35 Weeks Pregnant

35 weeks down, less than 35 DAYS to go. Insane.

This week I made a disappointing discovery: stretch marks. Noooooo! I was having such good luck so far. Vitamin E oil was recommended to me, so I might try it even though my midwife and Bradley instructor both say nothing can prevent or get rid of them. At least they’re not very big or very dark…for now.

Norah is still getting the hiccups often and is very active at certain times of day. Last night she kept waking me up getting her feet up under my ribs. So uncomfortable. That was the first time she has actually woke me up. She usually seems to sleep when I’m sleeping. I also had a lot of vivid dreams last night and actually woke up crying because I dreamed that Travis died. This is my worst fear, and I’ve had dreams about him as well as other family members dying and never getting to meet Norah. I’ve heard that pregnancy can bring strange and vivid dreams, so hopefully they’ll go away after she’s born!

I had been getting concerned that Norah never seems to react to sound. We’ve tried to startle her a few times (kind of mean, I know) to see if she would move, and she never does. Yesterday Travis fell asleep after he got home from work, and when I couldn’t even get him to wake up for dinner (brought to him in bed!), I blasted some Led Zeppelin from the computer room. He still didn’t wake up, but Norah started dancing around like crazy! So, I’d say she can hear just fine. J

Next Monday is my appointment with the doctor, and he needs to know our decision regarding Vitamin K. I think we have come to a decision now, but I’ll give you a little background. Vitamin K is mainly needed to help blood clot. It’s named after the German word for coagulation, which is the same word, but spelled with a “k.” In US hospitals, the vitamin is routinely injected into every newborn in order to prevent the rare occurrence of a bleeding problem which could be fatal. All newborns have very low levels of Vitamin K because it does not cross the placenta very well, and because they lack the good bacteria which allow them to synthesize their own supply of it. Babies are at higher risk of hemorrhaging because of Vitamin K deficiency if they are premature, their mother is on medication for seizures, they are breastfed, or they sustain an injury during birth, such as bruising, which uses up the clotting factors they do have. Our midwife, Amy, also told us that because of hospital routines in the US such as early circumcision (which obviously doesn’t apply to Norah) and an antibacterial/antimicrobial bath shortly after birth which kills the good bacteria that would help the baby synthesize Vitamin K, babies born in our hospitals have an increased risk of clotting problems.

My initial feeling was that since Norah will have a very low risk of suffering from a bleed due to Vitamin K deficiency, she probably doesn’t need the supplement. However, since I did read that breastfed babies are more at risk, and since there is an oral version of the vitamin that carries no risks and is painless, I think we’ve decided to opt for that. The injected version is painful and can cause allergic reactions because of the preservatives, etc. The drops are completely safe since they only contain pure, natural vitamin K, which doesn’t even have a known toxicity level. I can’t remember the exact regimen, but it involves me taking the drops at the end of pregnancy and for some amount of time after Norah is born, and giving a drop or two to her within 24 hours of birth, a week later, and when she is 4 weeks old, or something like that. This way we’ll be sure she’s protected, and she won’t have to be welcomed into the world with a nasty shot. Unfortunately, she’ll still have to have the PKU heel prick test, because PKU is a very serious disease that causes brain damage early on if left untreated. All babies have to be tested. I won’t go into that – you can look it up if you’re curious. J

Yesterday’s Bradley class was fun! We played Jeopardy, and Travis and I KICKED BUTT! We only missed ONE question. Before the final question where you wager points, we had 7,000, and I think the next highest score was 3,500! Then we were the only ones to get the final question correct, so we ended up with a total of 9,700 points. I felt kind of bad because everyone was asking us if we had studied, and we hadn’t. We just make a good team because I’ve been reading pregnancy and birth books for at least a year now, and Travis just has a mind for facts. Mary has a little “store” (a wall of shelves in the birth center) where she sells products for pregnancy, birth, postpartum, etc., so our prize was $10 off something in her store, which was perfect because we bought the 5-W yesterday. That’s the herbal supplement I mentioned a few weeks ago that’s supposed to help balance my hormones so I hopefully won’t go past 40 weeks. It’s already time to start taking it! I’m still a little wary, though, because I need to get through the May 10^th recital for my students. I might wait a few more days to start it.

Making Room For Norah

I haven’t had time to sew anything for Norah’s room yet, but we are actively trying to make room for her by selling stuff. Last Saturday we took a whole bunch of stuff to the flea market with Eric and Valerie. Between us, we had three car loads full, and then Eric still had to go back to our house and get the rest!! However, the whole experience was a little disappointing because we only sold a few things. Two of them were 40-dollar items, so that was good, but it was frustrating to have to haul almost everything back home again.

There are some things we’re going to sell on Ebay, but I don’t want to deal with shipping every single thing, so we’ll probably put some on Craigslist and donate some. At least we’ll get the money back with next year’s tax refund. Too bad we have to wait that long for it.

I’ve also been working on my housekeeping habits. It’s easy to keep up with when it’s already clean, so I’m trying not to let things get messy again! Doing great so far!

Travis’s 30^th Birthday!!!

It’s tomorrow! Happy Birthday, Travis!!!!!! :-D XOXO!