37 week update - I'm full term!

Well I'm officially full term! What a milestone! This means my official due date is just 3 weeks away.... however.... the doc doesn't believe there's any chance I'll make it that long.

I've progressed very nicely in the last week and am up to 3 cm dilated, 90% effaced and baby is sitting at nearly 0 station. This means his head is at the neutral position and any lower and he'll be poking out. :) She was pretty impressed that as a first time mom that I've made such great progress. I have my mom to thank for that as she, too, went early and fast.

When I asked how long I had, I got the canned "it's hard to say" response. But when Dave mentioned that we have a pool going at work, she immediately interrupted "well if that's the case, my money is on 4/4." That's right-- one week from today!

I'm definitely physically ready but am obviously still nervous about his arrival. We just can't wait to meet him! Hard to believe it's so close now!

A quick update - 36 weeks

Just a quick update... whole family is sick (dogs included), so I need to get back to resting.

We are doing weekly doctor appointments now and we had our 36 week check-up today. They did the fun Strep B test (for which 25% of women are carriers-- results to come later this week) as well as checked my progress. Blood pressure was initially high (140+) but after they had me lie down for awhile, it went back down to mid 110s. Phew. Baby is doing great and I'm measuring right on track. AND, I'm progressing already. Currently almost 2 cm and 80% effaced and baby is at -1 station. Those who are recent moms or just have awesome memories will know what all that means. Basically we're shooting for 10 cm and 100% before baby can come out! Still no telling when he'll make his debut!

That's all for now...

Maternity Portraits by 211

Last week we had our maternity shoot with 211 Photography. It's the first of 5 sessions we'll do with him over the next year. There were so many great ones that it was hard to pick our favs! Here are a few samples:

Maternity Pictures by my amazing hubby!

My awesome hubby took me out to our neighborhood park this weekend to take a few maternity pictures. They say that 32-34 weeks is the best time and seeing as I'm days away from the 34 mark, it seemed like a good time!

Dave did a really nice job with our new lens. I thought they turned out pretty cute! Of course, Thumper makes every picture cute!

I think it's so neat that someday we'll be able to sit down with him and explain to him that he was inside mommy's belly.

It's amazing to see how much bigger I have gotten-- I've almost forgotten how small I was before I was pregnant. It's all for a good cause though right? :)

You can see more of the pictures on our Picasa site-- the link is off to the right under Bookmarks -or- you can just click on the Our Family picture on the right.

A New Toy?

Been awhile since I posted a "video of the week." Here's a cute one of Sequoia discovering one of Thumper's new toys (his bouncer):

Minor Scare

I've been lucky to this point in that I've had absolutely no signs of puffiness or swelling. Being 33 weeks, this is rather lucky I hear. After standing at a work meeting Weds for almost an hour (I got there late and surprisingly, no one offered me their seat), I had some sudden swelling. My shins were hurting like they did when I was a gymnast (shin splints) and my calves and ankles were seriously the size of grapefruits. I immediately elevated them and Dave massaged them. But after over 12 hours of elevation, the swelling still hadn't gone down a ton. I called the doctor the next day and they had me get my blood pressure checked. It had gone up to 126. This is considered normal for most, but with my pregnancy BPs typically falling in the low 110s, the doc wanted me to go on bed rest for the remainder of the day. [Their concern is preeclampsia]. I went home from work early and spent the rest of the day in bed. [Boring!]. Swelling went down quite a bit and seems to remain at a tolerable level when I've got my feet elevated. After running a few errands yesterday, the shin splints and swelling returned. So I'm to take it very easy until I go back to the doctor this coming Friday.

Ugh! Please pray that this is not the early signs of preeclampsia!

On a happier note, Thumper is doing great (even if mom is battling swelling, fatigue and sciatic nerve pain). He's still super active although his kicks and jabs are now more rolls and waves. Less room will do that I suppose. Here's a fun video of him:

Baby Shower!

My friends Cat, Rachel, and Charity threw me such a perfect baby shower this past weekend. They took the rockets theme of our nursery and really ran with it! There were star and moon filled trays of delicious gourmet food, there were moon pies for dessert and cute little cupcakes that said "Beth is over the moon excited!"

Rebecca hand-made this cute bunny and rocket blankie!

Rachel made a really cute three layer diaper cake with a rocket on-top and Charity even hand-sewed fabric banners to go with all the streamers and balloons!

We played the "name game" where I scored a fantastic 1 out of 15 (I got my name right!). Cat won with over 7 correct I believe.

After opening a ton of gifts (all of my friends were overly generous and thoughtful for our little boy!), the ladies all made pages for a baby book for us. I really can't wait to see the final result! It was such a great idea and I will really appreciate only having to pop pictures in when time becomes a serious delicacy!

I had such a wonderful time and I'm so thankful to have such great friends!

How much farther?

Not going to lie, walking was much easier 8 months ago. Especially long distances. Our weather has been so nice (mid 60s and sunny) and we just couldn't pass up the opportunity to take the girls out for a nice stroll.

We started at the dog park at Chatfield SP (the one by our house) and walked all the way to Aspen Grove along the Platte River. Dave had himself convinced (from the hundreds of times he's biked this route) that it was only 3/4 of a mile or so. That seemed like a good half way point for my bladder, so we committed to that.

Two miles later (and one very uncomfortable Beth!), we made it to the restrooms. Not only were there 100's of walkers, bikers, etc out today; we happened to run into our friends Sarah and Alex JUST as we made it to restrooms. Seconds later, Dave's running buddy (and my coworker), Chris showed up! What are the odds?

After chatting with them for awhile (a nice break!), we made the 2 mile trek back to our car. We made it just in time as the sun went down. It was a fun walk even though I may have over done it just a bit. Not many more of these left where I'm carrying and not pushing baby!

Super Bowl XLV Champs!

After waiting nearly half my life for the Packers to make it back to the Super Bowl, both Dave and I were roaring and ready to cheer on Green Bay in this years Super Bowl.

Since it's a given that Thumper will be a Green Bay fan at least until he's old enough to rebel against us, I opted to decorate one of my maternity shirts with "Cheesehead on Board" (over using face paints on my tummy...). It turned out really well and I give credit to our little boy for the win! It was a nail biter and definitely raised my blood pressure, but it was a great game. Dave even did his famous happy dance! And best of all, the stress and excitement didn't send me into labor. Phew...

Fun Scan - Video

Here's a low-quality version of our Fun Scan. I couldn't make it great quality without exceeding file size constraints, so if you want to see it in high quality, email me and I'll send you a link to download the file. Hopefully you can still get the just of it.

Note: it's a 20 minute video!

Enjoy!

Fun Scan!

Yesterday we had our 3D/4D Fun Scan. It's a 30 minute ultrasound all in 3D (the 4D is time). We got quite a few good pictures and a nice video out of it. The quality of our pictures aren't as good as they could be because of the location of my placenta (tummy-side), but you can still see his features well! Here are a few of our favorite snapshots:

I think that's a smile there! In front of his mouth is the cord. At one point, he held on to the cord!

I love this one with his left hand to his mouth. I should also mention that she measured his feet because we were curious how big they were. Hard to believe, but they measure 7 cm (about 2.8 inches) already!

He was having fun with us-- he kept sticking his tongue out at us! Our tech kept chuckling; she doesn't normally get to see a baby do that as much as our boy did!

And one of him sucking his thumb... again with his left hand.

We think he's quite the cutie!

Baby Shoe Update - 28 weeks

Well we are into the 3rd trimester already (!!) and getting closer to seeing baby every day! I'm currently 28 1/2 weeks (37 weeks is full term; due date of 4/19/11 is 40 weeks). While we had a wee-little-scare earlier this week that sent us in for a NST, everything is looking great with baby.

Today was my follow-up ultrasound and I was ruled "cleared" of the previa issue from two months ago. Baby is still a boy and he's measuring 3 lbs 2 oz (that's the 70th percentile). So he's a chubby little guy with a rapidly decreasing amount of space to play in.

I'm enjoying all of his kicks and jabs-- he's going to have strong legs I think! Dave thinks he's got his nose and mouth. What do you think? (picture below is Dave at birth)

Rockets everywhere!

My parents spent an insane amount of time making decorations for baby Shoe's nursery. They took our rocket crib set and made a set of 3 wall art hangings-- one of which says "Moon and stars up in the sky with rocket ships that go so high!" My mom hand stitched each and every detail of these. Amazing!

My mom and dad took an old lamp and turned it into a really fun rocket lamp! They made a wood model rocket and hand painted it to match the nursery rockets and mounted it with a wooden moon and stars to the base of the lamp. It's so cute!

Finally, my mom took a electronic mobile from Babies'r'us (ironically, one that has a star/moon projector on it!) and removed the mobile items and replaced them with handmade rockets, moons, stars, and clouds. I know she spent an insane amount of time hand making each of these hanging items. The final product is PERFECT! The mobile itself is so nice in that it has many types of sounds, a night time projector of stars and moons, and even has a remote so we can turn it on/off without waking baby.

These items totally make the nursery and we're so thankful of all my parents effort to make it extra special for baby Shoe! We're not quite done yet, but it's definitely starting to look and feel more like a babies' room! We're excited!

Extreme Makeover: Nursery Edition

Dave spent all weekend painting what will be baby boy Shoemaker's nursery. Here are a few snapshots showing the progress:

BEFORE: this room served as 1 of 3 guestrooms. Didn't get much use unless we had a whole house full of company!

The walls have been primed and the first coat of potpourri green is going on the wall (one of Pottery Barn's 2010 colors of the year by Benjamin Moore).

Walls have been painted... time to move in furniture!

The crib and dresser. The changing table is to the right of the crib. The room isn't huge, but baby won't be either!

We've got LOTS of decorating to do (the fun part for me!), walls to fill, and accessories to buy. But I thought you would like to see the progress we've made thus far! Enjoy.

IT'S A.....

BOY!!

That's right-- we are expecting a baby boy this April! We had our big ultrasound this week and almost instantly, the tech called it. As most of you know, I had my money on a girl and Dave had his bets on a boy.

The ultrasound lasted an entire hour-- our tech (who is absolutely phenomenal by the way) checked every organ, limb, bone, etc. you could list. She took measurements of the brain, the arms, legs, toes and fingers. She counted all four chambers of the heart (at which point I said "and how many should he have?" -- haha, okay I don't know how I passed biology!). Baby is 100% healthy and measuring right on track. His heart rate was 150 bpm. She said he's quite the active little fellow. With as many 1000s of these scans that she has done, I asked her if she could ever deduce personality characteristics. She said definitely. So naturally I asked what traits our boy showed. Her reply: "well, he's definitely going to be rambonxious, somewhat non-complaint, and a little stubborn." Sure sounds like a Dave+Beth product! :)

After she did all the formal characterization of his anatomy, she inserted a DVD for recording, switched to a more wide-field transducer and began the entertainment portion of the show. She showed us a great view proving baby is a boy as well as did a few 3D blurbs of his face. He really likes to put his hands by his face, so it wasn't easy for her to get a clear shot, but she did! Whenever she couldn't get baby to cooperate, she'd tap rapidly on my belly to get him to change positions. It was quite funny albeit annoying for baby!

We are just so thrilled to have a healthy baby with 10 fingers and 10 toes. It's a huge bonus that our first will be a little boy. He is already so loved!