Pregnancy - September 2011

Hi ladies! I had tried to join the group back in June but decided to wait until we really started to try before jumping in head first. I went off the pill back in July and we thought we would see what happened. Nothing yet. This month we will be putting more effort into it though.
My name is Belinda and I will be 29 this month. I have a 9 year old son and 2 crazy dogs as well as an amazing husband.

Bump for later!

:glasses:

Rachel,
I'm sorry you had such a hard time..but what a beautiful baby! Enjoy every minute with her, and feel better soon!


AFM: I am doing some last minute packing of my bags..and then I am off to the hospital tomorrow at 6am! C-section is scheduled for 8:30! I am beyond ecstatic! I am bringing my laptop with me so I can skype with some family, so I should be able to update sometime over the weekend! Hope everyone has a fantastic labor day weekend..I know I will! The next time I write, ill have a baby next to me...amazing!!

bump

Bump

Officially baby month for me and officially fullterm as of yesterday

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julz-thanks for the back exercise advice I was doing it last night and got very strange looks from my hubby haha

Danielle- yaaaay! enjoy these last few weeks of relative quiet

I was wondering if anyone can give me insight as to the 'best' way to go about getting a baby boy circumcised? I know its able to be done in the hospital but I was also told that this is relatively expensive. Are there other good options?

WOW hearing about all the babies that will be here soon makes me wish even more that this will be our month!

Just a little more on my background. I have a huge family history of endometriosis. No female in my family has been able to have kids after 26. Kid you not 3 weeks after I turned 26 I was told I have endo and that I prob should try to have a baby in the next 6 months or it might become difficult. This had me so upset but we weren't ready yet. We talked about it this year and decided that in July I could go off the pill and see what happened. This will be my first month of tracking and really "trying" for this to happen.

One of my original reasons for joining MFP was to get my weight down a little before we did concieve. With my son I ended up gaining over 100 pounds. I PRAY that that doesn't happen again. I am set out to be active and fit and keep it up through the pregnancy.

Hello ladies! I am back after a nice 16 day vacation home to visit my family. I had a lovely time! I've missed a lot here though. I'm seeing lots of names I'm not recognizing and fun new adventures starting.
Rachel- Congratulations sweetie! I'm sorry that what you had looked and hoped for in your labor and delivery didn't turn out, but bringing a baby into this world is a miracle no matter how it happens! I'm so proud of you! Enjoy your new chapter.
A lot of you mommas are getting close to the end of the race. Enjoy these last weeks...

Right now I'm in the process of packing boxes and finding a new house to live in. This apartment life is for the birds! We gave our 60 day notice, but haven't been able to actively look for a new place until now. So the hunt is on! I'm feeling VERY overwhelmed knowing I have to be out by September 30th but have no clue where I'm going to. I am praying hard that God shows us the right direction for our family. I know He won't leave us homeless.
My pregnancy seems to be flying by. I am closing in on 18 weeks already! It just seems like yesterday I found out. I guess staying busy and keeping up with my 14month old helps a lot. Almost half way there! Yay!

Hope the rest of you are doing well. Excited to get back in the loop of things.

I was wondering if anyone can give me insight as to the 'best' way to go about getting a baby boy circumcised? I know its able to be done in the hospital but I was also told that this is relatively expensive. Are there other good options?

I gave birth at home, so a hospital wasn't willing to take me or my son as a patient because he wasn't born in their facilities. We searched around for other options as well. We ended up finding a Jewish physician in the Houston area that had been practicing specifically on circumcisions for 30 years! Religiously speaking, circumcision was supposed to happen on the 8th day, which is when this doctor came to our house for the procedure. He sanitized the area, used sanitized materials- all done very hygienically...just like it's done at the hospital...and did it all right on my table. haha! I think the price was $450

OK. Finally going to try an get this story written down… Wish I’d taken the time to do it sooner – hope I can remember everything.

We went in to the hospital last Wednesday evening about 11:30 pm. They inserted prostin gel in hopes that it would thin my cervix. (I was only dilated 1 and 50% effaced when I went in.) They inserted the gel again around four. At 8:30 I hadn’t progressed at all and they started me on pitocin and magnesium. At that point my contractions were sporadic and not very strong. My Dr. came in sometime that morning and I was at 2. She scrapped my membranes again, this time a bit more thoroughly. That really didn’t do anything much at all. She came back in around 5:30 pm (Thursday) and I was only dilated to 3. She broke my water using the head monitor for the baby. She got it attached to the baby so we just left it on so that my belly monitor could come off. As much as I dislike internal monitors it sure felt good to not have that strap around my belly after almost 24 hours! My contractions started getting stronger then, but they were still 5 to 7 minutes apart. And they had me maxed out on pit. My nurse talked to me about putting and internal contraction monitor in. This would be much more accurate than the one around my belly and would also enable them to give me more pit since they would have a more reliable reading on the contractions. I figured if there was one monitor down there one more really wouldn’t make any difference. Plus, by that time I was really starting to get worried about the chances of a c-section considering how slowly I was progressing. Around 1 or 2 Friday morning I let them give me a dose of Nubain. That stuff is amazing!!! I know why people do drugs if it’s anything like that. It goes in your IV and in a couple of minutes you have this nice warm fuzzy feeling and the next thing you know you’re asleep for a couple hours only slightly aware when you’re having a contraction. It wears off then with no side effects to mom or baby, giving you the benefit of having been able to rest a bit. By 5 am my contractions, while still 4 to 5 min. apart, were getting harder and harder to handle. I called my midwife/doula to come in. She got there around 6:30 Friday morning. We discovered that every time I stood up or sat down I would have a really good contraction. So I tried to do that for a while, but was so exhausted I could barely move. I also threw up somewhere in there. Shift changed around 8. I was still only dilated to 5 and the nurse and my doula convinced me that I needed to lie down and rest for a bit. That was really hard for me to accept because it felt like giving up! I mean lying down is sorta counter productive when you’re wanting a baby to come out!!! Also, all this time she stayed really high and didn’t really engage at all. I finally agreed to lie down and try to rest. So much for that!!! I hadn’t lain there for very long and my contractions started getting stronger and closer together. I was so glad that my doula was there!!! I lay on my side and she had a way of pushing on my back and hip that made contractions about 50% more bearable. They checked me and I was to 8. They kept telling me to tell them if I felt pushy. I finally did and they called my Dr. Well, I felt pushy through about three contractions and then I really did need to push. It only took about five pushes to get her out. It was so cool because I could feel each part of her come out and it didn’t hurt at all. I ended up with only a small scratch that burned a little the first time I peed and then didn’t bother me any more. I told my Dr. that it was pretty pathetic when the tops of your feet (because of the swelling) hurt worse than your bottom two days after delivery!!! My Dr. obviously didn’t make it to the birth in time and even the floor Dr. didn’t get there. My nurse and doula delivered the baby. I got to hold her and feed her right away. DH had to leave a few hours after the birth and they didn’t want me to have her in my room if I was going to sleep so I let them take her to the nursery for her bath while I slept for a couple hours. That was the only time she was away from us the whole time we were in the hospital. I was hoping to be discharged 24 hours after birth, but had to be on the mag for 24 hours and my Dr. wanted me to stay for observation for a while after that. So we didn’t come home ‘till noon on Sunday. The main complication we had after birth was Nikki’s billi reuben kept climbing until it peaked at 17.5 Wednesday. This morning was the first morning I had been home since last Wednesday morning because I had to take her to the lab every day for a blood draw. Her poor little heels are quite poked! She is a week old today. Nursing is going quite well it seems to me and I feel like I have a better milk supply than I did with DS. I want to get the scales out this evening and see how she is doing weight wise. DS loves her and his main fault is that he is really way to ‘helpful’. I want to encourage that though so it seems to be taking a good deal of time and patience on my part right now to let him help with her and hold her as much as he wants. He really is so sweet with her!!!

Overall it wasn’t the birth that I had wanted. But I have to admit that it was a much, much better than my experience with DS and all things considered I am pretty content with how things turned out. The bills are a little overwhelming since they’re about three times what we had hoped they would be if I’d had a home birth. But, that is manageable. What matters now is that it’s all behind us and everyone is fine and doing well.

Regina! I didn't know you had your baby! Congratulations. A little early, correct?

Yes. Sixteen days.