davejenbarnes

No internal because the baby’s head is “still jiggly” and not engaged so we’re not worried about dilation, yet.  Plus, I have only had a handful of contractions since Tuesday morning.  At my 36.5 week checkup, I get the strep swab so that will mean in internal check, too.  The baby is LOP and head down.  I’m up to 137 pounds — finally at my goal weight for my height!  hehe!  Good blood pressure, good everything.  Easy-peasy.

Next checkup November 12th which starts the every-single-week checkups.  We’re getting close!

She said, “Tag, you’re it!” so I thought I’d go ahead and follow the directions, though I technically can’t - I don’t have a PC!  HA!

Go to your picture file on your PC mac.
Go to your 4th folder.
Pull up the 4th picture.

Tell me about it!

Except that I ended up going to the forth partition on the terabyte drive and choosing the 4th folder (2007) then the fourth folder (04 or April) then choosing the fourth folder (05) then getting to the fourth picture:

This is Lowell on April 5, 2007 in his swing, looking at himself in the mirror thingy.  He was a month and a half old, swaddled and covered in blankets but probably not very happy for long.  This is at our old duplex in Round Rock and we do miss those ceramic tile floors and the 9-foot ceilings but we don’t miss having a 1.5 month old baby Lowell.  No, we do not miss that part one bit.

Disregard if you want.

Some days this mothering bit kicks my butt.  I’ve been having a rockin’ awesome week so far and its still been amazing but today is throwing me some curve balls that I did not anticipate having.  Like not showering in the morning first thing.  Like James getting out of bed and coming into our room at midnight so we could put his underwear back on his bare little butt after he went potty.  Like not being able to get to sleep again until 5 a.m. or so because of the interrupted sleep and the freak weather change once again and it being so dang hot in the bedroom.  Like neither boy taking a nap until I laid down the law and the law won, 2 hours after they’d been lolly-gagging around in the dark.  Mainly it’s James’ newfound freedom of climbing down out of his loft bed that is driving me bananas… I don’t know why that worries me so, but all of a sudden he has total and complete access to the entire house at night.  Well, except the kitchen.  We have that gated off and he hasn’t figured out getting INTO the kitchen though he is very good at getting OUT OF the kitchen.  At least the deadbolt on the front door is impossible to unlock from the inside.  Don’t need to fix that anytime soon…

There.  If I can’t vent here, I don’t know where to turn.  I do feel much better and we will survive.  I won’t have any dishes to do tonight since we’ll probably end up at a fast-food place after going to see David at work around 5:30 tonight, and I will try to see if I can’t get at least a Dr Pepper and some ice cream out of the deal.  :-)

Midwife appointment tomorrow.  I’m going to ask them to do an internal since my next appointment will be 36w4d along and my gut tells me this baby is coming earlier rather than later.

I hope today isn’t a loooong day… been up since James came into our room at 4:45 - “I need you to put my underwears back on. I went potty.”

He’s been getting himself out of bed (he sleeps in a loft bed so it means climbing down a ladder) to go potty for about a week now.  This was our first middle of the night visit from him, ever.  It was kind of disturbing having our bedroom door open at 4:45 AM… Hopefully he won’t need to visit us once he learns to put his underwear back on!

Just because its been awhile, another belly shot.  Sorry for the deer-caught-in-the-headlights look.  I think this one is lower than the other two because none of my shirts are long enough to cover the belly (shirts that were plenty long enough for my previous two pregnancies), but I didn’t take a sideways one to compare.

My friend from church, Kristin, made a comment on Sunday which explains a lot to me.  I never thought of it this way.  I was whining about the hip pain… She said something to the extent of “Jen, you make it look easy to be pregnant — that’s why you don’t get any sympathy.”

So I just won’t expect any sympathy from people, but it would be very nice to get some every once in awhile.  Sidenote - David is pretty good about the sympathy part (but I do his laundry so I do expect that out of him, too).

I’m rarely in any pictures, but David grabbed the camera last night and pointed it at me so I had to smile.  I have to admit, the belly does not seem so large now at 34 weeks as it did at 20 weeks.  I think because it got big fast and has stayed more or less the same size for 13 weeks.  It also helps that I have 3 layers of elastic around that belly and I’m wearing a non-maternity shirt and I have a 20 month old on my lap, and I’m sitting.

I know I’ve updated here and there, but I think the baby flipped into a breech position yesterday.  All of a sudden, all of the kicks are way down low around the exit and they HURT.  C’mon, Baby baby, kick my ribs instead!  On the other hand, it was SO MUCH EASIER to sleep without a head wedged between my legs.  (haha, taken out of context that is a very silly statement)  Let’s pray that this little one decides to get head-down and stay head-down.

UPDATE — Alien kid turned my belly into a football and immediately I felt some bumps and kicks up high again… shortly afterwards, Braxton Hicks started up every 30 minutes apart for about 4 hours then slowed down to about 45 min apart… I’ve been having “regular” though veeery far apart BH contractions for about 10 hours now.  Hopefully they’ll go away when I fall asleep.  They’re SO distracting!

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Meet the birthday boy for whom I sewed the puzzle ball.  He has the best blue eyes ever.

I hear that new tires make all the difference.  Dave agrees.  He took the van in this morning to Discount Tires and got a set of new BF Goodrich Precept Touring tires.  The old tires were bald.  Shiny bald.  Yul Brynner bald.  And cracking on the edges.  Don’t-wanna-drive-on-those-tires-another-hundred-miles bad.  We couldn’t get free new tires thrown into the arrangement (and probably wouldn’t have wanted the tires that would have gotten thrown in to a deal like that) but Greg at LoneSt★r Motors got us a deal we could not refuse.  Let’s just say, “Wow” and go with it.

So a big shout-out to Dave’s folks for coming to our rescue and making these new happy treadful tires (and the extended warranty) possible.

We have 6 weeks of this pregnancy left (that’s 42 days), though I am mentally only counting on 4.  For some reason, I’m thinking I will just want to lay around and moan in utter misery those last 2 weeks so I’m putting a little pressure on myself and David to have all the furniture moved and ready-to-go by November 22nd.  Lowell will turn 21 weeks old that day and it’s also exactly 2 weeks before our due date, the first day of Thanksgiving break, and 4 weeks from today.

David will be working insane hours (for a middle school teacher!!) for the next few weeks, so be praying for all of us.  He’s especially busy between November 4-22nd with High School marching band stuff, other schools’ concerts, district, region, area tryouts at both levels (middle school and high school) and I won’t have him for a free Saturday until the 22nd.  Five days a week alone with the boys are hard enough.  I am not looking forward to 4 weeks of six-day work weeks in a row in the last month(ish) of being pregnant.  He also did not get a “long term sub” so he will be returning to work the day after (or the next Monday after) this baby is born.  He technically gets tons of vacation time (and especially so because he never uses them and 5 of them roll over every year - I think he has enough to take over a whole month off) but doesn’t use it.  I know this is complaining.  Wah.  On the bright side, since he never had taken any time off for any of the births, that meant I have had to suck it up and figure it out on my own from the beginning which really does make it easier to adjust.  There’s really only one adjustment this way than making the adjustment twice after having him home for a week or two.  But, man.  Just. So. Tired. after the birth…

I was in the shower this morning thinking about the birth (since the last thing I read last night was that Misty was headed to the hospital to have Micah) and I was overwhelmed with the memory of Lowell’s birth and how full of love, gentleness, and utter respect for baby Lowell that the entire experience was filled with.  The midwives and RN’s were awesomely attentive and so full of love.  Everyone took their time and moved quietly and carefully and we had their undivided attention, being only one of two moms there that evening.  At the hospital with James, we were just one of, like 40 women in the postpartum rooms.  Herded around and treated fairly but not lovingly.  Our concerns were listened to but not heard (or perhaps they were heard but not addressed).  Our nurse’s attention was present but not undivided.  James was treated like a patient not like a delicate precious new life.  We were left alone quite a bit.  And I understand that those experiences are heads-and-tails above what they could have been… until I had Lowell.  Then I discovered what the whole experience could have been like in the other direction and I am left speechless.  We are so so so so so so blessed to live in one of the very few cities in the US that has a stand-alone birthing center as excellent as the Austin Area Birthing Center.  I’m constantly amazed to hear from friends in other cities that birthing centers just don’t exist where they live… and it saddens me.

For me, the whole thing is no longer about the drug issue.  It’s become an issue of love, gentleness, and respect.  I get that at AABC.  I know I could demand it at a hospital, but why should I have to?  I’ve found something so much better.  And I’m looking forward to it.  Yes.  The crazy Jen is looking forward to labor and birth.  Bring it on!

I have taken enough time out of my morning rambling on… I need to finish the sleeves on the sweater I’m making for a 5 year old.  :-)  The last of 3 sweaters and my goal is to complete it this week.  Eek.  Knitting needs to become a priority once again.  Making that puzzle ball was a nice distraction, though.

I usually don’t blog gifts before they’re given, but I’m sure this little sweetie pie isn’t going to know the difference.  He’s only one, afterall.

And the boys w-a-n-t it.  Oh, they want to grab it and hold it and throw it and James wants to take it apart and Lowell wants to hug it.  Shannon, it’s a good think I put Gavin’s name on it or they’d probably hide it and hold it ransom.