So I haven't posted anything new in a little over a week now. And that's because there hasn't been anything interesting to report. 

Sadly, the only new development is that my fingers are more swollen now and so the wedding band had to come off. I am waiting for the new, fake one I got on eBay to get here. It feels so weird not to have anything on my left hand! Also, I managed to gain 4 pounds in two weeks. Go me!

For the first time, I had someone inform me yesterday that they did not think I looked like I would make it to my due date. I agreed with them, but not for the reason I presume they had. I can't help it if I carry babies waaaay out in front. I'm sure I look like I'm already about to pop, but this kid better stay where he is for another four weeks, at least!

I have had one or two astute mothers (who also have multiple boys) guess exactly how pregnant I am and what I am having and that was pretty impressive.  Unfortunately, though, most people who feel the need to comment/make guesses about your impending motherhood don't know what the heck they're talking about. I have been the recipient of many inappropriate and uninformed comments. The worst, however, has to have been by an employee at the Brookstone at Stony Point in Richmond. I was four weeks postpartum with Dominic and this IDIOT says to me, "Oh, you're expecting!" Um, no. I told him, no, I wasn't and pointed out that Dominic was only four weeks old. Refusing to back down, he proceeds to say, "Well, you could be pregnant." So I told him that was currently impossible. After that, he didn't really say anything else; he also didn't apologize. 

Well, that's it for now. I expect things to be pretty slow on the blog front for the next several weeks. It's still too soon to be totally uncomfortable (and therefore whiny about it) and my next appointment is still a little over three weeks away. If anything interesting happens, though, I'll be sure to write about it.

Name...update?

Okay, so I'm totally over this whole name thing. I told Andy on Father's Day his gift from me was that he got to choose the baby's name. I really, really thought he would already have something in mind and immediately say, "Okay, his name will be..." and then it would be done. I was wrong. CLEARLY joking, he said, "Okay. Rex. Rex Kwon Do." Sighhhhh..... 

If you are not familiar with Rex Kwon Do, here he is, in all his glory.

So anyway, still no name and two months or less to go.

32 Week Appointment

Yesterday I had my 32 week appointment. The only exciting thing about this appointment was knowing every time I go in after this we'll be checking to see how dilated I am. And the guessing game of how big the baby is and when I might actually go into labor begins. Fun stuff. :) 

I'm still measuring just about the right size for how many weeks I am - 31 weeks, 3 days / 33cm. The baby's heartbeat continues to be in the 150's (you'd think I was having a girl - even the nurse practitioner said "she" a couple of times) and my weight gain was actually what it is supposed to be this month. Typically I've been gaining at a steady click of 1.25 to 1.5 pounds a week. Looks like I'll be ending this pregnancy at just about the same weight as the last two - kind of interesting, since my starting weight for all three has been quite different. I can't help but wonder if my body just wants/needs to be a certain size when I'm pregnant.

I also got my Stork Pass for the hospital. There are eight spots right out front of Tripler reserved for very pregnant women. So hopefully when I go into labor, one of those spots will be open so Andy won't have to park in Siberia. Regardless, I'll be dropped off at the front. 

When I went back to the appointment office, there was another couple in front of me. The woman was telling Sandra, the appointment lady, that she thought she was in labor, but was having a hard time convincing anyone else of that. Sandra looked down at her info and said, "And you're 26 weeks?" lol Her husband said, "She's not having a baby. She's having the Discovery Channel." ha Apparently she's been watching every show on cable about babies and giving birth and all the weird and crazy and unfortunate things that can happen. Now she thinks all of them are happening to her. The husband went on to say that she's even been banned from calling the nurses' station. That's funny stuff.

Labor and Delivery Tour

Yesterday Andy, the boys and I went over to Tripler to take a tour of the Labor & Delivery unit, as well as the Mother/Baby unit. Overall, it's pretty much like anywhere else.

One thing that differs is instead of calls back and forth to your doctor after you think you've gone into labor, you call the triage area of labor and delivery and talk to a nurse. Then you go to the hospital and they will check things out there first before admitting you. I actually like that quite a bit, since in the past I've had to call an answering service to page the doctor, wait for the doctor to call me back and then convince them that I really needed to come in. I think this way is more efficient.

So we started our tour in the triage area, with our tour guide noting that we could either walk up, or go to the ER to be taken up in a wheelchair. I turned to Andy and said we were going to the ER, and in typical Andy fashion, he scoffed and said, "It's not that far of a walk." Whatever. While it's true that I did walk all the way to labor & delivery the past two times, it SUCKED. Especially last time, when my water had broken and I had amniotic fluid leaking all over me (I know - nice) and all the people I saw just gawked at me like I was a freak. Not to mention having to stop every minute or so to get through a killer contraction. Being wheeled up would just be so much nicer. 

Anyway...back to the tour. After triage, we went to see a couple of labor and delivery rooms. Tripler has eight super huge, pimped out rooms and four or so more that are much smaller and don't have all the homey touches the others have (hardwood floors, rocking chairs, chair/bed for dad, jacuzzi in the bathroom, etc...). For me personally, I don't care where I get put. I feel pretty certain I'll be more focused on getting through everything rather than what the decor looks like. lol But the new, updated rooms are very nice. And it's nice to know that they have jacuzzis and birthing balls and birthing bars for you if you want. The cynical side of me wonders, though, if the nurses and doctors are really supportive of using that stuff. That particular group of people generally seem to be intervention-happy. Which is not to say that they aren't supportive and caring - I've had great nurses and doctors, but they like their machines and devices and deliveries that happen with the mom on her back. I've been lucky to have had no problems delivering that way, so it's fine for me. But I hope for others who want to have their births deviate from all of that are supported by the staff. Okay, off the soapbox!

After seeing the LDR rooms, it was off to the Mother/Baby unit. Here's another way Tripler is different - no well baby nursery! If all is well with your baby, then baby stays with you 24/7. I know there are a lot of people out there who prefer it that way, but I'm not actually one of them. It was sooo nice those two nights in the hospital to have someone else keep an eye on my little ones while I slept between feedings (or really, attempts at feedings). I find it really hard to sleep the first couple of nights when it's just you and the new baby. I'm totally obsessed with making sure he's okay - is he breathing? is he too warm? too cold? about to wake up? does he have a stuffy nose? I guess all that excessive worrying will just get to start about two days earlier this time. :)

As for the room situation, they are all private, but have varying sizes. Unlike the LDR rooms, I am hoping that I get a large postpartum room. That way, when Andy brings the boys in during the day, they'll have room to spread out and play and it won't be totally cramped.

I also learned that instead of someone coming to your room to have you fill out the paperwork for the baby's birth certificate and social security number, you have to go to a separate office/room for that. Um, yeah. I don't exactly see myself walking down to do that. I'm sure Andy will take care of that for me. And it's the same deal for the hospital pictures. You have to take the baby to the place instead of them coming to you. 

But here's the thing that really made me go, "What the hell?!?" The night before you leave the hospital, you are supposed to go sit in a room and take a "discharge class". I still don't know whether to laugh or get angry about this. Apparently the Army has decided that women who have given birth as early as 24 hours prior with swollen, um, areas, and stitches and hemorrhoids will be feeling well enough to sit in what I'm sure is an uncomfortable chair with their brand new babies (since there's no well baby nursery!) and take a class. WHAT?!  What if the baby needs to eat? And it's not like you can discreetly nurse a one day-old baby. Brand new babies don't get it yet, and if this is your first time, you don't really know what you're doing, either. And are we all just supposed to walk down there, or is someone going to wheel us down? The whole thing is just insane to me. Plus I have doubts that I will be acquiring any new knowledge from this since this will be baby #3. I sort of rhetorically asked Andy why they were going to make people do this. His response: "The Army thinks you're an idiot who is totally unprepared and thinks making you take a class is the answer to everything."

So, anyway, our little tour concluded with filling out all the pre-admittance paperwork, and then we were free to go. I'm certainly glad we went, and overall everything seems fine, but that whole class thing has still got me wondering who actually thought this would be the right way to educate brand-new moms. Perhaps I'll get my chance to find out when it's my turn!

Damn - Part 2

Sigh... In addition to the finger swelling, I am now officially running to the bathroom every hour. 

Also, I feel quite confident that I have gone from cute-pregnant to I-really-still-have-9-weeks-to-get-bigger-than-THIS?????? My mom just sent me two new really cute tops to wear last week and I'm pretty sure one of them will be too small sometime within the next two or three weeks. I suppose I shouldn't be all that shocked since that's about how the other two pregnancies went. But still....darn.

Damn

My fingers are officially swollen. My engagement ring has been put away and will be waiting for my postpartum self to shrink down enough to be put back on again. 

And get this, my right hand is more swollen than my left! Kinda weird...

Hopefully I'll be reporting on some name decisions soon!

30 Weeks!

Well, here we are! 3/4 of the way done. 10 weeks to go until my due date.  Funny how that both seems like an eternity away, and yet hardly any time at all.

Big thank-yous to my SIL Melinda for sending me the rest of the baby clothes I needed, and to my dad for the giant box of diapers! Yeah!

Andy is on leave for the next two weeks, so we'll be trying to cram in as much fun as we can, since we will be somewhat limited as to what we can actually do as a family for awhile soon enough. After his leave is over, we have Dominic's 4th birthday next month, and then yeah, we will officially just be waiting. :) I plan to have my bags packed and all the baby stuff out at 36 weeks, since Clark was a whole two weeks early. When I went into labor, I was actually at that very moment debating when I should pack for the hospital. 

We still haven't decided on a name, although Andy still keeps bringing up Benny. Right now I like the name Daniel. It's not a B name, but that hasn't really been a major consideration for me, anyway. That's sort of the last major thing we need to decide on, so hopefully we'll make a decision soon!

And lastly, congratulations to my cousin Susannah and her husband, Jason! They are expecting their first baby in January. Exciting, exciting stuff!!!!

Good News!

Well, we received confirmation a couple of days ago that Andy WILL able to be here for the birth of the baby (who still has no name, by the way). Yay!!!

His battalion is scheduled to go to California for the month of August for pre-deployment training, so we've been waiting for two months now to find out if he would be able to skip it or not.  God bless his new battalion commander! He stated at the last spouse/family meeting that if you are due to have a baby in August, then you won't be going. His quote was, "This is a training event. A birth is a one-time event." I love it.

So now the only logistical baby thing we need to figure out is who will watch Dominic and Clark when I actually go into labor. But that's nothing compared to what I might have had to otherwise arrange.