So very close, yet don't know how far left to go. We went to the doctor yesterday for our weekly appointment. I have been having contractions since last Friday, but they aren't consistent. Instead, they progress throughout the day until I am very uncomfortable at night, slowly picking up speed. But then they stop or begin slowing again sometime around 11 at night. Tuesday night I drove home from visiting a retired professor and I seriously thought I might be going into labor that night with how frequent they were. But no such luck. We are making progress though. At the OB they did the exam and said I am now 2cm dilated and 80% effaced. She has also dropped to -1 station. They did a quick ultrasound to check that she was still head down, which luckily she is, so no breech baby for me.
They also said we could discuss induction at the next appointment. Part of me thinks that would be easier than having to wait and see when she gets here, but the other part of me doesn't want to push things too fast. We will ask them to schedule us for the Monday after she is due so that my parents will definetely get to see her when they come to visit. It will be nice to have a firm date to look forward to if nothing else.
The baby sure did not like them pushing, prodding, and whatnot during the exam. We had lunch with some friends after wards, and she did not stop wiggling for several hours. In fact, she has been pretty wiggly since then. We keep telling her that if she is so uncomfortable in there, she can always come out.
I am ready to be done with pregnancy though. I keep gaining weight, and have reached the limit they suggest gaining, but I don't know that it will stop over the next two weeks. I am extremely swollen in my face, hands, feet and ankles. It gets so bad at night, I can barely make a fist and my ankles no longer have bones showing. I know I have done a good job of keeping the weight in control, but I tend to forget that when I look into the mirror and see my chubby face starring back at me. Hopefully after delivery the water weight will quickly disappear and the belly will start to shrink and I can get my mind back into the right mindset. But it has all been worth it.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
37 Weeks
The little girl is officially ungrounded today, now that I am at term. We were playing video games last night (involving a zombie apocalypse) and my stomach was moving so much it looked like I had something inhuman in me. So we ungrounded her and told her she could come out of her womb whenever she would like, but she has to play nicely. Both of us are getting more and more eager for her to be here already, especially now that our friends who were a month ahead of us had their baby on Monday (a week and a half late.) It has been nice to go through my first pregnancy with someone so close in age, due date, etc., but now that she has her baby, T and I are jealous that we don't have ours. Won't be too much longer, hopefully. We have our next OB appointment tomorrow, so we will see how much progress has been made, if any. Although I know that none of it (the dilation, effacement, etc) is an actual indicator for due date, especially after our friends had been showing favorable signs for over four weeks and she still had to be induced and labor was 14 hours.
I did have a funny thing happen to me this week. I went to the post office to mail out the Christmas presents to various family members (before it got too late.) There was the normal line you would expect at a post office, so I stood there with my wheely cart full of boxes and several in my hands, belly sticking out for all to see. A woman ahead of me in line was complaining about how long the wait was and how she hates just standing there cause it makes her uncomfortable and tired. Now this woman was in her early thirties max, normal build, and with no visible disability or health issue that would make her incapable of standing for the five minutes it took to get to the front of the line. Regardless, that didn't stop her from whining.
When she finally did get to the front of the line, she was called to one of the counters in the back. She had 78 letters that needed to be mailed, and she wanted the postal employees to stamp them for her. At first I thought that maybe she was thinking they had one of those electronic stamp things many offices have where you can set the price and just whip them on through, but no she wanted to buy paper stamps and have them put them on for her. Of course they wouldn't do that cause that isn't their job, but that didn't stop her from trying to debate the issue for two minutes. The employee made the mistake of saying to her, "We can't do that, and if you had just stamped them yourself, we would be done with this transaction already." Of course that made this woman go into a tailspin and she yelled at the postal employee for a bit about customer service, all while not doing anything to further the transaction.
Finally they get her all settled down, given the stamps, and then when they went to run her card it wouldn't read. The other counters were not having problems, so the employee said that she would have to go to the other counter to use her card. He walked her over to the counter and explained to one of the other postal employees about what needed to be done and walked away, leaving her to wait until that postal employee was done with their transaction and could run her card. Meanwhile the grumpy lady stood way off to the side putting the stamps on her letters, complaining loudly about how long this was taking and how tired and sore she was from it all. When the employee finished, she saw that the lady was putting stamps on her letters and simply said, "Can I help who is next?" That just happened to be me, so I started to waddle forward with my cart and packages, and the lady ran in front of me, bumping into my belly on the way, and starting yelling about how she was next. The postal employee tried to explain that she thought the lady would like to finish stamping her letters first so they could take them from her when the transaction was complete, and that she was trying to be nice to the poor pregnant woman who had been standing patiently in line with all those packages. The lady would have none of it, and just went about her business. While we all waited for her to be done with her transaction, this little old lady behind me in line asked me how far along I was, to which I replied that I was nine months pregnant. To which she said, "About ready to give birth, carrying all those heavy packages, and yet you still have a sweet smile on your face and haven't complained one bit about this line. Just goes to show you how good manners haven't been lost." Everyone smiled at that jab, well everyone but the cranky lady.
The other thing that happened this week, that made me feel less than stellar, was when I went to get lunch at a fast food drive through. The gentleman who was taking my money looked down at me in the car and said, "You must be having twins." Nope, not even close. I remarked that I was just due really soon, but he just shrugged it off. This is the second stupid comment from a male at a drive through I have had this month. The other was when I went to get a milkshake for T when he had the flu and didn't want anything else for dinner. I got a large for T and a small for me, and the man made a comment about the large being for me and it not being very healthy. I guess it serves me right for eating fast food, but honestly I have only had it a handful of times the entire pregnancy, and each time I try to stick with kids meal size proportions to keep the calories down. I do love though that each time it was a male who made a comment, cause no female in their right mind would ever insult a pregnant woman.
UPDATE: At Thursday's appointment I had made progress, 1cm and 75% effacement.
I did have a funny thing happen to me this week. I went to the post office to mail out the Christmas presents to various family members (before it got too late.) There was the normal line you would expect at a post office, so I stood there with my wheely cart full of boxes and several in my hands, belly sticking out for all to see. A woman ahead of me in line was complaining about how long the wait was and how she hates just standing there cause it makes her uncomfortable and tired. Now this woman was in her early thirties max, normal build, and with no visible disability or health issue that would make her incapable of standing for the five minutes it took to get to the front of the line. Regardless, that didn't stop her from whining.
When she finally did get to the front of the line, she was called to one of the counters in the back. She had 78 letters that needed to be mailed, and she wanted the postal employees to stamp them for her. At first I thought that maybe she was thinking they had one of those electronic stamp things many offices have where you can set the price and just whip them on through, but no she wanted to buy paper stamps and have them put them on for her. Of course they wouldn't do that cause that isn't their job, but that didn't stop her from trying to debate the issue for two minutes. The employee made the mistake of saying to her, "We can't do that, and if you had just stamped them yourself, we would be done with this transaction already." Of course that made this woman go into a tailspin and she yelled at the postal employee for a bit about customer service, all while not doing anything to further the transaction.
Finally they get her all settled down, given the stamps, and then when they went to run her card it wouldn't read. The other counters were not having problems, so the employee said that she would have to go to the other counter to use her card. He walked her over to the counter and explained to one of the other postal employees about what needed to be done and walked away, leaving her to wait until that postal employee was done with their transaction and could run her card. Meanwhile the grumpy lady stood way off to the side putting the stamps on her letters, complaining loudly about how long this was taking and how tired and sore she was from it all. When the employee finished, she saw that the lady was putting stamps on her letters and simply said, "Can I help who is next?" That just happened to be me, so I started to waddle forward with my cart and packages, and the lady ran in front of me, bumping into my belly on the way, and starting yelling about how she was next. The postal employee tried to explain that she thought the lady would like to finish stamping her letters first so they could take them from her when the transaction was complete, and that she was trying to be nice to the poor pregnant woman who had been standing patiently in line with all those packages. The lady would have none of it, and just went about her business. While we all waited for her to be done with her transaction, this little old lady behind me in line asked me how far along I was, to which I replied that I was nine months pregnant. To which she said, "About ready to give birth, carrying all those heavy packages, and yet you still have a sweet smile on your face and haven't complained one bit about this line. Just goes to show you how good manners haven't been lost." Everyone smiled at that jab, well everyone but the cranky lady.
The other thing that happened this week, that made me feel less than stellar, was when I went to get lunch at a fast food drive through. The gentleman who was taking my money looked down at me in the car and said, "You must be having twins." Nope, not even close. I remarked that I was just due really soon, but he just shrugged it off. This is the second stupid comment from a male at a drive through I have had this month. The other was when I went to get a milkshake for T when he had the flu and didn't want anything else for dinner. I got a large for T and a small for me, and the man made a comment about the large being for me and it not being very healthy. I guess it serves me right for eating fast food, but honestly I have only had it a handful of times the entire pregnancy, and each time I try to stick with kids meal size proportions to keep the calories down. I do love though that each time it was a male who made a comment, cause no female in their right mind would ever insult a pregnant woman.
UPDATE: At Thursday's appointment I had made progress, 1cm and 75% effacement.
36 Weeks
This week marks my last week before being considered at term. As such, we decided to get some last minute things accomplished so we could be ready for whatever came our way. The first thing we did was get maternity pictures taken. We went to a local chain studio, and honestly they did a good job for a great price. However, we did have to wait 45 minutes before we even got into the studio. We had reservations, but apparently they can't anticipate the amount of time it will take for portraits when it comes to kids and indecisive parents. We also picked a Saturday before the holidays, which meant it was packed of all the people trying to get holiday photos done. But we have our pictures now, and despite being very pregnant and all that entails in the form of weight gain, I think they look very good.
The following Monday, T took the day off so we could go shopping for all the stuff we need babywise from day one. We have lots on our registry that honestly we won't need for a few months (books, high chair, etc), but we did have stuff like baby monitors, changing pad, a pack of diapers that needed to be picked up. We also decided to pick up a few things to put under the tree for the baby, since technically this will be her first Christmas. I had been collecting coupons from Target and other sites for various things, and I managed to cut our final bill almost in half! I love doing that.
The next day we had our first physical exam type of appointment at the OB. I won't get into details, but I was 50% effaced with no dilation. My belly measurements are still matching the weeks, which meant I was 36 cm. Hopefully that will slow down since I don't know how much more stretching my poor belly can take. The skin is so tight it shines in the light now. The OB also confirmed she is head down, thank goodness, so no breach baby for me. (Although she still feels sunny side up.)
It also looks like I got the swine flu vaccine just in the nick of time. T woke up Wednesday morning feeling like death very suddenly, but tried to go to work. Within two hours he was home sick with a lot of the symptoms of the swine flu. I took care of him for two days before he felt well enough to go back to work, but still didn't feel 100% great. I, miraculously, did not get sick at all, which was my biggest concern. I took all the precautions I could by washing my hands all the time, staying out of the same room as much as possible, and drinking lots of Vitamin C, but I did the same thing in Ohio and got sick. So I am 95% sure that T had the swine flu and am thankful that I managed to get that shot finally. I am still going to get T vaccinated, once I am able to find it available.
The following Monday, T took the day off so we could go shopping for all the stuff we need babywise from day one. We have lots on our registry that honestly we won't need for a few months (books, high chair, etc), but we did have stuff like baby monitors, changing pad, a pack of diapers that needed to be picked up. We also decided to pick up a few things to put under the tree for the baby, since technically this will be her first Christmas. I had been collecting coupons from Target and other sites for various things, and I managed to cut our final bill almost in half! I love doing that.
The next day we had our first physical exam type of appointment at the OB. I won't get into details, but I was 50% effaced with no dilation. My belly measurements are still matching the weeks, which meant I was 36 cm. Hopefully that will slow down since I don't know how much more stretching my poor belly can take. The skin is so tight it shines in the light now. The OB also confirmed she is head down, thank goodness, so no breach baby for me. (Although she still feels sunny side up.)
It also looks like I got the swine flu vaccine just in the nick of time. T woke up Wednesday morning feeling like death very suddenly, but tried to go to work. Within two hours he was home sick with a lot of the symptoms of the swine flu. I took care of him for two days before he felt well enough to go back to work, but still didn't feel 100% great. I, miraculously, did not get sick at all, which was my biggest concern. I took all the precautions I could by washing my hands all the time, staying out of the same room as much as possible, and drinking lots of Vitamin C, but I did the same thing in Ohio and got sick. So I am 95% sure that T had the swine flu and am thankful that I managed to get that shot finally. I am still going to get T vaccinated, once I am able to find it available.
35 Weeks
I had my last bi-weekly appointments at the OB at the start of the week. Everything looked good, although I am having a ton of swelling which is making it painful to type come evening time. As I was checking out, I mentioned to the receptionist how difficult it has been tracking down the swine flu vaccine. She said they had just received their doses, which they didn't think they were going to get, and I could get the shot right then if I wanted. After all that hassle, it ended up being nothing to get the shot. My arm did hurt more from this shot than the seasonal though, but I didn't end up with any flu like symptoms. Now I just need to find a shot for T.
The day before Halloween, I went shopping for the last of my Christmas gifts (with a few exceptions that I didn't find in stores.) Retail therapy felt good because I had been by myself at home most of the week, which makes me very lonely. I also had a ton of coupons, so was able to get a lot more items than I normally would. The gifts I have bought online are here as well, so I spent the next day wrapping everything to get ready to ship out to family members.
We were invited to a Halloween party on Saturday. Before the party, two of our friends were in town for a wedding and we went around town running errands with them so that we could spend some time with them. They are also expecting and moved to another state a few months back, so this will be the last time we see them in person before we each have kids. The party didn't start until 8, which was great because that is when trick or treating magically stops in our neighborhood. It is a phenomenon that we have seen year after year, but still haven't understood how the kids magically all know to stop at that time. T dressed up as Charlie Brown (wearing a shirt I owned in high school) and two pairs of girls panty hose to make him look bald. I made a pregnasaurus costume out of a large green t-shirt, green and white foam, a foam visor, and some felt. It was amazing looking and I got a lot of comments on it. T and I have already made plans for next year. We are going to do a family costume, and T will be David Bowie's character from the Labryinth, I will be Jennifer Connelly's character, and the baby will be the baby brother. It is going to be awesome.
The day before Halloween, I went shopping for the last of my Christmas gifts (with a few exceptions that I didn't find in stores.) Retail therapy felt good because I had been by myself at home most of the week, which makes me very lonely. I also had a ton of coupons, so was able to get a lot more items than I normally would. The gifts I have bought online are here as well, so I spent the next day wrapping everything to get ready to ship out to family members.
We were invited to a Halloween party on Saturday. Before the party, two of our friends were in town for a wedding and we went around town running errands with them so that we could spend some time with them. They are also expecting and moved to another state a few months back, so this will be the last time we see them in person before we each have kids. The party didn't start until 8, which was great because that is when trick or treating magically stops in our neighborhood. It is a phenomenon that we have seen year after year, but still haven't understood how the kids magically all know to stop at that time. T dressed up as Charlie Brown (wearing a shirt I owned in high school) and two pairs of girls panty hose to make him look bald. I made a pregnasaurus costume out of a large green t-shirt, green and white foam, a foam visor, and some felt. It was amazing looking and I got a lot of comments on it. T and I have already made plans for next year. We are going to do a family costume, and T will be David Bowie's character from the Labryinth, I will be Jennifer Connelly's character, and the baby will be the baby brother. It is going to be awesome.
34 Weeks
Because of last weeks debacle with my supervisor and site manager at work, we ended up having a meeting with the Advisory Board and the graduate students. The meeting was productive, but I came out of it feeling defeated and not an efficient manager. My supervisor, who has never had children, came out of it feeling better about the situation than I did, but thanks to a comment from another board member, started to panic about the project's progress post baby. Our original agreement was that they would treat me as if I was salaried, despite not being salaried in the university pay system because I made a few hundred less than was required. Thanks to the comment, my supervisor wants me to count my hours, and then if there are any left he can switch them to the students to give them more hours. This is a frustration I did not need, but I will deal with the situation after the baby arrives and see if I will be reduced in hours.
I have been calling the poor health department daily, trying to get the H1N1 vaccine shot. Our state stopped testing patients, and so now our numbers of infected look like we have fewer than anybody, so they have been slower to ship the vaccine to the state. Hopefully soon I will get it. In the meantime, I finished cleaning out the professors office that I have been helping with since the spring. I don't plan on coming to campus very often the rest of the year so I can avoid all the germs.
I have been calling the poor health department daily, trying to get the H1N1 vaccine shot. Our state stopped testing patients, and so now our numbers of infected look like we have fewer than anybody, so they have been slower to ship the vaccine to the state. Hopefully soon I will get it. In the meantime, I finished cleaning out the professors office that I have been helping with since the spring. I don't plan on coming to campus very often the rest of the year so I can avoid all the germs.
33 Weeks
Saturday, October 17th, I was thrown a baby shower by three of my friends (K, L, and A). We had rented out a local restaurant called Blue Marlin and had them cater. My friends provided the cake, decorations and fun. It was cat themed so each of them had fuzzy cat ear headbands on when I arrived, and a pair waiting for me. The cake was a bright pink cat cake (homemade by A and L) that was chocolate inside and raspberry frosting outside.
The table decorations were rubber duckies used as photo holders with pictures of me, T and the cat. Each table had a healthy supply of Kit Kats and sparkles. It was all very cute.
We ate some food, socialized and then I opened presents. There were no silly baby shower games, which you have to love. We received amazing presents. One of the most memorable was a collection of onesies K had made that had different designs on them that were unique. There was a cat, a rubber ducky, a got maps (with a picture of the part of England we were in), a future Rock Band shredder, and one giving the pronunciation of our last name. Another great gift was a collection of Mother Goose rhymes that the giver H was read/ learned to read with when she was a child.
I refused to read the messages in the cards because I did not want to cry at my own shower. I was so touched though that it was really difficult not to, but somehow I managed. Having all of my family thousands of miles away becomes more apparent when you have moments like these, but then I realize that I have a very large group of friends here that I would consider family, and I feel very blessed and lucky to know them. Needless to say, I made it through the shower and clean up without bursting into tears, but there were misty eyed moments and I did cry on the way home.
The other thing to happen this week was work related. I was supposed to travel down to my research site, but being this far along, my OB and I had some hesitations being somewhere where medical assistance would be more than an hour away. I contacted the site manager to let him know that I could not travel, but neglected to specifically say that it was due to the pregnancy. We had been restricted from travel from the university last spring, and he assumed that this was the same case, and so he fired off an email to my supervisor to complain and hopefully force the university to let us travel again. This made my supervisor jumpy that the site manager was not pleased with the progress made on the project, and the whole thing just blew up in a matter of minutes. I spent about an hour on the phone with both of them getting it all cleared up and getting confirmation that the site manager was in fact pleased with the project so far. I felt so stupid for not being more specific during my email and chalk it all up to the fact that I have been trying to act as if I am not pregnant during this semester because I didn't want it to cause problems such as this.
The table decorations were rubber duckies used as photo holders with pictures of me, T and the cat. Each table had a healthy supply of Kit Kats and sparkles. It was all very cute.
We ate some food, socialized and then I opened presents. There were no silly baby shower games, which you have to love. We received amazing presents. One of the most memorable was a collection of onesies K had made that had different designs on them that were unique. There was a cat, a rubber ducky, a got maps (with a picture of the part of England we were in), a future Rock Band shredder, and one giving the pronunciation of our last name. Another great gift was a collection of Mother Goose rhymes that the giver H was read/ learned to read with when she was a child.
I refused to read the messages in the cards because I did not want to cry at my own shower. I was so touched though that it was really difficult not to, but somehow I managed. Having all of my family thousands of miles away becomes more apparent when you have moments like these, but then I realize that I have a very large group of friends here that I would consider family, and I feel very blessed and lucky to know them. Needless to say, I made it through the shower and clean up without bursting into tears, but there were misty eyed moments and I did cry on the way home.
The other thing to happen this week was work related. I was supposed to travel down to my research site, but being this far along, my OB and I had some hesitations being somewhere where medical assistance would be more than an hour away. I contacted the site manager to let him know that I could not travel, but neglected to specifically say that it was due to the pregnancy. We had been restricted from travel from the university last spring, and he assumed that this was the same case, and so he fired off an email to my supervisor to complain and hopefully force the university to let us travel again. This made my supervisor jumpy that the site manager was not pleased with the progress made on the project, and the whole thing just blew up in a matter of minutes. I spent about an hour on the phone with both of them getting it all cleared up and getting confirmation that the site manager was in fact pleased with the project so far. I felt so stupid for not being more specific during my email and chalk it all up to the fact that I have been trying to act as if I am not pregnant during this semester because I didn't want it to cause problems such as this.
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