2009 Pregnancy/baby thread

[finn's mom]

We have our sonogram on Thursday! Can't wait to find out how much she weighs now and if she's moved at all from the brief photos we saw of her a couple weeks ago!

We are getting the house ready for the baby shower on Saturday. We are expecting 20 to 30 people, so it should be a fun day!

I am going to put a couple plants in the nursery, to help with the air quality. Not to mention they're beautiful. I love living things! I got a gorgeous, big ivy plant that I will hang from the ceiling in one of the corners. I'm debating on whether or not to get a second hanging plant (another ivy or maybe a spider plant) or a floor plant, like a bamboo palm. I have one spot that a big floor plant would work. We'll see!

David's sister got us a set of red and white gingham curtains, so I'm going tomorrow to pick up the hardware so we can hang them!

I think we have settled on Clara Elizabeth, but if she comes out looking like a Natalie, we may change our minds.

[beeniesmom]

That's great Kari! I bet Thursday can't come fast enough for you and David.

I had a regular visit yesterday and my doctor was called in an emergency half way through it. I was happy to see her go as if I ever got in a predicament I would have wanted to her to move just as fast.

My baby girl is still breach.

My baby shower is on a Saturday too but on the 18th. I am getting so excited! My mom gets here Monday the 13th!

How are you feeling?

I'm doing pretty good. My BP was normal and my wieght is stable, so are the GD numbers. The only problem I have been having the last few days is something called round ligament strain where it hurts where your leg attaches to the body. Everytime I take a step, it feels like someone is stabbing me down there! I was told it's normal and that some people get it as early as 20 weeks!!!

[finn's mom]

Wow, Carmen, that sounds painful! I'm glad, even with our small troubles, that we haven't had anything really bad with our pregnancies! We are both blessed so far with all this!

My gestational diabetes is under control, I'm right at about 15 pounds weight gain and no problems at this point (besides the diabetes and breech position). I think she is still breech, but I'd like to see her in a slightly different position than she was last time. That will give me a little hope that she might still move into the ideal delivery spot! I still sleep well and through the night, my 2:30 am pee breaks aren't as consistent as they had gotten there for awhile (I was like clockwork every single night!).

Got our curtains for the nursery and I bought the rod today. I picked out a little blue rubbery/plastic hamper, too. We'll see if I like it. I am looking for a little ottoman/storage cube to put with my glider, but so far, I haven't found the right piece. I'll use a box if I have to before I'll buy something that doesn't fit just right.

We are excited about tomorrow and Saturday! I've been organizing and cleaning the house all week and will continue to do so for the rest of the week. In preparation for the shower and for baby's arrival! I'm just about all packed for the hospital, too. One bag for me, one for Clara! It feels nice to be able to say her name!

I can't wait to hear about everyone else's pregnancies and see more baby photos!

[Pembroke_Corgi]

It is amazing how quickly I forgot about being pregnant- I had completely forgotten that I got up about 3-5 times every night to pee towards the end. Then I had trouble getting comfortable enough to fall back asleep afterward. That was no fun!

I hope that your babies turn for you both and the rest of your pregnancies are as easy as they can be! It will be so much fun to see the new cute pt babies.

How many babies/pregnancies do we have now I wonder?

[finn's mom]

I used my full length mirror and the light from my bedroom window to take these. The first one's not that cool, but it shows my belly! I love the second one, though. It's pretty funky. And, it really depicts how I feel about my body right now! Hope you guys like it!

[finn's mom]

It's ready for Clara, but not completely finished. Well, the only thing we need to have it ready for her is the changing pad, but everything else we want to add (wall decorations, mostly) is just for us.

[finn's mom]

She's going to be very well dressed. Or at least, very often dressed. The top row of hanging clothes is all six months to twelve months, so we won't be wearing any of that for awhile. But, the bottom row and 98% of what's in the little plastic boxes are all newborn up to 3-6 months. And, we still have a baby shower today, not to mention my mother said she's picked up a couple more things. I'm avoiding the baby clothes section at all costs when we go out.

[beeniesmom]

Wow Kari,

You body shots are fantastic. You look really good and healthy! Not even 1 stretch mark! Fortunately, I haven't gotten any yet either. I don't know how much the Palmers lotion helps but I've been slathering up everyday for months now. Also, the fact that my mom, after 4 of us, never had a stretch mark, is reassuring. It's all in the genes!

Yes, I am getting Braxton Hicks contractions. Some days none, or I don't notice them, and other days even 5 or 6 in a 3-4 hour time frame (like today).

Baby Clara's nursery is looking so great! I love it.

Everything looks perfect. I love the fish mobile. Is it hanging from the ceiling?

That bib is hillarious! Tax deduction!

I've got so much to do still for my baby's nursery. I'm waiting for my mom to get here on Monday to get the closet straightened out! I love the bins you have. It's so organized. Where did you get the labels for the bins? ... or did the bins come that way? I still need to purchase some storage baskets and I know a lot of the rest of the nursery accessories I will get next week for the baby shower. My mom will be making croched rectangular doilies to cover the dresser and the bookshelf. So it may still be about a week until I can post pictures. The wall hangings and the drapes are up fortunately and I think I will have the crib bedding set up by tomorrow. SOOO exciting. I can't believe we're going to be first time mommies soon! Haven't these months passed by in a flash so far?

[finn's mom]

Clara is over five pounds! She is still butt first, but she did spin! Now her head's on my right side (my point of view, looking down) and looking to the left. In two weeks, we'll make the decision to try to manually turn her if she's still breech. Our doctor says he's successfully able to turn 3 out of every 4 babies, so we'll go with that if she's not head first by the 23rd. We'll schedule the turning for the 37th week and see how that goes. It could lead to an emergency c-section (if it triggers early labor or stresses the baby out too much), which Dr. Rost says he's never had happen, although he's come close before. So, we'll see! I may post a video later, but honestly, the sonograms now aren't nearly as darling, since you can only see parts of her at one time. Look, there's her head! And, there's a fist! And, there's her heart! But she's too big to see all at once like it was before. It's still super cool, though! Her little land was cool!

Other than her position, she is great! I feel great, she's developing well, and if she gains average weight over the next few weeks, we're looking at a 7 to 7.5 pound Clara Elizabeth!

[beeniesmom]

It’s been a hectic week to say the least. I know I did too much in the way of cleaning and going out in general but I don’t think that justified what happened yesterday.

I had my routine Friday appointment. I scheduled it early (8.00 am) since hubby was flying back home from his last work trip. I had to leave the drs. office by 10 am., to be able to pick him up at the airport. So I leave the house really early and I am at the drs. by 7.45 thinking I’d get in early.

The doctors are in a weekly meeting so they have me wait a bit, even though they could have hooked me up to the NST (fetal monitor) in the meantime. It takes 20-40 minutes on that machine anyway. Nope, they had me wait instead. Finally at 8.30 they call me in, take my vitals and of course my blood pressure is a little high (I was already PO'd).

I go in for the ultrasound and everything is normal there. I wait a bit more and finally they put me on the monitor. I stay on the machine for an hour and I’m getting more and more nervous thinking that I’m not going to be able to get hubby at the airport.

What wasn’t helping is that the baby wasn’t moving like they wanted so they had me stay on the machine longer until they were satisfied that she was fine.

After that, they put me in the room to wait to talk to Dr. B. She comes in and everything is ok until she decides to measure my blood pressure again. Oh crap. It was like 155/110. She freaked out a little and told me that she wanted me to go to labor and delivery for preeclampsia testing. I’m thinking: ‘Great… what else can go wrong’, and tried to explain why I thought it was high. (the long drive, nervous to pick up hubby, mom is coming to town monday, sleep deprived, pain in my leg etc..) No dice.

I get out of the office and quickly call my MIL to tell her she has to get hubby because they weren’t letting me leave. I also leave hubby a message on his phone explaining what happened so that when he landed he'd know why I wasn't there.

I then found my way, after getting lost, to the Labor and Delivery place in the hospital thinking I was going to be in and out in about an hour.
Yeah sure! I went in there at about 9.45 and didn’t get to leave until almost 2.00 pm.

I get there and the nurses greet me. They put a name bracelet around my wrist and tell me I’m being admitted for now. Great! I have to pee in a cup and lay on this bed. When I get in the bed, I have an idiot nurse hook me up to the blood pressure machine and she does it wrong. The thing was supposed to go off every 10 minutes instead it wasn’t puffing up. She leaves and I never see her again. Finally another nurse comes in and I tell him. He fiddles with it some but can’t get it to work. Finally he gets it to work and my blood pressure is still really high because I was getting more mad at that point. He then proceeds to try to take blood…. and sticks me THREE times, hurting me in the process, before I start yelling that I’d had enough, if he couldn’t do it to find someone else. The blood pressure cup inflates right as I’m yelling and of course the reading is super high.

He leaves and nurse # 3 comes in. I tell her everything that is going on and she seems to have a little more brains than the first two. First she asks me where my pee is and I told her someone already took it. Then she says that they lost it… then they found it. She fixes the blood pressure machine and stays in the room with me for about 30 minutes to calm me down. As I calmed down the blood pressure would go down too. She tries to take blood and gets it on the first time, without hurting me or freaking me out more. In the meanwhile I tell her that I am nervous and worried that no one knows where I am. She puts me in the computer so that if someone calls they know where I am. About an hour passes and hubby and in-laws get there. Of course they were worried sick. They all thought I was having the baby since they sent me to Labor and Delivery. My husband was convinced that if he'd missed the birth because of his work trip, I would have kicked him out!

Anyway… my blood and urine comes back and they establish that it’s not preeclampsia (duh) so they decide to send me home. Dr. B comes in and tells me I need to go on bed rest, no cleaning, no cooking, no taking the dogs out, nothing. She said to stay on the bed to couch, to toilet until next time I see them which is on Tuesday. I guess I won’t be able to go with hubby to pick up my mother. I am really bummed about that.

The whole time that this is going on I'm thinking to myself that I would miss my baby shower next week ... what an airhead huh?!

[finn's mom]

Sheesh, what a fun day that was! Glad it's over! It sounds like your family is understanding, though! Even if you're on bed rest, you can still hang out at your baby shower. Everyone just has to talk to you while you lay around. Sounds like a great day to me! I hope when you go back on Tuesday that they tell you everything's fine and you don't have to stay on bed rest.

We worked on the nursery yesterday, it looks perfect. We haven't put anything up on the walls, yet, but we will. The shower's today, though, so I wanted to ready it as much as I could. I am so pleased with everything, and so excited to get the decal for the wall.

Do you get Braxton Hicks contractions, Carmen? I get them pretty frequently. I thought that's what was going on, but my doctor confirmed it on thursday. They're definitely interesting.

Anyway, I'll post photos of my belly and the nursery here in a few minutes. Since I can't get pro photos done, I decided to try to get at least one that is more artistic than what I've been getting. And, I lucked out the other night, it was perfect light from my bedroom window.