Airplane Baby Shower!

My AMAZING big sister, Diana, planned a wonderful baby shower for me! She did the planning all the way from California...now THAT is what I call love! :) There was extra out of town love too with Mommy coming for the weekend and Amy and Jack driving down from DC for an overnight visit! (Ramsey was THRILLED to have Jack come visit!)

The airplane theme was super cute and everyone was so impressed with how cute and clever everything was! The house was decorated, complete with signs for the "lavatory" and directions to the nursery! The favors were little airplane shaped luggage tags....so cute AND useful!

We played a game where everyone guessed how big my belly was...Kathryn Howard was the closest (within about 1/2 inch!). For the record, I was 44 inches around on March 26th :)

There was a really cool flight map in the nursery. People wrote me little bits of advice and well wishes and posted them on the map. Pretty cool (and I got some good advice!)

Lots of friends came to celebrate and I had an awesome time. We were very blessed with so many great gifts. There was so much love for 'Lil Dude!

Ahmad came in at the end....just to say hello a be a little silly!

Thanks for coming!!!!!

Coming Soon- Doula Visit #3

Doula Visit #2 (Part 2)

After we went over the homework from the week we moved into our next topic--Labor and Delivery.

We learned about the stages of labor and what typically happens during those stages. We also watched a couple of short videos of women actually delivering their babies.

We focused a lot on understanding how the stages differ and what to do during each stage. In the first stage (Early Labor) I'll be at home and trying to relax. The contractions shouldn't be too intense and they are between 3 and 20 minutes apart (so no pattern). As I move into Active Labor the contractions will be more regular and get more intense.

MIchelle wants me to stay at home for as long as possible. She has found that this results in shorter labors. The reason for this is because the stress and craziness at the hospital often slows or stalls labor. She can't check dilation, but she has a way of telling by spending time with the mother (during her labor of course) and she is usually within a cm! Pretty impressive I think :) She said that it is ideal to get to the hospital between 6 and 8cm.

We learned about different positions for me to be in during labor in order to alleviate pain. The often "seen on tv" way to labor is on your back, but that is the WORST thing to do! There is NO gravity helping the baby move down, so it takes much longer and is more uncomfortable. There are a lot of things I can do to move and rock and change positions to help the baby get ready. Walking doesn't get labor going, but it can help position the baby. There is also some massage Cameron and MIchelle will be able to do (if I let them touch me...hehe!).

Next week we are going to learn about interventions, just so we are educated. We will also start making our birth plan. The birth plan is where I'll write that I want to hold the baby as SOON as he's born and I want them to do as many tests as possible of him while I'm holding him. We also don't want to clamp the cord right away because he needs that blood. I'll share more about the plan once we've written it!

Doula Visit #2 (Part 1)

We had our second visit from our doula, Michelle, on Friday night.

We started the class by going over the homework that Cameron and I had to do. We had to write down our fears/anxieties about the rest of the pregnancy and the labor and delivery. Many of our concerns will be taken care of once we learn more...or so we hope! I also had to write down things I have accomplished and overcome in my life and how I've surprised myself. Cameron had to answer basically the same questions, but about me. I had a pretty tough time thinking of things I've overcome! The point of this activity was to find places to pull strength from later on (in labor).

I also had to write down what I ate for 2 days. The bottom line? I eat too much sugar and not enough fat! It turns out that not enough (good) fat increases my cravings for sugar...so I eat sugar and then I crash so I need more sugar. Bad cycle. I need to work on improving my diet (which is expensive!). Today I bought almond butter, an avocado and more walnuts. I'm not beating myself up about my food though...what I have been doing seems to be working fine, so I'm looking at it more as fine tuning and making improvements :)

32 weeks 4 days

Photo credit to my wonderful husband, Cameron! <3

32 Week Appointment

I had my 32 weeks appointment today (I'm 32 weeks 3 days today). I go every two weeks right now and then at 35 weeks I'll start going every week! I really can't believe I'm at this point already!

Here's the run-down from the appointment :)

~ My blood pressure was 92/58! Apparently this is pretty low (but not bad). My appointment was in the morning before work, so maybe that had something to do with it...I hadn't had a chance to get stressed out yet!

~I didn't really gain any weight in these past 2 weeks. I'm not sure why, but hopefully it's ok :) I'm still right at 20 pounds, so I SHOULD stay under 30 pounds (which has been my goal).

~ I measured at 31cm, which is a bit small. I should be measuring at 32cm.

~Since I'm only 31cm right now she wants to get the baby's weight at 35 weeks. The way to get the weight is another ultrasound! I'm not worrying about being small...I'm just praying that he's going to be a smaller (healthy) little guy :) (Let me dream at least!)

~Another reason I'm not worried about being small is because his heart rate is 150, which is great :)

My next appointment is March 23rd and then hopefully we'll have the ultra sound on March 30th :)

Doula Visit #1

We signed up for labor and childbirth classes with our doula. She will come to our house three times for the classes. Each class is about 2.5-3 hours.

She came to our house on Friday for our first class. In this class we went over nutrition and exercise...which we're doing pretty well already thank goodness. There are a few things I need to add.

-cranberry juice (helps with bladder stuff)

-Red Raspberry Leaf tea (it's a uterine tonic)

-vitamin C (strengthens the bag of water---which I do not want to break until I'm well into labor)

-olive oil and apple cider vinegar dressing (uncooked oils are good)

-Greek Yogurt (probiotics)

Another thing we talked about a bit was mind over body, which is obviously huge when it comes to planning a natural (drug free) delivery. We'll talk more about that next Friday I think.

She showed us the position we want the baby to be in when I go into labor (head down of course with his face towards my back, so that his skull is not bone on bone with my spine). After watching her demonstration with her doll and pelvis it seems amazing that a baby can actually be born (again, MIND OVER BODY!!!).