Early First Stage Labor (39 weeks)

Last night we went and got Brian's haircut and went out to dinner at Parasons in Stow. We knew that this might be our last time out without baby.

Once we got home, we tried to get everything ready because we were convinced that we may be going to the hospital in the middle of the night. I spent most of the night on the couch with contractions. Brian tried to go to bed early too in case we had to get up to go to the hospital. He had a hard time getting to sleep because of all the excitement but finally did and got some sleep. I had to get up to go to the bathroom about every hour, but I did manage to get some sleep so that's good.

Last night I also lost my mucus plug. My water hadn't broken yet, so I kept an extra blanket on the couch where I was sleeping just in case. Around 3am I noticed my underwear was wet, but I couldn't tell if it was related to the mucus plug or because my water broke. My underwear has been damp all day and I have changed them 3 times. I'm still not sure if my water broke yet.

While in the bathroom, I noticed the ceiling dripping down stairs. There was some type of a leak so Brian took apart the bathroom closet up stairs to investigate. It wasn't anything major fortunately.

This morning when I got up I went downstairs and got our birthing ball. It was more comfortable to sit on it. My contractions have been very sporadic overnight. Right now it is around 2pm. I called the doctor just a few minutes ago. My contractions are still between 6-11 minutes apart, but I don't know if my water broke. That's the only thing that concerns us. He said to watch for any signs of wetness from my water breaking and to go to the hospital if that happens or the contractions get closer than 5 minutes.

We've been timing them and they are starting to get closer together. The closest was now about 3 minutes apart. It's 2:25 PM right now. The contractions are the weirdest thing because they are such intense pain for a short time. When you're not having one though, you feel just fine. We will keep an eye on them and probably go to the hospital later today. I am debating going to the store so I can walk around. It is very cold outside. Last night's low was -1 degrees and it is only 15 degrees so walking outside isn't an option. I think I'm just going to walk around the house for a little bit and see how it goes. I'm using an app on my droid phone to time the contractions with Brian's help.

Wish me luck!

Not feeling well (38 weeks 6 days)

This week has been crazy like usual. We had a doctor’s appointment on Monday. I did not make much progress (2 cm and 75-80% effaced). But that was okay with us. However Melissa was not very happy. She said I disappointed her on her birthday. Baby is just not ready to come out yet.

Wednesday night we went to the Cavs game. Brian got us seats on the floor. With the Cavs being so bad, there are tickets available. It is a bonus of being a season ticket holder. We knew that this may be our last Cavs game before baby so it was neat to be on the floor. Unfortunately my favorite player Mo did not play but I got to see the other players very close. It's different to be able to see facial expressions and hear the players than sitting in the upper level like we usually do.

Thursday night, we went to our Bradley class. We sit on the floor for the class and being 9 months pregnant that is pretty uncomfortable for me. They went over some baby basics but since we were not sure we would be there for this class we took a baby basics class back in December. We are glad that we did since it was in more depth.

Last night, I woke up with some lower abdominal pains around 3am. It was pretty uncomfortable. Then I started to have some diarrhea. I could not sleep for the rest of the night. I kept getting up going to the bathroom and trying to reposition to get comfortable. I knew they were not real contractions but I did not know if real contractions would start soon. Then I became very nauseous. Brian even had to go find me a puke buckets just in case. I decided I needed to stay home from work today. I woke Brian up at 5:30 and told him that if he needed to go to work to do anything, he better go in now! He got up and went to work early.

I slept most of the day. I am trying to rest up because I have a feeling that labor may be coming soon. I don’t want to go into labor exhausted if I can prevent that. Around 4pm I finally got off the couch and took a shower. Brian and I are going to go out to get his hair cut. This will be the last time we get his hair cut without Baby. We are getting really excited. We just wish Baby would give us some notice on when he or she is planning on arriving. Is it going to be tonight or next week? I guess we need to relax and wait and see what happens. We need to learn to adjust to Baby’s time.

We took my weekly pregnancy progress picture tonight in case this ends up being our last one. We usually take them on Sunday, but decided to do one Friday night too just in case. It snowed about 3 inches last night and has been windy. Brian took this picture around 6:30 when he was heading into work. You can see the snow blowing off the building. The low temperature tonight is supposed to be 2 degrees!

Waiting (38 weeks 2 days)

We made it to 38 weeks. Right now we are playing the waiting game. We know that Baby can come anytime now but we are still hoping we have another week or so to get everything finalized.

I have been in my new job for one week. Last week was extremely busy for me. The main reason is that I need to prepare for the possibility of not coming back to work every night before I go home. I might not be there for 3 months, so I need to leave things cleaned up. That is really hard for me to accept right now. I am trying to get as much done as possible. Brian’s job has also been extremely busy. So we don’t see each other much during the week. We come home late, eat dinner, and I basically relax on the couch because I am so tired.

This weekend my mom took me for a pedicure. Now my toes are all pretty for labor. It was nice and relaxing. After the pedicure, we went out for a late breakfast. I really love breakfast food. It was a nice morning out.

Brian and I also worked in Baby’s room a little bit. It is crazy because Baby’s room has been ready for weeks however we keep buying more things. Some of them arrived and we put them away. This week we got a mobile for the crib and larger receiving blankets.

We have been reading the book “The Happiest Baby on the Block”. It talks about the importance of swaddling. The receiving blankets you buy at the store are not big enough to keep baby swaddled in so we bought new ones (48" square instead of just 30" square like at most stores). Also Brian got me a new set of headphones for labor. We did not want to bring my nice travel pair to the hospital in case they get damaged.

Brian has been in charge of packing the hospital bags. It is the weirdest thing because Brian has never packed for any of our trips. I always pack everything! However I am not into this packing thing right now so poor Brian has to do it all. It is really cute. Brian has been wonderful. He has lists that he has made to make sure we bring everything. We now even have a list on our refrigerator with our last minute items we need to pack. Brian has now officially packed the car and everything but a few items such as the camera, computer, breast pump are in the there. Also my makeup and hairdryer will need to be packed as we leave the house since I use them everyday. Worst case my parents can stop by our house to pick up our last minute items if for some reason I am unable to come home before the hospital.

I really need another week to wrap everything up before Baby arrives. However I realize Baby is going to come when he/she wants to. I am still pretty tried most of the time. That may be because I am working 10 plus hours a day. I am starting to think that Brian is going though the nesting phase because I am just too exhausted to do it. There is no way I could do this without him!

Tomorrow is another doctor’s appointment. We will see what he says and hopefully everything still looks good. Also tomorrow is Auntie Melissa’s Birthday.

Happy Birthday Auntie Melissa from Baby Mattie!

Getting close (37 weeks 3 days)

It’s hard to believe that we are almost to the end of this pregnancy. We will be holding a baby in our arms in a just a few weeks. Things are really starting to change for me. On Sunday, I started feeling a lot of pressure and pains. It made me a little nervous at first but I understand everything that needs to happen for our baby to be born so I know it is all normal.

We went to the doctors again on Monday. I must go every week now. I really enjoyed going once a month. This once a week thing is time consuming. He said that I am 2 cm dilated and 75% effaced. Also baby’s head has moved down. Brian and I decided I still have not dropped yet. I am carrying baby really high. Baby loves to kick my right rib. I am now convinced Baby will be a soccer player because he/she loves to kick so much!

Things are becoming more difficult for me. Up until this week, I was basically doing everything I did before I was pregnant. I would whine some but I could do it. These days I really cannot do everything. Like tonight, I had Brian get the clothes out of the dryer because I could not bend over far enough without pain to get all the clothes out. Making dinner is a lot of effort too. Just trying to get pans out of the cupboard takes everything I have to do it. It is really just because I cannot bend over too well because my stomach is so big!

Everyone says that the only weight I have gained is in my stomach. I have been really lucky that I did not gain weight in my thighs, buttock, or anywhere else. I am still able to wear my wedding rings. I have some swelling in my ankles and that is about it. If I was not on my feet most of the day I might not even have that.

Several posts ago, I mentioned that I went on a job interview. I have not said anything else about it because I did not know if I got it until last week. I got the supervisor job and started on Monday. How many pregnant women start a new job 3 weeks before their due date? Luckily I have basically been doing it so it is not much different except I now have the title. I feel bad that I will be going on maternity leave so soon but everyone at work has been supportive. I will be off work for 12 weeks then I will be going back to work full time. That is going to be very hard but we decided that is best for now. Baby will be at daycare at my work so hopefully it will not be too bad.

This past weekend, Brian and I finally packed our hospital bags. For some reason, we were really putting that off. I don’t pack light and this is no exception. We have one large suitcase and one medium size one. Plus we have the birthing ball, breast pump, and the car seat. Packing was the last major thing we had to do before baby comes so we are basically all set.

We are still okay with Baby coming much closer to the due date. We want baby to be fully developed and want what is best for him/her. We are very excited to meet our bundle of joy but we are willing to be patient. Our family on the other hand, wants baby here yesterday. Baby will decide we he/she is ready and we are okay with that too.

Remaining Ultrasounds (36 weeks 2 days)

Ultrasound (36 weeks 2 days)

We had our last ultrasound today. Here is one of the images. We will need to scan in the others so they show up better. In this photo you can see a face looking upwards and towards you. The large dark circle in the center at the top is the eye. You cannot see the other eye because there is a dark blob that blocks most of the image.



They told us that it's hard to get good pictures of the baby at this stage because it is so big and it doesn't move around like before. They are kind of stuck with whatever angle they have. Before the baby was smaller and somersaulted around constantly and it was easy to get many angles of the baby. We will post the other 3 photos later this week.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (36 weeks 1 day)

The holidays were different this year. They are going to be even more different next year. Melissa and Jonathan moved to Myrtle Beach this spring and they were not able to come up for Christmas. Brian’s mom was also not home for Christmas. That just left us, my parents and Brian’s grandparents to celebrate this year. Because Christmas and New Year’s were on Saturdays, I did not get a day off for them. I worked Monday-Friday like I normally do. That did not leave me much time to get things done.

Brian’s family has always had Christmas breakfast. When we first got together, we would always have Christmas breakfast at his Grandma’s house. It was always a lot of fun. My family never really did a Christmas breakfast when I was growing up. We always just had Christmas dinner. A few years ago, Christmas breakfast was too much for Grandma so Melissa starting hosting it. That worked out well too. The entire family would go to Melissa’s and we would eat then open gifts.

This year, I was the one hosting Christmas breakfast. It is interesting because I never expected that I would now be the one doing it every year. I did not mind because normally I love entertaining, however this year it was a little more challenging being almost 9 months pregnant and exhausted all the time from working. Next year will probably be better that it is at our house. It will be easier to have people come to us instead of packing up and driving the baby somewhere.

Brian was off on Christmas Eve and he was busy getting everything ready. He had to finish installing our baby camera. That was one Christmas gift to our family. They can now log in online to see Baby anytime they want as long as he/she is in his/her room. He also helped clean up the house. My house is not nearly as clean all the time as it use to be. Basically I just do not have the energy to keep the house completely clean like I used to. I've been told something has to give when the baby comes anyway, so perhaps this will help ease me into a new reality.

When I came home from work, I continued to help clean up the house and get everything ready for Christmas. I was wrapping Christmas presents at 9pm at night. That is not like me at all. Hopefully next year, I will not be that far behind. Then we went to 10pm Mass. After church, I came home and got a few hours of sleep before Christmas.

Christmas breakfast went surprisingly well. My parents drove Grandma and Gramps up to our house. We had a nice meal and enjoyed spending time with everyone. After breakfast, we opened gifts. It was kind of weird opening presents at our house especially since we did not even have a Christmas tree up. Since our elaborate Christmas light display in our yard takes so much time and effort, we decided not to put up the Christmas tree for one last year. From now on we will always have a Christmas tree up.
After everyone left our house, Brian and I went to the movies to see “Little Fockers”. It was a nice thing for us to do. The movie was good. After the movie, we went to my parent’s house for dinner. Again it was a nice meal and good to spend it with family. Everyone was there for several hours. At the end of the night I was exhausted.

The week after Christmas, Brian and I looked at our baby registry and figured out what we still needed. We got a lot from the baby shower and Christmas, but there were still many things to buy. Most of our Christmas gifts this year were for the baby. We made a list and decided to go on a shopping spree at Target. We had several gift cards at Target so it was perfect. One night after work, we spent over 2 hours at Target buying things for Baby. My oh my! We had a coupon for 10% off everything on our baby registry so we decided to put everything we were going to buy on the registry immediately before checkout so we would get the discount. It worked out nicely.

This weekend, we went though everything we bought at Target and put it away in Baby’s room. We are almost all organized now. It is amazing how much one little baby needs! Also this weekend, we went and bought me an electric breast pump. I know I really want to breast feed so having this pump will really be nice.

We decided not to do anything on New Year’s Eve because I have been so wore out. After I got home from work, I took a nap. We went to the store and got some snacks and we had dinner at home. Again I took another nap and woke up at 11:30pm just in time to watch the ball drop. All and all we enjoyed our relaxing evening at home.

We still have a few more things to do before baby arrives like packing our hospital bag, starting to fill out our Baby Book, and sterilizing our breastfeeding bottles. All and all things are coming together.

We also stopped my Motherhood Maturity store this weekend and got me some PJ's for the hospital and breastfeeding shirts. We spent so much money there we even got a $50 gift card to restaurants.com. We ended up getting two $25 gift cards at two different restaurants. We plan on having a few more date nights before our baby arrives too.

Besides being tired, I feel pretty good. I am starting to get some edema in my feet. However I am still able to wear my wedding rings which I find somewhat impressive. I have gained 28 pounds and am almost always hungry again. In fact, I woke up at 4am this morning and had to eat. I also find that I must always wear a cami shirt with a bra. I need that much support for my breasts. I continue to do my Bradley exercises and walk as much as possible. I am starting to get leg cramps again. That is always fun in the middle of the night. I wake up 3-4 times a night to go to the bathroom. I am not sure my stomach can get much bigger. If I look straight down I can no longer see my feet. If I look out just a bit I still can catch a glimpse, so it could be worse.