daggers as I thought "dammit, if it were up to me, I'd be having an amnio tomorrow and having Maribel on Thursday. You bastard you!" This led to me feeling guilty and ashamed for even thinking this as I know he made a logical decision when deciding our c-section date where my decision would have been driven by my physical desire to be out of pain. Well, that guilt and shame led me straight to the kitchen where I grabbed a giant piece of carrot cake. Now, we all know with my GD, I should not be eating an enormous slab of carrot cake as my afternoon snack. But did this stop me? No, in fact after eating that I proceeded to have some frozen grapes AND a bowl of Rice Krispies!! WTF is wrong with me?!?!

Well, my pigout brought more guilt so I tried to take a nap in hopes that I would wake up with a fresh, new take on the day. Nope! I coudn't sleep a wink. My dog could sleep (as he cuddled up next to me) and DH could sleep, as I eventually found him napping on the couch and now I'm angry and envious that they can both just conk out in seconds and I've spent the last two hours trying to fall asleep. In addition to the envy, I started feeling teary because it suddenly hit me that in 9 days Maribel will be here and I'm afraid I'm going to be an awful mother. What if she's better off in my uterus? It's not like I can stuff her back in there when I fail miserably. Now in addition to my sadness over knowing I'm going to be a terrible mother, I felt even more guilt than earlier over my pigout and not only that but I was now convinced I'm just a fat fuck who's going to have a really hard time working this weight off if these pigouts continue. So as I lay down to let a contraction pass I did 10 leg lifts (like 10 leg lifts is going to do anything at all to combat the ginormous slice of carrot cake I ate, ha!)

Dinnertime came and I was in no way motivated to think of something clever and delicious to cook so it ended up being a fried eggs, toast, and sausage links dinner. The sausage links tasted incredibly salty tonight and before I knew it, I was crying. I don't know exactly why. Part of it was just sheer mental exhaustion from the afternoon. Part of it was because I don't have any friends down here where we live and that in itself is pretty sad. But regardless of the reason, I cried for the rest of the meal, feeding the dog my sausage (he was a big fan of it) and continued my crying while DH cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher.

Eventually I stopped crying and decided to walk the dog. He nearly pulled me down the last few steps to go after a dog he saw out back and at that very moment I think I would have been happy to give my dog away. Which of course led to more anger and guilt as I stormed down the sidewalk, dog and husband following behind me. I also decided at this time that I'd better do a walk around the block to combat the evil carrot cake. Of course by the time we got back to our apartment I'm in loads of pain but you know what? Who cares? I'd be in pain if we didn't go for the walk. I'd be contracting even if we didn't go for the walk. So I told myself to suck it up and shut up. And I guess telling myself that made me feel better because I've refrained from crying since then.

Ok, so after reading about my afternoon and evening you may have many thoughts going through your head. If you've ever been pregnant you may be thinking back to that late pregnancy stage and be able to relate perfectly to my story. Or you may be thinking "Wow this lady is off her rocker!" or "Who is this crazy person and what has she done with Amanda?" or maybe even "Oh my, I feel so bad for her DH and dog. How do they tolerate her?" Whatever you may think, you know I don't bother sugarcoating anything on this blog so it's only fair for me to give you honest insight into how pregnancy hormones can make me, a pretty average woman, feel like a lunatic. And I tell you - I seriously felt like shipping myself off to the funny farm today.

So here's to hoping that today is long forgotten and that tomorrow is a much better day. Tomorrow night I go meet the pediatrician (since I was in the hospital the last time I had that scheduled) and Thursday morning is my next (and last) NST/prenatal visit. Both of those are some good positive things to look forward to so I'm optimistic that tomorrow will be a great day, or as the Brady Bunch would say a Sunshine Day! And as a Brady Bunch fanatic, there is no way in hell I could say that and not include a link to the Brady Bunch singing Sunshine Day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaCCG7QkM_c

Enjoy!!

37w4d - 10 more sleeps to go!

I can't wait to wake up tomorrow morning because then we'll be in a single digit countdown - woo-hoo!!! Yeah baby!! What's really crazy is I remember my pregnancy ticker when the pregnancy first started and it was saying I had 243 days or so to go. Now knowing that we're going to deliver in only 10 more sleeps, well, that's just plain mind boggling - in a good way!

This weekend was pretty uneventful. DH & I went out for a nice lunch on Saturday and talked about how this may be one of our last lunches with just the two of us. Next time we go we'll have our little princess with us and be timing our lunch date around breastfeeding.

Sunday was pretty tough as I had painful contractions for a good 10 hours. And DH was gone from 6am until almost 10pm so I had dog walking honors all day. Let me just say, it's definitely a challenge to walk a dog with contractions that stop you in your tracks. There were a few times where I just had to tell pup to stop and bend over for a couple minutes to let the contraction pass. At some points during the day, I contemplated calling Dr D but then the contractions would go all irregular again. In the end I'm glad I didn't bother the good doc because by the time I went to bed, they'd let up considerably. Today, DH has another long day so I'm the dog walking queen again but it's been much, much easier with more of the "normal" contractions that I'm used to. So now I just wait for my appointment on Thursday morning.

On another note, I'm really excited for one of my message board friends "N". Now, back when we did our IVF cycle, N was my cycle buddy. We both joined the summer cycle group thread in June/July but by the time we both went through our testing and prep ended up moving on to the fall cycle group thread. We were both self-pay so we could relate to the fear of spending soooo much money and not having anything to show for it. We started our stims one day apart and had our egg retrieval on the same day, October 21st. I had a 3-day transfer, while she had enough embies to try a 5-day transfer. Throughout our cycle we messaged each other numerous times a day - cheering each other on and keeping each other positive through the worry. As we all know, I got my BFP but N got a BFN. I was so, so sad for her as I'd really hoped we'd be able to go through our pregnancies together. And yet while she was going through such a painful time, she always stayed supportive of my pregnancy. (That couldn't have been easy for her.)

N & her DH took some time away to contemplate whether to try another fresh cycle or do a frozen embryo transfer (FET) with the one embryo that made it to the freezing stage. An FET is considerably cheaper since there is no retrieval and no stims necessary, but N was so afraid that the embie wouldn't survive the thaw (around 70% survive thawing) or that just transferring 1 would not take. They decided to do their FET, the embie survived the thaw and was transferred, and then N's wait began. I had 23 internet cheapie pregnancy tests leftover so after her FET, I mailed her the sticks so she'd have plenty of HPTs to test with. And she got a BFP! Beautiful 2nd lines over and over until she went for her b/w and then her betas have been fabulous. This Wednesday she goes for her first u/s. I've been praying for her daily that when she goes on Wednesday she & her DH will see a beautiful sac with a beautiful heartbeat in there. That wait for the first u/s is worse than the wait for the betas. We've seen so many women post that there was no heartbeat, that it was just a blighted ovum, or that it's an ectopic so seeing the heartbeat is what a fertility clinic (and us pregnant women) take as "really pregnant!" So the wait for the first u/s is an emotionally draining time, I know!

So to my former cycle buddy and friend N in Tennessee, good luck on Wednesday. The prayers and positive thoughts will keep coming and I can't wait to follow your pregnancy!

37 weeks - only 2 weeks to go!!!

37 weeks today!! Two weeks from now I should be holding Maribel, or nursing her, or watching DH snuggle up with her...oh, I cannot wait!! DH told me that it really hit him yesterday - that his thoughts are always "When Maribel arrives..." and now that "when" is really just two weeks away he got extra excited and nervous at the same time.

My days now fluctuate. Yesterday I was pretty miserable, just because I was sore, uncomfortable, and itchy. It probably didn't help that I felt the need to vacuum the entire house yesterday - dining/living room, our room, baby's room, hallway and moving light furnishings out of the way to do so. Yeah, probably not the wisest decision I've made but nesting was in full force so once I started I just couldn't stop. Today, I've been feeling a lot better. I limited my activities today to dog walking and grocery shopping (though carrying those grocery bags up the stairs temporarily kicked my ass.)

So as I waiver between cherishing every remaining moment of my pregnancy and crying to the heavens to please just let me have her now so I can stop feeling so uncomfortable, I think about things I love about being pregnant and things I won't miss.

I will miss feeling her kick and squirm inside of me, especially when I'm talking to her. It's like a communication only she & I have and I'll miss that.

I will NOT miss peeing numerous times each hour, nor will I miss having a contraction the moment I get up to pee. It's hard enough to walk with a contraction and a belly out to here, but add in squeezing the legs together to avoid an accident on the way to the bathroom and my patience thins.

I will miss people being so friendly. Yes, people are REALLY nice to pregnant women. They smile at pregnant women, they strike up a quick conversation (usually just asking when I'm due or whether it's a boy or girl), and you actually feel like you're no longer completely invisible to the rest of society.

I will NOT miss pricking my finger 4 times a day or having to schedule meals and activities around when I need to test my blood. I will also NOT miss having to take my Procardia every 6 hours (I really hate that 2am alarm with a passion.)

I will miss my hubby talking to my belly, rubbing it, and telling me almost daily how beautiful my bump is.

I will NOT miss both of us being too nervous to have sex, or having to wear a condom during sex, or being told we have to refrain from sex (which happened at the beginning, middle, and end of pregnancy.) You always hear "pregnant sex is great". In our pregnancy it was pretty much non-existent so we are both anxious to get the all clear at my post-partum visit and get that party started. [Insert cheesy porn music here]

I will miss the wonder and anticipation - what will she look like? Will she have DH's cute lips and big brown eyes? Will she have my high arches or his flat feet? What will she weigh? What will she sound like when she cries? What will her personality be like?

I will NOT miss the worry. We've made it through the pregnancy in baby steps. The entire IVF process was a series of baby steps - stim enough to get eggs, retrieve them, wait to hear how many fertilized, get the call each day to see if they're still growing, transfer them, wait to see if we get a BFP, wait for the u/s, wait for the 2nd u/s to see if we had heartbeats. Then it was wait for the TAC surgery to make sure the baby made it through that. Then it was get to 20 weeks, then 24 (where viability is greater), then 25 where it's even greater, then 28 where we take our first breath that a baby would have a really, really good chance if born then. Then 30, then getting past our pre-term contraction scare at 33+ weeks (knowing the baby would be fine but still knowing there could be a NICU stay), and now at 37 weeks we've made it to full-term. I've always said I'll really breathe a sigh of relief when they do that c-section, I hear her cry, and they tell me she's great. Of course, as parents you never stop worrying but I just want to be past the point of worrying that we'll be able to bring our baby home.

I'm sure there are lots more things I'll miss and not miss but those are my main ones. Anyways, 2 more weeks...I still can't believe it! Well, here is my picture from this evening at 37 weeks. Only 2 more belly shots to go - one next week and one the morning of delivery. WOW!!!!

36w5d - 16 more sleeps!

Hello all! As the title of today's post, we have 16 more sleeps until c-section day. It's funny when you're counting down to a big day. You try to find the one that sounds like the shortest amount of time. 2 weeks & 2 days? 16 days? 16 sleeps? 2 weeks from Thursday? While my answer changes depending on my mood, today I think 16 sleeps sounds best. 16 days makes me think of 16 long days. Anything with "weeks" in it just seems like forever. Sleeps are generally 6 hours or less these days so 16 of those seems like a short amount of time. (Mind you, yesterday I preferred to think of it as 2 weeks & 3 days instead of 17 days or 17 sleeps. That's why I said it seems to vary depending on my mood.) So which do you think is the shortest sounding?

Today's doctor's visit went well for the most part. The worst part was my weight. Somehow I gained 3.4 pounds in one week!! WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!? Yes, that deserved to be spelled out instead off my usual abbreviation of WTF!! I have no idea why but my guess is that my activity level being greatly cut since starting this modified bedrest probably contributed. That and I'm feeling a little puffy lately so I have a feeling some of it is water weight. Whatever it is, I have to work extra hard over the next week to make sure I stay put on that freaking scale. Total weight gain thanks to packing on the pounds this week = 18.8 pounds. Still acceptable overall of course, it's just hard to see a gain like that when I can't even eat all of the foods I'd like to be eating. Ah well, let it go Amanda, let it go.

My NST was good. Some contractions but nothing major. Maribel racing her heart away at first and then calming down into a nice pattern. My AFI was good at 16.93 - so even higher than the original reading 2 weeks ago. BP was awesome at 120/86. Pulse, temp, & urine all fine too. Doc pushed on a few parts of my lower legs to make sure I wasn't having pitting edema with that weight gain but everything looked good there too.

So then we discussed our final decision for our c-section date. He again ran through our options - deliver next week, but just do an amnio beforehand to make sure her lungs are mature or deliver at 39 weeks on 7/7. OMG, how I wanted to say let's deliver next week. I really, really wanted to say that. But instead I told him how DH & I discussed it and we'd (well, mostly DH) like to shoot for 39 weeks. He chuckled as I said I'd like DH to carry a bowling ball in his shirt for this last week so he feels my pain (mind you, I was semi-serious.) He called over to the hospital to tell them to put me on the schedule for 7/7 for my c-section. Wow, hearing him make that call made it all feel very real.

Next week, instead of going for my NST/prenatal visit on Tuesday, I'll go on Thursday. That will be exactly 38 weeks and will be 1 week before my c-section. Doc will do the hospital paperwork with me that day and it can only be done one week prior to my surgery (pre-op vitals and such) so this will allow me to just have one appointment next week instead of having one appointment on Tuesday and then going in Thursday for the paperwork portion. That works for me! And that means I only have ONE more doctor visit before we deliver. One! Wow! During next week's appointment he'll go through all of the details for the surgery - what to expect, what time to be there, pre-op instructions, etc. I can't believe we're this close now! I've used a lot of exclamation points in the last few sentences so I think you can sense my excitement.

So that's it for today. Thursday will be 37 weeks so I'll be sure to post a new belly shot. Until then, I hope you're all having a great week and happy first day of summer!

36w3d - Happy Father's Day!

Hi everyone! Happy Father's Day to all of the dads, stepdads, and soon-to-be dads! To my Dad, you're an amazing father and you taught me so much. I love you! To my DS, you're an awesome daddy to Lily and I love you! And to my wonderful DH, I can't wait to see you in action as Daddy when Maribel arrives! Babe, I love you more every day. xoxo

Here we're chugging away towards 37 weeks and it's been a mixed couple of days. Thanks for the comments and emails on the bikini shot! When I had my first two children, I was so young and self-conscious I would have never stepped foot in a bikini much less take a picture in a bikini at 36 weeks. It's nice this time around to "honor the bump" with all of the pictures we've taken during this pregnancy.

So Friday morning I went swimming with a fellow prego Army wife and oh my god did that feel WONDERFUL!! That feeling of weightlessness was terrific and I can't wait to go again. I'll either head over to the base Monday or Tuesday for another swim. I'd like to go 2-3 times a week these next couple of weeks since I know when I'm post-partum I'll have a good 6 weeks or so out of the water while I heal.

Yesterday, I was just a miserable old crumb. Grumpy, itchy (I'd tried to taper down my prednisone and had gone a couple days without it - not great results, UGH), sore, and tired. Those familiar gripes you've had to hear me complain about the last few weeks. I seriously hate to complain - after all, we worked so hard to get to this point I feel like I should be thankful for every pregnancy symptom 100% of the time. I know that's completely unrealistic when you're 9 months pregnant, but I also know women who are TTC'ing would probably tell me to shut up, quit complaining, and that they'd do anything to have the aches and pains I'm having right now. So it's hard to balance the complaining and being thankful for the pain, contractions, etc in my mind. Why oh why do I always feel the need to make myself feel guilty about something?

What made me feel better last night was something so simple and silly - a jigsaw puzzle. Yep, a jigsaw puzzle, weird huh? My mom's been getting jigsaw puzzles and at Thanksgiving we were doing some at her house. Since then I've borrowed some when I go to visit or she sends me some in the mail to do to keep me occupied and on my tush so I don't have too much "on my feet" time. Why doing this activity made me feel better, I'm not sure. Maybe it's because finding a home for 300 pieces takes my mind off of my gripes? Maybe it's because it reminds me of doing puzzles as a kid? I don't know, but I highly recommend them if you just need to take your mind off things for a few hours. DH joined me too in the puzzling for awhile before his x-box started calling his name. It just ended up being a really nice family evening after my grump-fest of a day. Thank god!!

So Tuesday brings another NST and prenatal visit. These weekly visits seem to make time go a little faster. As of today, we have roughly 2w4d to go until we hit 39 weeks so we're nearing the end. I'll be sure to report in on how that appointment goes. Until then, enjoy your Father's Day!

36 weeks - 3 weeks to go!

36 weeks today and I would like to know who came by my house yesterday and sledgehammered my pelvis. Holy crap, that's how it feels. Yesterday when it hurt to walk, stand, sit, lay, anything - I thought well, maybe I'm constipated and it's making things hurt. No, that is not the issue. I've just hit the really uncomfortable part of pregnancy. Ouch!

For those that haven't been through the last month of pregnancy, I'll try to describe it to the best of my abilities. Picture your pelvic bones (that pelvic girdle if you will.) Now pretend that I just stuck a heavy bowling ball right on top of it. Gravity is pulling the bowling ball down but it just won't fit. So your bones start spreading out ever so slowly, which leads the ball to drop a little more, which makes your bones spread out a little more, etc, etc. When I move, I swear that bowling ball is going to come crashing out and when I don't move it's just a perpetual, strong, ache as the bowling ball keeps on spreading those bones out.

So yep, that's pretty much how it feels. So picture my expression last night when I painfully hobbled to the bathroom, painfully sat down on the toilet to pee, painfully peed (holding onto the counter to angle myself in the least painful position possible), painfully hobbled back to the living room, painfully sat down on the loveseat - only to have DH ask "Hun, will you make me some popcorn?" The man is lucky I love him because my initial thought was "Are you fucking kidding me?" followed by "You couldn't have asked me this BEFORE I painfully sat down?" followed by "Pop your own damn popcorn!" Instead I just said "You're lucky I love you" and proceeded to painfully get up, painfully walk to the cupboard and painfully stand in the kitchen for 3 minutes while his popcorn popped. I did however take the opportunity to shoot him evil looks at every possible opportunity during this process. It's unfortunate that I can't make him experience this pain, just for 5 minutes so he knows I'm not just some wuss crying over a papercut. Oh DH, I do love you despite your untimely request for popcorn. :-)

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. I'm going to meet up with another preggo Army wife in the morning to go lap swimming on base. That should help my painful pelvis for a little while and loosen up these joints. Mind you, my idea of lap swimming these days will be a gentle breaststroke or hell, just backfloat down the lane but I can't wait! This swimming plan brought momentary panic as I wondered if I would even fit in any of my bathing suits. Good news is I fit into both suits and I decided I may as well take my 36 week bump shot in them. So here goes, two 36 week shots in my bathing suits. Don't laugh too hard, ok?

35w5d - ~23 days to go

Hi friends! 23 days (or less) to go, woo-hoo!!! I had a good prenatal visit today. It started out again with the NST and this one was MUCH calmer than last week's. Maribel started out all super active with that super high heartbeat for the first few minutes as I clicked and clicked and clicked to log her activity. Then everything settled down nicely. In fact, she fell asleep for a good portion of the test. The best part was that I only had 1 contraction the whole time I was hooked up! Awesome!!

We checked the amniotic fluid index (AFI) again via u/s and this created the one nervous moment of the day. The u/s tech (who I've never seen there before) measured all of the pockets of fluid and came up with an AFI of 7.3. This was a lot lower than last weeks AFI of 16.5, enough to make me nervous. Apparently I wasn't the only one nervous about that drop. As soon as Dr D saw that he took me back to the u/s room and had a different u/s tech, one of the two I usually see, do the u/s over (not telling him what the first u/s tech got for results.) The second u/s tech came up with 13.92 so all was good again with the world. It's one thing to have it decrease a little the closer I get to delivery, but that first AFI of the day would have been a significant drop and that wasn't looking good.

So then on to the basics - b/p a lovely 100/70, weight was up 6 tenths of a pound so still doing great in that area (I also think the 2 bottles of water I drank during my NST contributes to that little gain.) No protein in the urine, temp my usual 97.1, and pulse was looking fine. Dr D decided to keep me on the Procardia since we have now seen some improvement with my contractions decreasing, so he gave me a new script for that. And that was really it - a nice, easy, mostly uneventful appointment. I'll go back again next Tuesday for the same - NST, AFI, and prenatal visit.

Only a few more weeks to go, can you believe it??? If she decides to stay put that means I only have 3 more of these weekly appointments - 3!! And then we'll have our baby girl in our arms. Oh, and so far for the poll it looks like 6 folks think Maribel's going to arrive early while 1 thinks she'll hold out until 7/7. I can't wait to see who's right!

35w4d - The Nursery is Done!

We're 35w4d today which means 24 days or less to go until we meet Maribel. This weekend, DH had an extremely rare weekend off so we enjoyed our time together and got lots of little things done.

Hubby hung curtains in the baby's room and in our room and can I just say - while I'm normally not a fan of curtains, I LOVE ours right now. I've been waking up sooooo early lately, usually in the 5 o'clock hour when the sun starts peeking through our blinds (though Saturday I was up at 3:18...way before the sun came up) and I'm exhausted enough without waking up so early. But yesterday we hung the insulated curtains in our room and yours truly slept until almost 8am. Holy shit, that felt great! Now mind you, I was still up at least every hour for pee breaks or meds or adjusting my big ole belly but still - this is a vast improvement over not being able to go back to sleep after 5am. Woo-hoo!! We also organized closets and dressers in our room to make sure we're utilizing space as best we can.

Hubby also hung the letters I painted that spell Maribel's name (pics to follow later in this post.) We put together a small pantry that we'll use under the bar in our dining room to store food since our kitchen is THE tiniest kitchen known to man. This eliminates food falling on my head everytime I open the cupboards and also gave us a lot more cupboard space for baby bottles, milk storage supplies, etc. I washed the cloth wipes and then trimmed the frayed edges down to the stitches we made on all 85 of them. Damn, my scissor fingers were hurting after that fun task. We put away the last few items in the baby's room and now we are DONE in the nursery. That's right - DONE!!! AWESOME!!

So the pics at the top of the post are a couple of pictures of the nursery. I wish we were allowed to paint but we live in an apartment complex so that's a no-go. So we had to find ways to add color to the walls without getting out brushes and rollers. The first pic is looking into the nursery from the hallway and the second pic is taken from a corner of the room. (Sorry I had to post them in that fashion. For some reason when I tried to post them within my post, they spread out and covered the entire screen. Weird stuff today I guess.)

In other news, I'm feeling good today. Yesterday wasn't too fun - just had lots and lots of contractions and they were REALLY uncomfortable. A nap in the afternoon did help ease those up so I must have just been sitting up (trimming those wipes) for too long before getting horizontal. Lesson learned - sitting is not as kind to my contractions as laying down. Tomorrow morning I have another NST and prenatal visit so I'll be sure to report how that goes. Hopefully little miss Maribel won't give me a scare again. (Did you hear that Maribel? It's quite alright for your heartbeat to increase during a contraction, but bring it back down afterwards, ok???)

35 weeks - My belly is a watermelon

Hi folks! Today I got my office equipment cleared out of what was formerly our guestroom/office so it is now strictly the nursery, YAY!!! DH still has to hang curtains and the wooden letters I painted that spell Maribel's name but that's really it. Everything else is good to go.

Yesterday I prepped my cloth diapers. Since they're pocket diapers with microfiber inserts, prepping just consisted of one washing. Then the inserts got tumble dried and the diapers themselves hung on my new drying rack. Once everything was dried, I stuffed the diapers with the inserts, snapped them up, and now we just need the baby to diaper. I also ordered some hemp inserts for overnights so once those come in, those will require some additional prepping since they're natural fibers. Some sites say washing them 5 or 6 times should be good. Others say to boil them for 3o minutes, let the water cool, boil them again and they should be good.

Every day I do a few things on my to-do list along with one or two "regular" chores. But still everything is done in small doses with rest breaks in between since the contractions continue, particularly when I'm standing or walking. It does feel good though to get things done though because all this resting in between makes me feel incredibly lazy and I don't do well with feeling lazy.

So here are some pics that DH took of me tonight. Please excuse the messy, frizzy hair. It was over 100 degrees here today and humid and while my time outside today was very brief it was enough to make my hair go haywire and rebel against the ponytail I tried to contain it in.

34w5d - Weekly NSTs have begun

This morning was my 35 week prenatal visit and it was a long one. The visit started with a NST where you sit in a big comfy recliner, they hook you up to the monitor to track the baby's heartbeat and any contractions, and they give you a clicker to click whenever you feel the baby move. Well, let's just say the first 10-15 minutes of this was a bit nerve-wracking today. I was contracting like crazy and when I'm contracting, Maribel moves like she's a contestant in a dance competition. My thumb was just constantly clicking that clicker. Now her being active is a good thing, but her heartbeat was clocking in the 190's (usually around 145) and would not come back down. So the nurse had me chugging bottles of water and eventually had me scoot onto my side. Finally, my contractions started to spread out a bit and Maribel's heart rate went back down to her normal rate. The rest of the test was uneventful but boy did I have to pee like crazy after chugging nearly 3 bottles of water during that time.

Next stop was into the u/s room to take a peek at her amniotic fluid level. That looked great, so no issues there. Weight was good - stayed right where it was so I'm glad to see I have not gained now in almost 10 weeks. BP, urine, temp, etc were all good as well.

So then I met with Dr D and we talked about some things. One, we'll keep going with the Procardia until next Thursday which will put me at 36 weeks. Two, since I'll be breastfeeding he recommended starting to toughen up my nipples to help avoid cracking and bleeding. Normally some nipple stimulation would be suggested but given my pre-term labor scare from last week he suggested I NOT do that and instead just put really cold water (or even ice) on my nipples for a few minutes, two to three times a day, and then let them air dry. Now typically around this time he would have also rechecked my breasts since they were really fibro-cystic when he checked them at the beginning of the pregnancy. But again, since we don't want manipulating them to put me into pre-term labor, he'll check them on the day of the c-section or a couple of days before.

We talked about when we would schedule the c-section for and basically we have 3 options. Option 1 is we schedule it for 7/7/11 which would put me at exactly 39 weeks. Option 2 is that we schedule it for the end of June (around 38 weeks) but we would need to do an amniocentesis beforehand to make sure her lungs are mature. Option 3 is that I end up going into labor in the meantime and we just deliver whenever that happens. Of the 3, Dr D thinks option 3 is most likely given the events of the past week. Option 2 would be my favorite but I asked DH what he thinks and he wants to go with option 1 and wait until 7/7. Now, I know I should want that too. After all, our whole goal is to keep her in there until she's ready to come out. But I must admit to you all that when he said that I almost started crying. I just think the thought of 30 more days of contracting every single time I stand up or walk made me want to curl up in a ball and cry. Again though, it would be best for our little one and who knows, she may have plans of her own on when she wants to arrive. But for now at least we know that in 30 days or less, we will have our little girl in our arms - WOW, WOW, WOW!!!

So a pretty good appointment overall and it's amazing to think that we're really, really in the home stretch now. My next appointment is in one week where again we'll start the visit with the NST and then see Dr D. And in the meantime, I'll just keep chugging my water and spending lots of time loafing.

34w4d - Pacing oneself is hard work

Hello everyone! Today is my first Monday as an unemployed person and I'm really quite content with that. Oh, who am I kidding, I love it! I'm sure there are days I'll feel stir crazy or depressed or desperate to join the land of the working but today is not any of those days. Given my modified bed rest schedule I am REALLY glad I decided to leave my job a few weeks before Maribel is due. I am having to do things in baby steps, something I'm not used to doing at all and if I were also working my usual 8-9 hour days I think I'd be stressing on when I'll get everything done.

Since I've been home from the hospital I've been pretty good about doing things (like chores or errands) in little spurts followed by a longer spurt of sitting or laying down. DH has been awesome too doing more of the chores I normally handle and doing the majority of dog walking. In short he has been even more WONDERFUL than usual! In fact, as I type this he just grabbed the vaccuum and not only vaccummed the floors, but he's moved onto vaccumming the loveseat and couch. Damn, I love my hubby!

He also is quick to be on my case if I don't rest enough. Case in point, Saturday morning DH awoke to me putting away Maribel's clothes in her dresser. The first thing out of his mouth after "Good morning" was "How long have you been standing?" He didn't like my answer of 20 minutes and I was quickly escorted to the couch for a rest. That routine continued throughout the weekend and honestly it did help a lot. As soon as I get up and about I start contracting - even a quick walk to the bathroom gets them started up again. So I really do have to force myself to stop, rest, and relax as much as possible if I want to be any bit of comfortable these last few weeks. I do get these moments where I feel lazy for resting so much, but that's just because I'm used to going, going, going and crashing when I'm done (that's what I get for growing up on a farm.) I've put together my to-do list of things I'd like to get done over the next few weeks and I've started my honey-do list for the things I need DH to do so we'll just tackle them, in time, over the next few weeks.

In other news, I'm feeling ok. Like I mentioned, I'm still contracting a lot, especially when I'm standing or walking around so that's quite uncomfortable. I do feel like a bowling ball is going to fall out of my cervix when walking but Maribel hasn't even dropped yet so I'm pretty sure that feeling is going to get worse before it gets better. I'm itchy and still get new eczema patches daily BUT I think there's been some improvement in that area as I have not had to put ice packs on my skin nor have I had to take Benadryl in one week. Woo-hoo!! Any improvement in the eczema area is welcome. And I'm sleeping horribly. For example, last night at 10pm I started feeling tired and went to bed. It was after 12:30am before I drifted off and was awake not once, but twice before my 2am alarm to take my Procardia. I was up at 3am and at 4am - both times to use the bathroom. After the 4am visit it took me a full hour to get back to sleep only to be visiting the bathroom once again just after 6am. And by 6:57am I just gave up on trying to go to sleep and got up to take my shower. And that my friends is a VERY typical night these days. Again, good preparation for when Maribel arrives but it also explains why I laugh out loud when someone tells me to get rest now while I can. YEAH RIGHT, like that's at all possible.

So I have to share a funny conversation from Saturday between DH and me.
DH: [Walking around the room] "Trans-vaginal cerclage. Trans-vaginal cerclage." [Mind you, neither he nor I know why on earth he was saying that but that's beside the point.]
Me: "Honey, did you ever think you'd know the difference between a transvaginal cerclage and a transabdominal cerclage?"
DH: "Hell no. Or that I know what Braxton Hicks are. I'd probably be thinking 'Doesn't that guy have a new country album out?'"

Too cute (and really braxton hicks does sound like a country singer's name.) It's funny though because sometimes I talk about all of these things but don't know if DH is really listening or if he's focused in on his X-box game. Or as in the case of last Tuesday, his mind was on food. As I was contracting and debating whether or not I should call my doctor, hubby had going out for seafood on his mind. Here I am timing contractions and writing down the times and he's reading menus online and listing dinner options for me. I was even on the phone with my sister telling her about the contractions but he was in such a zone, he was oblivious to what was happening. It wasn't until I spoke directly to him and said hun - "I've had 12 contractions in the last hour, should I call Dr D?" that he realized something was really happening here. Oh DH, you crack me up!

Well, that's it for me today. I'll check back in tomorrow after my doctor's appointment. I'm interested to see how that goes following last week's hospital visit so I'll be sure to report on it. Later folks!

34 weeks - Home Sweet Home!

We're back home - YAY!!! And man, does it feel good to be home!

We'll start with last night. The hubster stayed to visit with me until about 9pm last night. Earlier in the day, they moved a more comfortable chair in the room so he didn't have to suffer any longer with the hard plastic chair. I felt bad that he had to partake in the boredom of the four walls of the hospital room I'd been staring at since the day before, but I really enjoyed just having him there. And I think he felt bad for me because he said he couldn't imagine having to be stuck in that hospital room for almost two days, so he was more than willing to partake in the boredom with me.

I only had to be on the monitor for one hour last night and one hour this morning which was really nice. The other great part was they gave me two Ambien last night to help me sleep. After only getting 2.5 hours of scattered sleep the night before I was really hoping for a good night's sleep. The Ambien delivered...oh boy, did it deliver. I took it at 10pm when I was ready to crash and even though I woke up many times in the night for my 11:45pm steroid shot, my 2am dose of Procardia and my 3:30am changing of the IV bag in addition to numerous trips to the bathroom, I fell instantly back to sleep each time and slept like a rock. Thank goodness!!

So this morning I had my breakfast at the hospital and it's a good thing my doctor didn't require me to do my glucose testing in the hospital because I would have gone over. Breakfast was two waffle "sticks", some sugar free syrup, cinnamon apples, orange juice, and decaf coffee. Oh yeah, I would have gone way over I'm sure. But since my levels have been really good, doc didn't require me to do the testing while in the hospital. Now, after we left the hospital at 11:30 this morning I must admit, we went to Cracker Barrel and I partook in a french toast breakfast - bad girl, I know. But the "proper" eating and testing resumes this evening. Ah well, the break from carb counting and finger pricks was nice while it lasted.

After my morning monitoring, a doctor covering for my vacationing Dr D came in to see me and said I could go home - Yippee! I called DH so he could come get me and meanwhile they removed my IV, wrote up my discharge papers, and wrote out my prescription for Procardia. Nothing major on my discharge instructions - no sex, no heavy lifting, Procardia every 6 hours, and do modified bed rest until further notice. Modified bed rest really just means take it easy whenever you can. Which I will certainly do because tomorrow is my last day of work and I plan on doing some relaxing in the weeks until our delivery date. I also just have to watch out for my water breaking or leaking, any bleeding, and I need to do kick counts at least once a day. Basically doing kick counts involves laying down on my left side, drinking a glass of water, and counting kicks and/or movements to make sure I feel 10 kicks or movements in that hour. If I don't feel 10, I'm supposed to drink another glass of water (or juice) and try again for another hour. Maribel's most active in the evening so that will be the best time of day to do my kick counts. And my next prenatal visit with Dr D is on Tuesday morning so we'll see what he says in regards to any other instructions.

My cell phone is now full of alarms. Alarms at 8am, 2pm, 8pm, and 2am to take my Procardia. Then I'll have my alarms for 2 hours after each meal to check my glucose levels. I'm going to be like Pavlov's dog at the end of this last month - either reaching for a pill bottle or my lancets at the sound of my cell phone.

So as I said, tomorrow is my last day of work - ahhhhhh...LOVE this feeling!! I'm so excited to leave my job! Especially now that I need to take it easy. I'll be able to do little spurts of work in the baby's room as needed and just rest up the rest of the time. I definitely notice a difference when resting vs. being up and about. Just while walking into and waiting in CVS for my Procardia to get filled I was really uncomfortable with my contractions. Once we got home and I got horizontal, I felt a lot better. So rest I think really will make a difference.

Well, that's it for now. I'm just really thankful that Maribel is doing great in there and I'm glad to be home with DH and pup. I feel relieved that we've had the steroid shots in case she does decide to arrive early - at least she'll have a much better chance of having mature lungs if that happens. And again, I'm very thankful for all of the positive thoughts, prayers, and cheers we've had from everyone - it's heartwarming to know we've got so many people that care about our little family.

33w6d - Starting my second day at the hospital

Those contractions I mentioned yesterday? Yep, they landed me in the Labor & Delivery unit at my hospital yesterday afternoon. And I'm still here, at least until tomorrow.

I called the doctor around 4pm yesterday after the contractions continued (averaging 5 minutes apart) and he said to go to L & D at the hospital to get checked out. So we arrived at the hospital around 4:30 yesterday and they immediately got me changed into a robe and hooked up to things. First I gave a urine sample as sometimes things like a UTI or other urinary issue can cause contractions. That came back fine. They also started an IV with a really fast drip to get me really hydrated. I wasn't dehydrated (my pee was nearly clear) but often dehydration can cause contractions so that was the first line of business.

The on-call doctor came into meet me as the nurse took the rest of my history. The on-call had talked to Dr D on the phone so we did the IV thing for a couple hours along with wearing a monitor on my stomach to track Maribel's heartbeat and my contractions. Her heartbeat has been awesome, as have her activity levels. My contractions have pretty much stayed at 2-3 minutes apart the whole time I've been here. Every so often they'll space out a little more but only for a brief time then they're back to the regular 2-3 minutes. They're not getting any stronger, they're just remaining consistent.

So anyways, after we saw no improvement with just the additional hydration, they had me start taking Procardia. This is normally a med used for high b/p by relaxing the blood vessels, but can also be used to calm a contracting uterus. I took my first dose at 8pm last night and have taken it every 6 hours since. No change.

So around 10:30 last night, Dr D came in to see me. He reviewed all of the printouts from the monitor and did a manual check of my cervix. He wanted to make sure the cervix hadn't pulled through the TAC. Oh damn, that check hurt like hell!! And Dr D mentioned how the manual check didn't tell much since my cervix is pretty much nonexistent. Once again, thank god that TAC is in there! So he said he wanted to keep me here overnight so we could continue the Procardia & IV and continue the monitoring. At 11:30pm, they also gave me an intramuscular steroid injection in my thigh. This is to help the baby's lungs mature in case we do have to deliver early.

As of this morning, contractions hadn't changed one bit. I was allowed to have some clear liquids which were awfully refreshing...ahhhh. And by lunch I was allowed to eat regular food. Dr D decided I'd be staying another 24 hours to continue the Procardia, IV, and to get my second steroid injection at 11:30 tonight. Contractions still haven't changed at all, but I was able to come off the monitor and take a shower today - both wonderful things! I'll be back on the monitor later tonight, but it's been a nice break to have it off. I sent DH home last night after midnight so he'd get decent sleep (which he didn't) and to get some food (a sad Red Baron pizza from 7-11) but he came back today to visit and is still hanging out with me here in my little room.

So we sit, we watch TV and watch the IV drip, I pee a TON, I try to get comfy in a bed that's not mine, and we wait. We wait to find out what our next step will be tomorrow. As both the on-call & Dr D said - worst case is we deliver and given the fact that we'll be 34 weeks tomorrow, chances are she'd be just fine. But the ultimate goal is to get things to calm down and keep her where she is for a few more weeks. So until we find out the next step tomorrow, we thank our family, friends, and readers for the thoughts & prayers you've sent. We appreciate every one of them and every one of you!

And to Maribel - Mommy & Daddy ask that you hang out in there just a little bit longer. We can't wait to meet you too but once you're here we promise you'll have lots and lots of time with us.