Resolutions For LBG

I figure since everyone does New Years Resolutions it was time I did a few. These are special specific to LBG. Ok, so they're more like New Life Resolutions...

I promise you love.
I promise to give you a name that's fitting and wonderfully you.
I promise to take you on trips, especially when you're old enough to remember them.
I promise to let you watch your favorite show over and over until we've both memorized every line.
I promise to feed you well.

I promise that even though you may not feel it all the time, you are beautiful and smart and loved.
I promise to learn how to change a diaper.
I promise to lay you down on your back and not your stomach to sleep.
I promise to stimulate your brain even at a young age.
I promise to kiss you goodnight every night... until you tell me not to.

I promise to teach you about money, and how to save it.
I promise you'll get an allowance someday.
I promise to not wrap you too warm or let you get too cold.
I promise to breastfeed you as best I can when you want.
I promise you love.

I promise consequences aren't always bad.
I promise to sing to you, unless you start to cry because of it.
I promise to read to you ever day.
I promise life will be interesting.
I promise to always try and keep you safe.

I promise I'll sew something special for you.
I promise to bake something sweet for your birthday each year.
I promise to tickle you.
I promise to never forget your favorite toy.
I promise to take lots and lots and lots of pictures of you.

I promise to be there for you when you get a boo-boo, no matter what kind it is.
I promise to give you ice cream after every shot you get at the doctors, when you're old enough.
I promise to help you with your homework.
I promise to drive you to your school events and try not to embarass you (too much).
I promise to love you... always.

Chris being Cute

Chris has been so cute and sweet about LBG! I was worried that he wasn't feeling "involved" in the pregnancy (other than that initial bit) but I think that since he's started being able to feel her and see her move around he's come around to it. He's super excited about her, and it's so cute. He touches my belly a lot, and every night before we go to sleep he puts his head on it and talks to her. He's even read to her a little bit. It's so cute.
And she responds! She locates his voice and starts pushing back on him. Just the thought of this makes me smile so much. He gets so excited, and honestly... so do I. It's good to know that she "knows" his voice. She pushes around his nose or cheek, I'm assuming with her foot (because she should be head down by now and it's pretty strong).
He's so cute about the whole thing... and I love it. I'm glad to know he's excited. Not that I thought he wasn't, I've just been playing the whole thing down a bit because I'm worried about other peoples feelings. But there are times I just want to shout out about her. I don't like hogging the conversation, but I could talk about her for hours! I'm really excited about her, and he seems to be too. Which makes me super happy. I really was a bit worried about him not feeling involved. But I think he's fine. I love my husband, and I love LBG. This family has a great amount of love for each other before it's even seen each other.
Ooo... she's got the hick-ups again. We both got too excited. Time to stop typing for a bit. Night. :)

Pelvic Push

This past week, I think LBG has dropped into my pelvic region... It's the oddest feeling (I know I've been saying that about a number of things on this blog, but each one really is odd). To best describe it, it's like when you sit down (which is when I'm mainly feeling the pressure) and catch a fat-fold between your leg and stomache. That by itself sounds odd... Okay, if you've got some extra skin, take it and shove it inwards, towards your intestines, while sitting. That's what it feels like.
I worry sometimes that I'm smashing her hand (or worse, her head). But she hasn't done anything to make me move. They say that the baby'll hurt you before you hurt it, so I guess that's a good sign.
It's a very odd feeling having her that far down, especially since my belly is still getting rounder, and not dropping to follow her. It just makes it uncomfortable sometimes to sit. I have to adjust a lot because I'll feel her, mainly on my left side, down there.
I've felt her down there before, but this is more constant. It's not anything to worry about though, the books all say that durring the first pregnancy the baby drops down there up quite a few weeks before the due date. It's second and third pregnancies that it's a sign of labor approaching. So, so far everything is still on track... until my doctor says otherwise. :)

Killer Heartburn!

ATTACK OF THE KILLER HEARTBURN! Oh my goodness it was bad today! I have to remember to eat, because she'll remind me. I think that's why she gets me up at 9 am each morning, in spite of how late I might have stayed up the previous night. She also makes sure I'm drinking enough water, otherwise she'll send her acid bombs my way too.
But this morning was H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E! I skipped out on breakfast at the house so that Chris and I could get it together. But by the time we left the house and were on the way to McDonalds... I thought my throat would never recover! I thought I was going to vomit it was so bad. I think heartburn has been the worst pain so far of the pregnancy.
I mean, most of the time, I'm used to it. It's almost a constant some days. And I pop Tums (which are completely safe) like they're candy (which is apparently completely safe for Tums because they're providing calcium). But this morning that didn't even help. I think it was because I was dehydrated a little and on an empty stomache.
I mean, at night it's hard to avoide because my pre-natal vitamin gives me heartburn sometimes, and if I lay down too soon after eating... that does it too. But today. It hurt soooo much! I was snappy and practically yelling at Chris. But I could barely talk because I didn't want to open my mouth. I could feel the acid in the back of my mouth. The rest of the day I kept spitting to get rid of the mucos that was pooling back there.
So, LBG, I get the point: Eat breakfast weither I feel like it or not, and drink plenty of refreshing liquids.

The Early Birds

Just another thing for me to worry about: early births. One thing I noted this last week was (in a personal view of those close to me) an amazingly high... actually alarming number of preterm babies. Out of the 4 other people I know to be pregnant and due around my date: 3 of them have already delivered! There's only me and 1 other girl I know that are actually still on track. This is such a scary thing. I looked up the causes to pre-term babies, and it doesn't make sense with the other girls. Some possible causes are:
smoking, alcohol use, drug abuse, inadequate weight gain, inadequate nutrition, gum infection, other infections (such as STDs, rubella, urinary tract infections, amniotic fluid infection), hormonal imbalance, incompetent cervix, uterine irritability, chronic maternal illness, and pacenta previa.
I didn't realize this, but it is fairly common and occurs in 1 out of 10 pregnancies!

Worries

As I sit here tonight, waiting on my last batch of shortbread, I was reading an article on SIDS... and it scares the crap out of me! Such a horrible thing. I just keep praying LBG has a long and healthy life and that nothing like that ever becomes a factor for mine or anyone else's children. It's such a scary thing. Even though she's not even born yet, it worries me. Some of things the article tells not to do are things I wouldn't have thought about, and things I worry I'll do anyways (like put things in her crib... they said not to even put a bumper on!).
I fear the days I can't take care of her. I know she's somewhat safe right now, but... there's so much to be afraid of with children. How does anyone survive the worrying?!
She will be loved, because she is already loved. It's just late, and been a long day. So I worry. I just want to be able to take care of her and protect her when I need to. She scares me enough being inside me (like when she's being inactive or I'm feeling sick or fall down)... but at least I feel I can protect her somewhat in there, to some extent. Now that the due date is getting closer, it's getting harder and harder not to worry.
It'll be all right, right? Absolutely. I just have to keep repeating that to myself and praying a lot.

Dr. Apt

Just came back from my doctor's apt. All is well. Heartbeat 146. Pee tested fine.
Some symptoms I've been having that I had to report was the extreme swelling I'm starting to notice; the bruise-like feeling right above my belly-button, a little bit of nausea (just the last day or two); and I think that's about it.
The swelling is perfectly normal; of course I was not worried there. That's even the reason why my nose feels stuffed up most of time. It's also the reason my vision has gotten blurry over the course of this pregnancy.
The bruise-like feeling is also normal. I mean, if I had a bruise there, I would know that, but there’s no bruise there, so I thought it was a bit odd. It’s actually from my muscles stretching out. It’s their pains. It totally feels like there should be a bruise there, but not all the time. Sometimes it's not even noticable, while other times it's a dull feeling (streached out feeling, now that I think about it), and other times it's a "don't touch it!" feeling. But it's apparently perfectly normal as well.
The nausea I think is just from the food I’ve eaten over this last week on vacation. I ate a lot more than I normally do and a lot of sweets on the day I started feeling it. I only reported it just in case because I happened to be feeling a wave of it come over me while I was in there. It is something for me to watch, she said, as it can be signs of other things. But most of the other things it could be are ruled out with my other tests (the pee test and whatnot). But just in case, if I still feel a bit off-set tomorrow night, I’m supposed to give her a call.
Some other random things, now that I'm thinking about it are: heartburn is ever increasing it seems. I'm really trying to prevent it as much as I can, but I still get it at least a couple times a day unfortunately. I am tired a lot, but I still get myself out of bed around 9/10am each day and stay up all day without need for a nap... but on vacation I cheated a little and had caffeene. Speaking of the vacation, I have to say I absolutely love sleeping in my own bed. Not that I don't like a good firm bed, because I do (and I really appriciate the families that put us up while we were out there), but there's just something about my own bed... and I think it's the tempurpedic matress pad, because when I sleep on any other surface for more than a couple of hours I get really bad pain in my sciatic nerves along my outer thighs. It's happened in soft and hard beds, so I think the solution is the tempurpedic. So I am greatful for it. Last night's sleeping was a bit odd, and I couldn't quite get rolled over, it seemed.
She's movin' around pretty good in there still.

Getting On My (Sciatic) Nerves

OK, so with MS I've had Sciatica before. But it was always in my left side. I had heat therapy for it and other methods of pain relief even up to going to the midnight ER for steroid shots it. But now...
Sciatic nerve pain (not full on sciatica) has been hitting me to wake me up, and it gets where I can't go back to sleep. I know it's a pregnancy thing at this point. It was, originally, just hitting me in one side at a time. But now it hits one side, stays, and hits the other. So no matter which side I turn to lay on it is there! I do have to say that it is the most annoying thing about the pregnancy so far.
LBG has me on a timer: When she wants me to get up and get moving, she sends the shooting pain through my sciatic nerves and makes it so tossing and turning is useless.
I don't know if it's because I'm in a different bed right now or not (I've been down at Yale for the past few days and the both sides thing has happened every morning). I know I got it at least one side in my normal bed, but I also remember turning over and it being okay. We have the memory foam on the bed at the house. It was always my right side there. I'll keep a mental note and do a status report after I get back to my normal sleeping arrangements (although the more I think about it the more I think it might have started that way, but it was like this before I came down to Yale, too). I mean, she is getting bigger, so it's entirely possible its now in both legs.
And it's not like this is full-on sciatica (like it can get with MS), so far it's just really annoying pain in my... outer thighs (you thought I was going to say butt!). But I know it's along the sciatic nerve because I've dealt with that beast so many times.
It's not LBG's fault, she's just settling into her "final" position. It's just amazing the timing she has. According to her scheduling, she'll start the labor around 9/10 am. We'll see how true that prediction is in a little over a month (OMG! JUST A FEW WEEKS!).
Most people start to feel this paid around the third trimester, but they get it when they're standing or sitting. I do think it's a bit odd that I get it when I lay down, and feel better when I'm up and about. If I'm sitting right after it doesn't go completely away, but it's a very dull sensation that is ignorable. That's what I'm doing now, and I have to concentrate on the feeling to describe it, because it's on it's way out for the day... I hope.
I'm a little worried about it during labor. Is sciatic nerve pain something I need to worry about during labor? Does it rear it's ugly head at that time, or should it be past that point? They say (okay, and you've gotta understand whenever I say "they say" I'm talking about the people from What to Expect) that it'll continue a little past pregnancy as my hips realign themselves.
I always feel like I'm talking about a car when I say realign. But it's true. My hips have been popping more and more these last few weeks. At first it was just getting out of bed, which is understandable given the struggle it can be sometimes with the covers. But now, it's even simply getting out of the car. In fact yesterday, when I was getting out of the car, I had to stop for a second to prevent that from happening because I could feel it press against the sciatic nerve for a moment while it tried. I didn't want double the pain because of that. I mean, my hip popped before I was pregnant quite a bit, too, but now I'm aware of it for different reasons.
Anyway, if you know about sciatic pain and pregnancy, please let me know if it happens during labor.

Birth Plan

So Chris and I have been talking over the last week about a birth plan. It's confusing, even though it probably shouldn't be. We're not being super picky on it because of the facilities. I mean, ideally I've always wanted to do a water birth, but there are just no facilities for that locally. So, I'm going with a local hospital. They don't offer a walking epidural there, so there goes that preference. I'm doing okay at accepting it for what it is, we both wanted local and close more than we wanted anything else. I mean, even though Tulsa's got some great hospitals I don't know my way around T-Town that well to worry about it. And I realize now that I wouldn't be the one driving, but I don't want to be in labor and dealing with someone else dealing with traffic. So, local Owasso hospital is the best.
As for the actual birth plan... still working on it.

Dr. in a routine

So today I had another doctor's appointment with my ob-gyn to check on LBG. All si well. I asked a few questions about SIDS, because we're trying to get her room ready and Chris and i have been having thermostat wars... which got me wondering what the right temperature would be for her. My doc didn't really know, and said to ask the pediatrician (when Chris and I finally decide on one).
Other than that, a perfectly routine check: pee in a cup, weight (has been steadily hanging around the same pound-age), blood pressure, measure belly, heartrate (150), and any questions I might have.
Other than that, we start paying on her part of the delivery now before the baby comes. Not all of it, but it's based on an estimate. We're doing this with the hospital too. They might change, but it's a good chance they'll be pretty spot on.
I keep waiting to see when my next ultrasound will be. I want to know if LBG is breeched or if she's doing well. I guess it's going to be closer to due date time. Doctors don't want to do too many of them.