38 weeks: A bad day and then a good day

Sunday, March 20, 2011 - 38 weeks 1 day

I am just so irritable today, for so many little reasons.

Yesterday was my Blessingway, which Megan and Jenn did for me, and it was wonderful. Jenn made amazing cupcakes and Megan did a special henna design on my belly, and my mom and mother-in-law came. Everyone brought me a bead for a birthing time bracelet, wrote down wishes for me and Robert for the birth, and we braided the baby an umbilical cord tie. It was really special and I feel lucky to have such good friends. I'll have to do another post about the Blessingway later.

38 weeks, 3 days with henna by Megan

But.

My midwife came over before the Blessingway for a prenatal and the baby, who has been measuring on the small side of normal, is measuring small enough that perhaps we should check on him. It probably isn't a big deal because we don't normally have big babies, and I went past 41 weeks with the girls. He has time to grow. Yesterday he was in a weird, oblique position too, though. Instead of settling into a head-down position and staying there, he's been rolling all around. Carey is sending us for an ultrasound just to be sure everything is okay in there. We're going to call tomorrow and see if we can get a chiropractor appointment first.

I've been crawling around on my hands and knees, sitting on my birth ball, and doing pelvic rocks just trying to get him into a favorable position. Sometimes I'll feel like I've gotten him head-down again and as soon as I check, he twists out of my hands in whichever direction he wants to go. I don't know why.

The girls and I have a cold, which is annoying. I've been trying to avoid dairy and a couple of other things I love because of the cold. I stayed home with them today but Jordan went to church because we had children's church and he had a meeting afterwards. For some reason Ivey always waits to poop until her dad leaves, and she did that today. It was a really bad one to clean up too. And then the girls screeched and fought with each other and Jordan came home later than expected.

And then Jordan looked in the fridge and said, "oh, there's goat cheese!" and I snapped at him not to eat all my goat cheese, and then felt bad.

I told him "I am just so angry today!" And, really, it's not the best day. It feels like there's more I want to do than I can possibly get done before the birth, I'm getting a little OCD, and I am quite pregnant after all.

But on the way to buy some more goat cheese I realized, I am mostly just worried about Robert.

:-(

UPDATE! Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Yesterday I called the chiropractor and got an early appointment for an adjustment and the Webster technique. Just before we left, I called Carey and she had gotten me set up to go for the ultrasound in the afternoon. Dr. Wickiser adjusted several different things and explained that when the round ligament is too tight, it can make it so the baby has a hard time getting into position. That is probably why Robert was moving around so much--he was trying to go the right direction, but it just wasn't comfortable. By the time we arrived at my parents' house to drop the girls off before the ultrasound, I already felt different, like he was settling in. The chiropractor is awesome. I don't think I'll ever go through another pregnancy without chiropractic, especially not at the end. I'm going back a few more times before the birth (assuming Robert stays in for a couple more weeks).

The ultrasound couldn't have gone better. We only had to wait a few minutes and the first thing the tech told us was that Robert is head down. Yay! The chiropractor helped! He was moving, practicing his breathing, and appeared to be drinking amniotic fluid too. We got to watch him moving his lips and sticking his tongue out, which was really cute. As for his size, he is supposed to be about 6 pounds 7 ounces, give or take a pound, which is a fine size. His projected due date (although, really, dating is best done around 20 weeks) was April 11--the date I guessed as soon as I realized I was pregnant! Apparently I just like to take my time growing babies.

So everything is fine. The only unusual thing about the ultrasound is that the little boy had his feet crossed up by his head. I have no idea how he got them there but even the ultrasound tech thought it was pretty interesting. I know he isn't stuck that way because he has already been kicking me up high this morning, so I guess he was just showing off.

These are the happy days of pregnancy. We are all set for our waterbirth--the tub is set up, our supplies are packed away, and it could be anytime but probably, and I'm hoping, it will be a couple of weeks. After going to 41 weeks + 2 days twice so far, this time I won't feel late, I'll feel normal. Today I am going to try to get a little cleaning done and hopefully I won't be too tired to take Suzi to dance this afternoon.

Baby Robin is a...

So he's Robert officially, but I am going to call him Robin at least sometimes. I am so excited to be having a boy! Maybe it's just because he's my baby, but I thought he was very good looking in the ultrasound. Also, his head and face look more the shape of mine and not Jordan's. Am I finally going to have a baby who looks like me? Is that oval head going to be easier to birth than an extremely round one? We shall see!

He seriously might have my nose! And we know he has my head!

We ended up not taking Suzi to the ultrasound after all. It was a tough decision, but I was panicked that they'd make Jordan wait in the waiting room with her. I also asked her if she'd rather go with us or to Grandma's, and she said Grandma's. That made me feel better about it. We had to drive for over an hour and wait an hour and a half past our appointment time, so I'm sort of glad we didn't take her. When we came home, I whispered in her ear that it was a boy and she told Grandma and Grandpa. Then she called Nana and Papa (Jordan's parents). And then we made a little video so she could tell everyone on Facebook. It's really cute when Suzi says Wrobert. I can't wait to see our baby boy in her arms. She's awesome.

Jordan took the whole day off yesterday, but today we were back to our normal routine. We met some friends at the park. I love this particular park because it's totally enclosed in a fence and I can just let Ivey run wild and I don't have to chase her. While we were at the park, Ivey sneezed cookie and grossness onto the side of the face of one of our little friends. Poor boy. And then I wiped the snot off the rest of her cookie and handed it back to her. I'm sure my friends were impressed. But you know, I figured it was her own snot, so why waste half a cookie? Decisions such as this will probably be more commonplace when I have three children.

Can't wait for my little Easter Egg to arrive.

Gloworm in the belly

Tonight I worked on my Belly Girl project some more. After finishing the first one I discovered fusible web, which keeps the fabric from fraying and makes a neater job. I traced and cut out a bunch of these on the way to Columbia this weekend, so they're ready to sew on. The idea also came to me to put an ultrasound picture in the belly. This one is of Suzi when I was about 10 weeks pregnant. It was amazing--we didn't expect to see much this early, but she was jumping around, playing peekaboo and waving. We called her our little gloworm because with her legs curled up that's exactly what she looked like!

Anyway, now I just need to figure out what to do with these. (Let me know if you think of anything.) I want to put one on a bag but first I have to learn to make bags. I also thought about making pregnancy heat packs because I frequently required heat packs when I was pregnant. I don't want to use rice, though--does anyone know where I could get some flax seeds? I have a flax seed heat pack I bought at Impressions (Jennie G's sister store) and I love it! It has a combination of smelly herbs in it and is very relaxing. Rice is okay but it seems to overpower any other scent you might use.

I'm going to go hang out with Jordan now! Good night!