36 Weeks: Home visit, Shower, Baby's room

We are now in the home stretch, as they say, of our pregnancy.  This is the time that most people say feels the longest and it does feel like we have quite some time before the due date, but we are guessing it will go by pretty fast.  Why wouldn't it? So far things have felt (relatively) quick and smooth.

We had our home visit with our midwives last week.  The first thing they asked to see was the kitchen.  Yeah, we thought the same thing...the kitchen??  They make herbal teas and whatnot for the birth, so they wanted to know where to find our big stock pot, mugs, honey (Shani questions the honey, she never uses honey for tea.  Silly Hakujins), etc.  Next was the laundry room (John thinks sweet, they will be doing laundry not him) then to our birthing supplies.  Being the organized person she is, Shani had all the birthing supplies in order and set in one area for them to go through.  The midwives commented on how nice and easy it was to see everything.  It looks like we had everything we need which is a good start.  We then went to the bedroom to see where the tub would go.  We thought we'd need to move the bed around to make space, but they said there was a great spot for it.  John still wants to slide the bed over a bit to be nice and give us a little more room.  Then it was to our "normal" prenatal visit.  Shani's BP was 120/82, baby's heart-rate was 132bpm, she is measuring 34cm, and everything continues to look healthy.  Now that we've officially hit 36 weeks and had our home visit, we are clear to deliver at home!  Hurray!

36 weeks

Shani had another wonderful shower this weekend that her great friends Betty, Lisa, Liz, and Michelle threw for her.  They served brunch, a cool twist to the traditional baby shower times, and a delicious variety of food.  This shower had some of Shani's soccer friends that she's known for 15+ years as well as other great college and family friends.  Among the friends, there were 6 pregnant gals!  What is in the water??  We were blessed again to receive so many helpful and adorable things from friends.  This little guy of ours already has a wardrobe larger than John's.  If he is anything like his dad, it's a good thing he has so many clothes because John's white shirts never stay white! 

The pregnant mommy's at the shower

Piranha Girls (Soccer)

Great shower hosts Lisa, Betty, Liz, and Michelle

 

 

Wonderful Friends

Here is a picture of the room.  There are still some pictures and shelves and a valance and closet curtains that we want to hang, so we'll post more pictures once the room is all the way done.  John put up our new blinds this weekend so now that wall looks a little more complete.  We are very happy with how it turned out and it still shocks us when we walk by that room and see it all decorated.  There are times when it still has not hit us that our lives will be changing, but at the same time we can't wait!

Stay-cation

We really wanted to have a little vacation together before the baby arrived, but with so much going on until then we knew we couldn't get away.  So we decided to have a stay-cation; a vacation where we didn't go anywhere! We had a great time and enjoyed the time we spent together.  Saturday we went to Awful Annie's for breakfast, then headed towards Wheatland.  We first stopped to look for some rare swans that John was hoping to find. He thinks he did, but will have to send pictures to people that know better. Don't hold your breath.

He also saw a Bald Eagle and Eurasian Wigeon (new bird for him).  Shani just stayed in the car with Mochi and read.  Then we headed to Camp Far West to go on a hike in Spenceville Wildlife Refuge.  It was a nice 5 mile, relatively flat hike to a waterfall.  It was sunny and warm, which we weren't prepared for, but still very beautiful.  Mochi had a great time running around. 

We then had a nice dinner and went shopping for our homebirth supplies.  Sunday we went to brunch, ran some errands, cleaned house, John watched some football, Shani put baby stuff away, and we finished the baby's room.  We had some wall stickers that we bought and finally put them up. It took a lot longer than we anticipated, but it definitely makes the room look  more complete.  We'll post pictures of it soon.  We had a great stay-cation and really enjoyed the time we spent together!  Now only 4.5 weeks of waiting until our due date!

A Really Fun Couple Weeks

To say that this has been a fun couple weeks would be an understatement.  We've honestly had so many fun and different things go on.

We started our birthing class with some other couples delivering around the same time we are.  Four of the couples have birthed with our midwives before and there are 5 of us first timers.  It's great to have the couples who have birthed with them before share their stories, but it's also fun to be around others who don't know what to expect.  We've learned a lot about how we see the birth and how we want the atmosphere to be in our home during the birth.  We are definitely looking forward to the growth we'll have together during this experience.  The only thing that is freaking out Shani a bit is that one of the couples went 2 weeks over her due date with her first baby.  Although we both know the "due date" is an estimate that we shouldn't hold as truth...2 weeks over does not sound pleasant.  To compensate, we are trying to mentally push back our due date by 2 weeks just in case...but it's not working!

We also had our 34 week appointment last week.  Everything continues to look really good.  Shani's blood pressure is good, baby's heart rate is good, Shani's belly is measuring 33cm which is good, everything is really...good!  John's mom joined us for this visit which was neat.  Our son was quite active when Shani first laid down for the midwives to palpate and measure.  He was stretching his legs out to the right as he frequently does.  A midwife apprentice was there and she said it made it really easy to see exactly how he is positioned because she could see feet going one direction and his butt moving the other.  Shani is happy with his position.  When we were at a chiropractic seminar for Shani a couple weekends ago, she noticed the baby flipped to her right side.  She told him that he needs to go back to the left because that's the best position and if he doesn't he's in trouble.  The next morning he was still on the right side. John said that the first day he didn't know better, but when we gave him a chance to move and he didn't, he's now disobeying.  Later on that day he flipped back to the left making both his mom and dad very happy :-)  He's been behaving well and has continued to stay on Shani's left side.  What a good son!

This past weekend Shani's family threw her a baby shower. The sister-in-laws (Kim and Kathryn) and grandmas (Lorna and Donna) did an amazing job.  Everything looked perfect.  The theme was nature/birds-- appropriate since Shani told John about becoming a Dad with a bird book, John loves birding, and the baby's room is nature themed.  Shani had an absolute blast and felt so loved and spoiled by everyone who attended.  We had friends and family travel from southern California, Pleasanton, San Francisco, and Colorado, not to mention those closer to home who took the time to be here for Shani's special day.  We are truly blessed by those in our life!  John also enjoyed the day as he got to hang out with one of his best friends and go birding while all the girlie stuff was going on.  Here are some great pictures from the shower!

Adorable table decorations

Our wonderful family and friends

Happy Hatching Day!

My best friends' (Pam and Elaine) sons and two of our son's future best friends 
(Parker-3 months and Jacob-3 weeks)

Amazing shower hosts Grandma Mac, Grandmomma Donna, Auntie Kathryn, and Pam (minus Kim)

Amazing shower host Auntie Kim

Three generations: Shani, Great Grandma, Grandmomma Donna, and Great-Great Aunt Tak

John's shower gift, a camping rocking chair

A Year of Change

This week has been another fun week for us.  We took short work weeks (Mon-Wed) then played with family for the rest of the time.  Thursday we spent with John's family wine tasting in Amador County.  The weather was absolutely beautiful.  After all the rain we have been getting (which we love) it was nice to have clear blue skies.  We went to a late breakfast then headed up to do some "winering" as John's sister put it.  Shani compared her neologism to John's "birding," instead of "wine tasting" or "bird watching" it was "winering."  We went to a couple good wineries and one not so great, but had a great time hanging out together.  We came home with a case of wine (half from our wine club) just for ourselves!  We ended the day eating yummy sushi at Mikuni's to celebrate John's dad's birthday.  

This week also marked our 32nd week of pregnancy.  Shani continues to feel great.  Our son is already starting to take after his dad--he must be tall and needing some room because he stretches his legs and pushes Shani's right side so you can see and feel him.  Once he moved in a really weird motion while John had his hand on the belly and it freaked both of us out.

Shani has noticed a trend. In case you are curious, here are the three answers for the most common questions she's asked: We are due on Feb 24th; No, we don't have a name picked out; and she will work until she physically can't (which her Dad hopes is the day she delivers because he has to take over her patients while she is out).  However, the room did get painted, the crib set up, and the closet organizer built--all before Christmas too!  We have a couple things that still need purchasing, then the room will officially be completed.  It's crazy to think we have about 8 more weeks to go.  Very fun!

32 weeks

New Year's Eve we played with John's parents.  We went on a nice walk around Maidu so John could show off his digi-scoping stuff that Shani's family got him for graduation and his parents got for him his Birthday and Christmas.  We then visited some friends and their new baby and took the long way back to do some more birding.  Another beautiful day!  After that we headed to downtown Sac for dinner with Shani's parents and friends and 9pm fireworks.  The fireworks stirred up the Columba livia (aka Rock Dove or "pigeons") that roost on the Tower Bridge. The silly people standing around us started crying "Wow! Look at the bats!" For those who are wondering, pigeons have a wingspan of 24 to 26 inches. The largest bat that might be seen on a cold Sacramento night (Eptesicus fuscus or Big Brown Bat) has a wingspan of of just 13 to 16 inches. If you are still awake, John wants to take you birding. If you zoned out for a minute, Shani apologizes for letting John "edit."  :-P  Although Shani didn't make it to midnight this year, we reflected on the great year we had and what 2011 will bring before going to bed .  Yes, we freaked out a bit.  

White-tailed Kite taken through John's scope

For New Year's day we went over to Shani's parents to hang out.  Shani's family's tradition for New Year's is to cook a whole bunch of finger foods and snack on all day. Therefore, her mom was hard at work making food all morning.  We then went to the snow with her family (another New Year's day tradition in the making).  With the snow level being so low we didn't think we had to go very far, but it was raining as we drove up the hill and we had to go to a higher elevation than expected.  We finally got good snow around 5000 ft and had a blast, it was amazing!  

This year brings a lot of change to our lives.  We have the obvious change with the new addition to our family, John will be ending his post-doc and starting a "real" job this year, and for the first time since high school,  John will be living in the same location for two years in a row!  We are so excited for what is to come for our family and we look forward to sharing all that is going on with you.  We hope you have a wonderful New Year and hope that this year is even better than the last!