Last Blog Before Baby?

Hopefully this is the last update before the baby. This weekend is going to be filled with odds and ends and some relaxing, so this shouldn't be on my mind. But I had a few other random things to add:

• Overall Weight: According to the doctor's scale, I gained 26 lbs total. According to our home scale, I gained 35 lbs total. Pretty much the difference is my starting weight - for some reason, I must have just weighed a lot that first time I saw the doctor, who knows. Either way, I'm pretty happy with the overall weight result.
• Circumference: 46.5 inches. Who knows what my original waist was anymore!
• The last day of work was difficult but I tried to keep a brave face all day. First off, I'm sad to leave the kids. I feel like I just got started with them and now I'm passing them off to someone else. One of the girls even said, "But you are my brand new teacher and you are already leaving!" Oh, break my heart! I did promise the kids I would be back with the baby for Halloween and they are pretty excited about that, so I pleased them a bit today. I gave them a nice good-bye speech today and then also "threatened" them that when I come back they better be behaving and I will know if they haven't been. :) Secondly, I LOVE my ladies at work! I will very much miss having lunch with them, chatting, gossiping, randomly stopping and talking to people, etc. They are all such a rewarding part of my job. I tried to keep it light and casual today, but I will be missing them all very much over the next few months! Hopefully they'll save my seat in the teacher's lounge! :)

Well, I think that pretty much sums up my pregnancy this far! The blog will certainly NOT be updated as much after baby boy is here. I can't believe that in 3 days, I will have a little baby! It still seems surreal. But I know that I cannot wait to get him in my arms and kiss and cuddle him! Just trying getting to hold him - I dare you! :) And I am very much looking forward to have all this time off with him. This has easily been the best year of my life and I am so happy that I will be home with him until January. Fall has always been my favorite time of the year, but having this little baby, being home, watching Browns games, cuddling with my Layla Bear...I think I may be on Cloud Nine for the next 100 days!

Thank you to everyone that has been so supportive and loving to us during our pregnancy. My life has truly been blissful since January and we are so blessed. Please say a little prayer for us on Monday that everything goes well and we come home with a healthy baby boy!

I think I am ready for the next chapter of my life to begin....

Last Ultrasound Photos - 38.5 Weeks

His foot, a side view His fingers, a few of them at least

The back of his head and his ear

Doctor Appointment Part 2

Tom and I went for our doctor appointment today to get another ultrasound and talk about induction. I wasn't really sure why I had to get another ultrasound or why they were so worried about the amount of fluid I had - but now I do. Apparently, all the fluid can cause the baby to stay up higher and if my water were to break before he descended, the umbilical cord could come down first and be pinched by his head - not good! So no more trying to break my own water! They want to induce me, have the contractions move him down into position and THEN break my water. Makes so much more sense now! So the moral of the story is we are going in Monday morning at 8 am to be induced.

Random things:

• We went back today to meet the doctor that is SUPPOSED to be at the hospital on Monday but it turns out, he's not on that day! Apparently my main doctor didn't realize this. She sent him all these messages today about meeting with me, my record, when to send me for an induction, etc and he didn't understand why she was so concerned since he's not on call that day. Oops!
• The doc we were meeting with today wasn't one of our favorites - we had met with him before and he was just too laid back, etc. So we were nervous about having him as the doctor on Monday. BUT today we ended up really liking him and THEN figured out he won't be there on Monday! The irony!
• The doc that WILL be at the hospital on Monday is my 2nd favorite doctor though! Tom hasn't met him yet but I did and immediately liked him, so I think it's all working out just fine.
• I asked if there were any eating restrictions, when I should stop eating, etc before the induction and he told me eat as much as I want. Not the answer I was expecting, but a yummier one!
• My plan for walking all weekend to break my water is off! But maybe I'll be able to dilate some more with my walking.
• A 2nd doc has agreed that being 3 cm dilated is a good thing. He also gave me the "looks really good" speech. So hopefully it will count for something and move things along better.
• My birth plan has always been to go as naturally as possible with an induction being one of the last things I wanted. Turns out, I like the idea of knowing when I am going into the hospital - everything will be ready, I'll be showered, Tom doesn't have to rush to get me there, etc. It also is putting a bit of a kink into my no epidural rule. I never said I would not get an epidural, but I wanted to see how long I could go naturally because I wanted to be able to get up, walk around and feel the contractions to hopefully help with the pushing. Getting an induction tends to go with epidurals, but I still think I will see how long I can go without it. It's more now the thought of my giant baby coming out that makes me think I'll get that epidural in the end! :) But as every doctor has said, it's all a play it by ear thing - just go with everything - nothing is written in stone - relax. Deep breath!

Doctor Appointment Part 1

I went for what I thought would be my last doctor's appointment today, but alas, it is not (which is why this is titled Part 1). It seems like everything is about the same - baby still isn't completely down and I'm still 3 cm. I am going again tomorrow for an ultrasound to just check on everything, especially the fluid levels and then if everything looks relatively good, it looks like I could be induced as early as Monday.

In other news, my class threw me a surprise baby shower today! It was Browns themed with an orange and brown cake that said Lucky Baby on it!! They got me a Browns diaper bag, blanket and outfit! There were also lots of little goodies inside the diaper bag. The kids all drew pictures of what they thought the baby would look like and wrote down their name suggestions! It was wonderful!

What a Week!

It seems as we are nearing the big day, things just keep going wrong! I'm hoping this means we're getting it all out of the way so that labor and delivery will be smooth! Here's just some of the "issues" we've had since Saturday (it's only Wednesday!):

• On Saturday Tom took Layla for a quick walk and she stepped on something. We assume it was a bee because her foot swelled up! Tom was by himself and figured out what to do! He'll be a great daddy! He put some sort of baking powder paste on her foot, put a sock on it and sat with her, tried putting an ice pack on it (that didn't work!) and called the vet. By the time I came home, it seemed better so we sent her to the hair cutters, but later at night it was still swollen. The vet said to give her Benadryl and that knocked her out! And took the swelling down. Our poor puppy!
• On Sunday Tom went to rinse off the deck. We had noticed these little black things on the deck and didn't know what they were. While trying to wash them off the table, he looked up into the umbrella and found 2 bats! He tried to hose the one off, tried to hit it with a broom and eventually it flew off. Then we found another one! BATS!! ON OUR DECK!! Hello, does that freak anyone else out??
• The curtains we bought for the baby's room are black out/insulated curtains. This makes them thick and difficult to get the wrinkles out. The curtains were also not pleating correctly so we had COIT come out and see what they could do. Long story short, we either have to move the rod (drill new holes, fill holes, repaint with our custom color paint that we don't have anymore) or hem these crazy thick drapes! YIKES! Forget it - just take the wrinkles out!
• My awesome blow drier broke on Sunday. It will not turn off anymore. I tried to plug in a different blow drier and the test button was going in and out and clicking and scared me that our house was going to burn down!
• We cleaned out the basement and found a ton of the paint cans from when we first moved in and painted. The paint was bad so we tried to figure out how to get rid of all the cans. We decided to put them out with the trash and put them in garage bags and then in boxes. One of the cans spilled and Tom had to scrub the driveway down so that it didn't stain. Then the garage men wouldn't take them and my mom almost got in a fight with the garage men! Tom ended up taking them to one of my dad's dumpsters last night to get rid of them!

So far, no catastrophes on Wednesday yet.....

As of September 10th

Tom and I went for our 37 week doctor appointment on Thursday. We had another ultrasound to check the size and weight of the baby. Again, we were told Baby Boy is big - 8.5 lbs and in the 90th percentile. The ultrasound tech was very nice and we had a fairly long ultrasound. We even saw the baby open his mouth! She also said that I still have a lot of fluid, which is why my belly looks so big and round. We then met with the doctor and she determined that I am now 3 cm dilated. She was impressed that everything is moving along quite well. She does think that the big baby plus all that fluid are helping to speed things along. So everything sounded ok and then she dropped the bomb shell that I could basically go into labor at any time and if I do not go into labor by Thursday (September 17th) then we will schedule an induction for very soon after that! My last day of work is SUPPOSED to be September 18th and I would like to make it to that, but at the same time, I'd rather go into labor naturally vs. being induced. So now we're officially in a waiting pattern! ALL our bags really ARE packed now! We also have tarps and towels in my car because we were told twice that IF my water breaks, it will gush and be like Lake Erie, so we have THAT to look forward to! We knew that all this could be a possibility but hearing it on Thursday and realizing that she definitely cut a week off my pregnancy timeline made everything VERY VERY real! So wish me luck and pray that Baby Boy can stay in there a little longer - I would like to at least make it through Monday and Tuesday of next week!


His Foot

His Face His Fist

In the Last Week

We are getting more and more ready for baby boy to come, and here are some of the latest updates from the last week:

• The bags are packed and ready to go, the car seat is installed! YEAH! We had some debate over where to put the car seat, but the middle made the car seat too wobbly. So we decided to put the car seat behind the passenger seat. We're pretty set on that, but any thoughts?
• I went to the doctor's office on Thursday, Sept. 3. My doc again told me that I am having a completely textbook pregnancy with everything. She seems very excited about this. Also, according to the doc's scale, I have gained 25 lbs so far. She also checked me out and I am 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced. To me, that sounded really great and like a lot has happened, but I guess we need to see if I've progressed by next week.
• We have hired a sub! YEAH! And it's a guy! Everyone told me this summer that I should stop referring to my sub as a "she," that it could be a "he," but I thought the chances were pretty slim of us finding a guy to sub for kindergarten. Regardless of the sub's gender, I am very excited and feel good that Steve will be taking over!
• Only 8 days teaching and I got my first cold! YUCK! Sunday I woke up with a sore throat and just completely tired. I did not do much this Labor Day weekend but rested. Tom was an angel putting together more baby stuff and doing the laundry, while I sat on my butt and napped a lot! But I feel MUCH better today!

I am looking forward to my next doc appointment this Thursday with another ultrasound!

Camera Issues

So in anticipation of baby boy, we bought (ok, my mom bought it for us) a new camera. It's small but takes amazing pictures. It also has lots of fun new features including a smile detector. Anyway, one of the features is that it puts those face boxes on a face when it sees it. Tonight Tom took belly pictures and not only did it recognize my head as a face, but it also recognized my extra large belly as a face! I mean, technically it's sort of accurate...but the way Tom was laughing/giggling (you know the one I'm talking about) it was not so funny!

Today was also a tragic day because my belly button disappeared. It is not in, it is not out, it is just gone!