Wednesday, January 30, 2008

32 Weeks!

I can't believe I've reached the 32 week point! Woo-hoo!! Rick took this picture yesterday on my phone, which is why it looks so grainy but since I didn't have another picture available and it had been over a month since my last one, I figured this is better than nothing!
It's been a pretty busy week (and a half--it's been a while since I posted!). This is going to be a long post but here are the highlights:

We decided on a pediatrician last week, which is a huge relief! He was actually the first one we met with but we liked him so much that we decided not to interview anyone else. It's a small practice (him and his dad, plus they're looking to hire another dr. part-time) but there's a branch of NEMC pediatricians adjoining their office, and they've worked out some agreement that if at any time there's no one from our pediatricians office available, someone from NEMC can help us. Which essentially means that if we need to get our little guy in to see a doctor at any time, we'll be able to. Very reassuring! And everyone in the office seemed pleasant and like they enjoyed their jobs, which makes for a great, supportive environment.
We had an OB appt on Thursday and everything still looks good. My dr. did suggest that now would be a good time to take one day off a week to make sure I'm getting enough rest--not because I'm at risk for anything but just as a precaution. I won't argue with that! So from now on I'll have Thursdays off. Yay!
Saturday we had our 1-day childbirth class, which was pretty fun and informative but didn't focus enough on natural childbirth. We learned 3 different breathing techniques to help us through labor, a couple of exercises and stretches we should be practicing, and received a list of pain medications we could opt for if we needed them. Now I understand that they are trying hard to makes sure that women don't feel inadequate if they need to use meds, and I do appreciate that since I personally am not completely opposed to using them if need be, but at the same time I would have liked a discussion on how to realistically get through childbirth without the use of drugs. At least list the various methods/philosophies of natural childbirth. But since there's a limited amount of time allotted for this class I guess they can't cover everything.
One thing that I did appreciate about this class is that the instructor gave a timeline of what a "typical" birth scenario looks like. It made me feel much better about the fact that Rick works crazy 24-hour shifts, 45 minutes from home and could very well not be around when I first start having contraction. I was a little concerned that I'd have to try to get myself to the hospital right away, but it sounds like I'll most likely have plenty of time to get there (probably hours, in fact...). I guess I need to stop getting my birthing information from TV and movies! :-)
Sunday we went to into Boston to get professional maternity portraits taken of my belly (with Rick and my hands included, otherwise it was only belly). David (Rick's bro) shot the photos and from the preliminary, unedited pictures we saw they look pretty fabulous! He'll be giving us a cd of the "best of" photos, at which point I'll post one or two here. It was a lot of fun, and David did an excellent job. I would totally recommend getting maternity photos done to anyone who asks!
Lastly, I received my box of bedding from mom yesterday, and it all turned out AWESOME and is so dang cute!! Yet another confirmation of how talented and creative my mom is. I REALLY want to set the crib up now to see everything in place, but now we're not sure if it will be set up in our bedroom or our nursery so I should wait until we make that decision...sigh...
If anyone is still reading, thanks for putting up with such a long post! Hope you all have a great week!
-Suzi

Sunday, January 20, 2008

3 am...

Ugh. It's 3 am and for some reason I'm awake. I hate not being able to sleep. It's been a few weeks since I last had any serious bouts of insomnia but for some reason tonight it's back. I just couldn't get comfortable and my mind wouldn't shut off. Maybe if I practiced my hypnobirthing relaxation techniques more I wouldn't have this problem. Or maybe my body is just getting ready for all the late-night feedings that lie ahead. At least I don't have very much planned for tomorrow so in theory I could take as many naps as necessary to make up for the sleep I'm missing now.

We picked up our crib today (THANK YOU Jeanne and Rich!). Tomorrow we'll go through the box to make sure all the parts are there, but we probably won't put it together for a few weeks. I think the plan is to set it up in our bedroom since we'll want the baby with us at night for the first few months and getting a bassinet seems wasteful (as does a moses basket, and I'll only do a co-sleeper if I for some reason end up needing a c-section--both Consumer Reports and Baby Bargains are in agreement that co-sleepers are not as safe as they could be...).

Oh, we had another unplanned ultrasound this week. I called my OB on Weds. to ask if I should be concerned about the pressure I was feeling at the bottom of my belly, and her answer was essentially yes. She told me to go on bedrest for a day or two and get an ultrasound as soon as I could the next day. Everything ended up being fine--my cervix is long and closed and my amniotic fluid was at a good level. What I was feeling most likely was growing pains, which is what I suspected all along. But better safe then sorry! Plus we got to see the baby yawn on the ultrasound which was pretty dang cute. I think he has Rick's nose. :-)

Well, I think I'll read for a while and see if I can get back to sleep. Pleasant dreams everyone--

-Suzi

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Me and my hippy-trippy ways...

I've never thought of myself as much of a new-ager (except maybe very briefly in college when I thought it would be cool to be a wiccan), yet as I look at what I'm doing during this pregnancy to help me through and prepare myself for childbirth, I wonder. I wouldn't change what I'm doing, yet I have to admit that I'm showing my hippy leanings.

First (and most tame) is the prenatal yoga. I love it, and if the yoga studio I went to offered it every day, I'd probably go every day. But it seems like nearly every pregnant woman does prenatal yoga so if it was that alone, there'd be no cause for name-calling.

Then we add acupuncture. I've been going since before getting pregnant, first to help with the process and to alleviate some of the anxiety I was feeling after losing our first baby, then once I got pregnant to help prevent a miscarriage and to relieve symptoms, and now we're in the process of getting my body ready to give birth. This involves putting some random putty substance on my inner ankle and warming it (while at my acu. sessions), plus burning a smudge stick at home that smells suspiciously like a certain illegal substance and using it to warm those same ankle-spots once a week. Really, the smell of the smudge stick alone is enough to label me a hippy.

And now we have hypnobirthing. Which contrary to what you might think from the name does NOT involve someone waving a pocket watch in front of my eyes and telling me I'm getting very sleepy. It's really just a method of natural childbirth using deep relaxation and meditation to ease yourself into the birthing process. Everyone I've talked to who has used this method raves about it so I am willing to give it a try. Though I should clarify that while I am willing to give it a try, I'm not so willing to pay the extra $225 for the hypnobirthing class being offered by Lowell General. I'm reading the book and will use the practice cd to learn these deep relaxation techniques and see how it goes. Since I've been doing yoga for a number of years and since I spend most of my acupuncture sessions trying to put myself into a state of deep relaxation, I think I've got a good head start on these techniques.

But I know in my heart I'm too practical to be truly new-agey, so I'm not worried about myself just yet. ;-)

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Nursery!

Hello everyone! Thought it was about time to post some pictures of some of our nursery "stuff". As you might recall from a long-ago post, we decided our theme for the nursery would be ALIENS. Which has now expanded to include other space-related things. First we have a picture of the inspiration fabric, which my mom liked so much that she decided to make our crib bumper and a quilt out of it. It's a nice soft flannel that I'm sure any baby would dig. The next picture is a piece of "art" we found at Target when registering the other day. We liked the robots and the rocket ships. Plus it's educational! All the planets of the solar system (including poor Pluto) are shown. Heeheehee. As for the rest of the art in the room, we will soon be having an art-creation gathering for anyone who is interested. I'll pick up a
bunch of canvases from a craft store, paint on a background color, and anyone who wants to can create their own alien-being (or robot, or space-themed thing) to be hung in baby Webson's room. I'll keep you all posted on the date.

This afternoon Rick and I finally found a crib! We went to a baby furniture warehouse during lunch today. They had a ton of stuff to chose from, and luckily the crib we found happens to be in stock so we don't have to worry about lead times on delivery. We went for a stationary crib as opposed to a drop-side crib--it seemed like all the drop side cribs we saw weren't very sturdy. Plus both of us are fairly tall so we shouldn't have any trouble leaning down to place a sleeping baby into a crib with stationary sides. I tried to find a picture of the one we picked online but with no luck. It's mission-style, fairly simple lines, and I think we're going for a chestnut finish. We could also get the conversion kit for it to make it into a full-sized bed eventually, but we'll worry about that later.
As for the rest of the nursery, Rick is madly stripping paint these days and should be finished fairly soon! I plan on visiting the paint store this weekend to start trying to decide on the wall and trim colors. We'll probably go with something fairly neutral since we have a lot of blue stuff going into the room (who ever thought I'd be so traditional with all this blue for our boy??). All in all, I'm feeling pretty good about the nursery--I know there's a lot left to do and buy but it seems to be coming together quite nicely.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Seems I've fallen behind on my posting! I wanted to post a picture from Christmas, so I thought I'd go with a me-and-my-sister-Lisa picture. My smile is kinda goofy but she was so happy to see us that I had to post her picture here.

A few things have happened this week worth noting. First, we registered at Babies R Us on Saturday. Talk about exhausting, and we're not finished yet! Registering for baby stuff is completely different than registering for wedding stuff. Wedding stuff was mostly fun to pick out--it was all about what we wanted or felt we needed, and a lot of the decisions were based on our personal style. Baby stuff, on the other hand, has only a little to do with style and much more to do with SAFETY and ease of use. We had to consult our Consumer Reports guide for every item, then try to figure out how to use them. Only then could we think about style (and truth be told, at BRU there are only a few things available that would in any way reflect Rick and my personal style, our thinking was more in the line of "it's not horrible" than "it's exactly what we'd choose if given every option"). But it's not about us anymore, is it? Gotta keep that in mind...

Anyway, we still have a few more things to register for at BRU, plus we will go to Target as well and pick out some things there, too. The woman at BRU said we'd register for around 100-120 items. So far we've registered for 29. I think the BRU lady just wants to make more sales, because honestly I don't think it would be possible to find 70+ more items to register for! Yikes!

In other baby news, I found out that my health insurance will reimburse us for a good portion of our childbirth class--woo-hoo! And I found out what we need to do once the baby's born to make sure he gets onto our insurance plan as soon as possible (that's all on Rick's shoulders, since it's his insurance plan). AND I printed up a list of pediatricians in our area to interview, so hopefully that will get underway soon. I also found the form that I'll need to fill out for my short-term disability maternity leave coverage (it's about 5 pages long--ugh), though I still need to call my AFLAC rep to make sure I know what to do with it. And Rick has done more paint stripping this week in the nursery. Progress!
Hope you all have a great weekend--
-Suzi