Great weekend!

Though it is Monday afternoon and I am quite tired, I wouldn't give it up because I had such a wonderful weekend!

Skip and I hung around the house and got some things done on Saturday morning and through the early afternoon, then got ready to go down to Chicago. We had anticipated needing to drive around the train station a bunch to find long-term free parking, but we totally lucked out in being able to find a 10-hour free parking area literally across the street from the Intermodal (Amtrak and bus) Station. Yay! So then we were there like 45 mins before our train left. Oh well. We got on and our car only had like 3 other people in it, so it was nice and quiet. That route to Chicago from Milwaukee on Amtrak is so easy and convenient. Mom, Dad, and Michael met us downtown and we went to The Parthenon for dinner. It was just as good as always. We had SO much food, but we also had a great time. It was Taste of Greece outside on Halsted St., so after dinner we walked around for a little while before heading back up to Milwaukee. Mom was happy with her unnoticed "roadie sodie" of Mavrodafni :). We made it back up by about 9:30, and visited a little while before Mom and Dad went to their hotel, and Michael, Skip and I crashed.

Skip and I got up Sunday morning and went to church, then picked up Michael and headed out to Waukesha for our baby shower at Sarah and Andy's. It turned out to be such nice weather, which was great for the shower. There were between 25 and 30 of our closest family members and a couple of family friends. It was great to visit with everyone! We got some very nice gifts, as well, which is always a bonus :). Sarah did a wonderful job coordinating everything! There were 7 kids under the age of 10 there, so Skip and I got some good kid-practice in there, too. It's going to be so wonderful to bring our little one into that crowd!

After we left we went home, and while Skip dog-parked with Scotch, I went on a little "stalking" excursion to the east side of Milwaukee... (details later, maybe :)). We got back home and had Parthenon leftovers for dinner, then walked our overfed bodies down to Walgreens to pick up some pictures. We got home, and again, totally crashed.

We have had some great weekends lately, and a couple more to come. I'm really enjoying the end of this summer, with much anticipation for the fall!

32 Weeks!

I had my (end of) 32 week appointment with the doctor today, and all is well. My blood pressure was great (98/58-- thanks, Mom, for the gene for low healthy BP!), and my weight gain is right on track. I have started to feel more anxious about everything that's coming in the next months, so I was sure to ask the doctor some questions I had. The baby's heartbeat was fine, fluctuating like it should with movement. The doctor was able to tell me that it felt as if the baby's head has turned downward, which is the right position from this point on in pregnancy. Based on my measurements, she guesses the baby is somewhere between 3 1/2 and 4 pounds.

I asked her when we would start talking about my "plans" for L & D, and I've decided that when doctors hear the word "plan," they freak out. And I don't really have a dedicated plan, per se. There is the ideal way I would like for this all to play out, but of course I'm realistic enough to know that nothing ever goes exactly as planned. She did offer me advice, saying that the less interventions I want, the longer I should stay at home. Which is good info to know. I have not completely written-off drugs or an epidural, it's just that I would like to try and go as natural as possible. However, if that does not work out and I need the meds, it will be fine. I'm not looking for a gold star or someone to pat me on the back and tell me "good job!" for doing things without drugs. If it hurts that much, bring on the Nubain, Stadol or Epi. The doctor did tell me that she and her partners do not routinely cut episiotomies, which was also good to know. Because her schedule may not allow for her to be there to deliver our baby, she said she trusts all of her partners and knows that they all practice with the same principles and therefore will be able to care for me as well as she would. It's good to hear. Being a patient in such a large practice and hospital has its drawbacks, such as lots of doctors and not as much personal "warm fuzzy" feel. However, I am willing to forgo some of that to be able to have the best docs and facilities available to me if I need them-- 24/7.

Dreams 8/17

I had a weird dream last night that both my sister and I were feeling the babies move like crazy, which was cool. But then I look down between my legs and there is a tiny leg sticking out. I told my mom hurriedly to call 911, because a breech/footling birth is really bad. The baby somehow ended up coming out, and it was totally stiff. Not dead stiff, but it's legs were all contracted. The 911 operator instructed me to start "working" the legs and arms by bending them and moving them. All of a sudden, after everything started moving smoothly, the baby turned into this plump perfect little thing. Still don't know if it was a boy or girl, though... Weird? Signs that something isn't going to go right with my delivery? :/

Baby update 8/14 and vent

I had my 30 week appointment with Dr. Barnabei this morning, and it went fine. One pound in three weeks-- take THAT, Doc! I suppose that's what happens when you don't have a stitch of ice cream or extra salt or oatmeal in 3 weeks and load up on fruit, veggies, water and eggs. Too bad my digestive system hates this new way of eating... Okay, TMI. Anyways, the baby's heart rate sounded slow to me, around 120, but it was kind of fluctuating and the doc didn't seem concerned. She said it's common for the baby's HR to fluctuate as it moves around in there. I'm measuring fine, and everything else is going well. My doctor is not unpleasant, but just very down-to-business, so I wasn't in a super-excited mood or anything leaving the appointment. However, I do trust her 100% medically-speaking, so I suppose I can do without a little bit of the bedside manner. I just don't anticipate having her be my OB anymore after this baby.

Skip and I are going up to Algoma tonight, and we're not going to have the house to ourselves like we thought. It's not like we were going up there to "make out" the whole time (I'll keep it PG for the kiddies :)), but we would have just liked to have a nice, private, relaxing weekend. The whole thing with this house is, though, that my in-laws gave keys away to like a bajillion people, with no rules/stipulations on who can go up when. No sign-up sheet, no reservations, don't have to tell anyone, just go when you want. So, Skip and I will call Mannings when we're planning on going up there (like we did 2 weeks ago), just to give a heads up. Well, apparently some others also had planned for a couple of weeks to go up, which is totally fine-- but there are only 2 bedrooms with a queen in each. So if there are more than 4 people up there, then people are relegated to the couches. Um, pregnant lady gets a bed. Sorry. So Mary and Charlie were going to go up, too, and we find out a couple others are going up. As bothered as I am with the fact that we didn't know others were going to be there, I feel just as bad encroaching on their plans, if they wanted a nice weekend alone. So we said we'd pass, but now Charlie and Mary are passing instead. I guess I'm happy that we can still go and have the weekend, but the confusion of the whole mess has set my weekend off to a bad start. I was looking forward to telling my in-laws that their system of "first come first dibs on beds" doesn't work, but it looks like that will have to wait for another time. Besides, it might fall on deaf ears anyways, so it may be pointless to even bring it up. I guess we'll just have to flat-out state next time "we are going up to Algoma on such-and-such a date, and we would like it to ourselves. Period." Not only for our sakes, but for everyone else who may not particularly want to spend a whole weekend with us. Urgh.

Anyways, I was stressed about all of this, but then found out that Ziemerham's house got broken into, so that puts some perspective on my stress...

Weekend and Baby Class

I had quite the productive weekend, at least Friday and Saturday, and really feel like we've made some progress on the house and baby's room. Right after work on Friday I headed to Homo Depot to rent a carpet cleaner. We rented it for 4 hours, which I figured would be plenty of time to get the carpets cleaned in the living room, foyer-ish area and guest bedroom. I didn't, however, factor into the equation that I was picking the thing up at the height of rush hour, and I live 20 mins from the store-- in good weather and traffic-- which it wasn't. So I got home and started by 6:00. Thank god Skip had moved all of the furniture and the house was all ready to go. I got all of the carpets done before 8, then even did the couch in the living room with the upholstery attachment to the cleaner. Wow does everything look nice! It just sets the whole house off to have clean carpets, and now there's also no dog spooge on the couch! I left the house just after 8:30 and got back to the store with 10 minutes to spare, just in time.

We had wanted to do the carpets on a dry day, so we picked Friday. Haha, NOT! Of course we pick seriously the wettest, most humid weekend to let them dry, which totally sucked. We weren't in any of those rooms too much on Saturday, which meant we were kind of sequestered to the kitchen and bedroom, or outside-- which wasn't happening. I managed to get into the guest/baby's room a bit and finish taking apart and moving to the basement the remaining furniture that needed to move. I really now feel like we don't have much left to do in terms of getting the room/house ready for the baby. We still have to organize the spare closet in there and move Skip's nursing school papers and info to the basement, but other than that, it's coming along. I'm sure my nesting instinct will find more things to do, but for now we're good. :)

I took Scotch to the dog park in the late afternoon, got soaked by the rain, then came home and had a hormonal pregnant crab attack. Skip was like, "what is wrong with you? why don't you just go lay down for a few minutes?" So I did, then I was better. I love hormones. Then we headed down to Bristol for an engagement party for our friend Quentin (from Meda-Care) and his new fiance Kim. We had a very nice time, and really got some good catching up done with the Bowmans and Meshenkys. I've decided the Meshenky kids are two of the cutest kids EVER! Too bad we didn't get to meet Ben and Christy's baby Brie-- but hopefully soon! We stayed up and talked (yes, talked) for about an hour when we got home, so I was up until like 1am-- haven't done that in a while!

Sunday was friggin' hot. I stayed inside all day except to pick up dog poop so Skip could mow the lawn. I got some laundry done, then vegged. We got yummy stuff from El Rey for dinner, then went for a walk and vegged some more.

We had our first Baby/Birthing Class yesterday evening, and it was very informative. I know neither of us are uneducated or naive about the whole process, but it's nice nonetheless to go and just get some exposure to what will be happening. There is a couple in my class who are both approaching 50 and whose baby (their 1st) was a TOTAL surprise (the lady actually thought she was going through menopause at first!)-- they were "hard partiers" they said (she looks like she has smoked 2 packs a day for her whole life, and I would have pegged her for approaching 60). So if we think our baby is changing our lives, I can't imagine how theirs is changing! Squirrel wriggled all night through class, which seemed quite appropriate. I took a little road trip after class to get some shoes from Steph to borrow for her wedding (NEXT WEEKEND!), and had a nice visit. Then Stephanie got kidnapped-- we had no idea where she was. No, actually, she just went to visit the neighbors, but Mike didn't know and was worried, so he called me to see if I knew where she was. A couple of tense moments, but she was fine, thank god. I thought she had gotten stolen by the freaky lady with the suitcase who had been wandering the neighborhood just moments before...

Okay, long enough post for now!

Thoughts

Lately I've really started thinking about the little things that I have to get done before this baby comes. Sure, Skip and I have had a list in the kitchen for a few months of the major "household" changes that need to occur, in terms of rearranging furniture and rooms and such. However, up until just recently I have managed to keep my brain free of other details that I might either need to get done before the baby comes, or things that I've been told about birth/babies/pregnancy-- the things that people say to me along the lines of: "I wish I would have known this when I was pregnant/in labor/bringing home a newborn." Here are my latest pregnancy thoughts:

1.) How are birth certificates handled? Does the hospital file it? [Got this one answered by a co-worker. Check.]
2.) I will need to apply for the baby's Social Security number. [Also answered by coworker, Froedtert does it for us. Check.]
3.) Call the doctor who we've decided will be our pediatrician. Find out if she will follow the vaccination schedule we want.
4.) Add the baby to my insurance.
5.) Pre-register at the hospital. [Thanks for that one, Sarison.]
6.) Finish filling out FMLA forms and turn them in.
7.) Get the carpets cleaned so the baby doesn't get salmonella like I did at 6 months old.
8.) Figure out when to pack my bag for the hospital, and what to put in it.
9.) Start thinking about tying up any loose ends at work and finish up projects in case I go early.
10.) I was told that my boobs will hurt like hell when I am transitioning out of breastfeeding.
11.) I need to talk to my doctor about whether or not my tattoo will pose an issue if I need an epidural. Not planning on one, but just in case...
12.) My water might break while I'm in bed, so I was told to get a waterproof mattress pad.
13.) Start cooking and freezing some meals now because I won't want to cook after the baby comes.

I'm not REALLY stressed out, but my mind is running a mile a minute these days just thinking about things. Thinking, thinking, thinking. I wish there were things that I could DO to practice before this kid comes, because I'd really like to prepare myself. But alas, apparently there isn't much I can do besides just wait patiently and feel it squirm in my tummy to Frank Ticheli. I suppose that'll do in the meantime...