36 Week Update

Just wanted to give an update since I haven't been in here all week to do so.

Lots has been going on recently because baby girl is breech. My stress level is much lower than a couple weeks ago but this hasn't changed her position, yet. I'm staying optimistic. Here are the updates..

Tuesday we had an ultrasound to confirm her position. The ultrasound tech was.. short. She didn't give us an estimate of how much the baby weighed and she didn't talk much other then answering the questions we had like, "what are we looking at?" etc. Big difference from our 19 week anatomy scan.

It must've been a busy day because we went back out to the lobby for at least 20 minutes, then went back to an exam room for the normal OB appointment and waited almost another 20 minutes. A (midwife/nurse practitioner, I do not know which) came in and said she just reviewed our scans. It had to be a midwife, why would a NP be reviewing our scans?? Regardless, she did not review them WITH us. She barely even mentioned them other than saying yes, the baby is breech.. we knew this because we were there at the ultrasound, obviously. Needless to say, this midwife was not helpful in the least. She asked us if we knew about ECV (External Cephalic Version where they can try to manually turn the baby) and tried to get us to schedule one for the following week and then talked c-section a little bit and said we should schedule that too. We were pretty taken aback. First of all, I thought midwives were supposed to have options of things to do to keep labor/delivery as natural as possible. Second of all, she couldn't answer ANY of the questions we had regarding the ECV or having a breech baby. Needless to say, we were pretty irritated after leaving there but we did schedule a consult with an actual OB for Friday.

Thursday, I went to see Laurel's mom who is a Chiropractor so we could start doing the Webster Technique to get me aligned so that the baby has a better chance of flipping. This went well and I felt more relaxed afterward which was a positive sign.

Friday morning bright and early we headed to the consult with the OB. We (again) waited a long time, which seems so abnormal compared to my previous visits, but the OB was very friendly and seemed like he would've spent more than an hour with us if we wanted which was comforting. He told us that they would not do a scheduled c-section prior to 39 weeks and we would try (if we decide to) the ECV right before the c-section to see if we could get any movement. He was very helpful and informative. One thing however is that he said he will not force the baby during the ECV, if she does not want to turn around, he is not going to 'force' her more than she is willing. We have a 2nd opinion consult with another OB in the practice this coming friday to talk about the same thing (which was suggested by this OB). It was comforting to hear that we don't need to schedule the c-section until after 39 weeks (if it comes to that) and that the baby still has plenty of time to turn naturally, something the midwife did not say ONE TIME! We left the appointment feeling better. We're almost 100% sure that we will be trying the ECV prior to going on with a c-section.

This morning, Saturday, I had another appointment at Dr. Kegel's for another adjustment to stay aligned. Baby girl moves around a lot and has been teetering to the transverse position so I think she's just prepping herself to make the big turn. Staying optimistic. I have also been relaxing a lot more on my sides and drinking more water at the doctor's suggestion.

Everything else, not breech related, is going well. The OB said the baby is the average size currently so not too big or too small or anything. I got all of the baby stuff organized this past week and with the help of Nick and Laurel we have the pack n play set up and the carseat/stroller ready to go. I need to focus on packing a bag though and getting the small stuff taken care of. This coming week at work is going to be quite busy as I tie up loose ends prior to leaving for maternity leave.

I think i'm still in a bit of denial that we're 3 weeks or less away from having a baby girl. We're very excited and cannot wait to meet her but it's definitely one of those things where you don't believe it until it's happening. I have not had any false contractions (probably because she isn't sitting in my pelvis head first) which is a positive because then I probably won't go into labor but I have no idea what i'm in for.

The next couple weeks are probably going to be pretty crazy but we're going to try to keep it as relaxed as possible and spend a lot of time together since pretty soon we won't be alone anymore.

Please keep your fingers crossed for us that she does make the turn to head down. We'll keep everyone in the loop if she does flip! That will be an exciting moment which will be followed by me doing about a million jumping jacks so that she gets wedged in there and can't flip back!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy new year!

10 Things :: Link Up :: Volume 3

Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday! I am off work until January 3rd! woo hoo!

1 :: Christmas

I cannot believe it's christmas weekend. Time in December has almost literally flown by. I had a lot of christmas stuff to accomplish at the beginning of the week and got most of it done last night. Final gifts and finishing the wrapping of those gifts make the tree complete. We can't wait to spend the weekend with our families and celebrate this awesome time of year. Next year will be even more exciting with a little one and I'm sure we'll be thinking about that a lot this year as we go through our days!

2 :: Baby

After posting Do I Have a Breech Baby? the other day I'm feeling less stressed about the situation. I honestly feel that the midwife was wrong and that I am right and I'm going to go ahead and trust my instinct on this. I slept like a baby last night and I attribute that to the fact that I wasn't worrying. Less than 5 weeks to go!

3 :: The Holidays at Work

This tends to bring out the goodies, aka sugar. It's really good that I didn't do any baking this year. On Tuesday we had cake twice in one day! I didn't have the 2nd piece. It will be very nice to have the week following Christmas off of work to focus on baby stuff for a while and try to prep as much as possible so I can relax the last three weeks before her due date.

4 :: Ping Pong

We are just LOVING the ping pong table that Alex's parents got to keep at our house for holidays and get togethers. Sunday night, I beat Alex in best of 7 .. which is super surprising because he is really good at ping pong. I guess this just means that I'm getting better! We need to get all the ping pong playing in that we can before baby girl comes, I don't think we'll have much time for that after she arrives. We're looking forward to this weekend as well when Alex's family comes in so we can have another tournament or two or three or four!!!!

5 :: Maternity Picture

I'll just throw one of these in here. I've already prepped a post to go up on Monday with more pictures from our entire shoot. I cannot share them before Christmas because of a gift sensitive matter. We are still super excited with how they turned out though.

6 :: Pinterest

I've recently dabbled less in the world of Pinterest. The craziness of the holidays have just sent me in a different direction. However I have some new pins I would like to share!

- Pin1 - Pin2 - Pin3 - Pin4 -

Doesn't Pin 1 look like a blast for a little boy? Pin 2 is candy.. yep.. candy jewels! Pin 3 just looks really easy and cute! And Pin 4 is an awesome idea for any party to get pictures of all of your guests!

7 :: Nursery Prints

I am loving this print I found through another pin from pinterest. I don't know yet if it will fit in the nursery but if I could get it in a magenta/purple mix, it just might. I might have to do a variation of my own and print it myself. We'll see how it goes. But isn't it sweet?

8 :: Christmas with children

Just a random idea that I'm sure there's a pin for but I have yet to see it. 12 days of christmas for kids. A countdown with gifts starting 12 days before christmas. Could be easy if you find really small trinkets or what not to give them multiples of.

9 :: Slow Burn

This throat burn is going to be the death of me. And that's all I'm going to say.

10 :: Happy Holidays

I'll say it again, Happy Holidays! This is the best time of year. Five days after Christmas I will celebrate turning 27 followed by a sure to be awesome New Years Eve! 2012 is going to be the best yet!

Photo Dump

This begins with Thanksgiving (GASP!) i know.. sorry it's so late. :)

Next up, Christmas Tree hunting!!

 

 

Random Stuff like making Homemade Marshmallows, our decorated Christmas Tree

and our contribution to the McHenry Christmas Party!

Lastly, a bare belly! I had Alex take this for documentation of 35 weeks!

5 weeks left.. whhat?

Please excuse the poor lighting and lack of tree skirt!

Can anyone even believe that there are 5 weeks or less until I hold a baby girl in my arms that Alex and I made? We kinda can't!

She's supposed to be the weight of a honeydew melon this week. So that's about 5 lbs or so. And still working around 18 or 19 inches long. She's very active and though she makes it a little uncomfortable to change positions while sleeping, she's totally worth it.

What else is happening? Well, I still haven't really organized the stuff we got from the baby shower. I need to figure out where to put things.. like how to store all the hooded towels and tiny wash clothes (my bathroom or hers?) how to organize the clothing in the closet/dresser, where to put the gear we won't use for a couple of months, etc. It's all quietly sitting in the living room sorted into different bags while I sit in another room writing thank you notes (over halfway done!).

Sunday, my first attempt at using homemade stencils on the wall didn't go quite as planned. Spray adhesive is quite sticky if you didn't know. Therefore, I am letting them dry for a while and I will attempt it again later this week. I also wish they sold tiny bottles of spray paint (do they?) and I also might succumb to a white paint marker. This doesn't solve the problem for the pink flowers but i'll cross that bridge when I come to it! I still think it's going to turn out really nice. Also Sunday, Alex and I hung up the shelf and the butterfly frame which is pretty exciting. I need to print a couple of images for the other smaller frames I have but I already know what I'm going to print, which makes it easier. Not too much left to do in the Nursery other than organize and set it all up the way we want.

Last night we 'watched' that Ricki Lake documentary, The Business of being Born. I say 'watched' because we were doing other things while it was on the TV (like writing thank you notes for me and the hunting app for Alex). I went into it knowing that it was a documentary that would try to express the negative connotations associated with giving birth in a hospital as opposed to a home birth. Intervention (such as medication) vs No Intervention. I took it all with a grain of salt. I did learn some interesting facts and it will probably have a small influence on the way I want my birth plan to go (as much as I can control anyway). For instance, I definitely want to steer clear of drugs as much as possible. I am allowing the option of getting an epidural at some point if it becomes unbearable but I hope I don't have to go there. From the way the documentary showed, the nurses are all about speeding up your labor through medical intervention, etc.. If all goes as kind of planned, I won't even be heading to the hospital until the pain is unbearable (unless something weird happens like my water breaks and it's been 24 hours or something and I'm still not progressing) which will leave little room for them to even need to progress the labor for me using drugs. A main thing I want to be able to do is be up and moving around. I don't want to be lying in a hospital bed in pain. I want to be moving and I don't want to deliver a baby lying on my back without the help of gravity. This is all probably a little bit TMI but who's blog is this?

Anyway, she's still growing and I'm still feeling good (other than the stress of whether or not she's breech). I can definitely stand being pregnant another 5 weeks so keep on cooking baby girl!

Life without DirecTV

Welp, we did it.

We recently got rid of DirecTV and switched to only streaming. We're starting with Netflix and Hulu Plus.

In our first week without actual TV.. we didn't missed it. Possibly because we were too busy cleaning. But this is the life we'll probably lead once baby girl arrives. No time for TV, at least not live TV, only time for streaming episodes of things we've missed. Therefore this is perfect.

Let me break it down cost wise so you can see the differences.

DirecTV for the choice package, plus HD, plus DVR was a little over $100 a month.

Verizon DSL was $39.99/month.

Total: about $140/mo

Now, we're with Comcast internet at the intro rate of $29.99/mo for 6 months and Netflix which after the trial will cost $7.99/mo and Hulu Plus which is $7.99/mo.

New Total: $46

Therefore we went from $140/mo to about $46/mo .. savings? About $100. Cha-ching!

Something we need to decide though is how we plan to stream this. Currently we're using my iPad. We're not sure if we're going to get another box that can stream it for us (like a PS3/Roku/GoogleTV) because they all have different features and we're just not sure enough to purchase anything. All we know is, this is working out so far. We watch far less TV and it's just been great.

One tiny struggle is, we don't know if we'll keep Netflix instant streaming after the trial or switch to the DVD by mail service. The instant streaming doesn't really have much more we want to watch. Alex will be finishing Sons of Anarchy soon and we already watched most of the Party Down series. I know there's more out there but I just can't get into it for some reason. We'll see what happens.

Into the future we go..

Do i have a breech baby??

At my 34 week appointment, the midwife was having a tough time determining whether the baby was breech or not. She concluded that she was. All that time, I thought it was her butt in the air but the midwife said it was her head.

This has caused me a lot of stress over the past week. I have been working daily with different positions to try to get that big bump to move around to the 'correct' spot. I think about it constantly. Good thing I don't worry about other things like this.. I can't imagine a life filled with worry.

Regardless, since I am worried.. I have been reading a lot about position and movement and how to tell what position your baby is in. Almost all signs point to head down even though the midwife concluded breech.

#1 hiccups- These are and have been for the most part in the lower left side of my tummy. Hiccups come from the mouth and though they do tend to shake her whole body if I watch, I always put my hand down low to feel them on the outside. This makes me think that's where her head is when she's hiccuping, aka head down.

#2 rib kicking- These could not possibly come from her hands punching me. She kicks or moves up there and it feels like she's trying to get her feet stuck between my ribs. The only way her legs could be up there is if she's head down.

#3 lower belly movement- This is not common. If her feet were down there and she were actually breech, I do believe I would feel the kicking that is associated with that. Mostly all I feel are small flutters, which i'm assuming are her hands. Again, this points to head down.

#4 anterior placenta- My placenta is in the front on the left hand side. This could make it difficult for the doctor/midwife to locate where she is. It's obvious that she hasn't 'dropped' or settled into my pelvis yet but I think I would know when that would happen (breech or not) because of the pressure, which I did feel a couple of weeks ago.

One week from today, I will have an ultrasound to tell us whether she is head down or not. That is the only way we'll know for sure. I'm really hoping that the midwife was wrong and she has been head down all along. If that's the case then this has caused a lot of unnecessary stress but if it isn't the case and the midwife was right, at least I have been working on it for the past two weeks and not just sitting around accepting it.

Mommy & Baby :: Wants and Needs

Brown Knit Booties 1 & 2 : Baby Clutching Toy : Ring thing : Sophie : Felt Shoes

Itzbeen Timer : Mittens : First Aid Kit : Birthing Ball : Pack N Play : FuzziBunz Diapers