Kitty Combs My Hair

So I have mentioned before that my cat Chloe has been very bizarre since I've been pregnant. As if it is not enough that I am up every 90 minutes to use the bathroom and Emma makes sleeping pretty uncomfortable, I have a new distraction to my sleep. The last two nights I woke up with Chloe sleeping on my head, kneading away at my head as if she was combing my hair. She is such a weirdo. =)

I had a successful visit to the doctor today. No news of Emma being too small, me gaining too much weight, or my sugar being high. Emma is in the 48th percentile for size, which means not too big and not too small. My blood pressure was good. Weight gain was fine (I'm at a total of 30 lbs so far). Sugar levels were good. My belly grew from 26 cm to 29 cm (hooray!). There have been issues at my last few appointments, so I was very happy that this one went so well. I will go back in two weeks and then start going once a week. The doctor said that after my next appointment I will be considered "full term" so if I go into labor, they will not doing anything to prevent it and allow Emma to be born. I sure hope she doesn't come THAT early! I am so happy to know that my baby girl is healthy. She seems happy too with all of her movement. While I am getting more eager to not be pregnant anymore, I must admit that I love being able to feel this crazy girl move around all day long!

"Go ahead, call me small again!"

I feel like Emma was offended by being told she might be small and thus had a growth spurt over the past week and a half. My belly is starting to feel so very heavy! While I still may not be sticking out very far, my waist is much wider and I officially cannot see my feet anymore when I stand. Here are Week 33 photos of the tum tum. Combing my hair on Sundays is overrated, by the way. =)

The countdown begins!

I really cannot believe that there are only 47 days left until my due date! I am certainly glad that my pregnancy is not throughout the summer because last week when it was 80 degrees in San Diego, I was a grumpy bear. Being hot is not something that normally happens to me but man, shoes were sure making my feet feel very suffocated!

This past week was challenging for me. My emotions are starting to run overtime again. I'm starting to feel pretty tired, uncomfortable, and fat/heavy all of the time. Carrying around all this extra weight with Emma squashing my ribs makes breathing a laborious process lately! At SDSU, I usually park on the bottom floor of the parking structure and walk up the six flights of stairs to class. Well after walking up ONE flight and being out of breath, I opted to take the elevator the rest of the way. Pitiful, I know.

Sleeping....well, I miss sleeping. I am on a very routine "wake up every 90 minutes" for the bathroom already. This is a good time for me to switch which side I'm sleeping on since Emma's noggin makes sleeping on one side for too long pretty uncomfortable. Emma usually likes to wake up and play at my 2 am trip to the bathroom. I hope this is not a sign of things to come with my lil' nocturnal ball of fun! Maybe I've been reading too much of the "Twilight" series and Emma thinks playing at night is cool. =)

I wasn't planning on posting any of the pics from my 32 week ultrasound since it's kind of hard to tell what you're looking at. But after a few demands, here are a few. The top picture is a side view her leg and foot at the top. The arrow is pointing to her toes. The bottom two pictures are profile views of her scrunchy little face. The outline of her face is on the right and the nubs in the middle are arms/legs. The grayish blobs on top are the placenta. Hey, you asked, I said they were hard to tell what the heck you are looking at!



Larry went camping with some of the guys this weekend for his last trip away before the baby comes. I was trying not to be too bossy, but I demanded that he did not go anywhere that did not have cell phone reception after April 1st. It was nice to have some time to myself at home and enjoy the calm before the storm. I will be heading up to the Bay Area/ Los Banos this next weekend for Baby Shower #2 with my family before driving back down with my mom, who will be staying for the week to help wash baby clothes, put stuff away, etc. etc. It was such a beautiful day here yesterday so I had the grand plan of going to the beach to write my thank-you notes today, but it is gray, cold, and windy today so I'll probably just work on them curled up in a blanket instead.

Shower Pictures

I would like to dedicate this post to Jonathan Lui, Emma's uncle and my most avid blog follower. 

Here is the link for my shower pics but I just had to put my FAVORITE picture directly in here.

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbtG7Vm2csneg

Look at that 32 week belly! How am I 8 months along already!!?

Emma's Loot Fest

Yesterday I spent a glorious day at Emma's baby shower, hosted by my two best friends Andrea and Katie. I could not have asked for a more perfect day! Of course, and probably no surprise to anyone that knows me well, it made me a bit emotional to be surrounded by so many beautiful, strong women in my life that have influenced who I am in so many ways! To think of all of these women being in Emma's life as well made me overcome with emotions. She is going to be a very lucky girl. =) She made out like a bandit and will be the best dressed baby in San Diego. I could not help but oooh and aahhh over all of her adorable tiny outfits. Larry and I were also incredibly grateful for all of the baby gear we received to prepare for our princess. Her library has an amazing variety of new books that I can hardly wait to read to her at night.

As the weeks pass, I am getting more and more anxious to meet her, but I am certainly not ready for her to arrive yet! I am hoping that she is super calm and sleeps well tonight because she has been CRAZY busy all day today! Perhaps I should have opted for the decaf coffee this morning, but man, she has been moving and scooting all over the place today. It's weird when she moves so much....it's almost makes me feel like I have motion sickness. At least all the movement let's me know she is doing okay. I would like to go through the rest of this pregnancy with no more scares. I will post pics from the shower soon. A huge thanks to everyone that was there to celebrate the upcoming arrival of our baby! =)

Phew, small belly but perfect baby!

Well, all I can say is that fundal height (that measures from pubic bone to top of uterus) is just crap! At the ultrasound this morning they were able to estimate how many weeks/days Emma is by measuring her femur length, circumference of her belly, and circumference of her head. My little darling measured at 31 weeks, 6 days, which is EXACTLY what I am today. They estimate her weight at 4 to 4.5 pounds right now. Surprisingly enough, though, she was NOT sideways like she has been most of my pregnancy but she has turned head down. She is in an awkward funky cat position. Her head is down on the lower left side of my belly, her spine/back is on the right side of my belly button, and her feet/legs are on the left side of my belly button near her head. Unless of course she decides to stretch out and then her big ol feet are kicking me right under my boobs. In addition, my amniotic fluid levels were well within normal range, so there is nothing to worry about. I am soooooo relieved that my tummy is just small but I am not carrying a malnourished dwarf child, nor was I mistaken to think that I was peeing gallons when it was really amniotic fluid. I am glad to have received all this good news before my shower this weekend, so I can enjoy celebrating the upcoming arrival of my little bean with my closest friends! Speaking of which, I need to clean up this house and get off this dang computer now!

Ultrasound #3

I had my doctor's appointment today and will be going in on Thursday for yet another ultrasound. Because my belly is measuring small, they want to check Emma's size and the amniotic fluid level to make sure everything is okay. The height of my uterus is measuring 26 weeks, so since I am in my 31st week, this caused a bit of concern. I was also measuring at 26 weeks three weeks ago, which means the distance from my pubic bone to the top of my uterus has not changed. =( I was told that this could be because Emma is laying sideways (transverse), so while she may be growing, my belly just might not be popping out. She is still very active and her heartbeat was strong as always today. I am trying to be calm and not worry but the words "bed rest" and "preterm labor" certainly did not ease my nerves. Heaven forbid if I went through this pregnancy without any "glitches". Keep fingers crossed that all is well. Larry and I will be attending our first baby class tonight on "baby care basics", aka. diapers/bottles/feeding/sleeping/etc. Sounds like a good time to me baby, even though one of my students thought "Aw man, Mai-wee, how bo-wing and tewible that will be!" =)

Holy Crap, is that a foot?

Yesterday when I got home from work, I was sooooo exhausted that I decided to lay down on the couch and attempt to take a nap. I say attempt because my darling daughter decided to start kicking my side non-stop. I could see my shirt bouncing all over the place which was not conducive to taking a nap. I am still often fascinated by feeling and seeing her move around but I was highly disturbed when I lifted my shirt to see a FOOT on my left side. Seeing an Emma foot through my skin was freaky I tell ya! There was no "awww" in that experience!

Here are some week 31 belly photos (Don't worry, you can't see any random baby appendages!) =)

Pooey on Pregnancy Today!

I have loved being pregnant, except for today! I am so tired and feel incredibly fat and uncomfortable. My heartburn is a bitch today (really, why on earth should water give me heartburn!!?), my back is killing me from some sciatic nerve issue (at least that's what it seems like since the pain is shooting down my right leg), Emma has been karate kicking my ribs ALL day, I've had a headache since Sunday, and insomnia has led to many sleepless nights in a row. Of course all of this fat waddling around has tapped into my emotional side and I have been crying since I got home from work. =( I know things are just going to get progressively more uncomfortable for the next two months so I'm trying to be more optimistic right now, but it's really hard to be positive when I just feel like bleh! So we play kickball with the kids for PE everyday. It has been really irritating to pitch and field all of the balls. Really, it's ridiculous. I'm either going to start boycotting it or being rude an grumpy to people. There are plenty of adults to do it and no one seems to take the initiative to step in and let preggy sit down. Ugh. I need to go to bed early tonight and put Mrs. Grumpy away so I can start Friday the 13th with a better attitude.

Emma hiccups are funny!

At first I had no idea why my belly would start to visibly convulse through my shirt. According to all my preggy books, these twitches are baby hiccups, which Emma seems to get pretty frequently lately. My belly looks so spazzy when she gets them, but they sure are funny to watch! While my weekend was very productive, I did not do anything even remotely close to physically strenuous. Mentally draining, yes, but I did a lot of sitting on my butt and a lot of drinking water to keep those Braxton Hicks contractions away!

Catapult anyone?

Here we are in Week 30 already, with only 10 more weeks to go! This pregnancy is flying by quicker than I ever imagined. I certainly don't feel as far along as I am. I am especially excited that I can still see my feet and shave my own legs! =) I have been feeling good overall. Baby Emma is starting to prep me for motherhood via insomnia. I have had more trouble sleeping the past couple of weeks. Once I'm asleep, I seem to sleep pretty deeply (with the exception of those horrific dreams that I keep having). However, if I wake up for any reason, falling back to sleep has been a bitch. Now remember, I now have a growing baby compressing my bladder so I very happily wake up EVERY night at least once to go to the bathroom. These bouts of waking up often leave me lying awake in bed for hours. Then my brain works like crazy. It's rather annoying. I will hopefully have a better attitude about lack of sleep once my precious daughter is actually here. In the meantime, I will just have to deal with the increasing discomfort of sleeping and carrying around all this extra weight. Rolling over in bed is quite the arduous process.

My most endearing trait of third trimester pregnancy is my grunting to get in and out of the car. I never felt that my Civic was so low to the ground until recently. I definitely let out a fat lady grunt every time I get in and out of the car. So today I sat in the car for a few extra minutes, envisioning a wonderful switch next to the steering wheel that would function to sort of fling me out of the car when I needed to get out. A seat catapult would surely be a nice addition to my life right now. Trust me, the grunting is not very becoming!

Emma Scares Mommy

Here's the scoop on Baby Emma. I woke up around 5 this morning with some weird tightening in my stomach, better known as Braxton Hicks contractions. Supposedly these are "false labor" just to prepare the uterus for actually having the baby. I've had them before every once in awhile which is common. They are painless, just weird. Well this morning, I was having quite a few within an hour. Needless to say, as a first time mom, I sort of freaked out! A friend of mine experienced the same thing and I remember her saying the doc told her to drink lots of water. I chilled for the next two hours, drinking water like a camel. The contractions seemed to slow down but I called the doc anyways to be safe. They told me if I had four or more contractions per hour for two hours straight, then I needed to come into labor and delivery. They said most likely I did too much this weekend and didn't drink enough water with the increased temperatures, causing me to be dehydrated. Both of these are the leading causes of these contractions. Emma seems to have simmered down now. Just have to rest, drink LOTS of water, and monitor things today, but it seems as though she was just trying to give me a little scare! It is really hard as a first time mom to know when to be paranoid and when not to be! Larry and I have all these conversations about how we will parent and what not, but clearly lil' miss thang is letting us know already who is the boss!

Project Nursery Goes Hawaiian!

After several hours of work this weekend, we almost completed Emma's nursery. Walls are finished, crib and dresser are built and the hibiscus flowers are on the wall over her crib. The crib was a snap to build but the 45 step dresser took a bit longer! The fabric you see hanging over her crib is what Larry's mom will use to make a dust ruffle, window valence, and pillow for the rocking chair. If I ever get so inspired, I will make Emma a blanket for tummy time. =) Not 100% completed but I am soooo happy with how it looks so far! (And yes, we know the crib still needs a mattress!) ;)