Leave you hanging

You may notice my countdown ticker thing on the side has been getting to very small numbers. For example, right now it says "2". 2 days until the baby is due. 2 days until Christmas.
Well, instead of leaving you hanging, I thought I'd do a quick update. There is no baby yet. I'm not done Christmas shopping yet, either.
On Monday my mom got into town and we've been going, going, resting ever since. We have done a lot of shopping, which means walking and being on my feet a lot. On Tuesday evening after our longest day out (Smith's, Old Navy, Harbor Freight, Taco Bell, Target, Nordstrom's), I was having more Braxton Hicks contractions, and stronger ones, but they didn't develop into anything. Yesterday I took it a little easier because I was exhausted, and my hips were actually a bit sore from all the walking on Tuesday.
We did go up to Temple Square to see the lights last night. Tip: If you ever want to go enjoy the lights in peace (without millions of people that you have to try not to run into), go while it's raining. It was so nice and peaceful to have temple square so empty.
So that's the update. Today we'll probably do more shopping. Right now (11 am) Dave and my mom are still sleeping. I should probably wake them up.

Pregnancy Update - Week 38 2/7

I had another doctor appointment this morning. I had to wait for an hour in the waiting room because it's Monday, which is their busiest day and the doctor is going to be out of town so they had to cram in more people. Unfortunately I didn't have much choice as far as scheduling since I'm on a weekly appointment schedule now.

Finally it was my turn. They took my vitals, and my blood pressure was lower than last time, which is good (it wasn't super high, but on the high side of normal). I opted for not getting checked for dilation, because there's really no point unless I'm in active labor.

When the doctor actually met with me, she listened to the heartbeat, which was fine, measured my belly, which was a belly, and then she squished around to make sure he was still head down, which he was. She did say that his head is really high (not down in my pelvis), which isn't news to me since the rest of his body is very solidly lodged into my ribs (hard not to notice).

She then asked if she had already told me about going out of town. I said, no, but the receptionist mentioned something...wait...out of town...SHOOT! Yeah, my doctor is going out of town on Friday and won't be back until the 30th! WHAT!? She scheduled me to meet with her dad, with whom she shares a practice, for next week's appointment.

Let me tell you something about how I choose my doctors. I opted to drive an extra half an hour and wait an extra month to get an appointment with a female dermatologist to get my moles checked/removed, only to have her male assistant do the actual mole removing...gee thanks. I picked my OBGYN the same way. I looked up OBGYNs on my health insurance site, and picked the female one.

I'm pretty sure that once I'm in labor I really won't give a hoot about the gender of the doctor as long as they're competent and get the baby out safely. But, I'm kind of hoping he either comes in the next 4 days or hangs out until the 30th.

I got to work and went to the work calendar to put my next appointment on it...but then I realized I'm not going to be at work that week...weird.

No Version

Baby boy cooperated and turned himself the right way as I slept last night. I had so many great suggestions on how to get him to turn, but I was so exhausted when I got home that I threw a load of laundry in the washer and went to bed. I didn't even pack my hospital bag (which needed to be done in case I had the baby today).

I went to the appointment this morning where they briefed me on everything that would need to be done (ultrasound to check baby and fluids, non-stress test, IV inserted just in case, medicine to relax my uterus that would make me feel funny, doctor turns baby). Then they got the ultrasound going and HE WAS HEAD DOWN!!! YAY!

Since I was already there, they did a non-stress test today instead of on Thursday when I was scheduled. Everything looked ok. I had a few more contractions during the test, but none of the real kind.

Now it's just a waiting game until I go into labor, I guess. Dave was kinda bummed that I didn't have the baby today because he didn't want to go to work. :-P

Version

At my OB doctor appointment today they determined that little baby is still turned wrong, so they scheduled me for an external cephalic version (where they try to maneuver the baby around to be the right direction by pushing on my tummy). According to my coworker, it's VERY painful, and they'll probably give me an epidural for it.

The risks involved are premature labor, premature rupture of the membranes, a small blood loss for either the baby or the mother, and fetal distress leading to an emergency cesarean delivery, or the baby might turn back to the breech position after the external cephalic version is done.

So...at 9:15 tomorrow morning (I'm not allowed to eat or drink anything after midnight) I may be at the hospital to have the baby. I hoping to not have him tomorrow, but I better be prepared. If he doesn't come tomorrow, I'm pretty sure he'll hang out for a few weeks, because I'm not even dilated to a 1 yet.

Thursday's Doctor Appointments

On Thursday I had another appointment with the Perinatologist. They did another ultrasound. At this point, the baby's bones are starting to calcify, so they cast shadows on everything. They weren't able to see much, but they did measure the usual things like his head, belly, femur, etc. They could still see his stomach and bladder, and my fluid levels are still fine. According to the measurements, they estimated him to be about 7 lbs 1 oz. I am 37 weeks along today, and he's already 7 lbs! That means he's measuring about a week ahead of schedule, which isn't really a huge difference.
The Perinatologist said to go ahead and deliver here. The NICU and Neonatologists know about the situation, and will be ready to stabilize him if necessary. She told me to remind people when I deliver that he could have a problem, because everyone tends to get excited when a baby is born, and they may forget.
One thing that they discovered during the ultrasound is that he's breach! The naughty bob flipped since the last ultrasound a month ago. She said to take lots of walks and he should turn back how he should be, since he was sideways, which isn't a position babies tend to stay in. His head was on the right, his back was up, his bum was on the left, and his hands and feet were together, down. He was grabbing his feet with his hands, and it was cute.


They weren't able to get a picture of his profile nor could they get a 3D picture, because there wasn't much fluid around his head (perfectly normal at this point). I also have a big pocket of fluid at the bottom, so that should help him flip the right direction as well. Now I just have to muster up the energy for some walks.
Tangent: Both of my doctors are pregnant, too! How funny!
After the ultrasound, I did a non-stress test (NST). They had me sit in the most comfortable chair in the world. I could have sat there all day. Then they strapped a heartbeat monitor onto my tummy, and a uterus monitor below it (like how they do when you're in labor, I guess). Then all I had to do was sit there and relax. Best medical procedure EVER. On the screen they had a red line where his heartbeat was (how many beats per minute, not showing each beat), and a blue line to show uterus activity.
The idea is that if the baby moves, his heart rate should go up, which means he his getting enough oxygen from the placenta. If I have a contraction, the heart rate should stay about the same. Well, the baby moved a few times during the 25 minute test, and his heart rate did go up when he moved.
Also, turns out I had like 4 contractions while I was sitting there. I'm pretty sure they're the Braxton Hicks kind, because they don't hurt at all. My tummy would just get tight, which I thought was the baby pushing out on my tummy all this time. Now that I saw exactly which was which, I can tell the difference. During a few of the contractions, his heart rate slowed some, but during others, it stayed about the same. From those results they can tell that the placenta is still doing its job, but it may be slowly losing its functionality, which makes sense, since I'm 37 weeks pregnant (aka: 8 1/2 months).
I'll be having two doctor appointments per week from here on out. I have another OB appointment on Monday, where they'll probably check for dilation, and if the baby is still breach, they may schedule me for an appointment to have the doctors try to turn him. I'm really really really really really really really really really hoping that he turns before then, because the appointment would involve me getting an iv, a shot to the uterus to numb it, a heart monitor on my belly, and a C-section room prepped, just in case. I'm not a fan of those things.
My next NST is next Thursday. I'm super excited to sit in that comfy chair again!
All the results on Thursday made me a bit scared that he might actually come early, which I hadn't really considered much before. I haven't even packed my hospital bag yet!!! "Don't stress out, Sarah, he'll come when he comes..."

Thanksgiving

If you've read the last two posts, you'll know that I spent Saturday evening out picking/gathering grapes, Sunday making grape pie, Monday making grape juice, and Tuesday making that juice into jelly.

Well Wednesday night I spent the evening preparing the turkey and making pies. And Thursday, well...of course half the day was spent cooking as well.

Let's start at the beginning. I was supposed to work on Wednesday, but campus got closed for this blizzard of a century to come in and knock out power and dump feet of snow and be negative degrees. Ok, it was cold, but we only got a dusting of snow and no power outages, and not even very high winds. I guess they got more snow up north though.

So I got to spend the day with Dave, YIPPEE! I honestly don't know what we did all day.

That evening Dave helped me pull out the insides (or "instructions") from the turkey. I prepared a brine for the turkey, thanks to Sarah Brazee from Tennessee's suggestion. I already had most of the ingredients, and the turkey had been thawing in the fridge since Monday (it was still a bit frozen, next time I need to thaw it 2 1/2 days instead of 2). We dunked the turkey, stuck it in the fridge, and then I got to work making pies.

I made the pumpkin pie recipe on the back of the can of pumpkin and realized it was for two pie crusts, and I only had two. So I improvised. I chopped up vanilla wafers in my food processor and put them in cupcake liners (the foil kind, not the paper kind). I forgot to get a picture of those, but they weren't much to look at. They were tasty though.

Thursday morning we got up, stuffed the turkey, sewed it up, and put it in the oven for Baby and me...and Dave. We then spent a good portion of the day going through boxes of junk mostly from the office that will be a nursery soon. Then at about noon (after 2 1/2 hours of turkey cooking at 325) we made the other parts of the dinner according to our plan. The turkey was probably done at about 3 hours, but we took it out at 3 1/2 hours. It was so moist and tender that it was falling off the bones as Dave tried to carve it. By 2pm Thanksgiving Dinner was ready! Everything went according to plan, and it was perfect. Well, Dave had requested extra stove top stuffing, but we ended up not even having a single bite of it. (I'll probably make it into a cassarole.)

Of course I took pictures of the results:

Grape: Part 2

So far in the grape saga we have Saturday grape picking/gathering, Sunday grape pie. Now we're on to Monday and Tuesday. Here are the remaining grapes:

On Monday I mashed and cooked the grapes for a while.

I then ladled out spoonfuls into a strainer and smooshed them through with a spoon to "juice" them.

I think if I do this next year, I need to get some sort of grape processor that can separate the peels from the insides, squish the grapes to prepare for cooking, and juice the cooked grapes. It is very labor intensive to do those things, and everything you use during, turns purple, including your hands.

Purple Spoon!

There was about a bowl of juice from two bowls of grapes. I let the bowl sit, covered, in the fridge, over night.

On Tuesday I got the juice out and poured it into a strainer lined with a double layer of damp cheese cloth to get out the gunk in the juice (pulp). I didn't read that you were supposed to let it sit like that for two hours for it to come through more clear. Whoops. Oh well, it doesn't affect the taste (I don't think).

Then I cooked the juice (5 cups) with a package of pectin and 6 cups of sugar. Then I ladled it into little cute jars and canned it! (First canning experience ever. It's not too hard. Thanks Jodee for letting me borrow your water bath!)

Here are the results:

I haven't tried the jelly yet to see if it tastes good. I canned all of it, and now I don't want to open any of the jars! There's one that's only half-full that I'll probably end up opening and tasting.