36 Weeks!!!!

5 month belly

8 month belly

Happy New Year! Its a blue moon too, how rare! Well, one more month to go til baby. Its hard to believe that we are going to be mom and dad. Here are some belly pics. I have gained right about 20-25 pounds. Hopefully it will be as easy to lose as it was to gain!

35 Weeks and Merry Christmas

Time sure does move quickly! Its already Christmas and 35 weeks now! Putting the final touches on the nursery, and as you can see making up the crib. Austin has been busy assembling all kinds of fun things, strollers to swings. We are getting very excited!

33 Weeks and counting. . .

So, I think I jinxed myself. When I said "I feel guilty this has been a real easy pregnancy." Last Monday I started to feel some back pain. I was at work, it was my office day, I had brought my heating pad so I tried to combat the uncomfortable back with heat. This didn't work. I had called Austin right about noon asking him to bring me some Tylenol when he was on his way to Greenbay to see the Packers game. About 20 minutes later I called him back, I wanted to go to the hospital.

I have had these "fake" contractions, baxton hicks, before and they are in the front of the uterus. According to the birthing classes we have been attending real contractions will be from your back to the front of the uterus. So either I was feeling labor or because this pain was only from the right side, I had a kidney stone. Oh lovely.

Austin drove me from Mayfair Mall to Waukesha Memorial Hospital. Now I am not delivering at this hospital but it is seriously five minutes from our house and at this point the pain was intolerable. Once the ER nurses heard I was 32 weeks pregnant their look of urgency scared me. I cried little bit, "its too early for the baby."

Now in triage, the urine test had blood and protein present, and I was hooked up to fetal monitor. The baby, of course, decided to be super active and kick, dance and punch making it more uncomfortable. Good news, I wasn't in labor. Bad news, I had a kidney stone. I have had a kidney stone before, on our one year anniversary, so I was familiar with this pain. After contacting my doctor, who doesn't usually work at this hospital, I was given morphine. I was told that it was safe for the baby as long as I wasn't a constant user the baby won't be harmed. Two more doses, and I was still in pain. I was going to be admitted. It looks like Austin will not be going to the football game. Sorry.

I was hooked up to a machine that had a button I could push for a dose of pain medicine. Soon I felt better, if I took a deep breath there was still a dull pain in my back. I sent Austin home around 10. I was getting a ton of fluid from the IV bags so I was also filtering my urine in search of this damn stone. Waking up every hour or two, it was right around midnight, when I could breath deeply. I wasn't in pain anymore! I stopped giving myself pain medication.

Not sure what time it was 2:00am or 3:00am I got up to use the bathroom and a vein behind my right thigh was shooting pain. I pushed it back into my leg and hobbled to the bathroom. From there it felt worse. Hot, swollen and painful to the touch. The next morning instead of being released an ultrasound was ordered to make sure there wasn't a blood clot present. The tech searched the deep veins, nothing was found. I was finally ready to go home. 25 hours later.

It was now Tuesday afternoon, I had used a floating holiday today. Tomorrow night I am scheduled to work. Not sure how this was going to happen, I could barely walk. This vein was bright blue with a 5 inch diameter of hard, bright pink hotness around it. My next doctors appointment would be Friday after work.

My doctor told me that the vein had a blood clot, it was a superficial vein, and this clot could not kill me. Thanks. And the tissue around it was infected. She thinks that 25 hours of lying down had something to do with it. . . ya think?! So, on with more antibiotics. Oh before all this mess, I had a head cold that kept me and Austin awake for 4 nights of coughing. I went to the doctor and was given antibiotics. This poor baby has had more medicine in the last couple weeks!

So, its been exactly a week. The vein is still painful to the touch, and infected. I can walk better though. I take 12 pills of antibiotics a day and they really upset my tummy. My next doctors appointment is next week Tuesday.

27 weeks

I have a couple of months still. . . but I was thinking I might paint my belly. Of course I won't be able to do this myself so I need to come up with a super simple design that Austin can execute. Please help out with any suggestions. Check out this link. . . Pregnant Belly Paintings.

I had a doctors appointment last Thursday. Let me just point out that I HATE needles. Not only did I have blood drawn, for glucose testing, but I also got the elusive H1N1 vaccine. The doctors office had called me before my appointment and left a voice mail I couldn't quite understand. When I arrived at the doctor I knew why I hadn't understood the message. The nurse was whispered to me that they did indeed have the vaccine in and wanted to know if I was interested in receiving it. In the waiting area there were 3 other pregnant women, did they know about the vaccine availability? I'll never know.

I did get an ultrasound (hooray) but I did not receive any pictures (boo). Doctor Olson wanted to make sure that the placenta was moved out of the way, and it had. I also wanted to know the position of the baby. My lower left seems to be the place I feel the most action. So upon the ultrasound investigation, there were in fact two big feet that showed up clear as day on the screen. All the little movements in the upper right abdomen are the baby's little fists. And every once and a while there is a combined movement between the two areas that quite literally make ME jump! What is the baby doing in there? I'll never know.

Why having a dog is a good prelude to having a child.

• Random barf in the middle of the night.
• Drool.
  
• Whining during dinner.
• Removing dog from dog park is like taking a child off the swing set.
• Spelling out words you don't want him to hear, W-A-L-K.
• "Poo-Paw" in the middle of dinner that requires a bath.
• Bribery.
• Cuteness is his only defense.
• Lots of photos.
• Plenty of doctors/vet visits.
• Drool.
• "Proofing" the house.
• Unconquerable hiccups.
• Use of the word "no" has quadrupled.
• Random "smells."
• Middle of the night potty breaks.
• More Bribery.
• Scattered toys around the house.
• Drool.
• Increase of garbage.
• Lots of laughter.
• "Baby talk."
• Main topic of conversation.
• Nicknames.
• Not having to talk to yourself.
• Drool.
• Cleaning his eyes, nose or drool before going out in public.

Ouch!

Two nights ago, sound asleep and comfortable (for once) I stretched out my legs and BAM! My calf muscle cramped up into a hard ball. I did what anyone else would have done, screamed and swore and screamed some more. Thus waking Austin up, he jumped out of bed thinking I was in labor. Poor Austin paced back and forth and decided to help me stretch my calf by flexing my foot. This just came with more screaming and swearing, so he gave up and we both went back to sleep. So, now here I am post massage and limping around. Yes pregnancy is beautiful.

25 weeks

So, how am I feeling? This is the most common question I am asked. "I feel fine," is the most common answer I give. Really this has been an easy pregnancy. I have had no morning sickness and only a few "strange" cravings. The first trimester, all I wanted to do was sleep. I have never been so tired in my life. I would wake up, work, come home, nap, eat, then sleep. There was one instance that required an emergency doctors visit. I was at work on a Monday, which is my office day, and I had chest pains and my pulse was racing. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I had an EKG the following morning and everything looked alright. At the time I was 15 weeks or so. Since then just some minor aches and pains, Dr. Olson said if I move too fast I might pull ligaments at the bottom of the uterus. I feel helpless when I can't lift things at work or silly when vaccuuming hurts my back. I have a massage today, I can't wait! The baby seems to be on a schedule, kicking and punching me at said times. Austin said he could hear the heartbeat from just putting his ear up to my tummy. How cool! ~Jade

Ultrasound week 18

Here is the hand. The baby is already shooting from the hip. We suspect that he/she was sucking his/her thumb.

This was so cool. The baby was "comfortable" and didn't make any huge movements.

Ultrasound week 10

Here is the first ultrasound at 10 weeks. The baby wiggled like a little worm.