Getting funny looks....

Over the last few weeks, I've been hanging out a lot with my friend, Gayla, who has a 4-year-old son and 14-month-old twins. We've gone to the mall a few times (the better to deal with the heat, humidity, and constant rain we've had lately), and played at her house quite a bit. Well, the last couple of mall trips, I've ended up pushing her double stroller briefly for one reason or another.

The looks I've gotten have been PRICELESS! They've ranged from awe to horror to outright pity. I mean, the poor woman with such young twins and about to pop with another one! Not to mention, are those two older kids BOTH hers? Gayla informed me this last trip that I am no longer allowed to push her stroller!

I had my 33 week visit on Thursday. I got to meet the backup OB for my midwife. I liked her pretty well. She had two of her three children without any drugs or interventions, and her general attitude is to just leave things alone until it's time to catch a baby. Sounds like just my type of doctor! This appointment was a little different, though. I've gotten so used to Karen doing the entire checkup pretty much on her own. She uses the Doppler to try to find the heartbeat, pulls out the little tape measure thingy to measure me, and palpates to check the baby's position. At my last appointment, the nurse did everything except the palpation, so my total time spent with the doc was quite a bit less than my typical midwife visit. I guess that's fairly standard, and once I started thinking about it, that's how all of my appointments went when I was pregnant with Anna. But it was a little odd now that I've gotten used to spending so much time with the midwife every visit!

Anyway, the appointment went great. I gained 2 pounds in 2 weeks, blood pressure was good, measuring right on for dates, etc. We did get a heart rate for the first time in several months, which was 140 bpm. This nurse was a little more tenacious with the Doppler than Karen usually is, so she worked on getting the heart rate for 4-5 minutes before Caroline stayed still long enough to get one. Usually, Karen finds the heartbeat for a few seconds, and when Caroline moves (and she ALWAYS moves!), she just says, "Well, if she's moving around that much, she's obviously healthy!"

As of today, I'm just 45 days from my due date, which means I'll be "full term" in about 3 weeks! That's just insane. Since I'm nearing the end of my travel days before Caroline is born, we'll be taking a series of "mini vacations" for the weekend of July 4th. A friend has offered to let us stay in a beach house they've rented on Crystal Beach close to Galveston, so we'll be spending Sunday and Monday on the beach. Tuesday morning, I have a chiropractor appointment, and then we'll be headed up to the DFW area to visit Jimmy's parents and spend the 4th with them. Then we'll come back Friday, and my wonderful friends are throwing me a baby shower on Saturday. So we'll be very busy for the next week or so, but after that we'll just be hanging out, waiting for our girl to make her debut!

32 weeks

Well, last week I promised I'd post my maternity portraits when I got them back, so here you go!

This week, Caroline is around 4 pounds and 17 inches long, and I can definitely tell she's getting bigger. My tummy starts to feel pretty heavy in the evenings after I've been carrying it around all day! I saw my chiropractor, Dr. Wolff, on Wednesday, and he said that the lower back tension I was feeling lately was probably due to the baby dropping. Sure enough, Caroline appeared to be head down and a little lower than usual that day. Considering she had been breech the night before, I don't expect that she'll STAY head down at this point, but he recommended doing lots of squats and lunges to get her head "stuck" down there so she wouldn't flip around again! I'm not sure if it's worked or not. I haven't felt for her head in a couple of days, so I'll have to lie down later and poke around to see if I can find it.

Last night, Jimmy and I went to a "childbirth refresher" class at the hospital. Since I've read every natural childbirth book out there (even some weird-sounding ones, like Hypnobirthing -- hey, it had some really great relaxation ideas!), there wasn't much new information, but it was a great refresher for Jimmy regarding ways he can help me relax while I'm in labor. I also absolutely LOVED the instructor, who is also a L&D nurse. She said she's never had a laboring mother who even WANTED a natural birth (most ask for epidurals immediately), and I told her I'd ask for her when I get there. She was excited at the prospect of actually being able to attend someone through a natural birth, and I'm thrilled to death to know a nurse who won't be pushing drugs on me the whole time I'm in labor! So that was worth the price of admission, right there! Hopefully, she'll be working the day I deliver.

We also got a tour of the hospital birthing center while we were there, and I'm really impressed with the facility. You labor, deliver, and recover in the same room, so you never have to move. The baby is never taken from your room unless you request that it be taken to the "newborn lounge" (a.k.a. nursery) between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. so you can get some sleep. The lights in the room can dim, they have a VCR/DVD/CD player and refrigerator in every room, and there's a fold-out couch for dads to sleep on, which is a vast improvement over the vinyl recliner Jimmy had to sleep in when Anna was born! There's also a great solarium/family lounge down the hall for anyone who is hanging out waiting for a baby to be born, and they have rooms with jacuzzi tubs available if you want to use one while you're in labor. Overall, a very nice place!

31 weeks

Well, I had a midwife visit this morning. All was well and boring. True to form, Caroline kicked the Doppler several times when we tried to get a heart rate, and she was doing all sorts of acrobatics during the appointment. She's measuring perfectly, I've gained 2 pounds in the last 2 weeks (right on schedule), and my BP was great. My next appointment is in 2 weeks, and I'll officially meet the OB who backs up Karen in the event of an emergency. I've met her a couple of times in the hall during my appointments, and she seems very nice and laid back, so I'm sure it will be a pleasant visit.

According to BabyCenter.com, Caroline is about 16 inches and weighs a little over 3 pounds. They also say "she's probably moving a lot, too." They have no idea! She's just a constant wiggle worm, and I love to feel her bounce and kick and roll in there. Well, I mostly love it. Occasionally, she'll decide she needs to stretch her legs a bit, or that she's just not comfortable on THIS side, so she needs to flip to THAT side RIGHT NOW, and that can really HURT! I've also noticed that, depending on her position, I'm feeling a bit more out of breath some days than others. Some days she's so far up in my ribs that I can barely get a full breath. Last night at choir, I had to stand for the entire rehearsal because 1) I couldn't take a deep breath while sitting, and 2) when I did sit, Caroline started attacking the waist band of my pants. Apparently, she's not fond of the pressure!

I had some maternity portraits taken over the weekend, and I'm very pleased with how they turned out. We ended up ordering one traditional family portrait as well as four others that showed my bare belly. This is apparently scandalous to my admittedly old-fashioned mother (Hi Mom!), but I think they're nice. I'm usually not one to show my bare middle (I don't exactly have washboard abs, even on a skinny day!), but I think pregnant tummies are beautiful, and I wanted to be sure to capture this one, especially since this may be my last baby! The studio was fabulous. We got some sweet pictures of Jimmy and Anna hugging/kissing the "baby" individually, and we got a great family shot with the three of us. We should be getting the prints in the next few days, so I'll scan and post them when I get them.

Playing "poke the baby"

Well, I'm 30 weeks this week. 10 weeks to go. I can't believe I'm about to be in the single digits! Some days, August seems SO far away, but other days, I can't believe I'm this close! I've noticed that people around me have already started making plans for August. It feels kind of odd to turn things down this far in advance, but I'm not making any firm plans! While I'd love to think I'll go a little early this time (second baby and all -- it could happen!), I could just as easily go late. And since my due date is smack in the middle of the month, that means that the entire month is pretty much up in the air.

The last few days have ended with a bedtime game that could best be described as "poke the baby". After my chiropractor showed me how to find Caroline's head a couple of weeks ago, I've been occasionally feeling around on my tummy to see if I can figure out how she's positioned. Well, Jimmy has gotten in on the fun now, so we spend several minutes every night poking around and trying to guess which parts we're feeling. She's been squirming around like crazy in there lately, and if I push gently on her head or her bum, I can feel the opposite end floating around to a different section of my belly. She often rewards us with a few good kicks, probably to tell us to stop bugging her!

Anna finally got a chance to feel some major movement today, too. I was on the couch after lunch watching something on television, and Caroline started moving around a lot. Anna came over and was able to both see and feel my belly moving. She ended up lying on the couch with me for about 10 minutes, just waiting for my tummy to bulge and move around. She thought it was really neat!

Speaking of Anna, she has done some really wonderful things lately! We finally got her into some swimming lessons this year, and she's doing so well. Jimmy took her to the neighborhood pool the other day, and she actually swam about 6-8 feet from the edge of the pool to him, all by herself! For a kid who was afraid to put her head under water a week ago, this is major progress! She's also been taking piano lessons for the last couple of months, and she's already most of the way through her first book and just loves it. And just to prove that she's truly exceptional, last night at dinner, she leaned over and hugged me and said, completely out of the blue, "Mommy, I'm so glad you're my mom!" Could you just melt? Maybe I'm a tad hormonal at the moment, but that just brought tears to my eyes. What a sweetheart!

I can't wait to see how she'll be as a big sister. She's so excited about Caroline and keeps asking if we're getting close to August. I want to try to keep from "using" her to help me with things, but I have a feeling I'll have to pry the baby away from her when it's time to feed her! She just loves babies so much and is already talking about changing diapers and holding the baby. She even wanted to put the baby in her room, "so that if she wakes up at night, I can sing her a lullaby and put her back to sleep!" Obviously, she has NO CLUE what she's asking for, but I thought it was sweet, nonetheless!