And I Keep On...

One week until my due date! And although that sounds sooo close... I don't think its gonna happen. I have been having my weekly appointments and at first my progress was great. I went from 25% effaced at week 36 to 60-70% effaced at week 37. Then.. week 38 threw me a curve ball and decided that no more progress would be required and my daughter still thought it would be tons of fun to not engage in my pelvis. Oh boy is she proving to be a little turkey! I didn't get to see Dr.Adams last week, instead I saw Dr.Dowd. He was really nice, but also not very optimistic about my small pelvis. After he checked me last week he said "Well... I have seen smaller" and gave a small chuckle. Yikes! He also reiterated the point that an induction while she hasn't dropped and I haven't progressed much would not be beneficial at all and would mostly end in c-section. This darn pelvis! So this week (today) I had my appt with Dr.Dowd again because I couldn't get into Dr.Adams, when he checked he said I was dilated to a 1, but everything else was the same. Ugh! What is Addy/Miras deal?! I have given her pep talks, I have used a downward motion when putting on my lotion and I have been sitting on my exercise ball in a manner that should encourage her to drop... yet I still sit here with my daughter all balled up in my hip. What is so darn cool about my hip?! There is one blogger who said she has always imagined that if your baby doesn't want to come out then your uterus must be similar to a fancy hotel. I have been trying to think of what hotel my uterus resembles. Maybe The Fairmont... or Ritz Carlton? Because the way this child acts it certainly isn't like Motel 6 or The Super 8... oh no, it is much nicer than those! Maybe she enjoys the pillow like cushioning in there, who knows!
I feel like it is muy importante to say that I don't mind having a child that likes to stay in my womb, maybe I should take it as a compliment. The only thing that worries me is that I can't deliver too large of a baby. I can't deliver anything in the 8s or up. And Dr.Dowd seemed a little pessimistic about a late 7s baby. I had a photoshoot last week to see how big she was and thankfully she was 6lb 10oz. Which is really good! However, the longer she cooks the bigger she gets. What that means my dear readers is that the clock is ticking. After my appt today I called and left a message with Dr.Adams to call me so I can figure out the plan of care. I just need to know how far they will let me go.... I will update you once I get word from Dr.Adams. I do get to see him next week (Whoo hoo!). Here are a couple pics from the last few weeks.

The Fun Continues

Dear Readers,
Thank you for reading this little blog of mine. I know that I am not as good at updating it as I once may have promised.. and for that I must apologize. Also- I know that on multiple occasions I have provided TMI. Well folks.. this blog will continue that tradition. If you have a weak stomach or don't enjoy TMI- you need to go up to your address line and type in another site to go to. I will write this blog and attempt to not be too graphic.. but no promises. :)

Well my unilateral pitting edema continues. I thought that if I drank enough water then I can stop the swelling.. but no such luck. I am pretty sure it is because I continue to wear my crocs. I need to just wear my tennies, they provide much more support for my waddling legs. I realized that it is mainly the right side (the left swells, but on a much smaller level than the right). Last week when I got off work the swelling was a definite 2+ pitting edema. It was quite the site. It took a couple days to completely come down. I have began another 3 in a row and the swelling has already began. I have attempted to take a picture of it, but I must admit it does not do it justice. LOL

I went to the doctors for my 36 week appt. That appointment started the beginning of my weekly appointments. Whoo hoo! I am siked about getting to hear my babies heartbeat weekly (and also get checked for dilation weekly!!). Wow, I gotta tell ya- there is nothing better than having someone reach up and push at your cervix. This 36 week appt also included my strep b swab (there is nothing like a vaginal-rectal swab!) and checking for dilation. Dr.Adams ended up having to be at surgery that day so I had to see the nurse midwife. I was nervous that she wasn't going to check me for dilation- you have no idea how much I was looking forward to this part of my appt. So I made sure to make a point and ask if she was going to check me. Much to my happiness- I was checked!! I was 25% effaced with no dilation. The midwife said that my dear daughter is head down (which she has been for a while) however she is not completely wedged down into my pelvis. She felt Antebellums head, but then the baby quickly moved her head up. She said once Antebellum wedges down into the pelvis further I will much more quickly dilate. So with that being said... I think I may have dilated a little bit. I was using the restroom and felt something a bit funny "down there" and when I went to wipe I got this big blob of clear mucus. That my friends.. was my mucus plug... and I lost it! Whoo hoo! It was not bloody at all- which makes me think I am not very dilated at all. I read that if it is bloody that means that you have opened up quite a bit and some small blood vessels that have dilated with the cervix have started bleeding a little. I guess time will tell... but I have told my dear daughter to hold until Nov 1st. But if she chooses to go ahead and come in October- I won't be mad. :) I have posted a pic of dilation and effacement below.. enjoy!

The Clock Keeps Tickin

35 Weeks and 2 days. Holy molly I am not even 2 weeks away from being full term. Crazy!! The whole pregnancy thing has been wonderful! I know I need to enjoy it now because soon enough I am going to be going on no sleep and have sore boobs ( I can't wait!!). :) My baby girl has settled down and isn't awake all the time now. I'm hoping she is going into more of a better sleep/wake pattern. She is also very good to me! Anytime I start to get concerned that she hasn't moved in a while, I will place my hand on my stomach and she will kick it. Its as if she knows exactly what I'm thinking and she puts my mind to rest. Baby girl has also started getting the hiccups. They are so adorable!! Joey felt them on Wednesday- they felt as if they were in my hip bone. She must be pretty low by now. Because if I walk more than 5 steps I feel like I am going to tinkle in my pants. I guess a pantie liner should be called a necessity by this point... And then whenever I do go tinkle, it is max 200ml. I feel like my bladder is going to explode and then when I sit to pee I barely pee anything. It can be a bit frustrating. When I was running the vending route with Joey on Wednesday, I peed like 8 times (we only have 8 locations we go to). Joey is a trooper though and doesn't say much when I have to pee twice at the same location. :) He only has a couple more weeks of the constant peeing.

I also have recently started to swell a bit. It is definitely not symmetrical. I swell more to the right ankle than the left.
Dr.Adams said it is probably the way she is laying and putting pressure more on my right hip than my left. However.. I did discover somewhat of a solution to the swelling. See, I was told the more water you drink the less swelling you should have. And I was doing magnificent on my drinking- always drinking at least 64oz/day. However, once she dropped so low I thought she was going to push out my bladder.. I slowed down (alot). I would notice I was only drinking like 30oz/day max. It was at that point that I started swelling. So, in the last 3 days I have started back on my heavy drinking and there hasn't been hardly any swelling- even after I ran the vending route! Whoo hoo! Maybe at my next doctors appt I won't have such an increase in my weight since the swelling has went down. Only time will tell.

My next doctors appt is next Friday. At that point they will swab me for Strep B and check me for dilation. Whoo hoo! I can't wait.. is that weird?! Probably, but I don't care! And then at 38 weeks I am going to have a sonogram to see how big the baby of mine is. That way we know if I can push her out. I have started to not eat anything in hopes of her not gaining any more weight... YA RIGHT. I don't care if she has to be a c-section baby. I just want a healthy baby! But honestly, my hopes are to have her naturally. I guess Jesus is the only one who knows what will happen. :)

P.S. I have finally updated my belly pics. However.. I skipped my 32 week photo shoot. Not intentionally, just because I was so outrageously tired and couldn't get motivated to take the pic. So I have a 30 wk, then a 34 and 35 wk photo up. Sorry for such delay!!
I also have pics from the baby showers.. they were awesome! I will try and post those soon!

Finally The Pics!

First I want to show off my beautiful daughter. She was absolutely perfect when I saw her during my 3D sonogram. She even smiled. The tech lady did however have to have me lay updside down and on my left side to get this darling baby to cooperate.. but I don't mind. Anything for a good photoshoot!!








Next is a pic of my belly button. I have been told by a couple people that it looks like a butt hole. Thank you Pam, Christa and Brenda.. No, it doesn't bother me. So you can be the judge. If this bare belly business creeps or grosses you out- I apologize and you don't have to look. Also important to note- I had just taken a shower and lubed up with my vitamin E oil and cocoa butter, so I look a bit greasy. The same goes for my 30 week pic at the top of the blog.



I felt that a side view of the belly button was better because I have verbalized my strong feelings about how front pics of a belly are dumb. What is the point of them? You can't see how big the person is...

Wobbling Happy

As my stomach continues to expand beyond an imaginable size, the wobbling continues to worsen. I began to have the pregnancy waddle at about 22 weeks or so, and boy has it gotten more impressive! I don't mean to walk that way, it just happens. I personally think it is because my legs have continued to expand as well. There is no denying the fact that my butt and legs have grown a bit too. I just blame it on making my body more prepared to carry this extra weight in front. However.. it is probably because I am just a lard butt. Oh well- I have every intention to work my butt off (literally) during the 12 weeks I'm off work (of coarse I will only work out intensely the last 6). I have continued my leg exercises as well as my tricep dips- but Jesus continues to provide me with cushion to support this baby (YIKES!). My weight gain has been appropriate thus far- but I still have 8 weeks left.
I also am one of those preggos that find it appropriate to hold her stomach while walking. I do this for a couple reasons. 1. Anytime I walk my bladder suddenly has absolutely no room at all.. none. So if I hold my stomach up a bit it takes a little pressure off. 2. I like to hold my baby. I like her to know that I am always thinking of her.. always. And I think that if I let her know that I love her so much- maybe she won't poke at my bladder. I mean, she can if she wants. I don't really mind.. but if she wants to be kind to my bladder- super! P.S.- ONLY 8 WEEKS! Holy cow! That is 5 weeks till full term. I couldn't be more psyched. I am off for 3 days and I am hoping to get a small amount of work done on the baby room and hopefully the baby's bathroom. We will see..



Speaking of the babies room- I just re bought the babies bedding and the valance that matches because they were on sale and I saved $20. Whoo hoo! I originally spent $140 for just the bedding and then Target had a baby sale, so I took back the bedding and got back all my money and then re bought the bedding AND the valance and only spent $120. Now that is what I call a deal! I also bought the breast pump on sale- $30 off. I am very excited about that- AND I got a $20 target gift card for buying a medela pump. I bought the Pump In Style Advanced. I have heard good things, I hope they prove to be true. I am going to be devastated if breastfeeding doesn't work out. I so badly want to use boobie juice as my baby girls primary source of nutrition. :) Plus- I am counting on that as another way to help me lose weight.

Running Randall

Joey and I recently had the pleasure of loaning out garage space to a fuzzy fella. We have decided to name "Running Randall" (actually Joey came up with the name). We kept finding weird things happening in our garage. We do vending and so we have a box of pastries (has donuts, cupcakes, zingers..ect), well when we went to get some of the pastries out we noticed that we had a couple packages of donuts that were open. The first package was crumb donuts (yummy!), and they only had a few nibbles out of them. The second package was powdered and they had like 3 donuts missing. Joey asked if I knew what the deal was and of course I had no idea. Joey then said that he kept finding stuff knocked off the shelves in our garage. And it was stuff that was on shelves really high up on the wall. Obviously we were baffled.. but we had no other reason to suspect a mammal friend visiting us and shacking in the garage. THEN.. on Saturday night we were hosting a Reid Shindig and Joey went to the garage to grab something and he saw an animal run across the garage. First and foremost we had to make sure it wasn't our first fuzzy child- The Son Bun. Thank goodness it wasn't, I would feel awful if he was stuck out in our garage. So.. we looked all over our garage and couldn't find this little critter. Important to note though- our garage is organized and recently cleaned, but still very very jammed full of stuff due to Joeys business. We kept hitting things on the walls hoping that this intruder would show his/her face- but no luck. Later on at like 2am Joey went to the garage and saw a possum run across the floor and vanish. We again looked very hard for him/her- but still no luck. This little turkey was probably "playing possum". What a little jokester this little animal is! Sunday my mom and step dad David come over- David used to be an animal control officer and this certainly wasn't his first rodeo when it came to getting a possum. However- Joey and David had the same issue that we had already had, this possum was playing dead somewhere and was no where to be found. We decided setting a trap would be the best way to hopefully catch this furry friend (even though Randall had it pretty good in the garage- plenty of food, space and privacy). Joey set the trap late in the evening and I had to go to work. Later, when I talked to Joey he informed me that we only had "one fuzzy guy living at our house now". Apparently Joey had went to grab something from the garage and Randall was caught red handed hiding behind the box Joey needed to get into. Randall got a little spooked and tried to run but was partially paralyzed from the fear of Joeys big muscles and the fact that he was holding cat tongs (which are similar to the old people grabbers). Joey grabbed Randall under the armpits with the tongs and carried him to the street as quickly as possible. Joey said Randall looked pretty scared and hissed a couple times. As soon as he let Randall go he ran rather quickly down the street. Poor Randall, but we just have too much stuff in the garage to let him permanently shack up out there. Here are a couple pics of cute little possums- the first is my favorite. I love how the babies are just holding on to their mother for dear life! I also love how Joey has just as soft of a heart for animals as I do- I think I picked a pretty great husband!!

Sooo Close

Once again I have managed to go over 1 month since my last blog. Wow.. I really suck at this blogging business. I just get tired or busy and my blog suffers horribly. Well, only 62 days till the due date of my daughter(I can't beleive I get to say that)! That is very very close in case you weren't aware. Because 62 days is only about 2 months and... wow! The pregnancy has gone by so fast! I have started to get serious about getting ready for the baby.. finally. I recently bought the high chair, bed set and the furniture. Of course, I waited until most of these were on sale to buy. However, I do have to return my bedset and rebuy it because it is now on sale with free shipping. Whoo hoo! I am all about saving $30! I have registered at Babies R'Us and Target- that was quite an adventure! My baby shower is going to be September 26th and I am pumped. My work shower is going to be the 24th and I am also really excited about that one as well. It will just be nice to be all ready for this precious baby. I am hoping to get the room painted pretty soon and then we can set up the crib. I also had my 3D (it was actually 4D) ultrasound last week. I will tell you more about that later, but Baby Antebellum proved how turkeyish she can be!

Here is a pic of the highchair that I bought. It is pretty nifty. It is a highchair that can also turn into a booster seat and then a "toddler seat". I have included a pic of all 3 ways the chair can be used. It is pretty nice.





I also will post my 28 and 30 week photos within the next couple days. I promise to do another blog by next week. :)