Week 36: Crenshaw Melon

First of all, what the hell is a Crenshaw Melon?  Never heard of it.  Babycenter certainly comes up with some strange fruit comparisons!  Anyway, here is the pic:

Went to the doctor this morning for my tuesday appt (going tuesdays and fridays now that I have pre-e.)  Baby looked good on the Non Stress Test.  Pretty sure I had a contraction while hooked up to the machine.  That thing hurt!  My blood pressure looked good too.  Got another 24 hour urine test to bring back to them on Friday (YAY I get to pee in a jug for 24 hours!) and they will check on Friday to see if I have made any progress in terms of dilation- as of last Friday the cervix was closed and high.  If, at week 37, which is next week, I look good for induction, we will probably proceed with that due to the pre e.  At this point, if the pre-e gets any worse, we will proceed with induction.  She also said that if I were to go into labor on my own at this point that she wouldn't stop it.  So, I guess all of this means that we could have a baby any time now!  Woo Hoo!!!  

Dove Men+Care and The Not So Blog

My friend Bridgette has this awesome giveaway going on over at her site, the Not So Blog.  There is a link to her blog in my sidebar.  Josh has been using this Dove Men+Care skincare line for several moths and loves it.  Check out the giveaway on her site :)

http://www.thenotsoblog.com/2010/08/dove-men-care-review-and-giveaway/

Scentsy Giveaway & The Not So Blog

My friend Bridgette runs the Not so Blog.  Now that I am going to be a Mommy too, I have been following her site more closely because she does lots of reviews of family friendly products.  Right now she has a review on her site about Scentsy.  Scentsy works for our household because we have to be careful with open flames due to our furbabies.  I signed up for a giveaway on her site-- you should check it out too!  http://www.thenotsoblog.com/2010/08/scentsy-plug-in-review-and-giveaway/

Cute baby stuff I learned about on the Internet

So, I'm very grateful (especially now that I am on couch rest) for the Internet.  For one thing, there is a wealth of information out there that I can arm myself with so that I am prepared when I hear things like Glucose testing, Quad Screening, and Pre-Eclampsia- all things I have had to deal with so far during this pregnancy.

Another reason I love the internet is because of online shopping :)  Here are some of the cute baby finds that I found online (thanks to the Bump) that I would have otherwise been pretty oblivious about.

Babylegs.  Seriously, I think these are the cutest damn things I have ever seen.  People keep saying, what, you are going to put leg warmers on a BOY???  Hey, if its OK with his Daddy, then it should be OK with all of you. Besides, when said leg warmers have FLAMES on them, they can't possibly be girly!

Onesie stickers:  We will document Nicholas's first year of growth with these stickers:

They are stickers that you stick to a plain onesie and then take his picture to document how much he grows each month.  Look forward to monthly updates people :)

Week 35: Honeydew Melon

Just to get back to the weekly size comparisons, this week the baby is approx the size of a honeydew melon.  Sweet Jesus how am I going to get this baby out of me?!?

Fast Forward

It is now August 28 and I am nearly 36 weeks pregnant with our little boy.  Things had been continuing to be pretty uneventful as far as the pregnancy was concerned.  Late in the second trimester I took the infamous Glucose test to test for Gestational Diabetes, which I failed.  That meant I had to go back for the 3 hour version of the test where I got to drink a lovely sugar drink and then have my blood drawn every hour for the 3 hours.  That was sure fun.  I was relieved when I found out that I passed.

In the beginning of the third trimester, I started having more and more issues with numbness in my hands and fingers.  Dr. Mills explained that it was due to pregnancy related carpel tunnel and that there wasn't really much I could do about it.  Fantastic!  Then I started having swelling in my feet and ankles.  Again, she said that swelling is a pretty normal pregnancy complication and that I was lucky I wasn't getting varicose veins like she got, LOL.

At 33 weeks, I took a trip to NJ for work.  This was fully OK'd by my doctor and I really thought it would be fine.  The work part of the trip was great, but honestly, traveling alone being that pregnant was really not very fun.  Plus it was HOT and HUMID as hell out there and I was pretty miserable.  My feet started swelling like CRAZY during that trip and I started having some pretty nasty headaches.

The next week, at my normal 34 week appointment, my blood pressure was through the roof.  Like 150/100.  They did some extra urine and blood labs and diagnosed me with mild pre-eclampsia and said that I needed to be on bedrest until I deliver.  Awesome.

That was nearly 2 weeks ago.  So far bedrest (or as I like to call it, couchrest) is going pretty well.  My body is definitely responding to it.  My blood pressure is down, the swelling is down, and the protein level in my urine is down- all good things.  We had an ultrasound yesterday where they estimated Nicholas to weigh 5 lbs 6 oz which is normal and they were pleased with his movement and the level of amniotic fluid.  Also did an internal and told me that my cervix is closed and high, so that means he is probably not ready to come out any time soon.

Hopefully he continues to bulk up and then decides to come out a few weeks early.  Honestly, I am going to be really sad if I have to blow 5 of my weeks of maternity leave before he gets here and then only have 7 or 8 weeks off with him once he comes out.  Last week the doctor was talking about induction around 39 weeks for sure or possibly earlier if I was favorable for it and he was ready.  We will see what happens.  In the meantime, maybe I can get myself back into this blogging habit!  I did get a new toy last week, so soon I will be showing you lots of pretty pictures :)

Katchup!

Obviously I have been a huge blog slacker!  It is July 3 and has been over 3 months since my last post.  I could kick myself because, more than anything, I really want this blog to be something I can look back on and remember this time.  Oh well, I will try to be better!

I am in the 27th week of pregnancy this week.  Since my last post, we found out that we are having a baby BOY.  At the 20 week ultrasound they do a full anatomy scan and you get to see everything.  We saw his organs, spine, other bones, face, etc.  The doctors say that so far everything looks perfect.  I go in again this week for a routine test for gestational diabetes- lets hope I don't have that!

So for some updates...

I started feeling the baby kick around 17 or 18 weeks.  Its a pretty strange feeling at first- sort of like you are not really sure if you are feeling the effects of that spicy burrito or maybe its something else... after 2 days I decided that it couldn't have been the burrito!  Every week the kicks get stronger and stronger.  I'm sure that by the end of this I will be getting tired of getting kicked, but for now it's a nice reminder that he is safely tucked away in there.

Like I said, we had an ultrasound at 20 weeks.  Here are some pics!


This one is the "Money Shot" lol.  The technician informed us that either this is a BOY, or a girl with three legs.  I am going to go with the BOY option :)  She also said that our Boy is not shy because unlike some more modest babies, he flashed us a good 10 times so there is no doubt that we have a boy on our hands. 


Here is a pic of his face.  You can also see his spine.  I think this picture is kind of creepy, but my Mom loves it.  Says she thinks it looks like Josh wearing sunglasses. 


Here is one of his legs and feet. 

In May I made several trips home to WI which was nice.  My Mom was in Indianapolis for work so I went down there and we had a nice dinner and did some baby shopping.  Came home for that weekend and  my Dad came down to visit and pick her up.  We ordered the crib and dresser that weekend which came the next week.  Took a trip to Raynham MA for work and had a great time there.  Met up with one of the girls I met online on the Nest while wedding planning- Hi Casey! and also had dinner with my friend Amber who I have not seen in years.  Went home again in June for my first baby shower which was awesome.  This baby is already so loved!  We have been working on his room which I am going to wait until it is finished to post any pics.  We celebrated our first wedding anniversary last weekend- Can't believe how fast this year has flown by.  I feel so lucky!  This weekend (4th of July) we are visiting Josh's family in Pittsburgh.  Everybody has been very excited to see the baby bump!

I guess I will leave the update at this for now.  I am really seriously (hopefully) going to try to resume the weekly updates. 

27 weeks Cauliflower- starting to scare me that the last picture in this series is a PUMPKIN.  Excuse me, something roughly the size of a pumpkin is going to come out of where now?!?