Tarraguña's Blog

At around 1 am March 2nd Tuesday morning we had our baby. She was a girl we named Fiona Olivia and she weighed exactly 7 pounds. We are exstatic to say the least. She is healthy and beautiful.

I will be recouperating and I expect to not be able to update this blog during the next 2 weeks or so. I will be posting a long detailed account of our wonderful birthing experience, but it will probably take me to mid April to complete.

This morning as I layed in bed, I thought I felt almost as if I were going to pee my pants.  I got up and looked at the bed to make sure I had not broken my water yet.  Nope, no dampness. But then when I went to use the bathroom, I heard and felt a small thud. No, it was not a bowel movement. I had just lost my mucus plug or had my bloody show as some people say. I wish this meant labor was immenent but it still could be 3 more weeks or so. I still feel excited as loosing the mucus plug means labor is coming, I just still don’t have any better idea as to when. I would like to think it will happen today as my whole lower half of my body is acheing as we are shopping for some last minute baby prep items like diapers. It would also work out great as my husband is off work for the next 3 days. Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

This week marks my 36th week of pregnancy.  This is probaby the first week that I have felt uncomfortable, well aside from the 6 weeks of nausea during the first trimester but that was different.

Sunday night I was unable to sleep at all.  I had a sore throat and a congested head.  This was either caused by a head cold contracted while going out to the movies the day before to see ‘The Wolfman’ or it was just due to my sinuses being aggrevated by the low humidity caused by unseasonable low temperatures over the past weekend here in southern Florida.  Either way not sleeping Sunday night left Monday a long tireing day of a sore throat and congestion that also prevented naps.

Tuesday I awoke to my aching pelvic bone.  I felt as if I could barely walk.  It was quite odd to go from walking 3 miles a day and doing pre natal yoga to feeling like I could barely walk.  Oh and when the baby’s head would move and accidently get too close to my pelvis, it felt like it’s head bones were knocking into my pelvic bone and the pain would just echo through my already achey bone.

I of course had to google pelvic pain during the third trimester and found some scary posts.  Some people and posted on forums that they began having pelvic pain at 30 weeks of pregnancy and that it did not end until they delivered.  The pain was bearable and I knew that it was a result of hormones being released that were softening my pelvis so that it could streatch and open up to allow the baby out.  I am a big fan of the pelvis softening for passage of the baby as opposed to the alternative.  Not being able to walk and to feel immobile was much more freightening.

Luckily the pelvic pain subsided the next day.

The Gregorys came down for a visit

This week marks my 35th week being pregnant.  I have really started to notice that the baby is getting a lot bigger.  I really feel like I am busting out.  Up until last week I was quite comfortable.  I can’t at all say that I am miserable and hopefully we won’t get there.  It is getting harder to find a comfortable position to sit in.  I also know need to sleep on my side laying into 2 pillows with the lower half between my legs.  Before I was quite comfortable with just one pillow.

Preparing for Labor

I find myself now quite occupied with preparing myself for labor.  I am trying to do this physically and mentaly. Physically I am keeping up with my PreNatal activities; those being pre natal yoga, swimming and walking 3 miles.  I try to do all three of these daily.  This is not always possible, but I always do atleast 2 activites.

Preparing mentaly is challenging as I have no idea what I am in for as this is our first child.  For women who had a natural/ unmedicated childbirth experience their description of the pain varies greatly.  Some women have reported it feeling orgasmic while others report it being the worst pain in their life.  Other things that I have read imply that the woman’s attitude shapes her pain experience.  It is extremely painful because she expects it to be.  What I am trying to determine is how you can expect it to be orgasmic and still prepare for it to be quite painful so that if you do feel some pain you don’t loose your head and get swallowed up by the pain.

Instead of deciding on the best way to prepare for the pain, I have decided it would be better to focus on the point of labor; the baby.  I am going to try to see the pain as secondary and just something necessary to the process of birthing my baby.  My idea is to follow the flow of my body and feel it out and try to relax and work with my animalistic instincts.  Giving birth is not something you need to think your way through but you do want to try to keep high stress and anxiety away.  Those 2 are never a good thing to have.  I have been trying to visualize the baby inside of my uterus and then I try to visual the path it will take to be born.  Hopefully if I focus on the baby and the amazing process of giving birth, the pain, if any, will be very tolerable.

This last week marked 33 weeks pregnant for me.  Sadly it also marked a frustrating week with my ISP who happens to be Comcast.  Magically or suspiciously the internet would go down between 10 am and noon and come back up sometime after 5 pm every single day this last week.  I suspected that in the process of remodeling an apartment in our building it got shut off each day but when I asked some of the remodelers they claimed that they did not shut off anything during a remodel.  Maybe they meant to say that their official stance is no but they do it anyway.  So the last week was spent trying to figure out what was interrupting our service.  A Comcast technician is coming on Monday between 2-5 pm and hopefully he/she will be able to solve the problem.  If not maybe we will only pay half of our bill when it comes.  Thus this is why I am writing about the 33rd week of pregnancy on Saturday the end of the week.  Apparently you need an internet connection to post.

Ultrasound

In the midst of my ISP issue we had an ultrasound done.  Our first ultrasound was done at 14 weeks and we could not see any anatomy so we opted to have another ultrasound done.  We did not want to find out the gender of the baby, we wanted to see the anatomy like the heart and the kidneys.  It was so amazing.  The technician was very nice and personable.  He would tell us when he was getting close to showing the gender so we could turn our heads away.

33 weeks pregnant

Good Anatomy

The kidneys were so neat to see and the four chambers of the heart as they pumped blood.  A week before at an appointment with our midwife the baby was not turned head down yet, but on the ultrasound the baby’s head was way down.  This is probably the reason I was able to eat a bit more this last week. I had a lot more space for it as the baby’s head was down and lower allowing some room for my stomach to expand.  We were given a DVD of the ultrasound but the technician advised us that the video does show the gender so we have chosen to wait until after the baby is born to view the DVD.

Gestational Diabetes Test

I also had to partake in the 3 hour gestational diabetes test.  I don’t recommend it at all.  I had to fast the night before and then skip breakfast.  I arrived at the lab at about 8:40 am.  They drew my blood when I first arrived, then at 9:40, 10:40 and 11:40.  That makes FOUR times total.  The first drawing resulted in a nice hematoma so on my left arm I could be mistaken for an intravenous drug user.  GREAT.  It did give me a lot of time to sit and read ‘Husband-Coached Childbirth’ by Dr. Bradley since I was there for about 3 hours.

Natural Childbirth Preparation

I have been consuming myself with ways to prepare for natural childbirth.  I will be writing and posting a rather long post later as to what I have been investigating and then I hope to post after giving birth providing some evidence as to what worked and what didn’t.