Experiments in Life Because Sometimes Science Screws Up!

34 Week Update

Here's what you've all been waiting for...

I gained 3 lb over the past 2 weeks (total pregnancy gain 13 lbs)
Blood pressure is good
Heartrate was 141 (which the doctor assured me was fine)
Measuring right on for 34 weeks
The baby is definitely in the head-down position

As you can see, our little Emily continues to thrive and grow. Lately, she seems to get the hiccups quite frequently. So far, that has not been too annoying, although it can make trying to get to sleep at night a little interesting

As for me, I have no major complaints at this point, just the usual third trimester woes. I am experiencing heartburn on a nightly basis and staying asleep is getting quite difficult. I now find that my hips hurt at night and I have to change positions a lot, which is quite a feat in itself Sometimes I have trouble getting back to sleep after having to make the 20th trip to the bathroom. And of course, I am majorly tired. I thought the first trimester was tiring, it doesn't even compare to this! Other than that, I am my usual perky self

Oh, for those of you who have not heart, I was discharged from physical therapy recently. My back is still giving me a little trouble, but at this point, it was taking more and more creativity to treat me. Ask me about the dog bone and the sink plunger at some point

Well, that's it for this update. My next appt. is two weeks off, but will then occur weekly up until the baby arrives. My regular doctor will also be back the next time I go. I am looking forward to seeing her again as I am most comfortable with her.

Until next time...

Back from the Frozen North

Well, Ashley posted her 32 week update, so I did my father-to-be duty and posted this week's picture of my beautiful, pregnant wife. I am sorry that it is late, but as Ashley mentioned, I have been in Ottawa for most of the past week. I finally got back late yesterday afternoon and then took today off so that I could have foot surgery. At the moment I am layed up, but not doing to badly. After a couple of days off of my feet, I will be able to paint the nursery (finally!) in preparation of the baby furniture coming up next weekend.

32 Week Update

Alright, we're getting close to the end here. Only 8 more weeks. I can hardly believe it. Anyway, here is the update:

I gained 1 lb over the past 2 weeks (total pregnancy gain 10 lbs)
Blood pressure is good
Heartrate was 148 (slightly lower than it has been, but that's because Jonathan was not here to wake her up )
Measuring right on for 32 weeks

The doctor did mention that it felt like Emily had turned and was now head down. This would explain the four or so ribs and vertebrae that my physical therapist put back into place for me yesterday I was a little surprised to hear this though since I am still feeling the movement on either side of my belly. I guess she is just moving both arms and legs around like a wild woman. I can already tell that Jonathan and I are in trouble

Well, that's really all I can think of to share. The doctor's appointments don't take very long and not much seems to change over a period of two weeks. Well, except for my waist line

Oh, the picture for this week will be late, but for a good reason! Jonathan is in Canada until Thursday night so there is no one to upload it to the computer. I will try to make sure that one gets posted as soon as possible though.

Stay tuned for another pregnancy update in two weeks!

Stroller Hi-jinks

It has started...the assembly of baby products. I have now officially had my first taste of what it is like to put together necessary baby equipment.

At our first shower, we received an umbrella stroller. Well, since it was all nicely compact, we decided not to unbind it so that we could get it home. Monday night, my mother and I snapped the ties holding it together. Two sets of wheels promptly fell off. At first, I thought I had broken something. That turned out not to be the case. Apparently it is common for strollers to come with only two or none of the wheels attached (as I found out later). So, we managed to put on the wheels and roll around the nursery with it. Well, since getting the umbrella stroller working took almost no time at all, I wanted to tackle the travel system.

For those of you unfamiliar with a travel system, this is a rather large stroller which allows for the infant carrier to sit in it comfortably for the first few months. Then the large stroller can be used up until the child's toddler years, or 40 lbs or so. Based on past experience, I thought this would be a piece of cake and not take long at all. Boy, was I wrong. We couldn't even get the stupid thing out of the box My mom and I had to flip the box on it's side and lift the bottom of it while I attempted to pull the system out of the box. We finally succeeded, only then I was trapped under the infant carrier unable to move. It was quite hysterical. After doing away with the plastic wrap and ties (which resulted in more wheels falling off, all of them to be exact) we dug out the instruction booklet. Yes, we read and attempted to follow instructions, it was a disaster! I guess that is what we get for trying to follow directions. In the booklet, it showed what parts were included in the box. We were missing a piece. We searched all over until we figured out that it was already attached to the stroller. Go us

After finding the not-so-lost piece, we moved on to the next step. Mom kept asking about a basket and if there were snaps. I couldn't figure out why she was so consumed with snaps until I looked at the book. Apparently, they had tried to make things really easy to understand and kept printing the word "Snap" in a little bubble to demonstrate how to attach the basket under the stroller. Again, it was already attached so I'm not really sure why they felt they needed to reiterate this point. Moving on, we finally got to the wheels. Here is where the hammer comes in. "Hammer?" you ask. We did too. We just couldn't understand why you would need a hammer to put together a stroller. So there we were, myself, my mother, the two dogs, a partially put together travel system, a hammer, and we were fresh out of engineers. (For those of you who don't know, Jonathan is in Canada this week. But that's another story.) We couldn't believe that we had gotten that far along in the assembly and now needed an engineer.

Being the optmist that I am, I figured that we didn't need an engineer. Afterall, the booklet did not say we needed one I somehow managed to convince my mother that we could do it; we had gotten this far. I knew Jonathan would not be happy to come home and find the travel system partially put together and taking up our living room. So we began putting on the wheels and came to the hammer part. Well, I tried and failed miserably to take care of the hammering part. My mother, however, had much more success than I did. Let it just be said that under no circumstances should I be allowed to hammer things, ever!

After succesfully attaching all the wheels, I thought we were home-free. Wrong again! One of the last things to do was to put the parental cupholder on the stroller frame. Again, this almost proved to be too much for us. We could get one side to snap on, but not the other. We tried everything. Mom didn't want to force it and I was ready for this stupid thing to be put together already! We continued on and finally managed to gather up enough brute strength to force the stupid piece on. Then we came to the foot rest for the stroller. See the previous 6 sentences and just substitute the foot rest for the cupholder, that's how things went. At last we managed to get it all together. And what did I do once the stroller was completely assembled? I proceeded to chase the dogs around the house with the new baby stroller They need to get use to it right? It was very satisfying

Conclusion drawn from assembling the travel system: my mother and I are equal to one engineer!