38 Weeks & Such...

Good news and bad news....The good news, well, very good news is that the baby is healthy, and has a big ol' head which hopefully means he is already smarter than his parents :)

The bad news is that this big head of his has prevented him from flipping back around, which means that we had to schedule a c-section.

Our little baby will be born January 11th, 2012, sometime after 12:00pm.

My blood pressure was a little high again, but went down after laying on my side. I've been destined for "bed rest", laying on my left side as much as possible...So I guess it's a good thing that my last day of work was on Thursday!

I wish there were words to describe how I feel about all of this, because that would make it much easier, but for now, all I do when I start to think about it is cry. It's not how I imagined things would happen, and it is the furthest from how I wanted things to go. I know that I just have to come to terms with it, and that as soon as the baby is in my arms I will have completely forgotten about this shitty feeling, but for now, here it is...

I know that things could be much, much worse, and I really need to be counting my blessings rather than keep focusing on the negative, so here are some of the positive things I am holding on to right now:

1. Our baby is healthy.
2. At our last non-stress test, where I was hooked up to fetal heart rate monitors, Ryan and I realized that whenever the baby can hear Ryan's voice, his heart starts to race by more than 10 beats (eg from 151 to 170). Knowing that he recognizes his daddy's voice makes me smile.
3. Feeling the baby move around, now that he is big enough to recognize certain movements, is such a weird/crazy/cool/creepy/amazing feeling. When he was positioned the other way, I could feel his feet sticking out sometimes and that was awesome.
4. Because his head is so big, I'm sure that in the long-run I will be glad I don't have to push that out...
5. We could have a miracle and he could decide to flip and I could go into labor naturally (this one is a stretch, but....hey, we all hold on to something...)
6. There is a light to the end of this tunnel, no matter what, the baby will be here in just over a week - meaning no head digging into my ribs, no peeing over 20 times a day, and 10 times per night!
7. Ryan has been perfect through all of this, and he just knows exactly what to do and say to make me feel better. I wish I had proof of his attempts to cheer me up yesterday evening...haha.
8. I have the best family and friends ever, all of which have been 100% supportive, I love you all :)
9. Knowing exactly when the baby will be here will make it a lot easier for family to plan their travel to come and visit.
10. I do not have pre eclampsia.

2011 was filled with complete insanity, Lord only knows what 2012 has in store! Here are some highlights from my (and some of Ryan's) 2011:

January: Ryan started Marine Combat Training at Camp Pendleton (end of December) after completion, Ryan moved to Fort Gordon, GA.
February: I traveled to Boise to visit one of my best friends!
March: I had a huge fundraising event at work (in Tacoma). Ryan was busy with his MOS training.
April: I traveled to Georgia to see Ryan at his MOS School.
May: I turned 23, Ryan moved to Camp Pendleton, I gave notice at my job of my plans to move to CA.
June: Ryan turned 25, I came to visit him in San Diego and we got engaged! Found out we were expecting Gavin. Ryan and I moved into our first apartment in Fallbrook.
July: Ryan and I got married on July 1st!
August: Started my job at Ivey Ranch. Found out that we are having a boy!
September: I traveled to Montana for a good friends wedding! Ryan went on a 2 wk Field Op. Ryan traveled up to Seattle to visit his brother Chris who was home for a few weeks from Afghanistan.
October: My parents drove down to visit and bring an extra car home. 
November: Ryan and I were able to go home for Thanksgiving and we had our baby shower.
December: Ryan had another 2-3 week Field Op. Ryan and I moved into a bigger apartment.

Happy New Year, Everyone!

37 Weeks (Updated)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Everyone!!

Even though it was a pretty big bummer not to be with all of our family this year for Christmas, Ryan and I had a very good Christmas! First of all, thank you to everyone who sent gifts, cards, and pictures! I have to go out and buy more magnets so I can  hang all of the family pictures we got! All of the love and support that Ryan and I have been getting is so overwhelming and words cannot even begin to express how grateful and thankful we are!

On Christmas Eve, Ryan and I had a few of his single Marine friends over. They will be deploying overseas soon and had already taken their leave to go see family for Thanksgiving so we invited them over to our house for dinner. We went all out and had turkey, stuffing, potatoes, green bean casserole and I even make an espresso chocolate mousse cheesecake (ps. it was AMAZING). Ryan and I did our own little celebration on Dec. 23rd, because we didn't want to open presents in front of his friends, that would have been a little awkward...We watched several movies and lounged around on the 24th and 25th, it was very nice.

On December 23rd, we had our 36/37 week check-up and found out that the baby has decided it would be cool to flip around...making him breach. I am 100% not thrilled with this news. We have three options: 1.) By December 30th he flips on his own naturally, 2.) We do an external cephalic version (ECV) where the doctor attempts to flip the baby by applying pressure on the outside of the stomach. This is a little more risky as it can cause the umbilical cord to get wrapped around the neck, which would cause for an emergency c-section. It is not guaranteed that they could even get him to budge. Lastly we have option 3.) Schedule a c-section. I pray that he just decides to flip on his own because the other two options are not ideal. Our doctor said we are a good candidate for the ECV because the baby has a lot of fluid to move around and isn't too large. I really, really, really, really do not want to have a C-Section and for like a million different reasons. Some of those being: -I didn't even want an IV let alone to have an epidural, so I would be forced to have one. -It is a major surgery. -I wanted as little medical intervention as possible (I really don't trust doctors...like at all...). -I've carried this baby for 9 months, I want to be the first one to hold him, not see him held at me over a surgical screen. -The recovery for a c-section is much longer than a natural delivery, and to add insult to the million of stretch marks I've added, I get to add a huge ass scar. The news of possibly having to schedule a C-Section was absolutely devastating to me, in fact, I tear up even thinking about it. A C-Section was never even an option for me (unless it was literally an emergency), so I've been having trouble dealing with it. But, whatever we have to do, we have to do, but that doesn't mean I have to like it....

For the most part, I am still feeling really good. My back has been hurting a lot and I am just overall uncomfortable, all of which is pretty normal for this time. I am just so ready to have this baby!!!

As promised here are some updates to the nursery (still not 100% done but close!!):

 We got this glider from a lady on craiglist. It literally saved us a couple hundred dollars and is like brand new! We were in Babies R Us looking at gliders and thinking how ridiculous it was, so I decided to check out our used online options and found this from a lady in San Diego that was trying to get rid of it to make space in her son's room. It was a steal and definitely worth the drive down to get it!

The layout is finally the way I want it! I just have some things that need to be put away and my mom is sending down all the bedding that I will primarily be using. The swing(s) will most likely be moved into the living room eventually. 

The start of my decorating. These are photos from the book, Where the Wild Things Are which is the theme we chose. I am pretty happy with how these turned out, as time goes on, I will add more around it...

36 Weeks

This past week was very interesting filled with another trip to the hospital, lasting only an hour to be sent home, high blood pressure, really low blood pressure, bed rest, no bed rest....uff da!

At our appointment on Wednesday, my blood pressure was high again, so they sent us over to the hospital to be monitored. Same thing, as soon as I got there everything was fine and they sent us home. This time the doctor didn't want me to go back to work until after I saw her and scheduled another appointment for Friday. On Friday my blood pressure was fine and I was given the go ahead to go back to work. I am pretty sure that my raised blood pressure was mainly stress related and also high due to the fact that I hate our doctors office...the staff there are so dumb and there is always something wrong with our scheduled appointment time. Anyways, I am considered high risk at this point, regardless to how accurate I think that is, and I can only schedule appointments with an actual doctor (no Nurse Practitioners for me) and will be going in every week from here on out.

I've started feeling Braxton Hicks contractions, and have been increasingly more uncomfortable....definitely feeling 8 months pregnant that is for sure. The baby is probably about six pounds now and over eighteen inches long. He is head down, thank goodness! He is still positioned really high, and hasn't dropped yet, so hopefully he gets on that. He has also been favoring my left side and is balled up towards my left lung. Silly baby.

I have been dreaming of all the things I get to do once again once I am no longer pregnant, like sleep on my stomach, easily get up, put on clothes without sitting down first, eat anything without being worried about heartburn....just like the good ole' days.

We've made some progress in the nursery, I'll try and post some pictures later!

35 Weeks

We are getting into the last stretch! Yesterday marked 35 weeks, and based on ultra sound measurements we might be closer to 36 weeks. I've been closely monitored because of my high blood pressure and was "diagnosed" with gestational hypertension (high blood pressure while pregnant), which I am taking medication for. The main thing that they are watching for is preeclampsia, so I have a list of symptoms to be on the watch for and was told if I get any of them to call right away. So on Saturday, I woke up with a really bad headache (symptom #1) that I couldn't get to go away. Throughout the day my hands and feet started to swell a little bit (symptoms #s 2 & 3) so decided to call the doctor and was advised to go into labor and delivery at the hospital...again...

I do not know a ton about preeclampsia, but what I do know is that they will deliver you pretty much immediately if you are diagnosed with it after 33 weeks. Being 35 weeks, I started to panic a little bit thinking that there might be a chance of having the baby! Ryan and I looked in the nursery and hardly anything is set up, the crib wasn't put together, none of the clothes have been washed, we don't have any diaper wipes, basically we had an "oh shit" moment. So Ryan hustled and put the crib together while I packed my bag for the hospital (just in case they decided to keep me). We headed out and I was admitted and my first blood pressure reading was pretty high at 159/90, I was readjusted and then all my readings from there on out were close to 136/69, etc. So luckily that stopped a lot of the alarms because I wasn't running constant high blood pressure numbers. I am on medication to regulate my blood pressure, so it was strange that I would have that high of a reading to start with, so who knows why that happened. After just an hour in the hospital, they decided to discharge me and was instructed to go to the doctor this week (which we have an appointment for Wednesday anyways). I have an icky feeling that they are going to try to get me on bed rest, which would be like a death sentence to me, but we'll just have to wait and see!

I have fully entered into nesting mode and have been working really hard at getting things ready in the nursery. Last night I washed most of the baby clothes, sorted and hung them by size color coded by hanger. I assembled a baby bath and put away blankets, extra sheets, etc. 

So I leave you with these:

Our crib! I plan on moving it to the other wall. Or...correction, I plan on having Ryan move it to the other wall :)

Yeah, we might have a problem on our hands...For some reason I don't think that Miss Kitty will adjust very well to the baby...

Ugh. I can't believe I am even putting any pictures up here, I feel like a whale. But here is my 35 week picture. Uhm, enjoy? 

Rather than copying and pasting from the babycenter.com which I usually do, I can tell you that the baby is now about 20 inches long and weighs about 5 1/2 to 6 lbs. Crazy!

 

Pictures! Finally!

Nursery Update...Slowly but surely:

Top: During move in. Bottom: About a week after moving, starting to assemble baby items.

Here are some pictures of our living room, more pictures to come...still a few things yet to get put away.

It was really hard to get a good picture, so this is the best I could get!

Hallway leading from living room to the two bedrooms.

Miss Diva.

While Ryan was out on a field op, Miss Kitty thought that meant she got the other half of the bed, even using a pillow to rest her head. She is so spoiled.

So much to do, so little time!!!

1. Get the last of the thank you letters mailed out.
2. Wash and put away baby clothes
3. Watch Ryan assemble crib...probably smirk and laugh when he gets frustrated because he didn't follow the directions. Make snarky remark when he dings or scratches it with a tool on accident.
4. Watch Ryan move my vanity set into the nursery - repeat steps listed above.
5. Thank Ryan for being the best husband there ever was and offer to make him cookies for being so awesome :)
6. Buy diapers and wipes
7. Buy more hangers (seriously this kid has more clothes than both Ryan and I combined)
8. Buy diaper rash cream, baby medicine, etc. 
9. Try and keep my blood pressure down............ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
10. Buy a glider or rocking chair.
11. Pick-out a coming home outfit.
12. Make schedule with families for visitation rights. (hahaha!)
13. Choose a day to start my maternity leave.
14. Buy food for our Christmas Eve/Day Dinner
15. Freak out about being a parent in less than one month.
16. Buy diaper bag, or see if I have a large purse that would work (let's be real, I probably do).
17. Pack bag for the hospital.
18. Make sure I have all the phone numbers ready to keep everyone updated at hospital. 
19. Apartment cleaned and all unpacked and organized.
20. Try and enjoy time with Ryan, as it will be our last moments as just the two of us. (Ok, just the thought of this made me a little emotional...we're definitely in the third trimester, people!)

34 Weeks & The Move (one of them...)

Well we are officially in our new apartment! I don't think I've ever been so tired in my life! Don't worry, I wasn't lifting anything too heavy, just taking a lot of little trips back and forth was exhausting in itself. I started off the day full of energy and ended waddling like an elderly penguin. Ryan seems to take delight in imitating my occasional waddle...he's so sweet. One of my really good friends, and Ryan's cousin (I guess they are friends too :) ) came down from Odessa and was there to help us move! His help was simply amazing, I kept telling him all week that I felt like I owed him a million dollars for being there to help us.

Now that we have an actual room for the nursery and our stuff isn't stacked to the ceiling in our living room (it seriously was...), I am starting to unpack and get stuff ready for the baby!! I am definitely starting to feel the "nesting" thing that people talk about. It is going to take a lot of work to get it ready and I need to wait for Ryan to set up the crib, but I'll try and put update pictures along the way. Here it is at a starting point, with about 1/4 of the boxes moved in:

This is a picture of the nursery, from the window. Miss Kitty, the current baby of the family.

This is a picture of the nursery from the doorway/bathroom. More to come!

I saw this "You Know You're In the Third Trimester When...." post on facebook and thought I would share a couple that are very true to me right now...very funny!

• You get into an argument with your husband about how to temporarily rearrange the furniture to accommodate the Christmas tree and it ends with you in tears. Apparently it’s that important to you. Or, more likely, it’s the hormones. (Haha...this totally happened, luckily no tears though!)
• You bend over to tie your shoes and realize you can’t. If you spread your legs really far apart, you can sort of bend over and let your belly hang between them, but it’s not pretty...(I laugh at myself every time I try to bend over...)
• You start to get really protective of your personal/free time, preferring to hunker down in your home with your family over pretty much any social engagement. You worry you look like a grouchy hermit, but then you remember that you can always play the Pregnancy Card and be forgiven just about everything.
• You start feeling really sappy about everything and want to send letters and emails to pretty much everyone you know, telling them how important they are to you. Except, being a totally random gesture, that would probably weird them out, so you drop the idea and eat a big bowl of ice cream instead.
• You spend twenty minutes slowly rolling around, readjusting pillows, and audibly grunting in an attempt to get comfortable in bed and ease the pain in your hips... only to realize that you have to pee. Again. (UGH! This is the STORY OF MY LIFE!!!!!!)
• You complain about how much the baby is kicking your bladder or ribs or how uncomfortable it is when s/he stretches out in all directions at once, simultaneously taking your breath away and making you double over in discomfort. Then you feel guilty for wishing your healthy, active baby moved less and burst into tears for being such a terrible, ungrateful person. 
• You realize that you are just a weeks shy of being officially “full-term” and that sometime in the next few weeks you are going to have a newborn to care for.  And you’ll be leaving a job you love to stay at home again. And everything is changing. Depending on the moment, this either makes you elated (Pregnancy will be over! So many new great things will happen!) or absolutely f-ing terrified. And sad. And you burst into tears.

Alright, well I am going to get back to my snack of canned corn with pepper and chocolate ice cream.

Ryan and I at the beach in Carlsbad.

Our first little Christmas Tree! :)

A picture we used for the baby shower.

Baby Shower & 33 Weeks *Important Note*

First of all, thank you to everyone who attended, planned, and/or sent gifts to Ryan and I for our baby! We are so thankful, to have so many amazing people in our lives! The only thing I regret is not being able to say hello and/or talk to everyone who came!

I actually didn't get any pictures from the baby shower, so hopefully anyone who did can send them to me? I stole this one from Ryan's mom, Sue! (Thanks Sue :) )

Ryan and I before the Baby Shower, he only stayed for a few minutes, he was a brave man to even enter that room in the first place!

Ryan and I will be moving apartments on Thursday/Friday, so we will be in #21 instead of #70, as an FYI. If you have already shipped something, let me know and I will keep my eye out for it to make sure that we get it! I am going to set up mail forwarding at the post office, and will look into if UPS does something similar to make sure we get all our bases covered.

The past week went by pretty well, we had a minor "scare" I guess on Wednesday when we went to our 32 week checkup. My blood pressure was very high, so after checking it a couple times at the clinic they decided that I needed to go over to Labor & Delivery at the hospital to be monitored. Our doctor wasn't very optimistic about us being able to travel for Thanksgiving and warned us that this might mean bed rest...Of course, this didn't help my blood pressure any and I was immediately in tears. Ryan, being the amazing guy that he is, remained calm (one of us has to right?) and drove us over, called my mom, and kept saying everything was going to be fine. He was 100% right because by the time I was hooked up to the external fetal monitor and BP monitor, my levels were completely normal. The kept me for about an hour or so, took some blood work and monitored my blood pressure and the baby's heart rate periodically. In fact, by the time we were about to leave, I was so relaxed that the alarms were going off on the monitor that my blood pressure was too low. When the blood work came back normal, I was released and given permission to travel, with the expectation that I would come back to the clinic for a follow-up appointment as soon as I get back.  Whew!

Hopefully by this time next week I will have a couple of nursery pictures and new apartment pics to share! I am not looking forward to moving but I am looking forward to set up and put away all of our fun new baby stuff! 

8 months....only a little over 1 to go

We have our next doctors appointment on Wednesday, and I assume that from here on out we will be going either every other week or even once a week. I wish we could get another ultra sound but I don't think they do that until the last week or so, if at all. The baby has been good, as far as I can tell, and has been as active as ever. I think he is the most active at night, sometimes it will either wake me up, or keep me from sleeping. I've been having a difficult time sleeping, mostly because I have to either move around so much, which is getting more and more difficult, or because I have to wake up to pee every 1 to 2 hours (seriously 6 times a night at least...). Bending over is getting to be a challenge, and I was laughing at myself trying to tie my shoes this afternoon. On the bright side though, I have been able to feel the baby's feet and knees pushing out which has been really cool and slightly weird and Ryan has been able to feel more movement as well. I can't believe we are going to be parents in just over a month, it is so surreal.

Ryan and I went to the Marine Corp Ball last night which was at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, CA. We drove up with a couple of Ryan's friends. It was a celebration of the Marine Corp Birthday, they had a ceremony and a couple speeches and then a "fancy" catered dinner. It was nice to meet a lot of the people that Ryan works with and fun to get dressed up for the night, although my feet still hurt from the heels I was wearing...I guess that's what I get for being 8 months preggo and wearing 3 1/2 inch heels for 7 hours.

 Ryan and I at the cocktail hour at the Marine Corp Ball on 11/19

 Saying that I am married isn't really weird to me anymore, but being a Mrs. is....

(More pictures from the ball and more can be found here.)

We are heading up north for Thanksgiving, which we are both SO FREAKING excited about. Although, before we leave I suppose I should begin packing up our apartment a little bit (insert my sarcastic excited face here). We move into the new place on the 1st, luckily it's only across the parking lot, so we won't have to pack up the entire apartment as we can just carry most of the stuff as is. The two best things I can think of moving are a.) finally getting to set up a nursery and b.) getting the hell away from our freaking neighbors and their yippy f-ing dogs; the neighbors who live in one-bedroom just like us, but have at least 6 people living there, who have at least three dogs, who slam their doors and decide to be loud starting at 8pm.

31 Weeks

Only 9 more weeks to go!

Well, most of the symptoms that I had in the first trimester are back...the headaches, queasiness/nausea (luckily, not as bad as before), among with backache and pain in my hips/pelvis. I've been a lot more tired as well, but for the most part holding up pretty well. I've been sleeping pretty well, so I hope that keeps up for a little while longer!

Ryan and I move into the new apartment on Dec. 1st, and I can't wait. I am very excited to get everything put together and start to feel like we are at least a little prepared. Our living room is starting to look more like a storage unit, we have the crib, mattress, play yard, three boxes of clothes/misc supplies, box of diapers and a Christmas tree still in the box all stacked to the ceiling in the corner. I can't remember if I said this last week or not, but Ryan and I finally bought our first baby item, a little onsie from the GAP...of course...it says 50% like mommy, 50% like daddy, 100% AWESOME. Super cute.

This week went by incredibly fast. Ryan had a "three" day work week, with holiday for the Marine Corp Birthday and Veteran's Day however he got stuck with being on duty for 24 hours from Friday am to Saturday am. That was pretty lame, as it is his third or fourth time getting duty for 24 hours while others haven't even had it yet. But...oh well, what can you do? At work for me, we had a huge project going on, and I ended up working some ridiculous hours as well. We both slept in until 10am this morning, which hasn't happened, ever since being down here, it was very nice and much needed!

The baby has been good, and is getting bigger by the day. I keep wondering how he is going to get any bigger because there is no room at the inn! He has been really active and hasn't been kicking the ribs or internal organs too bad (yet)!

We've both been in the holiday mood lately, and I've been trying my best to at least have our apartment feel like fall. We have some yummy fall candles and just bought a couple more today. Right now our apartment smells like apple cider and this delicious bread.

30 Weeks - Only 10 to go...

You know, to be honest, for such a mile-marker week, I don't really have much to update! I wish I had fun nursery pictures to share, or something like that, but that will just have to wait a couple more weeks! Ryan and I went to Babies R Us on Saturday to pick out a glider/rocking chair, and I showed Ryan the stroller that my parents are going to get us.

November is going to be a very busy month! Ryan gets a four day weekend this week, as he gets the Marine Corp Birthday off as well as Veteran's Day. I have a huge project at work this week, The Home Depot Foundation is bringing in over 100 employees to do a couple volunteer projects on our property and of course this is happening when my boss is on vacation- so I am heading the project up... Then we have the Marine Corp Ball coming up, and good news, I finally got a dress to wear! I thought it was going to be this horrendous shopping experience, filled with tears and many expletives, but I literally found it at the first store, the first try-on. Also, it was on sale and I saved almost $70.00, boo-ya! And the week after that we are coming home for Thanksgiving!!!

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How your baby's growing:

Your baby's about 15.7 inches long now, and she weighs almost 3 pounds (like a head of cabbage). A pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds her, but that volume will decrease as she gets bigger and takes up more room in your uterus. Her eyesight continues to develop, though it's not very keen; even after she's born, she'll keep her eyes closed for a good part of the day. When she does open them, she'll respond to changes in light but will have 20/400 vision — which means she can only make out objects a few inches from her face. (Normal adult vision is 20/20.)