Baby

Jen's Updates - Week 40

Sunday, April 20th, 2003 - 0 weeks before due date!

<sigh> No baby yet! I'm pretty disappointed that he didn't decide to come on my birthday, but I guess that he'll be here when he's ready.

Errata

I said last week that semen contains a lot of proglastin, which was an error. What I meant to say was that it contains prostaglandin. I can't believe no one corrected me. :-}

Midwife Visit

I went to see the midwives on Friday. Nothing new to report. My blood pressure was normal again, so the high reading I had last week was purely related to me waking up at the time I was supposed to be there. No protein or sugar in my urine, again. Who knows why the sugar readings were so high for a while there. Honestly, I wonder if it was the test strips. Maybe they were old or something.

They offered to check me for dilation/effacement, but I declined because it is pretty pointless, and I didn't feel like taking my clothes off. I wouldn't learn anything new, and it wouldn't give any indication of when the baby would arrive, anyway.

They also started telling me about what they would do when I was overdue, which I think was a little premature. Give me a chance! I also had to make an appointment for next week, because I had only scheduled them all up to 40 weeks.

Since we hit our due date, several people have already asked me if I've considered induction. No! The midwives won't induce until 42 weeks, and even then they'll only do it if we don't object. Induction makes for a very painful labor, and I want to avoid that (obviously). Not to mention that I think my body knows what it is doing, and I see no reason to mess with that unless there is clearly a problem.

Preparation

I got our car seat checked to ensure that it was installed correctly. It turns out that it doesn't fit perfectly in my car, so the police officer who checked it for me had to shim it up with (of all things) pool noodles! Car seats are supposed to sit at a 45-degree angle for infants or their little heads can fall forward. Thanks to Officer Hall, the car seat is now sitting correctly in the car, and is ready to bring the baby home! And we have emergency pool noodles in the unlikely event of a water landing.

I went to visit the lactation consultant at our hospital. Again, I didn't learn much I didn't know. I realize that I am probably naive, but I feel that breastfeeding is one of those things that we should be able to do relatively naturally. I have read about the basics, and if it doesn't work out for some reason, THEN we'll seek help. Yes, we are very independent, and like to figure stuff out on our own. Again, I'm glad that I went just so that I could know that there isn't anything that I didn't know.

The house is well stocked with food. By 'food', I mean 'things that Travis can cook'. Frozen foods like pot pies, pizza, etc. I've also taken care of most of the errands that I need to do outside of the house.

I got all of my tires replaced on Saturday, in hopes of inspiring labor. I figured, 'what better time to go into labor than when I'm 30 minutes from home and there are no tires on my car'? It didn't work, though. I am happy to have taken care of that, though, because it had been on my list for a long time. I went with the Yokohama Avid Touring tires, for those who care. They are quieter than my old ones, and obviously have better treads (my old treads were gone).

We had a moment or two of false (aka hopeful) labor, so we loaded up the car. Everything is in there now, except for a short list of things that we really can't pack until it is definitely time to go.

Movement

He's still moving! I know I'm getting a little repetitive here, but what can I say? He seems to be happy and healthy and looking forward to stretching his little limbs in free space! My uterus is looking forward to that, too. He's getting pretty strong!

Symptoms

I lost my mucus plug at about 10:00 on Saturday night. You don't need details, I'm sure. That isn't particularly interesting, except that it really made me start thinking that the baby would be here soon, which just meant that I was sad when I woke up this morning (Sunday) without having gone into labor. I had finally put a waterproof mattress pad on the bed (in case my water broke), which made me sweat all night long. That meant that I woke up several times, thinking that my water _had_ broken, only to be disappointed. I hate sleeping on waterproof mattress pads! Anyway, the mucus plug can come out anytime minutes or weeks before the baby is born. It is a sign that labor will happen someday, just not necessarily any time soon. Oh well.

Swollen feet, still. After I walk for an hour, my hands are pretty puffy, too. That's pretty funny looking. Like Simpson's hands. Travis and I were talking while lying on the bed, and he actually fell asleep using one of my feet as a pillow! That's how puffy they are! He has spent a lot of time rubbing them for me lately, which has felt so good!

Oh, and I've gone insane. For at least part of the time. It usually hits at about 3:00am, and manifests itself in me stressing about some minor detail or issue that I feel that we haven't gotten completely worked out yet. Things like when I'm going to go into labor. Obviously we have little control over that, so I shouldn't worry about it, but I do.

Sleeping has been going better. I pretty much have been sleeping whenever I'm sleepy, which works well. I usually take a couple of naps through the day, and sleep for about eight hours at 'night' (between about 4am and noon). I figure that that way, whenever I go into labor, I'll be reasonably well rested. Unless it happens at about 4:00am, because that's when I'm too busy being insane to sleep.

So, that's my new solution to insomnia. Just stop going in to work so you can sleep when you need to, rather than on some artificially imposed schedule. Everyone should try it!

Exercise

I've been walking for an hour a day again. It should help the baby come, and it is good exercise for me, in any case. I've been going at 2.7 miles/hour, which is obviously pretty slow, but is plenty fast for my current situation. It makes me sweat! I always drink a ton of water while I'm walking, too. Travis comes and refills my water bottle once or twice for me during a session.

Miscellaneous

Work

I've been working a little bit, but not as much as I should. I put in 20 hours this week. My sleeping is taking so much time that I just haven't had the chance to work much! I did solve a problem that has been plaguing me for a few weeks, though, so I feel good about that. Now I just need to make it into work to give them the new code, because otherwise it is not useful to anyone but me!

Easter / My Birthday

Today (Sunday) was a very strange day. Full of anticipation, but no actual action. I'm not actually sure how I spent my day. Let me think about it... I walked on my treadmill for an hour, watched 'Kung Pow' and 'Reign of Fire' with Travis, napped once or twice, and I even read a book or two. Travis took me out to Cooker for dinner, because no one should have to cook on their birthday (or really, ever. We really need to get an automatic food machine).

Mike and Delia had us over for 'Easter dinner' on Saturday night, which was the very traditional shish kabobs on the grill. We played cards with Mike's mom and sister and laughed a lot. I was hoping the laughter would bring on labor (it releases oxytocin), but no such luck. Delia had said in an email she sent that morning that she had a feeling that it would happen that day, so I believed her (why not?) and watched the clock all day. At midnight, they gave us an Easter bucket (like an Easter basket, but a bucket), which was really cool and very sweet! It made me less sad to not be with our families today. I missed them a lot. I wish we could have worked it out to have everyone down here, but we just didn't have any idea what would be going on with the baby, so it wasn't really practical. I'm not really able to hostess at the moment, anyway, because I can just barely hobble around on my swollen feet (except on my treadmill, oddly enough, but you can't really be a hostess on a treadmill).

My birthday was rather anti-climactic. Travis and I both expected to have a baby by today, even though we knew that this is just the midpoint of potential due dates, and not a hard and fast actual due date. Even though a lot of people remembered my birthday, it still didn't feel particularly festive, because I had overshadowed my birthday with the hope of having a baby by today.

I made cupcakes for myself on Friday, and have been eating them all weekend. Mike, Delia, and Mike's mom and sister sang Happy Birthday to me last night, and Delia was planning to make me a cake, and even had purchased my favorite flavor (currently Red Velvet, not vanilla, believe it or not), but then she unexpectedly had to work all day yesterday so couldn't actually make it. She did show me the cake mix and the frosting (as if I would have doubted her word!).

My family called from my grandparent's country club (where they had had brunch) and sang Happy Birthday to me on my dad's speaker cell phone, which was cool! They always call and sing to me on my birthday, though usually I get it on the answering machine so I can save it! I also got a lot of snail-mail cards, and a lot of emails. It was nice to know that so many people were thinking about me!

Well, that's it for this week. Hopefully you'll be hearing from me sooner than next Sunday, but we evidently have no control over it. <sigh>

Jen

P.S. As a super secret reward for those of you who actually read these updates all the way through (or at least this one), we have a special announcement...

My water broke this morning (Monday), so it looks very likely that we'll be holding our son in our arms either today or tomorrow!

You want the gory details? Are you sure? Check out the 'Birth Story' on the web site. It is current up to 11:00am this morning. What can I say... we're kind of bored right now. http://www.whitedoom.com/Baby/birthStory.html

I know that we said that we wouldn't make an announcement when we went into labor, but we changed our minds. However, we have definitely NOT changed our minds about having visitors at the hospital before he is born, so please don't come until we're ready for visitors! We'll let you know!

Wish us labor luck... you'll be hearing from us soon!