Well, I'm behind on things--it's been a busy couple of weeks. All in all, it has been a really great time. I plan to do a post soon about the baby shower (which was awesome!) and I'm also planning to add some of the pictures of my bump which we've been taking all too infrequently. I also want to do a post with updated pictures of the nursery. These should all be coming before too long. The end of pregnancy is exhausting and crazy busy.
Total Weight Loss/Gain: At my appointment last week, I had gained 23 pounds.
Size of Baby: The baby is size of a durian! I have no idea what that is, but it is in the picture above.The average baby at 34 weeks can weigh anywhere from 4.2 pounds to 5.8 pounds and measures about 17.2 to 18.7 inches. So there is lots of variation at this point, but I would venture a guess that Gracie is somewhere around 4 pounds (I'm hoping for 4.2!) and may be that long. We do a growth ultrasound tomorrow, so I will have a better idea then.
Maternity Clothes: Yes. And I still don't feel like I own enough of them, but I don't want to waste anymore money on these clothes. I'm sick of everything I've been wearing. I'm also getting really close to the point where I don't care what people think and I'm going to start wearing yoga pants to work. I'm already lucky enough to work in a place where I can wear jeans everyday, but somehow that seems like too much effort lately.
Sleep: I slept a lot this weekend, which was great. I haven't been sleeping through the night very often but I did on both Saturday and Sunday night (and Saturday was after sleeping through a good part of the day). I went into the week feeling better than I have in a long time, but returned to my old habits and came home exhausted and was up from 3-6 this morning.
Movement: The whole getting up at 3 AM? Has a lot to do with the cha-cha that Gracie was doing on my bladder. She was a dancing machine last night.
Cravings: Mexican Food.
What I miss: Being able to breathe easy. Breathing has become a difficult task lately. And I'm going to be totally honest, another thing that is becoming more and more difficult--getting myself up off of the toilet after one of my millions of trips to the bathroom to pee. So yeah, not feeling like I've exerted a herculean effort by getting myself off of the toilet would be good.
Gender: Still a girl, hopefully. People keep telling me stories about people who found out that they were having a boy after thinking the whole time they had a girl on the way. Which is a lovely thing to tell a pregnant woman with about 300 dresses and piles of pink girly things in the nursery.
Mood: Much better. I feel very relieved that we've got a lot of sources of stress figured out.
Milestones: Um, I can't think of any that I haven't already talked about--we had our shower on the 28th, which was wonderful. Also, with hitting 34 weeks, there is an added feeling of relief that unless something else is wrong, in most cases there are no long-term issues with babies born at this point (beyond staying in the hospital for a little bit longer).
Another really cool thing I read today--babies at this point can recognize and react to simple songs if their mamas are singing them. They have found that if you sing them the same song after they are born, they may find it soothing. Sounds like Gracie will be getting some awesomely inappropriate lullabies-every baby loves Radiohead, Ryan Adams and Rihanna, right?
Medical concerns: I'm still going every week for my amniotic fluid check, and this week they will also be checking growth. I'm praying that everything will look okay.
I'm fairly annoyed with my OB's office--they have a habit of making clerical errors and then giving me inaccurate information. Having to spend lot of time there makes it more difficult to overlook the things that have been a little bit annoying up until this point--now they are just downright frustrating and I don't have a very good filter these days. About 3 weeks ago, my doctor said we would be lucky to get to 34 weeks (check!). A couple of weeks ago she said she would feel really good if we got to 36 or 37 weeks in spite of the fact that the perinatologist said there wasn't anything wrong with the amniotic fluid. Last week, they scheduled me for the crappy ultrasound machine, so the numbers weren't that accurate and I don't feel confident about the fact that they keep having the same tech do the ultrasounds over and over again. I'm just feeling a little bit powerless and unsure of what to do.
Last week, my doctor scheduled a c-section for me at 39 weeks. Gracie is still breech, and my doctor acts as if it is not a possibility that she could change positions. We will see about that--Gracie is fairly stubborn and doesn't like being told what to do (this is my impression of her so far anyway). Dr. O said she just wanted to make sure to schedule it to avoid running into issues with not being able to get me on the schedule if we need to do it then. She pointed out that 39 weeks would put us at March 13th and my wonderful husband immediately said that we couldn't do the 13th. We could do March 14th or the 12th but the 13th wasn't an option. He knows I'm crazy and superstitious and a 13 just wouldn't do--I appreciate him saying it so I didn't have to. She got me on the schedule for 3/14. Nothing is certain at this point, but it's kind of crazy to know that it could happen then.
Symptoms: I'm definitely feeling the nesting instinct--it's not necessarily effecting my urge to clean--that sounds too hard and exhausting--LOL. I just want to get everything in order. I want to have enough time and energy to wash all of her clothes and sheets. I want to get the hospital bag together and feel terribly behind that I haven't done so already. I want to buy everything left on her registry that we really need, and get the birth announcement address list together and start addressing envelopes. It's hard to do these things when there are monetary concerns. I want to get our taxes done so we can get our refund. Despite getting a ton of things done last week, the list keeps on growing and it's hard to accomplish all of it when I feel so exhausted by work alone. A phone call after work can honestly wipe me out. The stress of the last couple of weeks has probably added to that feeling.
All I can say is that it is definitely understandable if a woman doesn't want to work up until her due date. If it wouldn't get in the way of my spending lots of time with Gracie once she is here, I'd be totally ready to check out of work right now and just focus on getting everything else done.
Movement: The whole getting up at 3 AM? Has a lot to do with the cha-cha that Gracie was doing on my bladder. She was a dancing machine last night.
Cravings: Mexican Food.
What I miss: Being able to breathe easy. Breathing has become a difficult task lately. And I'm going to be totally honest, another thing that is becoming more and more difficult--getting myself up off of the toilet after one of my millions of trips to the bathroom to pee. So yeah, not feeling like I've exerted a herculean effort by getting myself off of the toilet would be good.
Gender: Still a girl, hopefully. People keep telling me stories about people who found out that they were having a boy after thinking the whole time they had a girl on the way. Which is a lovely thing to tell a pregnant woman with about 300 dresses and piles of pink girly things in the nursery.
Mood: Much better. I feel very relieved that we've got a lot of sources of stress figured out.
Milestones: Um, I can't think of any that I haven't already talked about--we had our shower on the 28th, which was wonderful. Also, with hitting 34 weeks, there is an added feeling of relief that unless something else is wrong, in most cases there are no long-term issues with babies born at this point (beyond staying in the hospital for a little bit longer).
Another really cool thing I read today--babies at this point can recognize and react to simple songs if their mamas are singing them. They have found that if you sing them the same song after they are born, they may find it soothing. Sounds like Gracie will be getting some awesomely inappropriate lullabies-every baby loves Radiohead, Ryan Adams and Rihanna, right?
Medical concerns: I'm still going every week for my amniotic fluid check, and this week they will also be checking growth. I'm praying that everything will look okay.
I'm fairly annoyed with my OB's office--they have a habit of making clerical errors and then giving me inaccurate information. Having to spend lot of time there makes it more difficult to overlook the things that have been a little bit annoying up until this point--now they are just downright frustrating and I don't have a very good filter these days. About 3 weeks ago, my doctor said we would be lucky to get to 34 weeks (check!). A couple of weeks ago she said she would feel really good if we got to 36 or 37 weeks in spite of the fact that the perinatologist said there wasn't anything wrong with the amniotic fluid. Last week, they scheduled me for the crappy ultrasound machine, so the numbers weren't that accurate and I don't feel confident about the fact that they keep having the same tech do the ultrasounds over and over again. I'm just feeling a little bit powerless and unsure of what to do.
Last week, my doctor scheduled a c-section for me at 39 weeks. Gracie is still breech, and my doctor acts as if it is not a possibility that she could change positions. We will see about that--Gracie is fairly stubborn and doesn't like being told what to do (this is my impression of her so far anyway). Dr. O said she just wanted to make sure to schedule it to avoid running into issues with not being able to get me on the schedule if we need to do it then. She pointed out that 39 weeks would put us at March 13th and my wonderful husband immediately said that we couldn't do the 13th. We could do March 14th or the 12th but the 13th wasn't an option. He knows I'm crazy and superstitious and a 13 just wouldn't do--I appreciate him saying it so I didn't have to. She got me on the schedule for 3/14. Nothing is certain at this point, but it's kind of crazy to know that it could happen then.
Symptoms: I'm definitely feeling the nesting instinct--it's not necessarily effecting my urge to clean--that sounds too hard and exhausting--LOL. I just want to get everything in order. I want to have enough time and energy to wash all of her clothes and sheets. I want to get the hospital bag together and feel terribly behind that I haven't done so already. I want to buy everything left on her registry that we really need, and get the birth announcement address list together and start addressing envelopes. It's hard to do these things when there are monetary concerns. I want to get our taxes done so we can get our refund. Despite getting a ton of things done last week, the list keeps on growing and it's hard to accomplish all of it when I feel so exhausted by work alone. A phone call after work can honestly wipe me out. The stress of the last couple of weeks has probably added to that feeling.
All I can say is that it is definitely understandable if a woman doesn't want to work up until her due date. If it wouldn't get in the way of my spending lots of time with Gracie once she is here, I'd be totally ready to check out of work right now and just focus on getting everything else done.
What I look forward to: I'm looking forward to our appointment tomorrow. I'm also feeling a little nervous about it. I'm looking forward to checking off some more things on my long list of things to do. On Saturday, I go to get the car seat inspected to make sure we got it installed right.
Anything else you would like to share/vent about:
Our baby girl has a room full of wonderful gifts from amazing people who already love her. We have everything that we absolutely need for her to come home--diapers, diaper genie, diaper bag, an unbelievable amount of cute clothes, tons of sheets and toys and books and stuffed animals, car seat, etc. She is one lucky, loved little girl and we feel like a very lucky family.
My wonderful husband got two job offers last week. He accepted the second one, which was his first choice out of many that he was looking at--he will be a restaurant manager at one of my favorite places to eat! He will be starting tomorrow. I'm so proud of my hardworking husband and I am so grateful that he has this wonderful opportunity!
Elizabeth
Our baby girl has a room full of wonderful gifts from amazing people who already love her. We have everything that we absolutely need for her to come home--diapers, diaper genie, diaper bag, an unbelievable amount of cute clothes, tons of sheets and toys and books and stuffed animals, car seat, etc. She is one lucky, loved little girl and we feel like a very lucky family.
My wonderful husband got two job offers last week. He accepted the second one, which was his first choice out of many that he was looking at--he will be a restaurant manager at one of my favorite places to eat! He will be starting tomorrow. I'm so proud of my hardworking husband and I am so grateful that he has this wonderful opportunity!
Elizabeth
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