I know all there is to know about the waiting game...

Just letting everyone know that, although there has been some progress, there's still no baby. My parents have been here for a week, awaiting her arrival, but there's still nothing. I'll make sure this is updated as soon as there's more info!

Waiting Game

Well, I'm 10 days from my due date and it's just a waiting game now. I see the doctor every Monday and, thus far, I'm not dilated or about to have the baby, so we're just sitting here... waiting... bleh! However, I did test positive for group B strep so it looks like I'll have an IV of antibiotics during delivery. I'm not excited about the IV or the antibiotics so I'm trying to find alternatives.

I'm very uncomfortable and sleeping at night is nearly impossible. I'm up twice a night to use the bathroom and I roll over from one side to the other (the only way I can lay now) over and over again all night long. Luckily I have my pillow arrangement down, which makes it a little easier. My joints crack and pop whenever I move. I have to assume it's due to the relaxin and oxytocin loosening me up for the big day. It's not painful when it happens, but during waking hours I do have some aching. That I can deal with. The rib pain is what kills me. It's still happening and it almost feels like she dislocates my floating rib sometimes. It's incredibly painful. I won't miss this part at all.

I stopped working a few weeks ago and I fill my days doing little things like scrapbooking, networking my computers (transferred 6GB of music from the PC to the Mac with no thumb drive or cables, thank you very much), and Skyping with my friends and family (if you read this blog and you have Skype, lemme know!). I know I should enjoy my free-time, but I wish I were more mobile so I could go for a walk on my own. I can't seem to move around for more than 10 minutes before I'm lightheaded, winded, or just too tired to go on.

In other news, Rob and I went on a "babymoon" weekend before last and it was really nice. We went to the Deer Crossing Inn and stayed in the "Hitching Post" room which had a 2 person jacuzzi tub and a flat panel TV with a DVD player. It was great to just take a bath, have meals delivered to our little cabin-like room, and watch DVDs all day/night. We both felt a lot more relaxed and connected after it was all over. I won't go into the extreme nausea and lightheadedness I experienced the day after :P All pregnancy related and not dangerous, just annoying.

We worked out the whole car seat issue by buying a brand new stroller/car seat combo. It wasn't our intention, but it was easier to have a stroller the new car seat could snap in and out of than transferring the baby from one car seat to another in order for it to work with the stroller. It's bad enough we're putting her in a 2 door car until we can afford a "family" vehicle, so this was a sacrifice we were willing to make. It's the Chicco Cortina Travel System (ours is grey with green trim) and we were so relieved to find that it fit my backseat really well. The stroller is a little more flimsy than our previous stroller, but it's still safe and functional. I'm just glad we don't have to think about it any more! LOL!

My parents will be here next weekend some time, Rob's mom is coming up for the first week of May, and his brother and biological father will both be visiting us on May 10 or so. Should be a busy few weeks after Violet's arrival... depending on when she gets here, that is! Hell, I was 3 weeks late when I was born!

Well, I think that's it for now! Depending on how motivated I am and when Violet decides to join us, this may be my last entry for a while ;)

progress

Ultrasound at 33 weeks

Here's one of the latest ultrasound photos from our dr. visit last Monday! You can clearly see her little face (although I included a second copy with a diagram below it, just in case you can't)...

Tons and tons of info

Holy crap it's been a long time since I've updated this thing! I'm really sorry, there's just been so much going on, what with the baby shower and traveling and being sick and getting back to work... whew!!

First, my belly at 31 weeks...


We had our baby shower on February 2 at my parents' house in L.A. and it was really, really wonderful. As one of my friends pointed out, we really have an eclectic group of peers :) From family members enjoying a Coke and chatting to cherry red dreadlocked "hippies" sitting on the floor of the dining room playing Skip-Bo, we had it all... and we loved it :) We got literally everything we needed, including things we hadn't even registered for, like a bassinet! (I'll upload a picture once Sprint's website gets its act together.) My mother made the cake to look like our shower invitations...



We really had an awesome time even though it was hectic as hell!

The next day we flew out to Arkansas to see my sister and her family for a few days. The weather was entirely weird since it was sunny but breezy the day we landed and SNOWING the day we left. Who knew it snowed in Northwest Arkansas?? But luckily we were prepared clothing-wise since we were on our way to Maine next ;) Arkansas was great! I hadn't been in years and it was really cool to see how different it all was from the last time. We went to Devil's Den...
(Click for a bigger pic)

... and had banana splits and watched the Super Bowl...



... and played a ton of board games the day it rained and rained outside, and even watched movies in their home theater! It was so much fun. However, Rob got sick the day we left and the trip sort of took a turn for the worse from then on. We flew in to Maine, where my other sister picked us up, and had a long drive home with Rob in the back seat, miserable. The next morning we got up and went to a local restaurant called Big G's for lunch with my best friend, Ron, and Rob still wasn't feeling well. We took him on a short tour of the city (the town is probably 2 miles square so it doesn't take long to see it all) and then headed home to rest. Rob started feeling better that night, so we went to dinner with my closest friends in Maine; Book, TJ, Ron, and Jesse (not in picture below)...

We had a really good time and everyone seemed to get along really well. When we got home that night, I started feeling like my throat was sore and scratchy. The next morning I was sick as a dog. The next few days consisted of me being absolutely miserable and bed-ridden, with chills and hot flashes and aching bones and muscles and a terrible cough. It was just awful and I felt so bad since it stopped me from being able to take Rob around town or spend any quality time with my family. Come Saturday, I managed to suck it up enough to have the whole family come over to my sister's house (that's over 18 people, btw) for Lebanese food (for those not in the know, I'm part Lebanese and grew up in a very Lebanese town in Maine) and what turned out to be baby gifts :) We got lots of Babies R Us gift certificates and even a tiny pair of white and "violet" sneakers! She won't be able to wear them for a couple of years at least (unless she's born with abnormally large feet) but it's so exciting to see them in her closet! It was awesome introducing Rob to my whole family. They all loved him, of course, and he seemed to be having a really good time. It was very important to both of us that he meet everyone before Violet was born and before we got married, so I'm incredibly grateful that we had the opportunity to get out there.

The trip home isn't even worth getting into. Suffice it to say that it was horrendous and we're never doing another trip in the middle of Winter where we have to ride 7 planes in 10 days. It was a stupid idea and won't happen again. That said, I'm still glad we did it ultimately.

Now, when we got home, we started in on the baby's room. As you know, Rob already painted it (one wall yellow and the facing wall green) and we had the crib set up before we left, but we really got it together over the next few weeks. Rob put the changing table together and her little activity center. I washed all of the linens and clothes we had up here already and made up the crib with the bumper, sheets, etc. We hung art/posters on the wall and put up the cabinet to hold supplies. Very exciting!

The cabinet, changing table and crib on the yellow wall

changing table

Inside the crib

The double papasan and ottomans by the window
as well as the activity center

The green wall and its art (that's a Chinese New Year
calendar on the right, celebrating the year of the rat,
Violet's birth year)

Inside Violet's closet
(this was before we got the rest of the stuff... see below)

After we got all of that done, my dad came up to visit us (last weekend, actually, and it was so much fun!) and brought the rest of the stuff we'd gotten at the baby shower and before I moved from L.A.! Oh my GOD were there a ton of clothes and blankets and just STUFF! I did 4 full loads of laundry just to wash Violet's clothes and linens LOL! Meanwhile, Rob hung over the crib the "VIOLET" clothes line his mom made us (it looks beautiful but I don't have a pic, so here's one of us holding it at the shower instead)...

We also gathered up the duplicates and triplicates we had of things and returned them for gift cards so we can buy diapers in the future! LOL! It was so much fun putting it all together and getting it ready. We just put the stroller and the bassinet together day before yesterday. The bassinet is beautiful. Of course, as soon as it was complete, and Rob turned on the mobile, I burst into tears ;) Good, happy tears, mind you. We're both just so excited to meet her and teach her things and take her places that we well up when we think about it.

Last but not least, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and everything looks great! She has turned from breach position to head-down again and, lo-and-behold, one of her legs is curled in to her chest while the other one is extended with her foot in my rib cage. Well THANKS FOR THAT, VY! LOL! ;) She's extremely active which is a great sign but HIGHLY annoying when I'm trying to go to bed and my abdomen is undulating and pulsating and my organs are being smashed. And, just think, I have at least another growth spurt to get through! ;) The doctor guesstimated that she's about 4.5 lbs right now and that I will probably have her around the 38 week mark, based on my progression over all. That's only 5 weeks from now so... *gulp!* She also predicted, after Rob asking her point blank about it, that my belly button will "pop" in the next 3 weeks LOL! Isn't he sweet? ;) She asked us to let her know if she was right, hahahaha!

We have a meeting with a prospective pediatrician today (I'll write about how it went when I get home) and I'm having the car seat inspected/fitted tomorrow afternoon. We have one more class to attend (Infant/Child CPR) and then it's just about waiting for her arrival. ACK!!! ;)

Whew! I guess that's everything!

Pitchas

New pics that Rob and I took last night...

Me and the crib (Rob put this together all by himself!)

More to come when this blog site isn't being ridiculous!!!

12 weeks to go

Hello all!

Had my 28 week appointment yesterday and everything is great. My belly measures 28cm from top to bottom (which is perfect since you're supposed to measure the same as your weeks), my glucose tests came back fine (meaning no gestational diabetes) and my iron levels are perfect (meaning I'm in no way anemic). Violet moves around a LOT, and mostly when I'm going to bed or just sitting still (like now, while I type this). So far so good!

Turns out, the reason for my rib pain and the severity of pain below my sternum are due to my body releasing a lot of relaxin for some reason. It's not dangerous or totally uncommon, but I just seem to be producing a lot of it at the moment, according to the doctor. Maybe that will make for an easier labor? Well, one can hope ;)

We finished our baby classes and, although I feel more prepared, I'm also more nervous about the pain of labor than I had been in the past. I guess as it gets closer to the due date, it becomes more real. I'm really, really against any medical intervention unless there is something wrong with me or the baby or we're in danger for some reason. I don't want Pitocin, I don't want an epidural, and I don't want a C-Section. I've already discussed it with the doctor and she's on board for just letting me proceed as necessary and not trying to speed up the process in any way. That makes me feel a lot better. You just hear so many of these stories about women who just can't handle the pain and go for the epidural immediately that, on one hand, I feel like "Maybe I'm being totally unrealistic about how painful this is?" and on the other hand I feel like "Listen, if my mom could do it naturally 3 times and my sisters could do it too, why wouldn't I be able to?" I realize everyone's pain tolerance is different, but I've been through/done some very painful things in my life, so I can't imagine I wouldn't be able to breathe through this, knowing the result is having my baby girl in my arms :)

We're getting ready for our trip to see my family and we're both totally excited! Got Rob some gloves and a hat (which he probably won't wear) and we got some travel stuff, like containers. My doctor also gave me a prescription for Tylenol with codeine. I want to avoid taking it, since it is a narcotic, but sometimes this pain in my chest is really, really horrible and I can imagine that sitting on a plane might just increase the discomfort. I'll have them for emergency use only, basically. Other than that, I'm just doing a SHITLOAD of laundry and trying to get packed today so I don't have to think about it during the week since I'm working.

The baby shower is Saturday and I'm really looking forward to having my friends and family (what family I have in California) with me, as well as my "new" family, a.k.a. Rob's family :) Thanks to EXTREMELY generous friends and family (some of whom can't make it to the shower and some of whom threw me a shower before I left L.A.), we already have the crib and mattress, the crib set (bumper, dust ruffle, comforter, sheets), the changing table, the high chair, the breast pump, the Baby Bjorn, and various other goods like the room monitors and clothing and decorations. It's just unbelievable how generous and amazing our friends and family members are and I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has contributed. It's overwhelming.

Well, I'll be sure to post pictures of our trip and everything when we get back (unless we have down time in Maine where I can upload the photos from the camera).

Hope you all are well!