37 Week Doctor's Appointment

Thank goodness.  I'm almost done with all these doctor's appointments.

Dave was instructed to attend this appointment with me, so we knew it was an important one.  The doctor talked to us at length about labor and delivery and our options.  Since we had taken the childbirth classes at the hospital, we felt comfortable with everything that was being said.  The high risk doctor had not yet sent over the results from Tuesday's ultrasound, but we filled in the blanks of just how big the baby is.  She decided that maybe going to my due date is not such a good idea.

Then it was time for the measurements.  Everything was normal - weight, blood pressure, belly, and thankfully, I was a whopping 1/2 cm dilated. 

At the end of the appointment with the doctor's approval, our induction was scheduled.  This is both exciting and nerve wracking.  We're happy it's all coming to an end and we're finally going to meet the little devil, but the anticipation of having an actual date and knowing how it will all come to an end makes me a little nervous.

Except for our immediate families and our bosses, we have decided to keep our induction date to ourselves.  We don't want our phones and Facebook blowing up when the date does come. 

Last Ultrasound Picture

I don't know how well you can see this picture.  I didn't scan the picture; I took a picture of it with my phone.  Plus the baby's so big that it's hard to get a good picture.  This is a picture of the face.  You can see at least one eye open, along with the baby's pudgy cheeks and big lips.  Next pictures of the kiddo will be the real deal.

Little Girl, Big Baby

Our last ultrasound was approximately six weeks ago.  That was supposed to be our last ultrasound but because of the size of the baby (head was 99th percentile with the overall size about 76th percentile) the high risk doctor decided to do another ultrasound.  This ultrasound will supposedly determine if we should be induced early.  We had that ultrasound earlier this morning.

This ultrasound wasn't really about looking at all the parts and taking measurements, it was more about seeing the size of the head, the size of the body, and determining approximately the weight of the baby currently knowing we have three weeks left and the baby would gain about a 1/2 pound per week until the end. 

The first measurement was the head and it was still in the 97-99th percentile range and exactly at 40 weeks.  That's gonna hurt!  We were really surprised to see how much hair the little bug had.  Dave and I were both blonde babies and I fully expected to have a bald baby.  Guess I'll have to pack a brush for the hospital so kiddo takes good pictures. 

The next measurement was the amniotic fluid.  We don't exactly know what the number means but the amniotic fluid was at 18cm.  That's at the high end of normal.  The good news is that not only am I losing the weight of the baby when I give birth, I have a lot of fluid that I'll be losing too. 

Lastly was the belly measurement.  The belly was also measuring at 40 weeks and in the 99th percentile.  Good gosh this is a big baby! 

The shoulders were measured too to make sure they weren't too big to get out and luckily, they were normal sized.

Overall, this baby is big.  Really big.  The measurements have us at 39 weeks plus.  The baby is currently weighing 8 pounds 1 ounce, although the tech said it's probably a little higher than reality.  The high risk doctor said he wouldn't recommend going all the way to my due date.  Thursday we see our regular OBGYN so it will be interesting to see what she says.  The thought of having an induction date makes me anxious but knowing that if I go all the way to my due date I have about 0% chance of having a vaginal delivery.  Hopefully we'll have some answers by the end of the week.

Foto Friday - 36 Weeks

Thursday Thoughts

I saw this one on a friend's Facebook post yesterday and thought it would make for a good Thursday Thoughts.  The question was what is the best swag you've gotten at a race and what was the worst swag?

I'll start with worst.  When I ran the Towpath Marathon in 2005 the race t-shirt had a shoe with it's tongue hanging out like a human tongue.  The shoe also had a face on it and it was sweating, although it looked like it was crying.  You can see the picture here (at the bottom of the page).  But, this race redeemed itself when I received the trophy for my second place age group finish (picture here).

Best swag.  Well, in general, I prefer no swag.  I think the price of races has gotten outrageous and I'd rather not pay for that stuff.  But if you're going to include it then make it useful or awesome.  The finisher shirts from the Rev3 Knoxville races I've done has been awesome, along with the visors (not that I wear a visor).  The local Thanksgiving races give away good swag.  The Turkey Trot gives away a free pumpkin pie for the top 500 finishers.  I don't like pumpkin pie so that one's lost on me.  Plus this race tends to have some of the ugliest race shirts.  The Flying Feather race gives away a bottle of wine for each finisher.  I got mine this year with intentions to save it after the baby was born and the family drank it.  This race also has a shirt, hat, and gloves in the swag bag.  And a Thanksgiving race that no longer exists, Pilgrim's Progress, had finisher glass mugs and free loaves of bread from Great Harvest.  Now we're talking!

So, what has been your best and worst swag from a race?

How Tomatoes?!

I have proof that no one reads this blog.  :) 

I was taking a bath last night and Dave barged into the bathroom.  Hello!  Privacy, please!  Anyway, he said, do you type your blog posts from your phone or your iPad?  No, what's up?  He said he was catching up on reading it (from January!!!) and mentioned a typo that no one caught or said anything about.  Turns out in the post "Dress for Success" I said How tomatoes!  What the hell does that mean?  It got us laughing so hard.  How tomatoes!  Stupid autocorrect.

36 Week Appointment

Le sigh.  I am starting to feel like I might be pregnant forever.

Everyone has been telling me that I am going early - doctors, relatives, friends.  And I've started believing them.  Secretly when I went to my appointment today I was hoping the doctor would say, "Wow!  You're 5 cm.  This baby is going to fall out."  Unfortunately, that's not what happened at all.

First of all, I'm convinced the scale at the doctor's office is broken.  All the other scales I've been on within the last week have said exactly 30 pounds weight gain.  Today I didn't even eat before my appointment so I would weigh in lighter and yet it said +33 pounds.  Good gosh.  Maybe it's all the water gain/swelling.  My poor legs swell so badly around my socks.  Even the doctor pointed it out today how badly I was swollen.  She asked if I was doing too much.  No, when I exercise the swelling goes down.  It's when I sit around that I get really swollen.  When you're 5'1" and your feet don't hit the ground in any chair that's when you swell.

The doctor measured my belly and pointed out that the baby was still in my ribs.  Funny, I feel like it's dropped.  I said, "the baby was everywhere."  I can feel the hands moving all the way down by my legs and can still feel the butt moving up by my ribs.  I kid you not, this child is perfectly folded in half inside my belly.  Today was officially my first internal exam (fun!) and included the strep test.  All I can say is ouch!  That "q-tip" is like 12 inches long and I believe she used 11 inches of that internally.  Hahaha!  Then she told me that I'm not dilated, although my cervix is softening.  And I'm 50% effaced.  Funny, last time she told me 60%.  I'm going backwards.  Kiddo is going to stay in there forever!

Needless to say, I was a little disappointed when I came home from the doctor.  I've had some pretty strong contractions in the last couple of days.  Although they have not been consistent, I really thought they were doing something, anything.  And yes, I know it's still a little too early for the baby to come, but I was hoping we'd at least be getting somewhere.  Next week is two more appointments: an ultrasound with the high risk doctor to decide if the baby is getting too big and another appointment with the regular OBGYN and she has requested Dave attend that appointment to talk about our labor and delivery options.

February Totals

Minus a little bit of swimming, February was almost an exact match to January.  We have had fewer visits to the YMCA since getting our new treadmill and having difficulty getting to the pool because of the swim teams that use the pool, but those swim teams finished up in February and hopefully we can get to the pool more now that the hours will be better for Dave and me.

Swimming - 3700 yards
Walking/Running - 45.13 miles
Visits to the YMCA - 8
Cost per Visit - $9.34