A Quick Thanks and Update!

Hello all, Matt here... it's time for another update!

This has been quite a busy week! Last Saturday was Melissa's shower thrown by her mother, on Thursday my office threw us a shower, and yesterday was the shower thrown by my mom... at this point the baby certainly has everything he/or she will need!

First, a few pictures:

Melissa Opening Some Gifts

The cake, made by Joan's Cake Chateau

Our cats moe. and Stormy seem to think a lot of the new stuff is for them, as seen in this picture!

Melissa and our current baby moe. (who doesn't look too happy here!)

The nursery at the moment, now all it needs is a baby!

I also want to give a quick thank you to all of you who attended the showers or gave us something for the baby... beyond just the gifts, we're truly blessed to have family and friends as caring and generous as you all. You know who you are, and you'll obviously be getting a more personalized thank you, but I just wanted to get a general thanks out there until then!

Also, a big thank you to my mom, Shirley, and the people at my office for hosting the showers... I know you all put in a lot of work and we appreciate it more than words on a blog can express!

Melissa wants to post something quick as well, so here she is:

Matt already did a great job expressing how thankful we are for all of the wonderful baby gifts we've received, but I just wanted to double the thanks. In addition to all of the "bigger" gifts, I really want to thank everyone for the books for the baby. The gift of literature is something that the baby will be able to appreciate long after he/she outgrows diapers and onesies. I can't wait to start reading with him/her! Thank you so much!

I also want to thank both of the moms for hosting absolutely beautiful showers for me. It was great to see so many family members all gathered together and to hear so many other birth and pregnancy memories from the other moms in the family - and most of all it makes me even more excited to soon be a mom myself!

32 Weeks

I actually haven't posted in awhile now so it's time for some updates! Just to quickly recap my last week on nights was a hectic mess of sickness and mass admissions each night. Just to say I was sick during my last week of nights is an understatement. I was so miserable with a GI bug that I couldn't eat or drink anything for about 3 days and my body hurt so badly just moving from the couch to the bathroom made me want to cry. Regardless, I had to work through it and I think my final Sunday 24 hour call really drove the nail into the coffin - by the time I went to the doctor's for a routine visit the following Tuesday I was down 4lbs, was dehydrated, and had ketones in my urine. The nurse practitioner I saw said that if I couldn't promise to drink copious amounts of water and gatorade over the next 24 hours I needed IV fluids. Luckily, I was feeling well enough that I could accomplish that and avoided becoming a patient myself. I have to follow-up for a weight check with them tomorrow, but according to my home scale I'm back to where I was and my appetite is finally back as well. Crisis averted!

In terms of the baby, he/she is just about to reach the 32 week mark. Despite my health at the doctor's visit, the baby's heart rate was completely normal and he/she has continued to be very active. At 32 weeks the baby should weight between 3.5 - 4 lbs and is likely 16-17 inches long. He/she also has formed finger and toenails now and should have some real hair. The real goal for the baby during the next two months is just to pack on the pounds as everything else is fairly developed and birth ready. By NICU standards 34 weeks is ready for birth, by normal pediatric standards we like 37 weeks.

At this stage I do feel as if the baby has oriented themselves in some type of up and down position rather than just floating around free as the kicks are usually oriented as such. In other words, I'll feel something right up under my rib cage and down around my pelvic bones at the same time. Despite how often and how vigorously I feel the baby moving, he/she apparently really doesn't like to "show off" for others as Matt will sit next to me and put his hand on my belly for a long time when I tell him the baby is moving and he/she will stop completely until 5 seconds after he gives up.

In terms of how I am doing, I feel great to be off nights. The reflux has gotten better with a normalized eating scheduled and I feel almost like a normal person during the day. I basically just "feel pregnant" at night when I allow myself to slow down. My legs ache, my belly feels full, and my body is ready for bed by 10pm regardless of how much I WANT to stay awake. I am getting up at 5:30am though, so I guess that any normal person would feel tired, but I'm used to being able to function on less sleep at baseline, so this is strange to me.

Anyway, I think that's it! Stay tuned for more frequent updates as there is baby shower excitingness starting up which will allow us to really dig into preping for the baby!