Home Stretch!

Well, my doctor appointments have changed to once a week now!! It's a half hour drive to his office, but it's a nice outing :) My belly is so huge and awkward now, I knock stuff over with it and I'm really paranoid about people running in to me in the store. I also get tired and tired of standing super easy and feel very off balance. On Sunday, I was 36 weeks. At 36 weeks was when I had Tyler, so it was no surprise to me when on Monday I felt contractions. Fortunately, I was heading to the doctor that day, so after all the routine questions, I told him that I was feeling sporadic contractions since the middle of the night before but nothing that seemed regular. He, of course, asked how my first labor went to which I answered that I was induced at 36 weeks so I really had no idea. Actually, I had never felt a contraction until I was in the hospital being induced with Tyler and I wasn't even sure if it was contractions or just pelvic pressure. He had me undress, gave me this... napkin... to cover up with and then checked me. His answer was that I was not in labor, although everything was "soft" and he could feel the baby's head. Then he let me know that if I felt these contractions get longer or more regular to head over to the hospital and they'd contact him. He ended with "lets hope the baby stays in there a week or two more!" By the next day I was feeling fine again so I'm assuming this was just Braxton Hicks.

One thing that is nice is that the baby has dropped low enough that he's not kicking my internal organs all day and night. Also, seems like he grew large enough that he doesn't have much room to move around in there, so the movements are more slow pressure of him "readjusting" himself than sharp jabs. Good news is that I have been feeling a lot less sore in the upper abdomen area :)

I was reading that only 5% of women actually give birth on their doctor set due date and anything from 37 weeks to 42 weeks is considered a full term birth. This of course set in the fact that I'm now over 36 weeks and the baby could come in less than a week! I am sooo scared of the whole birth process and am hoping it won't be as bad. My first was a horrible experience, I showed up to the hospital for a "routine" checkup, they made sure the baby's heart rate wasn't distressed because of my high blood pressure and next thing I know I'm being induced and going through a months worth of pregnancy in a few hours! Anyway, the whole experience was horrible. And with one month or less, the thoughts of the previous birth, 10 years ago, have set in again. Maybe some day they will invent teleporting and be able to just teleport the baby out of your stomach... that would be nice!!

Well, I really hope the baby stays in for the babyshowers which are all planned for April and are really late. But we wanted to wait until all the snow birds in the family had flown back from the southern US states. I guess it's not a huge deal to have the baby at the shower (that's how Tyler's baby shower was and it was so fun!) but with all the running around we need to do in April, it'd be easier to do it without a baby in tow! Not to mention, without that baby shower, we have virtually nothing... hmm there is still a whole list of things we need to buy as well for the arrival. Frozen dinners so we don't have to make food and diapers come to mind right away... where has all the time gone!! Argh.

Hope everyone is doing great :) And I will try my best to keep the blog updated after every doctor appointment, which should be once a week... but no promises!

Dino Sore!!

I realize it's been quite a while since my last post but my pregnancy is so "normal" that I find it hard to find things to talk about... although my mom always said "no news is good news" so I think I'll go with that quote here!

Dan and I have been working on the room and it's still coming as of tonight there is one last dinosaur to finish before beginning to set up the room. The room is sooo cute, Dan drew all the dinosaurs based off my designs and he's hand painting them. He's done such a spectacular job that when we show people the pictures they think it's a wall sticker. He is so talented and I cannot wait until the whole room is complete. I'm sure most of you saw the pics on facebook, but I'll post them again here just in case you didn't. The pictures are big so they are cut off in the blog (and possibly email) but if you just click on the picture it should open up the full size pic...

Here is the most recent addition to the dinosaur nursery:



This is the first one Dan completed, the baby dinosaur:



In this picture you can see one of the entire walls including the palm tree and the brontosaurus (which apparently are not a dinosaur anymore). The purple one didn't capture on the camera alone properly because the window is near it and causes a huge glare, so we just took it as the entire wall. I'll try to get a picture of it again at night sometime.



This is a picture of the footprints up the side of the wall that the lightswitch is on. I got a nice little matching dinosaur lightswitch cover from Ebay for $3.50 you can see it in this picture too.







Well, it's hard to believe that I'm now 34 weeks along and the baby will be here in just a few more weeks! We went to the doctors today and again everything was, as I said before, normal. My only real problem is how painful the baby kicking is!! I mean the baby lays in, what seems to me, one position, with his feet up under my right ribs. He never, ever stops moving! My right side is so incredibly sore! I never remembered Tyler moving about so painfully like this but maybe I just forgot... I seem to remember enjoying Tyler's movements while pregnant not clutching my side in agony!! I actually told the doctor about it and asked if it was ok for me to push against my side to try to "move" the baby out of a specific spot. I was worried that maybe I would squish him or something so I figured I should ask. The doctor laughed at me and said it was fine to do but the baby will probably just move right back into the same spot anyway.

And sleeping is so difficult, I got some little wedge shaped pillows specifically designed for pregnancy and those really help but I am still awake the majority of the night. I am either getting up every hour to go to the bathroom or being woken up from the baby wiggling around. I have been playing endless suduko on my cell phone in the middle of the night to wait for the baby to settle enough for me to sleep. Ahh well I know after he's born it'll be even less sleep :)

My next appointment, in 2 weeks, starts all my weekly appointments... the final stretch!