36 weeks

Only four weeks until our due date!  My whole plan all along was to be vague about the due date because I didn't want people bugging me when the date came around if baby still wasn't here, but our date is about as "late January" as it gets, so I gave up.  I'm hoping she comes right on time or a little early.  And if I could pick, I'd say not while Trevor is in class in Mankato.  Or at drill.  A Friday would be good.  In the evening.  Maybe if I schedule it on my Google calendar she'll understand.  Of course, I realize we don't get to pick.  And truly, I don't think we'll care.  Except for the weather since we have an hour drive to the hospital (thanks, insurance, for making us doctor an hour away), so a non-blizzard would be nice. 

I used our registry completion coupon at Target yesterday.  I got the rest of the things we figure we'll really need (well, we honestly don't need much at all, but we'll call them pretty basic convenience items with a few necessities) so we're all set!  Thankfully, we actually had enough in gift cards to cover it all.  I could say this a hundred times and it wouldn't be enough.  We are SO blessed to have such wonderful friends and family who have offered support, guidance, and many thoughtful gifts and hand-me-downs.  We're so appreciative of all of it!  The best part is, our baby isn't even here yet, so we know she'll be very loved upon arrival.  We'll be installing the car seat base this weekend and I'll probably start packing my hospital bag, too.  Then I think we'll be 100% as ready as future parents can be. Well, I suppose 95% since our hospital tour isn't until Monday.

I'm still feeling really good and sleeping fairly well.  My lips are still unbelievably chapped, but the lanolin (Lansinoh HPA lanolin meant for breastfeeding nipples, to be exact) has been working like a charm as long as I keep using it.  I toss and turn quite a bit and wake up to go to the bathroom once, sometimes twice, but better than I thought I'd be doing at this stage.  Every so often I wake up wide awake in the middle of the night.  Sunday night I was wide awake from 1am-4am, but luckily it didn't ruin my day at all.  I frequently get asked if I'm waking up because I'm worried or anxious about the baby.  Nope.  I literally just wake up wide awake, nothing on my mind, as if it were 9am.

Speaking of things I frequently hear...  Let me answer/respond to some common questions/statements.  I'm partially being funny about it and partially answering these questions because it seems everyone I see asks :)

How are you feeling? Really good! No majorly annoying symptoms, not terribly uncomfortable, starting to get more tired but all things considered, really good.
You're so tiny! If that's meant to be a compliment, I appreciate it, but my weight gain and belly measurements are exactly how they're supposed to be.  My doctor even pointed out if you start out with a small frame, that's not really going to change and you'll look small in comparison.  PS-I've always been a healthy eater and I walk Rowdy regularly, my spot-on weight gain isn't an accident.
Wow! You really look pregnant today/in that shirt. Well, that's because I am.  Still.
Only a few weeks left, huh? That went fast! We've wanted this for almost two years and we're still waiting.  Just like a deployment, it seems to go quickly for those who aren't directly experiencing it.  Baby isn't here yet; once she is I'm sure we'll eventually say it went fast, but not yet.

OK, enough of that fun :)  I know everyone means well and is just excited and I really do appreciate it.  We are very excited, too!  In fact, I got a little mushy thinking about the past year (or two) over Christmas.  On our regular blog, I wrote about how Trevor and I have never exchanged Christmas gifts, we just make sure to enjoy the time together.  That said, he still gave me the best gift of all this year just by being home.  I got to thinking about where we were in life last Christmas: six months post-miscarriage, I had just sent him back to Kuwait after having him home for two weeks, and in those two weeks we had tried with no luck to get pregnant again.  Let me preface what I'm about to say with this: I'm a big believer in everything happening for a reason, but I will never ever say that our, or anyone's, miscarriage happened for a reason (and I would advise against anyone else saying that to someone in that situation-it's not helpful).  Some things in life just don't have explanations and there is no bigger picture.  It just doesn't make sense other than some fluke thing led to something being so seriously wrong with our baby/babies the pregnancy couldn't continue-completely medical and random.  It was terribly sad, always will be, but it does get easier (I've repeated that to myself a  million times and it really has helped-you know who you are who told me that) and I knew our time would come.  That said, the second best gift I got this year was patience.  I am in no way thankful our first pregnancy ended the way it did.  I am, however, very thankful I learned to be patient and appreciate when life happens on its own time sometimes.  I would have loved those babies to pieces, but if that pregnancy had continued we surely wouldn't be having this baby right now and that makes her pretty special, too.  Patience this year was a solid combination of waiting for Trevor to come home and waiting to try for a baby again...and waiting for this baby to arrive!  (Luckily that patience lesson didn't include waiting for a positive pregnancy test since this baby came as soon as humanly possible.)  Trevor has been to every single doctor's appointment and ultrasound with me this time.  He was with me when I felt kicks for the first time and felt them for himself five days later.  It's been amazing having him here to help clean/cook when I was feeling awful, shovel, play with Rowdy, put together the crib/dresser, etc.  And, of course, it's a huge relief knowing he'll for sure be around for labor/delivery/the weeks and months to follow.  Every so often I get pretty worked up about how much our finances have changed/will change (income is obviously a bit different now than it was while he was deployed, we just got his last unemployment check and my paychecks aren't big at all, especially not after daycare costs), but Trevor just says it'll work out, we'll always put our family first and be able to provide for our children, he's not scared, etc.  I know that's all true, I'm just really struggling to fully wrap my head around it all.  What would I do without him?  In addition to all of that, I have always been an organized planner, and still am for the most part, but I have learned to be much more flexible and much less particular.  I may not exactly be thankful for everything that's happened in life, but I'm truly thankful for the way everything has worked out and the lessons I've learned.

I'm going to do my best to hold on to my patience wisdom throughout the next year-I imagine I'll need it :)

 Flickr

-A

35 weeks

All is still well! We had a doctor's appointment on Monday. My weight is perfect (up about 27 pounds), I'm measuring perfect and baby's heart rate sounds great (145).

I'm still feeling pretty darn good. Lots of mucous in my throat still, hips are starting to hurt at night again so I had to change pillows for my legs, but the lanolin has really helped my awful chapped lips (as long as I use it regularly). I'm still getting tired and love days when I can sneak in a nap-definitely looking forward to the extra days off in the next couple weeks! It probably doesn't help that I still wake up wide awake in the middle of the night sometimes (hormone bursts, I hear).  I've been having some Braxton Hicks contractions every day or two.  Earlier this week I had about 4 in a row, but they weren't regular or too close together, enough to time them just to be sure though!

Our next appointment is Dec 31 then we'll start with weekly visits.

The photos were at bedtime last night - hence the reason I look exhausted.

34 weeks

6 weeks to go! I looked at some of the early posts and "belly" photos and it's crazy how far we've come! Back at 5-8 weeks I felt SO bloated but looking at those photos now just makes me giggle.

I made major progress on baby's room this week. Like I've said, we had the dresser and crib set up a while ago, but we still had a disaster all over the floor and some reorganizing of the closet to do yet. We can finally see the floor completely! I can even vacuum! Haha. We're getting rid of the old, empty dresser this weekend then we should be able to truly finish everything.

Everyone's asking-honestly I'm feeling really good! I've been experimenting and finally found a pillow to put between my knees when I sleep (thanks, Brenna!). I've been getting up in the middle of the night to pee just once each night so no complaints there. I started using lanolin nipple ointment on my insanely chapped lips and after a couple days it's really helping which is awesome!

I've started putting a couple things in a bag that will be our hospital bag-I probably won't actually pack for a few weeks yet, don't really need much I guess.

Not sure what else to say! All is well, watching the weeks go by and I'm sure time will fly! I still get lots of comments about being small for 34 weeks, I'll take it :)

Oh-and everyone who warned us about pregnancy being like having a "give me advice I don't want" sign on my forehead was right. I don't know how many times a day (yes, daily) I/we hear advice we didn't ask for, judgements about decisions (yes, before our baby is even here), or people telling us what we'll want to do in certain situations. It gets interesting! Bottom line: we have very good communication with each other and lots of experience that will help in parenting, along with very open minds that we will do what's best for our family and take everything as it comes. We have ideas about how we'd like to do a lot of things but we're flexible and will adjust fire as needed. There, rant over :)

Doctor's appointment Monday then one more in two weeks til we start going weekly!

Vivid Dreams

A big pregnancy symptom is vivid dreams. I guess I haven't continued to blog about having them, but I definitely still am. Another symptom I've had lately is waking up wide awake in the middle of the night, not necessarily to pee, just because. Since I've been wide awake for an hour now I figured I should just get up (it's now 5:20am).

Tonight's vivid dream was particularly hilarious, so I thought I would share. All kinds of goofy stuff was happening, but getting to the part I remember... A friend of mine was looking for a new apartment and decided to have a party where she was currently living. I went and while I was there I was on the phone with apartment places and friends trying to find her a new place. Everyone at the party was getting obnoxious and my friend was getting tired so she decided to go to bed. Somehow (because it was a dream) I just knew that someone kept dumping blue Gatorade powder on her when she was in bed. I was on the phone with another friend still doing the whole apartment search for her, but crawled into bed anyway thinking that would stop this person. I was still on the phone, the phone was actually between my head and the pillow. Surprise, surprise, the Gatorade powder dumper didn't quit and (this is where it gets good) I was very annoyed. He dumped blue Gatorade powder all over us and it was gross. I think he thought we were both sleeping. So, IN REAL LIFE, I woke up, opened my eyes, saw this guy dumping blue Gatorade powder on my bed and actually yelled (yes, actually yelled) out a very awkward sounding "BLAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!" Then quickly realized it was all a dream and I was an idiot. I'm not sure how Trevor slept through that, maybe he didn't, but I spent the next half hour trying not to burst into laughter, probably not helping my falling back asleep problem.

So, here I am, doing laundry, typing this blog and about to get into the shower to start my day extra early. Hope someone else got a good laugh out of that, too!

33 weeks

Another week down!  I imagine every parent-to-be thinks this no matter what, but especially after a miscarriage, I can't help but being thankful for every week that passes and baby still seems healthy and continues to stay put.  Of course, once she's full term I think I'll be ready for her to come meet us any time, but for now I'm glad she's safe, [seemingly] healthy and growing as she should.  Only 4 weeks til full term and 7 until the due date!  We're under 50 days to go now.

We had an appointment on Monday.  Trevor and I got our Tdap (whooping cough/tetanus) shots, ouch.  Baby's heartbeat was 130 and I measured at 31 which is in the normal range.  (fundal height chart here)  We went over my 3-hour glucose screen/gestational diabetes test.  Like I said in my last post, they draw blood at the beginning of the test and every hour for the three hours.  Thankfully, I passed the test with flying colors, passing at each blood draw.  Our doctor said women who fail the 1 hour then pass the 3 hour tend to have bigger babies, but with how I've been growing/measuring she's not very concerned about that.  My mom had me 2 weeks early and I asked the doctor if that was at all hereditary and she said it can be, so let's hope for that; although, I'm certainly not counting on it.

I'm still feeling pretty darn good.  I'm starting to feel like I'm getting bigger, but don't feel huge at all so no complaints.  I think I've just gotten used to my extra mucous/snot.  My lips are so dry-they're bright red, flaky (as in big chunks flaky) and burn.  I've tried Carmex, Vaseline, A&D and regular chap stick.  Someone in a pregnancy forum suggested Aquaphor ointment so I think that's my next purchase.  I'm still getting up 1-2 times per night to go to the bathroom, but I guess some pregnant women have it much worse, so again I can't really complain about that.

Question of the week: hospital bag packing tips? I don't want to go with nothing, especially since I'll be delivering an hour from home, but I don't want a bunch of crap I don't need either.  So, what did you have that you were so glad you had?  What did you really wish you had but didn't bring?  For you? Dad? Baby?  I'm thinking more on the minimalist side.  There are some things the hospital provides (gown) that may be nice to have your own, but let's be realistic, I'm not bringing my own.

32 weeks

So.. it's been a few weeks since my last post and even longer since my last photo.  I had this all written out yesterday, but when I went to add the photo last night the whole post got deleted.  I'm going to try this again...

I'm not sure if I mentioned in the last post or not, but we finished baby classes (minus the breastfeeding class we'll be attending in a few weeks).  I know no one is ever fully prepared for labor/delivery/parenthood, but I think we're as ready as we can be!

We had a doctor's appointment a couple weeks ago (every 2 weeks now).  My fundal height (belly size, basically) is measuring perfect.  They have my weight gain at 24 pounds although I think it's a tad more than that (I think I gained a few before my first visit)-either way the doctor says that's just right, too.  I really don't feel like I've gained weight anywhere but my belly, maybe a little in the love handles/butt, but no complaints.  Baby's heartbeat was 140 which is exactly what it's been the last few visits.  The bad news was...I actually didn't pass my 1 hour glucose test.  The clinic was supposed to call and tell me, but they didn't even though they did call about my iron.  So, this past Monday I went in to take the 3 hour glucose test.  For the first one (1 hour) I just went to the lab whenever, chugged a very sugary drink (it wasn't nearly as bad as what I had heard-I had orange flavor), waited an hour and got my blood drawn.  They want your level to be 140 or under and mine was 141, so I barely "failed."  For the 3 hour test, it's a bit different.  I had to fast, so I went right away in the morning.  They did a finger prick to check my baseline level (81, I believe), did a blood draw, then I drank a sugary drink again (more sugar, though-1 can of Mt. Dew=47 grams of sugar, 1 hour drink=50 grams of sugar, 3 hour drink=100 grams of sugar).  They drew my blood every hour until for 3 hours and I couldn't eat or drink anything until the whole test was over.  Like I said, the first test wasn't so bad, but I really thought this test was awful.  Double the sugar on an empty stomach this time and waiting to eat or drink anything for three hours instead of one-gross.  The first hour I had a very upset stomach and awful gut rot, the second hour I started to get very tired (lack of food and water+sugar crash?) and the last hour I was just desperately antsy, hungry and thirsty.  Oh, and the icing on the cake? I couldn't leave the clinic and was stuck in the waiting room with a guy puking into a bag (poor fella).  Anyway, I survived and took Trevor out to eat at Pita Pit afterwards.  They haven't called me so I'm hoping I did ok this time and it's not another screw up.  We'll find out on Monday, I guess.  As for symptoms, I still seem to have plenty of mucous and my lips have been horribly chapped to the point they're all kinds of flaky.  I was sick last week (as in actually sick), threw up at work and again at home, which is never fun.  It's even less fun when you have a living being inside your belly who just wants to dance.  I think the lack of food/water after vomiting hit me harder than usual, but I seem to be okay now.

Enough complaining.  Good news is I had my second baby shower last weekend.  It was a great day and Trevor and I definitely feel very loved!  We're so excited to bring a baby into this world knowing how many people already care about her.  We have very few things left to get before she arrives (I mean 2 or 3) which I suppose is good since my due date is only 8 weeks away and I'll be full term (37 weeks) in only 5 weeks!  With Christmas and Trevor's birthday in the mix, I imagine those weeks will go quickly.

I think that was all I had in the other post, but who really knows.  More next week!