Harper's Birth Story Part 1

February 11



We go in for our 38 week appointment. Like always, every appointment begins with the customary urine sample, weigh in and blood pressure check. At the weigh in I notice a few extra pounds on the scale. The physician assistant didn't say anything and neither did I. She takes my blood pressure and doesn't say a word. ( I now know my pressure was sky high at this point) Now the silence is getting on my nerves. She gets another technician to take my pressure. Which I'm totally ok with, because I didn't like her energy anyway! The new tech tells me to think of calming things. Bam, still high. She sends me into the exam room to lie down. After 20 minutes they come to take it again. It went down like 20 points. My midwife then tells me I'm not to go back to work and I'm on bed rest until baby comes. Not only that, they want me to come back on Monday. What? I don't have blood pressure issues! Sure my pressure has been rising over the past two weeks, but I just thought that meant my body was tired of being pregnant. Little do they know, I have a 4 day weekend, so sure, bed rest! I'd planned on going in to work on the 16th to settle things at work.





February 14th


Around 9 or 10 o'clock Johnny and I go to dinner, just a block from the house. We order, I go to the restroom. I come back, take a seat and GOOSH!! Ok, so what was that? I tell Johnny it’s time to go home. About midnight I start feeling this weird pressure in my lower belly. We called the midwife about 1:45. I describe my symptoms, including the contractions I was starting to feel. She says, “Get some sleep and I’ll see you tomorrow @ 3:30.” Okkkkk…But at 4:45 I woke up with the world’s worst contraction. It just would not stop! I tried to get some rest that day, but the contractions went from 15 minutes apart to 7 minutes apart. At our 3:30 appointment, it was determined that my water had actually broke the night before and was stained with muconium. We were told to go right to the hospital. At the hospital we were told we were no longer candidates for water birth, because Harper had gone #2 inside me. So of course I had a moment (tears), but we had to get ourselves together quickly to birth our baby.

Contractions were coming pretty regularly.  I was checked and surprisingly just at 1cm dilated.  With a little help, I slept that night.

Forever and a day

Er, uh, we have a daughter now.  I don't know if you knew, but yeah.  I got super busy after my last post and then well, you know, two weeks before her due date, Harper decided she wanted to join the party.  So here's what you'll see in the next few days:

• Harper's birth story
• pictures of Harper
• Our new reality

I promise! 

Here's a picture to tide you over...

33 weeks

I know, I know!  I'm a slacker! 

See what had happened was the holidays!  And then, you know being back and getting back into our schedule here and stuff.  But I'm making up for it right now!

So the holidays!  Great times!  Baby Shower and Christmas!  It was a fun and much needed holiday! 

Yeah, the belly... I believe I was 30 weeks at this point.

But my absolute favorite pic is the cake.  Not we didn't eat the rest of the word Congradulations. My mom ran out of room and icing.  She gets an A for effort!

And another fav...

My Grandmother and me!

Ray Ray has been busy! But you'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out how, because this tired preggo is turning in early!

29 weeks

Yes, I know it's in black and white.  I wasn't feeling the color look, so here you go.

• Ray Ray is 2 1/2 pounds and has moved into this weird position.  Now I feel Ray Ray really low, but at the same time, sorta high. I can't explain it. 
• Ray Ray and my organs are competing for space now.  My bladder is being squeezed!  How do I know?  I have this urge to go all the time but only a little comes.  Awesome right?
• I'm quite itchy these days.  Mostly my thighs, arms and back.  Surprisingly, not my stomach.  Quite annoying at night.
• Sleeping is ok.  Johnny and I are practicing our relaxation techniques, so that especially helped a few nights ago.  I slept so good!  Last night, not so much.  Itch city!
• Our birthing clas is coming along.  I think we are almost halfway through the classes. 
• I'm tired these days, so if this post doesn't make a while lot of sense, I do apologize... well, not really!  Good night!

28 weeks

Thought I'd start off with a little comparison....

                           WEEK 18                                                           WEEK 28
Apparently I've gotten a little bigger.  Just a tad.  I thought I was sooo pregnant at week 18!

• The baby weighs a bit over 2 pounds right now.  It's a busy, busy baby!  Moving all around and kicking us all the time!  I love it!
• Researching cloth diapers these days.  I'm loving the prefolds.  Green Mountain prefolds seem to be a good company.  Prefolds do need covers and I like the look of Bummis and Thirsties.  I think I registerd for those on Amazon.com.  Here's a neat video of a prefold diaper in use:

• I like FuzziBunz pocket diapers too.  There are so many options, it's hard to narrow it down!  So it will be trial and error for us.
• Back pain all the time now. Fun.
• I've got a clear linea negra now.  Looks funny.
• Everytime I say something crazy at work, my coworkers accuse Ray Ray of acting up again.  They blame it on the baby. I just try to laugh everyday.  Keeps us moving!
• Finally set up a registry at Baby Depot, in addition to Babies R' Us and Target.

Monday Musings

• I'm so ready to go home.  I need a vacation!  And the need is great to be around folks who love me. {{{HUGS}}} everyone!
• Though I am a Florida State alumn, I was very bummed that Florida lost on Saturday.  Not a fan of Alabama at all.  But in other college football news, Georgia Tech is the ACC champion.  Woohoo!  Go Yellow Jackets!  We actually went to one of their  games a few weeks ago.  Fun times!
• I'm into cooking "make ahead" meals this week.  I made a vegetarian tetrazzini tonight.  Mmm, tasty.  Tomorrow, I'll make a squash casserole.  Of course, I'm freezing half of each recipe to eat later.  Smart, I know :)!
• I finally got a GPS system for the car.  Now I'm constantly thinking of places to go, so I can use it.  Haven't used it yet.  Seriously considered using it to go to the grocery store, even though it's right across the street.  Shut up.
• You're never to old to make a Christmas list.  Don't worry, I'll be posting my list in a few days!
• Don't know if I mentioned it last week, but Johnny cut his hand pretty badly last week.  Needed 3 stitches.  Thanks to the doctor's and my help, he is healing nicely!
• I really want to go see the movie Avatar.  If you didn't know it before, I'm sort of a Sci Fi girl.  But also looking forward to Disney's The Frog Princess.  I've been waiting for that movie all of my life!

27 weeks

Here we are again!  Another week!

• We had an appointment this week.  All is well with Ray Ray! Me, on the other hand... that's a different story.  Ray Ray weighs almost 2 pounds (like a head of cauliflower) and is about 14 1/2 inches long with legs extended. The baby is sleeping and waking at regular intervals, opening and closing their eyes, and perhaps even sucking their fingers.  At least that's what babycenter says. 
• Ray Ray is moving a lot!  Feeling the movement down low a lot.  They said it was ok at our appointment, so no worries!
• I have a cold/sinus infection.  Started with scratchy throat last Wednesday night and now it's stuffy nose city!  Ick!  And of course I can't take a thing!  So it's been all about lemon/honey/water and Vick's vapor rub.  Oh yeah.
• How could I forget!  I took the 1 hour Gestational Diabetes test yesterday.  It was the nastiest juice I've ever had to drink.  I hope I don't have to repeat that anytime soon!  They said no news is good news, so let's hope we don't hear from the office this week!