Monday, January 28, 2008

28 weeks, 1 day: No more boat rides

What happened to baby in week 27:

The baby measures about 9.6 inches from crown to rump and weighs a little more than 2 pounds. Hands are active and muscle coordination is such that he can get his thumb into his mouth. Thumb-sucking calms the baby and strengthens his cheek and jaw muscles. The baby can cry now.



What's happening to baby this week:

The baby measures about 10 inches from crown to rump, or a total length of about 15.75 inches from head to toe, and weighs about 2.4 pounds. Brain waves show rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which means the baby may be dreaming. Eyelids are opening. Branches of lungs are developing so there's a good chance that the baby would survive if born prematurely now.



So I'm finally back to writing! I got a little burnt out, plus I've been busy focusing on other things. People are starting to call and email, worrying that something might be wrong. Nothing wrong at all...but I appreciate everyone caring so much!



Gosh, so I have a lot to write about! Cooper got the hiccups for the first time (at least that I could feel) last week. For the first 5 seconds I thought it was adorable. But I quickly realized that I was getting very motion sick!! So for 5 minutes I felt like I was spinning around in the teacup ride! It was awful. I really don't want Cooper to have hiccups again.



Saturday night I had a dream that we brought Cooper home and I got done feeding him. He was exhausted and so was I, so I wanted to lay him down. But we hadn't done any of his laundry or made his bed, and I refused to lay him down on anything that hadn't been washed yet. So I got really upset and had to hold him for 2 hours while the washer and dryer finished.



So guess what I did when I woke up? I cleaned my little butt off. I washed all of the stuff we got from the shower and all of his bedding. We had to go buy his dresser so I could put all of it away! So funny.



My nesting instinct is kicking into over-drive lately. All I want to do is go through closets and clean and organize. Cooper's room is almost done and everything has been moved into the new guest room. I don't think I'll do much decorating in there though...just not into it now that I have Cooper's room to do!



I've gone back to my social butterfly ways!! I love seeing all my girlfriends again! It's so much fun to re-connect with them! I didn't feel well last week, so I missed my book club meeting. But this week I'm going to the melting pot and then to a massage/appetizer meeting. Can't wait!



We also had a doctor's appointment on Friday. It was supposed to be on Thursday, but my doctor got called into surgery (someone had a baby!), so we rescheduled to Friday. We had to go to the Newport Beach office instead of the one a block from our house. It was next to the post-surgery recovery center, where most likely people go after they have plastic surgery. We opted to park on the street and walk a block because you had to pay for parking!! That's crazy--as if Americans don't spend enough for health care! So anyhow we ended up waiting for about an hour and half before we saw the doctor. In fact we were the last ones seen that day. Here's a summary:

-My immense back pain and hard stomach I had last week that made me miss my book club meeting are completely normal and will start happening more frequently from here on out. (Yuck.)



-It is perfectly okay to do pilates and swimming, both are great prenatal exercises. (Both are going great by the way!)



-My birth plan is to have a vaginal birth if possible, with an epidural if I need it. I won't be induced unless Cooper doesn't show up until 41 weeks gestation. Christopher will be the only one in the delivery room. I cannot stand up to give birth, but I am allowed to change positions. I will have an episiotomy only if absolutely necessary. I will need to have a Cooper monitored and I will have an IV. We are undecided about cord blood banking.



-We got another ultrasound--for free! It was a total surprise, but she wanted to take a peek. He was facing toward my back, so we didn't get to see his face. He also refused to show his boy parts. He was head down (but that can change from now until 36 weeks or so). All we got to see was that he has one healthy ear (that looked a little bit pointy like daddy's...at least from that angle), a long spine, and a pair of legs.



-No more boat rides for mama after 30-32 weeks! This means I cannot go out to the islands anymore after the middle of February. It can be a fall/trip hazard since I don't have my balance anymore. At least work is really flexible about it!




We are considering Christopher being a stay at home dad. We can do it financially, but it changes the dynamic in our relationship. I love the idea of one of us taking care of the household, and even more than that I love that one of us would be able to take care of Cooper instead of spending tons of money on daycare. We're testing it now before Cooper comes, and it's going really well!

Check out the new pictures. I must have not taken a 26 week belly pic, or I deleted it, so I posted the 28 week picture. I also posted our 2007 Christmas Picture in Pictures of us.

Friday, January 18, 2008

26 weeks, 5 days: Airplanes go Wroom!!

This is hilarious. So we bought our bedding on eBay since it was such a great deal. I'm pretty sure I put on my blog that it was train bedding, but what I really meant is that it's airplane bedding. The picture from eBay was so cute...it had an airplane with "Vroom..." written under it. We got the bedding and it says "Wroom..." instead!!! So we are going to have to teach Cooper that airplanes go Wroom!! instead of Vroom!!



I had a dream last night that I had to practice getting my milk to come in starting 3 months before I give birth (uh, that would be now). We decided to adopt a 1 year old little girl so I could practice. She was a pro at breastfeeding, but would get really mad because I wasn't making milk yet. I don't even know what to say about these breast feeding dreams...apparently I'm obsessed or really nervous about it!



Excercise is going well...I didn't do pilates this week, though, because work got in the way. So now I need to be extra careful at making sure my schedule is clear. I did go swimming last night and the pool was really full. Well, at any public pool with lanes, everyone should know that you group swim (swim counter-clockwise up and down the lane) instead of split lanes so that everyone can swim safely.



I got in the pool and although I thought it was strange that one guy was swimming the wrong direction at me, I figured we were still group swimming. Well me and this other guy ended up colliding because of it. He got all irritated with me and I said, "This is a public pool, I assumed we are group swimming." He asks me if the other guy knows, and I shrug my shoulders. "I don't know he was swimming at me, so I couldn't ask him." I hate when people get irritated over nothing. The other guy had no problem group swimming and said to just pass him if he is swimming slow. I warned him that I was 6 months pregnant, so I doubt that would be an issue.



I ended up getting a cramp in my lower belly, just like when I walk, after about 12 minutes of swimming. It hurt too much, so I got out and stretched a bit. For the rest of the night I didn't feel great, so I went to bed early.



I've been sleeping a ton lately. I mean like 10-12 hours a night, plus naps on the weekends. I'm also feeling suddenly very scared of being a mother. I feel like I don't have any idea what I'm going to do with Cooper in the first hour I bring him home! I guess wait until he cries and then figure out what he wants? I have felt so confident until now. Maybe because it's so real and so close? I suppose it doesn't help that I watched Super Nanny--which has the brattiest, out of control kids ever on it!!



And just in case I don't have enough to do, I agreed to make a friend's wedding invitations. I think I'm losing my mind. At least it's only about 20-30 invitations, but she's getting married at the end of April!!! That means I have to have them done by beginning of March, and she doesn't have a date or a place yet. That means, I can't even start making them!!!



Sorry..still no pictures...I'm slacking. Sleep is getting in the way.

Monday, January 14, 2008

26 weeks, 1 day: Busy, busy, busy

What's happening to the baby:

The baby measures about 9.2 inches from crown to rump and weighs almost 2 pounds now. His hearing is fully developed. As the baby reacts to sounds, his pulse increases. The baby will even move in rhythm to music. The lungs are still growing, but are not yet mature. Patterns of the baby's brain waves appear like a full-term newborn. He also has patterns of sleeping and waking.



Can you believe I have less than 100 days to go?? I keep having lots of baby dreams. I had a dream that Cooper was a complete brat, I mean a really awful kid. He was talking back to me at only 3 months old!! He had black hair with a lot of red in it. Then I had a dream last night that I forgot to change his diaper for 3 weeks and when I finally did, there was mold in it!! That's just disgusting.



Wow, what another week! After getting back from training from work and trying to play catch up there, home life has been crazy too!



We went to the gym on Saturday and, gosh, I really miss swimming!! It was fantatastic to just get in the pool and do laps for about 20 minutes. I even miss the smell of chlorine! It was awesome to feel weightless, and I feel like I got a great workout without over-doing it. So the plan is to do pilates twice a week and swimming once or twice a week, depending on how I'm feeling.



The crib showed up!! That was super fast. We ordered it Wednesday night and it arrived by noon on Friday. Unbelievable! I guess it helps that babycenter.com has a warehouse about 30 miles from our house. :) We also found a great deal on the stroller we wanted to get, but refused to pay tons of money for at Babies-R-Us. We ordered it at bestbuybaby.com and saved almost $150!!! We also went into BRU and bought the baby monitor and swing over the weekend. Both were on sale, plus we had 15% off coupons. So all in all, we are saving tons of money with all this baby stuff!!



So where have we been putting this stuff?? In the garage for now. Yesterday, though, we spent all day moving and cleaning to start Cooper's room. We decided to use the family room as the office and the old office as a guest room. That way Cooper gets his very own room!



We cleaned the entire office and threw a lot of things away. We also cleaned the family room and boxed up all the DVD's. Once we got going, we didn't want to stop, so we moved the office to the family room and started setting up the guest room. This was a lot of work, because silly us built a desk for the office that was exact measurements of the room. We glued it all together, so it was near impossible to get out of the room. We got a little creative and everything worked out great. Now, all we have to do is clean out the old guest room and move the bed to the new guest room. I'm so excited at how much progress we made!



I was going to have an updated belly pic posted, as well as our picture from my work holiday party, but since we did a big move, the computers aren't up and running yet. As soon as they are I'll post the new pictures!

Friday, January 11, 2008

25 weeks, 5 days: Holy Heartburn, Batman!

What's happening with the baby:

The baby now measures 8.8 inches from crown to rump and weighs 1.5 pounds. Skin now becomes opaque instead of transparent. His body is still covered with folds like a puppy dog that needs to grow into its skin. The heartbeat can be heard through a stethoscope or, depending on the position of the baby, by others putting an ear against the mother's belly.



It's been such a busy time for me! After getting back from Colorado and sleeping through the new year, we have really started to get serious about preparing for the baby. Christopher cleaned the garage so that we can start moving stuff out there from the office. Then we will start moving stuff from the guest bedroom to the office so that Cooper can have the guest room all to himself!



We also went to Babies-R-Us and made our first big purchases. We found a 15% off coupon, so we bought the pack-n-play and carseat. We also bought the bedding on Ebay ($60 including shipping for super cute train bedding, instead of the $200 boat bedding we picked out at the store) and purchased our crib through another online place that was cheaper than BRU. Both items should arrive soon! We'll be going back this weekend (the coupon expires on Tues) to buy the swing, bouncer, stroller, and maybe the high chair and baby monitor. Yikes, that's a lot of stuff!!!



I went to pilates yesterday! It was so much fun to do something active that is different than walking. The moves are a LOT harder being pregnant than not, but I felt really good afterwards and I'm not too sore today. The instructor has taken several classes about teaching prenatal pilates and she has children of her own, so she really helped me do the right moves.



Christopher and I are going to the gym on Saturday. I finally got my maternity bathing suit, so I'm going to start swimming. I'm having killer tailbone pain (posterior pelvic pain) and walking gets painful and uncomfortable sometimes. So I thought swimming would still allow me to be active, but without the pain. I might go see a chiropractor about my tailbone because it feels like I need an alignment. But they freak me out...I wouldn't even go to one when I wasn't pregnant. I might just suffer through it and carry tylenol with me all the time. I suppose sitting at a desk in front of a computer all day doesn't help.



I'm getting more and more front heavy. I don't even bother picking things up that I've dropped. If Scout doesn't get to it first, then Christopher picks it up for me.



I'm starting to get really itchy now, I guess because I'm growing so much. My breasts and belly itch quite a bit, especially in the afternoon and evenings. Aveeno lotion really seems to help, plus I have had to increase the amount of water I'm drinking. Of course this becomes a bad cycle because then I'm going to the bathroom every 20-30 minutes. I've even gone to the bathroom and 5 minutes later, turned back around to go again! This is craziness!



And holy heartburn, batman! This has started to get really bad in the last few weeks. I now avoid soda, because it seems to make it worse, and I also have to be very careful about over-eating. I eat a few small meals a day and if I try to eat more of something because it tastes good, I feel awful later. Tums are my new best friend.



Cooper is super active. He moves almost all day long. It makes me laugh to watch my belly making waves or jumping around. He loves to kick (or maybe punch) my sides, which only makes me laugh more. I have a hard time falling asleep because just as I get to sleep, he kicks really hard and wakes me up. I don't really use my alarm clock anymore because he just kicks me awake in the morning!

Thursday, January 3, 2008

24 weeks, 4 days: I'm having a baby this year!!!

Happy New Year!! And in case you haven't been keeping up, I'm having a baby this year!!!!!



I went to the doctor yesterday for my 1 hour glucose screening test. This is the first screening to test for gestational diabetes. I've heard that many women fail this test and then have to do a 3 hour test, so I was a little worried. I also hate getting blood drawn since they always have a hard time finding veins in my arms, plus it just makes me queasy to watch the blood flow out of me in that way. So strange since cuts and scrapes with blood don't gross me out.



Since they were going to be testing my blood sugar levels after I drink a sweet glucose drink, I opted to have eggs and toast for breakfast instead of my normal frosted mini-wheats cereal. Good news--I passed!! So now I don't have to do the 3 hour (where they draw blood every hour for 3 hours and you have to fast) and I don't have gestational diabetes. This also calms my fears of Cooper being a giant baby! My mom has had all small babies at less than 8 lbs, but Chris was over 10 lbs!!



I'm excited because we finally decided on a date for my next shower! Jessica will be throwing me a shower with my girlfriends in CA on February 23rd. It should be tons of fun and it makes me feel so loved! I made a guest list and there are 18 women on it!! I had no idea I had made so many friends out here!! Plus, Jessica might even let me help make the invitations since we are considering starting a handmade invitation company (we both made all of our stuff for our weddings, plus I also made Heather's stuff--we just love being creative with paper).



Cooper is a little busy body. I can tell he is getting bigger because now my belly will get lopsided or I can see his butt/head rub against my belly going from the top to the bottom. So cool! The only part I don't like is that he is getting strong enough so that when he moves, it kind of jerks my body. This makes me a little motion sick, which is no fun!



I think we are going to buy some of the big items off our registry this weekend. We got a coupon that is better than the registry completion coupon, so we might as well start buying stuff. I still feel overwhelmed by it all, maybe because it makes it real! Christopher cleaned out the garage, so now we can start making headway on the baby's room and moving stuff to the garage and office. Maybe that will satisfy my need to clean!



I'm starting to feel the weight of being pregnant. Up until mid December I was walking about 2.5 miles 3-4 times a week. But now I get sciatica pain when I walk too fast, plus a pain in my lower abdomen. It doesn't help that I have to go to the bathroom every 30 minutes either! I was planning to walk the 5K Shoreline in Huntington Beach (we usually run it) the first weekend in February, but now I'm not so sure. Maybe if I walk slow enough I can do it. I'll see how I feel this month As soon as my maternity bathing suit comes I'm going to start swimming 3-4 times a week. I'm looking foward to getting back to being active.

I also found out from my doctor that I can go out on disability 4 weeks prior to my due date. This is another month of 100% pay for 4 weeks! This means I would be out for 5 months with pay!! That is super exciting.