updates, now in spanish!

Let me start with a quick 'Hola!' to the people of Latin America. This week I got my first blog hit from the Spanish-speaking world. (This is after dozens and dozens from Europe, Asia, Oceania, and even Africa.) Not only did someone from Venezuela pop over to my blog, but apparently they accessed the site via blog.spot's automatic translator. I had no idea! It seems that 'the infertile breeder' is also known as 'el criador infertiles'. So cool.

Here's what else is cool: Peaches and my brother had themselves a healthy baby boy this weekend! He is adorable and everyone is doing well. If we weren't already envious of a lady who got PG after 2 months off the pill.. get this - she went from the first real contractions to holding her little baby in about 8 hours. After a few hours of labor at home, they raced to the hospital (as instructed) once her contractions were 5 minutes apart. They had the baby within 45 minutes! No time for an epidural or anything. They're lucky they made it!

As for me, I'm at 37.5 weeks and hangin' on. One of my OBs realized that I'm 40 years old and so I need to come in twice a week for these non-stress tests (NST). You ladies under 35 don't need to get these, right? It's pretty nifty. You lounge in a recliner for ~20 minutes with two sensors strapped to your abdomen. One sensor tracks the baby's heart rate (see my printout below) and the second records any uterine contractions. Also, I push a button whenever I feel the baby move (vertical arrow on chart). What they want to see is your baby moving and then her heart rate going up temporarily after that. If the baby's not moving, or if her heart rate doesn't react to movement, then this is a sign of fetal distress. (Mine looks good.) The doc said that I was having a lot of small uterine contractions, but nothing major.. nothing I could feel. She did an internal exam and said that I'm not effaced or dilated at all, so we're holding steady.

So.. this week I'll be working at home and I have OB appointments on Tuesday and Friday. The following week I'll have a Monday appointment and then c-section on Wednesday. If we make it that far. Not that I'm having any signs of labor or anything -I'm just super huge. This week I measured 1-2 weeks ahead. I'm still skinny(ish), so I look like a thin woman with a basketball under her shirt. It's comical and really quite uncomfortable. We've located all the essential baby gear in the basement and today I washed Waffle Girl's newborn-sized clothes. We're ready anytime! Right?!

predictions anyone?

As I told you a while ago, my sister-in-law "Peaches" is expecting her first baby. Her due date is 2 weeks before ours, or 1 week before my 39wk c-section. For your amusement, here is a double baby bump pic (me on the left). This was taken when we were respectively 35 and 37 wks.

Most likely Peaches will deliver first. But then again.. her mother had both her babies at 41 weeks, not to mention that bump looks pretty high, right? Hee hee. In theory we could deliver the same week and our baby cousins would be virtual twins!

Speaking of twins, I'm excited to see what both babies will look like. My little Waffle Girl looks like Mr. Foxy. It would be nifty if girl #2 looked like me... in which case her cousin (gender as yet unknown) might take after my family, too, and they'd totally look alike! That would be a hoot.

So, what else is going on? Not a whole lot. I turned in my PhD thesis for formatting review and am waiting for comments. The reviewer lady is going to take a couple weeks to measure my margins, check the pagination, and other such thrilling details. Depending on how long the review takes and how many changes I need to make, this could all be done before baby comes.. or not. No big deal either way. The mental heavy lifting is all done and I can certainly adjust font size or whatever while I'm home with a newborn. Bring it, lady.

The weather has finally cooled off. I would loo-o-ove to go work in the garden, but I just don't have any energy and my belly gets all cramped up with the least exertion, so forget it! The edges between my lawn and flowerbeds are a total disaster.. to be dealt with in the spring.

The baby is moving a lot, which is great. I think she's kindof a goofball, though, 'cause she keeps pushing her little body off to the right side of my belly. I'm lounging around on the coach, looking at this ridiculous asymmetric bump, thinking "What is up with this crazy child?" And her recent tendency to elbow me in the colon is just weird and unnerving. Cut it out!