A Step Ahead

So at the doctor’s office today, I had a good bit of news. Even though I’m only going to be 38 weeks tomorrow, we’re measuring 39 and a half weeks. So Aidan’s either going to come soon or he’s going to be born REALLY big.  According to my dear Mom-in-law, he’s not allowed to come until Sunday afternoon-  she jokingly said she  has alot of work to get done. So I’ve notified Aidan  of his time clock  and he’s agreed to hold his horses until sometime after Sunday afternoon. At the doctor’s office today, they did an exam to see if I was dilated at all and she said no. I asked if that meant anything in relation to how much longer it would be until he was born. Her answer really helped clear things up:

“Well, it really doesn’t mean anything. You could wake up in full labor tomorrow morning or you could carry him for another three weeks. (even though we only have two left.) Since it’s your second baby, your body doesn’t prepare as far in advance as it does with your first child. So don’t be excited or disappointed. There’s really no way of knowing either way.”

Me: “Gee Doc… Thanks. That… helps.”

  Either way, I’m glad to know he’s a nice healthy size. I want a cute chubby little boy so I can pinch his widdle cheekies.  (Somebody get this hormonal crazy pregnant lady out of me please.) I’m afraid the crazy pregnant lady let her wrath shine upon the poor employees of Wendy’s tonight.  God help them, they forgot my fries. That just does NOT make her a happy preggo crazy lady. I stand inside my head, watching her as she whirls through the drive-thru a second time and argues with the manager who insists she did NOT order fries. The crazy pregnant lady in me grabbed the receipt and would have shoved it down his throat for proof but  she couldn’t fit her rather large belly through the car window.  Needless to say, Crazy Preggo Lady was given a free Jr.Bacon Cheeseburger, along with her missing fries. I do NOT claim responsibility for her actions.

Cute Caitlyn Video:

Baby Update: 38 weeks (Just fourteen days left!)

Your baby has really plumped up. He weighs between 6.5 and 8 pounds (boys tend to be slightly heavier than girls), and he’s nearly 20 inches long. He has a firm grasp, which you’ll soon be able to test when you hold his hand for the first time! His organs have matured and are ready for life outside the womb.

Looking back, it all seems to have happened so fast. It really wasn’t that long ago that I had posted this picture:

Before and after belly pics:

Dear Lord, I was a stick!

Aidan, I can’t wait to meet you. =)

 My new hot rod

So we’ve been looking for a new car since about the time we got married and found out we were pregnant with Caitlyn. It’s hard to get a kid in and out of my little coupe car’s back seat when there’s no back door.  We came across a man selling a Chrysler Sebring on the “For Sale By Owner” lot on base. It had just a few more miles than my current car but was still really low. It has four doors, leather interior, 6-disc changer and a sexy sunroof! Anyhow, not only was it a great car in great condition, but it was a heck of a sale, We paid the same amount that we’re selling my current car for and took out a $1000 loan to pay for taxes and miscellaneous sale crap. Who’s a bargain shopper? Me!

  Apparently the guy bought the car for his grandson in hopes that grandson would clean his act up. Grandson got sent to Juvy three times in the six months after Grandpa bought the car. So Amanda gets a sexy car at a great deal thanks to grandson. (My grandma made the smart alek comment that I didn’t need a sexy car. Being sexy has already caused two pregnancies and by now I ought to have learned my lesson.)

Car before:

 Speaking of things that cause babies, on Saturday, I had contractions for THREE HOURS. No baby. I was so horribly dissapointed. There’s a big change in barometric pressure happening on Tuesday and Wednesday, so that increases our chances of having him by 30%.  I figure if he doesn’t come by this week, he’s just going to stay in there for the next  2 weeks and 4 days.  Last night I re-packed my hospital bag for the eightieth time just to make sure everything was in there. I’m a woman obsessed…..  

The new car is making me feel more attractive already. Too bad my body  doesn’t agree with that sentiment! GET THIS KID OUT OF ME!

Family Tradition

So here’s how Caity and Derek have spent the last two days.  If you pray that World of Warcraft crashes, Halo 3 will replace any hope you hold of actual quality time with your spouse…. and child. =)

It’s a darn good thing I have a sense of humor and a laptop o’fun games.

Anyhow, I’m starting a baby pool. Late’s place bets as to when the new Williams family member will arrive.  I know there’s 21 days left, but my guess is he’ll be in 10 days or less. I’m guessing  by the following Monday, I’ll have a son in my arms.  No, I’m not just wishful thinking, I’ve been doing my research. Pregnant friends Michy and Wendeho, pay attention!

Signs labor will soon start: (mature advisory for gross bodily functions.)

Cramping or stabbing pains in the lower abdomen or cervix section. (Check!)

Increase in discharge or mucus. (Gross, but check!)

An increase in Braxton-Hicks contractions, possibly intensified. (Check!)

Increased pelvic pressure -a feeling that your baby’s pushing down. (Check!)

Your baby drops. (Not yet.)

Your baby moves less frequently. (Check!)

Your cervix thins. (Check! We had a Dr’s appointment on Tuesday and he said although the baby hasn’t dropped yet, my cervix is thinning in preparation of things to come.)

Now this next part isn’t scientific, nor is it required but it is a common occurrance: My belly button has popped out like a little turkey timer!! Yeah, it’s totally gross and it freaks out my husband.  Wanna see pictures?

Yeah, I told you it was gross.  I’m going to doctor’s appointments every week now and they finally gave me a tour of the birthing center. So now, I actually now where the heck to go when the kid decides to come. (Memaw, notice in the picture please that my fingernails are NOT painted black. I remember your complaints the last time you saw that. )

Baby Update: 37 weeks (21 days left)

Congratulations — your baby is full term! This means that if your baby arrives now, his lungs should be fully mature and ready to adjust to life outside the womb, even though your due date is still three weeks away.

Your baby weighs a little over 6 pounds and measures between 19 and 20 inches, head to heel. Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long. But don’t be surprised if your baby’s hair isn’t the same color as yours. (*note from Me* Yeah, freakin right. Caity is already a year and a half and has NEVER had that much hair.)Dark-haired couples are sometimes thrown for a loop when their children come out as blonds or redheads, and fair-haired couples have been surprised by Elvis look-alikes. And then, of course, some babies sport only peach fuzz. ( Yep, that’s my kid.)

 Kay, so on another note,  wanna see the last news/political thing that really pissed me off?

 Reference story: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,303119,00.html

Democratic Rep. Pete Stark launched a shocking one-man assault on the Bush administration Thursday, interrupting floor debate before a failed attempt to override President Bush’s veto of the so-called SCHIP bill to suggest that U.S. troops in Iraq are getting their heads “blown off for the president’s amusement.”

When did our representatives lose respect for their commander in chief? Even if you don’t agree with his policies, when did we revert to four year old tactics of throwing temper-tantrums and interupt voting processes? When you realize you’re not going to overturn a veto by a 3/4′s majority, do you officially have permission to resort to school yard tactics of screaming and name calling?  This folks, is why we vote. You have the power to keep four year olds out  of congress. Your vote *does* count and you don’t even have to resort to this man’s measures to accomplish your goals.

Good Enough to Say Twice

This was a comment left on a friend’s page but it needed to be spread around. We were discussing “freedom” in our country.

Let me explain how free you’re allowed to be:

You’re free to be a Muslim and shout it from the rooftops, or slay American “infidels”  in the name of Allah, but you are not allowed to be a Christian and whisper a prayer under your breath. In fact, we’d appreciate it if you’d take your crosses and crucifixes off the outside of your churches. It’s offensive.

You’re free to be gay  and have a same sex marriage but you are not allowed to be straight and call it a “marriage.” According to California, it’s only a union.

You’re free to  be a liberal and force the government to fund the broadcast of your radio station that no one wants to pay for but if you’re a conservative, you need to be limited to how many stations and shows there are. We have to be fair now.

You’re free to be black and scream racial injustice when someone speaks agaisnt you, but if you’re white and spoken out against, keep your mouth shut. You have years of oppression in your family history that happened  years before you were born, even if your family wasn’t in the country during the slave period. After all, your skin is white, you must be a racist. 

 You’re free to break the law as an immigrant by crossing the border, evading police and concealing a weapon illegally to protect yourself from la migra. But as a legal citizen, you’ll go to jail for praying peacefully in public too closely to an abortion clinic.

You’re free to send your children to public school, but your kindergarten children will be taught about sex education and read nursery rhymes about “two princes who fell in love with each other.” If you want a school with moral values, stop making mortgage payments so you can afford  private school.

Yep, this is a country all about freedom, my friend.

That’s the end of my rant. In further news, we have a doctor’s appointment today and there’s only 24 days left till Aidan is evicted from his “womb with a view”.

Can’t Hurry Babies

 Only 28 more days till Aidan’s due and I have never felt a longer more impending sense of time in my LIFE. At least with Caitlyn, I was working and had stuff to keep me busy. I was substitute teaching for the Special Ed department and working on the management team and Claire’s.  Now…. Now I’m…. Is twiddling my thumbs a valid source of time consumption? Maybe that’s why I check Foxnews.com three times a day.

 I desperately want to go to Indianapolis and visit with my Inlaws. I’m really noticing the lack of adult interaction in my life lately. Derek got new days off and it worked out to where we got four days off in a row, but they made him go to mandatory training every single day. I hate the military sometimes.

 The most exciting news in my life is my new vacuum cleaner. Hooray for excitement.  Geez, I need a vacation. That seems to be the only downside so far to the whole “stay at-home mom” scene. Maybe if I was back in Texas or living in Indy and could be closer to *anyone*.  I hate to get sappy on ya’ll but I miss you all so much. I need my family and friends again. Damn pregnant hormones making me act all girly….

 Even if I wasn’t missing everyone so badly, I’m still being girly because of my aching arms. I keep dreaming of holding little Aidan. In my dreams, my belly is see-through (strange, I know) and I can see his tiny little face and eensy weensy toes. It’s both painful and comforting to know that there’s still 28 days left before I can hold him. I haven’t had this aching feeling since Derek lived in Japan and my arms longed for him to come home.

New videos of Caity, Derek and I playing in the park on Photobucket.

Go to: http://s77.photobucket.com/albums/j48/Life_by_us/

Baby Update 36 Weeks (Only 28 days left)

Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. He now weighs almost 6 pounds and is a little under 19 inches long. He’s shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered his body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected his skin during his nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, which will form the contents of his first bowel movement.

At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) Most likely he’s in a head-down position. But if he isn’t, your practitioner may suggest scheduling an “external cephalic version,” which is a fancy way of saying she’ll try to coax your baby into a head-down position by manipulating him from the outside of your belly.

Smoke in the kitchen
 So on Wednesday I turned a pot of water on to boil, walked out of the room to see what Caity was doing, walked back into the kitchen and my stove was on fire.  I hadn’t cooked anything greasy prior to using the the burner so I dunno what happened…. But there were flames, all the way up to the hood and black flurries were flying through the air. I kept smashing a pot lid over it but the darn flames wouldn’t go away.. Derek came in and teased me endlessly about being able to burn a pot of water…. On Thursday, I put a frozen brownie  in the microwave for a lunch dessert for Caity. It said to put it in for two minutes, but after only 45 seconds, I smelled smoke.  I turn around and see the microwave is POURING thick gray smoke out of every crevasse it has. Greeeeaaaaatt… At this very second, Derek comes walking downstairs for lunch as I’m flying across the house opening every window, door, turning on every fan, pulling batteries out of smoke detectors, etc. I don’t even have to *look* at my husband to know he has a sh*t-eating grin on his face and that I’m never going to hear the end of this one. The brownie was fine, still cold. It was just a fluke  that the microwave decided to blow up at the time it did.  Little Ethan from down the street was staying with us for a few hours while his mom went to class and I had this horrible fear that she would smell smoke in my house and think I was a pyromaniac. Afterall, it was only two weeks ago that the whole darn fire department was at my house investigating my mysterious smoke alarm and burning plastic smell. (which they never found…) So Derek decided that we’d eat out for dinner last night. I think it ends up being cheaper than paying the military back for anymore fire damage I’ve caused to their house.

   Meanwhile, my daughter was obnoxiously cute this morning so here’s a video and two links to more videos. Apparently Drew Carey is her new flame. When she was first born,  she loved  “Cheers” but now, it’s “Who’s Line Is it Anyway?”

Then we were working on animal sounds. She insists that cow’s don’t say moo, they say BOO! Also she’s just cute because she’s cute.  Click on the links and enjoy those videos too.

 So we’re officially 35 weeks along,  35 days left!

Your baby doesn’t have much room to maneuver now that he’s over 18
inches long and tips the scales at 5 pounds plus. Because it’s so snug
in your womb, he isn’t likely to be doing somersaults anymore, but the
number of times he kicks should remain about the same. His kidneys are
fully developed now, and his liver can process some waste products.
Most of his basic physical development is now complete — he’ll spend
the next few weeks putting on weight.Your uterus — which was entirely tucked away inside your pelvis when you conceived — now reaches up under your rib cage.

Remember Me

Darnit Debbie, why’d you send this to me? You better have cried as hard as I did or I’m sending you a really sappy card for Christmas and watching you bawl.

This is a great video. However, now that Derek’s going to be deployed, it touched me SO much deeper than I expected to. Plus the whole “pregnant hormones” thing. (make sure to pause the music player at the top of this screen so you can hear the video)

Quit is an ugly word

I’m debating on whether I should quit with the FCC daycare provider business. To renew my license and insurance, I’ll spend a minimum of $75 dollars for 6 months of coverage. To date, I have one client who gives me 3 hours/$12 of care a week and he’ll be quitting the week Aidan is born. (His mom is through with school then.) For the past six months, I’ve been trying to build a good clientele basis, but military families have a tendency to move frequently and discontinue care. All of my clients except for little blonde Jack were drop-in care at 4 bucks an hour, less than ten hours a week and now they’ve all moved. Every. Last. One.

 So this six months, I could start anew with my fingers crossed, hoping for more clients… Or I could just not pay a bunch of money to sit and hope, and enjoy my time with my newborn son. I like the sound of that better. Besides, when I go to Texas while Derek’s deployed, I’ll be busting my butt working and trying to save as much money as possible. It’ll be nice to have a calm before the storm.

 I’ve written to one of my supervisors at the FCC office and asked her opinion on my situation. I’ll wait to see if she has any better ideas or knows of any other clients I can get my hands on.

 We’ll see. =)

Can’t Hardly Wait

Oh dear Lord will this child EVER be born?  Tomorrow we’re at 34 weeks, just 5 weeks left. So we’re officially beginning the 9th and final month of pregnancy. I keep walking into Aidan’s room and playing the music from his little Indy Colts mobile and rocking my belly back and forth. My arms ache so badly for this little boy.  It’s starting to feel less strange to say the words “my son” and I’m ready to meet and squeeze the little squirt.  The fears about labor are starting to kick in like I knew they would.  Screw “au natural” this time, gimme the drugs. I learned my lesson from Caity, having babies HURTS. I had enough unexpected complications with her and by the time I decided to accept the drugs, it was too late.  So this time I’m planning in advance. Numb me up doc, I’d rather  feel like I’m holding a cocktail in my hand than pushing out a kid.

Today was the latest doctor’s appointment and nothing new to report. I didn’t have my normal midwife today, she’s so darn booked. I got another girl who’s called a doctor, but looked and sounded like a preteen.  She was so overly chipper and excited about everything, even her step had a happy skip to it. I think if she’s my  delivering doctor, I might wrap the cord around her neck. =)

 I was reading a report on MSN.com today about women  who suspect their husbands are cheating.  It gave various signs such as grouchiness, a sudden change in appearance and lack of sexual appetite. Well shoot, if that’s the case, Derek’s having an affair on me…. with his new video game Halo 3. 

 Since we picked it up from Best Buy on Tuesday, it’s all he can talk about.   He’s been very grouchy when I interrupt him with dinner, talking, chores, etc.  His appearance has changed in the fact that he hasn’t shaved or taken a shower since we picked the game up.  He stayed up until 5:30 am playing with his friends online this morning so now he has dark circles under his eyes.  When it comes to sexual appetite, it’s non-existant. Come on, you expect him to take 20 minutes away from his new flame? And to think, I spent 60 bucks on this thing just to lose my husband forever. I can’t wait for the new toy fever to wear off. =) I guess MSN.com  didn’t take into consideration those of us who are married to gamers. It’s a good thing I knew what a geek he was before we got married and loved him in spite of it all, otherwise this would be pretty hard to take a sense of humor in.

Baby Update: 34 Weeks (5 weeks to go!)

Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds and is almost 18 inches long. Her fat layers — which will help regulate her body temperature once she’s born — are filling her out, making her rounder. Her skin is also smoother than ever. Her central nervous system is maturing and her lungs are continuing to mature as well. If you’ve been nervous about preterm labor, you’ll be happy to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine. They may need a short stay in the neonatal nursery and may have a few short-term health issues, but in the long run, they usually do as well as full-term babies.

Bonus!

A little something my Aunt sent me that has a great message.  (Especially for women. You know we hold grudges worse than men.)

TWO FRIENDS WERE WALKING THROUGH THE DESERT.

During some point of the journey, they had an arguement and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: “Today my best friend slapped me in the face.” They kept on walking until they found an oasis where they decided to bathe and cool off. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning but his friend saved him. After he recovered from his near drowning, he wrote on a stone: “Today my best friend saved my life.”

 The friend who had slapped him and saved him asked, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now you write on a stone. Why?”

The friend replied, “When someone hurts us, we should write it down in the sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But when someone does something good for us,  we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.”

Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your benefits in stone. (Then remember to not throw the stone at the person after writing in the sand. )

Baby Update

I don’t think Aidan has realized yet that there’s not as much room in the womb as there used to be. He’s gotten SO big  and it’s rapidly getting cramped and small in my belly, but he just keeps on trucking. It’s not painful when he moves but it’s pretty uncomfortable… and awkward.  When I’m trying to hold Caity, there’s a pretty distinct looking foot-kick coming through my skin at her.  We can officially set a remote control or small object on my belly and have him kick it off.

By the way, due to yesterday’s Jena Six rant, my grandma is planning  to ban me from all forms of news media. I’d really broken myself away from so much talk radio but now I’m finding the rants on the increase just from online news and morning news. Sorry about my frustrations, xanga readers!

There’ll be a baby doctors appointment next Thursday, so if anything special happens, you’ll be notified!

Baby Update: 33 weeks (6 weeks and 6 days)

This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds and has passed the 17-inch mark. He’s rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and his skeleton is hardening. The bones in his skull aren’t fused together, which allows them to move and slightly overlap, thus making it easier for him to fit through the birth canal. (The pressure on the head during birth is so intense that many babies are born with a conehead-like appearance.) These bones don’t entirely fuse until early adulthood, so they can grow as his brain and other tissue expands during infancy and childhood.
There isn’t as much room for movement in your womb and you baby should have turned to a head down position to prepare for birth.