38 weeks

Hey all,

Another week down. 2 weeks - HOPEFULLY LESS - to go :) On Monday, I still had a pretty bad migraine (that I've had since the previous Monday) so I called the doctor's office to find out if there was anything else that I could safely take to get rid of it. When I was in the office on Friday, Dr. Swaim gave me some medicine (basically a stronger dose of tylenol) to see if that would help. It helped me fall asleep in spite of the pounding in my head, but didn't get rid of the migraine because I can't take anything to treat the cause of the migraine (over dilated blood vessels in the brain). Migraine medication is not safe during pregnancy because its' job is to constrict the over dilated blood vessels - safe for mom, but not for baby because it crosses the placenta and can cause the baby's blood vessels to constrict which can hinder brain blood supply, development, growth because her blood vessels are so tiny right now.

Anyways, I was just calling to see if there was anything else that I could take that wouldn't cross the placenta...and instead ended up having to go to the hospital for testing. (ughhhhhh) Annoying and frustrating but I guess better to be safe and make sure nothing else is going on than to just assume things are fine and something bad happen that could have been prevented. They ran some tests on me just to make sure that I wasn't developing preeclampsia and everything looked good on the testing. The baby was moving around a lot and her heart rate was perfect :) My migraine/light sensitivity is still going strong and they aren't sure of the cause or why it hasn't gone away...I'm guessing it's probably just because of blood volume increases in pregnancy. She gave me another medicine (a different version of a tylenol based medication) and again, it didn't really seem to help.

I had my 38 week appointment with Dr. Swaim today, as well as an appointment with a neurologist to see about my migraines (I guess just to make sure there wasn't anything else serious going on). Dr. Swaim said I'm between 2 and 2.5 cm dilated, 70% effaced, and the baby's head has moved further down in my pelvis, positioned at the -1 station. I've been having a lot of menstrual type cramps, lower back pain, pelvic pressure and some contractions - all of which are normal for "early labor", which I'm officially in as of the last doctor visit. Don't get too excited though- early labor can last for hours, days, or even a week or two so there's nothing to say that baby Lauren is coming any sooner than her due date......but MAN I hope she does!!!! Anyways, unless my contractions get stronger/more painful and more frequent, the baby's staying in for a while longer and I will be seeing Dr. Swaim again next Friday for my 39 week appointment. (Please get out little baby! I'm tired of being pregnant and miserable. We want to meet you and I want my body back and all of the ailments to go away!!)

The neurologist appointment was nothing too exciting. After a bunch of poking and proding and questions, he recommended that I get an MRI. An MRI (of the head) would be fine for pregnancy but I've only got 2 weeks (more or less) left of pregnancy so I'm just going to hold off for now. I'm just tired of jumping through so many medical hoops honestly. We've had a lot of ultrasounds for the baby and various things come up along the way these past 9 months and I'm just tired of it all. I can't imagine that anything more serious would really be going on since I'm in otherwise perfect pregnant health - I really think my migraine just won't go away because of my increased blood volume from being pregnant. And if that's the case then the issue will resolve itself whenever the baby is delivered (and there is also nothing they can do about it anyways as long as the baby is still camping out in there). Once the baby is here, if my migraine hasn't gone away after a few weeks then I'll go for the MRI and get things checked out further. But until then, I'm just going to chill and play it by ear.

That's the latest! Here are some belly pictures - the first 4 are 37 weeks and the last one is 38 weeks. I'll have Sterling take a better 38 week picture tonight after he gets home and we have our Friday night dinner date :) Will post them next time.

Up 41 pounds!!!

Love,
J&S

37 weeks Update

Hey Everyone!

Behind on posts again so I'll see if I can catch up while Sterling is working on noms today :) So a couple of weeks ago, my sister Janna (along with the help of my mom and sister Jessica) threw us a baby shower at our house. We received so many wonderful gifts from family and friends and it was great to get the chance to visit with everyone and enjoy some nice food. Janna made us a beautiful cake and great side dishes and then we catered brisket and pulled pork from Tin Roof BBQ nearby our house. It was awesome! We played two shower games - one in which everyone guessed the size of my belly with pieces of yarn - THANKFULLY not with an actual tape measure, haha :) My mother-in-law Tammy and college friend Trey won the contest - both were pretty much spot on! I was impressed! The second game was a diaper changing contest between me and Sterling with baby dolls. I won :) But in all fairness, Sterling's diaper was rigged with mustard and brownie :) :) It was pretty entertaining to watch though I really hope his baby cleaning skills are better on our actual baby than it was with the toy baby! Here are some pictures from the shower:

Sterling's first Christmas outfit from Tammy and John :)

Me and my younger sisters

Me with my mommas :)

With mom and dad

Janna and Jessica

Sterling with both of our dads

Pretty cake made by Janna

Sterling's Aunt Debbie and Grandmother Eva Jo

Mustard and Brownie filled diaper, ha!

Rice Alumni

With our parents...proud parents and grandparents to be!

The shower was awesome! We are so fortunate to have such great family and be surrounded by such wonderful people. We lead a very blessed life :)

In other news, yesterday evening, our friends Jake and Brisa had their first child, a baby boy named Jacob! I talked with Brisa this morning on the phone and it sounds like their little family is doing well :) Brisa says that Jacob looks a lot like his daddy with blonde hair and fair skin. He weighed 7 lbs and 14 ounces. We plan to go visit them at the hospital tomorrow. I can't wait to see the little guy! Hard to believe we're next on the baby list!!!

My next doctor appointment was suppose to be this coming Tuesday but I called on Friday inquiring about medicine that was safe for me to take for a headache that wouldn't go away (had it for 5 days straight) and instead ended up having to go into the office for an unexpected visit. Because of the never ending headache and a few other symptoms, they wanted to check my blood pressure and do a urine test on me to make sure I didn't have preeclampsia. My blood pressure was a little higher than what it is normally, but still within normal limits so everything was in the clear!

Also while I was there, the doctor checked my uterine measurements and the size of the baby. Dr. Swaim estimates that miss Lauren is around 6 lbs and 10 ounces - so if she stays in utero until her due date of October 15th/16th, she will likely be "a good amount over 8 pounds" - pretty big for a baby girl. We'll just have to wait and see how early she comes (if early at all) and how accurate the estimates are :) Dr. Swaim also checked my cervix for physical changes in preparation for labor and I am 1.5 cm dilated, 60% effaced, and it is currently located about half way down to where it is suppose to be located when it is time to get the baby out! I'm not sure if that has any effect on my due date or not, but it is a good sign that my body has started to gradually prepare for delivery -supposedly this will help with the amount of pain I will experience in the stages of early and active labor if my cervix has already dilated a good amount before uterine contractions set in. After all of the anxiety from the placenta issues we had, it brings a great amount of relief to know that our baby has grown well and is considered full term and that my body is doing what it's suppose to do to prepare for her arrival. Seriously, God's timing is awesome - couldn't have asked for a better time to find some peace than right before our little one gets here :)

All we have left to do for baby prep is to install our car seat bases into both of the cars and put together the stroller and then we are ready for whenever she decides to make her debut :) My mom is predicting 7-10 days from now based on what Dr. Swaim said about my cervical progress - We're hoping she holds out past the end of bid week for Sterling's work and also past next weekend so Sterling and I can have one more weekend to ourselves where he isn't on call for work and John & Tammy don't have to miss the Texas/OU game :) We shall see when miss Lauren tells us she's ready! I will post some belly pictures soon - haven't loaded them on the computer as of yet, but keep an eye out for them if you are interested!

We hope you all are doing well!!
J&S

Labor Day Weekend/ 35 Weeks

Hey Everyone,

We've gotten a little behind on posts so here we go. Over labor day weekend, Sterling and I celebrated his recent annual work review. I bought him a cookie cake and some beer and put some streamers up in our kitchen and living room :). The next day Sterling's mom, dad, and sister came to visit us :) Kristen brought her precious new addition, a little 1.3 pound yorkie poo named Grizzly :) He's so teeny tiny - he looks like a little stuffed animal. On Saturday, we went to the Rice/UT game at Reliant Stadium. It was pretty fun - the combination of outbursts from the boys was more entertaining than the game, haha. John would be mad and Sterling would be standing and cheering obnoxiously. Then the very next play, Sterling would be pouting and John would be smiling from ear to ear. I was happy that the game was in an air-conditioned stadium :)
The guys and Kristen got in a game of golf on Sunday and Tammy and I took Grizzly for his first vet appointment to get his little ear checked out. Here are some pictures from the weekend, as well as a few of the belly for those who are interested in the progress of my expansion!

Dinner at Star Pizza and Dessert at Amy's Icecream after :)

I'm up around 35-36 pounds now, 35 weeks pregnant. Good Lord someone please stop those scale numbers from going up more!! Well, it's not really the numbers that I'm all that concerned about to be honest. My weight gain is in the range my doctor wanted me to gain so all is good there. I guess I just had hoped that by some miraculous feat I would be able to avoid the "gathering nuts for winter look" in my face, legs, and arms that 95% of all pregnant women get in the last trimester...unfortunately, not the case. BOOOOOOO. That too, is normal due to fluid accumulation/swelling in the very last part of the third trimester. On one hand, I'm fine with it because pregnancy is what it is. I'm suppose to gain weight, I'm suppose to be larger, I'm suppose to be puffy because my blood/lymph volume has more than tripled over the course of ~9 months....but on the other hand, GAHHHHH it's so hard seeing myself looking so "jolly" and round (like Santa) in pictures and in the mirror. Very hard to feel attractive at all. I'm ready for baby Lauren to get here so I can get my workout routine going again and get my body back! Hopefully, in the future if/when we decide to expand our family again, I'll be able to workout during successive pregnancies...with the placenta issues of this one, I haven't been allowed to work out. At the very least, it would help me keep my arms and legs toned so I have less of a Michelin man look :)

My sister Janna (along with the help of my mom and sister Jessica) threw us a nice baby shower over this past weekend. We got a ton of stuff for the baby - she is going to be so spoiled rotten :) My dad and Jessica flew back to Tennessee this morning; Janna will be flying back home to California tomorrow morning, and mom is staying with us for a week. She's still pretty restricted with her mobility (still isn't allowed to bear weight on her left leg) so we will mainly just be visiting and keeping each other entertained. I imagine our main project will just be to finish up organizing all of the presents into the baby's room and then getting the last few little things we'll need for the baby from Babies R Us and Target. We'll post some pictures from the shower on the next post.

I'll be 36 weeks this coming Friday so she could be here anytime between Friday and October 15th. CRAZY!!!

Hope everyone is doing well!!

-J&S