32 Weeks Pregnant

Belly measurement: 38”!

At 32 weeks gestation, Norah only has about two to three more inches and about the same number of pounds to gain before she’s ready to make her debut! And I’m such a daydreamer – I keep looking through her little outfits and trying to imagine what they will look like on her!

My tail bone is finally almost healed. It’s only hurting once in a while now. Lower back pain is getting worse, but it’s not all the time either. If I’ve been sitting or lying down, when I first get up my lower back hurts and my legs/hips feel weak and I can’t always stand up straight right away. Is that what sciatica is?? Still considering the chiropractor. :-P I should just go for it. I’ve spent weeks debating with myself over spending the $25. It’s just $25. Yes. I will make an appointment.

I haven’t really had cravings this whole pregnancy, but lately I keep making the same ice cream concoction: vanilla ice cream (chocolate would be great, too, I’m sure), raspberries, chocolate chips, and mini marshmallows all mashed up together. I don’t know if this is pregnancy related, or if I just like this mixture. It’s similar to what I’ve always ordered at Marble Slab or Spill the Beans.

I have a cloth diaper update. So, as I said in my 30 week blog, we ordered a “grab bag” of six girl diapers from GoGreen Pocket Diapers, using a $50 gift certificate from Travis’s parents. We decided to do that even though we wouldn’t get to pick the colors because the diapers were about $7 each that way, instead of $9 to $10. Anyway, we got the diapers, kept the four that we liked, and are currently selling the other two on Ebay (zebra print and bright pink). While I was on Ebay listing them, I noticed that other people were selling the same exact cloth diapers for way cheaper than what GoGreen charges! I looked into it and found that GoGreen orders their diapers from a large manufacturer in China called Alva Baby, and then marks up the price by a ridiculous percentage. Alva Baby sells their diapers on Ebay under the store name “perfect_store_I,” and also at www.alvababy.com. Their price is between $4.59 and $5.59 per diaper, with free shipping!! GoGreen charges between $9 and $15 per diaper, depending on which type you want, PLUS $5 shipping on every order. On top of that, when I placed my order there using the $50 gift certificate, they wouldn’t let me use it toward the shipping cost. I had to pay the $5 using my debit card. I asked them about it, and they said, “Since we have to pay the shipping, we can’t take it out of a gift certificate.” This made no sense to me since they were paid actual money when the gift certificate was purchased. Grr.

I ordered three diapers from the Ebay store yesterday, two of which are the $15 type, which I’m really excited about! I paid a total of $15.99 for all three, when the same three diapers from www.gogreenpocketdiapers.com would have cost $44 when you include the shipping cost!!!

Ok, sorry about my long rant on that. It really makes me mad! These people are making a killing and all they’re doing is buying and selling someone else’s product.

At yesterday’s class, we talked more about labor and what to expect. It’s good to have an idea of what thoughts might go through my head and what I might feel, do, and say so that Travis and I will both know how to handle it. Basically, the husbands are just being instructed to stay encouraging, do whatever we tell them to do, and not take offense if we say mean things. J Perfect.

Then we watched a birth video. Poor Travis. He wasn’t feeling well in the first place yesterday, and I think he almost tossed his cookies. He’s now thinking that he might want to support me from behind so he won’t have to see everything, which is totally fine with me. I think I’d feel more supported (physically and emotionally) with him behind me rather than standing off to the side gawking at me. The only thing is that he was considering catching the baby, but I think he’s sort of insecure about that idea even though it would be pretty cool. I can also catch her myself if I want to. I have no idea whether I’ll want to or not. We’ll just see how it goes. You can’t very well plan out the whole birth process in advance anyway.

Making Room For Norah

So…(sigh)…we’re still having trouble knowing where to start with all the cleaning we need to do. It’s so overwhelming. We did manage to put some stuff up in the attic finally, so it’s looking a little better. And next week is Spring Break, so we’ll both pretty much be home all week and will hopefully get a LOT done. I’ll go nuts if we don’t. I just want to have it all done and organized and clean and ready.

This weekend we had a really nice St. Patrick’s Day dinner with Eric and Valerie (they brought homemade corned beef, cabbage, and veggies!!). Travis also made really good Irish soda bread! Then on Saturday, Eric’s sister Dana came all the way up from Greenwood to bring us tons of clothes that her girls had outgrown! Norah now has clothes in sizes all the way up to 3T! I spent some time organizing those, plus all the other clothes that are 3 months and up, and some of them have already gone up to the attic and are ready to be pulled out when Norah grows into them. (But I want her to stay little forever!)

Midwife appointment: we just got home from our 32 week appointment. I don’t want to make this blog a whole lot longer than it already is, so I’ll TRY to be brief.

We got to spend some time getting to know Linda, the other midwife that will be attending the birth (unless there are two births going on at once). We really liked her!

Weight is now 134.5 lbs., and official belly measurement (fundal height) is 31 centimeters (technically one week behind, but totally fine).

She retested my hemoglobin level because it had been on the low side. I’ve been taking a supplement called Chlorofresh to bring it up, and apparently it’s working because I’m at a good level now (11.4).

I was having a Braxton-Hicks contraction when Linda put her hands on my belly to feel where Norah was, and I didn’t even know it! I guess I get them more often than I thought. Once in a while they’re strong enough to be uncomfortable, but often my belly gets really hard without any discomfort. I wasn’t sure if this was a contraction or if Norah was just in a weird position. Now that I know it’s a contraction, I would estimate that I have them quite often – maybe five times a day. My body is doing exercises to prepare for birth, just like I’ve been doing!

Norah is head down and will probably stay that way. I thought so, because I keep feeling kicks up high (like right now). Linda showed us how to feel for different body parts, which was pretty cool!

This part might gross you out, and I’m sorry, but I think it’s important – placentas. Different cultures have different traditions, beliefs and practices regarding the placenta, which is the organ that is created along with the baby at the beginning of pregnancy. Its main function is to nourish and supply oxygen to the baby. In our culture, most people regard the placenta as a waste product, and it is usually disposed of immediately after birth. In other cultures, a woman might eat her placenta, bury it in a ritual, keep it attached to the baby until it shrivels up and falls off (yeah, that one is a little odd to me), or any number of other things. Since it is not my nature to be wasteful, I wanted to know my options. We asked Linda about it today. She gave us some ideas and basically said we can do whatever we want with it. The birth center is going to send it home with us no matter what we decide, because legally they are not allowed to dispose of it for us. Now, I am not going to fry up my placenta and make a meal out of it. That sounds gross to me. But we’re looking into having it encapsulated. Linda said she knows of someone who does that, but she charges something like $200, which seems like a lot. So we might do it ourselves. You just need a food dehydrator, something to grind it up with, and some capsules to put the powder in.

Now, what’s the point of ingesting it, you ask? The placenta is an extremely nutritious organ. I think it is meant to be eaten by the mother. I’m pretty sure most animals eat their placentas. It just seems like the natural thing to do. In human mothers, eating the placenta has been associated with a faster recovery, improved lactation, and reduced rates of postpartum depression. There are probably other benefits that we don’t even know about. It would be nice to take advantage of those.

Anyway, again, I’m really sorry if I grossed you out. When you think about it, though, is it any stranger than eating liver, or gizzards, or any other piece of meat? (Ok, maybe just a little…)

On that note, have a nice week! I hope you weren’t eating dinner while you read this! J