Bad dreams and contractions

For the past day or so, I thought Hudson was moving and stretching out weird. Usually if I'm laying down and I roll to my other side (which takes ohh... 5 minutes to do), my stomach gets super tight and its really painful. I thought it was just Hudson changing position, but after it happening a few times last night I thought... hmm... I really didn't FEEL Hudson move... and it usually isn't painful all around my stomach when he moves. I'm thinking its a contraction? You'd think that since I've actually HAD a baby before I'd have some sort of clue HAHA!

Anyhow...

Last night was a sleepless night. I was exhausted, so I crawled into bed around 10:20 and watched an episode of "Deliver Me". I finally crashed around 11.

At midnight, Porter came in my room and was all worked up about his Nemo cup.... he wanted some water. Crazy kid. I tried letting him sleep with me but he tosses and turns like a freaking fish out of water so I finally sent him back to his room.

An hour and a half later I was up again, having a horrible dream that someone broke into our house shooting a gun. I woke up and rolled over and had the minute long painful "movement" or "contraction" or whatever the hell it is.

I was up about 3 or 4 other times throughout the night to pee, and most of the time when I'd roll over to change position, I'd get that painful tightening. I hope this means that my body is getting itself ready for delivery in the next couple weeks. I'm freaked out that Hudson is going to be my "late baby." Porter was 10 days early, so I'm desperately banking on the idea that Hudson will be early as well.

But... then last night I was kind of freaking out thinking about him arriving in the next couple weeks. I'm not quite sure I'm ready to have 2 kids! There are lots of things around the house I probably should get done before Mr. Hudson shakes up our somewhat "regular routine". Like... scrapbooking... and fixing up my landscaping where the dogs ran through it last summer... and making a few blankets and bibs and burp cloth sets for the ladies I work with who are due (well, one had her baby the other day... 5 weeks early!)... and finding a new vehicle to trade the Fe in on... and Ryan getting the decks stained....and finalizing a few client orders.... Ok... so I can still do all that once Hudson is here, but it'd be so much easier to have things in place before he comes. Which technically means I need to get moving in order to have them done in the next 2-4 weeks.

Alright... thats enough of my rambling. I just thought I'd journal this to look back on :)

Countdown: 31 Days!

I cant' believe we're a month (or hopefully less) away from meeting Hudson! I feel like this pregnancy has been somewhat surreal.... almost like I haven't fully realized we're going to have another sweet little boy in our family.

Hudson has been doing a great job making himself known to me in the past couple weeks. He's quite a mover! Tonight he was just rolling and kicking and moving all around. My stomach looked like an alien was trying to emerge. I should video tape it.

He's also been dancing around on my sciatic nerve... which had me in tears today. I thought my SI joint pain in my hip was bad.... oooh this sciatic nerve crap sucks. Its not constant (although today my hip has felt sore, but not "electric shock" sore all the time), when that nerve gets irritated (which is a couple times an hour) it nearly brings me to my knees in tears. I have to really bite my lip to try not to scream out in pain. Its embarrassing when it happens in public... or at work when I'm walking down the hall with my students. One of my 3rd graders today saw me nearly fall and said "Oh that happens to me too when I wear high heels" Oh... I wish it were just me tripping on my shoes LOL!

I came home today in a yucky mood... I went to the chiropractor and had an adjustment that really didn't help much. I got home and took Porter out to play and ended up sitting outside crying because I'm just so sick of feeling uncomfortable and in pain. Porter's so darn sweet... he came up to me and stood next to me on the step, put his arm on my back and said "What wrong, mommy? What wrong?" I told him my hip hurt and he said "Oh" and went back to playing LOL! Funny boy.

I'm trying to stop wishing away these next few weeks as at this point I'm uncertain if I have it in me to ever want to have more biological children. I honestly just don't love being pregnant and it seems to bring out the worst in me. I know we'd both love another child in our family in the future, but I am leaning more towards wanting to adopt rather than go through pregnancy again. I found myself browsing adoption websites tonight of a family who has adopted 4 times from China. I always seem to be drawn to Chinese adoptions for some reason, so who knows... maybe that's a sign that our future holds something unknown to us. I'll just need to get Ryan on board... Anyhow, I am trying to enjoy these last weeks of being pregnant just in case I/we decide not to do this again. I am so anxious/excited to get this pregnancy over with... to have Hudson here and to move forward with our "new" family of 4 that I often have to stop myself and make myself appreciate what a miracle it is to be pregnant, and how bittersweet it would be if this is my last pregnancy to experience. I don't want to wish it away and then regret not really, truly cherishing it later.

Last night I worked on Hudson's birth announcements. I think I have it finalized, and I just hope that I have the ambition to attempt to take "good" pictures of him after he's born. I used my clients pictures as "samples" in the birth announcement and I love them. I hope I capture those type of images of Hudson.

Speaking of his birth announcement... he still does not have a middle name. I used "Hudson Cole" as a sample on the announcement and sent it to Ry to approve and he said he didn't care for Cole. So, that may be off the list?! We honestly just haven't even brought up middle names lately! I guess we have a few we like, so we can always decide after he's born, I suppose.

As far as work goes... I think I've decided that I'm going to take off starting May 8th, which will be 2 weeks before my due date. I am honestly hoping that Hudson makes his arrival sometime around that date, but who knows... he'll probably be my late baby. Let's hope not! I still need to give my principal the heads up, but I don't think it'll be a problem. It kind of gives me a few "shorter" goals to look forward to... a little over 2 weeks until I'm done working and from then, less than 2 weeks until Hudson is due.

Wow. What a rambling post. I just hopped on here to gripe about my painful day.. and here I go rambling off on a tangent!

Babycenter Says...

"Your baby doesn't have much room to maneuver now that he's over 18 inches long and tips the scales at 5 1/4 pounds (pick up a honeydew melon). Because it's so snug in your womb, he isn't likely to be doing somersaults anymore, but the number of times he kicks should remain about the same."

Well, not this kid. I swear, the past two days he's been flipping around back and forth. I was starting to get worried that he was upside down and with my luck I'll end up needing a c-section. I'm sitting here typing and it feels like he's kick boxing and doing somersaults in there. Babycenter, I don't believe you.

35 Week Appointment

Very very uneventful. Especially seeing I didn't gain ANYTHING this past 2 week period! She actually said it looked like I lost a tiny bit (but... that could be clothing or shoes... ). It was Tracy, the nurse midwife I love. She's always sympathetic and she just said "Ehh... the weight isn't a problem" probably because she just in the past year had a baby so she knows how it is.

I really don't have much to update. We pretty much talked about my HAIR the whole appointment. The hair on my head, that is. She asked how I styled it and who cuts it and went on and on about how she really loves my hair. Made my freaking day.

Hudson was laying sideways or something so she had a hard time measuring me. I didn't hear the stats on what I measured or what his heartbeat was because I was in la la land that she likes my hair HAHA! (ok, also because we were still talking HAIR while she did those measurements).

Anyhow... I go back in 2 weeks and then its every week from that point on. In the homestretch....

Swelling

Ahhh... that third trimester swelling. I've been trying to ignore my fingers which are beginning to swell like sausages. If I don't think about it, its not too bad. And during the day its usually ok. But when its hot and humid, or its at the end of the day, or in the morning when I wake up... my wedding ring is tight and uncomfortable and a pain in the rear to take off. I've contemplated buying an inexpensive, fake ring for the time being to wear instead of my wedding band. I'm not about to walk around this town looking like an unwed pregnant lady with a toddler in tow. You'd understand if you lived in my town.

So... those of you who had the finger swelling when you were pregnant... what did you do about your ring? Did you wear it on a different finger? Did you wear a different, larger ring in place of your wedding band? Did you suck it up and let your finger turn blue?

Preparing a toddler for a new sibling

Does anyone have any advice for preparing Porter for his new brother? Any neat things we should do for/with him to get him used to the idea? Any tips/tricks to making the transition from a 3 person family to a 4 person family after we bring Hudson home?

We talk to Porter all the time about his baby brother, how he'll come out of my tummy and he can help feed him etc. I ask him what he'll do if Hudson cries and he says "Want a sucky? Want a sucky?" HAHA!

He knows where Hudson's room is, knows we've bought him some clothes and that he has some toys in there. We've looked through Porter's old scrapbooks when he was a baby and told him that Baby Hudson is going to look like that when he comes out of mommy's tummy and that he'll come home with us and be a tiny baby just like Porter was.

I just am not so sure he understands, really. I mean, he's a smart kid, but I really don't think he can put the concept together that my huge stomach is going to produce a BABY and that he's going to come home and live with us. I'm afraid Porter is going to have a huge adjustment and I'm nervous that he'll react negatively to everything.

I'd like to make the transition as smooth as possible... what else can I do to help prepare Porter? What can we do when we're all home from the hospital to make things easier on Porter? I know we will definitely need to make sure we still try to spend one on one time with P-man as often as we can once we're home, but... anything else?

How far along am I now?

I have to keep checking my little ticker in the sidebar to remember how far I am. All I know is I have 5 weeks and a few days left. Hallelujah! I am so excited to meet Hudson and to have our family together and to get myself back to somewhat normal as soon as humanly possible.

At work today I made a little list of things I needed to blog about.

• I found stretch marks the other day. On my stomach on the sides of my belly button and on my sides... like someone was grabbing my waist and drug their nails about 3 inches as I ran away from them LOL! I think these were the spots I had stretch marks with Porter, too.
  
  
• My sciatic nerve has been KILLING ME. I only had a few instances when I was pregnant with Porter, but for the past 2 weeks I've been having lots of issues with my sciatic nerve getting messed with. I get a shocking jolt of nerve pain in my butt and down my leg and a couple times my leg has given out and I've nearly fallen. So annoying.
  
  
• Hudson has had the hiccups a lot lately. He's hiccuping as I type. It seems like every night around 9pm I start feeling his little hiccups.
  
  
• Work is sucking really bad right now. I feel like I barely put anything into it. I am normally creative and really excited to come up with new projects and writing activities for my students, but lately I really could care less. How horrible! I feel I'm giving a half assed effort to my job. I hope things change once I return in the fall.
  
  I've been contemplating leaving work the first week in May. When I was pregnant with Porter I was finished student teaching at 34 weeks and I just stayed home until Porter was born (at a few days past 38 weeks). I'm now almost 35 weeks and just feeling like... ehhh... bleh. I dread going to work... I have nothing to wear that is comfortable, I'm unmotivated to get anything done, I am tired all the time, I'm super uncomfortable- I hate getting up and walking around and walking down to get my students and just... I hate working right now (not that I hate my job... its just that every little "easy" task just doesn't seem easy anymore!). But I almost feel like a total slacker if I took off work early. I don't get a maternity leave, so it'd be unpaid. The longer I work, the more paychecks I get. I know lots of people work up until they deliver, so I keep thinking... am I a slacker for wanting to take off the last 3 weeks? I really think it'd be nice to spend that time with Porter one on one, but then I wonder if it'll just make the time go by slower. Any suggestions?

I guess that's it for now. I have more to write, but I'm uncomfortable sitting in this chair any longer.

Hudson's Room

I decided to take some pictures while our house looks orderly... here are a few of Hudson's room. I'm not finished with his letters. I'm not even positive I really like them that much. I might go more "simple" rather than the "animal print" in funky colors. What do you think?

(ps... photo quality sucks. Grainy. Taken with point and shoot camera)

Hudson's 3D

We weren't able to get many decent shots of Hudson today (well, we got one single "ok" image) but that's ok. He was smooshed up against something in there and it just wasn't working out. Here is the one decent image my mom got of him... I included a little diagram so you can see what is what. He has a cute little pointy chin just like Porter, and his nose looks pretty similar as well.

Just call me Heifer VonSwaggen

Oh lord... OH LORD... where do I start?

I had my 32 week appointment this morning. First, though, Porter and I had to go to the Diagnostic Center to do my glucose test. Yep, 32 weeks and JUST getting around to doing that. Luckily I only had to drink a small coffee sized cup full (which was kind of yummy... orange... like orange slice!) and then head up to my appointment.

P did really well in the waiting room and during my appointment (although when I had to pee in a cup he was all over the bathroom and wanting to drink from the little pee cups (empty, of course) and write on it with the marker...

I handed over my pee and went to step on the scale.

Hold your breath, ladies and gentlemen.

I somehow managed to gain 6lbs in the past 2.5 weeks. What the freaking hell!?! Let's just say I really wanted to crawl in a hole and die. I could feel the look from Clara the nurse... she attempted to kindly say "Well, I'll round it down to 166 (it was 166.6) but it is still SIX pounds...." and let her voice trail off like that. I am sure she was thinking "Why don't you try keeping your mouth SHUT once in awhile instead of stuffing it with junk?"

Anyhow, the rest went off without a hitch.... Hudson's heartbeat was in the 150's and everything else went a-ok. The nurse/midwife (Laura, who I had never seen before) asked if I planned to breastfeed and this was the first time I've admitted (other than on the blog) that no, I wasn't going to attempt to. I oddly (or, maybe not so oddly) felt the need to include an explanation as to why I wasn't going to attempt to BF, and she seemed very non-judgmental about it and empathized with the large breast issue. I just worry about the nurses at the hospital and I don't want to feel like a loser mom for not even trying. But honestly, carrying around 34DDDD boobs on a 5'3" normally 125/130lb frame is not easy.

Porter and I also stopped in to see my mom and get an ultrasound of Hudson. He was SO SO cute! He kept opening his mouth and yawning and sticking out his tongue. I love it. And, tomorrow we're going to my mom's other work to get a 3D ultrasound done... so I'm crossing my fingers that Hudson is in a good position and ready for his close up!

{Profile}

{Profile}

{Profile with mouth open... you can see the black "line" of his throat}
{Facing him... you can't see his eyes- they're in that dark space to the top/right- but you can see his nose as if you were looking up it, and his lips}
{Fingers- he seemed to have long fingers and fat hands!}