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Melissa

37 (or so) week update

I went to see my midwife yesterday and I expressed my concern at Piper’s change in position.  Overnight the seemingly cute butt bump that was sticking out under my right rib turned into a big mass trying to push its way out.  It also felt like she was doing a little tap dance on the the ‘ole cervix.  Shane was breech, so it is always in the back of my mind.  LCMDR Summerville grabbed the ultrasound machine to doublecheck because she also noticed the flatness on the front of my bump.  Luckily, Miss P was VERY much head down… she is now super low in my pelvis and she rest assured me that if for some insane reason she turned it would be extremely painful.  She promised me that she is in position.  She is facing to my right which she was last time.. and the giant mass was her butt/back and knees that rotated forward because she dropped so much over night.

Last week, I was about 50% effaced (cervix thinned out).  6 days later (yesterday) I went in and had her check me after the ultrasound and she said I am about 80-90% effaced and almost 1cm dialated.  ” A fingertip” is her measurement.  I am really happy with that progress!  She said that since she has dropped (and has been dropping for a while) so much and I am moving along that she doesn’t believe that I am going to 40 weeks.  I have started contracting on and off and it seems that my uterus is doing its job getting ready.

I go in again on the 14th, so we will see where we are.  I have the option of having the midwife ..ummm… manually moving my contractions along.  I won’t go into detail for the squeamish.   Shane and I will have to decide at that point if that is something that we want to do.  He DOES have a triathlon that weekend after all. hehe

Speaking of trialthon, I am so incredibly proud of Shane’s accomplishment of his completing his first half Ironman trialthlon!!  Not only did he finish, but he finished like it was just another day at the office.  He exceeded every time goal that he had for himself and finished at around 4.5 hours!  Everytime that I saw him, he was smiling and in great stride!  I snipped some pictures from the official photo website.

On the bike leg... (56 miles)

On the run leg... (13 miles)

On the swim leg... (1.2 miles)

a couple shot

I just wanted to share this picture with the grandfolks.

36 weeks - Mom and Dad in the nursery

35 weeks… almost 36

So I suck at keeping up with a blog.  I am trying.

Here is last week’s 35 week picture.  I will be 36 weeks in 2 days.

She is surely getting big in there... Oh and don't mind the snarl. lol

Like my extremely crooked linea nigra?  God was drunk when he painted that one on.

An update:  Well, we are coming to the end and we are pretty much ready.  I want to thank all my amazing friends who threw and came to my showers. You guys mean everything to us, and I am so blessed to have such awesome people in my life.  I am now in the final throwes of organizing her nursery, so I am starting to feel ready for this.  I know that I can never be fully prepared (especially for the labor and hormone ride that is coming!), but my nesting is moving along swimmingly.

I think that she has dropped already for the fact I am in the bathroom twice as much as I was even a week ago and I can tell her head is further in my pelvis.  I will take this as a good sign.  My swelling is ridiculous and I can’t sit upright in a chair for more than 15 minutes without some major baloonage in my feet.  My wedding band is temping to cut my circulation off which is always enjoyable.   I really have good energy in the morning, but after about 4 hours of being out an about I am DONE.  I have even transitioned back into needing a nap.   Other than my insane swelling, I feel like this is pretty standard stuff and I am grateful that we are going pretty textbook with this pregnancy.

Shane is running his first Half Ironman triathlon this weekend coming up.  I am planning on heading out to White Lake for the end of the tri so that I can see him finish.  I would be kidding myself to think I would stand for the hours he will take to run it.  We are going to miss Ashley’s wedding also because I realize now that is more than I can ask of my body and energy level.  We are really going to miss seeing everyone and wishing congrats on the newlywed and soon to be new parents.

I will take some pictures of the nursery and share some shower pictures in a following post if any of them are showable.

31 week update

Things are moving along smoothly even if I am slowing down.   Gone are the days that I wake up and almost forget I am pregnant.  We are now 9 weeks from our due date!  We are so happy and excited for her to make her arrival.  We have finally agreed on a middle name that we will hold on to until she is born.  At least there will be one SMALL surprise.

We started Lamaze class on Monday and both of us already learned quite a bit.  The stretches to alleviate back pain were my favorite part.  We are only doing the breathing and relaxation during one of the 5 classes… the rest is learning about the labor process and all dealing in pregnancy.  Pretty good stuff.

Our Raleigh baby shower that Arlene is lovingly throwing us is this weekend and I can’t WAIT to see the girls and the fam.  It is co-ed, and Shane is praying his mom doesn’t have something embarrassing in store.  We shall see..muhahaha.

She's moving on up and my ribs are loving it.

Shane's doing daddy duty putting up her new blinds. I don't know why the camera is making the room look yellow! The pic below is the color.

The quick cake Auntie Linda made for Piper

This wonderful metallic copper decal from etsy.com/oldbarnrescue.com behind her crib. I love it!

Piper’s First Video :-)

At 26 weeks Piper magically gained super strength and started going to town on my stomach. Before, you were lucky if you could feel her outside, and then all of a sudden she could contort my stomach! I had to get it on video.

26 weeks. I’m 2/3rds done! :-)

Here we are at 26 weeks and the entry into the final trimester of this new journey.  I have a great feeling that it is going to fly by at mach speed whether we are ready or not.  We start Lamaze classes on March 23rd and have an infant care class in April.  We might be the oldest people in there, but that’s ok.  We are only children without baby experience.. we need all the help that we can get.

We just got back from a visit to our wonderful friends from  Timmerman Ave who I miss constantly.  We had a wonderful visit and spent Valentine’s Day and night in Washington DC where we went to 3 different museums and caught an IMAX.  It was a great little get away, but LORD I got to see the wonders of pregnancy swelling first hand.  Shane left for Denver the day after we got back to have a boys weekend snowboarding which he has been wanting to do for the last 9 years or so.  It’s much deserved.

A picture of us at The Beacon for dinner

Us at The White House