19 Week Ultrasound

We went in today for our 19 week ultrasound. We maintained our alliance to "Team Green" and did not find out the gender. Our little baby looked great and was measuring only a day ahead of his/her due date. He/she is in the 74th percentile for size (which is a nice change from the 98th percentile babies that I have delivered in the past).


Everything was looking good until they checked the position of the placenta. Normally, it is positioned high up in the uterus above the baby, like the picture on the left. The picture on the right shows it completely blocking the baby's exit. This is called placenta previa:

Mine is in between these two situations, like this:

In 90% of second trimester cases, it corrects itself and moves out of the way. We have a follow-up ultrasound scheduled in eight weeks to take a look again. If we are in the unlucky 10% of cases, it was the opinion of the doctor I met with this morning that the baby should be delivered via c-section. This, of course, does not sit well with me. I am meeting with my regular doctor this afternoon for my monthly check-up and will get his opinion on the situation then.

Why all of the c-sections?

I am probably not the best person to speak on this topic seeing that my previous births were both medically-assisted; however, we are planning a natural childbirth with our baby due in November and I have learned so much in the last few months. I am home today because Gabriel got sick last night and I have spent a portion of his naptime watching "A Baby Story" and folding laundry. I have watched this show hundreds of times before, but today I saw it in a new light. It was sad. I saw three different births and all three were c-sections. One was because of a previous surgery and the other was because of low fluid levels. I understand that it is the mother's choice of whether or not to have a c-section but it seems as though they are doing it out of convenience and attaching a medical reason to make themselves feel better. At one point one of the women joked that the c-section would be the fastest weight loss program ever... Is this what childbirth has become? For thousands of years women have given birth to babies without the need of medical intervention. Now over 30% of babies are born via c-section. I'm sure that most of these women have some medical "reason" for why they had a c-section, but really they seem more like medical excuses. C-sections mean longer hospital stays for moms and babies (since baby is told when it will be born and may not be finished developing entirely). This in turn means bigger pay days for hospitals and doctors. It seems to me that most c-sections could be avoided entirely if the mother took better care of herself with her diet and exercise throughout pregnancy and took the responsibility to educate herself on what truly constitutes the need for a c-section.

Having a c-section is one of my biggest worries. Unfortunately all of the hospitals in this area refuse to allow a vaginal breech delivery. Both Cadence and Gabriel were born head first and I hope this baby decides to do that too.

I'll step off of my soap box now. I just had to get that out.

Yard Sale WIN

Chris and I got up early this morning and went yard sale shopping. We stopped at a sale in Simpsonville that had advertised lots of baby items. The lady told us that she didn't have anything marked and to just make her an offer. So I did and paid $70 for:

Medela Pump in Style breast pump
Boppy Naked Pillow with 2 covers
9 Dr. Brown's 8oz bottles with nipples 1-4 flow level for each
2 Playtex bottles with drop-ins with nipples 1-2 flow level for each
2 sleepers
4 receiving blankets
1 crib sheet saver
1 crib sheet
5 sippy cups (2 Avent, 1 Dr. Brown's & 2 others)
10 spoons
bowl
baby food grinder
8 Soothie pacifiers
3 Avent pacifiers
3 other pacifiers

Baby Tummy

Chris has been taking a picture of me every Friday since I was eight weeks pregnant and we plan to continue this until 8 weeks after delivery. Here is the first installment of the Baby C slide show. :)

15 weeks 4 days

Chris and I had an appointment with the baby doctor yesterday. We are 15 weeks 4 days along in this pregnancy and the baby had a heart rate of 145. The last time we were told the heart rate it was 154 but that was at 7 weeks, and I understand that they gradually go down over time. The doctor told us that he wants to schedule another ultrasound at around 18 weeks. I was pleasantly surprised! With Cadence and Gabriel, I didn't have that ultrasound until almost 21 weeks. This would be the ultrasound where we find out if it is a boy or a girl, but we aren't planning on doing that this time. It will definitely be a true test of my will power to not scream "Yes!" when the ultrasound tech says, "Do you want to know the sex of the baby?"

After the doctor we made a quick trip to Home Depot to pick up some paint samples for the nursery. Originally we had planned on doing a brown, yellow & green theme, but I think now we are going to go with tan/beige, chocolate and pink or blue. Since we are not finding out the gender of this baby ahead of time, we will have to wait until November to buy blue or pink stuff, like this:

In the meantime, we'll load up on beige sheets and use Gabe's old lamp shade. I don't think that the baby will mind. :)

The LOST series finale

I have spent the last six years of my life obsessing over this show. I spent hours pausing the scenes with the smoke monster so I could get a glimpse of the images inside. I analyzed every episode. All in all, I spent waaaay too much time on this tv show.

So last night was it. The episode where all of our questions would be answered. I'm so glad that today I'm no longer wondering how the island heals people; why the smoke monster flashed images in front of people; why Walt suddenly grew up; and, what the light is in the middle of the island. Oh wait...

From the moment that Jack opened his father's coffin until the show whooshed back to the island I felt like I was watching the scene from Titanic when Rose went down the the underwater wreckage after her death. While it was awesome to see most of the characters again, I was hoping for something more from the writers. After all bloggers have been speculating since season 1 that all of the characters either had died or would die. The ending just wasn't surprising enough for LOST.

Things that I liked about the episode:
~ Hurley became the new Jacob. He is the perfect guy for that job!
~ Jack's death scene. I loved how he came full circle and returned to exactly where he started.

Things that I did not like (aside from the Titanic-type ending):
~ Death scene of the smoke monster. He has been the most fearsome creature on the island since the very first episode. He deserved a more dramatic death than being shot in the back by Kate.
~ Sayid and Shannon. WTF? For the last six years we've been told about Sayid's soulmate Nadia and he chooses to spend eternity with the girl that he loved for a few weeks?
~ Where is everyone else? Walt, Michael, Mr. Echo, Miles, etc.?

LOST will still go down in history as my all-time favorite tv show and I would probably criticize any ending that they threw at me. However, I think that all of the high expectations that have been created over the last six years made room for a somewhat disappointing ending.

Diego cupcakes

Last night I crashed at 8:30pm and my awesome hubby was kind enough to bake the cupcakes for Gabriel's class.

Tonight I had the job of decorating them. First I mixed some cocoa powder with some store-bought buttercream icing and iced the cupcakes. I know, I cheated on the icing, but two and three year old kids don't care.

Then I made Diego's hairpiece using a coloring page as my stencil. I placed the page under some wax paper and drizzled chocolate in the shape of Diego's hair. I used a toothpick to help fill in the spaces.

Next came Diego's face. For the eyes I used mini-marshmallows. I cut the top and bottom off of the marshmallow and then cut the remaining piece in half. This gave the eyes an almond shape. I used some of the chocolate for the center of his eyes, his eyebrows and his nose. The mouth was made using store-bought red writing icing.

Ta-Da!!! Diego cupcakes! :)