Sunday, August 31, 2014

To My Baby Kangaroo - 8.31.14

Today is your due date. You don't know me yet, but I'm not a very patient person. Waiting is not something I do well. When given a deadline, I stick to it. So waiting for you to arrive has been torturous because I'm not really sure when you'll get here. Your room is ready, our bags are packed, and now we just wait. ...

I have read several articles about how to naturally induce labor, because I don't want to be induced with Pitocin. Several women I've spoken with say it is not a good experience, even with an epidural. I don't like the idea of my body being forced to open up and push you out if you're not ready. At my appointment last Monday, the doctor said if you aren't here by this week's appointment we will have a nonstress test. They'll hook a fetal heart rate monitor around my belly and I'm supposed to push a clicker when you move. Then they check to see how your heart rate reacts when you move. If we pass the test, then I guess you get to hang out a little longer. The doctor asked last week if I wanted to be induced, and I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. He said he is on vacation this week and I would like to be around to deliver you. I don't think the doctor's vacation plans are a good medical reason to induce, so I told him I'd rather wait for you to arrive. Last week I was about 2 cm dilated.

One of the ways to encourage labor is walking. But I've been walking my entire pregnancy so I wonder if that is why it doesn't seem to have an effect?

My symptoms:
- tired in the afternoons
- my toes get a little pudgy in late afternoons, but if I walk around it subsides. It is also worse if I forget to drink enough water.
- back and hip pain, even in the morning. I was feeling better after sleeping, but I guess with getting up 3 times a night to pee, I'm not laying still long enough to feel better?



Sunday, August 24, 2014

To My Baby Kangaroo - 8.24.14

Week 39.

I honestly wasn't expecting to still be pregnant at this point. I thought for sure you'd arrive several weeks early. You've shown me!
I alternate between thinking "How am I still pregnant? I'm ready to meet my baby!" and "Sweet; I'm still pregnant! I have energy to work in the garden today!" No, I'm not joking, that's really what goes through my head.

Symptoms this week:
- Braxton Hicks, but mainly during and after exercise, and when I forget to drink enough fluids
- You are still kicking a lot a couple hours after I eat, and I notice a lot more in the evening when I'm relaxing on the couch after dinner.
- frequent night peeing - at least 3 times each night
- My hips/pelvis have not hurt as much this week. I think because you have moved down and are putting pressure in a different area.

On another note...We bought our current mattress 8 years ago, and recently noticed the areas where we sleep have deep indentations. I called the place where we bought it, and the mattress has a 10 year warranty. So we did all the paperwork and ordered a new mattress, which will come in this Friday. (Woot woot!) The Hubs is kind of freaking out that my water is going to break in the middle of the night. We can't have any new stains on the mattress from when we took pictures for the warranty paperwork. So we've discussed me sleeping on a trash bag, but I just can't handle sleeping on something crinkly right now! I already don't get enough sleep and if I have to hear a trash bag every time I roll over I really won't get any sleep!

Sunday, August 17, 2014

My Growing Belly

Just for fun...
Week 5

Week 10

Week 15

Week 20

Week 25

Week 30

Week 35

Week 36

Week 37
I usually take the weekly photo on Monday, so I haven't taken week 38 yet...

Saturday, August 16, 2014

To My Baby Kangaroo - 8.17.14

Week 38!

This week you are probably between 6-1/2 and 7 pounds. Your organs are mostly mature, but your brain is still developing and will continue to do so even after birth.
This week I'm pretty sure you "dropped". The ladies at work noticed too; the bowling ball on my frontside seems to be sitting lower. Which means I am able to eat more at one sitting, but also peeing about every 30-45 minutes. And my middle back is starting to hurt.

Symptoms this week:
- increased hunger
- peeing more frequently
- backache
- Friday evening I experienced cankles for the first time. I came home from work and grocery shopping and noticed my ankles and calves were all one width and I couldn't see my ankle bones! I propped up my feet for awhile and the swelling subsided.
- frequent Braxton Hicks contractions, especially after exercising. They were so frequent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evening after exercising that I finally conceded and put my hospital bag in my car, just in case I go into labor at work!
- baby girl has hiccups several times a day that last for about five minutes each time. They are funny to experience because my belly starts bouncing and an interval
- at last Monday's doctor's appointment I was dilated about 1 cm. I have another appointment tomorrow mid-morning.
- my belly is too big for me to fit in the weight machines, and lifting anything that requires my abs to flex is really uncomfortable. I stopped lifting weights in the last couple weeks and now am only walking on the treadmill.

As selfish as it sounds... I am glad baby girl has waited to make her arrival. It's given us the opportunity to harvest and put by a lot of produce from our garden. If she had arrived a week or two ago, all that produce would have stayed on the plants and rotted (unless I could convince some family to come harvest and can or freeze for us). I've made several batches of relish, peach salsa, frozen 20+ packages of bell and banana pepper slices for fajitas this winter, several packages of seeded and stemmed jalapenos, several packages of green beans (I didn't have enough to make a full pressure canner so I blanched and vacuum sealed them), and well over 30 quarts of crushed tomatoes and tomato juice. This weekend I am working on tomato sauce/paste and another round of peach salsa.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

To My Baby Kangaroo - 8.10.14

You are 37 weeks today and considered at term. You may still be packing on about 8 oz a week. At my checkup last Monday the doctor said my weight gain was on track - 14 pounds total for the pregnancy so far. (Keep in mind I was overweight when I became pregnant, so the amount of weight I gain is less than if I had been "in shape".) At that appointment, the doctor also said I wasn't dilated at all, so you're still hanging out in there.

My department at work has started a pool and for $1 you can enter a weight, length and date guess. The guesses are all over the place, from August 25 to September 3, and some guessing you at close to a 9 pound baby. (Guess they aren't getting the message that I don't want a c-section??!)

Symptoms this week:
- lots of peeing!
- tired, but not able to sleep as much
- nesting? I see all this produce in the garden and think "We have to take care of this NOW before the baby arrives!" So this week, I canned another 8 quarts and 5 pints of tomato juice/sauce, sliced/seeded and froze another 8 packages of bell and banana peppers. And the Hubs brought home about 6 pounds of cucumbers from a coworker that we're making into relish or pickles this weekend. And I have to pick tomatoes yet again, and weed the onions, and dig potatoes.



Sunday, August 3, 2014

To My Baby Kangaroo - 8.3.14

Today starts week 36. At the end of this week you will be considered early term and then it's OK if you decide to make an early arrival. A lot more OK than if you had decided to arrive at week 35 or earlier. Your chances of surviving outside my body without machines is a lot greater now.

You are nearing 6 pounds and 18" long. (Which I find hard to believe! Your new cousin was born Friday and he was 5 lb 4 oz and 17" long, and his due date was about a week earlier than you)

I have slowly been working on your room. Yesterday I started the cushion for the rocking chair. I bought 3" thick foam from Hobby Lobby and a cotton duck cloth that has gray, purple and other colors in a paisley-type design. Cutting the foam is a pain! Luckily, I watched the woman while she was cutting it off the roll for me and learned her tricks. It is a layered foam, so it works best to cut it in layers.

I also started hanging up decorations. I found some cartoon-like wall art of a pig, a cow and a sheep and framed them.

And I couldn't find a changing table pad that was the correct size. Standard changing tables use a 16" x 32" changing pad, but our changing table measures 15.5" x 26.5". The changing pads at the store have quilted covers on them and aren't conducive to being cut down. So I bought a 3" thick polyfoam to cut down to size. I'll be making a homemade cover or two for the changing pad. And modifying the one we received off the registry that won't fit...

I think we're going to try cloth diapers starting around month 2-3. They will grow with you and will save us a lot of money and the landfill a lot of diapers in the long run. I've been looking at the Bum Genius 4.0, Bum Genius Freetime, and Rumparooz. This website has a 30 day trial, so if we want to try several different types we can, and then wash and send back the ones we want to switch out. But I can't order them until we are ready to try them on you; the 30 day trial starts from the date they are ordered.

My symptoms this week:
- my hands go numb probably every night when I sleep
- I get up to pee 2-3 times/night now, regularly, instead of the 1x/night prepregnancy. You changed positions sometime last week and are pressing on my bladder more. Sometimes it is almost painful!
- If I don't go to the gym, I am really sore. It doesn't make much sense, but the more sedentary I am, the worse I feel. Great reason to go to the gym!

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Garden haul


This is only part of this week's haul. I still need to finish picking the other row of green beans/ yellow wax beans. And more peppers and tomatoes. 

We ate green beans one night at dinner, and I need to figure out how to preserve the rest of these. There aren't really enough to can, so I may blanch and freeze them. 

I wanted to try something new with the tomatoes (this has been a year of having plenty of produce so that I CAN try something new! usually I barely have enough produce to do what I need - tomato juice and crushed tomatoes for chili/soup/etc.) I made tomato jam from the book Food In Jars. You simmer tomatoes with sugar, cinnamon, red pepper flakes, fresh ginger, lime juice and cloves until it thickens almost to a paste, you know, so it is jam-like. It is really tasty (but is has a funny aftertaste which maybe is because I used bottled lime juice instead of fresh lime juice??). The recipe says it is good with a cheese platter. I'm thinking corn bread slathered in cream cheese and tomato jam. Or mixing the jam with cream cheese or chevre to make a dip. 

After I harvest today, I'll probably can more crushed tomatoes or tomato juice. 

Last weekend, Baker Creek had free shipping, so I ordered garlic for fall planting, spinach and culantro (not a misspelling - the Vietnamese version of cilantro). The spinach, culantro and a free packet of red romaine arrived late this week and the garlic will ship in September. Now I need to figure out where to plant it!
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