33w0d. I think I am carrying lower now. The breathing issues of the last 2-3 weeks are pretty much gone and I’ve been peeing less but more often- very frustrating at night! Last night I stopped drinking at 10, peed at 11 & 12, went to bed and got up to pee at 1, 5, 6 & when I woke up too. Sooooo not helping when Bren also has been pulling stunts like waking up early or waking up in the wee hours terrified because he somehow managed to creep UNDER our bed.
My OB says I am more like a new preggo in that I’ll probably drop 2-4 weeks prior to delivery this time instead of a 2nd timer who’d drop just a few days to a few hours prior to labor. I am not predicting I’ll go into labor in 2-4 weeks, haha, just hopeful that Andy is getting nestled in the correct head down, back up position and is fitting better. If I had to guess I’d say he is diagonal, facing right & to my back some with his head down. I feel a very smooth, somewhat curved part that I assume is his side/back just off center to the left. He has actually been there awhile now and all the movements I feel are really high (complete with under the boob kicks) or really low- not on the sides at all. A day or two ago I felt this smooth curve jut out and I swear I felt him making rhythmical breathing movements. It was so weird and definitely not hiccups.
Been trying to chug the water and it seems to be helping my salt/fluid retention. I had been gaining weight pretty fast lately and have had somewhat swollen feet and stiff hands. I have lost about 4.5 pounds in the last 3-4 days! I am certainly not eating any less but am cooking at home more so that probably means less salt intake too. I am sure some will creep back by Monday though.
*****
Brendan seems to be at an all-time high for fruits and veggies though he is by no means an herbivore. I though I’d make a list of what he’ll eat in case Andy is this way.
apples
bananas
strawberries
canned mandarin oranges
watermelon
juices
green beans from Bill Millers
tomato soup
spaghetti sauce
pureed carrots in mac n cheese
minced onion on McD’s burgers
pumpkin pie
carrots, green beans and potatoes in vegetable soup
Not a whole lot, I know. He is actually at least trying new things though. Twice now he has tried raw carrot and even though he didn’t like it, he was open to them. He also tried my potato salad yesterday. That’s a nice change.
*****
Bren also loves to sing now too. He comes up with all kinds of songs and doesn’t mind if we sing with him either. Lots of theme songs like Pooh, Wonderpets (seen all of twice? but it’s a common commercial), Blue’s Clue’s, plus old stand-bys like Twinkle, Twinkle (which he is getting pretty clear with!), Itsy-Bitsy Spider & Old MacDonald. He even tries to sing “You’ll be in my Heart” from Tarzan and it makes me cry.
With his watching Tarzan lately, the phrase “elephant hair” has stuck in his head. It springs into many conversations… “Mama, I play with the blocks and the flashlight and… elephant hair!!” lol I may have to “lose” Tarzan like we “lost” Tom & Jerry because now everything that can be bent into a 90 degree angle is a gun. Sigh. Darn you, Clayton!!! Straws are very exciting these days.
*****
I’ll leave this with a little funny thing that happened last night. DH and I were both grumpy last night. He laid down on the couch and I thought he was sleeping so I laid down to rest on our bed. Bren kept coming in and bugging me every few minutes. Finally I started telling him to go give Daddy a kiss every time he came in. Turns out DH was telling him to do the same thing to me!! Haha.

Brendan has taken to running around with a piece of paper and a pen or a handful of jumbo crayons lately. He still won’t touch a coloring book though he owns at least 5 of them. I tried once again to sit down and color in a coloring book with him yesterday and he’d have nothing to do with it. His drawing skills hadn’t progressed beyond scribbles and circles until today.
Bren was in a particularly receptive mood this afternoon so I showed him how to draw a simple “pod person” (okay… we drew Daddy, lol). An oval for the whole body with 2 dots and a smile for the face, some squiggles for hair and 4 straight lines outward for legs and arms. Simple as it gets. So then it was Bren’s turn and I asked him to draw Brendan. He made a circle, put 2 lines underneath (one got away a bit) and put 2 dots for eyes (one also got away which he later claimed was the nose). I helped him add 2 arm-sticks and then I reminded him about hair. He started to add more but then stopped and said “Teach me hair?” Teach me?!!! So I put my left hand over his left hand and we made some hair. He was happy. Then I helped him write out BRENDAN and MOM, again with my hand over his. Then he asked me to write Daddy. So I helped him write DAD and sounded it out slowly “Duuuuh-aaaaaa-duuuuuuh”. And he added, “and E says Daddy”. LOL.

Happy 50 days to go! Only 50 days til my due date! WOW! Just a few days more and we’ll be having a son next month!!
This morning I was laying in bed and rolled onto my back for a bit and I’m guessing the baby’s side or hip was sticking out of my belly up high, just under the ribs. It jutted out pretty high, maybe 1 1/2 inches. It was rhythmically moving but not jumpy like hiccups. I thought maybe it was the heartbeat I could feel but it was too slow. I bet you I was feeling his breathing! Could I possibly have been feeling that?
Things I need to do before Andy arrives:
Wash all his clothes and bedding
Clear out his closet of extra junk and move all his stuff there
Find the pack n play and stroller frame
Find him a baby calendar (much easier to jot things down on than in a book)
Finish handpainting the 3 airplanes on his walls
Buy clear coating for his shelf and wooden name letters and apply it
Hang the shelf
Make a baby announcement template and find envelopes
Review Maya Wrap video
Sew together the “Boppy” I am making
Cut the sleeves off my button down nightgown and hem
Pack diaper bag
Pick a few massaging aids like a tennis ball and lotion for labor
Find Red Paspberry Leaf tea capsules
Find time to listen to my labor CDs
Print out hospital bag lists and prepack what I can (in a few weeks)

We took Bren to see Cars yesterday and he really liked it. He loves going to the movie theater! My lil guy costs us $5.50 at the movies now! Gulp! And can you believe a small popcorn (which was really quite large- enough for all of us) costs $4.50! It’s popcorn, people! LOL. We’re working on collecting the McDonald’s Cars toys and have 3 so far but none of them are the major characters. Lol.
Little Gym went okay but I wish he’d start listening to the teachers more. He’s a little troublemaker and gets several other little boys to join him in his misbehaving adventures. He’s such a rascal. When he does join the group he has no clue what is going on because he doesn’t listen to instructions. Good thing he has 2 years til Kindergarten! He was pretty tired this time though- he had about an hour less sleep than usual and didn’t nap in the car at all.
There was a newborn baby in a carrier at Little Gym. She was put in the corner behind us parents so she was out of the way and could nap. At one point choking sounds started coming from her and none of the other parents seemed to notice. I hadn’t paid attention to who the mom was so I got up and was halfway to her when I realized the “choking sounds” were the start of her crying. I have totally forgotten what a newborn’s crying sounds like!! Hahahahaha. She gave me such a fright!
Saturday was a really good pottying day. We hit his schedule right on and he only wet his training pants once! He made 4 successful potty visits! Yay! Still waiting for him to tell me he has to go in the middle of doing something else. He’ll never be fully trained til he does that. Sometimes if you ask him if he needs to go he’ll say no, think about it a few minutes and then say he has to go. He is working on understanding the feeling you get when you have to go. That’s good. He will sometimes bring it up on his own when DH or I are in or very close to a bathroom. Being there has him think about it. Still no pooping in the potty.
The Dutch Baby turned out pretty good. I cooked up a homemade apple pie filling with butter pecan syrup (was out of brown sugar) and poured the batter into the hot pan of it. The Dutch Baby part seemed like a chewy bread pudding- or how I imagine bread pudding tastes, I’ve never tried any! Haha. I served it with lots of whipped cream.

Here is the link to a very interesting recipe called a Dutch Baby… I’m thinking an apple one will be dessert tonight! Mmmmm.

Our son is to be named Andrew John H. 😀 Nickname- Andy.
Andrew is my pick. Darrell really wanted John as the first name because it was his grandfather’s name. He settled for the middle name though. I really didn’t want his nickname to be Johnny. We were stuck on either Robert or Andrew for a long time and we just came to think of him as Andrew over the months. DH was worried that his cousin’s son Drew was an Andrew John. He finally emailed Chad and guess what?!!!! His full name is Robert Andrew. Too funny!!!
I’ve made it to 8 months now!!! HaPpY dAnCe!!! Just less than 4 weeks and my OB would not stop labor if it started!
I’m getting geared up to hand-paint a few airplanes in the nursery. Andy is also getting Bren’s old nursery shelf over his changing table and now that we know this little love’s name we can spell out his name with wooden letters too. Both also need painting. Lots to do!!!

Though 8/7/06 would be really neat, I predict that I’ll deliver by VBAC on 8/10. He’ll weigh 7 lb 14 oz and be 20 1/2 inches long. I’m thinking exactly 50-50 on whether or not I’ll have this VBAC but not because of anything I can change (high blood pressure again or by just not going into labor in the specified time frame). If I had a c-section I think it’d be 8/28- the “just over 41 weeks” + a few days since it’d be the weekend. He’d probably be 8 lb 8 oz by then and 21 inches.
DH predicts 8/22/06 & 8 lbs 2 oz. He says I’m stubborn enough to have a normal delivery. Heh. 😀
Anyone else wanna guess?

31w6d. Just a day more than 4 weeks until my OB won’t try to stop labor if I start contracting. WOW. My belly sticks out now. 🙂 When I lay down on my back it sticks up as far as it did way back when, when I’d take a deep breathe & push it out as far as I could just to see what I’d look like. Lol. I have had 2 or 3 strangers ask when I am due now (first one at 30w1d) so I am happy that I am looking pregnant these days. I can’t believe it took so long!
I have also had some contractions- twice now I’ve had 3 in less than an hour! Last night I had 2 pretty close together while watching DH and some friends playing N64 Mario Kart. What a blast from the past, lol. The contractions felt like very tight upper uterus squeezing that lasted maybe 30 seconds. They were surprisingly powerful. Sometimes I feel a little zing in my cervix too. Occassionally just the baby moving with give me the same zing. Makes me hopeful that his head is in the right spot and giving it a lil push once in awhile. I don’t want to start dilating this early but a nice softened cervix ready to dilate would be wonderful.
Yesterday I drank a lot. I had at least 20 oz of water with dinner alone. But every time I went to the bathroom I just peed some of it and it was always on the dark side. I guess I retained a lot of water. Time to buy some watermelon to try and get rid of some of it!
I am getting into the time where sitting or laying for long hurt my hips or bottom. I roll over a lot now and have to take strolls around the house if I sit at the computer too long. Not fun but I know I have it easy compared to what’s coming in the end.
I really have very few maternity bottoms that fit well enough to be comfy for more than a few hours. God bless totally knit maternity shorts from JCPenney’s. Comfy AND don’t have a belly panel so I don’t have to try to find incredibly long shirts. It is so hot here that I wear almost nothing else.
I also seem to have about 1/2 an hour every day where I have a hard time getting enough air. Mid-afternoon seems to be when sonny does his aerobic stretching and squishes my lung capacity.

June 12th-
Bren did his first pee in a public toilet today- he was in the bathroom with me and asked to go. I was impressed! Other than that he has been a complete nutter today. For example, we went into a bakery and there was a basket of looong breads by the counter. I kept shooing Bren away and slapping his hands away cuz he wanted to touch them. Finally he just leaned over with his mouth! Argh!!! He barely managed a crumb in his mouth before my hand connected with his forehead, lol. No wet spot or toothmark so we ran for it. Hahahahaha.
June 15th-
After we climbed into bed for the night we sang a few songs. Afterwards, and out of nowhere, Bren told me he had a baby in his tummy. I laughed and replied, “You too?” He nodded and said the baby was coming out in his diaper. Apparently he thinks you poop babies out. Hahahaha! I guess he’s seen A Baby Story enough times to understand you have to push out babies from that general area.

31w4d. DH has been in the habit of watching Brendan outside the hospital in a little picnic area while I go in to my OB appts. We thought it might help keep my blood pressure down if I wasn’t chasing after him, carrying him and generally being annoyed at his shenanigans while waiting for my appts to begin. After that one high bp scare, we really don’t care to risk my tenuous VBAC situation by having more bp issues and it seems to be working. My blood pressure seems to be hovering at 120s-130s/70s. I’m very happy about that. I told him I was going to want him to start coming back with me so I could have backup when “The Talk” happened but that I didn’t think it’d happen this early on yet. So once again I went to my appt alone. Of course, it happened. And I was alone to deal with it.
The c-section vs. VBAC talk has been something I have dreaded for awhile now. I did (but didn’t) want to know exactly where I stood but now that it is over I am very relieved to be past it. Not happy about it, but relieved- like the way you are after a hard test despite whether you think you did well or not. I was in a pretty calm state of mind and was able to respond with flat “okays” to her dire warnings of “I may not be able to get the baby out fast enough if something goes wrong” and other such statements instead of losing it. When pregnant I definitely tend to “lose it” easily so I was a bit proud of myself.
So… her 5% chance of uterine rupture has gone down to 3-4%. She seems less unhappy with my decision and more resigned to it. She will not interfere in my going into labor in any way- including using a foley catheter or breaking my waters. In fact, she told me no one she knows of does the foley catheter technique and they only talked about it in medical school once. She definitely thinks of it as a hokey practice though she didn’t say so. I was a bit stunned that she won’t even break my waters but perhaps if I was 4 cm and 100% at 41 weeks she’d change her mind. NOT what I wanted to hear.
She also flatly stated that I will be continuously monitored in the hospital and if *anything* looks funny I will have to have a c-section immediately. Apparently there has been some research lately that early declerations of the baby’s heartbeat can indicate that a uterine rupture is more likely. She will take no chance. Guess who will not be stepping foot into the hospital until she feels a big ole noggin protruding. Only slightly exaggerating here. My resolve to labor at home is pretty firm right now.
Bascially if my labor is not textbook I am doomed. I have to go into labor on my own by just over 41 weeks and the baby must tolerate it well. That’s a lot of dang pressure to put on me!!! :/
I have the VBAC form to fill out. It basically states the pros and cons of attempting a VBAC. I have no problem signing it. My “OB history at a glance” card now states “desires VBAC”. 😀 According to it I have only gained 9 pounds. Heh. Not. Got praise for it though. I really have gained 16 pounds. No protein in my urine this time and I now measure exactly on target at 32 cm. That may be my saving grace to not getting a late ultrasound. I flatly told her I didn’t care to have u/s size measurements done this time. She understood even if she didn’t quite agree with me. I still may be asked to but she does know how I won’t be swayed by dire weight predictions this time around.
Like I said, relieved but not happy.
As for Little Gym- he joined in a mad 10 minute circle run around the room of about 10 kids all his age (his favorite game to start at McDonald’s) before his class started and then trooped into the gym when the rest did, not even looking back!
DH and I sat with dropped jaws watching him through the windows for the first half hour of class. He sometimes participated, sometimes did his own thing but he happily stayed in there without us. Toward the 3/4 over mark he started being a bit ornery and played in the water fountain despite being asked repeatedly to join the group. Finally, after he wet the entire front of his shirt, DH went in and made him leave it alone. He played for a bit longer but had had enough about 5 minutes before the class officailly ended.
We’re thrilled. Really. He wasn’t the only kid to join in or not as he pleased and he definitely liked the way way this older class is run much better than the other. He had a fantastic time and in the car stated, “I love gym!” It was great.