April 13th!

My Dr scheduled to induce me on Tuesday April 13th (at 4 a.m.!) I have already scheduled to start my maternity leave on Monday April 12th since I will have to go for pre-op that day anyways. I cannot believe that in 11 days, or less, Neal and I will get to meet our child that we have been waiting and praying for for so long! I am really excited!

As of Wednesday I am now 3 cm. dilated and 80% effaced so it is very likely that she may come before the 13th. We are now just anxiously waiting!

Waiting Game

I am 37 weeks today! If Reese were to come any time after today she will be considered full term. I am so relieved to have made it to 37 weeks and to know that she should be completely healthy at this point in the outside world. I know it is way too much to ask but I wish I could know when and how this whole birthing thing is going to happen. I am having a ton of Braxton Hicks contractions but nothing else to report. When I went to the Dr. last Wednesday I had no changes, still 2 centimeters dilated and 50% effaced. He said I could have her that day or I could end up holding until my due date. He assured me that he will not let me go past my due date so he will induce me sometime around the 18th of April.

35 weeks

I am 35 weeks, almost 36 weeks. The Dr checked me for the first time today. He considered waiting to start checking me until next week but was glad that he decided to today because I am 2 centimeters dilated and 50% effaced. He will be in Europe next week for Spring break and he moved me to the top of the list of patients that may deliver while he is out. According to the ultra sound they say that she weighs about 6 lbs. 8 oz. They said that I am far enough along that she should be just fine and they will not try to stop my labor, if I do in fact go into labor. I have been having a lot of contractions the last few days but they are not painful just an extreme tightening of my belly so I assume these are just braxton hicks...hopefully I will be able to tell when they are real contractions. They sure did seem to think that I will be having her soon but I have known quite a few women who have remained 2 or 3 centimeters for a matter of weeks...we will see. He assures me that with my gestational diabetes they will not let me go a day past my due date so at least I know that we will be meeting Reese soon!

Restroom Revamp

Most of our focus over the last 34 weeks has been on baby preparation but we have recently taken some time to re-do our guest bathroom. I so wish that we had taken some before photos but I do not have any. 5 years ago we thought it was a good idea to paint the bathroom bright red. Wow how our taste has changed over these years. We did this room very modern and we definitely liked how it turned out at the time but over the years we have become tired of it and have veered away from the modern style that we once really liked.

The new bathroom could not have turned out better. I am so lucky to have wonderful In-laws that volunteered to come up and paint our bathroom and laundry room for us since I am unable to paint being pregnant. This was not an easy project being that the bathroom was a deep, bright red. My Father-in-law painted the entire thing with a brush so that he could get it covered in one coat. Although he does not really like to paint I could not have picked a better person to do it since he is such a perfectionist and very handy. The plan was to take down the glued on mirror and I was going to put up two framed mirrors but he realized that they had applied so much glue that it would have really torn up the wall. So, plan B is that he has taken measurements and is building a frame to put around the glued on mirror to make it look better.

I really appreciate having so much help and could not be happier with the way that our bathroom turned out!

The most adorable big lips

One of the upsides to gestational diabetes is more ultrasounds. If I had a perfectly healthy pregnancy I would most likely not have any more ultrasounds after the one that I had at 21 weeks. I have posted some photos below of the ultrasound that we had just over a week ago, at 31 weeks. Neal and I could not believe how big her lips look. I think that ultrasounds slightly distort things and this photo does not show the full extent of how large they looked. I would be thrilled if she has really full lips just like her Daddy, we found it really cute and funny.

Cute little foot:They say (at 31 weeks) she weighed 4 lbs. 7 oz., this sounds large to me. My doctor said she is weighing about 10 days large. So I may be induced early or maybe her growth will slow some, we will see. Everything checked out perfectly healthy so I am grateful for that. The ultrasound technician was kind of snippy this time...I asked her where the baby was positioned and her response was "in your uterus". Neal and I kind of looked at each other like did she really just answer that question that way. The doctor warned us that she can sometimes lack in people skills but that she is excellent at what she does. We didn't see this during the first ultrasound but caught a glimpse during this one, maybe she was just having a bad day. I responded with- is she head down, head up, sideways??? Reese is head down and in perfect position, hopefully she stays this way.

Her profile:

I will be 33 weeks tomorrow, only 7 weeks to go!!! I cannot believe we are this close and cannot wait to meet her. Being the planners that we both are we already have our bags packed and ready to go and Neal has installed the car seat. Now we just need the baby.

Reese's nursery is 95% complete...

We have all of the major projects complete in the nursery. We have a few more things that we want to do but for the most part we are finished so I thought I would post a few photos!!!

Gestational Diabetes

I found out last Monday that I do in fact have gestational diabetes. I have to say that I did not react to this news very well. I have been struggling with this. Selfishly I feel like I have been through enough to become pregnant and I have been poked with too many needles at this point, due to IVF, to want to think about having to do that anymore. I know in my heart that I should be so thankful that I have a healthy baby inside of me and should not be so frustrated with this but it was hard to come to terms with.

After the initial shock of finding out that this is going to be a part of my pregnancy experience I have been dealing with this much better. I have to completely trust God for the health and safety of this baby. I feel that this is just another step in learning to fully trust Him. I learned so much about trusting him in becoming pregnant and now I will just continue to trust that He has a perfect plan.

I met with a diabetic nutritionist last week and while I will not get to eat all the good things that I was looking forward to eating while pregnant (since I had a good excuse) it will cause me to eat much more healthy. I am now checking my blood sugar 4 times per day and have been managing it pretty well since I began doing this on Wednesday. I will begin being hooked up to a monitor once a week starting week 31 (I am 30 weeks today) so that they can monitor Reese's stress due to the diabetes as well as her heart beat. I think that there are other things that they will be looking for but I am unsure of what all of that is and plan to ask at my Dr.'s appointment this week. I am hoping that I will be able to continue to manage the diabetes with diet alone and will not have to begin taking insulin shots, we will see.

I am truly grateful for this pregnancy and trust that God is going to protect Reese completely!