4D ultrasound! (30 weeks 5 days)

Yet another picture of this poor kid's giant foot. She inherited the Seefeldt skis, I swear. Better than the giant Seefeldt nose? ;-) Just kidding, Dad.

Today is....my last day of freedom. And I think it came at the perfect time too, since I'm starting to get a little lazy (ok, little might be an extreme understatement) while Adam's at work and then as soon as he gets home all tired from running all over the place at GPC, I get all this energy and want to do stuff with him around the house until 11pm. Yup, time to go back to work and attend meetings (gag), organize for my subs (yikes), and get my kids' schedules together (eek). I had a fun day today after I got going though, as I went to the Quad Cities for a speechie luncheon with 2 of the regulars and the 2 newbies to the dept. For some reason the half sandwich and fries I had quadrupled in size once it hit my stomach, so I was (and still am) pretty full. Really good though! Then I stopped and ran a few errands before realizing I best high-tail it to Muscatine or I was going to be late for our 4D ultrasound (u/s) today at 3pm! But before leaving the QCs, I stopped and got the mattress for Baby's crib, a few cami tanks for me (love JCP $10 off purchase coupons!), and a VHS (yup, oldschool) tape to record the ultrasound. Then off to the races! I made it with 2 minutes to spare. ;-) I don't know why but these pictures didn't show up in the orange/black that I thought most 4D u/s pictures usually do, but I think you get the idea in the later pictures. Most of the pics are traditional u/s pictures.

Profile pictures above/below. The bubble above her lips/nose is the umbilical cord.

So we go in for the u/s and have two technicians...I am pretty sure the one who did it was in training. Crap. But she did fairly well and seemed to have more questions about the buttons than doing the actual u/s, which leads me to believe she knew her stuff...for the most part. Baby had been sleeping for the better part of at least 3 hours by then, so on the way to the hospital she stuck her bum out to where I could feel it really well so I patted her for a bit and low and behold, yup, WIDE awake and kicking/moving like CRAZY for the u/s. I mean so much/hard that there were several times where I felt and saw (on the monitor) her do a movement at the same time! Kinda weird...but since she was so active, it was sort of hard to get that "really great" 4D picture that you usually see on TV/internet. The one we have looks pretty good...but it makes her look like she has the hugest upper lip ever, which she does not, as we've seen in other u/s's or even at today's on views not given to us in still pics. She frequently put her little arms/hands up in front of her face and on her head to which one of techs said to watch when she's here and how she sleeps...apparently babies who do that a ton in the womb will like to sleep that way once they have all the room to do so. Another comment that made me happy was when the tech was taking measurments of the baby's heart and commented that she had a "great looking heart." I mean really, would you expect anything less out of our baby? :) She's perfect no matter what to us, but it's nice when others acknowledge that too. (Note the sarcasm in the latter portion of that sentence...)

I'm going to try my best to figure out a way to post some, if not all, of the u/s video for you to see. Not sure how I'm going to go about that yet, but I will try. Or watch the blog and I'll let you know if I give up. I really need to learn how though so I can post video of her once she gets here. Enjoy the pictures!!

Profile picture and 4D face picture. Her upper lip is not that big, but the picture sure makes it look that way, doesn't it? And no cleft lip! Woo hoo! :)

Up close and personal - there's our little girl! See her little hands tucked under her chin? Aww...

2 days left... :-(

So I'm getting a little bummed that the school year is just about to get started even though I know this is a good thing as it will require me to get into a better routine again and pass the time quickly before the baby gets here. I have a summer contract day on Wednesday, but then Thursday I'm going to start back full time (some in Musc are waiting until next week) b/c the more I work now means the less I'll have to work in June when I'm eager to spend more time with the baby. She'll be 7-8 months old by then! Can you believe that?

For no apparent reason, I'm kind of tired today. I had plans to do some things around the house and I still intend to do at least 2-3 of them, but I think I'm going to plan some lazy time too since that time will end after tomorrow. :( Unfortunately I got an email this morning that we're getting new cell phones (for those of us that have them) at work so I had to turn mine in asap so it would be there by Wed at 10am. Therefore, I had to go into work today for ~15 minutes to take care of that...not fair! Wasn't supposed to "work" today. I know I really didn't work, but I had to go there nonetheless. Ok, I'm done whining about that now. I also ran a few other errands including going to the farmer's market where I got a ton of yummy veggies for the week. I'm currently waiting for some squash to get done so I can put butter and brown sugar on it before I have a "healthy" part of my lunch. Yum!

Highlander Pics

I realized I hadn't posted any pics of our (new to us) Highlander since we got it about 3 weeks ago. Here they are! The interior is tan/leather with wood trim. Pretty sexy if you ask me, but I might be biased b/c it's mine. :) We're still looking for a pet guard to keep the dogs in the way back part, but we have until Christmas really, since that's the first time we'll travel with the baby and dogs together. Wow, that will be her first trip to WI!


Yesterday, Adam and I went our separate ways in the morning and met back at home around 1pm. He went golfing and I was working on the rummage sale, which was a bust that day. Then I did some light housework while Adam mowed, weeded, and some other things outside before we went to Saturday church at 5:30. While we were at church, things were fine and dandy until about 15 minutes in...and then the BH contractions started...and continued...and all of a sudden I had two very separate ones in about 5 minutes and decided I better get up and walk around to see if that would help. It must have, b/c I likely hit the 6/hr (then call the doctor) before they finally subsided for a while. Got a little nervous there...but I'm fine and they haven't come back that active since. Whew! Then we had a nice, quiet fire outside where it was almost too hot out to have a fire until about 10pm when we gave in and went to sleep...long day I guess.

Today we decided to research some things we've been looking at - cribs and a nice camera to take pics of the baby - before heading to the Quad Cities for some shopping. We (well, mostly Adam) learned some great things about cameras and we decided we'd just order her crib and dressers when we got home. The camera thing...whew. My friend, Abbie, has the Nikon D60 and loves it. She's let us play with it a bit and it IS amazing. Completely. I can see us using it to take pics of the baby and her siblings when they're in sports in high school, it's that good. However, the price is sort of killing us b/c we both have a set limit of what we'd like to spend and we'll probably end up going about $100 over that easily if/when we go for it. We've also looked at Canon and Sony, but I think we will like the D60 better. The picture quality is just SO amazing...anyway, just another decision we're grappling with. Secondly, I hit the maternity clothes JACKPOT at JCPenny today! I got three pairs of capris, 2 tanks, 2 tshirts, and 3 dressy work shirts that should all work until the very end - for next to nothing! Some of the shirts I had before today that are nicer for work are just starting to get to the point where they are just too short in the belly (again!) so it was time to find a bit more. To top it all off, a clerk told me while I was looking that it was "friends and family" day so our entire bill was an extra 20% off! Thankfully Adam also found the running shoes he wanted there so we saved almost $40 on top of all the great deals! I love that kind of shopping...makes me happy. :)

Now Adam is playing in a softball tournament in the Quad Cities (we dropped his truck off there) in this extreme heat. I would have normally stayed especially since he's playing early and I don't have to work tomorrow, but it's roughly 90 degrees with heat indices of 100-105 so I decided to just go home to the a/c. He's going to roast, poor guy. They play until they lose so who knows how long he'll be in that heat.

On a sidenote, the upper left belly nerve is really giving me a hard time today. I really don't want to buy a belly support, but am guessing that this is what Dr. Coleman is going to tell me to do if I whine about it since it's mostly a gravity/stretching thing (it doesn't hurt when I'm lying down). Ugh. That just makes me feel fat. Lastly, I've attached a picture of the dogs in their kennels when I came home this afternoon...pay special attention to Jessie (on the right). Apparently 78 degrees in the house was too cold for her...I love our dogs...fuzzy little furbabies... :)


PS. I'm a little sad that Tuesday is my last day off of work before the school year is officially kicked off with meetings and organization days. It will be great, I know this, and I'm sort of looking forward to it, but it's just another step that's going to take a lot of thinking/organizing and such and gets us to the baby's arrival that much sooner. Whew. It's getting closer faster, isn't it? :)

Pictures to go with 30-week post below

30 week belly pictures (self-portraits, don't mind the quality)

30 week belly

Casey & I at Jason & Julie's wedding shower
(Melissa=30 weeks, Casey=38 weeks with Little JoJo)

After the Bubble Gum game...Julie=6 pieces, Jason=7 pieces...Julie's the winner!

Probably the yummiest cake I've had in quite some time...mmm.

Jason, Julie, me, & Adam after a successful couples wedding shower. :)

30 weeks

We're 75% of the way there...30 weeks. Hard to believe she's going to be here in less than 2 digit numbers now (since technically it's 9w6d away from my due date). I'll say that every week. Just to warn you.

We put on Jason and Julie's wedding shower tonight which consisted of just under 20 of us (guys and gals) going out to Port City Underground in Muscatine for dinner, the Bubblegum Game, dinner, amazing cake, and presents. It went really well, the waitstaff was awesome and catered to every need I/we had to make it go smoothly, and I was just overall really pleased with how things went. I'll be posting pictures tomorrow since it's late and the thought of being on my feet more than a trip to the bathroom and bed makes me cringe right now. I also have a cute one to post of a fellow preggers friend, Casey, and I. She's due in 14 days. Little JoJo and Baby Schmidt got to duke it out for a bit...just wait until tomorrow's pictures. :)

I went to the doctor today for a routine check up (which now happens every other week until week 36 when we go up to weekly). I felt sort of bad since 2 seconds after she walked in I totally interrupted her to have her quick feel my belly since I was pretty sure I was able to tell which way the baby was facing - and wanted confirmation. Turns out that she WAS on my right side...ok, her butt was on my right side, she's head down, and then Dr. Coleman found a foot on the left side that she said "was just about to kick her." That was the first dr. visit that I can recall that Baby was wide awake and moving like crazy during our appt. Adam did not accompany me to that appt b/c he was flying in from Vancouver/Chicago. He will be there next week for my 4D ultrasound on Tuesday. We will be taping that one so if I can figure out how to post a video sometime in the next 3 years, I'll post it for all to see! I'm really excited. Since we've been getting all these u/s, I asked Dr. Coleman how that works with insurance b/c usually we are only allowed 2-3 for a routine pregnancy. Turns out that only the 2 done in radiology (20 weeks/28 weeks) were charged to my insurance. The first one in Dr. Coleman's office (internal/8 weeks) and the 4D one (also done in her office) are free!! She said that's just how she likes to practice so she doesn't charge for them. And that's why I love my doctor. :)

I think I've mentioned the pain I get on the top left side of my belly just under the rib area and asked Dr. Coleman about it. She said that likely it was a nerve that's being stretched and (as she's palpitating it) said she could probably reproduce it...and did! Small ouch! Her suggestion was heat/cold compress if needed and basically (and nicely, b/c she's great) said it's part of pregnancy. Since lying down makes it better, I'm ok with that. :)

Ok, it's late, I'm tired, and have to be up at a decent hour tomorrow for Round 2 of the Benner/Schmidt/Pinter/Lopez rummage sale. Today went well...but there's always more stuff that needs to go! :) Watch for pictures tomorrow...or Sunday...depending on how Saturday goes. ;-)

I need to post more often...

Otherwise these entries get sooo long!! The rest of our weekend was good, productive, and crazy busy. I ended up sort of losing my marbles a bit on Sunday afternoon b/c I was going going going the entire day and only sat for about 30 minutes post-breakfast until around 5pm...which turns out is too long of a day to keep going that much and not lose it. But after a good release of "eye water" and a little "I'm too tired! My feet hurt! I don't wanna!" Adam suggested I sit for a while with my feet up while he finished the rest of the time sensitive work that needed to be done. Check and check. It helped, but it was a long day. Adam's mom, grandma, and cousin came to spend the night and we had a really nice visit with them. It was great to have them and see Parker as we hadn't seen her in quite some time. She had great fun with the dogs who then slept all day Monday. I loved Monday. We did nothing. I was in PJs until 1:30 while the dogs slept...there was a great big dent in the recliner from where I didn't move a majority of the day. Adam also left for Vancouver on Monday and is there until Friday this week.

I don't think I've posted this yet, but I can now feel when she has hiccups if I'm sitting/lying down/relaxing which is kind of cute. I get sad for her when they last more than a minute or so, but it's perfectly normal while she's practicing swallowing/breathing the amniotic fluid so it's really nothing to be concerned about. This has been happening for about a week, week and a half or so that I can really feel her do this. Let's see, what else is she up to...nothing much outside of the regular (but strong) kicking/punching, some rolling around, and the like. She has continued to maintain a great sleep schedule (meaning she doesn't wake me up at night) although sometimes I wake her up when I roll over...that's quite a feat sometimes but not impossible to do independently. :) Yet.

Today I had orientation for the job I've had for a year now. It was brutally slow, completely boring, and by the afternoon I was contracting more and more from all the sitting (which we're not used to at all) we were doing. This seems to have continued into the evening even though I stayed hydrated pretty well. Thankfully tomorrow's session is only a half day for me (it's 3 days total for newbies!!) but then I'm heading back to Muscatine to write up an eval from Tuesday and then complete another one. Why did I say I'd do these at the end of the last school year? Oh yeah, b/c I can't say no to something that makes sense. :) Oh! And tomorrow is the 75% done mark, or 30 weeks. I'm so excited about how far I'm getting with the baby, as I've said before, b/c heaven forbid she come tomorrow, she'd have even better odds then she did last week. I don't know why I am stuck on that, but crazy things happen and you just never know. Friday and Saturday will be spent helping some friends run a rummage sale that we have quite a bit of stuff in. I love getting rid of clutter...and with the "lists" that I've been working on, there is a lot of it now GONE. My favorite. :) Adam will be thrilled when I tell him he better find a golfing date for Saturday morning. I actually already told him this, but I think he might have forgotten. Jessie wants to go out so I best get up so I actually get through my clothes for the rummage sale. Tomorrow night I'm playing "Susie Homemaker" and making another round of Amish Friendship Bread and then puppy chow for the rummage sale. I'm tired just thinking about it...

Very productive Friday

Yesterday was one of the most productive days I've had in a while. I could tell by the time I finally stopped that it was time to sit and relax a bit, but I was so proud of my accomplishments that it took all I had not to tell Adam a hundred times all the things I did while he was at work yesterday. What can I say, throwing out another list of "to do" stuff is almost as good as a birthday present to this pregnant mommy-to-be. Let me just give you the low-down as I am still rather proud:

1. The internet guy came early so while he was doing his thing, I cleaned up the kitchen and finally went through the pile of things I took out of the Murano so I could put some of it into the Highlander, some in the trash, etc.
   
2. I priced, packed up, and dropped off a huge amount of rummage sale stuff to a friend's house (Nancy) to prep for the rummage sale we're all putting on at her house next Friday and Saturday. Felt REALLY good to get that stuff outta here. Whatever doesn't sell is either going in the trash or to Goodwill. I don't want it back in this house. We don't "do" clutter very well. :)
   
3. Met Adam at the bank to sign some papers and then went out for lunch. Yes, at China Buffet. Oh well. It was good and I was starving.
   
4. Went back home, and I moved the futon (by sliding, not lifting; relax) out of the farm room and into the nursery, along with anything else not a bed to prep for carpet cleaning. I hauled the vacuum, spot cleaner, and soaps upstairs and got to work spot treating the carpet in the farm room and upstairs landing. Took me a bit to put the vacuum/shampooer together again, but got that going and shampooed the carpet.
   
5. By this time I could tell I needed to take a break, so while the suds were working their way into the carpet, I had a small bowl of chocolate ice cream. And then realized I was going to be a bottomless pit for the rest of the day...Baby must really be growing or needing more nutrition or something...sorry it was ice cream, Baby! :) Then back upstairs to finish the carpets and wait for Adam to come home and see my work. A quick vacuum over the shampooed area and I had a happy husband, although not quite as happy as I was.
   
6. TOSS OUT THE FARM ROOM LIST!! Best moment of the day at home.
7. Had a snack (yes, another), took a shower, and then we headed out to Moline for the first meeting of the QC Dining Club at the Brown Bottle. It's a club that my friend, Abbie's, friend started to get friends/couples together to try new/different restaurants in the Quad Cities. I was a little nervous b/c I only knew 2 couples out of the 25ish total people that were there, but it turned out to be really fun and everyone was easy to talk to. The food was good, but it almost hurt to watch my friend, Denise, have my favorite wine in the whole wide world...I love the atmosphere that the restaurant offered and in that setting, I am the happiest camper ever with good food and a glass of wine. My non-alcoholic margarita was good, but I'm telling you, I can't wait to just relax and have a glass of wine after this little one gets here and all is well with her feeding schedule. I'm telling you - can't WAIT.
   

So it was a great day and night for Friday. Adam was scheduled to golf and work for about 4 hrs today before we went crib/dresser shopping and back to Muscatine in time for Saturday night church. The reason we have to go to Sat night church is b/c Adam was banking on the fact that his golf would get rained out this morning and he'd be into work earlier and could then golf Sunday morning...except it didn't rain until they got 3 holes in, golfed another 3 in the rain, and then came home. So while he's at work earlier than he would have been had it not rained, I'm not so sure how we'll squeeze everything in unless church magically got switched to 7pm instead of 5:30....we shall see. I think I've rested enough now this morning and am headed back upstairs to move whatever I can to the farm room and prep for shampooing the carpet in the Baby's nursery. Then it will be a matter of putting her furniture together and I will feel much better about where things stand in terms of having the right "stuff" for her. I'm also tempted to stop by one of the places we registered for our Bum Genius diapers and pick up one or two of them so I can see what they're like. She's still going to use disposable ones at first, like I've said earlier, but it would be nice to have some on hand. That said, I'm off to upstairs. Oh! And Adam's mom, grandmother, and little cousin Parker (who we haven't seen in a long time!!) are coming to visit briefly overnight tomorrow night. Am really excited to see PJ...and just hope the dogs (ok, Jessie) behave. Happy Saturday!