Week 37 and counting...

It seems like we're getting really close now! And we're crossing some major items off my long list, so I feel a little more ready for the baby to arrive.
The car seat has been purchased and installed. I wished I had my camera when Steve was sitting on the car seat base to get it cinched down properly! :)
We also bought a dresser/changing table, and we'll have that put together pretty soon.
We also met with 3 pediatricians. Two we liked, and one we really didn't. In fact, we think that the last lady would have the personality to think that kids were gross. We'll go with one of the first two people, and we'll be fine.

Week 37 stats/factoids:

• Weight gain: 24 pounds
• Baby's heartbeat: 150s bpm
• 0 cm dilated, 0% effaced (not surprising since the baby hasn't dropped yet, but I had him check anyway)
• Can I just put it out there that it's really hard to give a urine sample when you can't see where you're peeing? :)
• Hands and forearms tight/tingling/a little painful: yeah for pregnancy carpal-tunnel! :P I just hope it goes away after the pregnancy.
  

Baby Shower and Father's Day

On June 20th, I had another baby shower in Mechanicsburg, PA (outside Harrisburg). We had a nice time having a tea party, chatting, taking pictures, and opening the gifts (along with plenty of comments and advice from the audience. :) ) I'll post some more pictures soon, (here's me with the grandmothers-to-be) but you can check out pictures from Jean Lehman if you're on Facebook. And thanks to Meghan for being my photographer! :)

Steve was getting into the spirit of Father's Day by assembling the Pack 'n Play (which we later disassembled), our new stroller, and the crib. Steve also bought our car seat the other day, so we technically now have everything we NEED (except a diaper genie, which we'll be getting soon.)

We also took a tour of the hospital where I'll be giving birth. Getting a lay of the land helped me feel better. There were also a couple of babies to look at in the nursery - they were so cute and little! This hospital offers the option to have the baby in the nursery as well as stay in the room with us.

We start interviewing pediatricians tonight, so hopefully we'll find one that we like.

Here's the informal baby pool taken at the baby shower. I find it fascinating! I have the latest delivery date (my mom says this is wishful thinking on my part, since there is still so much left to do) and my mom has the earliest date (which I think is wishful thinking on her part.) Kamili has my actual due date, but everyone else doubles up on the days, which I thought was interesting. Also, we had 8 girl votes and 7 boy votes, so I guess the 50/50 odds are holding up.

DATE		GENDER		WEIGHT		PARTICIPANT
July 12th		girl		7 lbs.		Mary Day
July 14th		boy		7 lbs. 12 oz.		Amy Zuckett
July 14th		girl		7 lbs. 10 oz.		Beth Briczinski
July 15th		boy		7 lbs. 8 oz.		Susan Christy
July 15th		boy		6 lbs. 14 oz.		Peg Frank
July 16th		girl		6 lbs. 9 oz.		Kamili Jackson
July 18th		girl		7 lbs. 8 oz.		Tanya Thomas
July 18th		girl		7 lbs. 2 oz.		Caitlin Kambic
July 19th		boy		7 lbs. 12 oz.		Meghan Scanlon
July 19th		boy		7 lbs. 9 oz.		Carolyn Christy
July 20th		boy		7 lbs. 10 oz.		Jean Lehman
July 20th		girl		7 lbs. 6 oz.		Pam Steele
July 21st		boy		8 lbs. 1 oz.		Cathy Kambic
July 21st		girl		7 lbs. 8 oz.		Diane Perry
July 22nd		girl		7 lbs. 3 oz.		Diane Briczinski

36 weeks - wow!

Today I am officially 36 weeks along. At the end of this week, the baby will be considered full term. (37-42 weeks) I can't believe that I'm getting so close to the end!

I forgot to mention in the last posting the funniest quote that I've seen, courtesy of the guys who double bagged my card at my work baby shower. Not surprisingly, the quote was written anonymously... "Watching a baby being born is like watching a wet St. Bernard coming in through the cat door. Enjoy." :) It cracks me up every time I read it! Talk about some disturbing imagery!

Last night, I took a breast feeding class at the hospital. the teacher was excellent, and I took a lot of good notes. We'll see how much I remember though when the kid is screaming, and I can't get a good latch.

I had my OB visit yesterday also - they're every week from here on out. The baby's heartbeat is in the 130's, and I've gained 23 pounds so far. I guess the baby and I are both putting on the pounds! On babycenter.com, they say that the baby is probably about 18" long now and weighs about 6 pounds - crazy how that all fits in my belly where my guts used to be. :)
I saw a different Dr. in my practice than I normally do, and she didn't like the fact that the baby will have little movement for a few days, then go crazy active for a few days (even though this has been consistent throughout the entire pregnancy.) Anyway, they hooked me up to a fetal monitor like they have at the hospital to monitor movement. At first - nothing. Then the baby woke up, and everything was fine. The kid just goes on spurts of activity, and I can't do anything about it. We'll see if the baby still acts like that after it comes out.

Work baby shower

Last Thursday, I had a really nice work baby shower. It turned out exactly like I hoped (probably because I told the party coordinators what I wanted) - it wasn't very girly at all. (There were a lot of guys that made it to the shower, since I said it wouldn't be girly. ;) It was most of an afternoon where people could stop by between meetings to chat and eat some cake. And the cake was fantastic! It was white cake with lemon filling and whipped cream icing - very light and fluffy. More people have pictures from the shower, and I'll post those when I get them. The other picture is with a bunch of guys that I work with that decided to double bag and label my card as being clean, just like I do with all of their hardware - it was hilarious!

Also, here's my weirdest baby gender prediction...my coworker felt my shoulder, and determined that it was bony. Apparently, that means that I'm having a girl. He insisted that he has been right about this 20 out of 21 tries. Like I said, very weird...

Random thoughts, feelings, gripes, etc.

Lest you all think that I've become one of those sunshiny people, where everything goes perfectly (you should all know me better than that), here's some other things going on that hasn't made the blog.

My joints are really loosening up. So hips, pelvis, knees, tailbone, back, etc. are very sore. Tylenol doesn't really help either. I'm going to the chiropractor weekly now, so he can put me back together.

The baby is moving like crazy- I'm talking jumping jacks! Steve's found that if I spoon up behind him in bed, he gets a nice lower back massage. Steve thinks this is really cool - I do not. :)

Even with the frequent nighttime trips to the bathroom, I still find myself awake between 3-4 AM. It's very weird - the baby isn't awake and moving around, but I find myself wide awake. It's completely bizarre, and doesn't make a good nights sleep for me or Steve.

Everything is swollen. Especially my hands (no more rings) and my feet & legs (cankles, yuck!) I really look forward to my massages.

On the plus side...one of my coworkers completely got us set up with baby gear yesterday. His youngest is 4 years old, and he was looking to offload a TON of baby stuff, and Steve and I were the lucky recipients! Yippee! So the registry got reduced to account for all of the stuff that we got yesterday. The funny part is that Steve and I had just sent Steve's parents home with a bunch of our big stuff to make room for baby stuff, and we had those spaces filled again only a few hours later. It's a lot easier to believe a baby is coming soon, now that we have a bunch of gear around the house.

Week 34 and PUPPP (not puppy)

Well, the itchiness that I've been complaining about for about a month was finally diagnosed as PUPPP. (which is what I figured all along) The doctor gave me some prescription strength hydrocortisone cream, and even after one application, the itchiness and redness were subsiding. PUPPP is not serious, just really annoying. Click here if you'd like to learn more.
Here's my 34 week belly. It seems like the kid is taking up every square inch - my belly sure doesn't seem to want to give any extra room.
There's also a picture that someone suggested that I take during the mission, but I forgot: me talking to the baby on our console headsets. :) I ended up taking the picture at my Goddard desk, so you can also see how much work I have to do to clean that up before I leave.