34 1/2 weeks have had special meaning each pregnancy now. At 34 1/2 weeks with Keegan, I was put off work because I could barely walk & was in so much pain. This is because my children love to hang around & put pressure on my sciatic nerve apparently. Thankfully it has not been quite so bad this time but I think that's because I have already been off work & sit with my feet up in the recliner all the time. That always helped me when I was pregnant with Keegan.
Until I got to 37 weeks that was pretty much my biggest problem. I had times when I felt very short of breath & really tired out since I was 5 months into the pregnancy but I didn't think too much of it. At 37 weeks I coughed after eating lunch & then thought my heart was going to explode. I went into what they call SVT for short. My heart was suddenly beating at 193 bpm and after trying several other things they finally had to give me medication that stopped my heart for a second to get it down to 140-160. That prompted my 1st of 4 hospital stays in less than a year. The whole experience which was pretty horrible except the interesting chats I had with the labor & delivery nurses that came to visit every 4hrs for the fetal heart monitoring.
I went home the next day & had a babysitter from then on. At first I thought that was pretty sad & pathetic that I had to have a babysitter but then it was kind of nice just to have the company. Let me tell you that having been home 6 months already with either no one or just Keegan some days, that babysitter has been looking pretty good lol.
About the week before I had my c-section with him (he was measuring big & because of my heart my doctor felt it was better to do the c-section) I started to have little nesting phases. It was nothing too severe just I started to clean things more because the dust or dirt or even clutter was bugging me.
The weekend before he was born I was desperate to get him out. I didn't care how he came out at that point & my doctor hadn't decided on the c-section yet. So following some info I got online & from Mamo I decided I would brave the castor oil to see if I could get him out that way. I ended up taking it twice & visiting Labor & Delivery twice but getting sent home both times. It was definitely an interesting experience and we still laugh about it sometimes but it just didn't work.
I was doing everything I could to get him out but he just did not want to come out! That's where the irony comes in here. I tried to force him out & he refused. His little brother? Oh well I just hit 36 weeks & he's already tried to come out. I was actually not planning on him being here until Oct 17-21st but apparently he thought maybe he'd try to come out at 34 1/2 weeks.
My mother doesn't like it but I tell her that it's her fault. I blame them. Everyone decided "oh it's a little over a month before he's due, let's all go out of state". My family was in Idaho and Jon's parents were in Arizona for the weekend. I had started nesting some starting labor day weekend. It progressively got worse but we were getting more & more accomplished which was good. The night before my parents left we had seen them & when we came home I just HAD to take the books off my bookshelf so we could move it down the wall to make room for where his bed is going to go (we've set up the pack & play in our room to keep him in there for a while, like we did with Keegan). I was just going to do the bookshelf but then Jon decided let's go ahead & move the dressers now while we're at it. 2hrs later the bookshelf was moved & put back together (though I'm still freaking somewhat cause I think some of my books got out of order) and both of our dressers had been moved.
Nothing major happened Friday that I can remember but on Saturday I was in nesting mode again. I had packed up a bunch of books that I didn't want & figured we could turn in to Yesterday's Books. We had also spoken the week before to the lady at the fish store about taking most of our platy babies. So by about 3pm we had the books loaded in the car, had cleaned the small fish tank & caught 100 platy babies to take in. We got Keegan up from his nap & hit the road. The plan? Drop the fish at the store, drop the books at Yesterday's Books, go to Super WalMart & quickly do our shopping & then hit every place in reverse. We had until 6pm to make it back to the fish store to get the few fish we wanted to take home so needless to say we were in a rush.
Everything pretty much went without incident though I had had a few contractions here & there throughout the day already. Thankfully I have been unable to walk around a store much because of my heart this time, otherwise I probably would have really kicked the contractions off at WalMart. The fish store was the only place that I actually walked around at the entire trip but I also got very upset when we returned. We're not sure what happened but when we came back I went to take a look at my babies in the tank the lady had put them in & I didn't see them. I thought perhaps they had been moved until I realized they were all stuck in the filter. There ended up being 4 little guys still alive in the tank & the lady moved them into another tank. She was very apologetic & granted I was giving them away anyway, I had been obsessing & taking care of the damn things for over a month. I was pretty upset & though it wasn't really my fault I couldn't help but feel guilty.
I just felt that we had to get most of them turned in & do this work with the fish tank while I was still free to help Jon, before we had a little baby on our hands. Whether all this was the cause or not we almost did have a little baby on our hands soon after lol. By time we made it home from the fish store I was definitely having contractions & they were pretty frequent. Having been to L&D twice before with Keegan & getting sent home I just tried to ignore it until it got bad enough that I thought we should go in. Part of the problem here was that both sets of grandparents were gone so that didn't leave us too many options of what to do with Keegan if we did go in.
By time we were eating dinner I had started to obsess about the fact that none of my breast pump equipment (Keegan refused to nurse so I pumped for 6 months. I plan to be prepared for that problem this time) was boiled & ready to go, nor were any of the bottles. So after dinner I started boiling parts etc. Finally when I had the majority done & just couldn't sit there anymore I moved on to my next project. Packing a hospital bag. Keegan was in bed asleep by that point & Jon was laying in bed himself as I was huffing & puffing moving around trying to get stuff done in case we really did have to go in. Jon kept asking me if we needed to go & I kept telling him no, not yet. At some point he passed out & I almost woke him up around 11 to tell him that we better go when the pain eased up. I decided I would try to go to sleep & hopefully they'd go away while I was sleeping and everything would be fine.
I did manage to get to sleep & at 4am when I woke up they were gone. Unfortunately Keegan decided 4am would be a great time to get up as well so I ended up out on the couch watching him while Jon slept. Everything went fine for the most part until around 8am and the contractions started again. At that point I figured that I better call in & see if the on call doc thought I should go into L&D or not. Luckily the on call doc happened to be my doc & he said I should probably go in & get checked just to be safe since 34 1/2 weeks is too early. My awesome babysitter & Keegan's "Fairy God-Grandmother" said she'd meet us at the hospital & keep an eye on him for us while we waited to find out what was going to happen.
I ended up getting sent home with medication to take every 6 hrs & put on bed rest because I was already dilated & if they can get it stopped, they will do what they can to stop it before 36wks. It's best for baby to be born after 37 wks so they try to hold it off until then.
Wednesday was my 36 weeks and I took my last pill Thursday morning. I saw my doc Thursday morning as well & he still says that I can go into labor at any moment but the hospitals won't allow for them to schedule c-sections prior to 39 weeks to try to cut down on premature problems (which makes sense). So I do have a scheduled date of Oct 20th but both the doctor & myself don't think I'll make it that far. I'm actually hoping now that I don't make it that far because they couldn't get me scheduled on the 19th because the hospital was already booked for c-sections that day. I WANT a private room again because this time Jon is not leaving me at night lol. It was too much of a nightmare last time so I already told him he's staying but if I have to share a room with someone he can't stay.
My baby shower is next Saturday so I'm going to take it as easy as possible & hope that I can make it until then at least. I have been feeling the nesting urge big time over the last week but I've been ignoring it. If I can make it through my baby shower then I will give in to the urges. I'll be 37 1/2 weeks by then & though it's not when I had originally planned I'm perfectly ok if he comes then. This entire pregnancy has taught me that no matter how much you try to "plan" life, it has a way of doing what it wants, when it wants. I had "planned" to hopefully get pregnant prior to when I did so that my maternity time would be around the summer when it would have less impact on work. Then again I also "planned" to be at work until several weeks before I was due.
I still think it's good to try to have a plan but you have to learn to be flexible and adapt when things don't go according to the plan. So far we've adapted ok and are rolling with the flow. It will just be interesting to see where & how this pregnancy journey ends. Every pregnancy is different & every baby is different. I can't help but wonder if he'll look & be just like Keegan or be the complete opposite in every way. My mother says that he's going to be the problem child because you always have to have one & Keegan is just too good & easy to be the problem child. Of course we hope that she's wrong but only time will tell. I can't wait to see him though and hold him in my arms. The one big thing I miss about Keegan being a baby is all that time holding & snuggling him. I actually just ordered myself a custom Moby Wrap yesterday from Baby Bee Trendy (www.babybeetrendy.com) in preparation for hands free snuggling & I can't wait for it to get here. I'm sure he'll beat the wrap here but not by too much. Besides the first week or so everyone's going to be fighting over him anyway.
We're all a little worried how Keegan's going to handle the transition. The last week both of our children (Keegan & Ziva the cat) have been acting out. Keegan's been getting into more trouble & he's been mostly potty trained since 18 months yet he just started pooping in his diaper again. The last two days the damn cat has been pooping in the bath tub (seriously?!!). It's been a bit chaotic around here to say the least. We're trying to do what we can to make sure they both get a lot of attention right now.
This last week Keegan was back with Granny the whole week (and will be next week as well) and the week before since they were in Idaho & I was on bed rest Jon took off so he spent a lot of time every day playing with Keegan. As it is today they both got up, went & got breakfast, took a shower & headed off to run errands & do shopping together. Keegan's kind of been obsessed with pirates lately & when I had originally looked the Jake & The Never Land Pirate's soundtrack wasn't out but it just came out this week. I bought the soundtrack for him yesterday but decided not to put it on his phone just yet. I thought maybe it might be a good idea to wait until his brother gets here & then put it on for him. That way he gets something for himself once his little brother arrives. I'm still hopeful that the transition will go smoothly but Mom & Granny both are worrying so who knows.
As usual this is a long one but this might just be my last post for a while so figured I better get it done. I've been thinking of writing for over a week & just haven't found the right time or words until now. Now I'm done though & my nutella & banana toast is calling me! :)
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