37 week visit

Had another doctor visit this morning. I love getting the early morning appointments, because it means I have next to no wait. My appointment this morning was at 8:45. I was walking home by 9:05. Sweet.

The word from the doctor is- everything looks perfect. My total weight gain is still holding at 19lbs (which the doctor assured me is FINE, he actually told me he's proud of me in regards to my weight gain), blood pressure is perfect, baby is head down and the heartbeat is strong, belly is measuring the exact perfect size. He actually said that my belly was an optical illusion. When he looked at it, he thought it didn't look that big, but when he measured it, it was spot on. Sooo...cool.

I really like the doctor I had today. I go to a group practice, so for my appointments, I rotate through all 7 doctors. That way I know all of them,since there's no way of telling who will be on delivery duty when I go into labor. They're all pretty good, there is one doctor that I like less than the others- with my luck, I'll end up getting her...but I hope that I get one of the two guy doctors. They're my favorites. We'll just have to wait and see.

Anyways. I'm not going in to work today. I have a to-do list a mile long. I'm hoping to do all of it...

(amanda)

Read more...

36 weeks, the Red Sox, and The Office season premiere.

Thursdays on NBC, yo. It's the season premiere of that fantastic television show, The Office. Just watched it while chillin on the couch with Nate and puppydog, with baby kicking around in utero. You gotta know he/she is a fan of the show, too. I won't tell you what happened, in case you've tivoed it and not watched it yet...just be ready for some officey awesomeness.

So I'm 36 weeks pregnant now. That means there are a mere 4 weeks to my due date. Holy freakin crap. Seriously. According to the ladies at work, it looks like the baby has dropped. Or at least started to drop. They said today that my belly looks different this week. Lower. And kind of more out front. They also all decided that baby is a boy, because I'm carrying all in the front and don't even look like I'm pregnant from the back. We shall see.

I'm stil walking as much as possible... I found this group online, called See Mommy Run, it's basically a way to meet up with other women who run and who are moms. Right now I belong to two different groups within the site, one group consists of me and this one lady that lives in the next neighborhood over. We meet up a couple mornings a week and walk with our dogs. We meet before she goes to work, which means I have to drag my butt out of bed at the ungodly hour of 5:45 in order to meet with her at six... but we walk for an hour and then I come home and crawl back into bed, snuggle back up to Nate and go back to sleep for another hour and a half before I have to get up and shower and go to work. It's a pretty good system. I like it. Although after I got back from the walk yesterday I was pretty sore, and it sort of hurt to walk for the rest of the day, so I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to keep up with the one-hour morning walks. May have to start cutting back. But once baby is born- I plan on getting back into it hardcore. I'll start with walking, but I hope to start running again asap. I've got not one, but two bridesmaids dresses to fit into next summer, not to mention the marathon I want to run next fall... so it's back into shape asap for this momma.

Been having tons of Braxton-Hicks contractions, especially in the afternoons for some reason. Drinking water is supposed to help keep them from happening, or at least keep them painless, so I'm guzzling H2O like its going out of style. Seems to help, unfortunately it also keeps me having to pee like every 17 minutes or so...

I'm still a little concerned that I'm not eating enough, cause I really am just not hungry at all most of the time... but I try to make sure I at least have a decent breakfast, and also a decent dinner, with several snacks during the day. Hopefully thats good enough.

The Red Sox clinched a playoff berth the other night. Woohoo! So that was exciting. Now all that needs to happen is that they win all 3 games against the Yankees this weekend, and for Tampa Bay to lose their next three games, and they'll finish at the top of the division...yeah. But seriously- we aint too proud to take that Wild Card slot. They'll be playing in October, and that's all that matters. One step closer to back-to-back WS titles. I still believe.

(amanda)

ps. I'm trying to use the excitement of playoff baseball to keep myself distracted from the fact that I'll be having a BABY (?!?!?!) in the next month. Cause if I don't keep myself distracted, it's nothing but A Baby Story on TLC, and pregnancy message boards, and rereading What to Expect When You're Expecting, and basically overanalyzing every little thing. It's seriously getting out of control. I need to keep my mind off it so that I can survive these last few weeks. Enter October baseball. It works at least for a few hours every night when there is a game going on...

And keep those birthdate/weight/sex guesses coming!

Read more...

35 weeks.

Just got home from my doctors office. This counted as my 35 week visit, although the doctors and I differ on when exactly I will hit 35 weeks. I say this Thursday, they say tomorrow. I continue to hold my own opinion of my due date... according to my NFP chart, the due date should be October 23rd. A date that was backed up by the ultrasound tech when we had that done what seems like a thousand years ago. The doctor just figured it from the date of my last period, which puts it at October 21st. I am well aware that the due date is just an approximation, and really, whats the difference in two days? I'll tell you. When its October 24th and this kid is still kicking around in my gut, I would much rather think I'm just a day past my due date rather than 3 days past. You get what I'm saying? It's a purely psychological thing. It's like how my dad used to always over-estimate how much longer we had to be in the car on road trips.

We'd be halfway to New Jersey, and you'd ask him "Dad? How much longer till we get there?" He'd look at the clock, and reply "hmm...I'd say at least another 4 hours" Except the WHOLE trip took us like 5, and we'd been on the road for 2 and a half hours, we were halfway through Connecticut already...even if we DID hit New York traffic we should be there in another 3 hours...but when we expected to be in the car for 4 more hours and instead we were arriving at my uncles house after only another 2, well hey! Those 2 hours seemed like nothing!

In any case. I'm approximately 35 weeks along this week, and everything is looking just fine and normal. The thing that surprised me was that I havent gained a single pound since my 30-week appointment. I'm still at a total of 19 lbs. heavier than I was pre-pregnant. I feel a hell of a lot bigger, so I don't know how that works out... but the nurse said its fine, so I'm not concerned. Guess there's something to this ice cream and cereal diet afterall...

Sox/Rays tonight! We're only a game behind, with a win we could pull into a first-place tie for the division! Its a biiiiiig series!!! I love the end of the season. I love the postseason. This baby is due during the week of the World Series. All I know is that it better not make me miss a game. If I go into labor during the World Series, you had better believe I will be watching the game from my hospital bed. And I think the baby's going home outfit should definitely be something Red Sox related. Hmm. Better get to work on that.

Oh, and since we're sort of entering the home stretch here, I am currently taking bets on the actual delivery date and size and gender of the child currently known as Baby LaMartina. Leave me your guesses in the comment box. Whoever guesses closest will totally win some sort of prize. So lets hear em.

(amanda)

Heres me. 35 weeks and 1 day.

Read more...

Welcome to the baby blog.

I'll do my best to keep this updated and interesting. I'm sure it will be much more interesting once the baby is actually here... right now we're pretty much just in the last-bit-of-pregnancy holding pattern. Got about 6 weeks to go.

I feel huge, but whenever I tell somebody that I'm 7.5 months pregnant, they say "Oh my God, you're so tiny!" So I don't know.

Right now, the baby's favorite thing to do is push up into my ribcage, which I'm sure it great fun. Unfortunately, that also makes it a bit difficult for me to breathe at times... but sometimes I can also feel its little bottom pushing up on the top of my stomach, and that is still pretty cool. Baby also seems to get hiccups quite regularly. Which is cute. I can feel those in the underside of my belly, so I guess the baby must be head down.

The staples in my diet continue to be ice cream and bowls of breakfast cereal, which I figure is healthy... I'm getting plenty of calcium and protein, plus I put blueberries on my Total and Cheerios, so there's fruit, and whole grains. I also drink a lot of V8Fusion, which is a whole serving of fruits and veggies in one cup of juice. Between all that and my vitamins, I think I'm doing pretty well, nutritionally.

The big news this week is that my mom had her baby, so our new baby has another aunt! Check out Emily's website here.

(amanda)

Read more...