(27wks 2 days) I went to the dr. yesterday morning for my followup. It could be much worse, so I will try not to complain. I told her that I only felt a few contractions over the weekend and some back pain here and there. She checked his heartbeat, which is still strong, and then my cervix. Good news is that it is still closed, the bad news is that Baby Watson is pressing on it. She said that he has dropped lower and is applying pressure so that I need to help out by not standing for long periods of time or walking around. Another-words, back to sitting on my bottom, or side rather. She wants me to continue the Procardia as well. So my instructions this time were to see if I can work from home and only go into work twice a week. She is trying to keep me from driving sitting up every day. If I can't work that out, then I just have to stay at home and not work at all. So after a long half day talking to the bosses and HR yesterday, I am working from home today. My bosses were concerned and understanding with the fact that I still want to do what I can with my work in order to keep my sanity. Day time tv is not my thing and since Baby Watson can hear now, he doesn't need to be listening to that trash. My mouth is bad enough, haha! This is not something that my company usually allows b/c they provide paid short term disability. I won't work all day when I'm home, but enough to keep my mind occupied. So we are going to try this new arrangement until approx 3-17, which will put me at the 30 week mark. The dr. will re-asses things at that point. I will go to the dr. every Monday until then. He is moving all around right now-I love watching my belly move! And I am still not getting upset over this b/c I know he is fine and that is all that matters.  I will lay down flat for 13 more wks if that is what it takes to keep him in there to grow stronger. My only fear is him coming early and then having to leave him in the hospital alone while he grows. But we are both staying very positive that this is still a perfect pregnancy and that all I need to do is take down the activity level and he will stay put.

I am so relieved that I am crazy, b/c I have so much stuff done for the baby already. I was waiting until April 19 to wash all his clothes and sheets, the 28th to dry clean all the curtains and comforters in the house, and May 3rd to pack hospital bag  (list is already made), change airfilters, and charge cameras...just to name a few things that I have planned out in my calendar. But at least I know the little things like that that are left to do and Bryce is capable of doing them. The birth plan has been typed up and hospital registration done. I just hope that I can make it to the infant CPR class, but if not I can go right after he is born. The last thing he needs right now is to feel my anxiety over what I cannot do for him, and I feel confident that we are ready in case he surprises us. I have no idea where he could get his impatience from :)

Long week. Wednesday (2-20) I woke up with some bleeding and light cramping. I didn't think it was any big concern, but I said from the beginning that I would always go with my intuition and stay on the better safe than sorry side of things regardless if I bug my dr. 24-7. So I went in when the office opened at about 8:30, not knowing what a long day was ahead of us. She did an ultrasound (I'll scan pics in later) and did an exam. Baby Watson was very busy in there as usual and seemed fine, but to cover all bases the dr. hooked me up to a contraction monitor and a fetal heartbeat monitor. Again, I didn't think this was going to be a big deal and I love to hear his heartbeat so I just sat back and read a book. After the second time she checked on me, she informed me that I would be going down to the 4th floor to stay overnight. What? Till tonight or overnight? I heard it right the first time, I was going to be admitted for monitoring overnight.And did I mention that it is a full moon, just saying. I couldn't get in touch with Bryce, who didn't even know that I had gone to the dr. that morning. So here I am having contractions every 6-10 minutes that I wasn't even aware of. I got another ultrasound when I got down there, but this time it was to check the amnio fluid level and my cervix. The nurse was nice enough to let me watch him play around a bit. I got to see him hiccuping too. He has fat on his face now so I can tell that he looks like Bryce alot. He is so beautiful, so of course that made me cry. Otherwise, I wasn't emotional or upset over any of this. I could feel my active little baby the whole time and hear his strong heartbeat, so I had no worries. After the ultrasound I was hooked back up to those monitors until the dr. checked me out the next morning. Bryce stayed there overnight too. Oh yeah-I was given Procardia to relax my uterus. It is initially a drug to lower blood preasure, so I was having mine checked regularly and there was no change b/c of the low dosage. So far I haven't found any side effects to the baby, so taking it is definitely better than taking the chance of him being pre-term. I have to take it every 8 hours, and I guess it started to work b/c the dr. released me at about 10:30 Thursday morning. She said my contractions had become irregular, about every 30 minutes or so, and I could go home and continue taking the Procardia every 8 hrs until I am 36 wks. She considers that full term, I don't, but we'll deal with that later. Anyway, I sat on my bottom all weekend which is really hard to do. Bryce did too, but he doesn't seem to mind relaxing. I have an appointment Tomorrow to see what happens next. I pray for no bedrest, but more importantly that Baby Watson is still happy and healthy in there. His activity level has not changed at all. Part of my instructions upon hospital discharge were to count contractions of course, and if I don't feel him moving as much to lay on my side and count 10 movements in 1 hr. So just for fun I did it once and he moved 10 times in 2 minutes!

Sidebar: The rug for the nursary was on my doorstep when I got home from the Hospital. My mother in law opened it for me and put it down, see I'm being good. I love it! It is perfect and simple for the room. I'll take another pic once the curtains are hung.

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(25wks 1day) We had a routine Dr. appointment this afternoon. She listened to his heartbeat, which she did by chasing him around. Baby Watson doesn't like to be pressed on. The dr. informed me that I have O neg blood type so I will need an RH neg shot if the baby has a positive blood type at delivery. But later I found out that Bryce is negative as well, so the baby will be too.  So I shouldn't need that shot, yay! I scheduled my next apt in 4 wks for my diabetes test. For some reason I'm super nervous about that. I'm praying that my gluclose is fine and that I don't develop gestational diabetes. It will make the delivery more complicated if so. So basically an uneventful appt, which is fine by me.

Oh-we have this baby monitor that we bought early on at Babies R Us that is supposed to allow us to hear the heartbeat and his movements. It didn't work at first, b/c apparently the box states that it doesn't work until the 3rd trimester but I was a little impatient to try it out. Well we tried it this weekend and it works now! It comes with 2 sets of headphones that plug into this little monitor that I move around my belly chasing his heartbeat. He was kicking it so hard on Friday that it was falling off of my belly. As I said before, he doesn't like to be pressed on...but that won't stop me. His heartbeat is so fast and such a beautiful sound. We could just listen to it forever. So that is the newest excitement around our house. Besides laying around and feeling him move constantly, we can accompany that with the heartbeat. Bryce will lay his head on my belly and Baby Watson will kick at him. It makes me sad that he is running out of room in there for all of his acrobatics. But just 15 more wks!!

I've been asked a lot about my natural & hypno-birth choice, so here it is:     My decision for a natural birth stems from the adoration and respect that I already have for my baby. It was almost two years exact that we had been trying to conceive, which involved 1 year of fertility treatments that all resulted in disappointment and heartbreak. That is 2 years of dreaming and envisioning him, 2 years of praying for him, 2 years of promising to love, support, and protect him. As soon as I discovered I was finally blessed with him, all of my decisions were re-focused to to his needs. Typical me soon started reading about how he is growing and how I and other outside influences are affecting him. In doing so, I have chosen to not drug him or make him join our family any sooner than he is ready. This is his birthing, not mine, so he gets to call the shots and he and my body know exactly what to do. I don’t believe that I will be in a lot pain b/c I have no fear of giving birth, but there will be discomfort. Even if there is extreme pain, it is one day, possibly a very long day, but still only one day out of my life. This is his debut into this world and my comfort is very insignificant compared to how this experience will impact his little life and the first impression he will get of his family. There will also be no cutting of the cord until it has stopped pulsating as to not shockingly deprive him of the last bit of enriched blood and aid to a comfortable breathing, no immediate bathing as to not take away from him the antibodies found in the vernix covering his skin that naturally absorbs like a lotion, and not taking him anywhere until he has spent the crucial first 20 minutes in our arms and fed. So as crazy as my birthing decision seems to some, I’m just choosing "natural" over what has become "normal". I’m merely doing something that my body was created to do for my baby and ignoring the intervention of the medical community that has made it "normal" to rush a birth and ignore the feelings of the baby. Caveat: this is all happening at a hospital in case special circumstances arise...b/c I’m not crazy!