Category: Updates about Sylvia

Jan. 22: I am surrounded by a couch laden with little baby clothes.  My neighbor, Kathy, has a four-month-old daughter and a three-year-old daughter, and she just brought me a huge basket full of clothes for tiny babies.  I think that “little sister’s” wardrobe size just doubled.  We had received so many hand-me-downs from Vicki when Andrew was little, I was a little worried that baby sister wouldn’t have quite enough clothes.  That fear has now been banished.

I’ve been reveling in the little clothes.  Folding them, stacking them, fondling them.  Such sweet tiny outfits!  What little socks and tiny hats.  Such adorable little sleepers and dresses and gowns.  I think I could hold them all afternoon.
Basking in the loveliness of baby clothes makes me miss my mom.  If she were here, I would have called her right when I put Andrew down for his nap.  Whether she was working or at home, I would have said, “As soon as you can, drop everything and come over to my house.  We have some baby clothes to admire!”  I may have even tried to hold off looking at them until she came over (probably not).
Then we would look at each one, hold it up, admire the gussets and the embroidery and the well-thought-out features.  We would have come up with possible outfits, and Mom would have offered sage advice about various baby things.  If she were here, I could have even gotten annoyed at her for a moment if I wanted to.  That would be nice.

There are a couple pieces of clothing in the pile that are from some clothing lines that were around when Andrew was a baby.  I remember looking at them with Mom and wondering if we should buy something from those lines in case someone had a baby girl someday. Maybe Maretta…or one of my friends…  It sort of makes me happy and sad to look at those little outfits and remember some of those happy times. If there was one thing that made Mom ecstatic, it was shopping for clothes for kids.  She often said that the only reason she had kids was so she could dress them.  She was mostly kidding:)
With all these new clothes, I feel a little like it is Christmas Eve.
I have so much anticipation about this little person.  It’s a sweet moment to be in.  I’m not dealing with post-labor exhaustion.  The baby hasn’t outgrown anything yet.  It’s all just something sweet and wonderful to be thinking about.  So I’ll pile the clothes around me and dream baby dreams until Andrew wakes up from his nap.  It’s just me, Spooky, and the clothes:)

Jan. 20: I’m lounging on our comfy chair as I type, and my entire belly is rocking and rolling.  It’s sort of amazing to watch!
Bryan and Andrew are playing with play-doh and listening to fun songs.
Things are approaching readiness for the little one’s arrival.  I got a sweet blanket from Aunt Kate in the mail last week, and I’ve been sleeping with it since a) it’s so very soft and sweet and b) to get it smelling like Mama so the little one doesn’t have to cuddle up to a more sterile world.
I’ve been reading my books on labor, we are registered to do a tour of the Meriter Hospital birthing area this afternoon, and tomorrow evening, we are meeting with our doula (birthing assistant), Laura Anderson.  Laura was a great help and support for both Bryan and me when Andrew was born, so we’re looking forward to working with her again.
I have a set of baby clothes picked out to pack for the hospital.  I think this weekend I’ll at least make a list of the things I want to bring for myself.
We’re still working on names, and I think we have our list narrowed down to four.  I like them all, so we’re just going to wait until we meet her to decide.  It’s super cold outside.  I hope the weather warms a bit before we bring the little one home.  On the other hand, Andrew was born when it was 95 degrees, so if it happened to be -5 degrees when little sister is born, that would be a bit of a cool coincidence!

BabyCenter.com Week 37 Update:

How your baby’s growing:

Congratulations — your baby is full term! This means that if your baby arrives now, his lungs should be fully mature and ready to adjust to life outside the womb, even though your due date is still three weeks away.

Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard). Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long. But don’t be surprised if your baby’s hair isn’t the same color as yours.
Dark-haired couples are sometimes thrown for a loop when their children come out as blonds or redheads, and fair-haired couples have been surprised by Elvis look-alikes. And then, of course, some babies sport only peach fuzz.

Jan. 14: I’ve been fluctuating these days between feeling really-ultra pregnant-this-can’t-go-on with totally-normal-no-symptoms-even-sleeping-though-the-night.  Now that I had a weekend of accomplishing things at home, I feel calmer knowing that “little sister” has a space prepared for her.  Andrew has been so excited about tending to his dolly…putting her down for naps in the cradle, patting her when she cries, bringing her to me to give kisses.

I’m home with Andrew today, and then I have three days of work this week.  My last day is Thursday!  Hard to believe.  It’s going to be some big life changes.

Babycenter.com Week 36 update
Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds (like a crenshaw melon) and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. She’s shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement.

At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) Most likely she’s in a head-down position.

Jan. 9: While I was in the shower this morning, I was marveling at the fact that I have less than five weeks until my “due date.”  The new one’s approaching birth feels more real.  In fact, I took tags off newborn clothes and washed them last night.  SO CUTE!!!
My mind drifted to think about what I was doing when I was at this point in my pregnancy with Andrew.  On the equivalent of New Year’s, Bryan and I had walked the Syttende Mai walk together.  Then I had a fun surprise baby shower.  It was late May when I was 35 weeks pregnant with Andrew.  Ben and Melanie had just visited, and I had just set up this website.
And the equivalent of this week was when my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  I remember getting a phone call from her on a Thursday afternoon saying cheerfully that she was in the hospital, but it was just to have some tests run.  No need to panic.  I could come by to visit after work.

My first real posts to my website were about Mom’s health.
I remember how sad she sounded when we started getting bad news, and she said that she didn’t want me to have to put that kind of news on my website because it was supposed to be a place to post things about the new baby.  I told her that I thought of my website as a place to post things about life, and this was life, so from my perspective, there shouldn’t be censorship to limit it to the planned and the happy.
It feels like there was a lot of time between the point when Mom was diagnosed and when Andrew was born one month later.  There were so many doctor’s appointments. SO much overwhelming research and learning about cancer and treatments.  We had the first of what became two-and-a-quarter years of packing my entire family into doctor’s offices to talk about treatment options.  Urgh.
I guess that as I’ve had that flashback, I’ll just be glad that we had as much time with Mom as we did after that initial hard diagnosis.  And I’ll be glad that we don’t have any reason to expect that the last month of this pregnancy will be filled with such difficult times.
It’s a pretty day today.  The sun seems to have come out from the clouds, and there’s good music on the radio:)

Jan. 7: Andrew and I had our first joint prenatal visit to my midwife today.  Andrew thought the whole thing was really cool, and my midwife was nice about including him.  They measured my belly together (33 cm from bottom to top).  Andrew was excited to keep the tape measurer.  They also put some jelly on my belly and used a doppler to listen to the heart beat.  She was at 148 beats/minute today.  Andrew was a little concerned about the noise of the doppler…it’s a loud swishing sound with lots of static instead of a quiet “ba-dum” heart beat.  When my midwife stepped out, Andrew said, “That lady put peanut butter…I mean jelly on your belly.  And I was nervous.”
My midwife was having a hard time confirming that the baby was head down, so she brought in an ultrasound machine.  More jelly on the belly, and Andrew and I got to see “pictures” of little sister.  Andrew quickly lost interest because the images look nothing like a person.  She confirmed that the baby is indeed head-down, which is a really nice thing.  It also means that the lump that moves around up by my ribs is her baby bottom.  She spent a couple moments confirming that there was a good amount of amniotic fluid, and she took a peek at the heart and the umbilical cord.  Amazing to see her heart valves pumping and the arteries in the umbilical cord!
As we left, Andrew received a sticker.  Later in the day, he woke up from his nap and said, “We measured you with the measurer.  Then we put jelly on you and listened to the baby’s heart beat.  Then we saw a picture.  And I got a sticker of a warthog!”  He clearly thought it was a pretty neat experience.  My next appointment is in two weeks.  I’ll be 37 weeks!

Jan. 6: Woof…I’m feeling pretty big.  At 35 weeks, this little one is supposed to be a bit over 5 lbs…the weight of a honeydew melon.  When she gets active, I really notice!  I think she’s still head-up, with her head nestled just under my right ribs.  I have a midwife appointment tomorrow, so perhaps she’ll be able to tell if the little one has flipped.  Because of the holidays, this will be my first appointment in a month.  Hard to believe that there are only three weeks until I am “term” and five weeks until our predicted due date.
Bryan’s mom is coming into town on February 2 with the hopes of being here to help with Andrew when the little one makes her entrance.
Tomorrow’s appointment will also be the first to which I am taking Andrew.  I’m working three days/week for the next two weeks, and my last official day at work is January 17.  So on Monday tomorrow, I’ll be home with the little guy for a day together.  I wonder if he’ll be interested in listening to the baby’s heart beat with the doppler.

BabyCenter.com Week 35 update

Your baby doesn’t have much room to maneuver now that he’s over 18 inches long and tips the scales at 5 1/4 pounds (pick up a honeydew).
Because it’s so snug in your womb, he isn’t likely to be doing somersaults anymore, but the number of times he kicks should remain about the same. His kidneys are fully developed now, and his liver can process some waste products. Most of his basic physical development is now complete — he’ll spend the next few weeks putting on weight.

Dec. 27: Bryan and I got to go out on a date last night while Bryan’s parents stayed home with Andrew.  A good time was had by all!
Bryan and I ate out at a good restaurant and had fun splitting several dishes.  We somewhat accidentally also ended up ordering $18 worth of bottled water.  Oops!
Afterwards, we went to a book store, and I stumbled upon a really neat book called The Baby Name Wizard.
We’ve barely talked about names at all, and we ended up using our night out as a kick-start to the baby name discussion.  After reading through the book, we each picked out 20-30 names we liked.  Then we’ve spent some time this morning combining lists and grouping our favorites.
We’ve now weaned it down to a list of seven possible names, and I think we’re going to let it simmer for a while.  Bryan asked Andrew to say each of the names, and they sounded so sweet in his little voice.  My guess is that we won’t settle on a name until we meet the little one face to face.

As of tomorrow (Friday), I’ll be at 34 weeks of pregnancy.  Wow!

Here’s the update from BabyCenter.com with info on my little cantaloupe:

 Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds (like your average cantaloupe) and is almost 18 inches long. Her fat layers — which will help regulate her body temperature once she’s born — are filling her out, making her rounder. Her skin is also smoother than ever. Her central nervous system is maturing and her lungs are continuing to mature as well. If you’ve been nervous about preterm labor, you’ll be happy to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine. They may need a short
stay in the neonatal nursery and may have a few short-term health issues, but in the long run, they usually do as well as full-term babies.

Dec. 20: My friend Julia just had a baby girl on Tuesday this week.  Little Eleanore Faith.  She had her (first) baby three and a half weeks early!  Makes me a little nervous, because if I did the same thing, I’d have this little miss in the second week of January.  I think she should keep cooking until early February:)
I continue to feel mostly symptom-free this pregnancy. My hips are starting to ache once in a while as they stretch, and this little peanut is getting bigger and less and less movable.  Makes it harder to bend and twist, and her movements are getting increasingly, er, notable!  We’re looking forward to showing my big belly to Bryan’s family this weekend.
Oh, and I have a cute story to share.  I got home from a weekend trip to DC late on Sunday.  On Monday morning, Andrew climbed in bed with me, and after cuddling for a moment, he noticed my belly.  I think he was a bit startled by it, and he reached under the covers, put his hand on my belly, and said, “Baby sister too!  I feel her!”

BabyCenter Week 33 update
This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds (heft a pineapple) and has passed the 17-inch mark. He’s rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and his skeleton is hardening. The bones in his skull aren’t fused together, which allows them to move and slightly overlap, thus making it easier for him to fit through the birth canal. (The pressure on the head during birth is so intense that many babies are born with a conehead-like appearance.)
These bones don’t entirely fuse until early adulthood, so they can grow as his brain and other tissue expands during infancy and childhood.

and looking back,

BabyCenter Week 32 Update:
By now, your baby weighs 3.75 pounds (pick up a large jicama) and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. You’re gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. In fact, she’ll gain a third to half of her birth weight during the next 7 weeks as she fattens up for survival outside the womb. She now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). Her skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up in preparation for birth.

Dec. 7: I can’t believe I’m at 31 weeks!  This pregnancy continues to chug along merrily.  I just keep getting
bigger, but I like my round belly, and the baby is super
active…especially when I lay down to sleep at night!  I think I’m
carrying this one quite a bit lower than I did with Andrew.  Could be because of the gender difference.  Could also be somewhat related to my general abdominal tone (I was going to the gym several days a week up until about this time with Andrew.  The last time I regularly went to the gym was…when I was about seven months pregnant with Andrew:)
I’ve been feeling a little less starved in the last couple weeks.  I do, however, eat very regular meals.  Last weekend I was having some painless belly contracting and some lower back pain, which was slightly worrying.  My midwives suggested taking it easy until I felt back to normal, so I just spent most of the weekend in my pjs, and Bryan did all the shoveling, Christmas decoration-box-carrying, and general household
manual labor.  I read the book Who’s that Knocking on Christmas Eve to Andrew about 35 times.  Good thing I really like that story:)
After a couple days of sitting at work, whatever physical shifts that were causing the symptoms had worked their way out, and I’m now back to my happy, nearly symptom-free pregnancy. (Aside from the hunger and the big belly.)  I’m at 31 weeks today.  Crazy!  We’re in the final trimester:)

Week 29 Update:
Your baby’s about 15.7 inches long now, and she weighs almost 3 pounds (like a head of cabbage). A pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds her, but that volume will decrease as she gets bigger and takes up more room in your uterus. Her eyesight continues to develop, though it’s not very keen; even after she’s born, she’ll keep her eyes closed for a good part of the day. When she does open them, she’ll respond to changes in light but will have 20/400 vision — which means she can only make out objects a few inches from her face. (Normal adult vision is 20/20.)

Week 31 Update:
This week, your baby measures over 16 inches long. He weighs about 3.3 pounds (try carrying four navel oranges) and is heading into a growth spurt. He can turn his head from side to side, and his arms, legs, and body are beginning to plump out as needed fat accumulates underneath his skin. He’s probably moving a lot, too, so you may have trouble sleeping because your baby’s kicks and somersaults keep you up. Take comfort: All this moving is a sign that your baby is active and healthy.

Nov. 24: This pregnancy is going so easily.  I really enjoy being pregnant:)  The little one (now the size of a butternut squash!) is sometimes very active and sometimes really quiet.  When she is turned in the right direction, you can feel her head or butt or back pretty clearly.  Sometimes she seems to be tapping out a little rhythm that I only notice if I’m sitting quietly.
Andrew has been roll-playing baby all the time.  He likes to be carried like a baby, and he sometimes likes to do baby talk.  Recently, he’s started saying, “Now I’m a baby.  Now I’m big Andrew!”
I’ve done some more shopping for this new baby.  Knowing how quickly they grow, and finding it therapeutic as I miss Mom, I’ve had fun continuing to build the little ones’ wardrobe.  I added pictures in the gallery.

BabyCenter.com week 29 update

Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. His muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and his head is growing bigger to make room for his developing brain. To meet his increasing nutritional demands, you’ll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because his bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby’s hardening skeleton each day.