We're down to a week...

.... I guess! Actually when I saw the doctor this week, I told her something I'd thought for a while, that my due date was wrong. She went back in my chart after talking with me about it and looked at her wheel, and agreed that I was probably due closer to the 12th. 5 days isn't that long, so it's still pretty close, but I think it would make a pretty big difference if I go "late". If I'm 42 weeks by the "official" due date, that's a huge difference from being 41 weeks and 2 days. So although I am still hoping to give birth sometime in the first two weeks of February, this, I think, will help buy me more time if it doesn't happen.

NOTHING is happening by the way. But I am continuing to do well, and so is the baby. My blood pressure is stable and the baby is doing very well. I've got the usual aches and pains of the end, but it's nothing I can't cope with. I had a pretty negative-feeling day yesterday, but today I am feeling better. I know that I could really go into labor at any time, despite that not much is going on that I can tell! Babies come when they are ready and when I look at the big picture, it's really not going to be that much longer.

Another scabby cat update!!

Saturday night, I was combing out one of the cats (not the allergic one, but the other one - Kali), with a fine comb instead of a brush. She has a really thick coat and tends to get matted if I don't use a comb to get way down to her skin. She wasn't shedding much (thanks to changing their diets, their fur is growing in really nice now) but when I went to take the hair off the comb, there it was - a flea!! And it was ALIVE!!! I got all grossed out and the rest of the night couldn't stop scratching myself!

I put a call in to the vet first thing this morning. I wanted to get some Frontline or something similar because I don't want to mess around with this!! The vet called me back and was ECSTATIC that I found the flea! She now thinks this was 90% of P's skin problems, because allergic cats only need one flea bite per WEEK to get rashy and scabby and miserable! I will be going in later today to pick up the flea meds and we'll start them tonight. They checked P for fleas each time I brought her in but never found any - but she definitely could still have them. She told me I did well and was very happy I found the flea.

I can't imagine that a person would be SO happy that I found a flea, but that's just me! :)

Just added a new link...

Please check out The Shape of a Mother. Being pregnant and giving birth changes our bodies, there is no denying that! We are so used to seeing "flawless" bodies in the media, entertainment and advertising, that many of us tend to feel bad or hopeless about how our bodies look during pregnancy and after childbirth. This blog is really important, I think, because it shows pictures of what REAL women look like, not the doctored up, Hollywoodized versions we might have in our minds!

Besides, we mommies have EARNED these bodies! And we worked damn hard for them! We are beautiful and that's just the way it is!!

38 weeks

I tend to look at the 38 week point as the final countdown! Although it could still be several weeks until the big day, baby is pretty much done developing and the birth could really come any time and things would be fine. I am continuing to do well. I can feel that the baby has gone further into my pelvis, as I am having quite a bit more pain and pressure there. It feels like my joints are coming apart! But it's all normal, and it's a good thing at this point. I had some strong contractions last night, but I think I brought them on myself by just having a busy day and doing more than I probably should have. After a snack, a big glass of water and a nice long shower, they had mostly gone away and were completely gone by the time I went to sleep. They all help though, and I try to focus on that rather than thinking of it as a false alarm. Overall I really don't feel that anything is really happening, so we're just taking each day as it comes. Will lifts up my shirt and yells "BABY OUT!!" into my belly button so I am hoping one day soon, the baby will listen to him and come out to see us!

My blood pressure is good so that part will always make me happy!

Today was a pretty good day! I got together with some fellow La Leche League members to work on a few things and that went well. One of the girls has a son about my son's age and they were playing together so well, that we stayed for a good part of the day! Since we didn't have to run interference with them very often, we got a lot of work done. I'd been wanting to go through this stuff for a long time and it was good to be able to sit down and do it! It's getting me really excited to be breastfeeding an infant again! And the boys had a lot of fun, they played together exceptionally well, working out their own problems, cooperating, sharing, it was all really good!

We moved some furniture (well, my husband did the moving) in our room to make room for the baby's co-sleeper. It's neat, it's like a big bassinet that attaches to a regular bed. I am hoping that will make life easier for us for night nursing. Will still really needs to be in the crib and I don't really want to buy another one of those! Even though we didn't take any furniture out of our room, it still looks a lot bigger to me. It will be exciting to see the room all set up, although I'm not sure we'll leave it that way for now. The co-sleeper is pretty big and I need a lot of room to get out of bed in the night right now.

I feel like I'm in a pretty good mood today. I hope I still feel like this tomorrow! Seems like I'm irritated most of the time these days. That annoys me too! *sigh*

Nothing's happening...

In case someone is looking at my blog to see if anything is happening with my pregnancy, you're out of luck! There is nothing going on at all. The only thing is that all I want to do is sleep, and I don't want to go anywhere or do anything. Otherwise, nothing has changed or is happening at all! I'm pretty certain there will be no baby this week. :)

37 weeks and scabby cat update!

All is well, and quiet, with the pregnancy! My blood pressure is excellent, my weight is still good, the baby is doing fine and measuring right on. The doctor said that I could to into my own little labor and it's just a matter of time! So that was all good news. I wound up having to call her later in the day, but I'll keep the day in chronological order so I don't mess up the story. :)

Later in the day I had to take our scabby cat to the vet for a check up. My friend came with me to help carry the cat in and entertain my son. The vet thought she was doing well, she hasn't lost any weight and her fur is growing in nice and thick and shiny. She thought the scabbiness was improving as well, and agreed that continuing to give her cortisone shots could be more of a risk than a benefit at this point. (I don't want a diabetic cat and neither does she!) So we didn't even get charged for the visit, and she would like me to call her back in a couple of months to let her know how things are going.

While we were at the vet, I started seeing spots. After a few minutes of that, I realized I was getting a migraine! I haven't had one in over 8 years but I knew right away that's what it was. I got us all home, dropped off my friend at her house, and got everyone out of the car. By that time I'd missed calling my doctor's office by about 7 minutes. The aura (the flashes of light/spots) was just about ending and I knew I had about 30-45 minutes before the pain started. I called her answering service and about an hour later she called back, and offered to call in a prescription for me. The funny thing was that I'd taken Tylenol before heading to the vet, because my back was hurting from all the running/sitting I'd done earlier and I didn't want to sit there in pain. Usually, in my experience, taking Tylenol for a migraine is like taking a pee on a forest fire! But, I think this migraine was to be a really mild one because I never really did get a bad headache. My husband picked up my prescription and I took some of it, and although I felt a few twinges (and now I'm hearing static - weird!), it never did get bad. The last one I had lasted for 3 days! Clane took care of Will the rest of the evening and I got fairly OK sleep. Today I am tired and feeling a little out of sorts but my headache is gone and I haven't needed to use anything else for it.

But all through this, the baby has been doing her usual sleep for several hours, then wake up and kick me, pretty much like normal. And my blood pressure continues to be excellent. I'm just taking it easy for today. So we'll see how this all turns out!

36 weeks! And more on scabby kitty...

I'm really in the home stretch now! I have hopes of having a January baby, but, in all likelihood, I will have a February baby - probably later than the 7th! I see the doctor every week now and all was well yesterday. My blood pressure continues to be excellent without meds, and she is happy with everything else. There is really not much to report, just that things are going along well and even though it feels like it might take forever, it's really not that long. And the time seems to be going by so fast, with Will to take care of! I'm always busy it seems!

Our kitty still has scabs. :( They are mainly on the front part of her neck, and although there aren't new ones that I can tell, the vet still wants to see her next week. We are probably going to get her another cortisone shot, the vet said there is often a seasonal component to food allergies in cats. She didn't want to keep giving the cortisone but she wanted to get rid of the problem before spring came and brings her more allergens. The cats are doing great on their new food, even Kali's fur is softer and shinier than it's been in a long time. She doesn't have that funky greasy feeling she had to her fur (especially where she can't reach it to groom herself) before and P's winter coat is growing in nice and shiny and thick. So I am hoping P checks out OK and maybe this last shot is enough to clear it up the rest of the way. Trying to brush/comb out the scabs is so gross!! It grosses me out each time. Funny I've seen SO many nasty things, yet scabs on a cat just make me queasy!

Funny cat site

I found this on a friend's blog, you need to go check it out if you like cats with a sense of humor. I should take some pictures of ours with stuff on them. It's really hysterical!

This is getting old...

I'm really quite sick of being pregnant! Everything is getting old... the pelvic pain, being tired because I'm not getting enough sleep because I CAN'T sleep, getting so short of breath, getting all winded just from getting up... I am going to ask my doctor (who is an osteopath) if she can do some adjustments on my hips or something because I can barely walk! I'm SO not happy right now! Thank goodness we're getting down to the end, because it's all I can do to make it through the day half the time. I actually got a few things done here today - cleaned a couple of toilets, scrubbed the sink in our bathroom (it was really bad), did laundry, went grocery shopping... it would be a fraction of what I'd normally do during a non pregnant day though.

Thankfully my blood pressure is still really good... :)