Sunday, September 28, 2014

Counting Down

I'm at that stage in my pregnancy when I feel so big and awkward that it is difficult to do anything. Some days are worse than others, of course. It's at that point where the days seem to go by like weeks but the weeks go by like days. I am 36 weeks along now. At my appointment last week, I had the Doc check me just to make sure I hadn't started dilating or anything. Since 2 of my children have been born early, I want to be prepared just in case. Of course, I never really am prepared for the whole birthing experience, no matter how many times I have gone through it already. All 5 of my previous babies have had their own unique experiences, and all of them have been completely different.

I am about 50% effaced and dilated to maybe a 1-2. My Doc was convinced that it will be a while still, which is good and what I had hoped to hear. Everything went pretty routine at my appointment and I am now down to once a week visits. I've been having weekly Non-Stress Tests at the hospital for the past month now, just to keep an eye on the baby and make sure his heart rate and amniotic fluid levels stay normal. I've only had one appointment thus far that has been abnormal. They almost sent me up to Labor and Delivery for closer monitoring, but fortunately it was just the position they had me in during the test that accounted for the abnormal readouts. A pregnant woman should not lay on her back for too long, lest the baby not receive enough oxygen and show decelerations in his heart rate.

What I did not like hearing at my last appointment was that my Doc will be out of town over my due date. I am due Oct 24 and he will be out of town from Oct 21-Nov 3. That is a long time. And I didn't find out from him, I found out from his receptionist when I went to schedule the rest of my appts for the month. He was out of town on Brysen's due date last year as well. We ended up inducing Brysen 4 days early. I was hoping to be able to go into labor on my own, and to be honest, with B I thought I was going to- I had actual labor contractions starting at 35 weeks, and it was a rough month. This time around, no real contractions yet but lots and lots of Braxton-Hicks ones. I'm positive that my Doc will suggest early induction this time as well, probably for Monday the 20th of October. I will discuss it with him at my next appointment on Tuesday.

That would mean I am down to only 3 weeks to go, which is a good number to plan for. It is getting increasingly harder to lift and carry, and even HOLD Brysen anymore. He weighs 27 lbs now and is definitely not a featherweight. He is solid. Fortunately he is walking around all over the place now and getting faster by the day. He has come down with the flu and last night Jim and I took turns sittin up with him as he had a fever and did not want to lie down. It is really hard for me to hold him for very long on my lap, the baby inside me takes up so much room that it makes it hard to breathe and move when I have another baby on my lap as well. It's really getting difficult to lift Madi into and out of her carseat as well. It's time to really focus on helping her climb in and out of the car & her seat on her own. And to teach Tysen how to buckle his own seatbelt because I can barely reach inside the middle of the bench to buckle him. We will be switching everything around once the baby comes, and will have to leave the back seat up most of the time to put kids in- but at least I won't have to be 8 months pregnant and trying to reach into the back of the car to buckle kids. We are still not exactly sure on the best setup of the carseats, Since there will be 4 of them.

We also don't have a name picked out for this baby yet. My top picks: Luke, Kai, Zane, Zander. Jim's current top pick: Dirk (after Dirk Pitt, in our favorite book series by Clive Cussler). I hope we can agree on something before the big day arrives!

Here's a little eye candy, hee hee!

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