A sneak peek at baby

Last Thursday I went to have my growth ultrasound. My midwives and the back-up doctor were worried about how small I was measuring and so sent me for this extra ultrasound.  I was so stressed about all of this and was really apprehensive going in for the appointment.

The technician was super nice. She helped to make me feel a lot more calm than I was feeling when we went there.  She seemed surprised that I was there for a growth ultrasound and told me that I looked just fine.  Then we started and she measured our little girl.  The results?  She measured 32 weeks, 4 days.  And on Thursday I was exactly 32 weeks 4 days along.  She was right on.  And the fluid levels looked great too. So everything seems to be just fine!  I guess we will just wait and see what the midwives say at our next appointment on Monday.

While we were there the technician tried to get some good views of our baby so we could see her. Her head was down and pointed towards my back so the technician wasn't able to give us a good view of her face at first.  Then her head turned to the side a little and we were able to look at her face.  It was incredible.  The technician was so nice and printed off some pictures for us to take with us.

So the appointment I was dreading turned out to be a very special experience!  I am so grateful our baby girl is okay. And doesn't she look just adorable!

Baby Shower!

Saturday was my baby shower.  I have been looking forward to it for weeks!  I have never had my very own baby shower before! :) My sister Ruthie who lives in Phoenix has been planning it along with my visiting teachers and good friends Brittany and Cori. My sister Tamara also helped out and did a super fun game.

The day got off to a very stressful start as Ruthie's plane from Phoenix was not able to land in San Diego. I didn't know this at first and was waiting at the airport for her, wondering why she wasn't calling me since the airport's website was showing that her plane landed an hour before!  I was thinking her phone must have died and she was stranded somewhere when finally I got a phone call from my dad telling me her plane had been rerouted. Two hours away.  Oh dear. But thankfully, the airport she was at just happened to be the one about 15 minutes from my parents' house who also just happened to be about to drive down to SD for the shower. So she arrived with my family, an hour before the shower. So glad that ended up working out!  Just bummed we didn't get our time together in the morning. 

But the shower was amazingly perfect. And so much fun! 

Everything looked so nice, I wish I had gotten more pictures of the tables and decorations. That glass canister in the background is filled with the cutest homemade soaps that Cori made for party favors.  They are beautiful. And then on the table in the background you can kind of see the centerpieces which were mini diaper cakes and then a pot with flower made of baby washcloths. Super cute!

 And the food. Yummy. Cori and Brittany went all out and made some amazing things - mini pita bread with hummus, mini fruit pizzas, orzo salad, etc. So good, and not just junk food! 

One of the games we played - guessing how big I am. 

Ronell from my ward was the winner!

My mom and sister Tamara with my niece Hannah, Eric and my Dad hiding out in the background. All of my family was able to drive down for the shower which was awesome since a lot of them have not yet been able to come visit us in SD yet.  

My sister Ruthie and I. We realized as we were about to drive her back to the airport that we had not gotten a picture together at the shower.  So this is just outside our place.

What a fun day! Thanks so much Ruthie! 

Weeks 29-32

Time for another pregnancy post!

Week 29

Still feeling great.  The week it was back to having to go to the bathroom a ton again.  Especially annoying when I am out running - makes it quite uncomfortable.  I have to plan my runs so that there is a bathroom halfway through. My runs are getting so slow! But I am still doing about 4 miles a day which doesn't seem too bad. I actually passed someone up for the first time in a long time.  He might have been quite elderly, but it still made me feel good. Eric and I got around to starting our baby registries this week.  We have been putting it off for quite a while. It was really nice to walk around the store and actually look at things.  I still have lots of research to do though, especially with cloth diapers, strollers, and baby carriers. Any tips or thoughts on ones that you have liked would be very welcome! 

Week 30 

Eric was on spring break this week which was so nice. I loved having that time with him. At this weeks midwife appointment, I measured small, again - at 28.5 weeks. The midwife also couldn't tell which way the baby was positioned so she did a quick ultrasound.  Baby girl was oblique , lying on her back with her head in the bottom left corner. It was neat to get a quick glimpse of her. 

Week 31

This was more of a difficult week. Started off with a not so fun trip to the birthing center's back-up obstetrician's office. The birthing center requires us to meet once with the doctor, mostly so we can meet them in case something comes up later on requiring a transfer to the hospital. It was such a difference being in his office compared to the birthing center.  That and the almost hour wait to even be seen made me super happy to be going where we are. He examined me so quickly and said hardly anything to us - felt so much less personal.  And what he did say was that I am too small and need to have a growth ultrasound to rule out IUGR. Well he didn't even say that, he just wrote it on a piece of paper and said to give it to the midwives. Driving home, I was quite the mess. He thought my baby might be IUGR! If that turned out to be true, I would feel like quite the failure as a dietitian if I couldn't even feed my baby enough. 

So this week I started tracking my protein and calories, counting baby's movements (which I was supposed to start this week anyway). All of that, along with my weight gain still seemed to be on track. Intuitively I felt everything should be fine, or that at least I am doing what I should. But I couldn't help worrying. I started having dreams this week that I had my baby and kept forgetting to feed her (like a baby would really let you forget). 

Week 32

Back to the midwife today. I measured at 29 weeks. So they think we should go ahead and do the growth ultrasound just to make sure everything is fine.  They said that it most likely is since baby's heartbeat is good, she is moving lots, and I am gaining weight- but that since uterus measurements have slowed in growth we should check to make sure it isn't anything else.  My ultrasound appointment is this Thursday. 

Baby is still oblique, though the midwife said her head is definitely more down than last time, which is good. 

I am so excited to meet this little girl.  Only 8-ish weeks left! 

Hiking in the hail (in San Diego!)

We went on a really pretty hike yesterday on Black Mountain.  At least it was pretty until the rain and hail starting coming. We went with a group of students from Eric's school and had lots of fun, even with the hail. It wasn't too bad, I just held tighter onto Eric's arm on the way down.

At the top, right before the rain/hail started coming. 

Another change of plans

This seems to be our week for disappointments! We drove up to the temple yesterday, excited to go just before Conference and while Eric is still care-free on Spring Break.  As our run of bad luck would have it, the gate on the temple said 'Temple Closed' as we drove up.  Turns out it is the yearly cleaning closure, we just didn't know.  So we walked around the grounds and had a photo shoot instead and then drove to the nearby La Jolla Cove since we were already so close.

 La Jolla Cove

Isn't he just so cute?  

The bird on the rock is a pelican.  La Jolla Cove has tons of pelicans that live there. So fun to watch them fly around.

La Jolla Cove is probably most famous for all of the sea lions that live there.  They get this particular stretch of beach to themselves and also camp out on different rocks around the cove. 

So we still had a great time and got some decent pictures!

USS Disappointment

Two minutes. That's how many minutes late we were to get into the USS Midway Museum free.  Of course, that's how late we were after having walked 45 minutes (2.5 miles!) from our Hillcrest apartment to the downtown museum (have I mentioned we hate finding parking?). 

This afternoon was advertised as free admission to the USS Midway Museum, a museum that usually has an $18 admission fee, due to the commemoration of the centennial planting of the D.C. cherry blossoms and the planting of a couple dozen trees in San Diego.  Free admission started at 1pm, and with the last admission being at 4pm, I made sure to get home from work in time to make the journey downtown.  The walk wasn't bad, but it was with the hope and excitement of seeing this new part of San Diego and amazing history.  As we were walking up to the Midway, Eric looked at his clock and it was 3:28pm.  By the time we got to the ticket counter, it was 3:31pm.  To say the least, we were quite astounded when the ticket man told us that free admission had ended at 3:30pm.  What?! 

 It was definitely not advertised as having an ending time of 3:30pm, and with last admission being at 4:00pm, it seemed awfully strange (and wrong) to start charging normal admission prices for the last half hour. Eric had me (since I'm the pregnant, more pitiful looking one) try to talk two different workers into letting us still get free admission, but they wouldn't budge.  It was quite remarkable, and a huge disappointment, especially since we had an hour walk to get back home.

Luckily, Seaport Village was just a five minute walk down the harbor, so we settled for spending a few minutes there before heading back to Hillcrest.  A very enjoyable place, but not what we came for, and certainly not what we walked 2.5 miles to get to.    

Wildflowers

Spring is definitely here!  The wildflowers are all blooming and it is beautiful.  These are some pictures I took on my run this past Saturday down in Mission Bay.  I hadn't been down there for a few weeks but had to go, knowing the flowers would probably all be there, and they were!