Mirror, Mirror

Hmmm.... I believe I've reached the stage in pregnancy where I no longer recognize myself. I find myself thinking on a daily basis, "Where did my cheekbones go?" and "Are those really my ankles?" And my personal favorite, "wait a minute, I totally did not have these batwings before I got pregnant...." (I am not explaining batwings). No my friends, these thoughts are not good for my self esteem.

There's someone I work with who apologizes to me everytime I run into her in the restroom. I'm totally not kidding. And it's only 10:30 this morning, and TWO people have already commented on how there is no way that I'll make it to my November 6th scheduled date. One even went as far as to ask "Are you sure they didn't make a mistake?" That one made me giggle, I must admit. Do I look that miserable? Honestly, I probably do. I gave up today and put on my glasses, after the computer screen I was trying to read was blurry from about 2 feet away. At one point when I had a more hip haircut, could fit into cuter clothing and was sporting my platform pumps, the glasses were uber chic and made me feel rather fashionable. Now, with my dowdy pregnancy pants, simple T-shirts (hey, whatever fits, right?) and ballet flats, they add a certain frump factor to my look.

Beyond the normal day to day swelling, horrors of weight gain and huge belly I'm sporting, I'm dying to cut my hair. I've let it grow a little longer in the hopes that I could avoid the unintentional rounding of my face, and so that I can pull it back or up in those first few weeks after Franklin arrives and look somewhat presentable.... but I'm dying for the long-bob that Anne Hathaway and Gwyneth have been sporting lately:

The only catch is, I've had this hairstyle before - and it looks waaay better if you are, well, as thin as Anne and Gwyneth. So, I've made a deal with myself. Once I reach a certain post-partum weight-loss goal, I will reward myself with a new 'do. I'm thinking this will help me in my quest:

We're almost to 34 weeks! Anyone wanna bet when Franklin will decide to make his appearance?

Doctor's Orders

Follow up appointment today with Dr. went fabulously! I explained to her that I have good days and bad days with contractions at this point, some days (like Monday) I don't have very many at all and don't have to take a Brethine until the end of the day. Others, the contractions kick up at 7 AM, and by 9 AM I'm monitoring and making sure I don't need to take another pill. She asked if I'd tried the wine - what?!? Apparently, wine also relaxes the uterus, and can help with the contractions as well. She said to try drinking a glass of wine at the end of the day to help. Um, well, if that's not the best news I've heard in awhile I don't know what is. Given a choice between taking Brethine, which gives me a horrible headache, makes my heart race and causes me to shake, and wine, which is extra tasty and oh-so relaxing, I'll take the wine anyday.

I also did not have a dreaded internal (SCORE!). Dr. was very chill about the contractions, so my feelings on the situation have changed somewhat. Apparently, they really aren't that big of a deal at this point. I'm 9 days from 34 weeks, which is pre-term rather than pre-mature. Dr. also mentioned that babies go into the NICU no matter what until they are 34 w 6 days, so I'm feeling much better about the situation... 16 days, and we have a good chance that even if Franklin decided to make his entrance a tad early, there's a chance he might not have a NICU stay! And the best news of the visit was that once I reach that point, the Brethine is no longer necessary. YES! Even contracting I feel better when I don't take it. So that means that I will not be completely miserable (note I said completely miserable, not merely miserable, because I am ready for this baby to be OUT) for the last few weeks of this pregnancy.

Frank and I will try round 2 of our infant CPR class tonight at the hospital (the first class was scheduled the night of our L & D trip). Here's hoping I can stay awake until the class is over at 9 PM!

Fall

Today is the first day of Fall... I love Fall. I love the smell of fireplaces burning, brightly colored leaves, football games, pumpkins, and just a nip of a chill in the air when you walk into work each morning.

When Frank and I were in law school, we spent a weekend in Helen, Georgia during October. We made the drive over one Friday afternoon and managed to make it into Helen and pick a campsite before it got dark. There, we enjoyed a tasty meal of steak, potatoes, and red wine, topped off with a dessert of snickers. Hard to beat "car camping" when you do it in style like my husband and I do. Lucky for us, it was also Oktoberfest in Helen, and we spent the next day camped out in town eating German food, drinking big beers and listening to Polka music, all while enjoying the most unique people-watching experience I'd ever had. It was an absolutely fantastic weekend, and one I'll never forget. The leaves were beautiful, there was a nip in the air, and I almost didn't mind that it rained on our tiny tent the 2nd night we were there.

That was three years ago! It's hard to believe how fast time flies. The weekend before I found out I was expecting it snowed here... the beautiful white kind of snow, that dampens any sound except for the falling snowflakes. It was perfect. I feel a bit like I've experienced all four seasons now waiting for him to arrive... the anticipation and worry of winter turning into Spring, then Spring's realization that I was actually going to have a real baybee, followed by Summer's visible baby belly and seeing Franklin's sweet face via ultrasound for the first time. Now it's Fall, and he is set to arrive very shortly!

Although it may be awhile before Frank and I have an opportunity to head back to Helen by ourselves, I look forward to sharing our life with this bouncing baby boy in my belly that kicks me all night long. I have a feeling he'll love Fall too.

Monday, Monday...

Today is officially Monday... I was slated to bring dinner to an office mate of mine who just adopted a beautiful baby girl, but since I'm still under the weather I decided to pre-order a casserole for them instead of making something myself and spreading germs. Super Suppers here in town has a really neat pre-order program that's online, you just need to give them 2 days notice. Friday afternoon, I pre-ordered two fresh-made chicken pot-pies, one for my colleague, and one for a friend of Frank's from college who just welcomed his third baby as well. Since Super Suppers doesn't open until 10 AM, I just didn't hurry to get to work this morning, and swung by Super Suppers on my way in.

Well, it's been raining here for the last 100 years it seems. So I haul my pregnant self into the car loaded down with my bag (including a 32 oz gatorade), my laptop and bag, and baby gifts. Pick up the Super Suppers meal, and drop by Starbucks (because it was right there, of course, to get a double chocolaty chip frapuccino with a decaf shot of espresso) and then head in.

I make it into my parking deck, and load up to try and make the walk into my building. I throw on my bag, laptop bag, baby gifts, bags of rolls and 2 casseroles (because I can't leave the other in the car, and intended to keep it in the freezer until after work), along with my umbrella and Starbucks. I make it into the building without getting soaking wet, and head into the elevator feeling pretty good about my ability to juggle all of the items in my hand. The elevator reaches about the 10th floor, and I started to lose my balance... then, SPLAT! There goes one of the chicken pot pies, face down into the carpet of the elevator - completely ruined, totally unsalvageable. I make it to my floor, and hit the stop button on the elevator, thinking I can put my belongings in my office and clean up the mess I made. When I pull that button though, an alarm goes off and someone from the building is immediately asking whether the elevator is stuck. At that moment, I just give up - loaded down with the remaining casserole, gifts, bag of rolls, laptop, frappucino, etc. - I decide they can clean it up better than I can, and inform the nice lady at the front desk that I've spilled food in the elevator and someone will need to clean it up.

I keep telling myself that you can get away with stuff like that when you're 8 months pregnant and have your arms full. Today's definitely Monday.

Nice!

So I've been searching for a super-soft Boppy Cover for Franklin for awhile, and found the perfect one at Pottery Barn Kids a few months ago. I figured that I would wait until a little closer to my due date to finalize these last few purchases, but the onset of contractions Monday afternoon sped the process up a bit. So, while on the phone with the Dr.'s office, I logged in to make the purchase:

It's the plain blue cover in the background, the stripes and polka dots was unfortunately backordered until December. Much to my surprise, it was delivered - monogrammed, of course - on Wednesday afternoon! And I didn't pay for expedited shipping! That, my friends, is service. I must say, I'm a fan.

In other news, Frank informed me that my last post was a bit "Debbie Downer." Well, I suppose it would be good to take the post with a grain of salt, considering I was exhausted and had only slept about an hour and a half the night before. In any event, I'm extremely thankful that Franklin is just fine, and that I'm not progressing. The contractions are merely an annoyance, and I'll get used to the way the Brethine makes me feel in a few days. And, thanks to the humidifier set up in our room and the antibiotics from my Dr., the cold seems to be easing a bit. So I'm counting my blessings!

P.S. - For those of you who wear prescriptives makeup, estee lauder has decided to discontinue the brand. Better stock up before January 31, 2010!

I'm looking forward to watching Auburn tear into West Virginia tomorrow! War Eagle!

Our Night in L & D.....

Well, I suppose it was bound to happen - After catching a horrible cold towards the end of last week, combined with horrendous swelling in my ankles, feet and hands last Thursday and Friday, my uterus is determined to be "irritable."

First, it's not so much fun to be sick when you're pregnant. My OCD attempts to avoid catching a cold were unsuccessful; apparently no amount of lysol wipes, handwashing and purell could save me from the sore throat, tired eyes, and stuffy nose that have plagued me for almost a week now. In case you were wondering, it's hard to sleep when you can't breathe, and it's even harder for your husband to sleep when you can't breathe and snore like a banshee as a result. Poor Frank.

The swelling started suddenly towards the end of last week as well. I was pretty amazed at the size of my feet and ankles last Friday night. Who knew that my chicken legs were capable of sporting cankles?? Interesting. I decided that the cold combined with the swelling called for a weekend of self-imposed bed rest. And it was nice, let me tell you. Frank was wonderful, fetching things for me, helping me, making me food. By Sunday morning, the swelling had significantly reduced, and I was feeling much better. From time to time during the weekend though, it felt like I was having contractions. I didn't pay too much attention to them though, and it seemed like bed rest with plenty of gatorade and water would do the trick.

Monday morning, I headed into work ready to start my week. Around 10:30 AM, I felt the first braxton hicks contraction kick up. For giggles, I pulled up contraction master, just to keep track for my own personal sanity. By 3:30 PM, I'd had around 20 contractions. I had not had more than 6 in an hour - but decided to call my Dr.'s nurse just to make sure I didn't need to go get checked out. She responded that if I did have more than 6 in an hour, I needed to call the on-call Dr. and receive instructions. I left work early, around 5 pM, and headed home to get into the bed. I really thought that once I got home, put my feet up and killed a 32 ounce gatorade (my 2nd of the day) that they would stop. Apparently my uterus had other ideas.

20 minutes into the season premiere of Gossip Girl, I've had 7 contractions in the past hour and it was time to call the on-call Dr. She explained that Dr. Straughn had told her that I'd probably call (see why I love my Dr?), and that they'd decided if I was still contracting that I needed to go on into L & D to be monitored to make sure I wasn't progressing. So, I get out of the bed, put on some comfortable clothes, grab the bag out of the nursery closet that I've had packed with washed clothing and toiletries since I hit 28 weeks, and tell Frank it's time to go. My sweet husband then proceeds to brush his teeth (with the electric toothbrush, which cannot be interrupted in the middle of it's 3 minute cycle), change his shirt, put on his shoes, tuck in his shirt, put on a belt, find his cell phone, put up the dogs, and THEN (10 minutes later) help me out of the house. Frank is a funny, funny man.

We made it into L & D, and they immediately hooked me up to a contraction monitor and fetal heartrate monitor. Franklin hates the fetal heartrate monitor. To say hate would be putting it mildly, honestly. He proceeded to kick and poke and squirm away from the monitor for the next 12 hours. I am not over-exaggerating. But I digress- after the 50 questions from the nurse (including "Does your husband hit you?," "Have you ever been abused?") it was determined that I was, in fact, contracting, and that my uterus was extremely "irritable." Then, the fun part of all pregnancies, the internal was required to determine if I was progressing or dilating as a result of the contractions. Holy mother, if I never have another one of those in my life it will be way, waaaay too soon. Uh, hello?? Those things HURT! I hope to avoid experiencing them again anytime soon. Luckily, no progress - no dilation, and mere "preterm" contractions instead of preterm labor was diagnosed.

However, the medicine that they typically give to stop the contractions increases your heartrate, and the Robitussin DM that Frank had so graciously picked up for me on his way home from work to help me breathe had already caused my heartrate to increase quite a bit. They were unsure for a while that they would be able to give me the brethene, but eventually decided that they would administer the drug and monitor my reaction to it. At 10PM, I got the shot. By 10:15, I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest! That stuff was potent, but seemed to ease the contractions. I was stuck in L & D for the next hour so they could monitor my heartrate, and at the end of the hour the contractions had slowed from 3-7 minutes apart to about 4 per hour. Much better.

Unfortunately, not good enough to go home. Frank and I were told that we'd be heading up to the Perinatal ward to spend the night, so they could monitor the contractions and Franklin. Here's where the bag came in handy... They put me in a room, and Frank was able to run to the car to retrieve my pj's, pillow, and toiletries. We settled in around midnight, and Frank seemed to drift off to sleep fairly shortly....

Me?? Not so much. The brethine gave me the shakes, a headache, and kept my heart racing. I had to beg for tums (not their fault, they have to get them from the pharmacy apparently), and I still couldn't breathe from the cold. Franklin was also extremely uncooperative... He rolled, he punched, he kicked, and he tumbled away from the fetal monitor, which resulted in an interruption by the nurse about every 30 minutes to reposition his fetal monitor. Around 1:15, he decided to get the hiccups. Hiccups on a fetal monitor have a very strange echo, and are extremely loud. He gets them regularly, and these lasted for 45 minutes. By 1:45-2AM, I was starting to drift off to sleep, but it seemed like my contractions were getting a bit more intense...every time I'd almost be asleep, a contraction would wake me back up. The nurse came in around 2 AM with another dose of Brethine, this time orally, and explained that my contractions were averaging 2-4 minutes apart at that point. The oral dose didn't have quite the hit that the shot did, luckily, and around 45 minutes later the contractions had slowed and I hoped I would get some sleep.

Finally, around 4:15-4:30, I was able to drift in and out of sleep, and it seemed like Franklin had decided to calm down as well. Frank and I both stirred around 6 AM, and luckily I wasn't feeling many contractions at all. I was able to order breakfast from my hospital's "on call menu" and it was actually good! It was really nice to be able to pick what I wanted to eat instead of being forced to eat whatever they hospital decided to make for breakfast. After breakfast, Dr. Straughn arrived for a chat. Luckily, since I was not progressing, she decided to let me go home. I have instructions to take it easy, and am to orally take the brethine when I feel the contractions kicking back up. If the contractions subside, then they are still preterm contractions. If they don't, then apparently it's preterm labor, and we have to go back to L & D. So here's hoping that they just work themselves out, and that the brethine does the job.

The bad part of my trip to L & D = taking the brethine. It gives me the shakes, a headache, and increases my heartrate to the point where it's hard to rest. I've had probably 1 hour of sleep at this point, and I am still finding it hard to wind down. That's pretty harsh towards the end of pregnancy, where it's hard to sleep anyway. To top it off, spending a night in L & D knowing that I'm not coming home with a baby (although I'm thankful for that) SUCKS. I can handle uncomfortable beds, nurse checks, etc. if I get a cuddly, squishy baybee at the end... knowing I get to go home, still pregnant and fairly miserable stinks.

The good part of my trip to L & D = Frank has now had the whole "honey, it's time to go!" labor experience. The gown, the monitors, the internal, the whole thing. We also figured out a few extra things that need to go into the bag, and have the parking situation down pat. It was, for all intents and purposes, a trial run. And I'm glad for that -- I like to be prepared, after all. I think Frank probably feels like he knows what to expect now too.

Let's hold our breath for the next three weeks! Once I hit 34 weeks, all will be well and there's a great likelihood that Franklin will have little to no NICU time if he decides to make his appearance early. 19 days and counting....

Baby Update

This will be brief, I'm pretty tired... Today was my second "every two weeks" appointment with Dr. Straughn... At the last appointment, I was 28 weeks 2 days, and measured 28 1/2 weeks - she rounded up to 29. That was 2 weeks ago. This week, I measured 33 weeks - no rounding up. At 33 weeks, most babies weigh approximately 4 1/2 pounds. Meaning, that since babies gain approximately 1/2 a pound a week, Franklin will weigh at least 8 1/2 pounds at birth. More like 9. Thus, in the words of Allison McCreary, I'll be missing Frank's 15 year Rhodes College Reunion "to give birth to a toddler."

If Franklin were on schedule this week, he'd weigh about the same as four naval oranges. Hmm... wonder how they come up with this stuff?? Anyway, I'm counting the minutes until he arrives!

Happy Anniversary!

Today my parents celebrate 37 years of marriage... congrats Mom & Dad! Hope you both had a fantastic day. Only 8 more weeks until you officially become Mimi and Papa!

Showered!

I'll post a more detailed update later, but here's a pic I received from my sweet friend Jamie this morning - How cute is her baby boy, Deuce? So glad you could make it to the shower Jamie!