Oh! I might actually have to labour!

It hit me this week that this may actually happen, and AHHH! Am I prepared for this? I'm nearly 38 weeks now. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!?!

It started to feel like something was missing in our house a couple of weeks ago - like there's a part of our family that's gone. The feeling of anticipation sits in the air and I waver between moments of disbelief and incredible longing. Pregnancy feels like a journey that will never end when you're in the middle of it, the constant stream of thoughts that consume my mind about baby and baby things, about my body and the changes that have been happening every day for all these long days. Life feels like it's on hold, and priorities shift until there's only one thing in sight. At night I can't sleep because of the discomfort and I lay there feeling the hiccups and the wiggles and I just want to grab those toes and the fingers, I just want to feel that body in the flesh. The thick night breathes restlessly and I, caught in the wonder of my son within, wrestle with the emotions that come before a life changing event. We've been waiting for so long now. We have overcome so many obstacles. And still we wait some more, and before we know it our life will be different again.

36 weeks

I don't know why I've lost my motivation for blogging. It seems that all I really have to say lately is YAY I'M STILL PREGNANT over and over until everyone is sick of it. Quite honestly I never in a million years imagined getting to this point. And now I have, and now we may actually have a real birth experience instead of a traumatized emergent horror story. I'm still a little skeptical that this will end without some sort of emergency, which people who talk to me frequently can attest to. My insane inability to talk about anything else that is NOT pregnancy related is even starting to annoy me. And I admit that my refusal to let my mom go anywhere further than 20 minutes away (she's going to be watching Lucas) is a little paranoid. It probably doesn't help that every doctor's appointment is punctuated with people telling me that the MINUTE I start contracting, or if my water breaks, blah blah blah I have to IMMEDIATELY go to the emergency room to get the cerclage removed, do not pass go, do not collect $200... My doctor normally likes to remove a cerclage between 36 and 37 weeks (which, GAH, is right now) but she knows my feelings on avoiding the NICU if at all possible and has agreed to wait until 39 weeks if I remain stable. So far so good and the magic date is July 13.



This is a picture of me at nearly 35 weeks - I haven't had a more recent picture taken of me yet.


This is almost over. I'm looking forward to seeing how it will end.

Lucas' lamb

So this is the third trimester

32 weeks today. In the last month I've made it through a brutal 3 hour glucose test (blood sugars are good, thank goodness), excessive blood work because of an accidental exposure to fifth disease (everything came out just fine), another ultrasound (baby turned and is now head down!!), an all day prenatal class. AND...I'm still pregnant!! Not even one contraction in this body, and I'll find out in a couple of days just how long my cervix is. Soon we'll be deciding the actual date the cerclage will be removed, and the countdown is on.

I remember reaching the 32 week point with Lucas - that was the week that he started to put on a little bit of fat so his skin wasn't so red and he didn't look quite so alien like :
31 weeks

32 weeks


We've been organizing and hauling things away to the thrift store, buying new shelving units and trying to figure out where exactly everything is going to fit in this house. Well...I haven't been doing so much - Colin does mostly everything and I sit in a chair and try to do as much as I can. My body is falling apart from the inactivity and I find my muscles extremely sore and my energy depleted. Not to mention the three hundred times a day that I have to pee. BUT. I'm in the third trimester!

We sorted baby clothes today, putting tiny sleepers into a newly painted dresser. Lucas kept exclaiming, "Oh, Cute!" in between kisses and hugs to my belly.

This is getting exciting.

28 weeks

It's surreal to know that I've made it past 28 weeks. The movements that I feel inside me now - I know exactly what they look like. I remember staring for hours through the isolette at the stretches and jerky twitches, I remember exactly what it looked like when Lucas arched his back and poked his foot out of the nest we made for him. I feel it happening inside me and am ecstatic that this little one is safely inside.

For safety sake, I am now on 'preventative bedrest,' which means that I shouldn't be up for more than 20-30 minutes at a time without resting in between. And as much as I want to take every precaution and am quite willing to adhere to these restrictions, it's still quite frustrating. It's impossible to get anything done, it's confusing for Lucas when I can't lift or push him on the swing, it exhausts me to make dinner. I want to be organizing and cleaning and getting the house ready for our addition, but I am so limited in what I can actually do. No lifting, vacuuming, scrubbing, exercising, stretching, nothing. I'm VERY thankful that I'm not on complete bed rest and am able to be at home, I'm so grateful that my cervix is still holding on and I'm not having contractions. But how are we going to get everything done?!? It's a little overwhelming.

Another preventative measure this week were the painful steroid shots injected into my hip. Just in case, these steroid shots give a boost to baby's lungs to help them develop more quickly. We debated briefly the merits of actually injecting these steroids into our little one, especially because I'm stable right now. We decided that it would be very hard to live with the thought of not doing everything in our power to give our baby the very best chance.
I had these shots done at our hospital and the nurse gave me a very nice one on one tour of the maternity ward and the NICU. It was great to see the ward, to chat with the nurses about my last experience, to receive tons of encouragement about this time around - everybody there kept saying, "It will be COMPLETELY different this time." All in all a fabulous experience.

Baby is still breech, so a c-section is still a very real possibility. I know it's early, but I'm trying to prepare myself just in case. More than anything I would love to try for a VBAC...so TURN BABY TURN!!

And in Lucas news - this week we went to the allergy clinic and had a follow up appointment for his egg allergy. They also tested him for cats, dogs, and seasonal allergens like dust, grass, pollen, etc. He was so brave as they poked his little arm over and over. His lip jutted further and further out with each poke and he started to whimper by the end, but his intense look of concentration was so adorable as they came at him with all those needles. The FABULOUS news is that he didn't react to a single thing...not even egg!! Amazing! So he had to have yet another poke to draw his blood (that one was much longer and more painful, poor thing), and then we'll go back in the fall to try an oral challenge. They'll feed him egg in small amounts over a couple of hours and watch carefully for any signs of reaction. Hopefully we'll be home free after that!

Here's a picture of him showing us his 'pokes.'


Lucas' three year old charm keeps growing, along with his independence. I have to admit that it makes me tired...the endless "No's" he shouts out, the constant battles to get his shoes on and out the door, the poops in the underwear (when he really really knows better). The constant, "What are you doing mommy?" "Where are you going?" "I do it by myself!" I don't think that I need to qualify that I love the child with all my heart...he's just reached an age and stage. And we're all figuring out how to teach and guide and learn.

He's pretty adorable, though!

26 plus four days...

I'm 26 weeks plus 4 days today. The very same point I was when my water broke the first time.
Wheeeeee!! I'm still pregnant!



A couple of weeks ago I was unknowingly exposed to fifth disease so today I had a mild bout of freaking out. But I went to the doctor, they took my blood, reassured me that it's rare for fetal infection to occur...so now I'll just wait and see what happens. I'm choosing not to worry, and it's actually pretty easy. The farther this pregnancy progresses, the more excited I become. I'm excited! I'm pregnant! Wheeeeee! I feel so much kicking and rolling and tumbling and jumping these days. Far more than I ever felt with Lucas. I love every minute (even when I'm trying to sleep, which is OFTEN the case). YIPPEE! I'm pregnant!

And in even more exciting news...we found out that we are having a BOY! Another little boy running around the house...I'm trying to picture it. It's gonna be great.

Toilet Training Tales

*Warning: This post is exclusively about potty training. If you are not the least bit interested in reading about peeing and pooping on a potty I would suggest you stop reading now.

The week before Lucas' birthday we made the switch to "underwear only" days. Before that we had been counting down the diapers and talking about how when the diapers were all gone, then it would be time for big boy underwear and only going pee on the potty, not in a diaper. Lucas knew exactly what we were talking about and one day he found a diaper tucked away somewhere in the house and ecstatically brought it back to the diaper basket. "Mommy! I found a diaper! We almost forgot this one!" He knew what was coming...

We switched to underwear without a glance back. The accidents have been fairly minimal and after 3 days he started to tell me when he had to go (which was very surprising!) Every single time he pees on the potty his eyes light up and he exclaims, "I went pee!!" It's been two weeks, and the last couple of days have been the hardest, actually. More accidents and refusal to go on the potty have been the norm as this is becoming final to him. The novelty has worn off and now it's a little more work. Today we came into the house and I was in the kitchen. All of a sudden Lucas exclaims (quite happily, I might add), "Mommy, I peed on the floor!" Needless to say I was a little frustrated and we had a talk about how messes on the floor are frustrating for mommy and make Lucas very messy. A few days ago when he had an accident at someone else's house he was very traumatized and sobbed uncontrollably. At that time I explained that it's okay to sometimes have accidents and next time we would just try to get to the potty in time. Each situation seems so different and I feel I have to walk such a delicate balance in order to communicate appropriately.

At the risk of getting really gross, pooping has been the biggest challenge. The kid can hold it in for days and days and then sit there and FILL the potty. It gets to the point where he lays on the floor complaining that his stomach hurts but he just doesn't want to go until the very last possible minute. Then it's a huge panic..."Mommy I have to poop NOW!!" and we're very often almost too late. Hopefully that part will get easier the more he gets used to it.

The other day we were in the dollar store looking at stickers. Lucas was standing on the other side of the rack - I could hear him singing and talking, but couldn't exactly see him. All of a sudden he comes waltzing around the corner with his pants and his underwear around his ankles, his tiny bits wobbling in plain view. It seems the tag on his new underwear was a bit itchy. "Mommy...it's too STICKY!" he exclaimed. An elderly lady walking by actually gave him the finger wag and a "tsk tsk" as she walked by. I just couldn't stop laughing.

Teaching the teddy to go pee on the potty.