38 weeks and the return of old friends

Editted to add some missing things:

What old friends, you ask? Let me list them for you, in no particular order:

• heartburn
• waking up 6-8 times to go to the bathroom through the night
• horrible pain in my right hip and pelvic region
• nausea
• how could I have forgotten leg cramps? Despite eating a banana a day, they are back and bad as ever

Eating is so much fun again. Sarcasm fully intended. I lost 3 lbs last week because of the heartburn. No matter what I eat, once again, there's no rhyme or reason to when it might hit.

This week, Oliver's been very active. He tries to stretch his head up into my ribs, which is more weird feeling than painful. Once we saw his butt sticking out from the right side of my belly. I'm also feeling him move his arms and legs throughout the day. His hiccups are louder and bigger, making my belly move visibly. Sometimes, Jeff and I just watch the ripples and bulges on my belly.

We had some maternity photos done at the Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis. You can see some of the photos here, rest are on my Facebook and Flickr account.

So close. I have 8 working days and 10 total days left till my c-section. I am excited and petrified at the same time.  I still have days where I wonder what the hell I'm getting myself into and who the hell thought it was a good idea for me to be a mother. On the other hand, I can't wait to see Oliver, see what he looks like, actually get to hold him. Hopefully, Jeff and I won't mess him up too much and he'll grow up to be a respectable member of society someday.

Week 37

According to the ticker on the left, I passed Week 37 last Thursday, but that's because I changed that due date to reflect November 11 which is the scheduled C-section. But, I'll keep doing my belly shots according to the 11/15 due date schedule. So, here's the belly, still lopsided, enough that my belly button sits conspicuously to the left of my body's middle!

New things this week:

• The Bump has a new size, the final size for the baby, from week 37 till he's born, apparently Oliver is a watermelon! 

Baby spends these last weeks in preparation for the outside world… meaning careful refinement of the blink, suck, inhale and exhale. Meconium, which you’ll probably find in the first diaper, is accumulating in the intestines. 

• The Tarzan's Ultimate Guide to Baby Size for the daddies out there states that the baby is the size of a car motor.

• Oliver's moving around a lot more! I can feel him stretching into my ribs and moving his arms and legs. Today, he moved a lot during the movie R.E.D., so here's hoping he's as big a Bruce Willis fan as his mom.
• I got my flu shot yesterday. I get them at work every year but they didn't have any time slots I liked. So, I went to Rite Aid and got it and I'll just get reimbursed by my work.
• I find new muscles daily by the pain they cause me. Amazingly, the worst time is in the middle of the night if I get up to go to the bathroom. I think anytime I stay in one position, muscles in my hips, butt and pelvis get stuck and then when I move them, they complain.
• We have some other new news that we cannot share yet. No, I am not having twins :-P Hopefully, in a week or two, we'll be able to tell y'all.

And, though 37 weeks is considered full term, I really hope & wish he holds on till November 11th, grows more, puts on some more fat and comes out a healthy happy baby. I wouldn't wish an early labor and NICU stay on anybody else, so I hope nobody wishes it on us.

A precious gift

A friend's mom made this for Oliver. I have no words to express my gratitude and love for her and the entire family. They've been great friends to us since we moved here.

I hope Oliver appreciates and loves it as much as Smokey obviously does.

I love the airplane faces. This is even more special considering that little planes hold a special memory in Jeff and my dating beginnings. There is no way for Kathi's mom to have known that, yet it worked out so perfectly.

36 Weeks

There's the belly at 36 weeks!

According to The Bump, this is the last week the baby's like a honey dew melon. Starting next week, I can start calling him a watermelon. Yippee. I like watermelons better.

According to most sites, he should be anywhere from 5.5 to 6 lbs, but at our last ultrasound on Wednesday, he measured at just under 5. Now, those can be off by a lb but of course Jeff and I were slightly worried. I brought it up to my doctor today, and she said that his growth was perfectly normal and according to gestational age. His abdomen is measuring fine and that's what they go by. She told us not to worry at all. Which will be difficult but we'll try. Apparently, Jeff was a low birth weight baby and look at him now.

Our ultrasound also showed that he's still very comfortably breech, with his head inching up under my ribs and his butt perched somewhere on my bladder. Since I am 4 weeks away from the due date, we've set a date for the C-section - November 11th, 2010. If he decides to move before that, well and good. If not, we have a plan. And, he'll forever have a US holiday for his birthday. There are ways to try and move him with external manipulation, but for all the reasons mentioned in my 35th week post, we will not be trying that.

1st time ever in 33 years 3 months and 20 days

So, for the first time ever in my life, I was surprised. Yesterday, my work colleagues friends threw me a baby shower and it was a surprise. I knew there would be something but we usually coordinate these things to fall on days we have staff meetings - Mondays. Yesterday, a Friday, was supposed to be a bowling event for our team and that's all I was expecting. Till a coworker walked in with balloons and everyone started saying "Surprise Sylvie!"

There was a cake with a baby face; there were gifts and there were photos of gifts that should be arriving at our house soon. We also bowled and had some team building camaraderie.

Thanks to Brenda and Jacwana and Beth and everyone else who was involved in this. Even Jeff managed to keep this secret from me for a whole day. If you don;t know us, you have no idea how difficult that must have been for him.

I feel lucky to have such a great group of friends as my coworkers. Thank you guys!

Getting there slowly

Oh my! I got our car seat installed today by the Safe Kids USA today. Once the seat was in, and I was driving home, it hit me. In a month or so, there'll be a baby in there. I mean, honestly, does the hospital just let us walk out with a tiny human being expecting us to know what to do? I didn't even know that those window shades that get put on with suction cups could be dangerous as projectiles! I mean, what the hell? If we couldn't even think of that with all our education, how are we supposed to keep him safe and alive and well after we bring him home.



I am also right now addicted to reading, looking online, researching, window shopping for cloth diapers. There is at least one program online (Jillian's Drawers) that let you try a bunch of different ones for $10. If at the end of the trial, you want to return all of them, they refund you everything but $10. If you decide to keep some, you just get charged for those. I am pretty sure, almost 95%, that we'll order the trial pack closer to delivery date. But, for now, I have a small stash of my own. Most of them are the FuzziBunz. But I have 1 Happy Heinys, 1 Bum Genius, and 1 set of gDiapers. So, we have at least 4 different ones to try as well. I am really excited about this. I am also not militant; so if it doesn't work for us, it doesn't work for us and we'll be fine with using disposables.

I want back ...

• my waist
• my ankles
• my whole wardrobe
• most of my shoes
• my memory
• bathroom visits spaced more than an hour apart at night

I'm sure I'll be adding to this list!

Busy, busy weekend and 35/35

So, this is one of those magical number game times, I guess. I am 35 weeks down, 35 days to go. 35 days. Can you believe it? I can't! According to Baby Center, he's like a yummy honeydew melon.

Jeff got to meet our OB today for the first time. Since he works 2 hrs away, it's not very logical for him to take a day off for every 1/2 hour appointment I have. But, today being a holiday and the doctor's office being open, it worked out perfectly. Today was also my Strep B test to see if I am a carrier. It's found in 15-40% of healthy pregnant women and all it means is if I am positive, they'll put me on antibiotics during delivery so Oliver doesn't catch an infection. We also talked about the fact that this baby is not moving head down. We'll wait till week 37, then my options are trying to do an external version or scheduling a C-section for close to my due date.

Some of the pros of the procedure are obviously the baby gets moved into the correct head down position and we wait for natural labor to hit me. However, there seem to be a higher number of cons:

• According to my doc, there is a risk of fetal distress
• Also a chance of placental distress
• Only a 50% chance of success
• Chance that the baby will move back to breech position
• Very uncomfortable/painful for me
• In my case, the position of the placenta and scar tissue form previous surgeries makes it even more difficult to do the version

Jeff and I talked about it after the appointment and we are both against trying the version for now. Well see if the baby moves in the next 2 weeks. If not, we are scheduling the C-section for close to November 15th. The possible dates are 11/11 or 11/18. If the baby changes position before then, good. If not, good. Either way, our plan is to have a healthy baby at the end.

This baby is also still stubborn, he sat in the back today and messed up the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundal_height. So, Wednesday, I get to go in for a growth ultrasound. I don't think there's a problem. When we got home, he was moving around and sticking his head out the right side of my belly again, so I did a measurement and it was already 2 more centimeters than at the doctor's office. So, hopefully, that'll be confirmed at the hospital on Wednesday and we'll see that he's growing perfectly well.

In other news, this weekend was a frenzy of activity and cleaning in the Williams' household. We did Oktoberfest on Saturday, lunch with neighbors on Sunday while watching the Ravens' game, OB appointment, B12 shot for me and whooping cough vaccine for Jeff on Monday. I did at least 6 loads of laundry, cleaned the bathrooms, dusted all wood furniture, steam cleaned the hard floors ... whew. We picked up a Shark steam cleaner for hard floors at Bed, Bath & Beyond and it is AWESOME! I cannot say enough good things about this contraption. I was using those Swiffer wetjet things till now and there is no comparison. Only thing left for next weekend is vacuuming the carpets. Then, I'll feel good about the house and not worry till next year. No, you think I am joking? After this weekend, I am not cleaning till after the New Year.

Oh, I also made some cookies from scratch. I am on a baking craze and would have made some pina colada cupcakes today but we had one single egg in the house. So, that'll be next weekend.

Because of all the stuff listed above, there were no belly shots, sorry! Trust me, it's growing though.

6 weeks? you have to be kidding me

I could have Oliver this month. I think I am in denial. I JUST peed on a stick last week, didn't I?



The belly seems to be growing. The orange shirt photo was last week at 33 weeks, and the grey one is from eysterday at 34 weeks. I'd like to con myself into thinking that's all Oliver growing but that can't be since he's only supposed to be gaining 1/2 a lb a week now and I am gainging much more than that.

I forgot, last week at 33 weeks, both The Bump and Tarzan's Guide to Baby Development updated their size charts. The Bump says he's a delicious honeydew melon:



Baby’s senses are continuing to improve -- when light peeks in through your (extremely) stretched belly, those tiny eyelids and irises blink and dilate. And, baby can now recognize and react to simple songs… time to start practicing your lullabies! Growth (at least inside your womb) is starting to slow, and you may notice baby descend into your pelvis at the end of this month.

I think I already notice him being lower. The pressure on my stomach and lungs isn't as strong and I can eat more. So, I think he's lower, but he's still headsup. Every now and then I feel him stretching into my ribs, on the right side. Yes, he's still on the right side. My belly is lopsided.

As far as lullabies go, he's still getting to listen to Bob Seger, Reba McEntyre, Bon Jovi, ABBA, ... and he's loving them. Well, he better, he's got no choice till he's a teenager and can put his own headphones in and shut out his mom's weird music.

For the fathers out there, look, I am carrying a shiny new: