29 weeks and counting...

Well I've hit the 29 week marker today. Hard to believe I'm that far along! These past few months have just flown by. I'm sure December will do the same.

I had my regular checkup yesterday. I did my 1-hour glucose test, but still haven't gotten any results back. I'm of the mindset "no news is good news" - I figure if I failed the test they'd be calling me back in immediately. I also got my first flu shot ever. Other than that everything looks good. My weight gain is normal and my blood pressure looks good. We heard a nice strong heartbeat, although with all of his moving now there's no doubts in my mind that his heart is pumping away.

My next u/s will be December 19th where they'll check the placenta position once again. Hopefully we se some improvement and he doesn't have to come early! I'm eager to meet him, but would prefer he come out healthy and strong!

Naughty Placenta!

Well I had my follow-up ultrasound today to check the position of my placenta and so far its a complete placenta previa still :( The placenta definitely sits more to one side of my cervix than the other, so there is still the slight hope that it will move, but at this point they are going to start treating me as if it isn't going to move just in case. If they placenta doesn't move they will have to deliver my baby at around 35 weeks instead of the normal 40 weeks a baby should be in gestation. To prepare my baby for a possible early delivery, I received an injection of betamethazone today. This is a sterroid that will help speed up the baby's lung development. I will get another shot tomorrow and that will be all he needs until his due date. I can't believe he could be here in less than 10 weeks. Guess I need to start wrapping up the nursery soon!

The dr. said she was actually surprised that I haven't had any more bleeding since the last time. So I guess that means I have been doing a good job with keeping my activity levels down like I should. Sometimes I feel guilty for being such a slug, but I guess its paying off. I have been restricted from all holiday travel - or any long travel at all at this point. I'm disappointed I have to skip the annual McGowan Thanksgiving feast, but I understand that a placenta rupture is very serious for both me and the baby so I will just have to do without this year.

I didn't get to see the baby during the ultrasound :( I was hoping to, but the type of u/s they do restricts their view to just the bottom of my uterus so all I got to see was the top of his head and the naughty placenta. He is head-down now which explains why I feel like there's a bowling ball on my bladder now!

I will do a follow-up u/s mid-December to see the placenta one last time before the decision to deliver early is finalized. Lets hope it moves between now and then!!

the belly...

Okay - so many of you ask - where are the belly pictures?? So here they are!!

This is my 5 month belly picture

This is my 6 month belly picture - can we say "growth spurt??!"

This is around 5 and a half months. The belly looks better when its covered up ;)

Nursery mural

Okay.. I started painting this room back in September I believe. I worked on it a lot here and there, but couldn't work on it every weekend or every night. Sometimes I was busy/tired/etc. Its definitely many hours of labor but hopefully little baby Pray will appreciate my hard work. The crib will go on this wall in between the coral reefs on either side. Hopefully it all looks good when its furnished.

Here are a few other views of the wall:

Starting up my blog

Well - as much as I tried to fight the pressure to maintain yet another internet personal account (myspace, message boards, email addresses, IM, etc) I am finally creating a blog page. Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against the Blogspot thing - I've been blogging in myspace for a while. It just gets tough working a full-time computer related job, and coming home to spend MORE time chained to the computer keeping up with all of my communication venues.

BUT - that being said I love reading other blogs, and the time was coming for me to create an account just to be able to read other blogs, and I love having a quick/easy place to give my updates on whats going on with my life, so here I am - a blogger :)

I am currently 6 months pregnant with my son (I love saying that - "my son"). He is the product of 2 and a half years of infertility struggles ending with In-vitro fertilization. I am thankful every day that I get the opportunity at all to experience motherhood. Pregnancy has been an amazing experience and I get all teary-eyed just thinking of how much more wonderful it will be when I become a mother. I feel like I have spent my whole life preparing for this moment and its finally here!

Sean and I have decided to keep his name a surprise for his "birth day." There are many reasons behind this 1) Keeping a surprise is fun 2) We want the baby to be the first one to hear his name and 3) it took us too long to agree on a name, so we don't want anybody to say something that might make us doubt our decision! Rest assured - he does have a name and I can't wait to tell everyone when he arrives!

I'm hardly prepared for baby Pray's arrival. I have been painting a mural in his room for quite some time. I'm being a bit of a perfectionist and going a little overboard with the detail, but hey, my son deserves the best. I can't wait to post pictures when I'm done (hopefully soon!)