39 weeks

Had my 39 week doctor's appointment today.  All is well, belly size, heartbeat, blood pressure, all look good.  I'm feeling pretty good too.  Earlier this week I had a stomach bug which made me feel paranoid that I might go into labor.  I wasn't feeling any contractions or anything, but I just worried that maybe the stomach bug would jumpstart labor in some way.  So, I ended up staying super late at work to get everything as ready as possible just in case something happened.  Since I am sitting here 39 weeks pregnant clearly nothing did happen, but on the bright side my classroom is way more ready for me to be gone than it was before, and that gives me some peace of mind.

On the other hand every time I turn around I see or think of something else that needs to be done before the baby comes.  Packing our bag for the hospital, getting the carseat put in the car, finishing putting up the pack and play (it has defeated both Mark and myself on separate occasions), picking a pediatrician, lesson plans, papers that need to be graded, birthing and breastfeeding books that need to be read, phone calls to people I haven't talked to in forever that need to be made, random baby things we should probably buy before the baby comes, and general housekeeping.  If this baby shows up before the due date we are in big trouble.

And the belly continues to grow.

Boy or Girl?

I thought I would attempt to have an interactive moment on the blog, so I have added a poll for boy vs. girl predictions.  Of course I would never ask someone to make a prediction without having highly scientific research to back it up.  Here is as much information as I could come up with for whether or not the baby will be a boy or girl.
1. The Chinese Gender Calendar Charthttp://www.thebump.com/calculators/ChineseGenderChart.aspx?MsdVisit=1 : boy
2. They say if your belly is high you are having a girl, and if you are carrying low you are having a boy.  I think for most of my pregnancy I was carrying pretty much in the middle, recently it seems to have dropped some, but the baby's head has dropped so it makes sense that my stomach would sit lower: undetermined
3. Mayan predictions, legend has it that Mayans predicted the baby's gender by looking at the age of the mother at conception and the year of conception.  If both are even or both are odd it is a girl if one is even and one is odd it is a boy.  I was 27 in 2010: boy
4. Morning sickness, I was sick as a dog for my first trimester and part of the second trimester as well, they say this indicates a girl:  girl
5. Heartbeat, if the baby's heartbeat is over 140 it is supposed to be a girl under 140 it's a boy. This has varied as well.  It seems to stay around 140 sometimes it's 145 sometimes it's 135: undetermined 
6. Mark is pretty much 100% convinced it is a girl.  He's felt that way since almost the beginning.  Daddy predictor: girl
7. Supposedly pregnancy acne means girl.  I haven't really had any pregnancy acne, a zit here or there, but it's no different than how my skin was pre-pregnancy: boy 
8.  My face has definitely gotten rounder and fuller:  girl
That's all I've got for now.  I know the whole dangling your wedding ring from a string, but I don't feel like getting up right now and checking it.  So you will just have to use the information already given, or go with your gut.  My prediction is undecided.  I went through a phase in the second trimester where I was pretty positive it was a girl, but now I really have no clue.  When I think about it I don't lean one way or the other.  So go ahead and make a prediction by participating in the poll.

38 weeks

Nine minutes to blog before Mark and I go meet friends for dinner and trivia.  Going out on a school night, is crazy for us, but we only have so many nights left that are baby free so we are pushing ourselves to go be social.  We will definitely be leaving early, but I'm proud of us for making it out.

I had my 38 week appt. today.  All is well with the baby, my stomach measures 38cm which is right where it should be.  The babies spine is on my right side, and it's head is still down.  Against my Bradley teacher's advice I went ahead and had the pelvic exam.  I am 50% effaced, and possibly 1/2 cm dilated.  I think the doctor was trying to make me feel good by saying I was dilated even just a little.  The funny thing is I kind of already knew I wasn't going to be dilated.  I just don't feel like I've started the whole labor process yet.  I'm okay with it, I know so many women who in the last few weeks to month of their pregnancy they couldn't wait for the baby to come.  I am excited for the baby to come, but I'm also enjoying every last moment I get of my life before there is a baby in it.  I like getting to hang out with Mark, and work late without feeling guilty, and even though I get up to pee several times a night it lasts 3 minutes and I get to climb back in bed and go right back to sleep.  I know when the baby comes my life will change and be a new kind of wonderful, but for right now I am enjoying my current state of wonderful.

38 weeks

      

37 weeks

I wrote a post last week, but lost it.  So here is try number two.  I had a doctor's appt. on Thursday, I go once a week now, and everything looks good.  The last 3-4 times they have a hard time finding the baby's heartbeat, which the first couple of times made me panic and try to remember the last time I felt the baby kick.  Now I'm just used to it.  This most recent time it happened again, the doctor had the dop tone and was moving it around on my stomach not finding the heartbeat when the baby kicked, so we could see it just not hear it's heartbeat.  The doctor finally found the heartbeat, and she explained to me that the problem is as the baby gets bigger there is more mass for the scan to go through and it makes it more difficult.

Last Saturday was the Baby Shower that Jen and Rachel threw for us.  It was wonderful, and Jen and Rach were great hostesses.  The food was spectacular, and everyone had a great time.  I was a little nervous, because my mom was at my other two showers and she's a lot more comfortable in the spotlight than I am so I could hide behind her a bit.  But this time around I had to be front and center.  Rachel and Jen did a great job of making it a relaxed atmosphere, and I didn't feel uncomfortable at all.  Definitely my kind of shower.  We also got tons of gator stuff for the baby.  We have so many gator onesies  now that we don't have to worry about the baby not being able to represent during football season, and throughout the rest of the year.  The best part is that we did not have any repeats, which just goes to show you the sheer volume of gator baby clothes out there.  A big thank you to Jen and Rachel for all the hard work they put in.

In other pregnancy news the rest of my body is feeling worn out and sore. I make it through the school day pretty well since I am moving around so much, but as soon as I get home and sit or lay for too long, everything tightens up, and makes standing up rather difficult. I'm peeing even more than before which I did not think was possible. I get up to pee 3-4 times per night. I am looking forward to when the baby comes, and I can get some uninterrupted sleep, oh wait...

I think I look ridiculously tired in this picture, I did not realize that this is how I look now.

Wonderful food, and spectacular diaper cake that Jen made.

One of the many adorable gator outfits we got.

Things my oversized baby-belly is good for:

1. A place to prop my cereal bowl in the morning.
2. A place for Zinny to take a nap.
3. Bumping into students in the hallway.
4. Making it nearly impossible to find a good position for sleeping.
5. Holding up pregnancy pants.
6. Catching crumbs as I eat.
7. Making sliding in and out of the student desks at school very difficult.
8. Showing the world I am pregnant, and not just really fat.
9. Making my bellybutton go from an inny to an outy (well the top half is an outy the bottom half is just flat)
10. Oh yeah, growing a baby.

Breastfeeding

I am obviously not breastfeeding yet since the baby isn't even here yet, but I've been doing a lot of reading, thinking, and discussing about breastfeeding recently.  In our Bradley classes we speak often about breastfeeding, and it seems to me like it is a pretty popular trend right now.  Although I wonder if more women are actually doing it these days, since it seems like you see fewer women than ever before breastfeeding in public.  I do have a theory about that, I think maybe you don't see as many women breastfeeding because there are more places to do it now.  For instance many big department stores, or malls will have family restrooms, or even breastfeeding rooms.
Anyway the main thing I have been thinking about and anticipating when it comes to breastfeeding is how difficult it sounds.  It seems like many women have lots of trouble with the whole breastfeeding thing for a number of reasons.  Of course it also sounds like once you get the hang of it, it shouldn't be too much trouble, but in the beginning it can be, and often is difficult.
At our very first Bradley class our instructor explained to us that when it comes to natural childbirth one reason that it used to be easier for women to do 200 years ago is because by the time most women became mothers they had already seen several births.  A young girl might see a younger sibling be born, or go along to help out when an aunt or cousin was having a baby.  After seeing all these examples when it came time for that girl to have a baby of her own she would mimic what she had seen, and all of her past experiences would make it easier for her to give birth.
I bring this up, because it made a lot of sense to me, and it makes me feel even more puzzled about why breastfeeding is such a challenge.  I mean I get the struggles; latching, supply and demand, waiting for the milk to come in, lack of sleep, confused babies, engorgement, sore breasts, etc.  But it just seems like a lot of women, even women who are successful breastfeeders (is that a word?)  acknowledge what a struggle and challenge breastfeeding is.  If it is so difficult, than how did people manage to survive?  I guess back in the day women didn't have a choice, either you breastfed or your baby died, or if you could afford it you had a wet nurse.  My point is that it makes sense to me that in some ways natural childbirth was easier 200 years ago, but no one seems to have any reason why breastfeeding might be more difficult now. Which leads me to believe that it was always difficult which I find to be confounding.  Why is something as natural as breastfeeding so difficult?

I will be 34 weeks tomorrow.

Home early from work since I had a doctor's appt., why not start a blog?

I've been meaning to do this for months now, because I like reading other peoples pregnancy blogs, and I think it is a good way to let friends and family keep up with the pregnancy and what is going on.  Things have been so busy with Mark and I, I feel bad that we haven't kept in better touch with people we care about, and allowed them more access to this whole pregnancy process.  So, this is my way of trying to include more people in what's going on with us, and this way I can include a bunch of you all at once.  Of course we will see how I do at keeping up with this thing and actually posting in a timely manner.  I am 32 weeks pregnant so I only have around 8 weeks left to do this thing anyway.  I'm hoping to keep it up after the baby is born too, but we will see what happens. 

I went to the doctor today, and she said everything looks good.  She asked if I was taking a birthing class, and recommended we do a breastfeeding and infant CPR class too.  We're doing Bradley classes, and I've heard from several people that between Bradley classes and meeting with the lactation consultant at the hospital that will cover me on the breastfeeding class.  We do need to sign up for infant CPR class, both Mark and I have lapsed CPR certification, and that certification was for adults not infants.  Not sure when we are going to fit it in, but once we sign up for it we'll make it work somehow.

The strangest part of pregnancy to me right now is the fact the baby now "kicks" in two places at once. Especially when I am laying on my side it feels like it is jumping up and down on a trampoline because I feel it on both ends of my stomach at the same time.  This morning I felt a foot for the first time.  I was feeling my stomach and I realized there was foot pressed up against me, I could feel which part was the heel, and the toes.  It was pretty cool.  Actually right now it is moving a bunch, I have my stomach out so I can see it.  I love watching it move.

Here is a current pregnancy pic I had Mark take today.