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I just got home from my last visit with Stacy. She is having her baby this Friday so today was our last chance to talk and for her to see me before she is gone on maternity leave. Everything looks good. Baby's heart rate was in the 130's and sounded great which is a huge blessing. When she checked me she said I'm now 3-4 cm dilated, 70% effaced, and -1 station . So for sure progress has been made since last week. (Last week I was 3 cm dilated, 60% effaced and -2 station). She said my bag of waters is detached from the wall which is a good sign too. At this point I already had Kye so I obviously didn't have an appointment. At this point I had also already had Britt. But I went into labor with her the day of this appointment. When I went to the appointment that morning I was 4 cm dilated, 90% effaced and -1 station. I went into labor a couple hours later. Since I've never reached my due date before, I have no clue what happens. I wanted to talk as much as I co...
First, I want to say a HUGE HUGE HUGE thank you to EVERYONE who has prayed for our family and specifically for Mr. Rusty! He called yesterday and the pathology report was finished and: NO CANCER! Praise the Lord! We are all over the moon thankful and excited and just so relieved. Honestly, I think majority of our family was super sure it was cancer. So much so that the news that it's not cancer is actually taking awhile to set in! Truly the power of prayer is an amazing thing :) Today is/was the day that Zach and I both predicted our baby would be born. I made my appointment for this morning specifically for the reason that this same appointment put me into labor with Kye! Obviously, since I'm writing this, I'm NOT in labor ;) Appointment went great! I've been feeling SUPER good so I actually didn't have any questions at all for Stacy. She did the heartbeat first and it was in the 150s! This baby has rarely been that high! Both Kye and Britt were lower than tha...
This morning I had my 38 week check-up. Tomorrow I'm officially 39 weeks, but I wanted to wait this long to get checked again as 1) I didn't want to hear "no change" 2) I was hoping she'd scrape my membranes and 3) Getting checked sent me into labor with Kye so I'd rather go into labor close to a weekend instead of at the beginning of the week! Since poor Kye was stuck going with me to the dr Monday when I was sick and going to his dr Tuesday for his bronchitis check...I didn't want him to have to go through another dr visit this week. Especially with her checking me. Having him in the room would not be helpful! Since Colt had school this morning I met Mrs. Charlotte and Payton and she took the kids to Chick-Fil-A to eat and play during my appointment. I started having some contractions while in the waiting room which made me semi-nervous b/c I didn't want to go into labor while at the dr and have them make me go to the hospital or something! On...
Since Kye is out of school this week with Thanksgiving, there was no way for me to go alone to this appointment. Plus I MISS having Zach at my appointments with me and really wanted him there (especially since I'm hoping that maybe it was the last one!). Our appointment was at 8:45 and man they were slammed. I guess being one midwife down (since Stacy is on maternity leave) and having the office closed Thursday and Friday for the holiday and being a Monday just made it more crowded than usual. I hated that Zach had to wait all that time as he needed to get to work but I'm thankful he was there. Everything looked good! Kye and Zach got to hear the baby's heartbeat and it's in the 140's. Little higher than usual. I asked Teresa about the fundal height measurements and she said they don't do them there, they just go by the ultrasound for the measurements. I filled her in on where I was last visit (-3 station, 0% effaced, 0 cm dilated). She asked if I carried Ky...
Disclaimer: I am not as good a writer as my wife. My Incredible Wife First of all I would like to talk about my amazing wife. When she puts her mind to it she can do anything she wants. When she came to me towards the end of the pregnancy and told me she wanted to do the Bradley method, I was nervous. The method meant more responsibility on my shoulders and I had to basically be a coach slash Drill Sargent in the delivery room. Well I LOVE control, but all the horror stories I have heard all my life about that room made me scared. I sure you all know the story off when and how we started the training for Bradley so I won't go into it, but my wife was determined. She began to read and train, and tell me to read and help her train and she never looked back. The most amazing thing about the pregnancy part was the fact that even with all the criticism, her conviction that she could accomplish the natural childbirth never wavered. I can not even count the times we tried to ex...
Warning: this will be a VERY long entry! I apologize for that but I am keeping this blog for myself more than anyone else so I want to be able to remember every detail from the delivery of my first baby so I can remember what to expect for the second one! If it helps someone else out too, then great! Also I didn't leave a single detail out, so if you don't want to be aware of what happens during childbirth (I know "they" say pregnant woman shouldn't hear about it) then don't read this!
Tomorrow I will be 39 weeks pregnant! I usually don't take pictures of my tummy every week but this week you can really tell a difference. If you compare these to the ones taken last week you can tell that the baby is lower for sure! Some changes I have noticed this week: My hands feel numb a lot and look a lot more swollen. Especially after I go walking. I haven't even tried to wear my wedding or engagement ring for a couple weeks now. I've gotten more stretch marks. I now have some on each side of my stomach and several small ones on my chest. Like I mentioned above, the baby has dropped more. Zach and I got back from walking Sunday night and I lifted up my shirt and felt an "emptiness" at the top of my stomach. Where I used to feel the baby's butt and legs pressing against me, I instead feel stretched skin over an empty void then, if I feel lower, I can feel the baby. So I thought that was a good sign! My feet, like my hands, are swollen. I do not eve...
I had such a nice relaxing day yesterday and decided to continue the trend and go to bed early. I took 2 more primrose oil capsule things then we did the acupressure again and I was in the bed by 10! I woke up several times during the night but unlike usual, where I feel miserable, I just felt at peace. Very nice night and some awesome sleep! Got up at 7 and got ready for the dr appointment! Had about 5 contractions on the way to the doctor, about a 20 min drive, but again nothing serious. I didn't even want to mention it to Stacy but of course Zach wanted me to! I've gained 2 more pounds (putting the total at 36...yikes)! When we got in the room I didn't plan on telling Stacy anything about the "tricks" we've tried but she was sooo cool about it that I couldn't help myself haha She did another internal check and she said I'm still only 1 cm dilated, -1 station (which disappointment me but she said that's still awesome), and 90% effaced. How ...
This morning I had my first weekly exam. After the interesting stuff I went through on Monday after Walmart, I was pretty curious to see what Stacy would say! Since Monday night I have still continued to have more wetness (a word? probably not) down there and (I'm graphic, deal with it as I want to be able to remember this kind of stuff for next time!) when I go to the bathroom it feels different when I wipe. It's like when I wipe the toilet paper kinda slips "up" there more than it naturally should...it's like "opps!" haha. I've also been feeling more contractions, nothing regular but sometimes they will be pretty intense. Those started on Saturday when we went to BabiesRUs but I do still feel them off and on, at least a couple times a day. I weighed myself and I shouldn't have haha! I gained 3 lbs in ONE WEEK. Crazy! I've now officially gained 34 pounds total, yikes. I can gain one more pound and still be considered where I should be we...
