Pregnancy news

I promised another post after my doctor's appointment, so here it is.

As of this Thursday, I am eight months pregnant. I am slightly on the big side of that. The doctor said that my abdomen measures at about 37 weeks instead of 35. The doctor doesn't think we will be having a small baby, but he's not huge yet. We have a month yet, if the baby comes on time. A baby can gain another couple of pounds still.

The baby has turned head downward, which is of course a good thing. Especially because the baby was transverse when they last checked. The baby has not yet "dropped," as they say. I have been feeling stronger contractions from time to time, but they are still widely spaced and not a concern. Although the doctor told me I was 1 centimeter dilated and 25% effaced, I take that with a grain of salt. In earlier pregnancies, I have had widely varying measurements from different practitioners this early on, so until I feel the contractions at 5 minutes apart I don't get very concerned.

I'm still in good health, but am much more uncomfortable. My out-of-whack posture is causing sciatic nerve problems. The advice for treating this is ice packs on the lower back and walking around (avoid sitting much if possible). I also had a rambunctious little three-year-old Happy Boy bounce onto my foot Friday night (while I was propping up my feet), which had the effect of breaking my right pinky toe. The advice for treating this is ice packs on the injury, staying off my feet and propping up the foot as much as I can (avoid walking as much as possible). Now, I'm sure you can see just as well as I can, that there is a bit of conflict in what I need to do to treat these problems. I do the best I can. I have to walk around to take care of the kids anyway, so that is exercise for the nerve problem. I use an ice pack on my lower back when I can barely walk anymore from pain. When I don't need to walk I sit to get off my foot, or lay down for a nap. I can't reach my foot to do ice packs there so, there you have it. Tim tells me I'm a trooper.

I am looking forward to my parents' arrival to help out in the near future. However that is still about two weeks away. In the meantime, I'm still managing to do the basic housework, getting the kids to do their schoolwork, and trying to remember that if something is on the floor, the kids can pick it up. Naps are getting to be a necessity again.

Coming up soon, we will be off to our local flu shot clinic this weekend. The kids (and Tim) hate that I insist upon this every year. Although we homeschool, we are not isolated. We get everything that's going around. Having some protection from the worst of it is helpful. Also, if I get the flu shot before the baby is born, he'll have some protection. Babies aren't allowed to have the shot until they are 6 months old. So, anyone who spends time around tiny babies, should have the shot if they can to help protect the little ones (thinking of our brand new baby niece here).

As mentioned in my last post, we need to find time to shop for a sofa, too.

Then we need to plan a birthday party for the Pillowfight Fairy who is approaching age 8 at rapid speed. She is a little worried that the baby might be born on her birthday, and she doesn't want to share her day. I am just trying to figure out how to schedule a party with contigency plans if I need to make a trip to the hospital.

One good thing that has fallen into place in the schedule is that our neighborhood clean-up is going to be early next week. We will be able to set out all of the carpet and other flooring debris from our remodeling projects and the clean-up crews will take it away for us. Just in time for us to clear off the RV pad for my parents arrival. I hope all of the other appointments and needed things will fall into place just as nicely.

We are only three days off our homeschool schedule (courtesy of sick kids a couple of weeks ago), but we should be able to make that up by delaying our next break a little while. We'll be taking a few weeks off when the baby comes anyway. So, that will kind of reset for us what "on schedule" means for us this year. We will probably be finishing the school year at the end of May rather than the end of April. I can live with that.

I think that gets me up to date on most of our news. We are nearly one third of the way through the school year. So my next post will probably be reflecting on how that is going.