Family & Friends Baby Shower

Yesterday I had another fabulous baby shower! Lots of people showed up and Ethan got tons of great things.

Once again, I had a fantastic cake, yummy food, and lots of fun hanging out with family & friends I hadn't seen in a long time. I really appreciate everyone that came and showered our little family with love.


Today I took our duplicates back and bought a few more things we needed off the registry. I think we can officially say we are prepared for his arrival now. Yay!

To view more pictures from all my showers click here.

My 1st Baby Shower

Last night I had my first baby shower. It was with the church girls from bible study. We had lots of fun, and I got some great gifts for baby Ethan.

Stephanie made the cutest cake with little jungle animals on it. And all the girls painted a puzzle piece for Ethan's jungle puzzles. They also wrote funny little sayings on diapers like, "Oops.. I did it again" and "This one's for Dad." and placed them in a little jungle basket.

I really appreciate the girls going through all the trouble of hosting a shower for me & Ethan.

The Latest News

Yesterday I had my 33 week appointment. According to last week's ultrasound the baby weighed 4 lbs. 4 oz. (They grow at roughly half a pound a week at this stage.) Ethan is measuring in the 70th percentile, and he's grown into his head so it's no longer considered big. Hallelujah!!! It did appear that he is going to have big feet like his daddy though.

My NST yesterday went very well. He was squirming all around the entire time. My blood pressure was still decent. Dr. Richter says if I start to dilate in the next few weeks she plans to induce me on February 8th, when I'm 38 weeks, in order to lessen the chance of my developing pre-eclampsia. (She does this with all her patients that have chronic hypertension, so it's not because of a problem but rather to lessen the chance of a problem occurring.) If the baby is still healthy and my blood pressure is okay but my cervix is not ready then she'll let me go a little longer. I'm praying for the 8th though because I can't wait to meet my little one! When I told Drew the news I think it finally hit him that he's going to have a baby here in the very near future.

In other news, we have our newborn care class tonight and our last childbirth class on Monday. They've been rather informative, so we're happy we chose to attend. With Ethan's arrival coming a little earlier than expected we've really got to get in gear. There is still so much to do!

To Do List:

Week 33

• Pack the hospital bags
• Fill out all leave paperwork
• Wash baby clothes/bedding
• Order breast pump

Week 34

• My doctor's appointment Monday 1/11
• Last childbirth class Monday 1/11
• Baby shower with church friends Tuesday 1/12
• Baby shower with friends and family Saturday 1/16

Week 35

• My doctor's appointment Monday 1/18
• Meet with babysitter Monday 1/18
• Meet with pediatrician Thursday 1/21
• Breastfeeding class Saturday 1/23

Week 36

• My doctor's appointment Monday 1/25
• Baby shower at work Tuesday 1/26
• Last ultrasound

Week 37

• My doctor's appointment Monday 2/1
• Make sure everything is in order for my substitute at work
• Get the house spotlessly clean (yeah right!)

Week 38

• Induction Monday 2/8!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow! Only 32 days left! I need to stop blogging and get to work. :)

31 week Doctor's Visit

This morning I had my 31 week doctor's appointment. I didn't get to see her 2 weeks ago because she was delivering 3 babies that afternoon so I only saw my nurse. This week we finally got to go over the results from my last ultrasound which was Thanksgiving week lol. Back then he was 2.5 lbs and in the 57th percentile. She said everything looked great except he had a "big head". Oh joy! Perhaps I should start re-thinking how long I intend to hold off on the epidural. She said, "I knew you would be excited to hear that." Cruel doctors lol.

The results from my gestational diabetes test & anemia test were great, and I was measuring exactly 31 weeks according to fundal height.

Blood pressure's looking good too but she wants to go ahead and start my weekly appointments with NSTs (non-stress tests) next week. She says it's probably overkill since my meds are keeping everything in check but she'd rather be 100% certain that little Ethan is healthy than take a chance.

I can't believe I'm now on weekly appointments! It is becoming so real. Next week I have another ultrasound to check on his latest progress. I'm excited to see how much he's grown in the last month.

4D Ultrasound

Today Drew, Auntie Courtney & I got an early start and headed to The Inside Story to go have my 4D ultrasound. I was blown away by how amazing technology is. It was awesome seeing Baby Ethan squirming around live in 4D! He is absolutely precious. For $99 I got 11 printed pictures, a cd with 26 photos, & a 20 minute dvd of the session. Quite the bargain for Ethan's first photo shoot. LOL. The people there were really nice and the facility was cozy too. I liked the fact that they had multiple monitors & a big flat-screen so you could get a good view.

If you'd like to view more 3D photos of our little one click here.

Or you can see all of his photos from the very beginning up 'til now in a slideshow by clicking here.

Surprise Ultrasound

Today I got a call from the ultrasound tech saying that the radiologist going over my scans from yesterday wanted to see an axial spine view since I was a repeat customer, so I needed to come back in. They were able to squeeze me in after work today. He was such a good little boy today compared to yesterday. She was able to get a view of everything she had difficulty with yesterday within just a few minutes. Ethan was just kicked back relaxing. I got to see him sucking his thumb- Too cute! She gave me one picture where he had just taken his thumb out of his mouth and his lips are still pushed out. I call it his monkey face- LOL. Perhaps you can see it too!

26 week ultrasound

Due to Ethan not fully cooperating during the measurement portions of my last ultrasound and my hypertension I got to go in for another ultrasound today. He wasn't exactly cooperating today either, but I think the tech was finally able to get all the measurements she needed. Unfortunately, the photos weren't that great. On a side note, I seem to have really popped this week.