Introducing Calais Adeline Shrum

Wow, it has been way too long!

Guess that is what having a baby does to you :)

Let me fill you in on the last four weeks! My official due date was March 27. But we all know that due dates are rarely completely accurate and less than 3% actually deliver on that date. Our date came and passed. Then another, and another....

I had my 40 week appointment on March 30th. Doc said everything looked good. He did a little sweeping of the membranes to get things moving. We also had a non stress test to make sure baby was good! This is where the put two different monitors on your belly. One of the baby's heart-rate and one for the contractions. It was pretty cool to watch the monitor to see when I was having a contraction (little did I know what a REAL contraction is!)

Joe's Birthday: March 31st. We were curious if our little angel would arrive on Dad's birthday! Around 4 A.M. I woke up with some bad cramps. I decided to take a bath and see if they subsided. I proceeded to clock my cramps and realized they were coming about every 4 1/2 minutes. Since I've never been pregnant/gave birth before I wasn't really sure what was happening! Around 7 I woke Joe up and mentioned I was having cramps. We decided to wait a bit longer and see what happened. I finally went downstairs and Joe started documenting how long the "cramps" were lasting. We finally decided to call the hospital and ask what we should do. After talking with them we decided to get some breakfast then head into the hospital! I was worried I wouldn't be able to eat so off to Daily Bread we went! Can't say I'll ever eat a meal while have contractions again, it was interesting!!!
Around 10:30 we headed to the hospital! We checked in and they put us in an interim room so that I could get checked and then checked in to a delivery room. They checked me out, only 2 cm dialated, so we had to hang out in that room for a bit! Finally around 1:00 we were moved to the delivery room. These rooms were nice and big!!! Got the IV's in and the heart rate monitor and the contraction monitor on. Again it was pretty cool watching the contractions (besides them hurting!) I needed to get to a 4 cm before I could get an epidural! Let's just say I was so ready!!!

Finally I was a 4 and got the epidural! However, they forgot to roll me on my side and about 5 minutes later I thought I was going to pass out! I told Joe to call the nurse. They came in and my blood pressure was about 80/50 (very low!) The nurses got me situated and now we were in for the long haul!

By this time it is about 5 P.M. Thankfully we had a tv with cable and were able to watch the Blazer game in which we KILLED!!!
Around 11:45 P.M. our nurse came back in to check how far along I was and thankfully I was already at 8 1/2!! She said it was time to push! I was thinking to myself, can I push and get her out in 15 minutes? That way she could share her daddy's birthday! I remembered what the first nurse said, the pushing is about a 2-3 hour session. She I wasn't very optomistic! I remembered at one point that the doc said I see her head and there is a lot of hair! He asked if Joe wanted to touch her head, and of course he said no, being the squeamish one! I jumped at the chance and reached down! Crazy!!!

Thankfully I only had to push for 30 minutes and out popped Calais Adeline Shrum weighing 7 pounds 5 oz at 12:15 A.M. April 1, 2010

Welcome Calais Adeline Shrum

2 1/2 weeks to go!

Sorry it has been almost a month since my last post.

So we are almost there :) Down to Dr. appt's once a week now. We had our 37 week appt. yesterday. Our fluid level has been looking better (Dr. was worried a few appt's ago that my levels were too low) Unfortunately I now am measuring at 32 (You normally measure whatever week you are at...so I should be measuring at 37) Last week I measured at 36. I've obviously dropped, but Dr. was worried something else was wrong.

So today we had our Ultrasound. It was pretty sweet. Especially since our last one was at 20 weeks. We were able to actually see her face and it was AMAZING. The nurse also showed us that our baby girl has TONS of HAIR :) You could even see it waving in the fluid :)

She took all over our measurments, head circumference, legs, thighs, heart, kidneys etc. After plugging in all the numbers our girl currently weighs 6 pounds 15 oz and is in the 51 percentile! So we are looking good. I would say that we will have a 7 pound baby!

2 things...

1) Mud Mud Update.

Our poor baby girl. So about four weeks ago we noticed that Muddy was peeing blood. Not just a little but a lot. It was this dark brown color. Obviously we knew this was no good. I did a little research online and it looked like she either had a UTI or kidney stones. We immediately called the vet and set up an appt. for the next day.

At her appt. we were asked to bring in a fresh urine sample. Thanks to Joe (following Muddy around with a tuperware container) we were able to bring one in. Muddy's urine was given a urine-analysis. It came back "raging" according to the ER vet. Her bacteria levels were high as well as her white and red blood cells. The dr. confirmed what we though and said she had a raging UTI. We were told to give her two weeks of antibiotics, then bring her back in for a check-up.

So now came time for the check-up. Another urine-analysis. Another positive for UTI. The antibiotics didn't work. This time we had a regular doctor (where we take the dogs yearly) and she wanted to do a quick x-ray. We couldn't go back with Mud Mud. The first x ray came back and they made a mistake and took the xray of her chest, not bladder, kidney's etc. Second xray didn't show any stones. However it showed a lot of POOP. Yup, that is definitley our Muddy. Our next option was to send her urine away for a culture to see if she just wasn't able to take the antiobiotics.

Those results took around 4 days. And of course they came back negative. Meaning she has no problem with the antibiotics, they just didn't work. So after a few days of phone tag with with dr. Joe finally was able to get in touch with her.

We have 2 options.

1)ultrasound -- $200-300. With this, you can get a view of the entire urinary tract from kidneys to bladder to urethra on out. Dr.'s are able to look for kidney stones and hardening of bladder walls, etc. This is non-invasive.. meaning they don't have cut muddy up, but might have to knock her out if she won't co-operate. (Which she doesn't like to cuddle, so we shall see!)

3)scope -- $300-500. A scope goes up the urethra and into the bladder. With this you get a clear view of everything and can do biopsies (cut a little tissue off) if they see something that looks bad. they def. knock her out for this and we'd have to go to a specialist. if the problem is not in these areas (if it's the kidneys or somethign else) then this won't help us.

So finally the decision was made. We are having an ultrasound done on Friday morning. The worst, is Muddy can't eat for 12 hours before, so basically she can't eat dinner Thursday. Those of you that have stayed with Muddy or have been around her, know's that she LOVES food!!! So that will be the hardest for her. We will also have to try and get all the poop out of her!

So come Friday morning, 7 o clock....pray for Mud Mud!

Okay now to the second thing!

We are now officially over 34 weeks!!!

We went in for our visit today and all went well. Dr. went over a few hospital items and the Bgroup Test I have to do next week.

He then went on to measurements and poking and prodding. After alittle prodding, dr. kinda hmmed to himself and said that the butt feels hard, so he would like to do an ultrasound. He was hoping she was already head down. But he was worried she was still transverse b/c it felt like the head was so high.

So he did a quick U/S and sure enough she is head down. Guess it just means she has a very boney butt!!!!

All in all things seem to be going pretty well. Thankfully I don't feel sick too often anymore! I still can't handle strong smells. Which sucks b/c we are all out of my non scented shampoo and conditioner (and since we are saving for both Birth and Mud Mud; it means I have to try and use what we have; yuck!). I still get a crappy feeling around 3-6. Just kinda hit a low and need to just sit and not do a thing. I'm super tired lately. But that doesn't translate to sleeping well (oh well!)

Hopefully these next 5 1/2 weeks will go quickly!!!

30 weeks and 2 days

That means we are only 9 weeks and 5 days away :) Not like I'm counting or anything.

It is hard to imagine that we are so close. But I feel that we are slowly coming to the point where we will be ready with everything we need!

Granted our little girl still doesn't have a place to sleep. Yes we have a crib, but no mattress. We were thinking of just getting a pack n' play and using that as her crib in our bedroom. We could also move the crib into our bedroom. There is also a possibility of getting the bassinet that I slept in shipped from N.C. So we have a few options to choose from. Hopefully within the next few weeks we will finalize on what we would like to do!

We re-arranged the nursery today and I feel much better about where things are placed. We ordered a dandelion vinyl decal off the internet (it actually came from a shop in Ashville NC!) So hopefully that will arrive within the next week. I can't wait to put that up. I feel like the green walls need something else. The only other things we need for the nursery are a few lamps, a diaper hamper, a side table and the mattress.

Heartburn and Indigestion are back in full swing. It sucks when you burp and everything you ate comes up with it! No more nausea :) Still knocking on wood for this one! Swelling my hands and feet have gone up as well. My rings are squished on my fingers and my socks leave nice little ring marks!

Had quite a scare yesterday (Sunday 1/17) Joe and I have been walking/hiking a bit more, depending on my energy level. On Saturday we did a quick hour long hike on Ridge Trail (which exhausted me!) but I felt good afterwords. On Sunday morning we went to the dog park and while the dogs ran and played we did 4 laps (which might equal 1 1/2 miles). It had been raining all night and the dogs loved playing in every single puddle. Which also meant baths for them when we got home! Joe gave them baths and I dried them off. Then I hopped into the shower. As I was getting into the shower I felt this horrible sharp pain about 1 inch to the right of my belly button. I had no idea what happened. Other then I could barely stand up and Joe had to hold me. It continued throughout my shower. I finally got to lie in bed, which seemed to make it even worse. I knew deep down there was nothing wrong with the baby girl (it felt to high, almost like it was on top of my uterus). But I still had this horrible shooting pain that had been going on for about an hour. Joe had gotten the number for our womens clinic out and decided to give them a call. While he was on hold, I made him hand up. I thought I could handle the pain. It went away for about 10 minutes and then came back with a vengance. It felt even worse. I was howling, yes howling in pain. I asked Joe to call again and he got in touch with the doctor. She told us to do the kick test to make sure baby girl was still okay and that it sounded like a seperation of my abs. The best thing to do was rest and lie on your side. Thankfully two hours later I was able to sit up and move around. I still feel like someone punched me in my gut and am very sore in that one spot. I have no clue what really happened but it seems like all is well. I'm looking forward to my dr. appointment in the next few weeks to run it by him!

CHALUPA CHALUPA CHALUPA

One of our Christmas Presents from my parents this year were tickets to the Jan. 15 Blazer vs. Magic Games. Joe put together a little highlight package of the game.

Registries!!!!

One of the best things about getting married or having a baby is creating your registry. The best part of a baby registry is it helps you sort through all the things you need and don't need for the little one.

We finally finalized our Babies R Us registry and you can view it here!

Our next step was figuring out what exactly we wanted to do about diapers. We knew we wanted to give cloth diapers a shot. But there are SO many different types. Do we want fitted, pre-folded, all in one?? Portland being a "green" city has many cloth diaper stores. We fell in love with the one right by our house called Zoom Baby Gear. The great thing about this place is that it is 1)close 2)sells lightly used cloths and 3) lets you trade in your purchases for credit. We ended up going with fitted diapers (ironically the cheapest!) as well as flannel covers. I have to admit I'm still nervous about the whole diaper thing, but we practiced while we were there and it was quite easy! And I'm sure it gets easier as you put more diapers on! (12 a day should do it right? haha)
So here is our ZoomBabyGear Registry!

It was definitely fun going to both places and picking out everything. The great thing about Babies R Us is that whatever is on your registry, after the birth you can purchase all items 10% off. So even if you aren't having a shower it makes sense to just create a registry!!!

Happy New Year! Twenty Ten or Two Thousand Ten???

End of 28 weeks and a Happy New Year!

We had our 28 week appt on Monday this week. This was a long one as appt. go. Normally my appt's are super quick. Doc measure my pelvic bone to the top of the uterus, takes my blood pressure, weighs me, checks the heartbeat and then we are out of there. Ten minutes tops when we actually walk into the dr. office.

28 weeks is when you are tested for gestational diabetes. I was a little worried that I might actually have it. I've gained more weight than I would like and and I drink water constantly as well as use the bathroom incessantly . (neither of which are HUGE changes from before). I also get incredibly tired and have a horrible headache between the hours of 3-6. It could just be that I finish work at 3, and I'm on go all day that, that is when my body just crashes. Anyways back to the test. We arrived around 7:30, hoping that I could start drinking my glucola (tasted like flat 7 up that was super syrupy, packed with glucose/sugar). My dr. didn't get there til 8:00, so we hung out in the lobby, read our baby sign language book and waited. Finally they took us back and I was allowed to chug my drink. You have 5 minutes to chug the whole thing (it was cold, which made it a bit easier) After that, I was told we had an hour before I could get my blood drawn. Joe and I decided to run over to the bagel store for a quick bite (I had to wait til my blood was drawn to eat, Joe of course had his right away :) ). Back at the hospital they took me right in for my blood draw. I think Joe's face and body were more squirmy watching me get my blood drawn than I was!

I also had to get my RH- shot on the same day. Everything I read said it would be in the rear. Lucky me, it was in the arm. Not really a bad shot, however they keep it in the fridge and have you ever had a cold shot? Wowzer!!!! It burns so much going in!!!! I was so surprised!

The funniest thing about our dr. appt. was when he asked if I had any complaints or anything that worried me. For the past week or so, I've been having a pain in my wrist and elbow. Well if you know me, you know I've already had two elbow surgeries. So I was assuming I was just having some sort of reoccurance. When I mentioned it to him he immediatley replied Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Joe and I were both like "huh!". Joe's first question was "Will it go away?". Thankfully the answer is YES! But man oh man, I've been in pain for about a week now! When we go at the end of the month, if it is still bothering me, I may ask if there is anything other than taking Tylenol that I can do!

Other news:
No sickiness! (felt horrible 1 day this week, when I work up, but wasn't sick!)

She has been moving a whole lot. Especially in the evenings when I'm lying in bed. I think she likes when I stand up because she has more room to move. When I'm lying down in bed, I'm normally on my side and she is constantly kicking, or elbowing (can't tell the difference yet!) the side that is touching the bed!

I've also been experiencing Braxton Hicks. Nothing painful, just strange. They happen to me when I'm up in the middle of the night (approximatley 8-10 times :)), using the restroom. I will come back to bed, lie on my back and then all of the sudden a portion of my belly just tightens and it is rock solid!!!

Nursery is coming along. Joe has put the crib and changing table together. We also have a dresser (from Joe's Grandad that matches everything pretty well) that we placed in the room. Along with an old bookshelf we had as well. My parents bought us a glider and ottaman that we love! (Joe has been known to just sit in it and play DS!) We are decided on some vinyls to put on the wall, I think we are leaning to some dandelions. We will put up some pics when I feel it is finished!!! (which could be NEVER!!!)

We finished our registries! Babies R us as well as ZoomBabyGear.com This is where we are getting all our cloth diapers. I thought I wanted to stick with fitted diapers, but after looking at all the styles as well as the types we have decided to go with prefolds. (It's actually way cheaper and not as hard as I thought it might be!!!!

I think that's it! Hopefully I'll get better at posting updates!!!