Still Pregnant....

I know you're all very surprised.  But here I am, still pregnant....

I tried soooo hard to push myself into labor the whole month of April.  Pineapple, spicy food, acupressure, long walks, chocolate cake, climbing stairs, and the list goes on and on...

The ironic thing?  I have barely had any contractions the past few weeks.  In fact, I feel great!  I hardly feel pregnant at all. I spent most of my pregnancy grumpy and just surviving.  But recently I have felt much better, happier, able to take the girls on walks, hanging out with friends, etc.  CRAZY!  My body is totally confused!

Here was a recent Facebook post of mine, I thought I was so clever when I came up with it - haha!
I'm at the point in my pregnancy where I have to sit at obtuse angles - there's nothing"acute" about it!!! #Enginerd #35WeeksAnd5Days #WhosCounting #OhWaitIAm

Someone told me I didn't look like I was 9 months pregnant (not sure what they were looking at) and I wanted to slap them! It was like their comment took away the suffering I was experiencing. Thank goodness many others have commented on my large belly size - which also makes me mad... I'm so pregnant!!!

My recent symptoms have been pretty typical:

• She kicks mostly near my right ribs and on the side of my body
• Sometimes I feel little sparkles all over my belly 
• My tummy growled and baby girl jumped!  haha!
• I can feel little hiccups every day, low near my hips
• Lots of snoring from the extra blood making me congested
• Swollen ankles and fingers mean that my shoes barely fit and I can't wear my fake "chubby" ring
• Nausea from my stomach being squished (different from my normal nausea)
• Heartburn from the lack of space, sometimes I can barely sleep cause it feels like I'm choking on acid
• Sweaty and hot all the time
• Plantar Fascia bothers me a lot - so much weight for my feet
• Body parts going numb, lots of blood in my veins pinching off my nerves
• Wake up feeling like I rode a bike, so much pressure in my pelvis!

Weekly OBGYN appointments:

• Measured 35 cm at 35 weeks, right on every time, 38 at 38, and 39 at 39
• At 35 weeks I was 0.5cm dilated.  Haven't had really any contractions since then.
• My Dr said that my narrow pelvis is probably preventing baby girl from dropping into my pelvis, probably why I'm not moving closer into labor.
• She said she can spot the engineers a mile away because of the questions we ask ;-)
• She scheduled a cell saver machine to be in my surgery, it's a blood vacuum where (if they get enough blood) they can spin it down and put the red blood cells back into me.  A great solution to my postpartum hemorrhaging history.
• We also discussed doing sutures instead of staples since my incision popped open last time.  Glad to have a plan in place to prevent the same problems. 
• She guesses my baby is around 7.5 pounds!  She will look so chunky compared to her sisters!
• I called the office to ask the nurses about baby movements, they told me to count belly movements, in ten minutes she had given me over 8 good kicks, I guess I was just nervous cause my last pregnancies have been atypical.  I really appreciate how kind and compassionate the nurses and doctors are at their office. 

This week I was sitting at the dinner table with Jake, my mom, and all the girls.  I kept looking around the table and 3 distinct times I felt like someone was missing.  I think baby girl is reminding us that she will be joining us soon!

I remember that Scarlett freaked out when she came to the hospital to meet the twirls.  It was just too new of an environment and she was unprepared.  So this time we signed up for a family tour of the baby department.  The only bummer is that the twirls are 2 years old and it was close to bed time.  They did fine, just turned into puppies several times.

The girls LOVE watching shows about new babies.  Like Daniel Tiger with his little sister, or even Bubble Guppies where they get a new baby sister.  The girls will sit glued to the TV and hang on every word.  They love playing with dolls and telling me "I'm a big sister!"  Or the twirls will say "the baby get bigger and bigger and get out of mommy's tummy."  They will come up and pat my belly "oh, baby cute!"  And Scarlett loves to tell people "our baby can come any day now!"

One of the benenfits of living by Ann Arbor is we get to see all the new age, hippie stuff.  One of the trendy things right now is belly painting.  Google it, it's a thing.  Well instead of paying big bucks for a belly mural, I thought the girls might think it was fun to decorate my tummy.  I was right!  They loved it!  And so did I - except when they scratched me with skinny markers or when Scarlett said "Mom, your belly is furry."  haha!  I had to keep reminding the girls that they only got to color on skin cause mommy has a baby in her belly.

You can see at the bottom of my belly Scarlett wrote "Mom" and she also wrote "BYU".  Cute!  And it all wiped off with a diaper wipe!

My friends wanted to throw me a baby shower.  I told them that I really didn't feel like I needed one (after all, I have two sets of everything!)  Plus I haven't been feeling great physically.  So we came up with the idea of having just a little get together with my inner circle.  They made an amazing assortment of desserts and we just laughed and laughed.  Such a fun way to recharge before the craziness of a newborn sets in!

Remember how Lily (one of my Laurels) is scared of me?  Well, specifically all pregnant women?  Well on Sunday I wasn't teaching so I was sitting in the chairs next to the YW.  Lily happened to sit next to me.  I asked her if she wanted me to move (cause of the proximity to my pregnant belly).  She laughed nervously and said it was fine.  I teased her again during the lesson.  Then another few minutes went by and I noticed she was practically hugging the girl on the other side of her.  Oh my goodness, it was hilarious!  She is genuinely scared of pregnant bellies!  After we all had a good laugh (she's the kind of girl that can laugh at those types of things) I switched places with Laura.  Lily was noticeably more calm and sat in the middle of her chair after that.  Poor girl.  I'll make sure and sit several seats away from her next week!  Oh - and Laura got called to be the YW President on Sunday!  So now she's over the Laurels and gets to hang out with me on Sunday!  Yay!