37 Weeks Appt

After have a week of irregular contractions since my 36 week appointment, I was hoping I progressed a little more. At 37 weeks I've dilated to 2cm, still 50% effaced, and the baby is still head down and at a -2 station. Basically no signs of labour in site yet.

At this point I'm thinking this kid isn't going to come early after all. Till next week.

36 Weeks Appointment

I probably should have rescheduled my appointment, it took all my might from throwing up all over the place. I caught my son's stomach bug and suffered from diarrhea and eventually threw up the entire stomach content when I came back from my appointment. Disgusting. Luckily it only lasted 24 hours.

But I was curious to see if I had progressed at all, so there I went to my appointment. Here's the verdict.
Baby is positioned head down, I'm now 1 1/2cm dilated and 50% effaced, and the baby's heartbeat is strong and normal. I also picked up the Cord Blood Registry Kit from the doctor's office, so I think we're all set to go.

Time to Plan

Now that I have time on my hand being housebound and all, I can start planning for the birth announcements and for the Red Egg party that we'll be throwing some time in August. One of my all time favorite things to do is putting cards together, whether it's looking for the perfect card to purchase or creating one on my own. I'm not that creative so I tend to do a lot of research online before I settle on a design.

For the birth announcement I'm going with "Our little tiger" theme. Befitting for a baby born the year of the tiger, don't you think? After a quick search on google, I found a few announcement cards that I really liked.


As for the Red Egg and Ginger Party invitations, I'm thinking of making those on my own. I haven't found one that I really liked or something close to what I'm envisioning. Let's hope I actually do it this time. If you're wondering what a Red Egg and Ginger party is, it's pretty much a party to introduce your new arrival typically done at their 1 month birthday. We do ours when the baby is 3 months. Click here for more information about it.

This time I think we might hold the party at the park. That way everyone has something to do. The kids can play at the playground, the guys (and gals) can play basketball or football, and the rest can mingle and gossip.

I'll most likely keep the little tiger theme going for the party as well. Now I just need to:

• Put guest list together
• Find / Create invitation cards
• Find / Create favors
• Put a menu together
• Find a venue
• Decorations!
• Order cake (and maybe cookie favors) (I know who I'm going to ask, if she's available)
  

Yes I like to plan ahead, because that's what I do. :)

Friday appointment

My doctor's appointment went very well on Friday. It's been a week since he found that I started to dilate and he put me on bed rest and Nifedipine. I wasn't haven't consistent contractions or cramping anymore, and with the cervical exam he found that I haven't dilated anymore. Still at 1cm. Baby's heartbeat was good, and has been moving around a lot.

Now I just had to continue to take it easy, bed rest and continue to take the Nifedipine for 9 more days. 9 MORE DAYS!!!! Then I can stop taking the medication and off bed rest. Yippee. My doctor even joked, "Watch you probably won't give birth until you're a week late". Ha, very funny. I sure hope not.

I actually can't wait to stop taking the meds. I have normally low blood pressure, and the meds lowers my blood pressure making me feel really light headed especially in the morning. My lungs feel congested as well, not bad where I can't breathe, but to the point where I feel like I always have phlegm stuck in the back of my throat. Just hope I don't begin to contract soon after I stop taking the medication.

Well 9 more days and back to normality. (I hope)

Determined to become the 4th family member early

At 33 weeks pregnant and 3 weeks before I was due to go out on maternity leave, the baby decided to cause some trouble. Tuesday morning I began to feel some cramping, which kept going for about an hour. The cramping started to feel like contractions, contracting about every10-15 minutes. After calling the doctor's office and talking to the advice nurse, I was sent to the labor and delivery department of the hospital for some fetal monitoring. Luckily the baby was fine, good hearbeat, but I was contracting about every 5 minutes. I was given a terbutaline shot to stop the contractions, and a fetal fibronectin (fFN) test to see if there was a probability of me giving birth within the week. Luckily that test came back negative. After all that I was released from the hospital and sent to the doctors office for a cervical exam before going home. I had a vaginal ultrasound to look at the cervix and he found that my cervix was shorter than normal, and he saw some funneling. Which means my cervix may be beginning to thin. With that news I was sent home on bedrest for the rest of the week and prescription for Nefedipine to help stop/slow down preterm labor.

At the end of the week on Friday, I went back to the doctors for a follow up visit. After a cervical exam he found that my cervix was beginning to open. 1cm. For precautionary measure he suggested I get the steroid shot (betamethasone) to mature the baby's lungs in case I do go into labor soon. Unfortunately that meant going back to the hospital 2 days in a row to get the shots. To top it all off I was put on bedrest for the next couple of weeks and taken off work.

I think I stressed out the entire weekend thinking of all the things I needed to hand off for work, and putting materials/documents together.

Oh what a week it was. My next appt is this Friday, hopefully I haven't dilated anymore than I did.