ethan,

technology changes so quickly these days. hopefully, when you are older web services will be refined to the point that there is only one, simple option. in the meantime we’ve moved your blog to:

ethandaniel.me

Last night I had a dream where we were at a vacation home with the entire fam. JD asked to feel Ethan and as I looked down at my belly, I saw Ethan’s foot poke out. I remember being able to see his little toenails and everyone was amazed his foot was sticking so far out. All of a sudden his head poked out too. And I looked down into his little blue eyes (clearly, I have no idea how this orientation is possible to see his foot facing forward and his head facing backward). He had a little tuft of reddish blonde hair (sort of like the color of Olive’s spots but wispy-ier). He had my eyes but Lucas’s face shape and nose. I remember feeling immediately calm when I saw his face and then quickly realized he was no longer inside of me (since I could see his eyes were blue). As soon as I realized this, I yelled to Lucas to call the doctor since I didn’t know what to do.  

so many things to do & finalize before ethan arrives including…

hang pictures in nursery

cook meals & freeze them for first few weeks

make cheat sheets covering main topics like breastfeeding, peeing/pooping, bathing, etc.

make kits of products that are ready to go/can move to different rooms (like bath kit, breastfeeding kit, changing kit)

wash everything in dreft. replace.

pack hospital bags

have baby

We just have one more—CPR. This weekend we took baby basics and the full day of what happens at the hospital. The hospital is nice and feels somewhat hotel-like but it’s still a hospital and the whole experience scared me quite a bit. In the other class we learned how to diaper, bathe, and what to look for if Ethan gets sick. I feel more prepared.

Ethan: you are getting so strong in there! Your punches/kicks (not sure how you are positioned) are getting stronger every day. My whole belly jerks back and forth—especially at night.

Lucas, Ethan and I all had hiccups within a 3 day period. Weird! Ethan has had hiccups 3 times in the last week.

I had my 34 week appointment this morning. It’s like deja vu except I’m a few pounds heavier. Try to pee in a cup, take off boots to get weighed, slightly elevated blood pressure, shake hands with doctor, hear Ethan’s heart beat, wipe goo off belly, put boots back on. This time it took her awhile to find his heartbeat which really freaked me out.

I saw a new doctor in my practice that I really like—so that makes 2/8 that I hope will be on duty when I deliver. And the practice just hired a midwife which is cool (not sure if she will have anything to do with me though).

Next appointment is the big one—exam to see if I’m dilated, ultrasound to see what position he’s in, strep b test, all questions answered, etc. No turning back now!

In other news, I haven’t really had many dreams yet about Ethan or giving birth. My dreams have mostly been about random other things. Last night though, I dreamt we had left the hospital without breastfeeding first. I was going on a trip to Mexico and realized I hadn’t breastfeed him yet and rushed off the plane to get back to Lucas & Ethan. It’s a pretty horrible dream for a number of reasons. One, that I didn’t remember to feed/nourish my child, and the fact I was ditching him with Lucas and going to Mexico right after giving birth! Clearly I’m not going to be THAT horrible of a mom but it doesn’t feel good to have these dreams. No wonder my blood pressure is elevated.

On one hand it feels like not much is going on—that we’re just passing the time (redecorating our bedroom, watching lost, hosting dinner parties, playing settlers of catan) and on the other lots of new stuff is happening.

I’m at 33.5 weeks right now. My 32 week appointment went great—Ethan and I are healthy. My blood pressure was slightly elevated (but of course they took it as soon as I had trekked in the exam room with all the extra weight from my giant work bag, winter coat, and boots.) I have all my doctors appointments scheduled up until the end which is kind of scary to see on paper.

We started taking our classes at the hospital. So far we had pediatric care & breastfeeding. I had a lot of anxiety about breastfeeding and the class made me feel a ton better. It still seems kind of tricky, but it’s one of those things you need to learn by watching, not reading. One interesting thing we learned was that you bond closely with the l&d nurses but they aren’t really interested in making sure you are breastfeeding before you leave the hospital. The postpartum nurses are responsible for that but you may not see them as often—so you have to push your l&d nurses to support you when you begin to breastfeed. Another thing is that the hospital tightly swaddles the baby (because they want to minimize all the crying in the nursery) but you should really do skin-to-skin when breastfeeding.

I’m definitely in nesting mode—we are redecorating our bedroom (my theory is that it will be the only place safe from brightly colored plastic toys so we need to make it nice) and I am dying to wash everything in the nursery and organize it based on size. We finished buying everything we need—baby sling, rectal thermometer, humidifier, etc. Today we’re even packing the hospital bag (I made an extensive list about 2 weeks ago).

3 more classes to go: what happens at the hospital, cpr & first aid, and baby care basics (a friend brought her 4 month old to work and asked me if I wanted to change her diaper—I said “Sure! I could use the practice.” and then realized I had absolutely no idea what to do. She did it and I watched.)

In general, I feel good. Sleeping has been a challenge with all the late night bathroom breaks, my belly sticks out so much sleeping on the side isn’t super comfortable, and i’ve had nights where my brain will not relax and I’m up for four hours watching hulu on the couch before falling back asleep for 2 hours and then dragging myself to work.

I decided I’m going to take maternity leave starting April 1st. I was going to work up until my due date but don’t really want to go into labor at work or on the el (what a nightmare that would be!) plus I want to be mellow and get into mom mode and get out of work mode.

Oh, and my belly button is going to pop any day now.

-finding out I was pregnant at work, telling Lucas via g-chat, running out and buying 2 more tests (from different brands just to make sure), trying to schedule a blood test and not being able to beacuse doctors don’t want to see you until you are like 10 weeks and then realizing that the tests are like 99.9% accurate.

-immediately throwing up after eating a donut when I hadn’t had morning sickness for a month.

-making dinner with Lucas one night and feeling a tickling of dust come out of my belly button. it stretched open and let all the dead skin fall out. afterwards it was perfectly smooth inside.

-walking up the stairs and feeling a bubble pop in my stomach. it was ethan’s first kick.