Getting Ready

Two weeks to go until the baby's due! If you want to make a guess on when baby will make his appearance, you can make your guess here.

Yesterday I was feeling completely unready to have this baby. I went to the midwife yesterday and expressed my concern about the place of birth- the birthing center in my city is not legally able to be operated as a birthing center quite yet (they're waiting on the health department) and there is no guarantee that it will be ready in time. I'm not mentally prepared for a homebirth, nor can I fit a birthing tub in my tiny home at this time, so I'd prefer to birth outside of my home, yet still outside of a hospital setting. I was going to register at a nearby birthing center (it's still a 45 minute drive on a good traffic day, so it's only sort of close by) but they have a non-refundable $250 fee that is not covered by insurance at all. I was afraid of paying that and then having the birthing center be finished in time and not be able to get my money back, or having a freeway baby or an unattended homebirth. There's a family history of fast labors as it is (including my own first labor which was just 4.5 hours- my second labor was much longer due to various complications during labor) especially with third babies. So I'm a little terrified of not having enough time to get there!

So the office manager at the midwifery office called, and I was able to register up at the birth center without paying the fee. I will pay the fee if I actually use the facility. We went and toured it with the girls yesterday and it was beautiful! There is one room that is decorated in purples, and Lacy absolutely flipped about that room. She really wants that to be my birthing room (plus, the tub in that room is deeper, which I really like). I'm feeling much more comfortable with the idea of giving birth now, and even started packing my bags! Now I just have to get this baby to decide to engage his head, and it won't be much longer. I'd prefer not to have this baby earlier than 39 weeks, though!

As far as a pregnancy update goes, I actually LOST a pound! AND, I tried on my belly cast the other day and there's a ton of room still. The midwife guessed by feeling the baby that he's going to be a large one, but not as large as Rosie, who was 9-6. She guessed that yesterday at my appointment he was about 8 pounds-ish. During my blood pressure check, she asked me "What would you do if you went into labor tonight?" She had to check my blood pressure a few minuets later because it started out with the top number being 140. Yikes! After a break and a talk about other things, my blood pressure was back to 104/54. Much more normal for me. Some good news from the appointment is that I'm GBS negative so even if I have a very fast birth, I don't have to worry about antibiotics. I'm happy to report that everything is looking great, and even though I'm extremely uncomfortable this pregnancy, this is the most textbook-healthy pregnancy I've ever had. I haven't even gained too much weight this time!

So today Dave and I have been working hard to get some major cleaning done, and we've made quite a bit of progress. I still have an hour of kid-free time (thank you to my friend Tina for watching the girls today!) but my back is aching so I took a little blog break. I volunteered at Lacy's school this morning, and Dave helped a family at the funeral home (he's not working there yet- it's a family from church- but it is the one he's most likely going to be working at soon). Lacy's teacher said they're going to give Lacy extra help since they know it's going to be hard for me to do it with the new baby and with Rosie already at home. I'm so grateful for their help!

Tomorrow is another big cleaning day. Hopefully on Saturday Dave and I can go out on a pre-baby date- we found two super saver movie tickets and he really wants to see Avatar (I suggested taking the kids to see the new Disney movie, but he wasn't going for that!). He was actually called in to work next week for the asbestos company up in a city that is a 2 hour drive away. He's really feeling conflicted about this. He knows that the funeral home is not ready to take him on quite yet (he needs to get his ducks in a row for schooling first) but he was looking forward to never doing asbestos work again. But, working means earning two times what unemployment pays. He's just really worried about being so far away from me so close to my due date. I really don't think anything will happen until at least 39 weeks, but... when Lacy was born, he had carpooled to work that day and had to figure out how to get home from work while the other guy (who drove) would stay at work. He's worried about a similar situation this time since he can't just up and leave the work site like he could at that other job!