Yes, I'm STILL pregnant!

When I found out I was pregnant, I couldn't contain my excitement!  I wanted to tell everyone that I was expecting, and whenever anyone would ask me when I was due, I'd gladly tell them...September 25th!  I never thought I'd make it to my actual due date, as I hadn't with any of my prior three children.  They all came at least a little early.  My daughter, who was my first, came 9 days early.  My second child came three days early.  My third child arrived two days early.  Ok, so I see the trend...they were getting closer and closer to my due date with each baby.  So I figured this little man would maybe be at least a day early.

WRONG!

Here I am, 3 days past my official "due date" and still no baby.  I keep telling myself that the due date is actually just a 4 week window that can be anywhere from 38-42 weeks, so I still have another week and a half until he's "really" overdue.  However, when multiple phone calls and Facebook comments are coming in each day, sometimes by the hour, asking me if I've had the baby yet...it can start to get kind of annoying!  I'm wondering...what is wrong with me?  Why won't this baby come out?  Do people really think that I would keep his birth all to myself and NOT tell them?

Then, there are the other people who ask me when I'm being induced since I'm overdue.  Ummm...there will be no induction unless there is some sort of medical necessity for it.  You know, as in, my life or his life is in jeopardy.  Certainly lack of patience is NOT seen as a medical reason for induction?

So, until he decides to make his appearance, I'm going to sit back and pretend to be calm, cool, collected and patient.  Even though I'm really none of those things.  I think my body knows that this will be my last baby and is trying to help me "savor" these last few days of pregnancy.  Honestly, I've really had enough...I have gained 40 pounds, I can't eat certain things because of the heartburn, my hips ache at night so I have to change positions frequently...then when I do get comfortable I end up having to get up to pee for the 50th time that day, my stomach literally sits on my lap when I sit up in a chair, and my dog has decided that it's fun to lick all the places I've been sitting in so that I return to a giant wet spot.  It's getting a little old at this point!

Still, I feel a little guilty for feeling this way...as I know there are so many women that never make it this far and have babies that are born before they can survive, or are born so early that they spend months in the NICU, then months trying to play catch up at home.  I'm praying my little guy is healthy and since he's calling the shots, I'm sure there is a reason whey he's just not ready to meet his mommy and daddy yet.

How to Prep a Chinese Bleached Prefold Diaper

Well the countdown has officially begun.  I'm 34 weeks, 3 days.  Only 39 more days until DUE day.  So, to celebrate this moment in time, I decided to start prepping the cloth prefolds I have today.  Shortly before 8:00 this morning, I gathered up the dozen diapers that I have, along with the biggest stock pot I own, some barbecue tongs (I don't have regular kitchen tongs, but those are on the list of must haves for the home birth), my Dawn dish detergent, an empty laundry basket, and a clean bath towel.

I filled up the pot with water about 4/5 of the way.  I squirted a bit of Dawn dish detergent into the pot, and set the stove to high.  I waited approximately 20-30 minutes for the water to get up to a good fast boil.  I then added the cloth diapers.  I could only fit in 4 at a time, so I had to split the dozen into 3 groups of 4.  Once the diapers were in the pot, I used the tongs to submerge them under water, then set my timer for 20 minutes.  The diapers will float to the top of the pot, so you do have to be nearby to continuously push them back under.


While I was waiting, I decided to go ahead and fix some breakfast.  Turkey bacon, eggs and toast.  Yummy!


Cycle one of diaper boiling is finished at 20 minutes.  I used the tongs to lift up the diapers, and twist them around the tongs in an attempt to squeeze some of the boiling water out of the diaper.  

Once it wasn't drippy anymore, I dropped the diapers, one by one, into the laundry basket lined with a clean bath towel.  The bath towel is to catch the excess water from seeping through the sides of the laundry basket.  I let them sit in the basket until all my boiling was finished.  

A note of advice:  I have a dog who was quite curious as to what I was dropping from the stove into this basket.  He decided to sniff the diapers that were fresh out of the pot and was startled (and a little scorched) on the nose to find that they were HOT!  So, just keep your pets and children away while you're working on this!

After another two cycles of boiling, the dozen were finally finished with this step.  I carried the basket of wet diapers into the laundry room and tossed them into my front loading washer.
 I added a scoop of Rockin Green Hard Rock 2.0 in Barenaked Babies and set the cycle to Sanitary.  This is the Extra Hot/Cold.  I added the Pre-Wash and Extra Rinse cycles to this load as well.  The timer popped up as 2 hours and 13 minutes.



Fast forward two hours and thirteen minutes, and the diapers were washed and rinsed.
 I removed them from the washing machine and dropped them into the dryer.  After running through my Normal cycle on my dryer twice, they were finally fluffy, prepped and dry!  There was definitely some noticeable shrinkage, but they are definitely much fluffier than before!

30 weeks, 3 days today!

So today marks 30 weeks and 3 days into my pregnancy.  I am feeling great, aside    from the occasional occurrence of heartburn brought on by  my overindulgence!  Tommy left on Sunday morning as we were heading to church for his two week class in Pennsylvania.  So, that leaves me here with the three kiddos all alone, but we have been managing just fine so far.

Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day for me...because I will be seeing my midwife for my first visit with her.  We went as a family to do the initial consultation/interview with her.  I'm really happy with my decision to birth at home (barring any complications), and I'm truly looking forward to sharing this experience with my husband.  I want to show him that birth is beautiful and emotional and totally a normal process.

Over the next few weeks, we're going to be making lots of baby related purchases.  It's a little overwhelming when I think about how much money is going to be spent preparing for his arrival!  There's the midwife's fee of $3500, plus the nursery furniture which is going to amount to about $2500, then all the gear we will need (stroller, carseat, breastpump, etc.) which will be around $1000.  Then add the remaining cloth diapers, blankets, and clothing and we've got about another $500 or so.  So with about $7500 to spend in the next 10 weeks, it seems like alot!

However, we are TRULY blessed, and the Lord always provides for us.  Just when we need it the most, he sends tiny blessings our way.

All about the baby this week

Wow, this has been a crazily busy week!  Sunday was Mother's Day and I was fortunate enough to have my mom here for that.  We enjoyed a quiet morning together at my home (I was working on homework), and in the afternoon we all (mom, DH and I) went to Wuesthoff in Melbourne for our birth center tour.  A good friend of DH accompanied us to the hospital for the tour.

When we arrived, I was completely stressed, because we were about 7 minutes late.  I HATE to be late!  Turns out the tour hadn't started yet, and there was only one other couple there to take the tour.  So, I calmed down.

The hospital was great, very quiet, clean, and....empty!  According to the nurse doing our tour, they only deliver between 30-40 babies per month on average.  I liked the sound of that!

After we finished the tour, we went home so we could host the Mother's Day cookout at our home.  DH's entire family joined us for that.  It was fun to have all our nieces over to swim around in the pool and the food was delicious!

Monday, after work, my mom, husband and I went to the other hospital for a tour.  When we walked into the birth center there, it was PACKED and NOISY!  DH said to me, "I already don't like it!".  I had to agree.  We kept an open mind and finished the tour out, feeling like our group was being herded like a bunch of sheep (or cows...my DH kept moo-ing under his breath as we moved from one room to the next). The clincher that told me we definitely weren't going to deliver here was when she told us she couldn't show us an actual Labor room because they were all either full or waiting to be cleaned.  No thanks!!  The other hospital had only ONE patient on the floor at the time, and she and her husband had actually shown up JUST as we arrived to take the tour.  Prior to that they had nobody on the unit at all!

After the tour, we went to a local seafood restaurant and enjoyed a dinner overlooking the Indian River.  It was such a beautiful evening!

Tuesday afternoon I had my anatomy ultrasound.  Mom went with me, and DH met me there on his way home from work.  They squeezed my mom and DH into the exam room (which was actually a closet they cut in half to turn into an exam room, so it was definitely a tight squeeze) so they could see the baby too.  The ultrasound lasted over an hour, and we got to see all of Tristan's baby parts!  He got measured several different times, and it looks like his dates are anywhere from 9/21/10 to 10/5/10 ( the 10/5/10 is the date based on the LMP I gave to the dr originally, but my actual due date is 9/25/10 based on my true LMP and date of conception, as well as sizing dates from first ultrasound).  He appears to be in the 98th percentile for his gestational age, and they estimated him to weigh about 14 ounces right now!

His heart looks great, the placenta is positioned well, and the cord insertion looks great in both places.  During the  ultrasound, he was breech (he changed from footling to frank during the ultrasound), but I have full faith that he will flip many times before it's time for him to be born and be head down so I can deliver him vaginally.

Today was mom's last day here.  I drove her to the airport this afternoon and look forward to having her back here in September when Tristan arrives!

!

Oh Brother, Oh Boy!

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This past Saturday,

Happy Earth Day

Earth Angels Diaper Demo by 7 year old

If a 7 year old can figure out cloth diapering, then there's really no excuse for the rest of us adult parents to not cloth diaper.

Organic Parenting?

Finally, along with the anticipation of my 4th child, I have noticed that I have become what some people would refer to as "crunchy".  Or you can just call me a granola gal.  But, please, please do not call me a tree-hugger.  I would like to reserve that name for the protesting hippies that live in Berkley, CA.  No offense.



No, I'm not a hippie.  I do not wear tie-dye shirts.  I do wash my hair daily.  I do not drive a VW Bus.  Nor do I smoke weed.  However, I do many things to help reduce my environmental impact.  We recycle.  Religiously.  If there is any chance it can be recycled, we throw it in the bin.

We also use reusable grocery bags.  They are AWESOME.  No longer do I have eight million plastic grocery bags piling up in my pantry.

We're not perfect, because we do use paper towels and paper plates, and even plastic cups on occasion.  We're working on it though.

One of the steps we have decided to take is to cloth diaper this baby we're expecting.  I had a local business owner from Earth Angels Diaper Co. come by my home to give me a demo.  She brought several different brands of the diapers she carries with her and explained to me the benefits and downsides of each.  I was really impressed!  So was my husband.  I have never been so excited about diapering before!



The next thing I've contemplated is making our own baby food, when the time comes.  Williams-Sonoma carries this contraption that will steam the fruits/veggies and puree it afterwards.  Sweet!

We've also looked into buying an organic crib mattress.  Ok, maybe that's taking it a bit far.  Or not.

Regardless, the husband and I are finding ways to honor our mother earth, starting with this Earth Day appropriate blog.

Happy Earth Day World!

10 weeks 3 days....

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Feeling pretty good lately.  The really bad nausea has gone away.  I still have my moments, and certain smells still make me want to hurl, but mostly, feeling pretty good.  I told my boss yesterday, via email, about my pregnancy.  He seemed to take it well, and the receptionist told me that he mentioned/announced it to her at lunch.  (She already knew, as did at least one other co-worker, but I had asked them to keep quiet).
Now I'm busy making travel arrangements!  I pick up my other three kids from Maryland for their spring break at the end of March and fly them back to Florida with me.  I'm really looking forward to spending a week of fun and sun at the beach with them and hoping the weather will  cooperate so they can get some pool time in as well!  Then, at the end of April I'll be making a short trip to Orlando for a trade show for work.  Mom is flying down to join me and we're hoping to do the Epcot International Flower & Garden Show while we're there.  Early May brings a trip back to Maryland, but this time for business rather than pleasure, for a meeting in Ocean City.  That trip was a  blast last year, with my friends Tina and Dawn joining me for my last evening there.  June will find me traveling alot! I have to pick the kids up when school decides to let out since those kids have had so many snow days, and then I imagine within the same week I will be flying out to Anaheim for another trade show for work.  I haven't been to California since I was 10 or 11 years old, so I'm kind of looking forward to it!  My mom is going to be joining me for that trip as well.  That should be my last trip until August when I take the kids back home at the end of the summer.  The doc tells me travel is okay until 37 weeks, which is going to be around the 1st of September, so everything is timed quite well!

As far as this pregnancy goes...everything is perfect so far.  We saw the doctor last week, got baby's first sonogram pictures.  My next appointment is scheduled for March 31st, and my kids will be here to experience that appointment with me!  I'm really excited about that.  I called today to schedule the 4d Gender Determination Ultrasound Session for April 24th.  Yes, that is a Saturday!  Yay, Tommy will be able to join me.

As you can probably tell, I tend to get really long-winded.  This isn't isolated to one time.  I assure you.  I like to write.  Especially about the things that interest me.

Till next time....