Contraction! And, 28 Days!

I'm sorry I've been MIA lately. Things have been crazy at work, and as you can probably tell, I've been behind on both posting and commenting. I'm hoping to catch up by the end of the weekend, but I just wanted to pop in and say everything still seems to be going well.

It's hard to believe this is our fourth week of twice-a-week appointments. During yesterday's non-stress test, apparently I had a contraction. I didn't feel it, so I didn't even know it until the doctor looked at the monitor's printout and said, "So you had a contraction, huh?"

She said it happens randomly and doesn't mean I'll go into labor early. But for those of you who have been hoping I will find the courage to do more to prepare, I don't know that I'd call it courage exactly, but a feeling of "Wow, this might actually happen! And I'd better get moving!" did set in.

R and I went shopping last night, so at least now Kiddo has an outfit in which to come home from the hospital and a baby book that we can take with us to have handprints and footprints put in. We haven't gotten everything yet, but I don't care so much if we're the ones buying diaper rash cream or if we have to send someone else for that, but I did want to at least pick out the sentimental stuff ourselves.

In other news, Kiddo will be here no later than 28 days from today. Well, technically, 27 days from today since it is now after midnight. I still can't totally believe it. But I hope the next 4 weeks go really quickly.

Actually, even more than that, I hope she decides to show up sooner than then. Not too much sooner, because I'm only at 34w5d and I want her to have all the growing time she needs, but I wouldn't mind if she showed up a couple days ahead of schedule.

And, my usual refrain: Please, Dear God, let this end well...

The Non-Shower Shower

A quick update on Kiddo first...at our appointment on Friday (32w0d), the ultrasound tech measured her weight at 4 lb. 9 oz., which calculated out to the 71st percentile. So I'm glad she's getting bigger, and I'm still in disbelief that there is somehow 4 1/2 pounds of kid inside me.

I'm also a little worried that her size is creeping up because of the gestational diabetes, so I'll ask the peri about that if we see her during the non-stress test tomorrow. At 24 weeks, she was 1 lb. 9 oz., which was the 56th percentile. Then at 28 weeks, she was 2 lb. 14 oz., which was the 67th percentile. If she gains at the rate of 1/2 a pound a week (which is what the tech said is pretty typical from this point forward), she'd be 8 lb. 9 oz. at her due date. Even though we're not going that far, I think she'll still be at least 8 pounds if we make it to the scheduled date of March 21.

I was 8 lb. 8 oz., but I was also born a week past my due date. I asked R's mom about him, and it turns out he was 8 lb. 1 oz., 17 days past his due date! I'm so glad we won't have to go 2 1/2 weeks past the due date - there's no way I'd have the patience for that, especially after all these years. I'd probably be trying every old wives' tale out there about inducing labor if we were even 1 day past the due date... :-)

On to the non-shower shower...

Early in the first trimester, one of my best friends made me promise she could guide us through registering at 30 weeks if we made it that far. When we reached 29 weeks, she decided that was far enough and commenced with planning a shower despite my objections.

Even though we've made it past the 30-week mark, I'm just still not feeling courageous enough to have a shower. I just don't think I'm going to do one unless this ends well and it's a post-birth shower.

So she and I had a disagreement about it, and then she came up with another idea, which I thought is tremendously sweet and makes her happy because it still lets her feel like she's helping us prepare: She's throwing me a frozen casserole shower.

Somehow this feels safer - I figure we still have to eat regardless of how this turns out, so it doesn't feel quite so much like tempting fate to come smack us upside the head.

Basically, she's invited several of my friends and given them instructions to bring their favorite casserole dish in a disposable pan for us to freeze, and another, smaller version of it along with copies of the recipe so that we can all taste all of the dishes during the party. She's made it clear there will be no pink, no baby decorations, and no one is to bring any gifts other than the food.

All of that is how I want it to be at this point, although I do admit I'm starting to panic a bit over the fact that we're just over 6 weeks away from the planned date, and there are a bunch of things I want to do (i.e. organize the house) that I still don't have done, not to mention the fact that I have Absolutely. No. Idea. how to care for a newborn. But that's a post for another day...

It's a Date!

Assuming this pregnancy ends well - and that I don't go into labor early - at this time 7 weeks from today, Kiddo should be almost 12 hours old.

Yep, we have a date. March 21.

It's weird to think that tomorrow, we will be less than 7 weeks away from that date. I hope these next 7 weeks go quickly!

We also had our first non-stress test yesterday. I thought we were doing both the NST and the biophysical profile every Tuesday and every Friday, but it turns out the NSTs (no ultrasound) will be on Tuesdays, and the BPPs (ultrasound) will be on Fridays. I can live with that - at least we still get to go in twice a week for reassurance.

Kiddo did well on the NST. There were separate periods of movement, and her heart rate increased appropriately during each one. I think they want to see two periods of movement/rate increases within 10 minutes, but the doctor came in to speak with us, so we wound up being hooked up to the monitors longer than that. Again, fine by me... :-)