Week 39 Day 6 - Pre-Labor 3 c.m. Dilated

10:10pm



My wife was up about every hour last night. She was having pretty painful period-like cramps. I heard her a few times, but I managed to still get a decent night's sleep.

I went to work and my wife had to drop off her 24-hour urine collection at her doctor's office this morning. When she got there he wanted to do a quick exam to see if her blood pressure was now at a better level. All was normal, and her swelling had gone down, so he was very pleased with the results. While talking to her, she explained that she had been up all night with cramping, so he did an internal exam as well. He discovered that she had dilated another 1.5cm (within the last 2 days), to a total of 3cm! He said she is in "pre-labor".

image from iahealth.net

Since last night she has noticed she has been excreting a lot of discharge/mucus which she thinks is the "plug" starting to come out.  When she came home from her doctors and used the restroom, she noticed a faint streak of pink in this mucus.  Some hour or so later after more cramping she used the restroom again and noticed a lot more blood when she wiped.  She was so excited hoping this was the start of "the show" and that she'll hopefully be going into active labor within the next 24-48 hours.

We are getting pretty anxious and I hope so as I am home from work tomorrow and that would be just perfect.

We ran to Target and got some last minute necessities, for the hospital bags and to organize and store some more things in the garage... Now that baby could be making her grand debut any day we need to make sure we have as much room around here as possible.  I didn't want to run to the store at first but of course my wife spoiled me with a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, it was my first of many this season, so can't complain that I was dragged along.... How horrible!

We're watching some college football and going to be finishing up some of these never ending house chores.  Getting ready for this baby's arrival and anxiously awaiting this night out! Tomorrow could possibly be the last "pregnancy" post.....






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Week 39 Day 5 - Preeclampsia Scare

8:08pm



Well, we had quite an evening last night...


What started off with an easy morning of overtime, and then a great game of golf, turned in to most of the night at the hospital!

We had a doctor's appointment at 4:40pm. My wife didn't get home from work until about 4:20pm, and she had to change and then we had to get to the office, about 10 minutes away. So she rushed to change, and we hurried to the office. We were about 10 minutes late. (Normal for us, actually).

They always take her weight and blood pressure, and then do a vaginal exam to see how dilated she is. Yesterday she was at 1.5cm. And the baby's head was low, which is good. However, her doctor was concerned with her blood pressure.

It was somewhat high, and high blood pressure could be a sign of Preeclampsia.

Preeclampsia is a medical condition characterized by high blood pressure and significant amounts of protein in the urine of a pregnant woman. If left untreated, it can develop into eclampsia, the life-threatening occurrence of seizures during pregnancy. (Source - Wikipedia.com)

So, after a quick stop at KFC (because we need to eat!), we headed to the hospital. 

They took us into the Labor & Delivery wing, and gave us a room. About an hour went by before a nurse came in. My wife was ready to leave, because that is ridiculous. Turns out, they forgot about us, and the nurse that noticed, had just started her shift at the time that she discovered us. She was very nice and helpful, also knowledgeable. We were at the hospital from about 6pm to around 11pm.

A blood pressure monitor was hooked up to my wife's arm, a baby's heartbeat monitor to her belly, and they took a few vials of blood for testing. Oh, and urine, they took some of that, too. 

Her blood pressure fluctuated the whole time we were there. It would start to go down, but then next time the machine took a reading, it would be back up to risky levels. We thought that maybe because we had rushed to the doctor's appointment, that could cause the blood pressure to rise, and it could, along with a lot of other possibilities including diet, and stress.

Her blood results came back perfect. So her doctor decided that the hospital could release her, even though the blood pressure was still a little higher than normal. She is now required to save her urine, so that they can further test and monitor the situation. If preeclampsia becomes determined, the only real way to stop it is to deliver the baby. She would have to be induced.

She was also told that she is no longer allowed to work, and to take it easy. Bed-rest, basically. Her work already knows that she is due on Tuesday, and it's pretty surprising that she was able to work up until now. A lot of pregnant people stop in their 7th or 8th month of pregnancy. We got lucky. Plus, she makes more money than I do, so that helps!

Still no baby. She obviously stayed home from work today, and a few of her coworkers called to check on her. I thought that was nice of them. 

In other news... At 7:30am this morning, a drunken neighbor went on a rampage through the subdivision. He drove his truck into several parked cars, took down a few trees, hit some buildings, and drove through a garage. Finally ended up, in the parking spot in front of his condo, like nothing ever happened. He was arrested. I left at about 6:15am this morning, so luckily I made it out of there before it happened. My wife thinks that she heard it happen. She said there was a lot of loud noise around that time, and that she woke up. He didn't come by our place, so that's good. I just don't get how he did so much damage. He had a big Chevy truck, fairly new. I remember seeing it parked there the day before. Crazy.

Driver being arrested.

Every day is something different! Always some sort of excitement. 

Week 39 Day 4 - It Takes Someone Special To Be A Dad

3:51pm



Wife is back to work today. She is training the temp who will be replacing her for the next 6 weeks starting whenever this baby decides to join us. Hopefully soon.
 

I actually was supposed to be off of work today, but I was asked to come in for a few hours early this morning. I obviously couldn't pass up the overtime. I told them that I needed to be off by 11a.m. so that I could get in a round of you-know-what...

Almost a hole-in-one!

We are going to her (hopefully) last doctor's appointment today. We will find out how dilated she is and when the doctor is thinking she will have the baby. Though, it is very hard to predict accurately. She also needs to fill out hospital papers, if she hasn't done it online yet. Maybe she has, I can't remember...


I had a post on Twitter yesterday and was intrigued by the response I got from one of my followers -

“@PregoForMenBlog: Thankful to get some overtime tomorrow. Need to make as much money as possible. Little girl due anyday now!” real father
— Brittnei Washington (@BrittneiLynn21) September 11, 2013

Her response was "Real Father".


This brings me back to yesterday's writings. I don't ever think about the single mother's, and the children, that don't have father figures in their life. It has never even crossed my mind to NOT be a father. But there are so many fatherless kids. And adults.

So her response hit me hard. I had to wake up and realize that not everybody is like me. They don't look at life ahead and imagine it with their children by their side. They aren't working hard to create a safe environment for the children to grow up in. They don't look at overtime opportunities as a way to help to provide necessities for the family. They don't care. Or they take out their other issues on their kids and abandon them.

It's very unfair for the children. No kid deserves to not have a father. If the father passes away that's a whole different situation. But for any father to just abandon their child, whether it be to get away from the mother, or because they simply didn't want kids, is just RIDICULOUS.

All you have to do is watch Jerry Springer, or Maury Povich on television.

Like they say, "Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad."

Week 39 Day 3 - Teenage Pregnancy

8:08pm



My wife stayed home from work today. She didn't get much sleep last night due to what we think is Braxton-Hicks contractions. She was up quite a bit, in pain. She was very uncomfortable. I'm glad I was born a male.


Her work is very understanding, which helps.


I think we have our bags pretty much packed, and ready. One for her, one for the baby's stuff, and one for me, since I will be staying at the hospital as well. My work is already prepared for "the call", if I am at work when she goes into labor. They know that I will be needing a few days off.

I am going to try my hardest to do a sort-of streaming update when she is in labor. Kind of a play-by-play of what's going on. No gross pictures, or little details, but sort of like Facebook "status updates". So make sure you are watching closely for when she goes into labor. I will notify over all my social network pages. Twitter is probably your best bet, because it is easiest to update quickly.


One thing I have been overwhelmed by lately is the amount of teenage girls having babies. I have quite a few followers on Twitter, and Instagram, and most of them are young single mothers. I cannot believe how many 16, 17, 18 year old girls there are out there with children. I just feel bad for them. I know it takes two people to create a baby, but maybe it's the parenting to blame. How are all of these kids having kids?

I also think that society is putting a lot of pressure on young girls to be "hot". More depression, suicide, drug use, than ever, and a lot of it is caused by peer pressure. Peer pressure can also be linked to teen pregnancy. Lyrics of songs are becoming more and more about sex, and degrading of women. Boys listen to this and think that it is normal to be sleeping with girls, with that being the only intention, especially after puberty, which is in the teenage years. These kids are still in high school. They aren't using protection. Their parents have probably never talked to them about the dangers and outcomes of their actions. The saddest part is all of the single young teenage mothers that are left to take care of these innocent babies. Oh, and the mother's families. Because we all know that a 16 year old girl is not working to support that child on her own. I just never knew the extent, and now I have seen it personally. Something that I am going to have to worry about in 15 years when I have a teenage daughter.

 

I am 26, and my wife is 23. I cannot even imagine how my life would be right now if I had a child at 16. They would be 10 years old! I still feel like a kid sometimes....





How would you feel if your child told you they were pregnant in their high school years? What were your parenting techniques that allowed your children to NOT make these mistakes?

 

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Week 39 Day 2 - Maternity Photos

9:18am


Our baby is now the size of a watermelon. Thanks BabyBump.com newsletter for the constant reminders of how big of a fruit my wife has inside her belly. Brain is still developing, more fat is being stored under the skin, etc. More fat? She already seemed fat enough in the ultrasound photos...


Don't be surprised if a 9 pound baby comes out of there. I won't be.


So we got our Maternity photos the other day. They came out really good. But if you know me, I can't have a photo that I didn't edit somehow. So I took a few and had my way with them. Let me know what you think!

We have all of the originals on a disk. Higher quality so if you would like prints let me know. (Mothers and/or Random Creeps)


I need to find a sponsor who will donate a new DSLR camera for me to play around with... Anyone? Sony? Canon? Nikon? Can you hear me, now? Verizon?

*Disclaimer - Some links on this page may contain affiliate links. All opinions are 100% my own.

Week 39 Day 1 - The Final Week

10:57pm



It's the last week of the normal pregnancy cycle. We are both ready for her to be here. My wife has been in quite a bit of pain the last couple days. She hasn't got much sleep because of it. She gets a lot of sharp pains around her bladder. The doctor said that the baby can be up against the bladder, or a nerve, and everytime she shifts it causes a shooting pain. She has almost been in tears because of it. But it only happened a few times. Most of the time she is fine, just uncomfortable.


We went to Carter's baby clothing store to find an outfit for her to come home in. They have a lot of cute baby clothes to choose from. After a little debating, I helped her pick out her little dress. You will see that when it's time!

I found some other appropriate clothes for her while I was looking around...

I told my wife that any of those three would be great for her to come home in.... She thought that a dress would be just fine. Whatever.

Oh, and the doctor also said that my wife might want to think about telling her work that Friday will be her last day. It's too close now, and most women take the last couple weeks of their pregnancy off anyways. She should be getting as much rest as she can because she will be nonstop once that baby is here. I will, too. But here in America, us dads don't get any paid time off. (Remember, Week 32 Day 1 - Americans Have Never Heard Of Paid Parental Leave) So at work, I will be.

She is still trying to decide whether or not she is going to actually end on Friday. The baby might come before then, you never know. Will she make it to next Tuesday, September 17th, the due date? I have a feeling she won't. 

Place your bets!

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*Disclaimer - One of more of the links contained in this post may contain affiliate links. All opinions are 100% my own.

Week 38 Day 7 - Packing Hospital Bags

8:48pm

More organizing of the baby's room. Your probably wondering why it needs to be reorganized every day. I was, too. But every time we see someone, or go somewhere, we end up with more stuff for her. We are running out of room! 

It actually looks really good in there at the moment. Everything found a place and we even had the Scentsy thing going, except now the whole house smells like baby powder. I'm not a fan of that scent. 

This is her Scentsy warmer. If you aren't familiar with Scentsy, it is like a potpourri kind of deal, but the warmer melts scented wax. They work really well. You can buy all different kinds through your local Scentsy consultant.

Her changing table - 

And we are packing bags tonight, too. Here is a list of things we are bringing for the baby. 

If we forgot anything, or you have any suggestions on what to bring, or what not to bring to the hospital, let us know!