30 weeks!

In the 30s finally!  A few more weeks and I'll be in the late term preemie window if this little gal shows up early.   Not that any preemie is something to be excited about, but 34 weeks over 24 weeks would still be something to celebrate if you ask me.

Everything still looked good at the MFM last week, so I am back to just restricted activity thankfully, which in all honesty, probably isn't that much more restrictive than normal pregnancy is this time of year.  I'm not exercising or lifting heavy things and I'm on pelvic rest....everything else is "as tolerated".    So really, I just do small doses of things here and there.   I don't in any way feel ready for a newborn.....I feel like our house is a disaster and I've got no room for anything, but it is coming together.   I keep reminding myself that she isn't going to come out crawling, so the 40 million puzzle pieces, alphabet letters, etc that are continually spread around the downstairs aren't a critical concern at the moment.    Figuring out whether or not we can fit an infant seat and the Britax in the back of my Jetta, however, is....we need to get on that.   I did call the store I ordered my breast pump from, and they were really cool about contacting my insurance for me and filling the order early since I'm high risk for PTL.   So my pump arrived a few days ago....one thing checked off.

C's big boy room is almost complete.   I need to finish sewing the curtains and I'd like to get her curtains ironed and measured out/cut before we move him in there (because right now it is the best work space that is easily closed off from little hands) but we are in the final stages.  Hopefully the transition goes smoothly sleep wise.   Once all his stuff is moved over, then I'll really get down to organizing her stuff in the nursery.

After going back and forth for months on whether or not I would buy a double stroller new or try to find one used, it finally occurred to me that I could use registry completion discounts on one.   So I made more or less identical registries at Buy Buy Baby and Babies R Us.  BRU's website says no exclusions, but fine print says special orders are excluded, so I'm not sure if they'd try to call an online only stroller special order or not.  If that fails, Buy Buy Baby will be my back up option.

And I suppose at some point here I should think about packing a hospital bag.  I wasn't prepared with C, but 40 hrs of labor gave us plenty of time to get cameras, clothes, etc in order.  It is highly possible this one could come much faster....so yeah, my to do list isn't getting shorter yet!

For some reason it looks like my bump shrunk from 29 weeks to week 30.  Oh well.

28 weeks and triage again

If I'd made this post on Monday when I should have, it would have gone in an entirely different direction, because I was really starting to feel more confident that my last triage visit was just a fluke and things were getting back to normal.   I don't think anything I did resulted in this trip, as I was still taking it easy, but Wednesday night I had a lot of contractions show up out of nowhere.  The 7 I timed within a 30 minute period were 3-4min apart and about 40 seconds long.  They weren't very strong, in fact I missed the first 3 or so because I thought she was just shifting around, but after seeing the spacing on my app, I knew I had to call and in to triage I went.   Just like last time they couldn't find a reason for them, but she is head down again, so I do wonder if major position changes just irritate things.  I was in there about 4 hrs, contracting the whole time, but the docs didn't seem as concerned this time.  Most were still pretty small, but I did have a few that registered around an 8 (1-12 scale) that I had to breathe through.   The only super scary point came after about an hour of monitoring, when her heart rate deceled to about 109 during a contraction.   I was *thisclose* to pushing the call button and freaking out when she started kicking the heck out of the monitors and they both went all over the place, so despite being able to hear the HB clearly, I think the angle she was in just made the readout wrong.

So I was discharged with threatened PTL again and put on modified bedrest for about a week until my appt next Wednesday.   I only had 4-5 contractions yesterday and no timeable ones so far today.   The fFN was negative again, so my chances of seeing 30 weeks at least are pretty good.   I have a feeling this will just be a cycle we go through until her weight reaches a point where contractions actually cause dilation.

Anyway...as I said, prior to all this things were looking up.   C's big boy room is almost done.  I bit the bullet and started sewing his curtains.  Very daunting to start, but actually each step was easier than it looked.   I got the two panels completed, now I have the valances and the tie backs left, then it is on to her curtains. 

 I finally got my Adobe Creative Suite transferred over to my current laptop.  That seriously took almost a whole day of trying various forms of installation and serial numbers (because it was a downloaded upgrade and my legit numbers are now too old to work).  Thank goodness I registered my stuff because they do have it still available for download on the website, no thanks to the near illiterate customer service.   So I've been to mess around with some ideas for decorating her name letters.  I was going to use the same stripes and polka dots I used on Colton's, but I might go full out crazy and try my hand at a damask pattern that matches the crib blanket.

Here is the nursery currently:

 

So wall color, furniture, and most bedding is staying the same.  Not sure about the picture, since it was a gift for C, but probably won't go in his new room.   Her letters will hopefully go right in the existing holes (or at least cover them) and I want to add paint chip chandeliers on either side (search Pinterest if you have no clue what I'm talking about).   I've got the material for her curtains, which will be pink, as will be her name letters and I've got some ideas for sprucing up that crappy lamp shade.   I know.....a lot to do when I can do very little at the moment but in the end, this time the needed stuff is all there so I will just do what I can, when I can.   I have a list of non-baby/kid things I wanted to have accomplished by now too....such as the one plantless planter outside our front door.

Awesome ultrasound!

I had my monthly ultrasound with MFM yesterday and everything went great.  Cervix is still long and closed, so no concern there.   Little girl is now breech, which I expected from some pretty sharp cervical kicks yesterday...it was either that or she was coming in the middle of the grocery store.   She still has plenty of time to turn, so for now I'll happily take the lack of pressure on my SI joint.

The tech checked the brain, heart, kidneys, etc, along with the placenta, cord flow and fluid levels, so pretty much everything that could raise cause for concern.   She measured the abdomin about 10 times, so I knew something was up with weight measurements.  Sure enough, this girl has caught right up to her brother and is measuring 2 weeks ahead at 2lbs 14oz at 27w3days!  So currently in the 90th percentile.  I have to be honest, I was happier with just a week ahead, even though higher birth weight is better in preemie terms.   Trying not to jump to any conclusions, but this makes me pretty sure I won't be allowed to go past my due date if we get to that point.   I will ask my doc in 2 weeks, but I know when C was measuring 2 weeks ahead at 30 weeks with his abdomen in the 93rd percentile the possibility of a c-section was brought up.   My other thought of course was that if she is on the same track weight wise, and they don't know the cause for PTL the first time, maybe my cervix just craps out once baby hits a certain weight.  I was hoping with a week ahead or on track she'd make it 2 weeks farther, but now I'm not so sure.

The tech also spent some time getting us some really amazing shots of her face.  The quality of 4D has improved vastly since I was pregnant with C, and I thought it was pretty great then....I was just blown away at what I could see now.  It was almost like looking at a photograph of her.

So here is our beautiful daughter!

 

She looks so much like C.   I looked back at his 4D pics but nothing was even close to clear enough to show the similarities, so here is C on the day he came home.

 

I just can't get over how clear this picture is!

3rd Trimester and a 2nd Birthday!

It was a busy weekend but I've finally made it to 3rd trimester!  I am glad I managed to stay away from Google when I had my PTL scare at 24weeks...I didn't realize just how low survival rates actually were that soon after hitting viability.   At 27 weeks it jumps to 90%, so our odds are much better now.  She is still turning around like crazy in there, and every time she picks a new position I have a few hours of what feels like contractions beginning, but not ever happening.   I've had one or two full contractions here and there, but that is it.

I am still taking it easy, and I am glad we decided on a low key event with just the grandparents for C's 2nd birthday, because I was exhausted just handling that.  In the end it all worked out well and C loved his cookie monster cake.   I can't believe my little man is 2 already!

 

My next appt is Thursday and will be a full u/s, so hopefully I get some good pictures of our little girl.