On Saturday, the ladies at church gave me a shower for Baby Girl.  It was a lovely party, and we received some wonderful goodies, including 3 hand-made blankets and lots of adorable clothes for our little miss.  Several ladies also went in on a large group gift (a new tradition we’ve established for showers), and this is what they purchased for us:

It’s a rocking chair from Cracker Barrel, and I can’t wait to have Allan assemble it so I can use it.  We’re hoping to find room in the apartment for it, but if we can’t, it will be one of the first things I want set up in our new house – whenever we find one!

My mother-in-law was volunteered to put together table centerpieces for the shower.  She made a FABULOUS three-tiered diaper cake for a shower I hosted last year, so the hostess for my shower brought her on board to do something similar.  These are what she made:

 

Aren’t they beautiful?  The larger one sat at my “head” table, and she made four of the smaller ones for the other tables.  The idea is to take them apart and use the diapers and blankets, but the cakes are just so pretty!  I am going to use them as decorations in our “nursery area” for awhile, I think.  (Pictures of the nursery area coming in a couple weeks, once the dresser arrives from CA with my mom).

And I finally remembered to have Allan take a picture of me for those of you who aren’t nearby to see me HUGELY pregnant!  I’ve been meaning to do it every time I get “cleaned up” to go out for a doctor’s appointment or for church, but we just keep forgetting.  Finally remembered, and here it is:

I’m not nearly as puffy as I was with lil Allan, but the tummy sure sticks out farther this time!  I’m basically 35 weeks in this picture – only four more to go!  We will schedule our c-section on Wed at the dr’s office.  I’m really anxious to know what her birthday will be – or at least what the PLAN for her birthday will be.  We’ll see if she sticks with the plan and waits for the c-section date to make her arrival.  Something tells me she’ll decide to come early and foil our “plans”.  The anticipation is getting huge, and I can’t wait to meet our baby girl, and to introduce her to everyone.  (And FINALLY tell everyone her name!!)

 

We had a busy Wednesday this week.  We had to see the cardiologist for a report on my echo test last week, and after that we had an appt for baby monitoring. 

We enjoy the cardiologist’s office, as they are all fantastic folks.  He is seriously the best cardiologist I’ve had, since my favorite pediatric cardiologist when I was 10 or so.  He gave us mostly good news – everything looked like he expected it to look, and I should have no issues heart-wise with baby girl’s c-section. 

Unfortunately, he had to follow that good news with words like, “your numbers are a bit high because of the shunt” and “if they don’t come down, we may have to consider correcting the problem” and “open-heart surgery”.  Essentially the hole in my heart that was repaired at age four was not QUITE fixed completely.  The shunt causes pulmonary hypertension, which isn’t a good thing.  Normal numbers are 25… my non-pregnancy numbers are 40.. and my pregnancy numbers have reached as high as 55. (There were 50 this time).  Thankfully he was really positive that the numbers would come back down to around 40 or so, and IF that happens, the need for corrective surgery can be put off.  It looks like we’ll be going every 6 months from now on, to make sure the numbers don’t get worse.  It’s not the kind of thing that can be reversed if it gets bad (like above the 50’s), so when/if that happens, we’ll cross the bridge into getting it fixed.  We’re praying that’s a LONG way off, and maybe by then there will be alternatives to cracking me open again!  I’m quite sure it will be more difficult to undergo open heart surgery in my 30’s than it was at age 4.

The news at the OB’s office was ALL positive.  My blood pressure was excellent, the baby looks super, and we saw her hair on her head AGAIN.  I just canNOT wait to see what that hair looks like in person! We’re at the six week point now, and I know it’s going to fly by. 

Other than the fact that we still need to get all the baby stuff together and a bunch of stuff hauled off to storage to make room for baby stuff, I am ready for these six weeks to zoom.  Sleeping is increasingly difficult, even in the recliner, and baby girl is getting VERY heavy!  But overall, these last few weeks have been really, really good.  I wanted to enjoy this pregnancy, since it’s the last one I’ll be going through, and I’m very thankful that I’ve had such a good third trimester.  I prayed and God heard me!

Ok, enough of all that.  Maybe I’ll have an update on the boys next time!

So, I realized today I need to update about the 3 hour glucose test.  It turned out to be an ok experience, and I even bonded a bit with the gal who was taking my blood every hour.  She saw the book I was reading, and was all excited since she is reading another book by the same author.  By the end of the three hour ordeal, we had exchanged phone numbers and we’re going to exchange books with each other when we finish them. 

My appointment last week was a little up and down – mostly good, except I had gained EIGHT pounds and had a lot of fluid around the baby.  The “high” for fluid around the baby is 24, and I was at 22.  The doctor said the weight gain and the high fluid can be a symptom or indication of gestational diabetes, so I was preparing for bad news on the glucose test.  BUT… thank you Lord… everything turned out to be completely normal.  The nurse said my numbers were 100% in the normal range, and not even close to danger zones.  She even told me to have a cookie to celebrate, and you can BET I did! (Oh, and I’ve lost four of those eight pounds, so I was definitely having a water retention week!)

Besides the good results, we got some more info about when to expect Baby Girl to make her arrival.  The doctor informed us that we can’t schedule a c-section before 39 weeks, unless we want to have an amnio.  We absolutely do NOT plan to have an amnio, so unless my blood pressure changes or I go into labor early, it looks like Baby Girl will be coming the last week of March!  SO, we revised our plans for Mema’s visit (no sense in her coming five weeks early!), and are re-scheduling Samuel’s birthday party for March 10th.  He really wants Mema to be here for it, so we’ll have something small to celebrate on the 1st, and then have the whole ChuckECheese shebang on the 10th.

So, that was LAST week’s news.  This week is just as good!  I had an echo appt yesterday that went well.  We’ll get the official word from the cardiologist next week, but I’m certain it will all be good news.  After the echo appt, we had to go for my first monitoring session at the OB’s office.  They check my blood pressure and check for protein, and hook me up to monitor the baby’s movements and heartbeat.  All of that was SUPER – including my blood pressure!  The nurse took us in for a quick ultrasound check, and get this – we saw HAIR on Baby Girl’s head!  I had just been reading on another blog this week about seeing hair on the baby’s head in the ultrasound pics, and I was marveling at that.  I couldn’t believe that it happened for us too!  Allan about jumped out of his chair, and of course I got all choked up and teary eyed looking at it.  I just canNOT wait to see her, and see if it’s dark or light, thick or thin.  Lil Allan came out with hardly any hair, and his is like mine – thin and wispy.  Maybe Baby Girl will have dark thick hair like Daddy??

After my monitoring appt, Allan and I went for lunch (so nice to have good conversation without kiddos needing attention!), and then went to BabiesRUs to register.  They are having a shower for us at church, and we’ve been asked a couple times to register, so we did!  We had the BEST time – looking at toys and gadgets and bedding sets and clothes.  I was SO happy to decide on a bedding set for her crib, which she’ll get to use once we move into a house later this year.  I can’t wait to decorate her room to match the set we chose.  I had an idea in my mind of what I wanted, and I was thrilled to find something almost exactly like I had imagined.  It’s so pretty and girly and gorgeous – light pinks and light green, with a touch of dark pink.  You can see it all at our registry at BabiesRUs.com, if you are interested!

Oh, and we realized this last week that Daddy’s birthday falls on Easter this year – for the first time in his life.  We also realized that Baby Girl will be just over a week old, and this will likely be her first visit to church!  Of course we had to pick out a special outfit, to commemorate the day.  She’ll be tiny and newborn, but she’ll be all decked out, with a “Daddy’s Little Girl’ dress.  And yes.. I started crying in BabiesRUs when we were figuring all this out.  It was definitely a hormonal day, and just a wonderfully happy one.  I think it’s finally hitting me that I will be bringing home a baby GIRL in just a few weeks!!  God is SO good!

Wow, if you’ve managed to read all this – kudos to you!  I’ll hush now before the blog turns into a novel.