15 days til my baby is one!

Two weeks from tomorrow, Jeremiah celebrates his first birthday. My lil "Christmas ham" as I christened him last year, was actually supposed to be the Thanksgiving Turkey. My due date was on November 22, Thanksgiving day, which is 5 days away. I thought it would be fun if I posted on here my journal entries from each day I journaled leading up to his birthday. After today, I will be posting these entries coinciding with the day they were written, but seeing as I didn't write one on the 17th (and I want to start today!), here is the next most recent entry, from the 13th. At this point I had already had a few rounds of false labor, but never actually went to the hospital, much to my dissapointment. We were also living with my parents from November 1st through February 1st as we waited for our house to be rid of the tenants. Here we go!

November 13, 2007
"9 Days"
Well there was no progress made at my dr.'s appointment yesterday . I"m still dilated and effaced the exact same amount that I was last week. (1 cm, 50 percent). My doctor confirmed that the labor I had on Sat. night/Sunday was false labor, which is apparently quite common in first time mothers. Boo!!

So yesterday I asked my doctor how big he thought my baby was, because usually doctors can give you a rough estimate based on fundus size and things like that. He said that it was really hard to tell on me because I'm so tall and my belly is small. He said that girls of my height and build can usually hide the baby's size really well... meaning that I could potentially have a 9 pound baby in me, or it could be a 4 pound baby. Just to be on the safe side, Dr. Lee sent me to the hospital to get an ultrasound done to determine the size and amneonic fluid levels, and to hook me up to a fetal monitor for an hour to check on the baby's movements. All of this was freaking me out big time even though he assured me that everything was just a precaution; that all of my other tests and exams have turned up clean.

Well everything did turn out fine... the ultrasound technitian said that all my fluid levels were fine, all her little tests were measuring up to coincide with my due date (meaning the baby's size and organ developments coincide with the fetal age, which is very good) and the approximate weight of my baby is 7 1/2 pounds. She also told me that those estimates can go either way by a pound... so the baby COULD be 6 1/2 pounds or even 8 1/2 pounds. I was in a state of shock when she told me how big the baby was...I know my baby is cramped tightly in my stomach but I figured him or her to be around 5 pounds max because of how small my tummy is for being due next week. I was very happy to hear this =)

I told the tech right from the start that we didn't want to know the gender of our baby. She asked what our guesses were (i told her both Louis and I think boy) and afterwards I asked if she saw the gender and she said yes... and it took EVERY ounce of willpower not to find out what it was! She said she wasn't going to tell me anyway because being surprised is so fun

My fetal monitoring tests came out really good too; the baby was extremely active. I was practically begging the baby to start some contractions so that they would have to keep me, but the few contractions that I had were the Braxton Hicks kind and were very small. So it looks like I"ll be keeping my weekly dr. appointment on Monday... hopefully the last one that I have!

I am determined now not to become so house-bound here at my mom's; it's driving me crazy! All I've been doing is going online, watching TV, and going to my doctor's appointments. I leave the house MAYBE every 3 days. Not anymore. I'm determined to take Candy for a walk every day (Today I"m taking her to the park), go visit my mom at work, and scrapbook when I'm here at the house. Also, tomorrow I"m having lunch with Joanna and dinner with Marissa, Kappie and Steven. I think that Marissa and co. are coming here for dinner because they don't want me driving far late at night, and my mom's house is kind of a mid-point between Marissa's house in Orange and the place Kappie and Steven are staying in Monrovia. I was REALLY hoping the baby would be here by now because Kappie and Steven are going to Mexico this weekend for the entire winter to work at an orphanage and won't be coming back here for visits between the start of their work and the end as far as we know, and I really wanted them to be able to see the baby up close and personal, not just in pictures. Oh well...