He's Here!

And he's perfect. :-)

Andrew Douglas Surber
Born August 17, 2010 at 3:06 PM
7 lbs, 10 oz, 20.5 inches

My successful VBAC baby :-)


Philip is already the best big brother!

We are settling in and enjoying our early days together as a family of four. More pictures and birth story to come soon! In the meantime, sleep takes priority over internet time! ;-)

I'm Still Pregnant

Yep.

Although not without more progress which I really can't complain about. Yesterday, I began having painful contractions around 3:30 AM. They were infrequent and I was able to sleep through some of them. By 7:30 they were approximately one minute in length, painful, and coming at a rate of 5 minutes apart. Awesome, right?! So I timed them. Phil got home around 8:00 AM from his night shift. We got Philip up, fed him breakfast, and decided to go out to Chick-fil-a for breakfast for us and do some walk walking and shopping at Target. I probably could have called the hospital once I surpassed the hour mark but decided to press my luck and really let them build up before doing anything. They were still coming every five minutes while we were in Target and were so painful they stopped me in my tracks each time. I was really starting to think this could be it! Well, it turns out it wasn't it. Needless to say, I'm glad we didn't head in when we could have because by the time we got home from Target at 11:30 they had all but fizzled out. What the heck!?

So we came back home, put Philip down for his nap, and decided to get some rest ourselves. Which was easy enough to do because at that point I was having absolutely zero contractions. So we all went to bed. Later on in the day I decided to do some more walking, so my neighbor Julie and I did a mile long walk around Yowell Meadow Park. The walk actually served two purposes: one, to make an effort to get my contractions moving again and, two, to play an integral role in getting Julie out of her house while her husband and family made last minute preparations and greeted guests back at home for her surprise birthday party! So the bright side is, at least we didn't head into the hospital where I no doubt would have sat around waiting, been monitored and examined, sat around some more, and then sent home. In short: we would have wasted a lot of time! So instead I got to take a nap, sulk in the privacy of my own home, and then have a good time at a friend's party. Beats sitting around at labor and delivery!

During the party, my contractions returned although they were not nearly as intense or regular. By evening they had slowed down again but Phil decided to call off of work for the night, just in case. Unfortuantely, that turned out to be a wasted day of paid time off as I had little to no contractions over night. Just a lot of insomnia and the discomfort and crankiness that comes with being 2 days past your due date. At least Phil got to get some rest though as he had little of it after coming off of his 12 hour night shift.

Warning: The following paragraph definitely falls under the category of T.M.I., but it's included here more for posterity's sake than for your own information so feel free to skip over it! ;-)

Fast foward to today. I spent a fair amount of time on my exercise ball and took another nice nap. I had some infrequent, mildly uncomfortable contractions, but nothing worth timing. Then, around lunch time, I noticed what I thought was some bloody show on my pad while using the bathroom. Hot dog! That got me very excited. Shortly thereafter though it was discovered that my doctor had been wrong last week about my mucous plug; I did in fact still have it, at least up until that moment. And all I can say about that is that losing it was way more gross than I had ever imagined. Not to be a wimp, but holy cow was that disgusting. So much so that after taking care of that little bit of pre-labor excitement, I immediately lost interest in my lunch. In better news though, some fun research about bloody show and mucous plus revealed that if your mucous plug is tinged pink or includes some blood, there more than likely is bloody show accompanying it. And the good thing about bloody show is it often means true labor is right around the corner!

Okay, no more talk about mucous plugs, I promise!

So the doctor's appointment I had hoped not to make it to is tomorrow morning at 9:20. At least I will have some good progress to report when I see my doctor. I am anxious to find out if I have dilated anymore over the weekend and I will also be requesting another membrane stripping as that really seemed to get the ball rolling on Friday. Hopefully the second time is the charm! We will probably also set up an induction date, though hopfully for later in the week. I really want to see how far I can get on my own before I agree to a date with Pitocin.

Phil is at work tonight but is leaving at 3:00 AM. That seems to be the hour when things start to strike up in my uterus so with any luck everything will stay quiet around here until he has a chance to make it home.

Updates to come!

Due Date & Good News!

Today I am finally 40 weeks pregnant! Whoohoo! I would like to take this time to congratulate myself on making it to today. It's been a long, hard 9+ months but I DID IT. Mostly because I had no other choice, but I still made it! Way to go me! :-D

In other news, I had my 40 week appointment today and received the news I had been hoping to hear for weeks but was starting to believe would never come! As of this morning I am "a little over 2 centimeters" dilated, and my cervix is anterior and soft, as opposed to what it has been at every one of my exams: posterior and hard. My doctor is now very hopeful for me that I will go into labor on my own soon or otherwise be a good candidate for an induction later in the week. Whoohoo!

In order to speed the help the process along, my doctor stripped my membranes this morning during my internal exam. He did this without telling me ahead of time which I am really thankful for in retrospect. I had heard scary things about this procedure and likely would have lost sleep if I had known it was coming ahead of time. In actuality, it wasn't bad at all! It just felt like a much more "thorough" exam than I am used to. Actually, my internal exams this time around have been a walk in the park compared to how they were with Philip. I dreaded them during my last pregnancy as I was nearly climbing up the table in an effort to get away from my doctor every time I had to have one. I'm thinking maybe this is a nice perk of second pregnancies. Either way, it's great to have one less painful thing to deal with at this point!

My doctor had me make another appointment for Monday morning in case I don't have the baby before then. He will then check for additional progress and, depending on where I am at that point, we will discuss scheduling an induction for later in the week. Personally, I am hoping to not make it to Monday but only time will tell! I'm just so happy to see that my body is actually making efforts to get this baby out on its own that, no matter what the final outcome of my birth experience, at least I'll know that I gave having a VBAC my best shot. And all that really matters anyway is that baby and mommy are healthy when all is said and done!

So here's to hoping my next update will include a picture and birth stats of our eagerly anticipated new addition!

"Only One More Day To Go!"

In theory anyways!

Tomorrow I will be 40 weeks pregnant. The unofficial "end" of my pregnancy. I didn't reach the 40 week point with Philip so it's kind of weird to think that if I'm still pregnant on Saturday I will be "past due." So tomorrow, Friday the 13th of August, is my due date and also what I hope will be my last pre-natal appointment of this pregnancy. Tomorow I will find out if my body has made any progress at all during the past week and we will decide what the next course of action is for me. My doctor said he would let me go to 41 weeks in order to wait it out and see what happens as long as baby and I are both doing well. Honestly, the idea of having to wait on one more Friday appointment sounds like cruel and unusual punishment at this point!

So far, I've had little to no indication that Andrew is on his way anytime soon. I'm having a moderate amount of "phantom' symptoms of labor though which are only making me even more confused and frustrated! I've heard that plenty of people spontaneously go into labor without any previous indications that it was on its way, so that does give me some hope. The only thing that's certain is that, one way or the other, he is going to be an outside baby at some point within the next week or so. Here's to hoping my body swings into action in the very near future and Andrew is included in the small percentage of babies who are actually born on their due dates!

I'm Blowing This Popsicle Stand

It's offical: today is my last day of work. I was going to work up until Friday but I just cannot do it. Plus, I deserve a few days of "peace" before the baby comes, at least from the demands of my job. Additionally, it's 99 degrees out today and we're looking at more of the same the rest of the week. The nature of my job requires me to be in my car and out and walking around quite a bit and I'm at the point where I can no longer do it. I'm not sleeping at night and I feel as though I have swallowed a watermelon, or possibly a traffic cone.

So peace out work. See you in November.

39 Weeks and 2 Year Molars

And no progress to report of at my appointment today with my OB. So I'm now feeling as though I'm on the clock. I am going to hang out in my uncomfortably pregnant state until at least as far as my due date next Friday. If at my next appointment on Friday I have still not made any progress my options will become more limited. As long as baby and I are still doing well I may be able to hang out until 41 weeks. If I haven't made any progress on my own by that point, I'm looking at a repeat c-section. My doctor won't do an induction if the conditions are not favorable, for a few different reasons.

Right now I am just feeling down right conflicted. I want to give my body every chance to get me to a vaginal delivery, yet I'd rather have a scheduled c-section than another emergency one if things don't move along as they should during labor. I just don't know what to do at this point other than take it one day at a time until Friday.

I'm still hopeful that Andrew makes the decision for me at some point this week!

In other news, Philip is teething again. This time he is working on his two year molars. He's been drooling like a mad man and running a low grade fever for a couple of days now. Last night he had the most disturbed night of sleep he's had in a long time. It took him over two hours to fall asleep, and he woke up every hour and a half to two hours during the night. The strangest part is he didn't wake up crying or upset, he was just in there talking to himself. Bizarre! Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep either, but that's nothing new these days!

Today he was pretty tired from his long, sleepless night and started asking to go "nigh nigh" even before bed time had rolled around. He didn't have any interest in eating dinner, so we tried giving him some cereal with bananas. A little distraction by Barney and he managed to eat most of it. We put him to bed with some more Tylenol and he hasn't made a peep since we took him up. Poor baby! I'll be relieved once he finally has all of his baby teeth and doesn't have to deal with this discomfort anymore!

23 Months

Philip is 23 months old today! His last "months birthday" until he is two years old. I can't believe it! I guess once children are two you no longer count age in months? I know my mathematically-challenged brain isn't up for that task. So this time next month he will just be "two." Did I mention I can't believe it? :-(

In the midst of preparing for baby, we are also preparing for a birthday party for Philip. Talk about busy! I only hope Andrew shows up soon so as to allow as much spacing as possible in between birthdays. The next four weeks are going to be pretty crazy!

Nesting/Stacking Blocks

The simple toys are always the most fun. No batteries required!

August!!!

I've never been so happy to welcome in the month of August, not to mention so relieved to kiss July goodbye! July was one long, hot, agonizing month. I can't recall a single day last month below 90 and at one point I heard a weatherman say it was the hottest month on record with the highest number of days in a row above 90 degrees. Needless to say, it was a long, hot, wretched, miserable month and I'm so glad it's over!

Now August doesn't normally have anything better to offer over July and I don't typically look forward to it either. There are no fun holidays and it's still hot, humid, muggy, and gross. But all of that changes this summer! I'm officially 12 more days away from my due date. If this little guy comes on time or, (please God), early, I will get to spend the last dog days of summer at home with my two boys. I can't wait. Phil will be off of work for two weeks. I'll be off of work for 3 months (whoohoo!), and we'll finally be a family of four. But best of all... I won't be pregnant anymore!!!

So I'm 38 weeks now and all of my little guy's organs are capable of fully functioning on their own outside of the womb... how can I say this delicately, little angel of mine... I got you this far... now get out. ;-)