Saw Our Eleanor today!

I had hoped to go into labor this morning so I could avoid going to my last scheduled sono with my MFE, but no dice. Nonetheless, it was good to see her again, I just feel even more excited and eager to meet her in person!

I had a ton of contractions earlier in the day, so my friend that planned on staying home with Sean decided that she should go with me to the appt incase I needed her to drive us back. We loaded up her 2 1/2 yr old and my son in the van and they both fell asleep on the way there. She offered to stay in the van with them during my appt so they could nap. Luckily it wasn't too hot today & we parked in a parking garage.

Anyway... my little girl did great for her sono, fluid looks good, placenta is holding out and she has grown! The estimated weight is 7 lbs 4 oz right now. She is definitely engaged, it was hard to get the shots of her head. Her hair is so long, the tech estimated it was around 1 1/2 inches long! I wish our scanner was working so I could add a pic of her hair. Maybe Doug can scan it in at work. Missy had her arm over her mouth, so as usual we didn't get a pretty face picture.

Contractions have eased up, so maybe we will make it to August after all.

Edited to add the photo of her hair:

37 Weeks!

How's this for a belly photo? Taken today, in front of our house, with a nice patch of sunflowers!

I had an OB appointment today and my first cervical check. Turns out these contractions that are waking me up at night are working! I am 3 cm dialated, 50% effaced and Eleanor is at the -3 station (which is still a little high in the pelvis.) Of course, all this means that I could have the baby any time now, or not for a couple more weeks.

When I was pregnant with Sean, I had a appointment on Monday & was 2-3 cms, at 36 wks, 1 day. He was born 6 days later right at 37 weeks. So it makes me excited to think that Ella might be following the same path.

The heat is bothering me, my hips are bothering me, I'm wiped out by 2 pm, and all this makes me a bit on the cranky side. So I am sure those near me are looking foward to the birth as much as I am!

*Edited to add this cool diagram that shows the descent stations of labor.

Belly Casting

JoLyn, one of my La Leche League Leaders is also doula and childbirth educator. She mentioned to me that if I was interested in making a pregnancy belly cast, she'd be happy to come over and make one. I have seen several belly casts online, but never attempted one with my boys' pregnancies. So we decided to make a fun evening of it and invited another Leader, Leanna, to help.



Doug was kind enough to occupy the boys while we made a big mess and chatted. Aidan was very curious about the whole thing. He knocked on the dry cast before we removed it and said "Baby Ella! Are you trapped in there?"


The cast is still drying, but once it is completely dry I can paint it and will have the boys put their handprints on it. When Eleanor is born, we can add her feet prints to it. What makes me the most excited about it, is photos I have seen of the baby nestled down inside the cast after birth. I can't wait to try that!



Edited to add pics of the drying form.
My belly view:

Baby's view:

Beating the Heat

Yay! Yay! Yay!

Good news for me! I finally got to see the MFE yesterday and she said she does NOT believe my placental lake is caused by a partial abruption! She thinks that the baby is doing really well and I don't need another sono for 3 weeks! Yay! She said, "of course, if you have her by then, just call and cancel the appt." I am so hoping that she is safely in my arms soon. It is a huge relief to hear that all looks well and I don't have to be watched so aggressively. In fact, I don't have another OB appt until July 25, so I get a 2 week break from the dr's office.

I had a BPP before the appt and the sono tech and I had a good laugh about Eleanor. See, she is without a doubt a little stinker! We haven't had a clear view of her face since 28 weeks, she's always hiding it in the placenta. Well, yesterday, she had her face turned towards us so we thought we'd finally get a good look. NOPE! She kept one hand over her mouth the whole time- except for a few brief seconds when she'd slide it down to her chin and stick her tongue out at us, then slide it back up! Cracked us up!

Doug and I feel a great sense of relief today and hope that the rest of the pregnancy goes smoothly. It's hard to imagine that in a month or less we will be a family of 5!

4th Photos!

As, promised, a few photos of our weekend. We spent the morning of the 4th cleaning up the backyard & Doug spent the afternoon mowing, trimming and sweeping the yard. It looks awesome out there, too bad it's been 100 freaking degrees.

Doug needs to assemble and install the Trex railings to the upper deck posts and attach vinyl lattice to the lower posts, to close it in. But it is functional now and we have steps again after 2 months of climbing up and down on a ladder! Yay!

You can also see the boys' clubhouse in the back, complete with a real mailbox that Aidan requested Daddy build for his mail from Nana.




Then we had Doug's parents, brother, niece, and a couple of friends over for a cook out. Lots of fun! When it finally got dark (9ish), we sat on the front porch to set off a few firecrackers (or as Aidan calls them, firepops.) Sean hates firepops, says "No, no, no pops!!!" So he just snuggled up to us and watched from a distance.

Daddy and Sean


Sweaty Momma and Sean


Aidan scooting around


Niece, Mackenzie, and BIL, Curt, aka the Firepop Lighters


Sean preferred to show his patriotism by waving a little flag indoors!

Happy 4th of July!

Hope everyone has a great and safe day! We will be celebrating by cooking out on our almost finished new deck with family tonight. Sean is terrified of fireworks, so he and I will stay in this evening while Doug takes Aidan to see the big display the city puts on. I'm sure they will have a fun night together.

Yesterday I went in for my weekly BPP and the tech did a full sono instead. I guess they changed their minds because the full sono was supposed to be next week. Oh well! Baby Eleanor's hair has grown even more! It looks close to an inch long on the sono. She passed all the BPP test with another perfect 8/8 and her estimated current weight is 5 1/2 pounds! Wow! She is still very high up in my tummy (which makes sitting down uncomfortable because she has her butt wedged in my ribs.) She also is still snuggling the placenta, so no pretty pics of her face.

I will take some photos today and share them tomorrow!

The OMG Grossest Post Ever....

aka "Why Cloth Diapers Rock and Sposies Suck" post.

So last night I had one of the nastiest experiences of my mothering life. Doug was working on the deck (as usual) and I popped outside for a few minutes to offer my opinions. Sean was watching Ice Age for the millionth time and Aidan was probably bothering him or on the computer.

As I open the door to come in, Aidan is rushing towards me, with his friend T that stopped by to play, and says "Seanie's poopy and he took his diaper off! He's on the stairs."

"Oh no!" says I, as I rush to find out where Mr Poopy is. What I encountered is a nightmare that stops me in my tracks. Sean has half way up the stairs, naked, with poop covered hands, feet and belly. I carefully made my way up to him, careful not to step in the trail leading to him, and carry him at arm's length to the upstairs tub. Sean, so proud, says "Uh oh! Poo Poo?"

Oh yes, uh oh is right! I stand him in the tub and rinse/scrub the mess off of him. Then I scrub out the tub & fill it with clean soapy bath water. This boy's gonna need some soak time to get the stink off.

Meanwhile, I fill up a bucket with Pine Sol and water, grab a rag and start scrubbing the trail to where I found him. I couldn't tell if he took it off upstairs then went down or downstairs then went up. Nevertheless, every stair got a scrubbing. Once I got to the mid staircase landing I saw the horrible truth. There lie the disposable diaper.

But wait! Where's the poo? It had skid marks but no pile? I carried it up to the trash, changed the water and went back for more. As I was descending the stairs I found the missing pile.

No, not on the stairs.
No, not on the landing.
There it was! Stuck like a flying poop bomb on the sheer curtain on the balcony door!

Oh.My.God.

I held the bucket below it, flipped it loose with the rag & plop it went into my Pine Sol solution.

Back up the stairs and flushed down the potty.

Sean is happily playing in the tub, amazingly (and probably because he is darn smart enough to know that Momma ain't happy) he isn't dumping cupfuls of water out of the tub.

I get another bucket of clean water & Pine Sol and head back down to remove the curtain & finish scrubbing the lower half of the stairs. As I get to the bottom, Doug comes in to see what is going on. I tell him what happened and say, "There, I think I got it all. Can you run this curtain back to the washer and bring me a clean CLOTH diaper to put on Sean. I'm ready to get him out of the tub."

He said, "You want to know something funny??????"
...
....
.....
......

"I put the sposie on him because I figured he was going to poop soon and it would be easier to clean up."

No.
No, it wasn't easier.

You see, Sean can remove clothes and sposies in 1 minute flat. The cloth diapers I use are a whole 'nother story. He can't unsnap those suckers now matter how hard he tries! That's why I switched our entire cloth stash to Side Snapping Blueberry Diapers. Worth every penny! And I would much rather flip a turd from a cloth diaper into a potty & flush it than scrub a child, a staircase and a curtain. Thankyouverymuch.

After his brilliant words of irony, Doug said, "Huh, looks like he got the tv too." Sure enough, Mr Poopy Artist smeared every inch of the flat screen with his lovely paint. I told Doug he could join in the fun and handle the clean up on that one himself.

Once everything was clean and the boy was safely contained in cloth and jammies, Doug mentioned that it still smelled a bit.

I think all the Pine Sol maybe made the house smell like a bear pooped in the forest.