Alright folks, are you ready? Here is the moment you have all been waiting for, or at least I was waiting for. Although this baby has been a little chameleon I knew that by the end it should be obvious what I was having just because I carried P and Em so differently. Well, I was right.... actually I guess we won't really know if I'm right until the baby is born, but I think these pictures speak for themselves. These were all taken at 37 weeks and wearing the same shirt.
So.... what do you think? Time for official guesses.
(Leave a comment or vote in the upper right corner)
BOY or GIRL?
My guess is boy, but the weird thing is, I had my first dream about the baby last night. I dreamt that I had the baby and they didn't even think to look and tell me what the gender was. The baby's legs were crossed for some reason and then when they finally stretched out the legs they discovered it was a girl and we were all totally surprised. I only had one dream each about the other kids too, but both of those were correct on the gender before we even had our ultrasound, so who knows! For now I'm still sticking with boy.
The funny thing is, we have girl names narrowed down, but not boy names. And anytime we talk about it we end up getting more boy names on the list rather than narrowing it down... So who knows what is going to happen there. We like to see the baby before we give it a name, but I would love to have it narrowed down to 2 or 3 names before we head to the hospital, so we better start narrowing it down. If it is a girl we will most likely name it Sadie or Riley. And if it is a boy... I'm still pulling for Spencer but the hubs is not loving it. Maybe Jacob, Tyler, Andrew, Lincoln, Ryan, Grant, Garrett, or maybe none of those. Bah! Picking a name for a human is hard!
Anyway, I am overjoyed to have made it full term, especially because I had a little scare at 35 weeks. This was the picture I sent Jeff - who was on the other side of the country mind you - to tell him I was having contractions.
At first I didn't think it was anything, but then they kept coming, and kept coming for over 2 hrs. After the first hour I did some research on Preterm Labor and how to stop it and it said to lay down and drink lots of water. So I came straight home, put the kids to bed with no stories or songs or anything and went and laid down as I chugged bottle after bottle of water. After 30 minutes there was no change, still have consistent contractions less than 10 minutes apart and that was when I was starting to worry. Jeff out of state, my parents out of state, the kids still up jumping around in their rooms and me in labor. Awesome!
I got up to pee because many bottles of water will do that to you and also went in to remind the kids it really was bed time and then called the hubs to tell him this really might be happening, but I was going to give it 30 more minutes before I called the doctor. I then started running through my head who I was going to call to come watch the kids and who could take me to the hospital. Luckily after the second 30 minutes things started to dye down. Thank Goodness! I went straight to sleep and aside from getting up to pee a few times, I slept the best I have in a while. I ended up being able to stay in bed for 12 hrs straight which I hadn't done in who knows how long.
I called the doctors in the morning and set up an appointment to come it just to make sure things didn't progress too much. Luckily it didn't. I was about 50% effaced and dilated to 1.5 cms. That I could handle. The doctor told me to lay low as much as possible and drink lots of water and that is exactly what I did. Some amazing friends took my kids for the day and I was able to rest a ton. By the end of the day I felt like a different person. I didn't really realize it at the time, but building up to the day I had the contractions I was feeling worse and worse. My stomach was rock hard 95% of the time, I had the awful lower pack pain, and I honestly felt just overall lousy. But now almost 3 weeks later, I feel even better than I did that week. The baby is moving more again and when I relax my stomach actually does too. Needless to say I was quite relived to make it to full term last week.
I didn't tell my doctor, but I decided to go to Pismo Beach with Jeff last week despite the preterm labor. There were plenty of reasons to justify going:
- I was feeling much better.
- If I were to go in labor, I'd rather have the baby in a different place with Jeff then at home without him.
- I knew I would be able to rest more there then at home.
- It is only 3-4 hours away, so not too far from home.
So we loaded up the infant car seat and packed a hospital bag just in case and headed down south and I am so glad we did! Me and the kids laid low and had an amazing time, but I'll save that for another post.
I'm technically 38 weeks now and honestly would love to have this baby any day. Now that I'm home I shall commence project "Get Baby OUT." I'm shooting for next weekend, we'll see if I have any luck. :)
One last picture just for fun:
I found this as I was digging through the pictures on my old phone. This was when I was pregnant with Parker and probably taken just a few days before he was born. I am holding the basketball in both pictures. I know why so many people tell me it just looks like I have a ball in there now. :)
Only 2 more weeks (at most) till we meet this little babe and I can hardly wait!!
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