Monday, March 22, 2010

Update

1 centimeter dilated

80% effaced

Head - LOW (no wonder my groin feels like I just ran a marathon!)

Doc said she'd be surprised if Olivia made it to her due date. What have your experiences been?
Today marks the first of my weekly appointments. Up until about a week ago I was overwhelmed by the idea that we were getting so close. However, now, I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I'm sure some of my fears will resurface once I'm actually in labor and this is really all about to happen, but for now, I feel so ready.

I'm sure some of this new feeling has to do with the fact that I can't sleep, I'm uncomfortable, my body aches, I have to pee every 15 minutes, and I'm back to being nauseous in the mornings. Things definitely could be worse, I realize that, but at this point, I'm ready to not be pregnant anymore and hold my baby in my arms rather than in my tummy.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

This past weekend was what felt like our first official "all baby weekend." We had a shower with Kyle's family all day on Saturday and then an eight-hour birthing class on Sunday!

The shower was great. His family is amazing and there is definitely no shortage of excitement or love for Olivia. We came home with more then I could have ever imagined, including the car sear and the highchair! My favorite part of the shower, though, is that his sisters took a picture of the nursery to the cake woman and had her frost flowers onto the cake that look just like the flowers that are on the nursery walls. So touching.

Birthing class (I write birthDAY class almost every time I go to type this!) was long, but good. ALL day was a long time to spend in an itty-bitty education room at the hospital, but we were surprised how quickly the time passed. I guess when its information you feel like you not only want to have, but HAVE to have, you tend to be a little more engaged. All I know is that I'm thankful I wasn't the woman who's water broke DURING class! I guess not really DURING class, but on the dinner break from the class she was headed up to visit a friend in the maternity ward and her water broke on the elevator! She was 35 weeks. Needless to say that sent shock waves through our class. Talk about being at the right place at the right time, though, right?

As we approach 33 weeks, I'm feeling good. We've gotten most of what we wanted to get done before she is born and have a few more to check off the list (including the completion of our addition! -- hopefully!!) in these next several weeks. Although, Kyle keeps making me feel like we have less time then we probably actually do because he is convinced that Olivia is going to come early. Last night he asked me to start working on packing our bags for the hospital. I think his fear of that comes from several areas. He was 2 weeks early (because his mom was determined that he wasn't going to be born on his Christmas Eve due date and ruin Christmas for his older sister), my sister was 6 weeks early (my mom was 40 and considered high(er)-risk), a good friend of ours has been in and out of the hospital with pre-term labor contractions and their due date is the day before ours (her and her boyfriend have had lots of problems including her moving out for a time= lots of added stress), and then this woman from our birthing class! I'm not feeling the earlyness, but like he said...you never know, I guess.