23 June 2011

39 Weeks - Restless

I really have no words. Im sure that most women understand being this far along in a pregnancy, this late in the summer is not comfortable physically, much less when emotionally and mentally you are just toast. Needless to say I had convinced myself that this pregnancy would end early as the other two did, but no such luck.

If I have to answer somebody looking at me and asking "You haven't had that baby yet?" one more time "Nope, sure haven't". I'm going to scream. I have nothing else to say. I'm just tired. There has been no progress physically in the last 3 visits. I'm at a loss. I thought that your body progresses more quickly with subsequent pregnancies, so it blows my mind that I'm 39 weeks I'm not even as far along as I was with pregnancy No. 1 at 37 weeks.

Who knows. I have actually run 3 times in the last 10 days, in addition to numerous times on the elliptical. The running actually felt good during and there was only minor stiffness in the pelvic floor afterward. It's extremely slow, and I'm sure some Olympic speed walkers could pass me, but I'm calling it running anyway. But apparently it didn't really help anything along so who knows if I'll do it again.

My next appointment is next Tuesday and my due date is next Thursday. I'm beyond ready for this baby to make it's way into our world, as are the boys. Ryan told me today he was excited for the baby to come out now. Please baby, listen to your older brother; I don't think he will be excited too long so we need to take advantage of this opportunity!

10 June 2011

Eagleman is here- 37 weeks

I remember when I posted in Nov/Dec 2010 that I was pregnant again that we were worried I would go into labor while at Eagleman for Tim...well Eagleman is here. And where am I? Literally? Right now I'm driving in the car on the way to Cambridge, still pregnant.

I'm very excited about this race for Tim, although my o.b. office is less than happy with my decision to travel "more than 1 hour away". Oh well. My response is this: hospitals in Maryland are just as capable in delivering babies as my hospital in Cary. Shoot, there are still women in Africa that go into the woods, squat, push and go back to picking berries..or something like that. I think we'll be ok. The only thing that sucks is having to stop every 1.5 hours...errr, turns a long trip into a LONG trip.

Last week at my 36 week visit, the midwife I saw absolutely scared the crap out of me. She told me I was measuring small and had been measuring small for the last 3 visits. "Didn't they tell you?" Uh, no they didn't. So what are you thinking? What is the issue? "Well, could just be a small baby, oh never mind...you have big babies." "Could just be that you are hiding the pregnancy well or could be not enough fluid in the uterus or could be the baby isn't growing well. Monitor your movements and if it decreases, we may need to do an ultrasound."

I freaked out. I'm a worrier, I'm an anxious person. Tim often says that he leaves the worrying to me because I do enough for everyone in the family. So I didn't sleep all last weekend. Up all night, poking the belly "move baby, move for mommy." Nothing. I was a wreck. So I called Monday morning and they brought me in for monitoring. I was hooked up for over 1.5 hours before the main dr. (Dr. V) said, "not the most active baby, but I've seen enough to let you go for now. Make sure to schedule the ultrasound for tomorrow." Will do.

Tuesday, US showed normal growth range, normal fluid, normal everything except for a slightly small head size (and ladies you know we don't mind that at all, right!). So Dr. confirmed what us technician saw and said we just have a smaller baby this time. Although I laugh to think this baby will be small... experience tells me we probably just have a long, lanky baby, but I'm no dr. or us tech.

So at nearly 37 weeks, I have not progressed anywhere close to where I was with either Ryan or Brayden and this one dropped about 3 weeks ago. The only difference I can see is that my exercise has been extremely less this time than before. So perhaps it is true, that the exercise really does help your body prepare. Dang fatigue, two kids, full time job, house and other crap that has kept me from working out as much. I better not go to term with this one, I won't know what to do with myself.

04 June 2011

Desperate Mommy to Mission control

I've been wondering if the potty gods had been listening to me for the past 4-5 months or not. I honestly believed that potty training Brayden would be so much easier since he had both Ryan and Tim to model himself after. Peer pressure of sorts. Well, he has proven to be just as difficult as Ryan was.

We started potty training Ryan at 3, a bit late now that I look back at it, but he had a lot of emotional adjustment after Brayden was born so it didn't seem like the right time to force the issue at 2 years old. By the time Ryan was 3.5 we were potty trained and only wearing a pull up at night for the occasional accident that would occur. I'd say that 8 months after starting we were out of pull ups at night all together. He's only had a few accidents since then.

So with Brayden, I wanted to start him at 2.5 years. We waited a little longer than that, he was about 2 years 9 months. The peeing part was relatively easy to get him used to. A lot of reminding him to go but getting him to stand up was a breeze because he likes going with Ryan. They have their "boy time" around the potty. Except for Ryan trying to tell Brayden he has to "point it up" the first time, we're doing well.

Pooping, a completely different story. Oh my dear. It was also Ryan's downfall, but he would at least sit on the potty and try. Brayden just screams. Regardless of song singing, bribes, whether he has to go or not. My goal was to have him potty trained before no. 3 got here. In conjunction with his strong will not to cooperate, is my very high hormone level with this pregnancy as compared to the others. I'm just not so patient at all this time around. It's killing me.

After numerous conversations with Brayden that he doesn't need to go in his pants or he needs to tell us when he's had an accident, I was beginning to wonder if he just didn't understand the "pooping feeling" so to speak. I'll share a quick story that some of you that follow on face book may have read about. I was getting things out of our car and Brayden had walked to the door in the garage. He had let the dog in the garage and was sitting by the steps leading to the house talking to the dog. All of a sudden I hear the house door shut and Bowden (the dog) comes around the back of the car. I start walking to the door and Bowden stops dead in his tracks, lifting up his front leg and turning around to look at me as if to say "ewww yuk, not me". I looked down and there were two piles of poop sitting at the bottom of the steps. When I asked Brayden if he pooped on the garage floor his reply "Well yeah, but it wasn't in my pants."

So now, I know he realizes the feeling, he's just playing games. So that day I stopped talking about it. At day care, his teacher told me to start sending him in underwear; so I did. And I found that he will take himself at daycare without a reminder and no accidents. Still no pooping but peeing we're there. Are you hearing me potty gods, please help. I need this child to be mostly potty trained by the time this new addition gets here, for my own sanity, please.

Then it happened. Last night. Tim said "Brayden, did you just poopy in your pants?" "No, I just passed gas". Check of underwear showed no poop. Me: "Brayden let's go sit on the potty please so we don't have an accident". The screaming and crying and stomping commenced. I sat him down, was going to try singing songs but that got him more upset. "Brayden, just try to push some poopy out, we're going to sit on the potty for a while, you can't get up until you try." More crying, more "No poopy, there is no poopy."

Tim came in there, and bribed with food/drink, toys whatever. And then the heavens opened up. In the middle of Tim saying "buddy we'll give you whatever you want if you just...." Tim shut up, he's pushing. And viola, poopy in the potty! There was a massive celebration. Bigger than Garner when what's his name just won American Idol. We went to the store and he got to pick out a "poopy present" which ended up being a green sword. And the rest of the night brought "I'm so proud of you" and "You're such a big boy" and "That makes me so happy".

Now here's to hoping this wasn't just a one time deal and he'll actually try to do it again. Work with me potty gods, work with me, pretty please with sugar on top?!!! We've got somewhere between 1 and 4 weeks left to get this mostly done.