36 week appointment

This morning I had my 36 week appointment. All went well and from now on, I see my midwife weekly! I got my strep B test done today, but decided to hold off on being checked due to there being really no reason to and to avoid the pain of it!! My midwife said she believes Anna is head down now, so that is great. She probably isn't engaged in the pelvis yet, but that is common for 2nd babies. She said usually they drop all at once right before labor. We talked about what to do when I do go into labor and I told her about my labor story with Eli. She said I can stay home as long as I like and when I feel too uncomfortable and the contractions start coming faster, to head on in to the hospital. Then the hospital will do triage and then decide if I am ready to be admitted and contact my midwife. Excited that this time around that I know who will be delivering little Anna. Yay!! Here is my post about Eli's 36 week appointment. Below are the stats:

Anna's heartbeat: 149 bpm (while she wasn't super active, she didn't like getting poked & proded so she kept moving positions while the nurse tried to get her heartbeat!)
Mommy's weight gain: gained 1 1/2 lbs. so up to 36 3/4 lbs. gained...I was at 37 lbs. gained at this time with Eli...I'm actually a 1/4 lb. behind...WOW!
Mommy's blood pressure: good!

I hope to post over the weekend about Eli's adventures!

36 weeks!

36 weeks...and how am I doing today? As Eli would say "I'm AWESOME!!" Really, I am doing so well and have few complaints. My energy level is overall good but I do get tired more easily. I have noticed 2 things over the weekend, though. For one, I started to have occasional shooting nerve pain in my inner left thigh...exactly like I did as I neared delivery with Eli. Second, I felt some off & on yesterday like I was "leaking" (TMI for some :) and I remember feeling this with Eli & wondering if I was leaking amniotic fluid, which of course I was not. I talked about this at 37 weeks for Eli...so maybe she'll come right at 40 weeks since it's starting a week earlier??? Of course, there's no way to know! But, too funny that I am experiencing the same things as I did with Eli this time around! Love the blog to allow me to look back at Eli's pregnancy and re-read each week. Here is what I wrote about 36 weeks with Eli.

I start my weekly appointments with my midwife this week and I will see her on Thursday. I will get my Strep B test and may be checked...if I want. My only reason to want to (because it hurts!!) is to see if she is making her way into my pelvis. Last week she was still angled somewhat, but so was Eli, so she'll probably make her way just fine!

My to-do list is slowly getting items checked off, and sometimes I feel an urgent need to get it all done (nesting anyone??) and other times I think "we have a month!". We'll be fine, though, either way...right??

Fun 36 week fact: Most of the bones (soft skull aside) in their little body are now completely hardened, providing a solid structure from which they can now make their grand debut into the world. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are structurally ready for a secure launch. (babygaga).

Here's my belly pic:

And a pic of Eli & I before I went to my group baby shower. I had my hair cut & colored this weekend so I decided to actually fix it and look nice for the shower!:

I'll post about my appointment on Thursday and later about Eli and his trip to the fire department! This week should hold a lot of outside time as the temps are supposed to be great!!

Fairy Tale Village & Fritz's Restaurant

A few weeks ago, Crown Center put on an exhibit called "Fairy Tale Village". Essentially the kids were able to explore life size exhibits of fairy tales! It was free and was really fun to attend with our playgroup friends.

Ooooo....the troll bridge:

Little Red Riding Hood:

Sleeping Beauty...the kids could pull on the rope and it opened a curtain to sleeping beauty:

Sleeping Beauty's closet:

The Princess (Prince :), Pea, and the Mattress:

Eli taking a little swim in the river :)

Three Little Pigs...when the button was pushed the wolf talked and the fire glowed:

Jack & the Beanstalk:

Pinocchio...the kids could pull the ropes to make him dance:

Mopping for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:

Learning the 7 Dwarfs names:

Eli the prince:

Cinderella's carriage:

The Three Little Bears...Eli & Aidan decided to hold hands for a moment:

After Fairy Tale Village we all ate at "Fritz's" which is a train restaurant! It is diner type food and the restaurant has a large train display outside the restaurant and your food is delivered by trains! Perfect place to keep kids entertained while they eat!

Trip to Iowa

A short time ago, we took our last "before Anna comes" trip to Iowa. We hadn't been up to visit since January, so it was great to visit. Since January, my sister Sarah and wife Stephanie bought my dad's old house. They've put a lot of work into the house and we enjoyed seeing the progress. Here is Eli with Aunt Sarah and their dog, Dillon:

Aunt Sarah is a golf professional and teaches lessons. She had these hula hoops to help teach kids how to hit the ball. Eli loved them and Aunt Sarah let him take one home:

It was a short trip (well, it was supposed to be, I'll touch more on that later) but we decided to head to Blank Park Zoo for the day on Sunday. It was a beautiful day to go and in fact, we almost got a little warm! Here are pictures from the day (and I'm glad there were many eyes to watch Eli as he was in heaven running around...thus the double stroller purchase for our excursions to the zoo here in KC :):

Holly & Eli braving the bridge:

Pretty bird:

"Water fall!"...Eli loves them:

Cool aquarium:

And a fun park!:

They had a coi pond and boy were these fish crazy!! It was actually kinda gross watching them devour the food and swim all over each other:

The petting zoo:

This goat was very pregnant (Eli is covering up her belly)...we had a bond :):

Hello Mr. Llama!:

Before the sea lion show:

What are you doing, monkey?:

Just walkin' along with no care in the world about whether he left us all in the dust or not!!:

Kitty kat:

Beautiful tiger:

And lions:

What are they looking at?:

Ground hogs of course!:

Sea otters were up close & cute!:

With Eli, each sister has a picture with Eli in my belly. For Anna, I wanted to do the same but this time included my 2 sisters and sister-in-law...yay!:

We also visited with Grandpa & Lola, took a walk around Aunt Sarah & Aunt Steph's neighborhood with Dillon, and played at a park. Good times! Unfortunately, the good times ended there. On the way home, I noticed the car temperature guage was almost to hot. My car has overheated once before, so I got off on the next exit as it was not cooling down. Thankfully we stopped at a gas station 30 minutes from Des Moines and were able to get a tow truck and have Holly pick us up to bring back to Des Moines. It became a frustrating ordeal as we ended up having to stay until Tuesday evening in my step-mom's car as they were taking FOREVER to figure out what exactly was wrong with my car. We finally were able to meet half way on Saturday to trade back cars as they finally were finished with my car on Friday....5 days!! The bill wasn't fun, but less than it could have been, so that's good.

I'll post again soon about other fun things Eli & mommy have been up to: Fairy Tale Village, Fritz's train restaurant, a REAL puppet show, and a trip to the fire house!!!

35 weeks!

Today marks 35 weeks for our Anna and things seem to be well! I am having less pelvic pain, for whatever reason (yay for chiropractors!), and while my tummy is still tender (sore muscles or lack thereof), it's not as painful. My feet swell more and I cannot wear any other shoes besides flip-flops these days along with loose & flowy clothes. She still is a mover & while the internet sites say she'll start to slow down due to lack of space, I'm not so convinced she will :) She still is positioned just like her brother and while he straightened himself out eventually, we'll see how soon she does. My midwife said she'll be interested to see if she's more up & down vs. corner to corner :).

Fun 35 week fact: Most of her basic physical development is now complete — she'll spend the next few weeks putting on weight. (babycenter.com)

I've put together a timeline of "to-do's" for each week and it's funny how when I did that, I realized even more how her arrival is literally right around the corner!! Things like putting up bassinet/packnplay, cooking/freezing meals, installing car seat, cleaning house, buying batteries for swing/vibrate chair, etc., packing hospital bag, buying diapers & other essentials, etc., etc. Here's hoping we get majority of it done!! I've been showing Eli a magazine I got when pregnant with Eli that shows pictures of how babies look each month in the womb. When I showed him tonight, it was hard to believe how much of a "baby" she is now and that she is pretty much fully developed! Eli continues to shower my tummy with kisses and also likes our tummies to kiss. I know the adjustment will be hard, and I don't expect it to be smooth, but what I DO look forward to, is Eli meeting Anna for the first time...what a precious moment!! I know he'll be all smiles and it will be a moment we all cherish.

So, thanks for checking in and next week I'll start posting weekly belly pictures until she is born. Plus, look for a post about big brother Eli later this week!

34 week doc appointment

All went well today at my appointment and we just continue down the road to delivery! :) Something funny, though, was that my midwife is the with the same practice who delivered Eli, but he was not delivered by her. I had decided to see her because a good friend of mine highly recommended her and also because she would be the one to deliver Anna unless there was another emergency she had to tend to. Anyway, she has met Eli several times but is only working off of what is in the computer for the stats of his delivery. Today she told me that she thought Anna would be BIGGER than Eli and I said "Really? Bigger than 8 lbs. 6 oz.?" She then said, "Oh, in the computer it said Eli was 6 lbs. 5 oz. Well, that makes more sense then. No, she'll probably be around the same...maybe even a 9 pounder, but don't worry, I deliver that size all the time!" So, she corrected his birthweight in the computer and now she sees why she thought Anna was feeling larger than her brother. Phew!!

Here's the stats (and here's Eli's stats at this stage):
Heartrate: 169 bpm...she wouldn't stop movin'!
Tummy measurement: 34 weeks
Weight: only gained 3/4 lb. this week so I'm up to 35 1/4 lbs. gained...2 1/4 lbs. more than I was at this stage with Eli

We also talked about how my labor should be quicker and only 20-30 minutes of pushing vs. 2 hours like I had with Eli. That's always good to hear!! I told her about my epidural issues with Eli and she is the first to tell me that what I experienced wasn't that unusual. She said that the epidural starts with a surge of medicine and then begins to taper off with the idea that you would begin to push and need to feel more down there to push right. She said that the medicine typically starts to fade on one side and then after flipping sides it doesn't improve, they usually do another dose. For me, the issue was that the anesthesiologist was preoccupied with emergency c-sections so my epidural wore off before she could give me another dose. That gives me hope that as long as Anna's not born on a night where SEVEN other babies were born, that my pain should be managed better. I'll still go in with the idea that I'll get the epidural if I need it, and just kinda see how it goes. Next time I plan to ask her about how it works with her delivering Anna and how to let her know I am in labor, who will deliver if she cannot, etc.

So, all is well! Thanks for checking in!

34 weeks (+ 2 days)!

After some delay (whole other story I will tell later), I am finally posting about my 34th week with little Anna! She may be little, but I'm feeling HUGE!! I am constantly asked when I'm due or asked if I am uncomfortable with great disbelief from the inquirer with my answer: 5/6 more weeks and yes, overall I feel good!

My usual pelvic pain is still here, but the chiro helped with that today! I will just play each week by ear as to how often I need to see her. My tummy is still tender, and my skin itches sometimes...she's just out there, what can I say! Using coconut oil for my skin helps but the maternity belt seems to be more constricting lately, so I don't really use it anymore. I noticed some red bumps in a few of my stretch marks, a sure sign of PUPPP as I had with Eli...but I didn't get with him until 40 WEEKS!!! So, here's hoping it doesn't get much worse as I remember how itchy and sore it made my tummy...no fun. For Eli at 34 weeks, I talked about some pelvic pain, tiredness, and difficulty sleeping...true for me only I'd say it all started earlier this time around. I get tired in the afternoon/evening every day now, and so does Eli so we can both be a little crabby :)

I no longer wish to wear pants these days, so skirts, dresses, and flowy capris are my choice of attire. Hopefully the weather continues to allow me to wear this type of wardrobe.

Tomorrow I have my midwife appointment and will then start at 36 weeks to go weekly. I'll post quickly tomorrow about the results of the appointment. I will start to talk with her about my birth plan (I'll post when complete) and her preference for when I go into labor (time between contractions, call the office or go to hospital, etc.). More things to complete over the next weeks including a haircut and color for myself, buying of essential supplies (diapers, breast pads, etc.), and getting the house clean and in order! Oh, and of course putting together a plan for Eli whether it be day or night I go into labor....thank goodness for grandma! For now, enjoy my 34 week pic!

33 weeks!

33 weeks today! Here's my post when Eli was 33 weeks in utero. All is well....just the same aches & pains. Oh, and more tired. I may need to move to weekly chiropractor appointments as my pelvic pain was gone after my appointment last week and then flared up again over the weekend. If it helps....I'll do it!! She's an active girl & poking and proding me throughout the day...just to say "hi" I guess!! As I've said before, she is positioning the same way Eli did, so I guess it's what is the most comfortable inside there!!

Last week I got a much needed pedicure. They are pretty necessary during pregnancy if you have to show your feet in public at all :) Here's a pic:


Fun 33 week fact: "Although they’re getting stronger, your bigger-by-the-day baby is losing space to move around, so the actual rate of movement will drop off in the last few weeks, despite that powerful drop-kick they’ve been working on. Hey, did you know you’ll continue feeling their movements even during labor?" (babygaga.com)

Enjoying the warm weather and the wearing of lighter more flowy clothes & flip flops!!

Anna Easter pic

"Well, hello, Anna, how are you???"

She likes to do this sometimes....just like her brother did! Look at all those crazy stretch marks around my belly button...none of which were there before Anna!

Easter 2010

This week we celebrated Easter twice! First we went to a good friend's house on a beautiful day and colored eggs, ate treats, had an Easter egg hunt, & read an Easter story. It was a fun morning!

Eli & mommy dying eggs:

Searching for eggs:

Listening to an Easter story wearing the "sun" hat:

Today was kind of a rough Easter. Eli refused a nap but obviously needed one as he was a cranky, demanding, tantrum throwing boy most of the afternoon/evening before bed. To top it off, I was really tired and my pelvic pain was acting up again...at least I had a couple days pain free!! Not fun, but we tried to make the best of it!

Reading "Peter Cottontail" with daddy:

Easter basket & cheesy smile:

Yummy...peeps!:

Racing car game...$1 spot so no worries when it breaks :):

Eli got 3 cars/trucks in his basket but refused to pose with them....here's what we got:

Easter egg hunting!:

Opening the eggs. Inside were M & M's, jelly beans & stickers:

Mmmm...."chocate":

Dying eggs with mommy's help. Only the yellow was actually spilled all over ;):

Stickers on the eggs...Eli was mad I insisted on helping but I didn't want eggs all over the kitchen:

Eli's egg:

The end result:

Later in the day, Eli decided to hit plastic eggs off his tee...TOTALLY his idea:

Hope everyone enjoyed their Easter, too!!