38 weeks and 1 day

It was another amazingly nice weather weekend in Seattle, so we took Holly to the beach at Golden Gardens again.  She mostly likes to dig holes and make 'mountains'.  David was able to mow the lawn again, it's like the right balance of rain and sun to make the grass grow like a jungle right now.  Last week, we were able to get the crib set up to the proper level with bedding so that's done.  I ran the coverings for our infant car seat and cradle through the wash yesterday so when they're dry David can put them back together and finalize the set up.  I still need to pack our stuff for the hospital.  I'm becoming more and more immobilized.  It's so hard for me to move around right now, thank goodness I have a desk job otherwise work wouldn't be happening.  Gravity remains my oppressor at the present.  My belly is so far forward that my ab muscles and ligaments are taxed to the max from my belly through my thighs.  It makes it painful to sleep on my hips because of it.  So I try sleeping propped up on the couch, but even that eventually gets to me and starts hurting my back.  I usually give up at some point and bust out the Tylenol and small intervals of my heat pad to get some relief.  But that means not much sleep.  I usually feel better after a hot shower but it only helps the sleep deprivation slightly.  I'm in a constant state of dropping off to sleep but I can't if my hips or back hurts, I'm too light a sleeper.  That's probably weird to see me do that, David asks me if I'm okay and Holly yells at me to wake up when it happens.

Good News on the OB testing front

More good news everyone.  I'm back from my doctor's appointment with my blood pressure completely normal.  I did the stress test for the baby, and he's totally fine in there.  As of right now, no additional appointments are necessary, just the regular ones.  The doctor's appointments on the books are thus:
May 4th - regular OB
May 7th - PreOp
May 11th - C-section
This is the plan unless of course I go into labor earlier than that.  I'm pretty much treating each day at work as if it's the last before maternity leave, just in case.  David was planning on going into a local pharmacy today to get a tetanus booster with whooping cough, mostly because whooping cough is such a big problem in the state right now.  Not a bad idea to have him caught up anyways, wouldn't want to be a carrier.  This weekend will probably be just odds and ends of continuing to prepare for Johnny's arrival.  We've run all our bottles through the wash and the baby stuff is organized and put away.  We'll dust off the car seat and the cradle.  Then raise up the crib and put the bedding on.  I'll order any more items we might need.  But after that, we pretty much set. 

Holiday had her 3 year check up this week too.  Her height is surprisingly in the 72nd percentile but her weight is in the 11th percentile.  Tall and slender isn't a concern though.  They attempted to do a vision test on her but she's still pretty young to understand what to do there.  I guess she got through the first three rows on the adult chart (including the big E) then declared the rest to be "teeny tinies" and didn't want to play anymore.  That's okay Holly, we'll try again next year.

Preclampsia testing update

I got a call from my doctor this morning and all the lab work has come up just fine.  The steps now are to keep taking it easy, keep monitoring my blood pressure, and keep the appointment for tomorrow.  They are going to do a monitoring type test on the baby to make sure he's okay in there.  All in all, very good news.

37 weeks OB appointment

Yesterday I had an OB appointment and my blood pressure was high.  It did come down to normal as the appointment wore on, but the worry remains preclampsia.  So they did a blood draw and we're waiting to hear back on that.  I've been given a blood pressure cuff to borrow so I can check my blood pressure throughout the day.  As long as I give myself time to relax I get decent readings.  I have an appointment tomorrow for the preclampsia issue, so I think we'll know more then.  If the lab finds anything they'll want to get Johnny out sooner than later.  I would, of course, prefer that everything is fine and have Johnny on May 11th as scheduled.  We'll have to see what the doctor says.

Easter Pictures

Holiday coloring Easter eggs with Daddy.

She likes all the different colors.

There's a fine specimen.

Holiday at the Woodland Park Zoo Bunny Bounce.

And she's wearing a lovely frilly dress.

Finding Easter eggs.

And they are all over the place.

Look Mommy! I'm on a Horsey.

Holiday getting a shoulder ride from Daddy.

Doing chalk drawings

Playing dress up.

Happy Birthday crown that came from daycare on the day of her birthday.

Holly was sick most of last week, but her fever broke on Saturday.  She still has a cough and congestion, but last night she actually ate real food so hopefully she's feeling better.  Her 3 year check up is tomorrow and she's slated for vaccinations, so I think she'll still get her shots on time since the fever is passed.  I'll be having an OB appointment tomorrow as well.  I'm 37 weeks and 1 day today, so according to Babycenter, I'm full term even the baby won't come for a couple weeks.  I'm feeling okay, at least everything I'm feeling is considered normal.  Swelling of hands and feet, itchy skin, and extreme fatigue.  For me, preparing for bed is like preparing for war.  Battle between sleep and discomfort and most of the time discomfort wins.  I usually go back and forth between the bed and the couch.  The other night I sleep for 3 hours on the couch woke up and did 2 more hours in bed.  That's super amazing for me.  I've gone through the stuff in the basement and found all our bottles and nursing stuff, there's a few clothing items that can pass down to Johnny from Holly but not much.

Baby Shower Pictures

Daddy and Holiday making peanut butter and jelly 'samwiches'.

Mommy opening baby shower presents.

Holiday playing with baby shower balloons.

She had a blast with those.

Mommy profile shot...everywhere I go people ask me if I'm having a boy.

Courtney with her little one, Halley.

Mommy opening more presents.

Shot of the guests.

Holly putting on bunny ears and an apron.

Mommy showing off presents from Aunt Kelly.

Halley is all snug. Love those pigtails.

Holly with a baby.

Another guest shot.

Here's Daddy and Holly talking with Candy Hack.



I received my planned c-section packet in the mail yesterday and have read through it.  There's a big difference between planned c-section and emergency c-section.  For planned, there's special diet and showering directions.  Special intake and registering instructions too.  Kind of weird.  Also, I've been having weird dreams lately.  Last night I could have sworn while I was trying to get some level of sleep on the couch that David got up and I asked what was going on with no answer.  Then he gets Holly up who was wimpering like from a bad dream or something and took her back to our room to calm her down.  I sat there in a state of confusion and decided to get up to check if Holly was indeed in the bedroom.  Nope...and David was far too snuggled in the bed for him to have even gotten up himself at all.  I dreamed it all and it seemed so real.  Holly's been sick all week so the scenario was plausible.  Then I dreamed later on that David and I both had bad dreams and we woke up and discussed them.  But I dreamed that too.  In the morning I told David what happened last night and he confirmed for me that I was in fact dreaming and not going crazy because none of those incidents happened.  

Picture Time Again

Mommy helping with the painting on the low end of the nursery.

'Toad on a lily pad' as my Dad would call it.

Here's Daddy painting the high end of the nursery.

Daddy and Holiday at Anna's dance school's presentation during the Irish Festival.

The taller one is Anna.

Holiday giving Mommy 'check-ups' before bedtime.

Daddy and Holiday at the Seattle Aquarium for Sable's birthday party.

This is the touch and feel section.

It was hard to get her to use just one finger.

Holiday and Daddy cityscape from the outdoor portion of the Seattle Aquarium.

Back inside in the dome part.

Looking at sharks.

Holly's spies a peep hole and immediately investigates.

She said she could see the water.

Mommy and Holly at lunchtime.

Holiday loves cupcakes...especially ones associated with birthdays.

Holiday turned 3 on Monday.  We sent along little ice cream cups for her and her playmates.  She came home wearing a birthday crown that just absolutely loves.  Daddy and I made her a birthday card out of construction paper, stickers with her photo inside.  She really liked that too and proceeded to rip her picture out she liked it so much.  Oh well, it's her birthday card.  We'll give her the rest of her birthday stuff this Saturday when Grandma Claudia and Grandpa Jet come to visit. 

I'm having sciatica issues again, only it's on my left side.  David did the adjustment on me, I think it helped a little.  It's incredibly painful so I can't sleep when it's going on, so I'm really tired today.  My skin is doing better.  The hydrocortizone I got from my doctor really helped taking the itch out so my skin has been able to heal since it all started.  Now my skin is really dry due to the hydrocortizone so I'm back on the lotion like crazy, but it feels so much better now.  I still have stretch out days every now and then which makes it hard on me for about a day then I neutralize then the next day I'm fine.  I'm officially scheduled for my c-section on Friday, May 11th early in the morning.  I guess I really don't sleep anyways so it won't be that big a deal for me and it makes not eating or drinking anything after midnight more tolerable.  Of course, if Johnny decides to sooner than that I don't have any way of knowing ahead of time.  I'm hoping he doesn't but I'm pretty big and you can never tell for sure.

Lovely Weekend

We had a great weekend and had awesome weather for springtime in Washington State.  We took Holly to Golden Gardens, she was very excited to go to the beach.  There were sailboat races going on, we were under a flight path so there were a lot of planes, next to very active train tracks, with lots of families, doggies, bicycles and kites nearby for Holly to look at.  Holly really enjoyed digging in the sand.  She was upset when it was time to leave.  Daddy put in the first mowing of the year, took him 2.5 hours it was such a jungle back there, but he does a thorough job using the weedwacker, mower, then raking.  The weather was so nice he gave himself the weekend off from updating the bathroom so he'll finish it this week.  I'm thinking I'll get my sorting done by this weekend then baby shop to fill in the holes for what we need for a new baby.

Latest Home Project

David stayed home with Holly during her daycare closure yesterday, so he started working on our bathroom floor.  He finished replacing it last night.  Now he needs to finish the trimwork, repaint the bathroom and put together a piece of bathroom furniture we had to replace due to water damage.  We're hoping to be done with the bathroom by this weekend.  And that would be the last house project before the baby's born, the rest is just getting organized.  I still need to sort through Holly's old stuff and we'll need to dust off the old baby car seat and get it situated in the car with Holly's car seat.  Find all our bottles and the breast pump and all my other nursing gear.  I'll attempt the first six months nursing again.  I only made it to four and a half with Holly and had to switch to formula.  But since she doesn't seem to be allergic to anything more than grasses, it seems to be enough. 

Doctor's Appointments and Easter Activities

I'm 35 weeks and 1 day today.  Last week I had to go in to see a doctor due to some freaky pregnancy skin condition.  Basically I'm extremely itchy on my legs and arms.  I did a blood test and the results came back on Saturday and we've ruled out the only bad one which is a malfunctioning liver.  So the rest are still a possibility along with the possibility of an allergic reaction and I have sensitive skin on top of all that, so it's not known what it actually is and we may never know since there's so many possibilities.  I'm just trying to deal with the symptoms as best I can.  So it just sucks it doesn't hurt anything.  This morning I saw my regular OB doctor and I'm measuring only barely bigger than normal so I did not need an additional ultrasound and am expected to go to term as normal.  Johnny is sitting in there transverse so it may have been how he was lying in there last time that made it seem like he was so much bigger.  It was a challenge for her to track down his heartbeat today since he's such a little squiggler.  Maybe he's just ticklish, he always moves when I put a hand to my belly.  If you stare at my belly long enough you can totally see him move in there.  He gets the hiccups nearly every day.

We took Holiday to the zoo on Saturday for the Bunny Bounce.  She enjoyed picking up eggs but I think her favorite part was riding the merry-go-round with daddy.  You can redeem your eggs for like four pieces of candy, but we decided to keep the eggs.  She has a lot of fun with them.  On Easter Day, I hid plastic eggs and the real eggs she decorated last week in the back yard.  I think she liked that better than the zoo.  The zoo staff just dump buckets of eggs everywhere, not hard to find.  I made it a little more challenging than just dumping them in the middle of the grass.  Mostly I stashed them in flower beds, the deck and daddy's motorcycle.  Holiday also had sidewalk chalk and play dough toys in her easter basket and loved playing with both.

The Hills' Newest Member

We went to visit Keri and Cliff in the hospital last night and they are both doing great.  She's still reeling over how fast everything went this time.  Cliff is cute as a button.  It's hard to tell who he looks like, I see some Joel resemblance but they change so much at this age that in two weeks he'll probably look like someone else.  I got to hold him a little bit, Holly really seems humongous now.  Holiday didn't show much interest in the baby.  She was more interested in looking out the window and kicking the vents on the window seating there.  I asked Keri about getting a spinal and started taking some mental notes.  She was happy that it worked quickly.  Her shoulder seemed to be mysteriously hurting but David said I had the same thing with Holly, I totally don't remember that.  I'm sure there's lots of stuff that happened I don't remember.  Their room looked really familiar to us, we might of been in the same space when we were there last.  The hospital has made a few changes in the last three years.  It seems they have an actual mattress for the spouse now as opposed to an uncomfortable futon-like thing.  The nursing staff roll in a computer for taking vitals when they do their periodic visits throughout the day, instead of clipboards.  Keri and Joel said in general a lot of rules have relaxed because the hospital was way more strict last time around.

Post Baby Shower News

There was a great turnout at the baby shower with only a few cancellations due to illness and flooding.  My sister Kelly did a great job and everything was awesome.  One of the games was a purse scavenger hunt with a list of items to find.  Everyone was divided into teams and Holy Moses......did they ever get to work finding items on the list.  Some of them must of thought they were being timed but they weren't.  It was hilarious, Kelly and I were cracking up.  We made the list the night before, all of the items had been in our own purses at one time or another.  Apparently I'm the only one that carries pepper spray.  That's too bad, it was a 10 pointer.  But everyone carries coupons.  The team that won was my step-mom Judy, step-aunt Barb, and my step-brother Travis's fiance Courtney.  The prize was various beauty items from Victoria's Secret.  Then there was the on-going 'Don't say 'Baby'' game which was pretty tough.  My cousin Ashley won that one and the prize was a purse in honor of the purse game.  I got a lot of baby clothes, which I really needed, plus a lot of practical stuff like wipes, diapers, etc.  I was at least able to get everything out of tags and packaging but I still have to wash everything which will be this week's task along with writing Thank You cards.  I was able to finish fitting Grandma Linda's curtains in the nursery which turned out great.  The nursery is pretty much decorated now, I'll need to sort through stuff in the basement and bring up some of the items retired from Holiday's infancy.  So we had a big step forward and we tie up some loose ends.

P.S.  Keri had Cliff yesterday, click on her link to get the play by play.  The sound like they're doing great.