what overdue looks like...

week 40...still no baby

argh. the frustration of the waiting game. this is really testing my patience...which i currently have none of :P it's officially week 40 today, and i'm in pain. when my midwife suggested walking more to encourage baby to "drop", i might've taken it to the extreme yesterday. i went to the pool and walked in the shallow end for 30 minutes, i also had errands to run at lougheed and metrotown malls, which took me from the far ends of the malls both times :P so needless to say i'm definitely feeling pain today. i've already been out-and-about this a.m. running more errands, and now i'm gonna chillax for the remainder of the day....2 more hours till naptime!

the latest baby development is that he's managed to turn around in my belly. his arms/legs used to be on the right side of my belly, but due to my fall on sunday, his limbs are now pushing on my left side. it's definitely making sleep a lot harder to do. that, and the pressure on my pelvis is ridiculous!

anyhoo...back to reading my baby books.

is this bun done?

september 23, 2008 - today is the 1st possible due date we were told by a doctor. we were also told september 24, 25 and 26. since due dates aren't indicative of very much, we didn't even ask for the exact dating from our 1st ultrasound. oh well. can't do anything about it now :P

the hospital bag is packed, i have my labour food and drinks ready to go, the carseat has been installed and bcaa-approved, crib and basinette are ready, and our doula is on standby for us. boredom has definitely taken over this week for me. i've got nothing left to do but wait. and read more books. and wonder when baby will arrive. it's maddening i tell ya! on the upside, if baby holds off until next week, chris and i can attend the PADS graduation ceremony this weekend :-)

the only thing we aren't prepared for is naming our child. we've narrowed it down to 5 first names and 4 middle names. i had hoped to eliminate a few names before baby boy arrives, but i don't think that's going to happen.

well, i'm off to watch more tv...

the doctors

with all my "free time", i've found a new show to watch...the doctors. i've flipped past it before, but today the topic caught my attention - postpartum depression. also, one of the doctors on the show is dr. jim sears...the sears family are well-known for their baby books (which i haven't read). anyways, they featured a woman currently suffering from ppd, and her child is already 2 years old! they described the symptoms and what some common remedies are for ppd. i think i'm fortunate enough to have a great support system in place that if i do suffer at all, i have enough ppl around me to get me through any potential disasters. the woman featured was now a single-mother...her marriage crumbled because of ppd. so sad. i've fast-forwarded through the week and there are a few more baby/mother-related topics that i'm interested in...very cool.

just what i need...more tele to watch :P

oy...that was a close call!

good lord. i just keep getting clumsier. today was definitely the worst that i could do. after parking at coquitlam centre i hopped out of my car, stepped down from the curb where i tripped over a speedbump and fell down :P of course, my only thought was for the baby, so i braced myself and scraped my knees pretty bad. it all happened so fast, and i was in the middle of traffic so i couldn't remember if i hit my belly or not. there were a few drivers who stopped to ask if i was ok, and asides from my throbbing knees, i thought i was fine.

less than an hour later i was back home and on the phone w/my midwife, concerned about the baby. it was probably just paranoia, but i thought my belly was hurting more than normal (baby had been very active this a.m.). anyways, my 2 options were a non-stress test at the hospital (but i'd have to wait at least an hour or two since they were busy), or get a quick check-up with my midwife at the clinic right away. i went for option 2. 15 minutes later she felt around my belly, but since my stomach was still "soft" and i didn't have any roadrash on it, nor did i experience any bleeding, she gave me a clean bill of health. she also listened to baby's heartbeat for a minute and reassured me that he was A-OK :-)

now i just have 2 swollen and scraped knees, and i've jarred my lower back even more. this baby better come soon...i don't know how much more pain i can endure :P

dinner and some dreams

this past week, chris and i celebrated our 3-year anniversary :-) so on friday night we headed out for dinner at morton's...somewhere we've always wanted to try but never got to. i happened to be on their website during the day and i found a coupon for dinner for 2 for $119. we chowed down on salads, steaks, seafood and dessert...definitely worth every penny! the previous weekend we took chris' parents out for dinner at hy's, since they've never eaten there before. we're just touring all the great steak joints :-) i'm sure my iron levels are through the roof now!

on a funny note, a lot of people have been dreaming about me lately. in the past week, sharon and priscilla both dreamt that i had the baby already. and chris keeps waking up and asking me "is it time?!?!". last night he woke up from 2 separate dreams...the first he thought it was time to go to the hospital; the second he woke up thinking my water had broken :P ironically enough, i haven't had any dreams about the baby...at least none that i remember. perhaps baby isn't coming as soon as i had hoped for :-(

meanwhile, the bh contractions continue...

2nd baby shower

over the labour day weekend, the girls hosted my baby shower with friends and a few family members. i'm not a big fan of "shower" games, but i have to admit that i did enjoy the games this time. the first game was to figure out what the baby animals were called (i.e., kangaroo & joey)...i called them all calfs :-) so much for my animal planet knowledge! the second game was 2 versions of scattergories...coming up with baby-related items that start with t-r-a-c-e-y...and then coming up with baby names that start with c-h-r-i-s-t-o-p-h-e-r. unfortunately the name-game didn't inspire any potentials for baby lok...

this past week we've made a lot of progress at home. i set up the 5-in-1 basinette, chris and my dad set up the crib, we've got a few meals frozen for post-baby, i've even done a little baking for when we have visitors over, and our bags are sort of packed for the hospital.

now, all i can do is wait. and wait. and wait.

catching up

wow, we had a lot going on awhile back that i haven't posted about yet.

back in august, we puppysat caber for the weekend of the PADS fundraising walk. chris and i both fell in love with this guy, and if we could've raised him, we would've. but alas, his destiny lies in calgary where he's being raised now. he'll be back in vancouver eventually...PADS does their assessments and advanced training here :-)

we also puppysat jolie for a day. wow, what a handful she was...thank goodness we didn't have her any longer! we took her to milestone's for dinner, and she kept on running out from under the table...she even barked on two occasions! we've never had a dog do that before :P

and now we're dogless. we keep discussing raising a dog again, and i know PADS would love us to return as raisers, but we have to remind ourselves to wait and see how we manage with our little baby. even though we've had holly, caber and jolie recently, we really miss having a furry friend around 24/7. i think once we get into a routine with the baby, we'll resume our puppysitting. at least it's only for a weekend and we'll be able to see how we manage. after that, who knows :-)

my 2nd positive test result

in pregnancy, the only time you want a positive test result is the actual pregnancy test (assuming you want kids!). i've been fortunate until now that all of my test results have come back negative...gestational diabetes, std's, triplescreen marker, urine analysis, blah blah blah. today i found out that i'm group b strep (gbs) positive.

"Between 10 and 30 percent of pregnant women carry GBS bacteria in the vagina or rectal area, where they may pass it to their babies during labor or birth. With proper prenatal testing and treatment during labor, though, the risk is small.Without treatment, one or two out of every 200 babies born to "GBS positive" mothers would become infected with the bacteria and develop what's called early-onset GBS disease. The consequences can be very serious.GBS disease can cause sepsis (an infection in the blood), pneumonia, and meningitis in newborns. Some of these babies, particularly those with meningitis, will have long-term health problems such as hearing or vision loss, cerebral palsy, or developmental disabilities, and about 5 percent won't survive.

While this sounds really scary, the good news is that getting screened when you're between 35 and 37 weeks of pregnancy and receiving antibiotic treatment during labor if you test positive will greatly reduce your baby's risk of becoming infected. "

so once my water breaks or i go into active labour, i have to go to the hospital and get an injection of antiobiotics to protect the baby during the birth. ugh. and depending how long labour goes, i'll need to get a dose every 8 hours, so that means i'll have a tube-thing stuck in my arm :P I AM SCARED SH*TLESS OF NEEDLES AND EVERYTHING ASSOCIATED WITH THEM! you'd think after all the tests i've had done, i'd be used to it by now. go figure :P

on slightly happier note, my belly's growing nicely, ironically enough i've lost 2 pounds this week, and baby still hasn't dropped completely, so there's minimal chance of going into labour before p&g's wedding :-) yahoo!

contractions? really?!

ok, so we all know i'm not necessarily the smartest cookie in the jar. and now i have another tidbit that proves it. we're down to weekly check-ups with our midwives, and all along i've been thinking we've had an active baby recently who sometimes knocks the wind outta me. not true. turns out i've actually been experiencing braxton hicks contractions. i only discovered it because the midwife was trying to measure my belly today, and she stepped back and said she'd wait till the contraction ended. i was like, "what contraction?" she explained to me what was going on i was like"whoah!" if only the real contractions were like the bh ones...then i'd get through labour no problem! ha!

so all is well with baby...he hasn't dropped yet, so i'm not going into labour anytime soon. which is good, because i still feel like there's a lot to do before he arrives. however, my anxiety over the impending birth has been keeping me up at night. so i'm going to take calm fortes to see if that'll help me sleep. i've started drinking raspberry leaf tea for labour preparation (who knew your uterus needed prepping?)...i don't know if it'll work, but heck, right now i'll try anything. i also have to eat a banana before bedtime...the potassium will help with the leg cramps i've been getting in the middle of the night. unfortunately if that doesn't work, i'll need to increase my calcium supplements. good times ahead :P