Contractions

It looks like this baby will be coming sooner than people thought. It all started Friday night. I was waking up every hour to go pee. When I woke up at 6:15am on Saturday, I was having contractions, but they weren't bad. The contractions were coming about every hour pretty consistently until about 5pm. They started getting closer to about 30 minutes apart. Around 8pm, they were 20 minutes apart. At this point, they were still not that bad. It's now 4:40am on Sunday, October 26th, and the contractions are pretty painful. I think that I have a pretty high threshold of pain, but during that 1 minute or so that the contraction lasts, I feel like I can't breathe and my stomach is contracting like a REALLY bad menstrual cramp. Since we don't know if we'll make it to 40 weeks, here is a picture of me (in between contractions, of course!) at 39 weeks and 5 days. :)

More Prego Pics!

So Jake FINALLY took some pics of me. We were on our way to a wedding and since I was dressed up, he whipped out the camera. The background is a little ghetto because it's outside our apt, but he did a good job of making sure you can't see the road and parking stalls! :)

Pregnancy Pics!

So I've been bugging Jake to take some pictures of me while I'm prego...why i want to document pictures of me while I am the size of a beached whale, I don't know, but something about it makes me feel like I'll miss it once my bump is gone. Anyway, over the weekend my Gran Big Sis, Tiffany, offered to take pics of the two of us! She did my makeup beforehand because I'm completely clueless when it comes to makeup. We had so much fun with Tiffany and Jared - and she is GREAT w/ the camera! Take a look! :)

Jake likes to talk to my belly and tell the baby, "Come out, come out whatever you are!" I guess we'll find out soon enough when this little one decides to finally make its debut! T - 6 days!

Check out more pics here: http://styleishphoto.blogspot.com/2008/10/jen-jake-and-jens-bump.html

38 Week Appointment

We went in for our 38 week appointment today (by now, we are going to weekly appointments) and to my disappointment, the doctor didn't have anything interesting to tell us. I was hoping that she would tell me that I was dilated, that she felt I would deliver early, SOMETHING, but all she said was "baby's heartrate is good, LOUD. Blood pressure is good. I think you will probably go past your due date." That was exactly what I did NOT want to hear. Oh well...I guess Jooyoung is pretty comfy right where he/she is. He/she is head down right now with his/her bum on my left and limbs on my right. If you look at the video I posted a while back, that protruding is from the butt. :)

Now I am on a mission. I will eat all spicy foods, walk a ton, take Evening Primrose Oil and partake in "relations" (as we now like to call it!) to try to get this baby out! If anyone has any other self-inducing tactics, please let me know!!!

38 Weeks!

I am officially considered "Full-Term." At 38 weeks, it's just a waiting game at this point. Every night, Jake talks to my belly and says "Come out, come out, whatever you are!" The anticipation of not knowing the gender of little Jooyoung is starting to get to him and he says never again will we wait to find out. :) At least we're only a couple weeks away from knowing! My belly has definitely popped out in the last week or so (sorry for the lack of 36 and 37 week pics!) and I'm definitely starting to feel like my body is preparing to deliver this baby. I've been more tired lately, so have been trying to get as much sleep as I can as I've heard that once the baby is here, it's a completely different story.

Since we have been in town for the past several weeks, we've been trying to do things that we normally don't have time for...like clean. We've got the bassinet set up and washed a bunch of baby clothes, blankets and burp cloths. Last weekend, we went to the pumpkin patch (silly us forgot our camera!) to pick out 3 pumpkins...one for mommy, one for daddy and one for Jooyoung. We have decided to make this an annual tradition - I'll post pics once we carve them. Then we went to the outlets. They were having a huge Columbus Day sale, so we bought a bunch of boys AND girls clothes thinking we'll return whatever we end up not using.

We have another appointment today, so I'll update again if there is any progress (hopefully there is!). 'Til then, here are some 38 week pics! Enjoy! :)

Early or Late, a Doctor's Response

As with any expectant parent, once you hit the one month mark of your due date, you start to wonder when the elusive baby will finally arrive. You start to wonder if it will be early or late and if you'll be ready. This was the question we asked our radiologist, but I will first begin with why we were in to see him in the first place.

After our regular 35 week appointment, our OB said that I was measuring on the small side. This worried her a bit, so she tried to get us in to see the radiologist for an unscheduled ultrasound. Unfortunately, it being late afternoon on Friday, the office was closed for the day (weekend). Our OB had me do a Non-Stress Test which tests two things: 1) contractions and 2) baby's heartrate. I was hooked up to the Non-Stress Test machine for 20 minutes, eating crackers and juice to make the baby more responsive and clicking a button every time I felt movement from the baby. After 20 minutes of this, the results came out normal (which normal means that the baby's heartrate will rise and fall between 130 and 160 bpm consistently and fairly rhythymically) which meant I didn't have to go into the ER. I scheduled our ultrasound for the following Tuesday to see the radiologist. We had some more pictures taken, measurements done and the doctor said the baby looked good. It measured in the 14th percentile of all babies which is small, but taking my size into consideration, the baby was right on track - what a relief!

SO - after all this, I asked the radiologist, "After looking at all of this and doing these measurements and tests, do you have any inkling of whether the baby will be early or late?" (Of course what I was asking was if he thought it would be before our due date of 10/28 or after) Here is the doctor's response - and of course this would have only come from a doctor. "Well, anywhere between 37 and 42 weeks is considered full term. You're 36 weeks now, so I don't think you will be early since there are only a few more days left of 36 weeks. I think you'll be right on time"

UMM...thank you, doctor, for giving me a 5 week window! haha! Oh well, I guess it's still a guessing game of when Jooyoung decides to join us! :)