Update

Since I'm up all night now, I might as well update. But I'm warning you guys that I'm typing one-handed on my phone so no pics and there might be mistakes because of the lovely autocorrect feature.

Baby Kaleb Jacques was born last Monday at 9:53AM weighing 10.2 lbs, and measuring 22.25 inches by c-section. This is one big baby. A fact that every single nurse and doctor in the hospital pointed out to us. I'll type a proper birth story very, very soon. I promise!

For now, I'll just catch you up on a little of our lives. Dre is at home with me. He was supposed to go back to work next week, but he managed to get an extra week. My mom is also coming to help out next week so that will be nice. I need lots of help since I had a c-section and am supposed to take it slow.

I am breastfeeding, but that is the biggest challenge ever. Especially when you have a baby that clearly prefers one side over the other. Kaleb also was born with a tongue-tie and has a short tongue. The tongue-tie thing was easily fixed, but the short tongue is what makes his latch so difficult and we can't fix that apart from just wait till he hats bigger.

Also, this baby loves to suck even when he's not hungry. We tried a pacifier on him but he just spits that put. Also we think that the pacifier might be confusing to him as he's still learning to suck properly. So I'm taking it one day at the time and concentrating on getting the latch correctly every time.

All of this feeding though means that I do that ALL the time and don't have time make a proper post.

Alright, I'll update soon again!

Week 40

Well I’m over my due date by 4 days now.  Blah!  I get texts, emails, and Facebook messages from a hoard of people every day asking me how I feel and if the baby has come yet.  I’m pretty sure that I’d let most people know if the baby had decided to make an appearance.  Also, I’m not really sure what to say about how I feel.  I’m huge!  My skin is stretched to the max and this baby seems to still be gaining weight so I don’t feel great, but I also don’t feel awful either. 

I see the doctor on Thursday and she’ll most likely want to induce me right away since the weekend will be coming and next Monday is Family Day.  I had my non-stress test (NST) on Monday and everything looked good.  Baby was moving well, had a good heart rate, and showed no sign of stress.  The resident who came to review my results with me told me that since I’m overdue I can look forward to these every 3 days until I get induced or have the baby.  I’m not too excited about that since I have to do the NSTs at the hospital and they have ridiculous parking rates over there. 

My mom is coming tomorrow.  I really didn’t want her around before the baby comes, but she has some business stuff she has to do.  The problem is that whenever she comes down she manages to stay at my house or friend’s houses for 1-2 weeks.  I can only take about 1-2 days before she gets on my nerves and I want to send her back.  She loves visiting though and so she’s usually here way too long and we end up fighting because she gets on my nerves or disrupts Dre and I’s schedule.  Anyways, I’m picking her up at the bus station tomorrow afternoon if I haven’t gone into labour by then.

I’m getting tired of drinking Raspberry Leaf Tea.  It doesn’t taste bad, but it just hasn’t done anything yet and it gets really old to drink the same tea 1-2 every day.  I’m also still taking Evening Primrose Oil, but I think I’ll cut back to 1 or 2 a day because those pills are seriously giving me the runs and that’s not cool!  They’re the perfect cure to constipation!  I’ve gotten every suggestion under the sun to “naturally” start my labour, but I personally don’t think any of them work unless your body is ready or was going to go into labour anyways.  The weirdest ones I’ve had suggested are to eat lots of popcorn and to drink castor oil with orange juice.  Hmmm, yes I totally want to drink an oil that’s going to give me the runs.  So needless to say, I’ve tried most of the sane ones like walking a lot and all that, but I’m going to stay far, far away from the crazy ones like castor oil.

I lost my To-Do list so I consider it all done.  Of course, I have a ton of small things to do every day, but nothing major is left.  I just need to do stuff like go consign the baby clothes I’m not keeping, harass my insurance company into paying the expenses they’re supposed to cover for Dre, send in my claims for the massage therapy and chiropractor expenses of the past few months. 

We’re done the baby room!  Yay!  Dre and I are in the process of buying the letters to spell the baby’s name and then I’ll paint them.  Michael’s only lets you use one coupon per day, but you can print as many as you want so every time I go by the store I pick up another letter.  Also, I need to figure out how to paint MDF wood since that’s all they had.  We don’t plan on hanging the baby’s name until he’s born since we’re not telling anyone what the name is.

Here’s my pictures.  I just keep getting bigger…

A disclaimer…my weight is leaping up every few days.  I mean in the past 2 days my scale tells me I gained 5 lbs.  How is that even possible?  I’m going to eat more Valentine Day Hershey’s Chocolates with cherry filling to make myself feel betterJ My average weight this week is 186.0 lbs which is a gain of 2.5 lbs since last week. This makes my total weight gain for this pregnancy exactly 33 lbs. That’s the most weight I’ve gained in one single week this pregnancy.  I’m pretty sure it’s going to be even worse for this week (Week 41) too.

I’m still tired and achy.  I also am having a really hard time doing things like putting on my winter boots and picking stuff off the floor.  Most of the time if it falls on the floor, I just want to leave it there.  So last week I mentioned that I found a diaper bag, but since it’s impossible to find in Canada I’ve just decided to ignore the fact that I don’t have a diaper bag.

No contractions.  No Braxton-Hicks.  Nothing.

I’m really looking forward to meeting this baby.  The end!

Baby is still the size of a watermelon.  Although with all the weight he’s gained he’s probably a really big watermelon by now!

Due Dates

Well, my Friday due date has come and gone and I'm still pregnant!

Dre is really cute. He keeps telling the baby where the exit is and that he has to push the exit button or asking him when he'll show up.

I've tried all the old wives tales stuff. Well most of them. There are still a few that I haven't tried. I'd like to say that they're doing something, but so far nada!

I don't get to see my doctor until Thursday and by then I'll be a week overdue. Instead of seeing me tomorrow which she should be doing since she last saw me last Monday, she's sending me to L&D to get "monitored" to make sure everything is going well. Blah! I'm not really looking forward to that at all. It's not hard, but I do have to drive to the hospital and find parking around it (and walk) or pay for $13 parking just to have a 30 minute monitoring. I kind of feel like my new doctor is just passing the buck.

Anyways, I hope that baby boy decides to show up really soon since I don't want to be induced. Of course if I end up being induced, it won't be the end of the world, but I want to avoid it if I can.

40 week update tomorrow unless baby boy decides to make an appearance...

Week 39

I can’t believe that I’m so close to my due date!  Due date is officially Friday.  Of course, ultrasound techs and my doctor have managed to give me 4 different due dates which include the 9^th, 10^th, 11^th and 12^th.  So who knows if the 10^th is really accurate as my due date, but that’s what we’ll go with.

I saw my new doctor last Thursday and then again this Monday since she couldn’t see anyone this Thursday.  I’m still not crazy about this doctor because she likes to just give general information instead of concrete number information.  You have to sit there and ask for everything…it’s very frustrating.  At both appointments, she did an internal exam.  Man that was the worst experience of my life.  I hear it’s worse when your doctor has small hands and this one does.  Anyways, the so not fun experience revealed that I’m barely a fingertip dilated (which is not even 1 cm) and pretty much not effaced at all since she said my cervix was still very high.  It’s depressing to hear this when you’re at 39 weeks.  Then, wonderful new doctor was like I’ll see you next Thursday (meaning the 16^th) and you’ll be almost at your due date.  Ummmmm, no my due date is this Friday.  Do these doctors not bother to read the charts or something?  So she starts having a discussion with herself about what to do because obviously if I go over my EDD then she should be seeing me 2x a week.  Her solution is to send me for a non-stress test (NST) at the hospital next Monday if the baby hasn’t shown up by then to make sure everything is going well.  Okayyyyyyyyyyyyy…..  Then she tells me that if I make it to our next appointment on the 16^th that we’ll discuss and most likely schedule an induction.  OH GOODY!  This is just what I’d like to look forward to right now.

BTW, I did start drinking Red Raspberry Tea Leaf and taking Evening Primrose Oil every day and so far that really hasn’t done anything.  I’m still taking the stuff though because you never know if it’s helping stuff along.

The To Do list is getting shorter, but it just seems like there’s always something new that I need to do and it’s daunting.  I just want someone else to get everything done for me so I can sit down and say, “Everything has been done and is ready for the baby.”  Any volunteers?  No?  Oh, well!  Booh!

Every time I think I’m done cleaning baby stuff, I turn around and there’s another pile.  Ughhh!  I’m not even going to try to clean the toys any more.  My mom can clean all of those when she comes to visit.  I’m a little overwhelmed and I don’t really want to deal with them at this time.  Plus I doubt that baby boy is going to care if he had toys to play with in the first few weeks.

In the baby’s room, Dre and I put up all the wall decals this weekend.  Now Dre needs to install the double curtain rod so I can add sheer curtains.  I need to buy a garbage can, lamp, and really overpriced letters to spell baby boy’s name for the room and then I’ll officially be done!  So we’re almost done!  It’s my goal to do most of this this weekend.

We haven’t seen any mice at all in 2 weeks so I think that we managed to get rid of all of them in a couple of days.  Dre did a good job of taking care of that!

Here is this week’s picture!  According to a lot of people, I’ve majorly dropped in the last 2 weeks.  Too bad that doesn’t mean that the baby decides to make an appearance now.

I still think this is going to be a big baby because my weight gain in the past 2-3 weeks has been really high and I’m not eating any more than I was before or any differently.  My average weight this week is 183.5 lbs which is a gain of 1.3 lbs since last week. This makes my total weight gain for this pregnancy exactly 30.5 lbs. With the way that my weight has been this week, I think I’ll reach the 35 lbs weight gain easily if I go over my EDD by a week. 

I’m tired of talking about acid reflux, indigestion, and heartburn.  They all suck!  End of story.

I still get tired easily and I find that I sleep a lot more.  I go to bed with Dre at around 10:30PM and get up to pee around 4-7 times a night now and sleep until 9:00AM every day.  It takes me a while to do everything because I have to do them around this huge belly and getting up off the couch or the floor is a workout, but I do managed to slowly get some stuff done.  Did I mention that I finally found a diaper bag?  Well, I did and it’s not the Coach or Jujube bags I wanted which cost an arm and a leg.  It’s a really nice, affordable Carter bag, but it’s impossible to get in Canada.  Booh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BHs.  I don’t get very many anymore.  I think I was getting so many before because my job was stressing me out.  Since I’ve stopped working, I don’t really get more than a couple a day. 

I’m really looking forward to having a baby and having everything organized in my house!  This is what my kitchen looked like last week when I decided to organize my cupboards.  Dre was so impressedJ  I ran out of steam in my last cupboard so I left everything out and directed while Dre put it all back.  I never do this type of organizing because I find it boring, but so far I’ve done the fridge, freezers (with Dre), and the cupboards.  I might even do the front closet which is stuffed full of coats and shoes we never use.

Baby is still the size of a watermelon.  Who knows what he weighs now, but I think he’s well around the 7-8 lb mark.  If he comes out weighing 6 lbs, I’ll be very shocked. 

We’re waiting for you baby boy!  People want to know what we named you and honestly I’m getting tired of not telling.

Week 38

This past week Dre and I have been hammering away at the To Do List.  I’m pretty sure that I’ll be done by the end of this week which means that I’ll officially be trying to get this baby here.  How? You ask.  Well I’ll certainly be trying to walk as much as possible to try to get some progress going.  My doctor is supposed to check to see if I’m dilated or effaced at my appointment this Thursday so that will give me an idea of where I am.  Other things which might work are good old-fashioned sex, red raspberry leaf tea, or evening primrose oil.  They might not work, but on the other hand they might do the trick!

I’ve finished washing all the baby clothes I plan to wash for right now.  Now, I just need to clean all the toys.  I got a lot of second-hand toys, but I think that I should probably wash all the new ones too since babies put everything in their mouths.  Baby boy’s bedroom is almost done.  The only things I have left to do is buy a lamp, double curtain rod, and sheer curtains.  It’s too bright in the baby’s room during the day so I need something to cut the light, but at the same time not remove all of it.  The other thing is that Dre and I need to hang the wall decals and get some letters to spell baby’s name over the crib.  So we’re almost done!  It’s my goal to do most of this this weekend so I can finally post pictures of a completed nursery.

In other news, Dre figured out that we have mice in the house last weekend.  What on earth?  So my amazing husband took apart the storage area where they’ve been residing and cleaned and stored everything.  I didn’t have to do a single thing.  I went to an Epicure party and spent way too much money while he was doing this and then went to my Pre-natal Aquafit class.  I felt bad that I didn’t help at all, but just doing those two things made me super tired.  I get tired walking across the room lately.  Anyways, Dre set up traps and put some poison cubes out that are supposed to dehydrate the mice so we don’t have rotting mice in our walls.  He caught 5 in the first 2 or 3 days.  We seem to have caught them all though because we haven’t heard, caught, or seen any in the past 4-5 days.  Victory for us! 

I’m finally done work.  Last Wednesday at 4 PM, I officially handed it all to my replacement.  I don’t have much hope that she won’t mess some of the stuff up, but hopefully she’ll pick up stuff faster when she’s on her own than when I was training her.  It is officially not my problem anymore.

I did meet the new doctor this week and let’s just say that I’m reserving judgment until later because I wasn’t overly impressed.  I’ll update after my Thursday appointment.

I think Dre and I have finally settled on a name.  Yay!  When baby boy arrives, we’ll be announcing it.  I was going to post on here, but I do have some family members and friends who read this blog.

Here is this week’s picture!

Everyone keeps telling me that I’ve dropped and I guess they’re right because my belly looks lower than it did last week.  In every picture, I think that I can’t possibly get any bigger, but every week the belly seems to get bigger.  This is gonna be a big baby if he keeps going!

My average weight this week is 182.2 lbs which is a gain of 1.3 lbs since last week. This makes my total weight gain for this pregnancy exactly 29.2 lbs. I had this sudden, dramatic weight gain around Thursday of last week and my weight shot up a couple of pounds and has stayed there.  It’s so weird when that happens.  It’s like the baby has a sudden growth spurt or something.

To fight the heartburn, acid reflux, and indigestion, I now take Zantac twice a day and drink lots and lots of Ginger Ale.  It’s the only things that seem to help.  I hope that after I have the baby I’m not dependent on Zantac to avoid indigestion and heartburn since I take it so often now.  

I still have a lot of fatigue, but I’m focusing on getting a few things done every day.  That way at the end of the week, I can see that I’ve made some progress in getting everything ready without being too overwhelmed that I don’t have to energy to do it all in a couple of days. 

I’m starting to get a lot more BHs.  Sometimes, I can almost start timing them because I get so many in an hour.  They’re mostly not painful although I’ve a few slightly more painful ones.  I’m sure that when I’m labor they’ll be much, much worse.

I’m really looking forward to having everything ready for the baby.  I’m glad I decided to stop work earlier than I had originally planned otherwise I would have a ton of stuff left to do in the next 2 weeks. 

Baby is the size of a watermelon. He weighs around 7 lbs this week. Baby weight is very subjective by now so I’m giving you the average according to my books.

Week 37

I am finally FULL-TERM!  This is so exciting!

I’m finally done work.  Last Wednesday at 4 PM, I officially handed it all to my replacement.  I don’t have much hope that she won’t mess some of the stuff up, but hopefully she’ll pick up stuff faster when she’s on her own than when I was training her.  It is officially not my problem anymore.

Now I just get to talk to the insurance company taking care of our Short Term Disability plan a lot.  Apparently, when you leave work even by doctor’s orders they still feel the need to call and get “more” information.  Dre mailed them my paperwork this morning and I’m hoping that that will be all they need to process my claim.  Really, the complete maximum amount of time I’ll be off work and covered by them in 5 weeks since my due date is in 3 weeks and doctors don’t let you go over your EDD by more than 2 weeks nowadays.  I just feel like they’re giving themselves a lot of work by trying to see if I could go on modified duties for work by corresponding with my supervisor and all that stuff.  Is it really worth it to get me to work an extra 2 to 3 weeks?  I kind of wish that baby boy hurries up and gets here so I don’t have to deal with all this ridiculous stuff.  I’m sure he’s like me though and he’s happy hanging around until someone forcibly evicts him from my uterus.

At my last appointment with my doctor this past week, she told me I tested negative for Group B Strep.  Yay!  It was my last appointment with her because she is also going on mat leave.  So I get to meet my new ob-gyn this Thursday.  I’m kinda nervous about that.  I hope that I like her because I don’t do well with people I don’t like.  My present doctor tends to be a little too happy, sunshiny about everything, but I can deal with that since she listens to my concerns and is open to what I have to say.  I’m really hoping that the new doctor is the same way.

I’m still having panic attacks over having an actual baby in the next 5 weeks, but I think I need to get into the mindset that we’ll be okay even if we don’t have everything done for the baby when he gets here.  We should probably pick a name for him though.  The problem is that Andre’s name I don’t like AT ALL and my name Andre is not fond of what the name means.  I have to say that when I found out the meaning of the name I wasn’t impressed either.  I think we might have to go back to the drawing board and make a list of possibilities and try to find one that we both like.  Apart from picking a name, I still need to find a diaper bags and a baby carrier, make some more frozen meals, and finish cleaning and organizing all of baby boy’s stuff.

Here is this week’s picture!

Week 36

Week 37



You can’t tell by looking at the picture, but my shirt no longer covers my baby bump.  I could feel some skin down there when Dre was taking the picture. 

My average weight this week is 180.9 lbs which is a loss 0.1 lbs since last week. This makes my total weight gain for this pregnancy exactly 27.9 lbs. When the nurse weighed me this week, she couldn’t seem to believe that I might have lost some weight.  I’m really not doing anything differently, but the doctor tells me that that can happen towards the end of pregnancy.  Weird since the baby is putting on more weight than ever now.  I feel like there’s no more room in there for him so he’s going to have to come out pretty soon.

I still get bad, bad, bad heartburn.  I’m pretty sure that won’t change until baby boy gets here.  I’m also getting a lot of indigestion so I’m drinking a lot of Ginger Ale to help.

I haven’t really seen any “nesting” urge around.  I look at stuff and tell myself that I need to do something about it, but I don’t have the energy to go do it.  Everything seems to take so long to do when you’re pregnant that at the end of the day it feels like nothing got done.  Right now I’m focusing on accomplishing a little every day and hopefully everything will get done.  Thank goodness that Dre is happy to help though because the man does tons and then I feel bad that I let him do everything. 

I didn’t get as many BHs this week.  I tend to get them when I’m up and walking around though which makes all my shopping excursions interesting.  No painful contractions this week.  Doctor didn’t check me for dilation or effacement at my weekly appointment since I didn’t have any timeable contractions.  I’m ok with that because it reduces the chances of an infection being introduced to my uterus that way.  Anyways, I’ve heard all the stories of mamas walking around 4 cm dilated and 100% effaced for weeks before finally being induced because they went over their due dates.  We’ll see what this new doctor does, but I’d rather wait until I’m 40 weeks before we start doing the fun, fun cervical checks.

I’m really looking forward to being organized.  I feel like everything is always un-organized and everywhere right now.  I think that I’m going to work on a to-do list tonight so that I have a clear idea of what I need to do before the baby gets here.  The list will also help me feel more organized.

Baby is the size of a watermelon. He weighs around 6.5 lbs this week. I can officially say that I’ll be squeezing a watermelon out of my hoo-haa in a few weeks!  Eep!

Week 36

I know it’s taken me a really, really long time to update this.  I guess that in the middle of all the crazy stuff I had to get done so I’d be ready to leave work for a year that this blog post got lost.  Since I’m already a week late, I’ll just do a short update for Week 36.
Dre and I organized and sorted most of the baby stuff this weekend.  Now, I have a better idea of what I can start to wash.  My mom thinks I should wash every single piece of baby clothing that I have, but I think it’s a bad idea since I don’t know if I’ll even use some of it.  For now, I’m washing everything I got second-hand and a few of the smaller outfits as well as all the sheets and blankets.  I’ll re-evaluate how much we need after a week of baby being here.  I figure it will give my mom something to do if I give her a big basket full of baby stuff to wash.  She loves doing that type of thing!

Here is this week’s picture!

Week 35

Week 36

My average weight this week is 181.0 lbs which is a gain of 1.1 lbs since last week. This makes my total weight gain for this pregnancy exactly 28.0 lbs. I can’t believe I’m still under the 30 lbs. gain. 

Heartburn and indigestion are a constant pain.  I take Zantac regularly otherwise I can’t breathe at night with the heartburn burning in my throat and the acid trying to come back up. 

I’ve gotten a lot of BHs in the last week including some painful contractions.  Nothing really that I can time though.  They seem to get worse every time I get stressed out or walk around too much. 

I’m really looking forward to finishing work and hanging out with some friends this weekend.  I’m going to an Epicure party that one of my friends is throwing.  I LOVE Epicure spices so I’m really excited about this.  I’m even thinking of having my own Epicure party this summer so I can stock on some more spices and get awesome discounts.

Baby is the size of a cantaloupe again. He weighs around 6 lbs this week. From now on, the weight is more of an average since babies are usually born anywhere from 5 to 10 lbs in the next few weeks.