Bump-date {Month 9} -

Hey, y’all! So, it seems a little strange to go back to Month 9 for an update since our little miss has been here almost 4 weeks already (4 weeks??? Good grief, she’ll be in college next week at this rate!!). But, we had a lot going on in those last weeks that I meant to share and just didn’t have the chance to, so I thought I would now before I share a little about her birth!

When we left off on Month 8, we had just wrapped up Christmas and had about 6 weeks left until our due date. We had an ultrasound during Week 35 and found out that she was (thankfully!!) head down and not breech anymore, so we didn’t have to worry about that, and at that time, she was weighing it at about five and half pounds, give or take 14 oz, which meant she could realistically be anywhere between a little under five to a little over six at that time, and had potential to gain a half pound a week until delivery. She was a total stinker and wouldn’t let us get any good pictures (she kept pulling her hands in front of her face), but she was doing really well!

At Week 36, we started having weekly appointments with the OB and they started doing checks to see how we were progressing. This could be a TMI, but we started at Week 36 at 1 cm dilated with some effacement, so that seemed to be good progress to start.

Also at Week 36, we had our baby shower at our church here in Temple!

Four of our sweet friends from small group/ ladies’ Bible study hosted this shower for us, and we so appreciated all the support and sweet gifts!

Mine and Steven’s moms, plus my grandma, aunt, BFF, and special family friends were all able to come in and it was so nice to have everyone together!

Week 36 Bump!

We didn’t have much progression at the Week 37 appointment, so we kept moving along. I was doing fairly well, other than increasing hip sciatica pain and non stop heartburn. Over the last few weeks, she began to drop so I had a little more room to breathe and eat, but not much! Sleep was not great at this point, either. I would have to get up multiple times in the night to use the restroom, and when I was “sleeping”, it wasn’t a very deep or restful sleep, and I would wake up to turn over, or to get my snoring under control (Steven maintains that there could be a huge study done to confirm that the majority of pregnant women have some degree of sleep apnea, and I agree).

By Week 38, we were hanging steady at 1 cm and continuing to efface. I mentioned at this appointment that I still felt her moving, but not quite as much as I had been previously. There were a few afternoons that I couldn’t remember her moving at all, but that I hadn’t really been paying attention for it. Just to be safe, she sent us down for a non-stress test immediately following our appointment.

Typically Steven didn’t go with me to my checks because he was busy at the hospital, and because the appointments typically took less than 10 minutes, and were uneventful. But, that week he was working on a slower service, and happened to have time to pop down to go with me (my OB’s office is in the hospital), and I was so glad to have him there since we had to go for the NST. I wasn’t overly worried since she did seem to still be moving (I felt like she had just flat ran out of room, which is why I wasn’t feeling her as much), but there was a part of us that wouldn’t have at all been upset if they said we could just head over and get things going that day (even though we obviously wanted everything to be okay and nothing be seriously wrong). She passed the NST with flying colors– it seemed like the monitors just angered her and started kicking and punching like crazy (she’s a little sassafras like that!). So, we went on home and kept waiting!

I worked through Week 39, and then went out on leave officially. The sciatic pain in my hips made it hard and fairly painful to walk by that point, mostly just because I had gained basically all the weight in my bump, which made my center of gravity so off that it put that stress on my hips. I was having contractions daily by this point, but they were inconsistent and irregular, so we weren’t to the point we could go in yet.

Since Steven was working nights for the week of our due date (and two weeks before), Steven’s parents came to stay with us in case I went into labor while he was at work. So, the week of my due date, we all hung out waiting to see if little miss was going to make her arrival early!

The other big news of Month 9 was our last minute new family addition… Pecos.

Right before New Year’s, we saw that our lab breeder had one pup available from a litter (which is unheard of for her– typically the puppies are all claimed before birth and there’s a waiting list). He is related to both Ruger and Gump (Ruger’s dad is his grandpa, and he and Gump have the same dad… it’s a little backwoods to explain), and we couldn’t resist, so we decided to pull the trigger and add him to our little pack. Some might find that a crazy decision, but so far we’ve been really good, and Steven is really excited about how well he has fit in and taken to the retriever training so far. So, we had one more last minute round of puppy life to help prepare us for baby life.