3 weeks, 2 days - Gained 10.5 ounces!

Go Maribel!! She gained a whopping 10.5 ounces over the last 8 days (and grew 1/4 of an inch too!) She now weighs 8 pounds, 13.5 ounces and the doctor has cleared us to go back to exclusively breastfeeding. One, I am soooo happy that she had this great weight gain. The doctor said sometimes they just need that nudge to get things going. Two, I am soooo happy to be able to stop supplementing with formula. Between the regurgitation and gassiness the bottlefeeding has given her, we'll be thrilled to ditch that! Bring on the boob juice 100% of the time again! Her next checkup is 8/11 so that will be her one month visit where she'll get her second Hep B vaccine and we'll again make sure her weight gain is progressing as it should.

In other news, today was DH's first day back to work after his leave. He worked one day a couple of weeks ago (because he had to be available for work for a couple of days between his paternity leave and his regular leave) but now he'll be back into the full swing of work again. Maribel, our dog, and I have all missed him lots and lots today! Oh how I wish we were independently wealthy and could all stay home together. But alas, we are not. So now we'll do our part to see if we can get into somewhat of a routine during the day. This morning we got the stroller out and took a nice long walk before it got too hot. That felt GREAT and I'm pretty sure the dog enjoyed it too (since my late pregnancy walks were very short and as few and far between as possible.)

Well, the princess is starting to stir so I must run. Here is a pic of her from Tuesday when she turned 3 weeks old. What a sweetie she is!

20 days old - Not enough hours in the day

I seriously don't know where the hours go when a newborn arrives. Most days I'm finally getting to eat breakfast around 11 (if I'm lucky) after waking, changing, feeding, changing, snuggling, taking the dog out, feeding, changing, pumping, snuggling, etc. If I try really hard I can also get a load of laundry going or the dishwasher loaded or unloaded but things like a shower or real housecleaning, um, yeah, not happening. Then the afternoon has lots of feeding, changing, pumping, snuggling, feeding, tummy time, oh yeah eat some lunch, changing, and maybe, just maybe, folding some of the laundry I started earlier in the day. Evenings are when the little princess gets a bit grouchy. She gets really gassy (as evident by the plentiful farts she produces) and generally just doesn't feel so great. So in addition to feeding, changing, pumping, we also add in walking, bouncing, bicycling her legs, massaging her tummy, and whatever else we can to get her settled and feeling better. Somehow through all of these daily happenings, the clock seems to fly from 8am - 11pm in the blink of an eye. I must say though, while our days are just filled with baby everything, DH and I wouldn't have it any other way. We are completely on cloud nine with our Maribel .

The new feeding schedule drives me a bit crazy. It seems to take forever to breastfeed, then feed a bottle, then pump what she didn't get to drink. Sometimes I'll mix it up so she just breastfeeds one feeding, then the next feeding is primarily formula (with a little pumped breastmilk) with Daddy while Mommy pumps. This is at least allowing me to still keep the supply up (and start stocking the freezer) while not spending all day in my glider rocker with either baby or pump attached to my boobs. We're really hoping that Thursday's weigh-in shows improvement in her gaining weight like she should.

The past week has also been challenging as we tried to find a good formula & bottle combination for Maribel's tummy. She's not always the best bottle drinker. If she drinks too fast or drinks too much she has an explosive regurgitation of everything she drank - out of her mouth and nose, the poor girl just can't hold in what she drank (and it breaks our heart to see milk/formula flying out of her...that can't feel good for her!) We found that some formulas seemed to increase the number of times she'd regurgitate everything. Similac was not her friend. Neither was Gerber Good Start. Both of those were samples we got from the pediatrician and the little one didn't take well to either of them. DH went out a couple nights ago and got some Gerber Good Start Gentle and so far (knock wood) we've only had one regurgitation with it. We also have tried 5 different kinds of bottles to find one that would slow down her drinking and cut down on gassiness. When DH picked up the GS Gentle formula he also grabbed a Playtex Ventaire bottle (DD loves these for her little one) and it's been really good so far so I think we'll be picking up more of those. After each feeding we also keep her upright for awhile (a long while), burp her a lot, and just pray that we're not going to see that meal come back up.

We also started using our cloth diapers (CDs) on Saturday. Love them! They're so easy (even DH said they're just like using a disposable) and so soft against her skin. And I love thinking of the disposables she's NOT using - especially when she's using 12-14 diapers a day at this point (she sure does poop a lot!) The diaper sprayer we bought works great too to just spray the mess into the toilet - again, so easy! The CDs do make her butt look huge, but I love that look of the fluffy butt. The pic at the top of today's post is Maribel rocking the fluff on her first day of wearing CDs. I don't think she was too happy with Mommy though during the photo shoot - she was just waking up and wanted boob NOW!

Well, I'm happy to have finally had 20 minutes to write today but my little darling is starting to squeak which means waking can't be too far away. Gotta run!

15 days old - Come on princess, let's gain some ounces!

Maribel turned 2 weeks old yesterday and in honor of that milestone, here is a picture from that day.



We've had a few interesting days since my last post. I think Maribel must have read my blog and thought she was being too easy on us and therefore adjusted her schedule. The last few evenings she's had a tough time. Around 6 or 7pm she started getting really irritable. She'd act really hungry but when she'd try to eat she'd suck for a few minutes and get super frustrated with the whole process. This cycle would go on until about 11pm or so.

We also went to the doctor today for her weight check and she still is not gaining like she should be. In the last week she only gained 3 oz so she's currently at 8lb3oz. When I described to the pediatrician how she had recently started acting, he mentioned the possibility of colic (which I remember, and not fondly, from my DD's infanthood 22 years ago) but said this would be a really early start for that. Since she's having enough wet & dirty diapers it seems as though the quantity of milk she's getting is ok. And my pumping amount for DH's evening bottle is back to a more "normal" (for me) amount of 3 - 3.5 oz. But the doctor is thinking it could be that my breastmilk is not high enough in calories for her to gain weight and be satisfied after a feeding.

So we'll continue to breastfeed for 10-15 minutes on our current schedule (every 2-3 hours during the day and every 3-4 hours at night) and offer formula after she breastfeeds. I'm also going to pump after these feedings so my milk supply doesn't decrease with the decrease in the demand. Then it's back to the pediatrician next Thursday for another weight check and hopefully this time we'll see a substantial weight gain.

And I guess we'll see how this evening goes with the addition of formula after breast. If she's still super irritable it may hint that she does have some colic going on, but if we start seeing her more "satisfied" in the evenings I'll be happy knowing she's getting what she needs from both me and the supplementing with formula. So we shall see and I'll report back soon.

12 days old - Sleeping & eating - her favorite pastimes

Here's our little princess at 11 days old - chilling out on Daddy's lap on the patio. The last few days we've all been spoiled rotten by my family. My mom, daughter, granddaughter, sister, and 2 nieces arrived on Friday just after lunch. They drove down together from upstate NY to meet our little one and help out the new mommy & daddy. Between the delicious home cooked meals they brought down, to the many walks they took our dog on, to loading and unloading the dishwasher numerous times, to loving and holding our little Maribel - we were seriously spoiled rotten! It was a full house (or full tiny apartment) with air mattresses and sleeping bags spread around, but it was soooo wonderful to see and spend time with family. I hadn't been up for a visit since Memorial Day weekend since we didn't want me too far away so close to the end of my pregnancy (especially after my pre-term contractions in early June) so seeing them was long overdue! After a nice breakfast at the diner this morning, they headed back home and I'm already looking forward to seeing them when I go up for a visit in August.

Maribel's been doing great! She's still in the "sleeps a lot" stage though we're starting to see a couple periods during the day where she stays awake longer. I know that in the next couple of weeks we'll see a huge increase in wake periods, but for now she loves to loaf for a good portion of the day. She's eating very well and nights are getting a bit easier on DH and me. We're not complete zombies anymore which is delightful (now I know we'll have more zombie nights in the future, but touch wood, the last few nights have been pretty darn good.) In fact, I generally have to wake her for one or two feedings at night so we don't go longer than 4 hours. Now some may say "let a sleeping baby sleep" but I seriously need my milk supply to stay strong at this early stage. Just the past two days she's had a period of cluster feeding where she eats from one boob, eats from the other, then within 20 minutes she's eating again - like she just can't be satisfied. And she seriously drains me at those feedings. Also the amounts I've been able to pump decreased a little as well, so for now I'm trying to drink fluids like they're going out of style and keep daytime feedings 2-3 hours apart and nighttime feedings 2-4 hours apart. Hopefully that will keep the supply going strong. Not to mention, my boobs turn to bricks and leak like a sieve once we start hitting the 3 hour mark.

As for me, I'm feeling pretty good. The pain from the c-section is completely gone. My weight as of Friday morning was 170.2 so I'm about 7 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight (163.6) Mind you, the day after I came home from the hospital I was actually 2 pounds heavier (184.2) than the morning we went to the hospital (182.2). What??? After giving birth to an 8 pound baby, placenta, and amniotic fluid??? How could I weigh more? But really I was so swollen from all of the fluids they pumped into me and the surgery in general that my legs looked like tree trunks, my feet were just puffy masses, and my hands looked like the Hamburger Helper hand so I guess it took a few days for that fluid retention to go down. So just under 7 pounds to go to get to my pre-pregnancy weight and then I'll start working on my big weight loss goal. Ideally, I'd like to lose an additional 28.6 pounds to get me down to 135, but I'd even be happy to get back down to 145, which is where I was at when we got married.

Well, sleeping baby just started to stir. And so I'll close today by saying I'd personally like to thank the individual who invented breast pads. Because of you I'm not ruining every bra & shirt I own. So whoever you are, thank you!

8 days old already!!

How in the world did our little one become 8 days old already? Time is flying by! The days go so fast, what with nursing every 2-3 hours and walking through some parts of the day and/or night like a zombie. DH & I have a new appreciation for coffee, that's for sure!

Things have been going great! On Monday, we had our first family outing to see Dr D so he could remove my stitch. I remember when he was stitching me up, he was explaining to the assisting OB, the method he was using to close the incision and all I can say is that I LOVED that method. All he had to do was clip the knot on one end and pulled the stitch right out the other end. Quick and painless, just the way I like things! I go back for my post-partum visit on August 15th and then my time with Dr D will be done. It will be weird not going back there again but I'll forever be thankful for everything he did for us (and knowing me, I'll cry saying goodbye to him.)

Yesterday, Maribel turned 1 week old. And to celebrate we went on her second outing, this time to the grocery store. Ok, we really didn't celebrate in that fashion but we seriously needed groceries in the house so a family outing it became. I pushed my cart of groceries and DH pushed our little princess in another cart (see picture below.) One funny moment from this trip - I was waiting for our deli order to be completed and another worker came up and asked if that was my baby in the cart. I said yes. Then she looked at my belly and said "And you're pregnant again?" Oh my goodness, I couldn't help but laugh out loud. I said "No, she's just a week old so this is from her", patting my belly. She said she didn't realize that you were still left with a belly after having a baby and she thought it instantly went away. I curse TV shows and supermodels for this misunderstanding people have. I definitely still look 4-5 months pregnant at this point but it's a shame that people think the post-partum days and weeks are like the character Rachel on Friends where she's instantly transformed to her pre-pregnancy figure immediately after birth. At least there's now one more educated woman in the world (and she's damn lucky I found her question funny.)



Today was Maribel's third outing, this time to her pediatrician. She's looking great and we'll go back in one week just to check her weight. Her weight at birth was 8 pounds. Her weight on Friday when she was discharged from the hospital was 7lbs 15.4 ounces so she only lost 6 tenths of a pound. Today, she was again at 8lbs. So they really just want to make sure she gains at least a few ounces in the next week. She's eating great, evidenced by her healthy amount (perhaps overly healthy amount) of wet & dirty diapers but I'll feel better knowing she's putting on some additional weight by next Wednesday.

So here are some additional pictures for your viewing pleasure:

This was Maribel & me while she was still in the NICU. DH had gone home for the night and I wanted to text him a pic of the two girls who love him most in the world.


Maribel at 5 days old had just fallen asleep after eating and was making lots of faces. This smile was priceless:


One more of Maribel at 5 days old. Here just chilling out while mom & dad watched the women's world cup soccer.


And here's our little princess at 1 week old:


So I'm slightly caught up with things at this point. The little one should be waking up any moment so forgive me if this is full of errors and/or poor grammar.

Home, exhausted, and loving it!

Maribel is peacefully napping in her swing at the moment so I figured I'd use this time to catch everyone up on the goings-on.

As the post title says - we are home! We were both discharged from the hospital yesterday. I was so surprised and happy that we were both able to go home at the same time. On Friday morning at the 5am feeding the nurse was mentioning how maybe Maribel would get to go home after another day (I'd been dreading being discharged on Friday and her having to stay.) Then at the 8am feeding, the day nurse said they'd dropped her IV level overnight and her blood glucose levels were fine so she was given the ok to stop the IV (this left me feeling hopeful that she'd be getting out soon.) Then on my walk to the NICU for her 10:45am feeding the nurse saw me in the hall and said the doctors had decided to discharge Maribel that day. Oh my god, I was overjoyed!! So Friday was spent waiting for my doctor to discharge me, and watching some mandatory videos for NICU babies on carseat safety, infant CPR and choking, having babies sleep on their back, etc. Around 2pm I got the all-clear from my doctor and called DH to have him come get his girls and bring us home. What a wonderful feeling to leave the hospital as a family and head home. Amazing!

Overall I must say the hospital stay was great. The nurses in the mother-baby unit (taking care of me), the nurses in the NICU (taking care of Maribel), and all of the doctors that checked in on her were great. The nurse we had for our c-section, Jen, was one we had when we were there for our pre-term labor stay in early June. She saw us on the c-section schedule, recognized our names, and swapped with someone else so she could be our nurse for the c-section. We'd really liked her when we had her as our nurse in June so when she walked into our labor room, I was really excited (and even more happy when we learned that she'd swapped with someone else to be with us.)

The c-section itself went fabulously. An emergency had come in so we got bumped. We were originally scheduled for 11am but ended up going into the OR around 12:30pm but that was no big deal for us. When it was our turn, the nurse and anesthesiologist walked me to the OR. During this time, DH had to put on his "spacesuit" (which is super hot and sweaty), his little booties, and his adorable little hat and then had to wait for our nurse to come get him. So while he was getting dressed, I sat on the table and got my spinal. This went fine, especially knowing what to expect after my TAC in January. As my legs got heavy, they hooked me up to all of the different monitors, put my nasal cannula in for oxygen, lightly strapped my arms down, got the curtain hanging up so I couldn't see below my chest, put in my catheter, etc. Once everyone had scrubbed in, they told Jen to go get "Dad".

DH came in and sat next to my head. Afterwards he told me that walking into that room and seeing all of the people, seeing me on the OR table, etc really got him nervous, or as he put it "that's when my heartburn started". As soon as DH sat down, Dr D called out that they were making the incision and called out the time. It was officially underway. Within about 3-4 minutes, he announced "making uterine incision" and called out the time. Oh my god, it was almost time. The pressure and pulling and tugging feeling they warned me of - holy shit that is INTENSE! Two grown men putting tons of weight on your abdomen, pulling in different directions. Wow, it hurt! And it didn't hurt where they were tugging of course, it was like a huge amount of pressure on my upper back and shoulders. Again - wow, it really hurt!

Next thing I know, I hear "head is out". Oh man, I can't believe it. Next I hear, "Dad, stand up and take a look." DH stood, took one look and said "Oh my god, she's beautiful!" And that my friends is when I started crying. And I mean crying! I was sobbing buckets of joyful tears. When I heard her cry, I cried even harder. And when they handed her to Jen who brought her over to the side so I could see her, impossibly, I cried even harder. We'd made it. After all we'd been through over the last few years and all of the waiting these last 9 months, our daughter was here and it was just the most incredible feeling in the world. According to DH, that first look he got of her was of a scrunched up little baby - eyes closed, legs still bent up to chest, having that blue-ish look of having just been pulled out, and seeing all of that gorgeous black hair of hers.
The time it took to get from incision to her arrival was soooo quick it was unbelievable. And from the time I walked into the OR to the time they wheeled me out of recovery, baby in my arms, was less than one hour. It's definitely one hour DH and I will never forget.

So now that we're all home together we're loving our time as a family. DH's parents and sister were here waiting for us in the parking lot of our apartment complex when we arrived home yesterday. They stayed last night but decided to to go home this evening instead of tomorrow. I overdid things a bit this morning as I did housework when I really should have been taking it easy and having others help me with housework. But other than that, we just spent the day with our new favorite routine - feeding, sleeping, changing diapers, repeat. We didn't sleep much last night at all but that's ok. Maribel is an awesome eater and breastfeeding is going great! My milk came in at the hospital early Friday morning and the baby is taking advantage of that. So she was up to eat quite a few times in the night. But waking up and seeing that adorable little face makes it all worthwhile.

One funny story and then I must go. Last night it looked like I had a bug bite below my left eye. It didn't itch but the size and shape looked like a mosquito bite. Really weird! Well, I went to wash my hands before the next feeding (like an hour or so later) and I had a couple more small bumps under that eye and a couple under my right eye too. WTH is going on? Next trip to the bathroom, look in the mirror, and yep, there's more. But now they're merging together and holy shit, these aren't bug bites. We've just witnessed the formation of bags under my eyes. Too freaking funny! With only about 10 hours of sleep since Tuesday and now waking just about once an hour to feed, change, etc took it appears exhaustion took a toll on my face.

Well, the little one is starting to fuss a bit so I think it's time for the boob buffet to open for business. I'll check back in soon and will post more pics in the next couple of days.

Doing much better but still in NICU

Hi there! Things have been busy here at the hospital so I haven't had the time (or brainpower) to write. Today's update will be brief as well, just so I have time to walk a little before my next visit to the NICU. The picture you see on this post is DH & Maribel in the NICU yesterday afternoon - aren't they just sooo darn cute??

So if you recall, late on Tuesday (her birth day) they took Maribel to the NICU because of her breathing. They put her on the nasal cannula, started an IV, started antibiotics, and did blood work to check for infections. Since she was particularly having trouble breathing through her nose, she was unable to eat. DH spent a few hours with her that evening in the NICU while I was restricted to my bed. Our nurse was kind enough though in the wee hours of Wednesday morning to get me hooked up with a wheelchair and rigged up my IV bag and catheter so I could go see Maribel in the NICU.

That was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits! While of course it was hard to see her with the nasal cannula taped to her face, see little monitors all over her body, and see her IV in her arm (with her arm taped to a straight little board to keep it from bending) I had just missed her so much, it felt amazing to see her. DH & I spent two hours with her, from 12:30am-2:30am, holding her and watching her every breath, wishing she'd stop struggling to breathe, and then went back to my room and tried to get some sleep (and by that I think we each got 2-3 hours.)

At 10am Wednesday morning my catheter was out and the nurse had made sure I could walk around on my own. Then as soon as she gave me the ok, I walked to the NICU to see our little girl. I was thrilled to see the nasal cannula gone and the nurse asked if I wanted to breastfeed. YIPPEE!!! I'd been pumping every 3 hours but this was awesome news! So since yesterday morning, Maribel has kept her pulse ox levels normal without needing additional oxygen and she's been nursing every 3 hours. As of today though, she's still in the NICU. I'm hoping she'll be able to go home tomorrow if I'm also discharged tomorrow. The items that are still pending are: she needs her cultures to be normal and she needs to be drinking enough breastmilk to be able to be weaned off of the IV fluids. Please, please let her come home with me tomorrow!

So my schedule right now has been - go to the NICU, feed Maribel, and snuggle with her. I usually spend an hour or hour and fifteen minutes doing that. After that I spend a little time walking the halls as I know walking is really important in helping with the c-section recovery. So I count my walk to and from the NICU, then I also do a walk to fill up my ice pitcher, or just do a lap around the nurses station. Then it's back to my room to eat/drink/pee/take pain meds and text any updates. Then I try to take a nap if I can (generally about 1 hour.) So this whole cycle takes 3 hours and I just keep repeating it all day and all night. I feel really good even though the only sleep I'm getting are these 1 hour catnaps. And I'm crampy of course from the c-section but so far percocet is helping me get through the bulk of the pain.

Lastly, I'm finally on solid foods - yippee!! After Tuesday being restricted to just ice and water, then Wednesday being restricted to full liquid diet (tea, juice, sherbet, soup, jell-o), I'm happy to report that I'm back on solid food and loving it!

So I'm going to leave you now to do a little walking and get ready for my 10:45 date with the NICU. Will report back in soon!

She's here!! And she's amazing!!

Maribel is here and I tell you, it's love at first sight! I'll come back, tomorrow perhaps, to give more of the details on the prep, surgery, etc because I'm a little too tired to write all of that tonight. For the details, she was born at 12:52pm, weighed 8 pounds and .02 ounces, and is 20 inches long. The c-section itself went fabulous, Maribel did a great job nursing in the recovery room, and we enjoyed a few hours with her in our room.

Then she had to go to the NICU. She was making "snorting" noises at times and the nurse noticed she was retracting when breathing. So they brought in the pediatrician and checked her pulse ox. Her saturation levels were just under what they'd like to see. So in the NICU they did a chest x-ray (looked good), took some blood to check for infections (started her on antibiotics just in case) and put her on an IV (that's about all she's going to have to "eat" until tomorrow). Since she's really not breathing through her nose they don't want her to struggle trying to eat. In the meantime, they set me up with a pump so my supply keeps up and I'm pumping every 2-3 hours. They can use the little colostrum I'm producing to give to her via swab in and around her mouth. DH is in the NICU with her so I feel good that he's with her even if I can't be. I'll have my catheter until tomorrow morning so I can't walk to the NICU to see her, but the nurse mentioned perhaps wheeling me over to see her later tonight. That would be so awesome because I tell you I miss my little girl like crazy!! I cried buckets when they wheeled her out of our room and I just can't wait to have her back with us.

38w5d - Meeting our daughter today!!

I've got about 15 minutes until we have to leave to take the dog to Camp Bow Wow for his stay and then head to the hospital, so typing in my blog is a wonderful distraction from watching the clock. And since I couldn't eat or drink anything after midnight, this is also keeping me from dreaming of a nice cup of decaf.

OMG, DH and I barely slept a wink last night! Between excitement and nerves and our lack of sleep, I think we're both going to be exhausted later. At 5am, I finally gave up on trying to get back to sleep. I rolled over, snuggled up to DH, and what did I do? I started crying. Then I got out of bed, got in the shower, and cried even more. They were all happy tears mind you, but the tears were flowing nonetheless.

I just can't believe we made it to this day. Three years ago, I was anxiously anticipating my tubal reversal surgery that was coming up in August. I had no idea that we'd go through the chemical pregnancy, the 2 ectopics, losing my tubes and an ovary, moving onto IVF, and having the TAC surgery. And yet here we are, almost 3 years after we started this TTC journey - only hours away from meeting our little girl.

I'm sure there will be more happy tears today, lots of smiles, and lots of hugs and kisses for my DH and my little girl. For now though, I better do one last check of the hospital bag and off we'll go. Talk to you all later!

38w4d - Tomorrow is Maribel's eviction day!

Hopefully Maribel is enjoying her last evening in my comfy, cozy uterus because tomorrow morning she's going to have quite the experience...being born. What an experience that must be. Seeing a slice of light come in through as the abdomen and uterus are opened, being pulled out into the cold air and bright lights of the operating room, taking those first breaths, making those first crying sounds, having your nose and throat suctioned, getting all cleaned up, and trying to adjust to all of the sights and sounds and smells before snuggling up to the two people who will love you forever. Amazing stuff!

I couldn't sleep past 3am this morning. Technically my itchy eczema woke me up but then my excitement prevented me from getting back to sleep. Around 6:30am I was able to nap for about another hour but I have a feeling I won't get too much sleep tonight either. Approximately 16 hours until our time in the OR is here...we're so close now!

So below is my final belly shot from this morning. My final weight gain is 19 pounds and the tape measure showed my waistline is 47.25 inches! I can't wait to see how much of that weight and waistline is really Maribel.



I'm hoping to post tomorrow evening or Wednesday while Daddy is at the hospital snuggling with the little one. It's hard to believe our time has finally come but it has and I'm so glad you all stayed along for the ride, bumps and all.

38w3d - Resting after nesting (and an anxiety fest too)

Approximately 39 hours until we're due to report to the hospital - AWESOME!!

The weekend has been largely uneventful for the most part. My Saturday started off with a scare as my power steering went out while I was driving home from completing errands. I pulled into the library parking lot to pop the hood of my car and saw my power steering fluid was empty. And when I looked under the car, I saw the last bits of power steering fluid dripping onto my front tire and the pavement so it was obvious that something blew out. Thank goodness for Tires Plus right around the corner from our house. I strong-arm steered my car there and thankfully they could get my car in yesterday and fix it. Giant phew!! Then DH & I spent the rest of the day cleaning so I guess we had another round of nesting happening. Laundry, dusting, scrubbing the kitchen, bathtub, toilet, sinks, etc. all got done. Then we had an early dinner at Friday's and settled in for the night.

DH also helped me through a yucky meltdown late last night. I won't go into my usual level of great detail here into why the topic came up because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or make certain people uncomfortable or upset. That's definitely NOT what I want to do. But to loosely broach the subject, ever since I was a kid I've had a great deal of anxiety in certain social situations. I'm actually a pretty shy person. I always have been (though most people who know me would never believe this) and I get myself so worked up before certain social situations, I may worry about a gathering or visit for days beforehand, perhaps even weeks. I may spend hours in my mind playing the "what if" game over and over. It's not a pleasant experience whatsoever. I hate it!

It's not even that I only experience this anxiety with strangers. In fact, I actually have a much easier time with strangers than I do with people I know. In my younger years I would experience this uneasieness and anxiety before going to friends' birthday parties or school functions and even more so before holiday gatherings with extended family. Now mind you, it doesn't always happen and over the years I've gotten better at keeping the anxiety at bay, but it still can sneak up on me and make me get my panties in a bunch over nothing. One of the personal benefits of my job over the last 3.5 years was that it forced me to find ways to deal with my anxiety. Walking into a room of attendees at a client's training, taking control of the room to teach, and making small talk with attendees during breaks and lunch all helped me become more comfortable with myself and helped change how I reacted when anxiety arose in a social situation. I can sometimes use what I've learned over the years to help me through a situation and sometimes I just can't.

So back to last night - rather than focusing on the joy that Tuesday will bring as we meet our daughter, I spent a good amount of the evening worrying about certain social interactions that will occur after Maribel arrives. To try to combat this, I meditated to try to clear my mind of the ridiculous worry and negative feelings this anxiety was bringing me. When that didn't help I prayed. I'm not a super religious person but I do feel like it helped somewhat at calming my feelings and gave me an outlet to admit that I need some guidance in getting through the negative feelings. Then breaking down in tears and talking it through with DH really got me through the rest of my muck. I felt TONS better after our conversation as DH was not only a great comfort but he had logical responses to my worries and concerns. And when dealing with anxiety, where I know my thoughts or worries aren't logical whatsoever, to have a logical, reasonable voice counter each of my ridiculous worries really helped. So once again, my thanks go out to DH. Oh, how I love you.

For whatever reason - whether it was all that cleaning yesterday or the emotional exhaustion from last night's anxiety fest, today I was beat. My dog & I napped almost the whole afternoon away. And even after napping, I'm still just soooo tired! I'm glad I took advantage of this lazy Sunday since it will probably be my last lazy Sunday for a long, long time. And I may as well rest up today because I have a feeling that I'll get very little sleep tomorrow night.

So I'll leave you for now and I'll report back in tomorrow - my last full day of pregnancy. I'll do a final belly shot, a final weigh-in, and we'll grab the tape measure to see how big around my waistline is. I haven't done that yet this pregnancy and I'm anxious to see how big around I am currently (my belly is now actually hitting the bottom of my steering wheel when I drive so it's no small belly, that's for sure!)

38w1d - Final preparations underway (4 days to go!)

We've now passed the 38 week mark! And I'm still amazed by this. Who would have thought we'd make it this far after all we've been through the last couple of years?

Last night was a fun night for DH & me. I asked DH if he wanted to practice swaddling. His reaction - what's swaddling? Too cute! Why practice the fine art of swaddling a newborn when I've had 2 babies, many nieces and a nephew, and 2 grandchildren? Well, it's always wonderful to see a baby calm down their fussing with a nice swaddle and to be honest I've always been a TERRIBLE swaddler. I mean horrible!! I don't know why but my swaddles are always too loose and come undone so easily. And what's funny is guys I know seem to have a real knack for swaddling babies. Both my brother and BIL are excellent swaddlers and as I found out last night, DH is right up there with them.

So after dinner, I grabbed us each a stuffed animal of Maribel's (DH had a teddy bear and I got Winnie-the-Pooh) and we each took a receiving blanket from the stack. Then we went on youtube and watched a few videos, each showing different methods of swaddling. Then it was practice time! DH & I both laid out the receiving blankets (while our dog hungrily eyed the stuffed animals) and of course, DH's swaddle was awesome on the very first try. I naturally struggled with my swaddle, watched the video again, and again struggled with my swaddle. Meanwhile DH's was perfectly holding that teddy bear in like a little sausage. What is my malfunction with this art? In the end, DH came over to help me with my swaddle and after his fine tutorial mine was almost as good as his...almost.

Next came diaper practice for DH since he hadn't diapered a baby in years. Again, perfection - though I don't think Maribel will lay as still as teddy the bear did. And I must say as DH held his swaddled little teddy bear and pretended to burp it and pretended to diaper it, it made me even more anxious for Tuesday to get here. He is seriously going to be one amazing daddy!!

Today it's off to the grocery store. My first mission is to make sure I've got enough easy fixings for DH to feed himself while I'm at the hospital. In other words, I need to stock the freezer with frozen pizzas, chicken skewers, corn dogs, and fries and make sure I've got his other favorite things to fix for himself when I'm not here - bacon & eggs, croissants, and Honey Nut Cheerios.

My second mission is to make sure I have healthy food for me when I come home from the hospital. I think my in-laws will be visiting and while I'm sure they'll bring yummy Colombian food, I better skip all of that fried yumminess and stick with my own high fiber, low fat options. As you recall from previous posts with my last 2 surgeries - me + painkillers + surgery = major constipation. So all of those fried foods and cheesy pastries would NOT be a good idea for me. I'll have DH go out and grab fresh produce for me when I get home from the hospital so I can partake in salads & lots of fruits and veggies and today I'll just grab some easy, high fiber meal options that I can cook myself or have DH cook for me those first few days home from the hospital.

So with that I'm off to Shop-Rite to complete my mission. Only 4 more days to go and I think they're going to fly by now!