Week 38

It is now week 38 out of 40…and week 40 can’t get here fast enough! Only two more weeks and that is only 14 more days…I can do that! This past week was my roughest week so far but I guess I can’t complain seeing that I have had 36 great weeks and only one not so great week. So no more complaining here…things could be a lot worse!!!

Like I said this past week was a rough one. It started early Wednesday morning when I woke up about 5am with pre-labor contractions. They actually woke me out of a dead sleep and so of course I woke Mark up because who wants to be uncomfortable alone!?!? I was pretty uncomfortable all day but I decided to stick to my normal routine and so I taught my class out at UCF and went to a few meetings afterwards. I did call the doctor to see if what I was experiencing was normal and the nurse told me to time my contractions and watch for them to change in intensity and frequency. Unfortunately they stayed the same for the next 5 days!!!! Needless to say I was exhausted from them keeping me up at night so when we went for our doctor visit last Thursday she prescribed me something to help me relax and sleep. She also said that I was only a finger tip dilated and that she wanted me to do a lot of walking to try and get things going. Well I walked ALL weekend and nothing!!! Oh well, what do you expect…this is my first baby and I hear things can take forever sometimes! It did make for a long weekend but we tried to stay busy so that it would take my mind off of the contractions. Things have slowed down since and I actually only had a few contractions yesterday. I’m not complaining though…I was actually able to rest and relax a bit.

Saturday was great because some new friends of ours had their baby and we got to go and visit them in the hospital. We met Jacob and Natalie in our child birth class and they were due to have their little boy on the 9th. She went into labor on Friday afternoon and had Tyson Jacob around 5am on Saturday morning. He is sooo precious and was just the right size…7 lbs even and 20 ¾ inches long. Mom and baby are doing great. After getting to hold him I am very anxious to hold my own baby!

This weekend we also got to spend some time with Mark’s cousins from Mississippi. They came down to Orlando to visit their niece and nephew and to take them to Rock the Universe at Universal Studios. It was great to be able to go over and hang out with them. We always love spending time with Steve and Christy!

We went to the doctor today for our weekly visit. Everything was very routine but we were a little disappointed to find out that we are still only a finger tip dilated…I thought for sure that after all of those contractions that we would have made a little bit of progress! During my exam Dr. Thatcher could not feel B-C’s head so she asked that I come back to the office after lunch to have a sonogram to make sure that the baby is still head down. So I went to lunch with my old boss and coworker Trish and Cyndy and afterwards I headed back over to have my sonogram. Well I thought everything was going to be routine but boy was I WRONG! Come to find out, B-C is NOT head down like he/she is suppose to be but BREECH! What the heck???? We had a scan two weeks ago and everything was perfect but I guess that just goes to show you how quickly things can change! I also found out that B-C is in the 95th percentile in size…that is just fancy lingo for “a big baby”!!! According to the estimates B-C weighs 3771 grams and that converts nicely to 8 lbs 6 ozs!!!! The tech did say that the sonogram can be off 10% in either direction but that just means that we already have a big 7 lb baby or a really big 9 lb baby! She said that our baby is measuring at 39 weeks and 4 days of age not the 38 weeks that we really are…boy that is scary news!!!! So we are waiting to hear back from the doctor as to our next plan of action…I am anxious to say the least. I’ll be sure to update the blog once I hear something so stay tune for the next episode of our baby drama! Heehee! By the way…take a look at these two pictures that were taken of B-C today. The first is a shot of a foot…how cute! The second is a little harder to make out but it is a face shot…can you see the lips??? I mean how can you miss them??? We finally have confirmation of a sweet pair of Batia lips!!!! Yay!!!!

So now that you know B-C’s actual measurement here are what the norms are. Our baby’s weight should be about 6.8 pounds and he/she is over 19 1/2 inches long (like a leek). B-C has a firm grasp, which we'll soon be able to test when we hold his/her hand for the first time! The organs have matured and are ready for life outside the womb.Wondering what color B-C’s eyes will be? You may not be able to tell right away. If he/she is born with brown eyes, they'll likely stay brown (and we would have a HUGE problem because both Mark and I have blue eyes!!!!). If he/she is born with steel gray or dark blue eyes, they may stay gray or blue or turn green, hazel, or brown by the time the baby is 9 months old. That's because a child's irises (the colored part of the eye) may gain more pigment in the months after they are born, but they usually won't get "lighter" or more blue. (Green, hazel, and brown eyes have more pigment than gray or blue eyes.)
Here is a picture that Mark took of me last night…it really isn’t as bad as it seems. I was actually dishing out the ice cream for MARK and there was just a little bit left in the container that I just couldn’t waste so I ate it! The picture is way more incriminating than what was actually taking place! Leave it to Mark to catch me in the act!