Curious

I was wondering what our little BO'B widget would do when I passed my due date... now we're counting up, apparently.  

Note

Due date feels like any other day. 

Awaiting Arrival

Due date is tomorrow, yet we still have no sign of labor. We are now visiting the doctor twice a week and he may induce next Tuesday if the little one still refuses to show himself.

In the meantime here are some stolen moments from the ultrasound. Zee says he looks like me. I hope he favors his mother.



Zee has gathered a lot of suggestions for how to encourage our son--many of which seem to involve baked goods. She experienced a number of strong contractions whilst shopping at Value City this afternoon, so perhaps further adventures in egregious frugality will expedite this process.

Fingers crossed.

Still No Kid

You'll notice the widget to your right says "5 days."  Well, at our last appointment the doctor made me feel like I'm actually going backwards!  Still 50% effaced, but the kid apparently isn't yet "engaged" in my pelvis. And there's nothing else going on that might indicate impending birth. He's just happy as a clam in there. A friend whose due date was 1 day before mine already has her precious little girl, and I am nothing short of insanely envious.  My sister tells me that she had no signs of impending delivery until she went into labor. A friend was dilated to 1 cm for 3 weeks. Yet another friend's delivery seemed far-off until her water suddenly broke. 

All I can say is that these last weeks feel ETERNAL. Any suggestions how to coax this kid out???

Ordeal

During an otherwise lovely visit to Grand Rapids, where all of my siblings and my dad and step-mom had the very rare and wonderful opportunity to hang out together, I had a little scare. As I tried to go to sleep, my heart started to skip beats, beat very quickly and/or very slowly, and sometimes pound, sometimes barely beat at all. It was all over the place.  I waited about 2 hours, hoping the trick my uncle taught me (he's a doctor) would work. Nope. So I called my OB and she said that I needed to go to the hospital. Right about the time we left for the hospital my heart rate regularized, but was still beating pretty fast. So Jeanne took me to the nearest ER.

Thankfully, having a giant pregnant belly gets one treated pretty quickly in the ER. We heard Ciaran's heartbeat -- strong and healthy (whew!), then geared up for some tests. They thought there was a possibility I had a  blood clot, apparently not uncommon (but still dangerous) during pregnancy. So I was hooked up to a heart monitor, and then had an EKG. There were two potential abnormalities, so they ordered a chest X-ray and a nuclear test where they (gulp) injected radioactive material into my blood and took pictures of my blood flow between my heart and lungs. 

As a very important side-note, all of these procedures were safe for the baby, especially as I am considered full-term. The radiation I had was less than a CAT Scan, and they halved the dose to make it even safer. And the ER doctor consulted my OB, so I felt okay about getting this all done -- well, as okay as I could.

The good news is all the tests came back normal. The bad news is they still don't know what the heck caused the irregularities in the first place.  Hopefully it won't come back... I don't have to know what it was as long as I don't have to go through that again! 

So I pulled an all-nighter, slept until lunch, and plan on a good night sleep tonight.

Nursery

For any of you curious enough to get a video tour of the nursery... here it is! (Along with a great clip of Chris Thile music.)

37 Weeks

This is what 37 weeks pregnant looks like -- at least on me.

I'm also standing in Ciaran's nursery which, incidentally, is DONE!

You'll also notice that my hair is also nearly gone, which feels oh-so-good in the hot weather, and takes about 2.2 seconds to "do."

We went to the doctor, and Ciaran is still head-down, but not engaged (meaning that his head still float when the doctor checks my cervix). And there's absolutely no indication whatsoever that he wants to come out of my uterus any time soon. Being that I'm officially "full term," this is a little disconcerting for me, as I get more unwieldy and uncomfortable by the day. But as long as he's happy, I'm happy (with the possible exception of last night, when he was happily kicking me in the ribs while I was trying to get to sleep!).

Ah, the joys of pregnancy.

My Little Acrobat

Well, it's happened again... Ciaran flipped back to head-down!  We're very relieved, and pleased with the apparent acrobatic ability of our son. Today during the ultrasound he grabbed his foot, as if to show it off to the camera -- very cute. And we got good head shots for the first time too!  

According to the measurements (which are notoriously off, but still...) he is 6 pounds 12 ounces and is measuring a week ahead. If he makes it to term, we're looking at a solid 8-9 pound kid. Yikes.  And, being that there is no dilation as of yet, it looks like making it to term is a decent bet!

In other good, but completely unrelated, news: we got our first fresh-from-the-farm produce delivery today! Tons of strawberries, a pint each of bing cherries and blackberries, some pickling cucumbers, and a bunch of zucchini and summer squash... yum.  If you see me in the next two days, my hands and all around my face will likely be stained a beautiful, bright red.