Tuesday, September 23, 2008

my new game...

so since i've been on bed rest for a month, i've not really had a chance to get out much...but at my last appointment i was given the clearance to go do things...not be out and about like crazy, but i am allowed to go walking, to the store, etc.

at this point i'm close to my due date, and though my OB and midwife would like me to make it to 40 weeks if i was to go into labor now, the baby would be fine...so being on strict bed rest isn't 100% necessary though i do try to rest for a good portion of the day, just so that i can be sure i'm doing everything possible to help keep this little person safe and sound as long as i can.

anyway, my new game - so on Saturday evening, Dave and I went food shopping, while out at the store an older gentleman, probably about 70 asked me when i was due, and rather than just saying "October 10th" i just simply said "today". the look on his face was priceless. it was totally worth it. Dave even added "yeah, watch out, she could blow at any minute!"

so now i will definitely tell anyone who asks when i'm due "today" just to see their face...it's worth it since it amuses me and helps me pass the time until it's actually TIME to have this little one!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

false starts??

so today was my late 36/early 37 week appointment. it was good. we did a check and i'm still dilated to 1.5 cm and effaced close to 90%.

while i was at my doc's office 3 different ladies went into labor. one went off in an ambulance, one in a cab, and a third was waiting for her husband to come pick her up. so that just left me...and though i'm not "officially" in labor right now, i am definitely having a few contractions...though i've been having them all week so it's hard to say they'll actually become consistent and work into something real. it could just be false labor...who knows.

so my midwife sent me home...told me to track them and if they get organized to call...so that's what i'll do.

i will be 37 weeks tomorrow so at this point i'm considered to be "full term" so if i was to go into labor now, no one is going to stop me! which is exciting and incredibly scary at the same time.

it's wild to think this journey is coming to an end. i mean, being pregnant has been such an emotional, crazy ride. i can't imagine that at the most i've got 5 weeks left (meaning they LATEST i'd be able to go is 42 weeks before my midwife/ob would induce me) with baby G inside of me. It will be weird and exciting to have to share this person with Dave, my family, his family and all of our friends. Though trust me, i won't be sad to have him or her out and about...it'd be great to be able to actually see my feet again! lol!!

so we'll see how it goes...baby G will be here before we know it!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

a shower for Baby G

Dave and I are blessed. We had a wonderful shower for Baby G on Sunday, September 14th. My mom put together a wonderful afternoon at Rocco's Restaurant in Wilmington.

The food was so good and the company was even better. All the ladies in my family made it, plus a bunch of my friends from High School, College and beyond were there, plus a good friend of Dave's made it too!

We had food, cake and then opened gifts. We got such amazing gifts from our friends and family. We ended up with tons of clothes, toiletrees, toys, etc for this little one. I was just so amazed at all the generosity people had for our little one. We also got

My sister and my Grammy both helped out also. Beth was awesome and hung all these little baby clothes up on a clothesline above where we sat and she kept a log for me of who gave me what...and Grammy made the cutest boo-boo bunnies for favors and she also had wrappers for candy bars made that said "A Baby Shower for Baby G". I was so touched. I know she was busy with visitors and has things to do and she took all that time to make such wonderful things to help celebrate the arrival of the newest member of our family!

Now the hard part is going on...we still need to get a dresser and a crib (luckily i have my old bassinett so we're all set on that for now). Dave went out on Monday and bought a stroller/carseat combo at Target and he put a lot of the stuff together at this point so we're getting things together.

I hope to get a dresser this weekend so that i can make sure we're all set for that...and get more diapers, wipes, etc...i need to see what we have so far too. Hopefully I'll get released from bed rest soon so i can get this stuff done!! i don't want to be completely unprepared when baby G arrives!



Now I need to wash all the babies clothes and get them ready to be put away - granted

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

confessions of a couch jockey

i've now officially been on bed rest for nearly 4 weeks. i think it's time i come clean and clear the air on what it is i actually do all day and the other silly things that bed rest has driven me to!

i confess to the following (in no particular order):

- i watch TNT everyday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day. i watch Charmed, ER, Las Vegas, and Without A Trace in that order and i will pause live TV if i need to go to the bathroom or get up for anything...

- i play on the computer all day as well. i visit facebook and myspace plus check my hotmail a bunch of times, and I IM with my cousins or whoever else is online that i can bother.

- i only shower when Dave is here. i worry that if i shower when he's at work that i'll fall and no one will be able to help me. it'll be like those old ladies in the "i've fallen and i can't get up" commercials for that life alert thing.

- if i could, i would eat candy all day long...but since i don't want to be a pig, i only eat one piece a day if that. Dave bought it...not me!!!

- i get excited when i hear the mailman on the porch...means i get to go outside for 2 minutes and get the mail. truthfully that's pretty much the only contact i have with the outside world.

- there is a person in my neighborhood who plays the accordion every day around 11 a.m. i try to see if it's a man or woman but they have yet to reveal themselves to me.

- i eat probably 3 or 4 glasses of ice a day, meaning in the matter of a week i go through a 5 lb. bag of ice from shaws. i know the dentist is going to LOVE me when i go for a checkup this fall.

- i wear sweatpants and a tank top everyday...i don't even wear a bra most of the time...it's not like i have anyone to impress...but if someone was to be coming over, i'd at least put one on...and maybe some jeans...ok probably not with the jeans.

- today i woke up and questioned if it was Friday. i'm losing track of days...awesome.

- everytime i have a contraction (like i am right now) i hope that it's the start of labor and clearly up to this point it hasn't been.

- i've still got about 700 photos to go through from the wedding and though i have ALL DAY here to do it...i don't do it. it's just too overwhelming...and frankly boring...

- i eat a lot of fruit still - i have fruit salad for lunch and sometimes at dinner (at least i still have some healthy habits)

- not many people have come to visit me and it's ok with me. people work during the day and i'm here alone...if they came i'd need to wear a bra.

- getting off the couch for the baby shower (more on that in a later post) exhausted me and i slept extra. i think at this point my body is getting used to just sitting for long periods of time.

- i can't wait to call Dave when i go into actual labor and say "it's time." he asks me EVERY hour "is it time?" and sadly i always have to say no...but one of these days it will be a YES!

Saturday, September 13, 2008

all by myself...

this is the latest i've been up since my wedding night. usually by this time of evening i'm sleeping soundly in my bed, but right now i'm watching The Wedding Date on TBS and contemplating if i should eat more candy.

i have a really hard time going to bed when Dave isn't here. for whatever reason i don't sleep well when i am home alone. it's weird i know, but i just don't like it. maybe i've just become accustomed to having him here, maybe i'm a baby and can't sleep when i'm home alone, or maybe the truth is i just don't like being by myself at home. granted, i'm not really alone persay being that i have my landlord upstairs and our 3rd floor neighbor possibly home as well...the point is i just don't like being by myself and going to bed. i'll admit i'm such a girl when it comes to being home alone. and this is coming from a girl who lived ALONE in San Francisco!!

dave is out at his friend adam's bachelor party and will probably be out until 2 a.m...putting him back here between 2:30 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. i KNOW i won't be up that late, but it's going to be hard for me to go sleep in my bed without him being here.

tomorrow is our baby shower, so i definitely should get some sleep before then...we need to be in Wilmington around 1 p.m. if not earlier so i need to get my beauty sleep...i can't have bags under my eyes...gotta make sure i don't fall asleep as i'm opening the baby's gifts!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Any Day Now...

yes, that's what my midwife says...ANY DAY NOW! i had my 35 week, 6 day appointment today and it turns out that she thinks that this little one is going to come sooner rather than later.

overall the appointment was great, my blood pressure is holding steady and low at 110/70 and though it was thought i was borderline Gestational Diabetes, it turns out i don't have it as seen in my glucose testing numbers.

while i was there my midwife also did an exam and it turns out i am 1.5 CM dialated and holding strong at 80% effaced. she said she could also feel the head, making this little one in position to join the world.

they also hooked me up for a Non-Stress Test or NST - the baby's heart rate and movement were great and where it should be at this point in my pregnancy and during the 20 mins i was on the machine i had a bunch of contractions. i can't feel them, but this means that my body is in process of rehersing for the main event.

as i was leaving she told me that i could go to my shower, providing i stay seated and don't try to do to anything - no lifting, getting up to get food - anything! she also said to make sure my bag is packed and in the car just in case i need to make a run to BWH...she really thinks i could go into labor at any point apparently!!

so bottom line is i am to stay on bed rest for now and keep my feet up and rest. no stress, no movement and just a lot of relaxing to make sure that i do my best to keep baby G cookin' as long as possible.

oh and as a special wonderful bonus...Dave showed up at my appointment! How exciting is that! I went alone and didn't think he'd make it...but he did...he's SUCH a great husband!

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

30 Days Out...

today i'm officially 30 days out from my due date. i feel so close, but so far away.

since i've been on bed rest i've just been sitting here, waiting for something to happen...every little ache or pain or every time the baby moves i think "this might be it!" and then...nothing.

truthfully, bed rest has been boring at times, but it hasn't been THAT bad. one of the things everyone keeps telling me is to enjoy the time i have to rest because once baby G joins the world i am not going to have this time to myself, so i've been trying to just hang out and enjoy the fact that i am still just waiting for him or her to come.

i realize that once he or she does make a grand enterance into the world i'll be spending my time learning how to change diapers, bathe a baby, feed it, dress it, hold it, etc...it's a whole new world and a whole new life for Dave and i.

to be honest, i really don't think i am going to make it until October 10th. i have a very strong feeling that baby G will be coming within the next two weeks. I can tell he or she has dropped drastically and i often feel movement down in my pelvis area so i KNOW he or she is really low and i have pretty strong braxton-hicks contractions everyday.

it's only a matter of time now.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

nap time

saturday is dave's day. he loves to nap. he is in fact napping right now. the thing about naps for me is that i can't just take a nap. most naps are what - 1 maybe 2 hours total. i take a nap and i'm down for 3 to 5 hours. and when i do get up, i'm a mess. i'm groggy, tired and the rest of my day is useless.

i'm jealous of how well he can nap considering i am up every two hours all night long and don't sleep well anyway. i've just never been a very good napper...even in college when napping during the day is completely acceptable it was just NEVER my thing. maybe someday i'll get the hang of it...but i doubt it.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

time to think...lots of it

it's only officially like day 5 of bed rest and all ready i'm starting to go a bit stir crazy. there is not really much you can physically do when you are just sitting around on your couch.

according to the doctor's orders i am able to go to the bathroom and take showers, but that's about it. i was told to stay seated or lying as much as possible and not to do any housework, heavy lifting, etc. so really it's an exercise in patience. it's the hurry up and wait theory really. all i can do it wait for baby G to make his or her enterance into the world.

i've had time to think about things. think about being a parent and what that really means. those thoughts started really when i was at Brigham and Women's on the Mag on the L&D floor. i wasn't able to sleep very well so i heard a lot of what was going on. i heard the nurses talking about their late night lunches, people's IV's beeping as they ran out of meds and i even heard two new babies cry as they entered the world. that's when the thinking started....it's amazing what my body is about to do. honestly, when you really think about it i have been able to grow a person inside of my body and in a few days or weeks this person will join the world.

i realize that we as a race probably OVER analyze the process, being that cats, dogs and pretty much every other mammal gives birth without medical intervention, but hey...i still stand by my theory that if God didn't want me to use meds he wouldn't have created people who know how to make them! hehehe

anyway, in these last days of waiting for baby G the anticipation builds. i am excited, scared and really ready for my body back...it will be nice to lay on my stomach and maybe have a glass of wine now and again. i am also looking forward to wearing pants that button...hopefully in my same pre-baby size and the big thing, i want to go out to a sushi dinner featuring eel, tuna and sake plus there is really tasty sounding chocolate buffet at a hotel in Boston and i am looking forward to going to that as well.

i think being a parent will be fun, scary and probably pretty rewarding. i am sure there will be times i'll want to pull my hair out, but luckily dave and i have a lot of good support people. between my family, his family and our friends we have plenty of people to ask for advice and go to for support.

all i am hoping for now is a healthy baby and a very medicated delivery that goes quickly. oh, and i'd like baby G to wait until AFTER we have our baby shower to join us...but i think that decision is out of my hands!

Monday, September 1, 2008

the waiting game...and events leading up to it

the past week has been a pretty turbulent one to say the least. it all started on Wednesday, August 27th. it was our 2nd professional development day for CRLS, which means we had a variety of teacher meetings to attend and our first meeting was for all special educators, social workers, psychologists, etc at an elementary school about 1.7 miles away from the high school. it was a beautiful day, really breezy and very nice so i decided i'd take the walk with the rest of the teachers to the school. usually i would have driven, but since i have been feeling so good, i thought i'd walk, get some exercise and spare myself the inevitable parking ticket I would have gotten had i driven (parking is very limited in Cambridge). toward the end though my pelvis started to become sore, which is typical of any large amount of walking...so...i didn't think much of it and just headed into the auditorium for our meeting.

i felt warm so i started drinking tons of water to make sure i was hydrated, which i certainly was and then my lower back began to throb and my stomach became rock hard. i started to really be in some pain. so...I took two tylenol (which is FINE in pregnancy) and drank a lot more water...at that point i was visibly in pain and one of my co-workers suggested i call the doctor.

she's had 2 kids and said to her, it looked like i was having contractions. so...i called. the nurse at my doctor's office suggested i come in ASAP so they could hook me up to a monitor and see what was going on...i clearly agreed even though i felt so foolish going in, i mean, maybe i was just dehydrated or something, who knows! but as everyone tells me with pregnancy, better to be safe than sorry so I headed back into the auditorium and talked to my boss...who immediately told me to go...so i left. now, my mom offered to come get me, but me...being the stubborn gal that i am decided that i could get back to my car on my own and ended up taking the city bus back to CRLS...so i did...and let me say, i was contracting every 6 to 8 minutes...it was obvious, even to the other city bus riders who looked at me and asked if i was in labor...awesome.

i got off the bus and got to the car then drove to Quincy to my doc's office...once there they did some testing, put me on a monitor and baby g was fine, though the contractions were now 2 to 3 minutes apart. they did a bunch of tests on me including a Group B Strep test (which i still don't know the results of) and a FFN (fetal fibronectin test) which came back positive, meaning i could in fact deliver in the next two weeks or i could not...nothing like accurate medical testing right - lol. and on top of that they did an exam to see if i was actually dialating and yea, i was...at that point i was 1 cm dialated (0ut of 10) and 50% effaced (meaning my cervix was thining out)...so i called Dave and he came to meet me...in the meantime the staff at HVMA in Quincy called over to Brigham and Women's and arranged for me to be admitted!!

Dave and I left the HVMA office around 2:30 and headed to the hospital...we got there and they tried to get the pre-term labor to stop with an oral medication that didn't work, then they moved on to Magnesium Sulfate to stop the contractions so that I could get steroid shots to help prepare the babies lungs in the event that he or she decides to be born a bit early! So...once I was on the Magnesium drip I got the first steroid shot and was then told I'd be on the drip for 48 hours. This meant that I'd get the second steroid shot 24 hours later and then 24 hours after that I'd be what is known as Beta Complete so that if he or she was born their lungs had recieved steroid therapy to help breathing.

So at that point I was told I'd be there at least until Saturday or Sunday morning...so Dave and I got settled and accepted that we were there for the rest of the week. I called my family members and dave went home to get some clothes and supplies for the remainder of the week.

Now, from Wednesday night thru Friday night the Magnesium made me hot, flushed and really just tired. I felt ok otherwise and my vitals were great. The baby was not as active but still had a strong heart rate and was moving. Finally by Thursday afternoon (about 24 hours after being on the Mag) my contractions began to subside meaning the labor had been halted. I just sat there and rested as much as I could though truthfully I wasn't really sleeping all that much and was definitely overtired.

Friday evening around 5pm I came off of the Mag and was tired, cranky and just ready to be free of the IV. Once off of it I didn't feel anything for about 4 hours. Then around 9:30pm I started having awful pains in my back and stomach...turns out I wasn't in labor, but was now told I have something known as Irritable Uterus and this condition can lead to pre-term labor. They checked my cervix again and though it's not dialated anymore (still 1 cm) it's now effaced to 75% and it could stay that way for weeks. To stop the pain, I was given a shot of morphine and passed out...I woke up on Saturday AM and the pain was gone, but I was a mess...my entire body was sore and irritable, my brain felt foggy and I was just done. I was discharged Saturday with the instructions to be on bedrest through 37 weeks minimum.

At that point I just wanted to go home, so Dave took me home and i slept nearly 24 hours through to Sunday morning. I spent yesterday sitting here with my cousin Danielle who was awesome. I felt ok for the day...having a few Braxton Hicks conractions during the day, but nothing too much to report, then finally last night at about 12:45am I woke up with the Irritable Uterus problem again. It HURT. I was up until about 3:30am waiting for the pain to subside. It's different than contractions because it doesn't come and go...it just stays painful for hours. I was in a bad spot, but luckily it finally subsided and I went back to sleep unitl about 10:00am today.

So now I'm on bedrest and I can totally understand why. If I was to have that type of pain out and about I'd probably fall on the floor. It's way to uncomfortable to be out and about and I know that it's best for me to just follow the doctor's orders and wait it out.

I think the little Garcia is going to come when he or she is ready and all I can do is sit still and just wait. My personal guess..baby G will join the world sometime in Early September. I think perhaps in the next two or three weeks to be honest. Which will be ok with me!