Hurry up and wait

Claire must be pretty comfortable in there. Today's 39-week appointment revealed no dilation and still only 50 percent effacement (unchanged for a few weeks). Her heart rate remains excellent as does her movement, and the doctor said she's sitting very low, which I already knew since I feel like I'm driving with a basketball in my lap lately.

I know I've had the easiest pregnancy in the world and I still feel great, but I'm getting so impatient to meet her! The doctor said they'll probably want to discuss inducing at next Tuesday's appointment if I make it that far -- which I bet I will. Unless I'm just oblivious, I haven't even had any Braxton Hicks contractions, much less the real deal. And the "gory details" I've been so excited (yet repulsed) by for the past week are totally normal and don't necessarily mean labor's right around the corner, the doctor said. I guess I should just be glad they're not atypical.

I pleaded for a guess as to when I might go into labor and all he would say is 10 percent of women deliver early, 10 percent deliver late, and the rest are within a few days of the due date. A non-answer to an impossible question, I realize.

Without us asking (I hadn't decided if I wanted to), the doctor said he normally would have stripped my membranes this morning but he didn't because of the group B strep. So ... the wait continues.

14ish more days!

Here's the 38-week shot. She's about the size of a watermelon now and that's pretty much what it looks like.
Without getting into the gory details, I'm more optimistic now than I was a few days ago that Claire's birth, if not exactly imminent, could be on the sooner side. I moved my doctor's appointment from next Thursday to next Monday so I don't have to wait so long for confirmation. :) I also spent from 2-4 a.m. yesterday (when I got ahead of myself and thought I might be on the verge of labor -- newbie mistake) finishing my one remaining article that was due by July 1. Now that that's turned in, I don't have any work responsibilities that someone else couldn't do for me if necessary, which is nice.

Running has actually gotten easier in the past week or so, for a few reasons, I think: I've switched to the treadmill, so I'm not fighting 90-degree heat; I can wear fewer clothes -- more comfortable as well as good for temperature control -- since I'm at home and don't have to worry about whether my belly's covered (it never is anymore); I'm accompanied by my iPod, which I rarely take on outdoor runs; and I tell myself (regardless of whether it's true) that every run is nudging me closer to finally meeting Claire.

Nursery is ready, baby is not

Today we went to the doctor again, for the 38-week appointment -- it seems like we spend all our time there lately -- and met the one doctor we hadn't seen yet. I'm now measuring at about 37 weeks and Claire's heart rate is still great but there's been no progress on the dilation front -- 1/2 cm., if anything, the doctor said. I figured that would be the case since I haven't had any contractions or other signs of labor.

I'm impatient to meet her but another week or so to tie up loose ends with work stuff would be really nice. After that I'll probably start researching DIY induction techniques -- lots of running, lots of sex, maybe a little castor oil a la Melissa.

We finally have at least ordered everything, I think, that we really should have before she arrives. A diaper pail, for example. Some of it might not beat her to our house, but at least it's on its way.

Also, we're probably finished with the nursery. We might add something to the wall over her crib if the mood strikes, but both of us prefer blank walls to walls decorated with things we don't like -- and I'm pretty sure Claire will be cool with whatever.

This is about half of her stuffed-animal collection. The others are in the basket by the crib. My great-aunt Clara made this awesome quilt -- just one of many great blankets people have given us.


I love this for both the sentimental value and the gorgeous frame, which you can't really see in this picture. Terry cross-stitched it for one of the boys in 1981 and she gave it to us at the last shower.


I was kind of ambivalent about whether we should get a glider, and if so which one, but Matt did the research and this one exceeds all expectations. Very, very comfortable.


Baby girl clothes are fun to buy. So I hear. I have yet to buy her a single item of clothing, and now you know why. Not that I'm complaining.


Dresser plus changing pad. All the diapering stuff is in these drawers, and when the diaper pail finally does get here, we'll probably scoot over the dresser to make room.


This dresser holds a ton of miscellaneous stuff -- socks, shoes, various blankets, nursing accessories, etc.


These are pages from some of my favorite children's books. Three of them are obvious (Clifford, the Very Hungry Caterpillar and Dr. Seuss), but if anyone outside of my immediate family can identify what book the page framed at top left is from, I'll be impressed and know we were meant to be friends.


Matt and I couldn't find a memo board we liked so we made this ourselves. It was actually fun and I love how it turned out. Kate, guess which card is Matt's favorite? That's right.




Belly bump picture coming soon, for real this time!

Counting down

Another doctor's appointment today, the 37-week one. I never got around to taking a 36-week bump picture so I think I'll skip and just do a 37-week one in two days. Today the measurements were right at about 36 weeks (3 cm. more than last week). Apparently I didn't necessarily grow that much in the past week; the doctor said the numbers can vary depending on the baby's position. Claire's heart rate was still good and strong. They didn't check for dilation or effacement because I haven't had any contractions.

I did find out that my group B strep infection test came back positive (they took the sample last week). It's not a big deal, just means I'll probably take penicillin during labor to prevent it from being passed on to Claire.

Betsy took this picture while she was in town last week. Not very glamorous -- I have a crooked linea nigra, a temporarily deformed belly button and a blob of weirdness above it (site of an ill-advised belly-button ring that lasted all of three months in high school) -- but I still like the picture.

Surprise ultrasound

Yesterday we had our 36-week appointment and for once there was a little excitement. We saw a doctor we hadn't seen before (we'll be rotating among them for the next few weeks since who delivers Claire depends on who's on call; this way we'll at least have met all of the doctors). He measured me at 33 cm., which was a centimeter smaller than I measured at my last appointment (when I measured right on at 34 cm./34 weeks). The centimeters are supposed to match how many weeks pregnant you are.

He said the change could a) mean the baby had dropped or b) indicate I was losing amniotic fluid, which would be bad, and he ordered an ultrasound for later in the afternoon to see which it was. Matt was pumped about that because he was kind of nervous all along that we weren't going to have an ultrasound between the sex-discovery one and the birth, which I guess does seem like a long time. I was excited because I thought we'd be able to see her face, which we did, but you couldn't tell anything about her features except that they're there. We weren't worried because her heart rate was good, she was moving great, and if there was a problem with the amniotic fluid, they could have delivered her immediately if needed and she would have been fine.

The ultrasound went well -- all the measurements are right on and there's plenty of amniotic fluid -- which means the baby has dropped, yay! I'm also 50 percent effaced but not at all dilated. And according to the ultrasound, she weighs 6 pounds, give or take 14 ounces, which, granted, is a big margin of error. They say she's gaining half an ounce a day now (more on the days I work at home and eat pink jellybeans for eight straight hours), so she's on target to be a good, healthy weight -- not too big, not too small.
I owe the blog a 36-week-bump picture. Probably it will come tomorrow, because I think the camera's at the office.

Part 2: Doctors and the bump

(Part 1 is here.)

3. For the past few weeks I'd been feeling like I needed to crack my lower back but couldn't because my stomach was in the way. It was affecting the way I ran but wasn't exactly painful, definitely nothing I couldn't run through and nothing that bothered me when I wasn't running. At the same time I was noticing an occasional sensation in my pelvis -- not really pain, it just felt like my hips or pelvis was spreading. Amanda said she'd felt the same thing so I didn't give it much thought.

Then last Tuesday I ran my normal trails in Rassie Wicker with Lauren R. and my lower back was killing me by the end of the run. For the rest of the night I literally could hardly walk -- I used both hands and the railing to make it up three stairs from the garage to the house. It was borderline excruciating to walk or even stand.

I got online and self-diagnosed it as a problem with my SI joint. Apparently, near the end of pregnancy your body releases a hormone to relax the pelvic area and prepare the joints for childbirth. Occasionally it releases too much and the ligaments get too loose and unstable.

Normally I would wait out this kind of thing but a) the pain was really, really bad and b) I am terrified of chronic back problems and c) everything thing I read said this problem could get worse with future pregnancies, of which I'm hoping for several and d) I will go insane if I can't run again soon. All in all it seemed like something I should try to nip in the bud.

After NINE DAYS of not running the pain is much better but I still can't really walk without limping. So this morning I had the first chiropractor visit of my life. He said it's definitely an SI joint issue but the good news is it should improve a lot with some specific exercises (that I have to go back next week to get -- paying another specialist co-pay, annoying).

He said I should take another week or two off from running while doing these exercises, but after that I should be able to run again (while continuing the exercises for several months). I'm sure it will be awesome running for the first time after two or three weeks off in mid-June at 36 weeks pregnant, but whatever -- I won't complain. I was sure he was going to tell me to just hold off on running until after Claire's born (which I would have ignored, but it's nice to have official approval). He also "adjusted" me and it felt great.

4. This afternoon we had the routine 34-week appointment. Starting with the next appointment (36 weeks) we'll go weekly. Everything looked fine, baby's heart rate was great, urine was clean, etc. I didn't see my regular doctor and this one told me to keep my heart rate below 140 when running, but it's a little too late to worry about that.

He also told me to try to gain a pound by the next visit because apparently I haven't gained weight in the past month, but I'm not sure if he was serious. I am an eating machine -- anyone who's spent time with me will attest to that -- and I don't know of any other way to gain weight (except to cut back on exercise ... hmm).

5. Here's today's bump!

Counting down

Yesterday was the 32-week doctor's appointment and it was, as usual, uneventful. The most excitement came from the fact that we were going to eat at The Villager as soon as it was over. But boring is good when it comes to doctor's appointments.

Claire's heart rate has been in the upper-130s for the last couple of visits, down from the 150s several months ago, but apparently that's good because it's supposed to slow down as the pregnancy progresses. She's already positioned herself bottom-up, which is also good.

It was way early to be bringing this up, but I asked the doctor about the clinic's policy on inducing labor. He thought I was asking how early they would agree to induce me, and he told me 38 or 39 weeks if there were no red flags with the baby. But what I really wanted to know was how overdue I'd be allowed to get, because I'd much prefer to avoid an induction unless it's medically necessary, and he said I could go up to 42 weeks.

I hope and pray I don't go two weeks overdue (my amazing mom endured going THREE weeks overdue -- twice), but I'm glad it doesn't sound like they're going to rush things. I've heard horror stories of people having to fight not to be induced even just a few days after the due date. Which seems stupid since due dates are usually just an educated guess.

The heat of July could usher in a change of heart -- you never know -- but at least in that case it would be my decision, not something they're forcing.

Here's today's 32-week bump picture:In other news, Babies "R" Us called yesterday and said the crib came in, so we're going to pick it up tomorrow. Which means ... Remington Grill!

Short because I'm hungry

I actually took a bump picture during week 30 but I just got around to posting it. For the sake of chronological accuracy, I added it to this post, if anyone's interested. The belly is getting BIG (compare it with the 28-week picture!) -- but so is the baby! She weighs about four pounds now, and is almost as long (tall?) as she'll be at birth. Which, by the way, will take place two months from today if she's right on time. Craziness.

I recently read two articles loosely related to the "free-range kids" concept that I love. One was in The Wall Street Journal -- Dad gets credit for finding and forwarding it -- and the other was in Newsweek. I'm not in the mood to editorialize right now; suffice it to say I wholeheartedly endorse the general perspective and parenting philosophy they reflect.

No more monthly appointments

I feel like this blog's been a little neglected lately. Other than the fact of my rapidly expanding stomach, there's nothing much new to report. I've been feeling rather hugely pregnant for weeks now, but when I look back at pictures even from just two weeks ago, I realize I feel bigger than I look. The baby is now gaining weight at a rate of something like half a pound a week, so soon I will both feel AND look huge.
We had the 30-week appointment today, the last monthly appointment. From now until 36 weeks we'll go every two weeks, and from 36 weeks until the baby's born it will be every week. The doctor measured Claire at 30 centimeters long, which is right on target.

We had signed up for a childbirth class on May 16 but now I have a client coming into town that weekend, so we asked about rescheduling the class. The April one's already over and the June one is for something like June 28 -- a week and a half before our due date. The receptionist told us all of the information is available online, so armed with that website plus the packet of "curriculum" for the class (including yet another copy of "What to Expect the First Year" -- it's an epidemic!) I think we're going to skip the class altogether.

I'm so, so, so happy to report that I'm having consistently good runs again. My theory, actually, is that the pollen, not the pregnancy, was to blame. I've never been bothered by pollen, but one day last week I ran right after a good rain and had the best run in forever. That got me thinking pollen might be the culprit. The pollen's starting to build up again, so maybe this is partly mental, but I haven't had a bad run since then.

Also, this may have nothing to do with being pregnant, but I recently had the worst case of poison ivy I've ever had (it's finally clearing up after about two weeks). It started with two bumps on my ankle, which I scratched because I thought they were bug bites; it spread all the way up my body and over onto Matt's. It was terrible. Every day I found a new patch. Poison ivy, like pollen, has never affected me, so maybe the pregnancy somehow really is to blame.

28 weeks

Happy seven-months-in-utero to Claire! It's amazing to me that, thanks to medical technology, she would have an excellent chance of surviving with no long-term ill effects if she were born now. Obviously a birth at 28 weeks is far from ideal, but it's nice to know that if it happened, it would probably be OK.

Judging from Claire's constant activity, I'd say she's having the time of her life in my stomach and isn't in any rush to exit. In another couple of months I'm sure she'll be a lot less comfortable (I know I will be). Pregnancy is treating me great, but I'm getting really excited about meeting the baby. I can't wait to hold her and start to learn her personality and see who she looks like.

I do have a minor complaint, which is that running has gotten more difficult in the past two weeks. I'm not sure if it's directly related to the pregnancy or if it's simply because I'm carrying around an extra 10 pounds, but I huff and puff all the way through my runs lately. I haven't had a really effortless run for a couple of weeks. When I get home and whine about it Matt says this is what running feels like for most people, so maybe I've just been spoiled for the past 20 years.

No matter how hard it is, I'm determined to run till the end -- no matter how pathetically slow I am around week 38 -- because it's absolutely essential to my sanity, and to me there's no substitute.

Good news

I do not have gestational diabetes! I had the test this afternoon and got the call a few hours later as I was walking out of the grocery store carrying two pounds of strawberries, two pounds of plums and a 12-pack of Coke. I would hate to give up any of that sugary goodness, so I'm thrilled not to have to.

Also, here's the bump at 27 weeks:

3/3

I think today (27 weeks) marks the beginning of my third trimester. In the past few weeks my stomach has grown from ambiguously pregnant to clearly pregnant. Last week on vacation I wore a bikini and wasn't self-conscious about it, but I was only around family. Stephen kept saying with astonishment "Your stomach is getting bigger every day!" My belly button, formerly an "innie," has flattened out and is flush with the rest of my stomach. I'll try to remember to get Matt to take a picture tonight.

Claire is a crazy active girl. Half the time I feel like a cyclone is blowing through my stomach (and often it looks like Mexican jumping beans are residing in there), but I love it. It's nice to know she's alive and well. Lately whenever we're watching TV and I'm bored, I just hike up my shirt, stare at my stomach and voila: instant entertainment.

Last night was a Subway/Chinese night and when I asked for extra pickles the woman nodded knowingly and said, "Because of the baby!" I laughed and told her my extra-pickles fetish is nothing new.

Tomorrow is my monthly doctor's appointment and it's the one where I'll be tested for gestational diabetes. I know it's highly unlikely that I'll test positive, but on the other hand, I eat sugar and drink Coke all day long, so why should I feel confident? Especially since both Melissa and Carrie had it. Well, what will be will be, I guess. Wish me luck.