38 Weeks, 3 Days - Dreaming of Baby :)

Last night I dreamed that we had baby Hunter and brought him home all bundled up in his carseat. He was a pretty quiet little guy and looking around at his new home all bright eyed. He had light brown eyes, short fuzzy blond hair, no dimples (unfortunately!), and was a bit skinnier than I had expected. I mean he still had that new baby chunk but was on the skinnier side. He was a real cutie though! I wonder how accurate that will be compared to what he really looks like. Hopefully we will find out soon enough!

37 Weeks, 5 Days - Uncertain about the next two weeks...

Well J and I got to go in and see baby Hunter again today, he's doing just wonderful in my tummy tum tum... growing perfectly and getting bigger. He's estimated at exactly 7lbs now, and I don't think he will be too much more than 8lbs by his due date. 16 days until then! It's not him, but my body and blood that might cause him to have to come out early. My blood pressure is better than it has been, the last couple weeks in the 130's / high 80's. Today it was 122/81 and the Dr. was happy. So, that's been better under control lately, I'm still getting it checked every 3 days though. It's my darned thick blood that's the problem this week. Last week the count was high enough that I needed a phlebotomy. I hoped that I could go at least this week without needing another one. Nope, the counts are higher this week than they were last week so I need blood out again tomorrow. Last week's bruise is ALMOST healed, and now I'll have another to match. For me, I don't care how often I need to get this done, it's a pain but I can live with it. The problem is, my pregnancy doctor is concerned about my thick blood not supplying the placenta adaquately enough. So, next Thursday she's going to do a cervix check to see if it's 'favorable', I think she may want him out sometime next week if my counts don't drop by then. While I would really prefer for him to stay in as long as he wants (well, reasonably so, because I'm getting uncomfortable!), it looks like next week I will head to the city with my hospital bags all packed and ready just in case we end up staying and having him early. I had hoped to get out of being induced, and I still hope to not need to, but I really just hope that my blood counts will settle down and cooperate as we've only got a couple weeks left anyways! Maybe I'm fortunate that I'm only 16 days from the due date when this is all happening. He's doing great and practicing breathing, I know he would do well on the outside. I'm glad that no complications have popped up before now. I am a little disappointed that it's my body that is the problem, this stupid condition is interfering with my little boy's entrance into the world. I guess the only thing I can do until next week is hope things with my blood counts normalize a bit, and make sure I've got everything I need for the possible hospital stay ready just in case we meet Hunter sooner than expected!

37 Weeks and Full Term At Last!

It's unbelievable that there's only 21 days left until little man's due date! I can't wait!

Things are starting to slow down in some ways, and at the same time it's all moving soooo fast. I'm starting to feel more tired out now, less energetic (except times like today when I was too restless to sit down and spent the day cleaning, baking a strawberry pie, making delicious tacos for dinner, walking down to J's workplace to visit him with a free milkshake and otherwise keeping busy), and I started waddling in the last week or so too! Seems like there's so many little details to take care of before baby gets here and I've been slowly crossing each off the list. If he shows up sooner than expected we would be ready, but I would prefer him to wait it out a little longer first!

I feel like my whole body is full of squirming, solid baby at this point! At my last ultrasound two days ago they estimated his weight at 6lbs 12oz, and I'm feeling it for sure! The weeks are pretty busy with all the appointments in the city. Thursdays generally go like this: morning appointment in my pregnancy Dr's office with a resident where I get weighed, measured, etc (and 'checked' starting next week!); right afterwards we run to CancerCare to do my bloodwork and go over it with my nurse there, counts have been pretty great since changing my Fragmin dose to 7500mg last Monday; then back to the Women's hospital again for an ultrasound and see my pregnancy Dr before leaving there. She has been wanting me to have weekly u/s to keep an eye on the blood flow to the placenta and make sure the little guy is growing on track, which he has been all along so far. I like being able to see him every week now, he's getting so cute and chubby and I can't wait to see if the way I picture him looking is what he'll actually look like. I still say he's got his daddy's chin, hopefully the dimples, and he's got a full head of hair that I think will be blond. Not long now and I'll see him live and in color!!! We had an appointment last week as well with the high-risk anaesthetics team, that was interesting but I think it's more so they know what they're dealing with with my condition. I still don't want to have an epidural. The only time I'd agree to it is if I absolutely need a c-section and need that anaesthetic to be awake while they're doing it. Otherwise my plan is to hold out as long as possible with no meds, and if it becomes impossible to make it to the end without anything they do have other meds that are taken through IV and get out of the system a lot faster. Because I don't tend to handle drugs very well, I really prefer the stuff that doesn't last as long! Better for me and the baby I think.

In other news, well, there's not a lot of other news. Haven't gotten a call from the daycare for a few weeks which is fine because I took about 2 weeks getting over a miserable cold from the last time I worked there, and at this point I don't think I'd be very useful working with a couple dozen screaming kids. My last couple shifts were 4-5 hours and that was perfect, not too long for me to be exhausted. I don't think they'll call at this point though because they know I'm pretty close to having the baby. We were without a computer for a couple days because we apparantly got this awesome virus that deleted Windows entirely off the computer, rendering it totally useless and unable to start up at all. Took it in to get fixed and they replaced it with Windows 7, for a nice $250 pricetag... Arghhhh! Also, I got to enjoy an amazingly delicious donut with chocolate icing and rainbow sprinkles that made my whole week. We also had a very fun night a couple weeks ago that involved cramps, contractions, and rushing to the city through a horrendous thunderstorm, getting there at midnight and then getting home at 5:30 the next morning after finding out it was a false alarm. A long story that warrants another post on another day! Right now my delicious strawberry pie is calling my name!