Valentine's Day was yesterday and it was AWESOME. Me and Mike went to Dana Point for breakfast (Harbor Grille Sunday Brunch, I HIGHLY recommend it. We both do.) It was FANTASTIC, one of the best breakfasts I've ever had. We walked around a bit, he bought me some very needed sunglasses, then we went home. We rested for a little while, I napped a bit, he played his video games, then we went to dinner with Michelle and Chris to Benihana's. Mike and I had never been there before, it was good! I loved their salad dressing, omg... so yummy.

We took pictures the day before... Sarah took them and they turned out wonderful! There's a photo album for them if you go to the photos page.

So ready to have this little guy!!! 38 weeks now.. I'm going crazy. :P I'm ready to start doing what Michelle did at 9 mos, lol.

I had my 37w doctor appointment on Wednesday, and had a cervix check. nothingggg other than my baby being head down face down, that's the ONLY progress so far. fine. he said "now we just get to play the waiting game... hang in there!" and i say thanks, see ya next week.

fast forward to yesterday... it's my little brother's birthday (i cant believe he's 11 already, i feel old.) so we go to Disneyland from like 1-6p then meet up at Dave n Busters again at 7:30 for dinner. I did a LOT of walking. I didnt push myself at all, and I was leaning on my nephew's stroller the entire time, moving slow, just keeping moving and all that. had lots of rest time too, since i didnt go on any rides (doesnt bother me, no worries). All I can say is, if your baby hasnt dropped yet, go walk around at disneyland... jiminy crickets (lol) i'll be damned if he didnt drop yesterday! so yay on that!! but on the downside, is him dropping supposed to be some of the worst pain/pressure i've ever felt in my life (never having experienced childbirth yet, lol)??? because it hurts to moooooove so bad right now. it's not like a stabbing pain or a "i think baby's in danger" pain, it's more like "i'm a wuss" pain. he's still active and moving and everything, it just HURTS when i walk or sit or stand or roll over and i'm so friggin uncomfortable. so uncomfortable that i only got up ONE time to go to the bathroom last night. i refused to do it again after that til i was up for the morning, haha.

so, today i'll be experiencing little movement because it hurts, and when i do move, i'll be full of "ow ow ow ow ow damnit ow ow ow" haha

SOOooOOOoooo i've had an eventful last couple of weeks.

Last week was spent getting ready (me and my house) for my baby shower. It went well, but i absofrigginlutely HATE how i turned out in, like, ALL of the pictures. But, they're all I have, so I posted them anyways. If you want to see them, here they are: My Baby Shower
It's crazy, I was so excited and anxious for my shower, but literally as soon as it started, all I wanted to do was go back home and take a nap :( I was soo exhausted, i barely ate anything, there were so many people.... it turned out really well though, my sister did a great job :) so grateful for her!!

Now my house is overrun with baby things! The nursery went from 99% empty to 99% full in the matter of an hour. I went through ALL the clothes and have them separated by color ready to go in the wash, but I don't have a dresser/place for the clothes yet, so I dont want to wash. OK QUESTION: i prefer to wash everything in cold water, because things tend to shrink less, colors run less, and hey, it saves the money... a lot of labels said to wash in warm water w/like colors (duh) but is it really gonna matter if i wash in cold? i have dreft by the way. I obviously CAN wash in warm water, i just was curious if it really really matters!?!

This morning I was finishing some sorting... i turned around, forgetting there was a laundry basket behind me, aaand i fell. :/ i fell front-ways, but i landed on my hands and knees, my belly BARELY touched the floor after my armies broke my fall. I mildly freaked out and cried a little bit, i had a minor contraction for just a little while, then he started kicking and moving and doing his thing (he moves a LOT), so i figured he was fine. I went to the bathroom a few (hundred) times and had no spotting or anything weird go on, so another vote of confidence my way.

This afternoon I had my 36 week check up and was swabbed for the group B strep... i guess i'll find out next week if i have it or not? I told my doc about the fall, he asked the questions, and i was told everything sounds just fine. he did a quick ultrasound to check bebe's position, he's head down, butt up, long and lean, perfectly ROUND head (his face was down so i couldnt see it), and a good strong heartbeat... i cant wait to meet this little guy. i'm soooo ready.

it feels like my elvis is going to explode. yes i said elvis. because i dont like the word pelvis, lol. my hips are killing me, my elvis has tons of pressure, and i feel ridiculously bloated, like right before my period. not crampy, just BLOATED. like a friggin whale. so fat. hahah

I went shopping today and got EVERYTHING i need for my hospital bag and all that... the hubs wants me to be completely READY by 37wks, *just in case*... i hope he comes sooner rather than later, but either way i'm glad he's got me all prepared, better to be safe than sorry! :)

hahahaha I definitely just felt Archer's butt for the first time through my belly. I LOVE this because I felt Connor's butt through Michelle's belly around the same time with her, and it thoroughly amused me. Baby butt!!!!! :D

Also, nesting is a mean trick by nature. I've been attempting to 'nest', especially before the shower this Saturday, and the whole having to stop every 5-10-15 minutes does NOT make cleaning and nesting very easy at all! UGH!

A funny thing just happened... Archer was pushing his foot up in my chest, so i put my fingers there to kind of block him. I didnt push down, i just blocked him. He eased off, tried pushing again, my hand was still there, so he moved his foot around to the other side of my hand and pushed there instead. I laughed and called him a punk, and moved my hand, and now he's doing an Irish jig upside down into my chest, cause he CAN.. lol, silly baby...

and I'm 35 weeks today!! I completely cannot believe it at all! It happened soo so fast, and my baby shower is this weekend!! SO EXCITED!!!!

I went in today for my first round of fetal monitoring, after my crazy night in the hospital last Wednesday.

My blood pressure is fantastic, my pee check came out great, and I have 10cm of amniotic fluid right now :) So far, so good, I have an appointment scheduled for this Thursday afternoon to go back to the hospital for monitoring, but I also have an OB appt on Thursday morning, and he'll tell me whether I actually do have to go to the monitoring that afternoon.

Oh, and they had to do a test to make sure his heart rate went up when he moved, so they apparently had to scare the HELL out of him! The super nice u/s tech came in and was like "okay, I need to make sure his heart rate goes up when he moves. This--" (and she held up something which resembled the waterproof money holder necklaces you would wear to the pool or beach as a kid) "--is going to make a little noise, it's not going to hurt him and you wont feel it, but he should move pretty good from it." so I say "alrighty" and she sticks it at my belly, and this weird vibrating noise was emitted, and my poor, relaxed, completely unsuspecting baby got scared out of his skin and flipped out! I felt horrible, but I laughed because it was so shocking. she only held it to me for a couple seconds and he moved right away and she got the perfect text-book response she was looking for, but I'm like "holy shit, was that okay?!" "oh yeah, perfect!" after I left the hospital I spent the 20 minutes drive home talking to him and apologizing for scaring him and that mommy loves him, lol.

Well yesterday was definitely unexpected.

On Saturday, I started feeling nauseous, and I think it spurred from eating something not-so-savory. Around 6p or 7p I started feeling worse and worse, then, at 11ish, a horrible thing happened... I got sick (threw up) for the first time in over 10 years. 10 years!! So not only is my body going through major massive changes, it is now dealing with the horrible feeling of using muscles I haven't used in so long. After getting sick, I did feel much better, but my body was thrashed. The baby moves SO MUCH, so that the time I should have had to recover, my stomach and other muscles were getting poked and rolled on and kicked and abused.

I stayed nauseous for about 3 days. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, Monday I ended up calling my doctor, because I was still nauseous, but was also starting to get a tight abdomen/sore abdomen with light to moderate walking. Basically, if I'd walk, say, around a shopping mall, even superslow, my belly would start to get tight, like contractions I suppose. And if I didn't stop walking or just would leave and go to my car, it would turn into a soreness above the tightness.

When I called, they moved my appointment up a day to Wednesday, and offered to call me in a prescription for some nausea medication. I decided to not do the meds and just wait til Wednesday, or at least Tuesday, to see if I was feeling any better.

Tuesday morning around 4:30a I woke up completely and totally STARVING. The first time I had felt legitimately hungry since Saturday morning or Friday night. From Saturday til Monday, I was forcing myself to eat small things here and there, but never anything really substantial because I'd be hit with a horrendous wave of nausea. I got up and had a piece of toast, then went back to bed. I ate a little better throughout the day, and ended up going out with the hubs to eat some lovely Corner Bakery ravioli and salad. It was so good after not eating for so long!!

Wednesday was my doctor day. My appointment was set for 12:30p. I got there about 15mins early cause I had nothing better to do... turns out I ended up waiting until 2:15 to even be taken back to the room! I saw the doc, and found out my blood pressure was high when they took it. 140/90. I've always been 120/70 pretty much every visit, never going high, never going low, always right on spot, so they were a bit concerned. He had me lay on my left side for about 5 mins, then he did a retake of the blood pressure. 140/80. Better, but not great. Also, when they tested my urine, it came back negative, so they weren't worried about that. He gave me some orders to go have my blood drawn at Quest Diagnostics, and told me to go straight from his office to there, so I did. I was pleasantly surprised there.

I got to Quest Diagnostics around 2:35, with a waiting room full of people, of course. And me, being a walk in patient, I thought it was going to be at least another hour waiting in there. OH JOY. So I went to the sign in area and asked how long it was going to be, she said 15-20mins, and I let her know I came straight from my doctors office and just had to had some blood drawn quick and it would be great if I could get out of their way pretty quick. She said "let me see your forms and I'll call you up in a second." I got sent back, blood drawn, and out of there, within 5 minutes, it was so great! But by that time, it was pretty late in the afternoon and I had to get going to pick my hubby up from work. (We share 1 car right now).

I got there around 4:10p and was just parked hanging out and all that, waiting for him. While I was there, around 4:30p, I got hit with a wave of dizzy/light-headedness. My vision was NOT blurred or distorted or anything, I just got really light-headed. I called the doc office, to be safe rather than sorry. The nurses told me to sip on some water and relax for 15 mins and call them back letting them know how I was doing. I did that. After 15 minutes, it definitely didn't get worse, but it really didn't get any better. The nurse had me on hold for a second to talk with the doc, then she came back and said he wanted me to go to Labor&Delivery, since I had the elevated blood pressure, and the dizziness wasn't going away.

Slightly surprised, I didn't think I'd be going there for quiiiiiite some time! Hubby and I got to the hospital about an hour later (yay 5:00p rush hour traffic!), they were expecting us. They checked me in, had me in a room, and hooked up to an external fetal monitor within 10 mins. When they checked my blood pressure, it had gone down (barely) to 140/78. That was still too high, so I left another urine sample for them. They said it came back with a teeny tiny slight trace of proteins, but nothing uncommon for a pregnant woman to have. They said it was very very slight, and that wasn't concerning them at all. They took more blood from me to run their tests. The results came in about a hour or so later. I had a high white blood cell count, signaling an infection (I was sick on Saturday, that could explain that.), and trace liver enzymes were coming back, signalling Pre-Eclampsia, or Pregnancy Induced Hypertension. So, with those two, plus my elevated blood pressure, they decided they wanted to keep me overnight for observation. The hubs got to stay with me, thank GOD. I'd never stayed in a hospital before, so I was very glad to have him there with me.

I had the external fetal monitor on me the ENTIRE time I was there, keeping an eye on baby. Everyone that came in and checked him said he was doing phenomenal and appeared to be doing fantastic, so there was no concern for him at that point, it was all just preventative observation being done on me.

My doctor was actually in the hospital today so he was to see me in the morning and let me know how things were going.

I got woken up about 4 times throughout the night, after going to bed around 12:30-1a. The first two times, it was to adjust the external fetal monitors, cause the baby is just a roly poly and loves to move. The third time was to refil the paper in the monitor. The fourth time was to have my blood redrawn at 6:20a. So, not the greatest night sleep by far, but I'm sure it could have been a lot worse.

The tests came back better. My white blood cell count had gone down, and my liver enzymes went way down. They had me tracking how much I was peeing throughout the night/morning, and I was doing a good job in that department, apparently. My doctor came in to talk to me around 8, let me know how the tests came out, and said he was waiting on my white blood cell count (that was the last result to come back), but that I was looking to be a lot better and would probably be released today and be home on bed-rest soon. He came back in at 10, told me it was great, and that he would get a nurse in to discharge me and all that.

I ended up having lunch in my room (honestly, the hospital I'm at has some of the best food EVER, as far as hospital food is concerned, I'm totally fine with eating there!), my nurse got pulled into a birth, so she was delayed in getting to me. Another nurse ended up coming in to release me, and was very nice about it, apologizing profusely for the mix-up, of course it was alright, I just couldn't wait to get home at this point.

She rechecked my vitals before she released me, and my blood pressure was down to 115/58! Talk about some good news. Everything was going back to normal.

My doctor told me he wanted me on good bed-rest with very limited activity (which is easy, I don't work, thankfully.), and to go back to the hospital twice a week for monitoring. I got my first appointment made for the monitoring at 9:00a on Monday morning.

I'm so so glad to be home, so thankful that my baby is safe and well, that I am a lot better than yesterday, and so grateful for all the support I got from my husband and my family and friends. I never realized I had so many people who cared until I got put in peril! My sister came and stayed with me and my hubby til about 11p. She stayed with me while hubs ran home to feed the cat and get us a few things for our unexpected stay. Even my grandmother in Texas called me at 12:30a her time to let me know she was praying for me and baby to be safe and get better... how sweet is that!? :)

And, just so everyone knows, I had absolutely zero complications in my pregnancy so far... not even a hint of morning sickness or nausea at the beginning. I definitely didn't think anything like this was going to happen, but I'm so glad I called my doctors office, just to make sure. I'm not excited about having to stay at the hospital overnight and all that, but I'm so glad I was being taken care of swiftly and soundly. All I can say is, if you have any unsure feelings, TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS. If something doesn't feel right, chances are, it isn't right. It's much easier to be safe than it is to be sorry.

A couple things have happened since my last post...

Glucose Test - I didn't pass the first one. My doctor's 'cut-off' from OK to HIGH is 130, and I scored a 136. 6 points over!!! I was so upset. I really think it's because I ate a big bowl of fruit loops before I fasted. DUH MELODY! Anyways, when I talked to the doctor about it, he said I'd have to take the 3 hour test. I did NOT want to do that! Not even a little bit!! I asked if there was anything else I could do... he said the breakfast test. I fast the night before, go in and get blood drawn, go eat a 'normal' breakfast, and come back 2 hours after my last bite for another blood draw. So I did that one.... AND PASSED! I scored an 84! I can't tell you how excited I was to hear that. Seriously. SO EXCITED! I'm so happy I passed. Not just because I didn't have to take the 3 hour test, but because that means I won't get Gestational Diabetes. That would have been really really bad.

Nesting - I'm not really doing it anymore than I did before I was pregnant, lol. Mike has been nesting like crazy though! It's adorable. I think it's because I have such a hard time moving around now. I try and do what I can, but getting up, bending down, walking around, it all makes me really light headed, and my foot HURTS more than anything on my body. I could mention my back too... that hasn't been very nice to me lately. But Mike is just perfect and amazing and ready for his son to get here! I think the anticipation is really starting to get to him :P He's been having crazy dreams of being the uber protector of the family, and he is pretty intrigued by my big ol' pregnant belly, haha. It's his family wrapped into one nice neat little package, lol.

3D/4D Ultrasound - YEP! On Saturday, Dec 19th, we got the 3D ultrasound. It didn't turn out the best and I'm slightly frustrated about it. The place we went has some pretty old machines, and I think it diminishes the quality of the video/pics... though they always claim it's because the baby is "behind the placenta"... which I don't think is true. I have a good friend that's an ultrasound tech and does this for a living (pregnancy ultrasounds), and I think Mike and I may go to see her next weekend... get some good images of out bebe :) You know though, even with the not-so-great images, we still got to see our boy and he is absolutely adorable. He looks like a good mix of me and Mike :) I am so smitten with this little boy, I can't wait til I get to really meet him and hold him!!!

We went on a tour of Hoag Hospital on Dec 13th, and I must say, I'm pretty stoked. The day is approaching fast (though I don't know what day it will be!), and our baby will be here before we know it!

I have 10 weeks left til he is here. 10 WEEKS! That means next week we will be in single digits of weeks. This is insane. It feels like yesterday I read the test and I yelled to Mike asking him to get the box insert because I thought I was reading the test wrong. I remember bawling my eyes out when we found out I was pregnant. (happy cry, totally a happy cry). We tried for so long.... and even though it was "so long" to us, I know there are others in the world who have been trying for years and years and years... it only took us 3.5 years to get it right :) We found out we were going to be parents on July 2, 2009, and we will be parents around March 1, 2010. It's amazing to me.

My sister is planning my baby shower and has finally 'finished' the invitations. She's waiting for one more thing before she sends them out... but my shower is going to be on January 30th... That's coming fast too!!! I can't wait to see everyone before I have the baby. It's gonna be a lot of fun :)

I am now seeing the doctor every two weeks starting tomorrow, and when I hit 36 weeks I'll be seeing him once a week!! I put together a birthing plan that I hope to go over tomorrow with him... I figured since we haven't talked about it really at all, that bringing it up sooner rather than later would be a good idea, especially if, God forbid, anything happens and I have the baby before 38 weeks. We are hoping and praying that this birth can be as natural as possible. I *KNOW* people think I'm crazy for it, but I really think I can do it and I'd like to at least take the option. I'm not stupid, I know it's going to hurt, but I would like to try to do something that my body was made for. My body was not made to go through an AMAZING pregnancy, grow this child inside me, only to get drugs pumped into me to 'help' me have this baby. He is mine and my husbands, we will do this together, he will help me, and I will bring this baby into the world, happy, healthy, and absolutely adorable and 100% loved :) I just need to make sure my doctor is aware of that!!!

So yeah, a LOT has happened in the last month, and I am so anxious and excited for our son to arrive. There isn't a better present in the world <3

Merry Christmas to everyone, if I don't talk to you before!!


Love,
Melody

So, by the title, you can see that I theoretically have 11 weeks and 4 days left of this pregnancy. We are going to meet our baby in 11 1/2 weeks. I AM SO EXCITED!! and still, I can't help but be a little freaked out, thinking we're not ready. Honestly though, regardless of all the preparation in the world, I don't think anyone is truly ready for their first baby... You can read all the books, google to your hearts content, talk to everyone you know who's had babies, get as much perspective as you want, paint the nursery, set up all the furniture, buy and wash all the clothes, get your bags packed for the hospital, but you're still not ready. It's probably going to be one of the scariest things I've ever had to face, but at least I'll have my amazing and wonderful husband with me every step of the way. He's really the one person keeping me stable through everything. Mike is probably more prepared for this baby than I am!!

I'm having fun watching Archer move in my belly every day. I'm getting pretty used to him being in there, I kind of don't want these last few weeks to pass by as fast as I know they're going to.

We are touring Hoag Hospital this Sunday, and next Saturday we're getting the 3D ultrasound done... I'm so excited to see him one last time before he comes into this world.

In 4 months, we'll have a baby here with us for the rest of our lives! How insane!!!

So I took my 1 hr glucose test this morning. It really wasn't as bad as I anticipated it to be, so that was good... but the drink was this funky tasting lemon-lime water. It wasn't carbonated even a little bit, and it was NOT thick (thank god). It was like those off-brand flavored waters... I'm just glad it wasn't like raspberry or something. It was like that fake sweet taste that just wasn't right. At first I was like "oh hey, not so bad" then about halfway done, my throat didn't want to assist in the drinking process, it was too sweet, haha. So it hurt my throat (may have been that heartburn has decided to finally kick in full force over the last week), but I just chugged it out of the way. After being done for about 5 minutes, I got a wonderful headache right in the front where my "third eye" is. Ya know, between and above my eyebrows... that wasn't fun at all. And about 5 mins after that, the bebe wasn't enjoying the sugar-rush. I felt bad because I had to fast, so when I woke up, I was STARVING but I couldn't eat, so we decided to go to Quest Diagnostics earlier than my appt. it got it out of the way about 10 minutes faster.. but I knew the baby was hungry because I was so starving, and I had to wait and wait. The headache stayed through most of the hour, turned into what appeared to be a tiny migraine. It didn't hurt as bad as a migraine does, but I was sensitive to the fluorescent lights and I just wanted to close my eyes and sleep... so instead I closed my eyes and rested on the hubs. (yea I made him go with, just in case.) I'm really glad he went, because the hour went by in what seemed like 20 minutes, so that was good. After the hour passed, I got two vials of blood drawn, then I went home and friggin' ATE. haha I was so hungry!!

...And here I am 4.5 hours later doin pretty good!!

I really really hope I pass, i don't want to do a 3 hour test! Doesn't sound fun in the slightest.

On a side note completely off-topic, is it just me, or does KFC put crack in their gravy? Seriously... this stuff is good.