It's Guessing Time!!!

Alright folks. If you read this blog, we want to hear your guesses.
Go to the comments section (just click on comments for this post), enter your name, and post your guess for arrival Date and Time, and Weight of baby.

For everyone's benefit, the expected due date is September 15. An average baby weight is about 7.5 to 8 lbs (sorry, not in metric, I know!!).

We look forward to seeing all of your guesses!! Good luck!

Sleep

For the last week, it has been harder to sleep. I think this is pretty common at the end of pregnancy, but my belly is just getting more uncomfortable. It is kind of funny, because the most common thing people will say to Mike and I about "parental advice" is "get sleep now, before the baby comes..." but here at the end we seem to be practicing the lack of sleep part. We've got a nice 4 day holiday coming up for Labor Day though, so hopefully we will have a great relaxing weekend and we can put our pictures up on the walls. That will make a big difference on the settled in feeling of the house.

car seat

Well, we got the car seat into the car, so theoretically now if he should decide to show up, we can get him home from the hospital and deal with everything else later. I also started putting together the stuff we will be taking with us to the hospital, but that is not done yet. It is hard to know what we will want and what the little guy will need. My doula is also on vacation till September 1st and I promised Molly he wouldn't come before September 7th so hopefully all this stuff is just early prep.

doctor's visit-good news

I went for my now weekly visit to the doctor today and she did an ultrasound to determine the position of the baby and he is head down just like he is supposed to be! This is great news for labor, because most doctors these days don't like doing labor if the baby is in head up or breach position. I also think he is facing the correct direction (his face towards my back) which should also help with delivery. His heart looked great (big! but I think there was some magnification on the ultrasound or I am in trouble getting this guy’s head out of me), it was pumping strong. My vitals also all looked good and I came back negative for my bacterial culture (normal at this point in pregnancy to do a bacterial culture) which means I don't need to be on antibiotics during labor (another yay). So both the little guy and I are doing great and feeling good. Dr. Weiss says at this point if I go into labor no one is going to try and stop me/slow me down, so we'll just have to see how it goes. I am shooting for September 13th!

Done

So I am cutting myself off, I am done buying things for the baby until after he shows up and there is actual proof that he needs something. I've gotten a bookshelf for his room so there is a place to put his books and toys, some disposal diapers just in case we can't figure out the cloth ones and some nursing bras for me and that is it! I found myself the other night looking at mattress pads for his bed that you put over the sheets, so if he leaks you don't have to change the sheets and I realized I needed to stop. He hasn't peed in a single diaper yet and I am trying to prevent spillage. If he does turn out to be a leaker, then I will revisit the mattress pads.
On the nursing bras, nothing like buying bras that you can open up and expose your nipples to the world! I think I got some relatively cute, hopefully comfortable ones, we will see how they work!

37 Weeks

Here I am last weekend at the beginning of the 37th week. The doctor said that since I am in my 9th month, he is considered full term and can come anytime...hopefully anytime near September 15th!

working hard

So this past weekend Mike and I (and my mom and dad) worked hard on the house trying to get it ready for the little guy. We did a great job getting at the last boxes and starting to put things away in the baby's room, my dad painted a dresser for him and it is super cute. We also went to target and got lights for his room and the guest room, stuff like that. There is definitely more to do, the pictures are not up on the walls and we (more importantly) need to figure out the car seat situation and the baby bed. But we are getting there, slowly but surely we are getting there!

doctors visit

So this week was my first of the weekly doctors visits that happen until junior decides to show up. We both got the thumbs up for health, by blood pressure and heart rate are good, I gained 4 lbs (up to 24 total) and his heart beat sounded great. I don't know when they will check to see if he is head down like he is suppose to be, maybe next week.

Moving Belly

I took a video of my belly moving. It gets good at about 45 seconds in for a good 45 seconds, so fun!

He's bigger

I can tell that he is starting to run out of room in my tummy because his movements have changed. He used to give me lots of kicks, but now when he moves around it is more like he is trying to push my belly out, like he is on his hands and knees and arching his back. I can almost always feel him at at least one spot on my belly and when he does push sometimes it can get uncomfortable. Mike has also felt him on both sides of my tummy at the same time which is pretty fun too. I'm glad he is getting bigger, but he has a whole nother month to stay in his house and I think it will be pretty cramped by the end!

New Car

We bought a Honda Fit this week. We figured (though it was a struggle for me to admit it) that now with the baby almost here we probably needed to have two cars again. I have really liked being a one car family, but with Mike commuting it didn't seem to make sense that I would be stuck at home with no way to go anywhere. Here are some pics, isn't it cute!

Pics from Wedding

Here we are at Sara and Doug's wedding.

last trip

This past weekend we went up to the Bay Area for our friends Sara and Dougs wedding. A super quick trip, started driving Friday night, got their Saturday for lunch and left Sunday morning to get back for Mike's hockey game. It was really great to see all my old Stanford crew, and it was fun because most have them had not seen my pregant belly before. We also took our new camera that we got for the baby's arival (Mike's early Bbday present). It is a Nikon D200 and I think it will take some great pics of the baby. When I figure out how to download pictures off of it I will post a pic of me at the wedding. Now (for reals this time) it is time to buckle down and unpack our house!

Nesting

They say that pregnant ladies get a strong nesting instinct close to the end and I have to say, I think I have been bitten by the bug. Vickie and I hung out on Wednesday and I figured out that if he comes on the early side of normal, that is only 3 weeks away. That freaked me out. So that night I did a little unpacking frenzy (still much more to do), I told my parents they needed to get on the painting of a dresser we are getting from them and I have been on a mad internet buying spree (sorry Mike!). Nothing too big, just a lot of random crap. I have bought a humidifier, sheets for his bed, laundry detergent and soap that is good for babies, almond oil to use as diaper cream, sample all-in-one diapers, scheduled the diaper service, some short shirts for when his umbilical cord is still attached, thermometer, booger aspirator....you get the picture. I have been on a rampage. We are going to a wedding this weekend, so no unpacking will get done, but hopefully next weekend we can really get settled. Meanwhile, the little guy needs to stay put!!!!!

Doula again

So we met with our doula last night to talk about how we wanted our birth to go now that we have taken our class and know more about the process. She was great, I was nervous that I wouldn't like her or something since I hadn't seen her in a few months. But I am still totally happy with her; she seems fun and relaxed, but very knowledgeable about birth and assertive when the time comes for that. The perfect combo for a doula in my opinion!

35 weeks

Here I am this past weekend. I am getting pretty big!! I can still bend over to pick things up, but it is getting harder all the time.

New House!

Here are some pics of the new house. It is so suburban it cracks me up, I love it!

Hiccups

Lately I have been noticing that Jr has been getting the hiccups quite a bit. Now I don't know if he was getting them before but he was too small to rock my tummy enough for me to notice or if this is a new developmental thing. It is pretty funny though, my belly will just start rhythmically shaking from time to time. If he was a big kid, I'd use my never fail cure for hiccups (a tablespoon of peanut butter, taken all at once) but babies aren't suppose to eat peanuts for awhile so he won't be getting that cure for awhile.

Last Class

So this post is a little late, but we still don't have internet at home. Last Tuesday was our last birth class. We talked about baby care, how to bathe babies, what soaps/detergents are ok, when babies get sick and different things you can do besides antibiotics, and lots about diapers. Apparently Mike and I will change this guys diaper somewhere between 10,000-13,000 times. That is a lot of changes. We learned about disposables, cloth washable services and some new all in one diapers that you wash at home. Apparently when you are just breastfeeding, baby poo doesn't smell and is pretty easy to clean up, we will see. I think Mike and I are going to try a month of the washable service and get some all in one diapers. The idea of us sending 13,000 diapers to the landfills doesn't sit that well, but we'll see what happens when the reality of baby butts sets in.