39 Weeks & Still Going Strong

I'm just a little past 39 weeks now.  Looking at me, no one thought I would make it this far, specifically my Grandpa, co-workers, and a couple piano students' parents. 

At my doctor's appointment on Friday everything continued to check out just fine.  We even found out that I'm diliated to a generous 1!  I know, doesn't mean anything, but at least I'm progressing a little.  My Braxton Hicks contractions are getting stronger and she said that's what's contributing to my diliation.  Dr. Johnston is out of town this coming week and I will see Dr. Meath again for my 40 week check-up.  (Dr. Johnston had me schedule a 41 week appointment but let's hope I don't need that one!)  My stomach is so itchy lately and the skin is stretched to the limits.  I'm trying to put some extra lotion on and drink more water to stay hydrated. 

It was funny to us that my doctor suggested a few ways to naturally bring on labor, possibly hoping it would come over the weekend, perhaps?  One thing she mentioned was a Mexican restaurant in Chaska that's known to put people into labor.  So, that's what we did this weekend, tried everything we could think of to get this baby moving.  We walked many laps around the neighborhood and had a full day of shopping on Friday, ate at Don Pablo's for lunch on Friday, I took a warm bath and did a lot of relaxing, I tried to accupressure on myself, did some squats, drank a lot of red raspberry leaf tea, and John and I went for a Saturday night drive on some gravel roads.  The only problem with the drive was we went on my Dad's roads and, since he's awesome at his job, there weren't many bumps.  We did, however, find a nice stretch of a different township's roads that was packed with ice and very bumpy.  We might try driving on Lake Waconia next - the frozen over lakes are never smooth. 

So, I guess if Bib decides to make an appearance this week I will have a different doctor.  And if Bib wants to wait until my due date or next weekend that will be fine too.  It will happen when everything is ready.  My bag is packed and everything is ready to go.  We didn't want a February baby and I guess we're not going to have one after all.  This one will surely be born in March.

Nursery

Since the baby shower John and I have been working hard on getting the nursery ready for Bib. Our parents helped us paint the weekend before the shower and then all the fun began. There are a few pictures below, but you can view all of them here. I took the pictures a couple weeks ago while I was still packing my hospital bag. It's changed a bit since then but you can at least get the general idea. I'm a little bummed that the paint color didn't come through the best in these photos...

We moved the fish tank into the nursery from our bedroom and got some cloth storage bins for underneath. I had this rocking/glider chair in college and we recovered it to go with the room. My mom and I also made the curtains that are hanging up.

John and I framed some leftover aquarium background scenes and applied some "Finding Nemo" decals. We have more decals that will eventually be placed randomly throughout the room. John did a great job assembling the crib, too!


John's parents were able to get a great deal on this changing table at a garage sale and painted it for us. It holds a lot of stuff!

My sister, Rachel, made this painting for us to hang in the nursery.

February Wrap-Up

As February comes to a close with only a few more days remaining, I thought I'd take a minute to share some recent events, happenings and thoughts.

John and I kept Valentine's Day pretty low-key this year. We went to a matinee showing of Valentine's Day the Friday before. Then Saturday night John surprised me with a tasty treat of some Rice Dream ice cream and strawberries! Sunday he gave me the movie Couple's Retreat (we saw it in the theater and both enjoyed it) along with a box of microwave popcorn and a sweet card. My tradition for John is making him red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. He graciously shared - perhaps you got some. He also got a box of chocolates.

We've been watching a lot of Olympics (ok, not a lot, but enough) and are ready for them to be over so our regular shows will start airing new episodes. John has been enjoying curling and I've been enjoying watching the skiers wipe out. Oh yeah, we've also been learning a lot about polar bears thanks to Mary Carillo ;)

Since the beginning of the month I've been on my shortened work weeks at our new work location in Young America. Despite the decreased income, this has really been a blessing. It allows me to sleep in every morning and I only have to sit at my desk for 6 hours 4 days a week. This is great since I've been extra tired this past month from carrying around all this extra weight. Every Friday I have off and that's when I've scheduled my weekly appointments. John has been able to come to the last couple for support which has been nice and it's also nice that because of my shorter work days that him and I have been able to spend more time together.

Last Thursday John got to enjoy the day with his Dad at the Home and Patio show. His Dad was teaching a plumbing class. John went to watch the class and then they walked around the showroom together. John's also been pretty busy at work lately, especially with a lot of early shifts.

We had another unfortunate event with John's Explorer last week. It started smelling really bad when he drove it on Thursday. Luckily, he could use my car to drive to work a few days. The diagnosis was the air conditioner compressor was shot and a couple hundred dollars later it's fixed. At least now we can install the car seat for the long drive home from the hospital!

I am planning to both work and teach piano until I have the baby. A couple of my students' parents told me last night that they didn't think I'd be having lessons next Tuesday. We'll see who wins! I was so proud of my students last night because they all are doing really well on their recital pieces. We started working on their new pieces after the holiday break and most of them have pretty challenging pieces. My goal was to have them at least feel comfortable with all the notes before my leave so they could work more on getting the feel of the pieces, moves, and tempo up to speed on their own. I only have 4 students participating in the recital and I've given each one of them a make-up lesson in preparation to my leave and then we'll do one make-up lesson when I get back, before the recital. I more than likely will be starting lessons up again during Chaska's spring break so I should only have to deal with 2 make-up lessons. Then I will just teach through the recital and be done.

Here's my most recent picture at 38 1/2 weeks. John tells Bib every day that it's time to come out and play. He is getting very anxious to be a Dad and start this new adventure called parenthood.

Baby Shower

Last month on January 30th, our family and friends threw John and me a baby shower in celebration of Bib's upcoming arrival. It was a nice gathering, good food, socializing, fun games and awesome gifts. I've pasted a few pictures below but you can see more here.

My sister, Rachel, made a diaper cake for the table centerpiece.

For the first game, everyone had to draw a picture of the baby on a paper plate on their head. John and I were the judges to determine the most realistic and the funniest looking.

The second game was a rousing game of Baby Scattegories. The letter was "D". John and my minds were blank and we ended up with a desert themed nursery, taking the baby to the dentist, and feeling depressed and in denial after the baby was born!

My mom and sister put together Nursery Rhyme Jeopardy for the third game. Everyone split into three teams (you're looking at the winning team in the picture below). The Final Jeopardy answer went something like this: "Bye, baby bunting. Daddy's gone a hunting. Hunting for the skin of which animal?" For those of you not at the shower, do you know the answer?
Here is a picture of one of our many gifts. My aunt, Yvonne, made Bib this Noah's ark quilt, both hand and machine quilted. I know Bib will love it!

My Disturbing Discovery

My sister came over on Saturday for dinner and to work on a craft project for our nursery. While she was helping me make spaghetti I started to tell her and John what I had just read on BabyCenter just a few days earlier. Upon first reading the BabyCenter discussion board about "placenta recipes" I thought everyone was just joking when they wrote things like stewed, casserole, and deep fried. Rachel quickly set me straight and said that those people were not joking, they really were going to eat it.

While the placenta may have much nutritional value and animals might eat it instinctively, it is something I never want to try. There is a reason there is a garbage bin underneath the delivery bed and that's where it's going. Gross!

I'm sorry if I've offended anyone or knows anyone who might have tried this. I was completely taken back when I found this out. There is no amount of money that someone could pay me to eat what is now inside my body.

2 Week Countdown

Today I hit 38 weeks. Really, the baby could come any day now. This weekend's activity is packing the hospital bag. We're not too worried about forgetting something since we only live a couple blocks from the hospital. Reality is starting to set in that this event is just around the corner and possibly I'm putting off packing thinking that if I don't pack it won't happen. John continues to tell the baby to come out so he doesn't have to go to work and is starting to think of ways to make me go into labor. Yesterday we went to Target just to walk around and now that he knows about the pressure points in my hands and legs I'm sure he's going to want to give me some massages to speed things along.

Everything checked out at my doctor's appointment this morning, although I did find out that I tested positive for the Group B Strep. For this they will just give me some antibiotics intraveneously while I am in labor, nothing too concerning. My blood pressure, weight and urine, baby's heart beat, and measurements are all looking good. So far I've gained about 34 pounds, so right in line with the suggested 25-35.

The Braxton Hicks contractions are coming more frequently now. They are painless and I actually didn't think I was having them as often as I was until my doctor told me that when the baby "balls up" I am in deed contracting. The baby has definitely dropped and I'm having a lot more lower back pain which I relieve with heat. People at work tell me that it looks like the baby is going to fall out! I am still sleeping pretty good at night. I just have to get up once or twice to empty the bladder but that is to be expected. Even though I am only working 24 hours/week, I still get fatigued very easily. It almost feels like I am going to fall asleep at my desk! I think this 3rd trimester fatigue is almost worse than in the 1st trimester. Plus, the faster I try to move around the house to get stuff done, the more I wear myself out. Guess it's all that extra weight I'm carrying around!

Bottom's Up!

This morning was my scheduled ECV (external cephalic version) to try and manuever the baby into a vertex (head-down) position. John and I went to Labor & Delivery at 9 this morning and I got to put on one of those fancy gowns and get the baby monitors strapped to my belly. Then the fun part, the nurse had to start an IV. (Kristin, I don't know how you lived through the nurses trying 8 times on you because just having the nurse mess up once in my left hand was bad enough. Even the 2nd successful attempt in my right hand wasn't too much better but at least that hand is not sore now.)

The nurse was busy filling in all my personal data into the triage report and didn't get around to giving me the uterus relaxing medicine before the doctor showed up. Good thing she didn't. Dr. Meath did an ultrasound right away and the first thing we saw was Bib's head at the bottom of my belly! We were so proud of Bib for turning all on its own! She did an ultrasound in the area where the head was last week and there was the legs and bottom!

I don't know when the turning happened but I think it was probably sometime in the last couple days. I had been sleeping on my left side the past couple nights trying to give it a little different feeling and maybe use gravity to help make the flip. Hopefully Bib stays in this position now.

My only instruction upon leaving triage was to tell the doctor at my appointment tomorrow that the baby is vertex!

Turn, Baby, Turn!

A routine check at pregnancy wek 36 is to check which way the baby is laying in the belly. Since my doctor wasn't able to tell anything by feeling cervix at my OB visit yesterday, she had to grab the ultrasound machine to find out. I told her there had always been a hard lump on my right side and when she looked at that lump via the ultrasound machine she confirmed that that lump was truly the head. We looked where the head is supposed to be and saw everything else - bottom, legs, umbilical cord...

Since the baby can't come out feet first, I next had to meet with Dr. Meath, an OB-Gyn at the clinic. She told me that we could either schedule a c-section or try to turn the baby. Since our preference is a vaginal delivery, we setup an appointment for next Thursday morning to try and turn the breeched Bib. We have to go to Labor & Delivery in the hospital and I get hooked up to the IV, have a couple shots of relaxation medicine and everything! Although Dr. Meath has never had it happen, there is a chance that when trying to manipulate the baby into the correct position it can start having complications and I'd have to get rushed off to have an emergency c-section, thus the IV. She's hoping for an easy turn since the baby's head is at my side and only has to get rotated to the bottom.

When I got home I looked online to try and find out how many pregnancies are breech. 3%! Leave it to our baby to try and figure things out for itself and not follow the rules! I think this baby is going to be a stubborn German baby after all (and a lot like it's mama). I am just hoping that everything turns like it's supposed to and there are no complications. I also hope that if the doctors are successful at turning Bib, that Bib stays in that position and is able to be delivered normally.

I guess this would explain why co-workers keep asking me if I get a lot of kicks in my rib cage, huh? Because the baby's feet aren't there! I have been feeling a lot of movement at the very bottom of the belly instead. I will get a whole new kicking experience if and when this baby gets turned around.

Other than all this, my 36 week visit was fine. Baby's heartbeat was 150, I didn't gain any weight since last week but the baby's still growing, and my blood pressure was 98/62.