too much information

there. i've warned you.

last night i lost my mucus plug. it was definitely much more gross than i could have ever expected.

but-----> according to my oh-so-wise mother, i am indeed having a girl because my mucus plug has indicated so. i guess it's another korean old wives' tale: if the mucus plus has a STREAK of blood in it, it's a boy. if it has FUZZY blood, then it's a girl.

you can guess what kind of blood i had on mine.

disclaimer: i'm pretty sure these "korean wives' tales" actually only pertain to korean women, as many western wives tales seem to say the opposite of what the korean tales say.

38-week appointment

saw dr. bagdan again - the wicked awesome doctor from last week. i had a whole list of questions to ask her and she was extremely thorough in answering them all without rushing me. i think we kept her for like half an hour.

question 1: is the hospital limiting visitors because of the H1N1?

answer: no, although we are asking that if you are sick or have a cough, you stay away. but you can have whoever you would like come and visit you - unless of course, YOU want to limit the number of visitors...

question 2: does the hospital have any "policy" about the clamping/cutting of the umbilical cord? do you delay it or do just cut it right away? isn't there supposed to be some benefit to leaving the cord unclamped for 2 minutes?

answer: we've had lots of requests by mothers that we don't clamp until the cord has stopped pulsating. but you have to keep in mind that the placenta has to be LEVEL with the baby the whole time otherwise it can draw blood away from the baby (if the placenta is lower) or the baby can get too much blood from the placenta (if placenta is higher). as for the benefit, the research is "it could", but nothing is for sure and i haven't seen any adverse effects come from the cord being clamped and cut right away. but it's the mother's choice.

question 3: my GBS swab results?

answer: negative!

question 4: so i know i have to come in right away if my water breaks. but if i haven't had any contractions, how much time do i have before the doctor decides to administer pitocin?

answer: well, since you are GBS negative, we'll give you AT LEAST 12 hours before you start to contract on your own. probably longer. but we know the risk of infection goes up greatly after your water breaks, so we do want to make sure you go into labor within the 24-hour period. you come in, we'll check to make sure the cord hasn't prolapse, there is no arm hanging out, etc., and then can send you back home until your contractions become 3-5 minutes apart or too much for you to handle at home. but you do have to come in initially when the water breaks to check for anything that came out with the water that shouldn't have.

question 5: do a lot of women come in initially wanting a natural drug-free birth? how many of those women would you say actually stick with their plan?

answer: yes and about 50% i would say stick with the plan. some women labor long and hard and it's those women that i would recommend get an epidural. if they labor long and hard, they are often just way too tired when it comes time to push. and a lot of first time moms will push for HOURS, while experienced moms will push for 15 minutes or so.

question 6: dr. makhdoom explained to me what "stripping the membranes" entails. when do you start doing that? does it hurt? do you have to be dilated?

answer: we offer it at 38 weeks. you don't have to be dilated, we can usually get our fingers in there, but it will hurt if you're not dilated. usually takes repeat "sessions" to get it working.

(she measures my blood pressure and fundal height... looks about ready to leave)

me: am i getting an internal exam today?

doctor: no, you're 37 weeks, right?

me: no, 38 weeks.

doctor: oh, you're right. then yes you are. do you want your membranes stripped today?

me: not if i'm not dilated. not if it's gonna hurt real bad.

doctor: (looking at jesse) are you okay with the membranes being stripped?

jesse: me? yeah! sure.

so she proceeds to check my progress and strip the membranes, which was slightly uncomfortable and WEIRD but in no way painful, i think. she says 2 in 100 women will go into labor within 4 hours of having their membrane stripped. i tell her i hope i am one of those two. then she tells me that she thinks i will be able to handle labor very well. i sure hope so.

about 3 hours after my appointment, i began having contractions at 10 minutes to every hour regularly until i went to bed. today, i haven't been keeping track as yet, but i'm hoping it has helped to jump start things. wish me luck!

mixed feelings now

so i know it sounds like i really want this baby out - and i do, i couldn't be happier if she came out a tad bit early happy and healthy as can be.

some of you may know, my dad has been in the hospital for... i think now almost 2 weeks... with a subdural hematoma, a bleed under the dura by his brain. he had a work accident (which actually sounds quite comical, though not funny - but for another post maybe) and has been admitted to the Lacombe Hospital. serial scans have shown the bleed has stopped and not changed in size, but the pressure of the bleed on the brain is causing him massive headaches. he is on long-acting morphine twice a day and is nearly incomprehensible. his response time and speech is slowed, he's lost 20 lb in these last 2 weeks, and is getting understandably frustrated with his pain. he's going back and forth to Edmonton for neurosurgery consults, where they are trying to figure out if they need to physically remove this blood or not. when i visited him last week, it sounded as though he was well on the road to recovery with reduced need for pain meds, but now it sounds like it's just not getting better.

so i don't know how long he's gonna be there for. and while my dad isn't my favorite person in the world, it sucks to know how much pain he is in. he, on the other hand, is more worried about me worrying about him in my "condition" and feels bad about the whole situation.

with my strict (yes, strict) rules postpartum, if the baby came now my dad wouldn't be able to see her for at least a month unless he was able to come out here somehow. so in a way, i hope she holds out a bit longer, maybe until her due date, to give my dad more time to get better.

eggplant parmesan

so we had it for dinner. i thought it was good, but jesse and my mom really enjoyed it. i miss my meat. i'm a meat gal.

so apparently i have 48 hours.. haha. i already ate some leftovers for breakfast.

last night my mom said "you just eat eggplant all day tomorrow - breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack!".

so it's not just ME who's anxious to have her here.

childbirth classes - DONE!

i just realized i stopped writing about my classes after session #2.

well, sessions #3 and #4 were labor-related as well. she covered interventions and postpartum. while it was informative enough, i came out of those classes feeling rather discouraged. she definitely made it seem like NO ONE gets their ideal birth.

we did do one exercise, which i thought was very ... eye opening. she had about a dozen cards with things written on them like "IV", "epidural", "natural birth", "healthy baby", etc. and on the other side of the cards was the opposite ("no IV", "no epidural", "C-section", "not healthy baby", etc). and it was about what we were willing to give up first one by one - and of course everyone's final result that they kept was "healthy baby". it was frustrating to have to give up things you really wanted/did not want and gave a real sense of what is important here. a good lesson learned for the dads too, though jesse already knew of all my goals.

class #5 was about breastfeeding. i think this was one of the better classes. we just went over the different types of latches, feeding cues, etc.

class #6 was about baby care. dads got to do some hands-on swaddling. when the instructor asked about how many people were familiar with newborns, only one raised her hand. so i was rather surprised that she didn't have "diaper changing" on her list of topics to cover. so as much as i felt like an idiot, i had to ask, because I HAVE NO IDEA how to change a diaper. well, no, i know the basics - take off old diaper, wipe clean, replace with new diaper. but what's the vaseline for? what's the powder for (though it's not recommended and we're not planning on using it)? anyways, after i asked, she went into detail and covered these things, which was nice.

so overall, i guess the classes were helpful. if nothing else, jesse learned good massage techniques, which i will forever be thankful for. i just wish there was more stuff covered that wasn't in the "From Here to Maternity" book that i could've just read about.

natural induction?

first thing's first: i KNOW that the baby will come when she's ready.

second: i really really really really really DON'T WANT a medical induction. so i'm praying REAL HARD that she comes either on or before her due date. really, anytime (other than today because i'm in so much pain) is good for me.

so don't be all judgemental after reading the title of this post. i'm not doing anything drastic, i just want to help things along if i can.

there is a track just behind our house at the high school. jesse and i've been walking at least 3 laps for the last few days (minus yesterday).

last night, i made marinara sauce for the eggplant parmesan recipe from Scalini's, which is famous for sending women into labor within 48 hours. guess what we're having for supper tonight.

tomorrow or tonight, i will pick up a fresh pineapple and attempt to eat the whole thing - if my mouth doesn't burn off first.

really, those are harmless, don't you think? it's just food and walking. i'll tell you this - no castor oil, no tea, no herbs, no supplements, nada. i'm not gonna go THAT far. but who knows, as December 9 comes and goes, i might give ANYTHING a try in order to avoid a medical induction.

why?

medical induction (usually cervadil or pitocin) = much stronger contractions than normal = puts baby at distress and mom in much more pain than needed = more interventions = more likely to have a C-section.

that's why.

i'll let you know how supper tastes tonight.

ouch... it hurts

so yesterday we played hookie from church and spent the entire day shopping. we're done most of our christmas shopping, but my mom had to do some for her coworkers and we thought we'd pick up a few "gifts" for the baby.

i didn't sleep at all last night my legs and pelvis hurt SO BAD. i would wake up every time i would have to roll over, but then after 5-10 minutes on that side it felt like my hip bone was going to crack. then it would take every effort to roll over on to the other side, where of course after 5-10 minutes i'd have to turn AGAIN because THAT hip would feel like it's gonna crack.

poor jesse. i don't think he got much sleep either with me groaning in pain all night.

note to self: no more crazy walking for hours on end until this baby is out.

a month from today

in looking at the calendar, i just realized that exactly 1 month from today is this baby's latest possible birthday. at our hospital, the baby cannot stay in utero more than 41 weeks and 3 days, so 10 days after the due date - December 19, 2009.

so a month from today is the latest possible day that i can become a mommy!

we made it...

to full term.

that's right. i am now 37 weeks pregnant, which in the medical world means baby can be born safely into this world and them doctors would be happy to deliver. no bed rest or IV fluids to keep the baby baking longer.

i had my appointment today with a new doctor, Dr. Bagdan. what an awesome lady! jesse was working nearby the hospital, so he came with me to my appointment. i didn't get a 36-week appointment, so she did my group B strep swab today, which was really nothing. and to my surprise, she also did my first internal exam to check the cervix. posterior and closed, but very soft. not to mention the baby's head is "RIGHT there". the exam also was not as bad as i had anticipated.

frankly, i've been feeling so good this past week, that i feel i can handle being pregnant longer. so baby can take her time coming out. of course, it'd be nice to have her here sooner than later...

her father's daughter

regardless of whether this baby looks more like me or like jesse, one thing is for sure - she sure eats like daddy.

from the very beginning, she has followed this interesting pattern of how jesse used to eat. and yes, i mean more in the way in what she has ME craving and eating and vice versa.

baby: the very first food item that i did not want to eat after finding out i was pregnant was... RICE. that's right. my favorite thing in the world. i did not want to eat it. i would rather eat something like noodles. for over a week, i didn't want rice. this has never happened in my life.

jesse: when we met, jesse was not a fan of rice. he would basically only eat it with chicken pot pies. he grew up eating it with butter (ewww) and didn't learn to appreciate the pure goodness of rice until later on in our relationship.

baby: with my aversion to radish, kimchi was a tough sell. especially cold kimchi. but i could eat it when it was cooked with some pork.

jesse: kimchi stirfried with pork was basically the only way jesse liked to eat his kimchi in the early stages of our relationship (note: kimchi is mostly eaten cold, but yes can be deliciously cooked).

i'm sure there were more similarities, but the current one is the biggest one of all. I myself DO NOT LIKE sweets. i don't like cake, i don't like pie, i dont' like most cookies, i don't like desserts, i don't like icing, i don't like pastries, i don't like candy, i don't like sugar. period. i can eat chocolate once in awhile, but that is the extent of my sweet tooth.

my significant other, on the other hand, has a MAJOR sweet tooth. the one thing he requested of my during our marriage counseling was that I BAKE MORE.

a few weeks back, i suddenly developed this crazy hankering for sweets. cookies, bars, cinnamon buns, ice cream, etc. this is so out of character for me, it's not even funny. and that's all i think about. CAKE. i want to eat CAKE. ALL THE TIME.

all i have to say is that i can't wait to get MYSELF back. my body back, my appetite back, my preferences back. pregnancy is the WEIRDEST thing ever. EVER. EEEVVVVEEERRR.

happy 36 weeks to me...

or to us, i should say.

i officially finished work on Monday and spent yesterday running around calgary like a crazy woman. i still didn't get all that i wanted to get done, done. oh well. today, i'm gonna just chill out at home and maybe do some baking. i want to get jesse his fill of baking before baby comes, knowing i just won't have the time for it then. and this man loves/needs his christmas baking.

hard to believe i'm 36 weeks. technically only have 4 weeks. 1 more week til i'm considered full term, 4 weeks and 10 days is the last possible day this baby is gonna stay in and i sure as heck hope she doesn't choose to stay in for that long. the whole family has their fingers crossed for the end of the month, including me. but this feeling that she's gonna be late still lingers in everyone's minds.

are we ready? hmm. i think so. i think we're ready as we'll ever be. emotionally, i think we've been ready for awhile. stuff-wise, yes, that too i think is good to go. i think jesse and i are ready to meet this little creature, this half-jesse, half-grace being that we can hardly imagine.

hello Mr. Braxton, hello Ms. Hicks

last tuesday at my appointment, i ran into a girl from by childbirth classes. we were both waiting for our appointments, so we chatted it up until we were called. during our conversation, she asked me if i was having a lot of Braxton-Hicks contractions, to which i replied "i have no idea".

then at my appointment, i asked my doctor if it was normal for me to have no idea if i was having these BH contractions or what they felt like. she said "of course, this is your first pregnancy".

lo and behold, the next day they came. it was hard to attribute these hardenings to anything else. and in retrospect, have i felt them before? yes. but VERY occasionally. like once every few weeks or so.... THAT occasionally.

now i get them constantly. very irregularly of course and completely painless - however i do know when i'm having one because suddenly i have to work harder to breathe and i just feel ... uncomfortable. then i feel my belly and it's like someone shoved a clay pot in there. they are brief and i notice them most when i'm sitting/reclined, but definitely get them now too when i'm walking/standing.

let's hope this means my uterus is prepping up for the big day.... which, by the way, is no later than 40 days from today. woot woot!

yes, got my shot

last friday, when the H1N1 was once again available to pregnant women, i decided to go for it. mainly because with this graduated release to the public, no one knows when jesse or my mom would be eligible to get it.

so i got the non-adjuvanted kind, the one formulated for preggos. either my nurse was a needle champ or this needle barely hurt. i don't mean as it was going in, i mean afterwards. usually with the regular flu shot, my arm is so sore afterwards that i can hardly use it for days. with this one, it was just a teensy bit sore in the evening, but that was all.

i'm confident i made the right choice. they say the knowledge is limited when it comes to how much of these antibodies are passed on to the fetus, but if i can offer her any protection when she comes into this world, i think it's worth it. as for the mercury (which i was certainly concerned about), i certainly hope it will not affect her brain any negative way whatsoever.

this was my very first BIG decision as a "mom". and it's only just beginning. i hope i have made the right choice...

dropped?

i' ve been carrying "low" this entire time, so could never tell if the baby had dropped or not. but i think she has. since yesterday, i've had a new acquaintance follow me around. everyone, meet pelvic pressure/pain.

it is sore to walk, it is sore to roll over in bed, it is sore to sit, it is sore to stand. it's my new constant companion. whoopy.

so i'm guessing she has "dropped". or at least that's what i'm hoping this means.

H1N1...again

so if you live in alberta, you are sure to be aware of the vaccine shortages and how they shut down all H1N1 clinics for the past week or so.

last saturday, i made jesse go line up at a clinic, but he figured the line was too long and heard they were already shooing people away for the day (this was at 9:30 AM at a clinic that started at 8:30). so he just came back home.

lo and behold, on sunday they decided to cancel all clinics until further notice.

jesse works for a small company and in the past week, 3 guys were out with the flu or cold or whathaveyou. 3 guys - that's like a third of the employees. now one of the guys who is back at work thinks his girlfriend has the H1N1. and who's he working with? you guessed it.... my husband.

so jesse is already paranoid enough as it is about me getting sick and this whole pregnancy he has been uber-protective. when sick contacts come over, he is there bleaching everything after they leave. the last few days, he has been wearing a mask at home "in case" he might be sick from one of the guys at work. he carries around Purell and washes his hands religiously, and has refused to hug/kiss me for the last few days, not to mention sleep in the same bed because he is afraid he might get me sick.

i've called around, trying to find a place where i can get the seasonal flu shot because i'm still not so sure about the H1N1 for myself right now. and as much as i love jesse for being the way he is right now, it's also driving me a little insane and so i just want to get the H1N1 so he can stop overreacting to everything. i mean, i miss my husband!

i wish this government had their shit together so the vaccine was available for EVERYONE. jesse really wants to get one asap, but of course with the new strict rules, he can't until further notice. and neither can my mom. of course they offer it to the one person in the family who isn't sure she wants one.... sigh.

oy vay

so far this pregnancy has been amazing. yes, i've had a few ups and downs, but the downs were always very brief and never anything serious.

however, this last leg is getting very tough. i haven't been sleeping well, the leg cramps are becoming more frequent and lasting longer, and i just feel overall sluggish and extremely tired. i feel like my sides/back are stretching out so much and it is so uncomfortable to lie on my side, not to mention my arms are aching from sleeping that way. i have 2 weeks to go until term (37 weeks) and i'm not gonna lie to you, i hope she comes in 2 weeks. i now fully understand women who desparately want their babies out as the time comes closer and closer. and although i won't be doing anything drastic to induce labor early, i may be eating a pineapple or two when mid november comes. of course, that probably won't work.

my mom has convinced me that this baby is gonna make a late entrance. i'll go past my due date, maybe WELL past my due date. luckily, we know she'll HAVE to be here by Dec 19, as that is as far as my doctors will let me go.

seriously. i'm exhausted. i can't focus. i can't read. i can still type, but i read over my reports and realize i have no idea what i've just typed/read. thankfully i only have a week left of work. i was thinking about working an extra week, but i really don't know if i can do it. all i want to do is snuggle with Reggie on the couch and fall asleep.