Soooo Soooore

So my patient period has ended and I am back to feeling miserable. My back and belly are just CONSTANTLY so sore and I just want it to be over.

I have another acupuncture appointment tomorrow. Sigh.

0 is the number of days until I can go into labor and still have my home-birth (36 weeks)
0 is the number of days until I am full term (37 weeks)
1 is the number of days until my meaningless due date (40 weeks)
9 is the number of days until the actual average due date (41 weeks and 1 day)
15 is the absolute maximum number of days that I could be pregnant (42 weeks)

Countdown

Time to crunch the numbers, no?

0 is the number of days until I can go into labor and still have my home-birth (36 weeks)
0 is the number of days until I am full term (37 weeks)
11 is the number of days until my meaningless due date (40 weeks)
19 is the number of days until the actual average due date (41 weeks and 1 day)
25 is the absolute maximum number of days that I could be pregnant (42 weeks)

I added a new one, did you notice? I don't know if I ever blogged about this, sorry if I did, but the 40 week due date was determined somewhat randomly in the 1700's.

Since then, repeated research has demonstrated that if women are left to go into labor on their own, the average due date is actually NOT 40 weeks, but 41 weeks and 1 day.

Of course I am hoping beyond anything, at this point, that I am not average and James David decides to show up earlier than that. But it's a good thing to keep in mind.

My Mom said she started feeling "so done" with like 5 weeks to go. OMG I'm so glad I only started feeling this way at 37.5 weeks!

Bedroom as Birth Room

So as I had written about earlier, one of the things we accomplished while my Mom was visiting me was to finish getting our bedroom ready for the birth and fully convert it to a "birth room".

Here's our birthing room!
We cleared off our dressers and moved them into the far end of the room so that there would be room for the labor/birth tub and for all of us to walk around it comfortably.

And here's our bed and cradle:
And a close-up of our cradle:

James' sister gave it to us, it was hand-made in the 80's. The mattress and sheets were custom ordered since the dimensions are 12 inches by 31 inches . . . ;-)

And here's a close up of some of our birth supplies:

As you can see, there are two sets of sheets--in between them is a plastic mattress cover and two plastic pillow covers. The plan for when I go into labor is to make the bed and pillows with the white and gray sheets, then to cover the mattress and pillows with the plastic covers, and then to make the bed again (over these things) with the red sheets that I will labor and birth on. After the birth is over, the red sheets will be taken off to be washed, the plastic cover will be taken off, and wahlah, our bed will be freshly made for us to lay down on. :-)

In the laundry tub there, you can see some towels--since I'll be laboring and possibly giving birth in the tub, I'll want the towels for if I want to get out of the water.

In the bottom of the laundry tub, which you can't see, are things like: tissues, paper towels, hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alcohol, ziplock bags (for the placenta, fun times), pads, etc.

Here's the other half of our birth supplies:
Here you see the hose which will attach to our shower and run into the birth tub when it is time to fill it. Then we have bleach for cleaning/sanitizing. In one of the paper bags there are 8-10 receiving blankets, and in the other paper bag is baby James' first outfit (white T-shirt, white hats, white socks, cloth diaper, and receiving blanket to be swaddled in). These two paper bags will be placed in the oven to warm when the birth is imminent, so that when he is born, he can get wrapped right away in warm blankets and then dressed in warm clothes.

Last but not least is our birth kit on the right there in the cardboard box. We just ordered this in the mail from a birth supplies distributor at the direction of our midwives. It has a variety of fun things in it--gauze pads, absorbent "chucks" pads, our birth certificate and footprinting kit, rubber gloves, etc. On top of the birth kit is the plastic birth tub liner.

So basically we are ready to go!

We probably have about five minor things we are still supposed to pick up (an unopened bottle of olive oil for perineal massage, a butterfly net for cleaning out the tub in the event of a water birth, etc), which we may end up doing on Halloween, for lack of a better day, LOL!

But yeah we are pretty much totally set. :-)

And now that we are totally set, I'm starting to get a bit antsy. Like how will I ever pass the next 2.5 weeks waiting for him to arrive?? (Probably by blogging a lot, LOL.)

0 is the number of days until I can go into labor and still have my home-birth (36 weeks)
0 is the number of days until I am full term (37 weeks)
18 is the number of days until my meaningless due date (40 weeks)
32 is the absolute maximum number of days that I could be pregnant (42 weeks)

Wow 18 days until my due date, I can't believe it!!!

Plus this whole time I've been saying 40 weeks +/- 2 weeks but that means my birth window will be here in just 4 days! Wow!

Most Blog Posts in a Single Month!

October is now winning as the month in which I have made the most blog posts since beginning my blog! I guess I'm getting pretty darn excited for Little James to show up, so I can't help writing about him all the time, hehe.

When will he come?

0 is the number of days until I can go into labor and still have my home-birth (36 weeks)
2 is the number of days until I am full term (37 weeks)
23 is the number of days until my meaningless due date (40 weeks)
37 is the absolute maximum number of days that I could be pregnant (42 weeks)

We are getting VERY CLOSE NOW!!

And our to-do list gets whittled away and then added to, but we have gotten a lot done this weekend.

- I picked up the hose we need to fill the birth tub
- We got the attachments we need so that we can hook it up to our shower
- We raked a section of the lawn
- We moved a pile of wood from our shed to our porch
- We refilled our kindling box
- We finished a 1000-piece puzzle we were working on (uhhh, yeah, it doesn't really count but it felt like a big accomplishment, LOL!)
- Washed the sheets and mattress cover for the cradle
- Washed my new robe that I get to wear in labor
- Washed the comforter and duvet for the guest bed

Still to do today:
- Make the bed in the guest room for my Mom.
- Set up the bed frame for the guest bed (right now the mattress is on the floor)
- Carve pumpkins with my sister! :-D

One Month to Go: Back Pain and Nesting

My ticker is in the last box and tells me I only have 30 days until my due date! Shall we crunch the numbers?

2 is the number of days until I can go into labor and still have my home-birth (36 weeks)
9 is the number of days until I am full term (37 weeks)
30 is the number of days until my meaningless due date (40 weeks)
44 is the absolute maximum number of days that I could be pregnant (42 weeks)

12 is the number of things on our "to do before the baby comes" list (which is actually going to be updated now, and get a lot longer again, but we definitely making progress).

Anyway, needless to say, we are in the home stretch! As I enter the ninth and final month of pregnancy, I am forced to conclude that this might be the worst month of all for me.

I was very lucky to have little to no morning sickness, to find my emotions and health stabilized by pregnancy, rather than disrupted, and generally to be a pretty happy and care-free pregnant lady. In retrospect the second trimester was such a godsend! Even my issues of heartburn and being uncomfortable tend to go in waves, where it will be bad for a few days, and then I'll feel better again.

But now, for over a week (maybe even two), I have had persistent and killer back pain. Whenever I have to sit or lay down, I have to arrange a million pillows around me so that I'm not horribly uncomfortable, and even then, it is pretty bad. I am still getting regular adjustments from the chiropractor, but it seems to make no difference. Basically, I have a 20 pound uterus (baby, uterus, placenta, and fluid) pulling on my weak back muscles. The fact that the same area is always in pain seems a testament to this theory. I can practically feel it happening as I type.

Several times a day I beg James to rub it--I get down on my hands and knees to relieve the pressure--I bounce on my birth ball hoping for a miracle. But it only seems to get worse. The only time I feel relatively okay is for a few hours in the morning. :-/

A few days ago I remembered with a cry of joy that I am able to take tylenol. Now I'm struggling not to take it around the clock. I take some and then a few hours later I start wondering when I can take more again. It is fairly miserable.

And yet despite my complaining, I'm still grateful for the fact that this is the worst part of the pregnancy for me so far. At least there is an end in sight!


Okay, moving on.


We had/are having another productive weekend. As I reported earlier, we finished installing our changing area and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! James loves it, too, and keeps saying how nice it is and how glad he is that I envisioned it. :-)

Today we also gathered up the blankets, pillows, and couch cushions from the living room and are doing a flea "fogger" in one of the upstairs rooms. We don't have a serious flea problem at this point, but I have had several itchy episodes and I think there were/are a few living in our couch area. So the fogger is supposed to work for seven months, and I love that I won't have to worry about fleas for all that time. So that is happening today.

We also moved the rug in the living room back a bit, which is part of getting the woodstove ready for inspection. As part of this, we got into dusting and vacuuming some of the surfaces in the living room--the old-fashioned radio and the lamps. I was recalled back to this post as I watched James vacuum off the lampshades, but they WERE super dusty so I'm glad he thought to do it!

Hopefully the rest of the day will be equally productive. We have to wash all the blankets and pillows that just got "fogged", and I need to switch out the summer and winter clothes. (You may be thinking that you are SURE this has been on my "to-do today" list before. You would be right, readers, and yet it is still undone.) :-/

James is studying for his big exam right now, so it would be an ideal time for me to start dealing with the clothes. Will she do it, folks? WILL SHE DO IT?

Numbers

8 is the number of days until I can go into labor and still have my home-birth (36 weeks)
15 is the number of days until I am full term (37 weeks)
36 is the number of days until my meaningless due date (40 weeks)
50 is the absolute maximum number of days that I could be pregnant (42 weeks)

15 is the number of things on our "to do before the baby comes" list

I'd say we are making good progress!

Numbers

12 is the number of days until I can go into labor and still have my home-birth (36 weeks)
19 is the number of days until I am full term (37 weeks)
40 is the number of days until my meaningless due date (40 weeks)
54 is the absolute maximum number of days that I could be pregnant (42 weeks)

26 is the number of things on our "to do before the baby comes" list
0 is the number of things on the list that I did today. :-/