Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Taking Our Time

We had our weekly check-in today and it looks like baby Murph is not ready to make an appearance quite yet. I've been pretty hopeful lately considering I've been measuring ahead and progress was made last week, but this week it looks like we've slowed down. Doc said the head is fully engaged (which is no surprise to me considering the enormous amount of pressure I've been feeling) but unfortunately my cervix is just not doing much at the moment. I'm about a cm dilated but have been that for over week and he did not feel like it seemed to be close to changing. All in all, he is placing his bets on a due date or close to due date arrival. Sigh. I think it is hilarious because in reality that is only 2 weeks away but it just seems SO FAR! I was really hoping that he would tell us it could be any day now but that is not the case. In reality I'm only 38 weeks and not many people go into labor that early with their first, but hey, a girl can dream right?! I need to remind myself that the most important thing is that everything is still checking out good and healthy and baby Murph will join this world when he/she is ready.

Boy or Girl?
In other news, the debate about whether we are having a boy or a girl continues. A few weeks ago I was so convinced it was a boy and then recently things have been looking otherwise:

1. I went to get my nails done recently and the asian nail lady told me this time it was a girl! All along they have said boy and were very convincing about this and then low and behold, they throw me for a loop this past weekend when they tell me they are sure it is a girl.

2. The heart rate has been above 135 the past three visits. If you recall, one of the midwives told me early on that she thought it was a boy based off the fact that the heart rate was below 135. Well all three of my last visits have been 137 or higher.

3. Saw a friend I have not seen in a few months this past weekend and she was convinced my face had changed which everyone claims is a classic characteristic of having a girl.

I literally have ZERO idea at this point. The only thing I'm certain about is that we are having a baby :)

Friday, March 25, 2011

Weekly Check In

So from here on out I might as well give you all the weekly check in, since we are now full-term and could technically have this baby at any point (please lord sooner rather than later).

Tuesday was our 37 week check-in. To date, we have luckily made some progress: 1cm dilated, 50% effaced and baby has dropped. The midwife actually said I looked small to which I thought I was hearing things and then she reassured my hearing loss by saying that that generally means the baby has descended into the pelvic area. Phew. For a second there I thought I needed to make a mental note to get my ears checked. While it's a good sign that things are moving forward it really means nothing in terms of timing. I could be this way for 3 more weeks or I could turn on a dime. All it means is progress. Sigh.

Next Tuesday is our 38 week check-in, so I will continue to keep you all posted. Say some prayers that baby Murph graces us with his/her presence soon :)

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

A Little Disturbing

So this post might be a little disturbing to some but my friend Brandi and I could not stop laughing about it the other day so I thought it was well worth a blog post. Basically I'm going to talk about pee and specifically two different stories involving my urine. If this offends you or grosses you out in anyway, you might want to stop reading now.

The Doctor's Visit: About a month and a half ago I went for my regular doctor's visit - every visit is pretty routine and starts with a urine sample followed by a weight and blood pressure check. Well I went in for my urine sample and low and behold I could not see a thing down there! It never really occurred to me until that moment, that my stomach would get so large that there was no way I could see to pee into the cup. I started dying laughing at myself because all I could really do was start peeing and pray that some made it in. As you can imagine this has only gotten ten times worse over the last month and at this point it is just down right hilarious. It's literally a complete gamble every time I go in there as to whether I will be able to collect anything for them. Now when I go in, I sit down and pray for good aim.

Obsession: My other story involves my latest obsession, my pee. There are a couple things that occur within your pee when you are about to start labor and/or just a few days away so I have become overly obsessed with checking my pee on a regular basis. Everytime I go I get a little anxious just thinking about what I might see in that toilet. Will something be there this time? Did I look close enough? Did I miss something? It cracks me up just thinking about it. For my entire life I don't think I've ever looked into the toilet after peeing, and now it has become my hobby. I can only imagine how I'm going to feel when one of these days I look in and to my excitement see a sign. Lets just hope it comes sooner rather than later!!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Let The Count Down Begin

Today I am 36 weeks and 3 days pregnant and already counting down the days! I know this could be potentially dangerous as there is a strong possibility I could go all the way to my due date or beyond which would put me at another 4 weeks or so. For some reason I'm convinced this is not physically possible so I'm keeping an optimistic outlook that it will be sooner rather than later.



Yesterday we had our doctor check up and we were also able to sneak in an ultrasound :) My Dr. is a family friend and made up an excuse for an ultrasound as both Josh and I were very anxious to see how the little one was doing since its been 16 weeks since our last one. I'm so glad we were given this opportunity...it was very cool!! Our baby actually looked like a little baby and was just precious. He/She has very chubby cheeks and somehow has been blessed with some full lips. Everything checked out great and the ultrasound tech said that it all looked "textbook". BIG sigh of relief :) She took all the measurements of the baby and reported that right now it's about 7 lbs. She did say this could be off a few ounces here and there but for the most part an ultrasound reading is pretty accurate. If that's the case and she is correct, we could be in for one big baby assuming I go another few weeks! As for what everyone is wondering....NO, she did not check "down there" as we informed her right away we still did not want to know the sex, so trust me when I say we couldn't see a thing. Now I know everyone on the planet thinks I'm having a boy and so do I, but from the looks of this little face I'm starting to think it might be a girl.....you make your own call!



Next we met with our Dr. who confirmed that everything looks good, I'm not dilated yet, and the head has come down slightly but not a ton. All that means is that unfortunately, labor is not eminent...sigh. So in the meantime, we will sit tight and anxiously await the arrival of our son or daughter :)

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Just Keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming

These wise words from Nemo keep playing in my head over and over again. I'm down to the last month and there are some days where I'm seriously not sure how I'm going to make it. It's not really that I'm so excited I just can't stand it anymore...I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm super excited to meet this little muffin, but I'm more just physically miserable! Some days my braxton hicks contractions are so bad that it is impossible to do anything other than lie down (which is obvi hard to do when I'm working all day long). I've also started in with swelling, which again isn't an every day thing but just decides to pop up here and there whenever its little heart desires. Those days are tough...24 hours seems tough..let alone 4 weeks!

However, every now and then I have a day like today. I get a good nights sleep, no contractions, feel pretty darn good (other than my belly getting in the way) and all in all don't have many complaints. Thankfully I have these days because they not only give me a glimmer of hope that I can make it, byut they also help me remember that this time is important for my babe to gain that extra fat. The longer he/she goes, the better for all of us. Sometimes it is just hard to think that way when you have a "keep swimming" day!

Thursday, March 3, 2011

The Stuff Nobody Ever Tells You Part 3

Today I'm 34 weeks pregnant and these past few weeks have brought a whole new host of things that I was not expecting. As promised, I'm here to share these with you so all my soon to be mommy friends can be prepared :)

1). The size of your stomach will double, no wait triple, in size in the last few weeks. I went from everyone telling me I had officially "popped" to everyone telling me "holy crap you are huge!" in a matter of weeks. In my particular case, my "hugeness" occurred somewhere between weeks 31 and 34 and is still going.....

2). The third trimester brings good days and bad days and you just need to take it one day at a time. I'm not sure what I was expecting. I had always heard that the 2nd trimester was the best and the the third was tough again. I guess when I heard this I just assumed most people meant that the last couple of weeks were rough cause you were anxious and just ready to have the baby. For me, though, as soon as I hit 30 weeks things started getting hard. As mentioned above I got so huge so I immediately started having pretty bad back issues. On top of that the baby movements are so strong that they literally hurt! My baby is positioned in a way that the bum is pushing up into my ribs which makes breathing a chore. All the little kicks turn into full on pushing and sometimes the pressure is almost unbearable! I also recently started experiencing Braxton Hicks in my third trimester and those are just plain crazy! Your uterus contracts and your stomach becomes rock hard it literally takes your breath away for a moment. It all lasts a matter of minutes and then softens again...but those minutes seem like an hour when its happening. Luckily it is not painful. Just uncomfortable and a little scary :)

3). The world becomes a better place. At this point there is no question that you are pregnant and everyone in their brother wants to talk to you, help you out, do whatever they can for you. And for the most part, they are complete strangers! Every grocery check out clerk asks me about my baby and how I'm feeling and if there is anything they can do, etc. You might think this would be annoying, but I think it is just sweet. Everyone is so excited for you and it is fun to share this excitement with them. You also get every door opened for you, priority seating at restaurants, bags carried for you, you name it. It is nice and I am enjoying every moment of it.

4). Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies. These start in the 3rd trimester. At least for me they did. I never in a million years thought I would be this nervous. But somewhere in those early 30 weeks it hits you. I'm mostly nervous about the labor and delivery. I've hit the moment where I realized that in just 5 weeks or so I'm going to have to get this large baby out of me somehow. On top of that, all my sweet friends have been giving me tips and care packages of things I'll need to recover and heal faster and those have also scared the bee gees out of me. Things like ice packs and gel pads and epson salt, etc. Again, I'm so thankful for them to give me these things but it also makes me realize I'm about to go through a very painful and not to mention scary process!

5). It is true what they say about having to go to the bathroom every 5 minutes. What they fail to mention is that there are many times where only as much as a drop will come out. But somehow, that one drop makes all the difference in the world! It is crazy. You can feel like you are going to DIE you have to pee so bad but when you go hardly anything comes out and somehow it makes everything better. I guess you can chalk that up to the baby putting so much weight on your bladder that it doesn't leave much room.