Patience

I am already learning my first lesson in patience as a parent. Waiting for Kyle to decide to make his appearance in this world is starting to drive me crazy. I feel like my belly is a ticking time bomb and everyone is on pins and needles waiting for it to go off :). Every night for the past week I have gone to bed with contractions wondering if tonight is “the night” and then before I know it I wake up and it is morning and my day starts all over again. Today is Kyle’s official due date, so hopefully he comes in the next few days. I felt really good this weekend and had a lot of energy, but yesterday and this morning I have had more, stronger, contractions and felt less energetic. Right now, I feel a lot like I do right before I am ready to start my period: crampy, crabby, and overall blah! So maybe that is a good thing and it means that active labor is near!

I had my 40 week doctor’s appointment yesterday afternoon and everything went very well. Since baby and I are still doing so good they are not going to induce labor until 42 weeks (6 August), however, we are praying that he comes before that point. While I really don’t want to be induced, it is comforting knowing that there is an official end date. No matter what, we will meet our baby boy on August 6th. If he decides to keep hanging out in my belly, I go back to the doctor for three different visits next week to monitor baby and me to ensure that we are both still strong and healthy. In the meantime, I am going to start working on some natural induction techniques that I learned in my birth class. There is really nothing that will definitely incite labor, but at least I will feel like I am doing something to speed up the process. My mom is coming down today to spend the day with me and I am going to have her do some reflexology on my feet. There are certain pressure points that simulate the uterus so maybe she will be able to wake things up a bit down there.

As always, thanks again for everyone’s thoughts and prayers, we are getting so excited and soooo close!

39 weeks and still pregnant.

So much for my post saying that I thought he was going to come early, must have just been wishful thinking. I don’t know why I want him to come so bad, I am really not all that uncomfortable, as long as I am in an air conditioned building I feel fine, and I am sleeping comfortable at night except for the hourly wake-up call from my bladder to hit the restroom. I think I am just really ready to experience all the hype of labor and delivering a baby. I have heard a range of stories from friends and family about what it is like to have a baby and every woman experiences giving birth so differently. No one story is the same, so it is hard to know what that actual event is going to be like and I am really ready to experience my own birth story. The anticipation of it all is killing me. I have continued to have light cramping and contractions daily for the past week, but nothing regular or intense enough to be considered active labor.

I had my 39 week appointment this morning and everything with baby and I is still looking good. He had a nice strong heart rate on the Doppler and all my vitals are measuring normal. After my doctor's appointment, I told myself that I really just need to start being thankful to have a healthy baby growing in me and stop being so impatient. So my new outlook from her on out is going to be gratitude.

Matt went back to work today after his two weeks of block leave and I am on vacation starting this week until I have the baby so I am working on creating a list of things I want to do to keep myself busy. I think number one on the list is going to be getting a pedicure. Well, that is about all I got for now. Thanks again for everyone’s messages and thoughts. I can’t wait to share the news of baby Kyle's arrival with you all!

39 week belly photo. Looking happy to get my picture take as usual..haha. As of today I have gained exactly 4olbs during the pregnancy. Needless to say, I am definitely looking forward to getting my pre-pregnancy body back :)

Final Preparations

The nursery is complete! We got the rocking chair delivered this morning and now we have everything we need, except for the baby that is, (hear that Kyle, we are ready for you to come out whenever you want). Overall, I am pleased with how it turned out. It is a hodgepodge of different colors and things, but I think they ended up fitting together nicely. The room makes me smile when I walk inside and that was the goal when I started shopping for nursery items.

I also decide to outsource my nesting needs this past week and had our carpets professionally cleaned and sanitized and our house deep cleaned by a maid service. It has been worth every penny! It is so nice to be in a clean, organized house and not be suffering from the exhaustion that comes with doing a deep clean. I am sure Kyle also appreciated not having to inhale all the cleaning fumes :)

Our 38 week appointment went really well. Baby and I are strong and healthy and ready to go for labor and delivery. Out of curiosity, I opted for the pelvic exam during this appointment and was 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced. These number don't mean much at all in terms of indicating when active labor will begin, but at least I know my body is slowly starting to prepare for the big push :) I have been feeling pretty good these past few days, my energy has been up, and my body has been feeling pretty good for the most part. We had dinner with some friends in the Springs last night which was nice to get out of the house and enjoy some fun conversation. We also have an infant safety class tonight that the hospital offers for free to new parents. Keeping busy with little activities here and there has been good for my mental spirits. I find that I feel worse if I am just laying around in the cave waiting anxiously for labor to start.

Also, thanks for every ones thoughts and well wishes as we move into the final weeks. We are so blessed to have a great support system of awesome friends and family!

Full Term

Sorry for my lack of blogging last week. Matt and I were both on vacation and I decided to take a break from my computer. Unfortunately, we could not really go anywhere outside of the Springs with Baby Kyle due in a few weeks, but we enjoyed our time relaxing around the house and making last minute preparations for our little guys arrival.

While I am so excited to finally meet our baby, I am really trying to soak up this time with just Matt and me because very soon it will never be just the two of us again. It is kind of crazy when you think about how much our life is going to change in the new few weeks, but we are ready for this next chapter. It has been an amazing four years of marriage with just the two of us, and I know that having a baby is only going to make our life together that much richer.

According to the doctors, I am full term this week, meaning Baby Kyle is fully developed and could make his arrival any day. Statistically, most first time moms go all the way to their due date and often even a few days past, so the odds are Baby Kyle won’t come for a few more weeks. However, mother’s intuition says he is going to come early. I just have a feeling that he will be here soon. I have started to feel stronger contractions over the past few days. They are very irregular so it is nothing to get too excited about, but hopefully that means that things are progressing. It is such a mental shift from the rest of the pregnancy. You go through nine months praying not to feel contractions, cramping, or any of the other preterm labor symptoms, and then all of the sudden you hit 38 weeks and you start getting excited when you feel contractions, and are anxiously waiting for your water to break. I just keep telling myself to be patient. Baby Kyle knows when he is ready to enter the world.

Besides the occasional contractions throughout the day, I am still feeling pretty good. Fatigue has started to set in over the past few days, and simple chores like laundry and grocery shopping wear me out. I am not sleeping great at night so I find myself needing frequent naps throughout the day to maintain my energy. We have our 38 week appointment tomorrow and I will keep you all posted on how that goes. Here is to hoping that I post a blog about having the baby sooner than later…I am ready to start carrying baby Kyle in my arms and not in my belly :).