update and training success!

so I haven't had a baby yet.  but I will.  oh yes, I will.  and if you're not into babies or toddlers this post will be bor-ing.

the short, dramatic baby story went like this:  a couple of weeks ago we got to get a 36 week ultrasound.  which we were really looking forward to, as we hadn't seen little bit since the one around 20 weeks when they measure everything and tell you what your genetic testing odds reveal.  anyhoo, the u/s technician got a huge reading - she said our baby was in the 93-95th percentile, and was essentially going to be gigantic.  which was a little startling, and prompted our doc to send us back to our specialist for another high-level u/s and a second opinion.  the specialist, dr. A, didn't see anything to get excited about and said she got a reading of 61st percentile.  that's quite a disparity.  she did, however, note that I had low/normal amniotic fluid, the beast I battled with Maggie (except there was no 'normal' attached to it, it was just low and we had to monitor it pretty extensively the last 2 months).  back to our regular doc, who said let's check again next week.  next week he'd forgotten he ordered another u/s, but I requested it anyway in the nicest way possible, proceeded to dump all of the above story on another u/s tech, and asked her to please, please check everything and tell me why everyone was getting such different numbers.  turns out the first tech simply made a mistake - our babe is totally average (yay average!) and on par pretty much with what Mags was size-wise.  it took an unnecessary chunk of change to sleuth that out, really, but in the end I was so glad to get a good, normal report I didn't care.

my fluid levels are holding fairly steady, but are still on the low end of 'normal' (and will only go down as she grows, not up) so at my last appointment my doctor decided to induce on the 9th (a week from tomorrow) if baby girl doesn't debut this week.  that's only 3 days before my due date - Magz was induced 5 days before, and I'd already started contracting, so I figure I have a fighting chance of my body doing it's thing without pitocin.  not that I'm hung up on a birth plan - I'm at peace with whatever needs to happen - but having done it one way I'd like to experience the difference if I could.  like my nurse said last time, pitocin is a mean drug and that's no joke.

I've had more fake labor this time around.  it's not pleasant, but I hope it's preparing my body to do great things.  I skipped church today because I was up for a couple of hrs last night trying to convince my belly muscles to relax, and it left me bleary and with a hip aflame this morning.  my babies do something crazy to my left hip, and this time around it's worse in the sense that I don't have to be standing up for it to start killing me... just laying weird, or the baby knocking against something, will cause something white hot and awful to bloom in there.  complain complain!  really, I'm just chronicling for the heck of it, since I'm Infrequent Blogger these days.  I'm in the home stretch, and it's really all good.  I've gotten to spend some sweet time with Maggie lately, and I think I'm ready to meet this new person.  I'm fairly caught up with life - all of my billing is done, I've settled up with some regular clients, taxes are done and just need us to approve and sign off on the return, I've restructured my business/tax savings set-up, the house is more organized than ever, and I got Magz on a waiting list for an early pre-school program at a church near us.

so what else.

M has been on a 2-week gig of loooong days away.  It's been less than 100% fun to single-parent with a belly this big, and especially when I thought I was growing a gigantic baby I had a little stress thinking that she'd make her appearance early and mgb would be on a set in West Houston.  which could have happened anyway without her being huge, but didn't.  my mother-in-law has been a huge help, allowing me to get out for sessions/appointments/runs to the grocery store, but the things most challenging for me are piddly, like getting a slippery 2 year old out of the bathtub at night, corralling her in her room, and getting her lotioned/dressed/deposited into bed.  it leaves me physically wiped out.  today was his last official shoot day, and after he packs up and ships off the gear tomorrow all that's left is for us focus on having a good week ahead.

I would, however, like to share a recent parenting triumph, Super Nanny-style.

to start, when she was still in her crib I had a pretty easy time putting Maggie down to sleep at night, and she was good about sleeping through the night.  we moved her into a big-girl bed - a toddler, daybed-style one - in mid-May, thinking we wanted her to have a chance to get really comfortable with the idea before the new baby came.  she did okay with it, and almost immediately picked up on the fact that she could get out of this new bed.  so we've had our fair share of sending her back to bed both at the beginning and during the night, and especially since our trip to Surfside she'd been making a habit of coming into our room at some point - sometimes more than once - to ask for milk and to climb in bed with us.  I thought it was probably some sort of natural regression - there's been so much development verbally/emotionally lately, I didn't make too big a deal of it.  I'd sometimes take her back to her own bed after giving her a sippy, sometimes I'd fall asleep and we'd sleep family-style (though I don't rest really well if she's in bed with me).  anyway, I didn't mean for it to become a regular thing, which is what was happening.  we're about to introduce newborn baby-nightime crazy to the house, and I don't want her stuck on coming into our room.  so this week, I committed to train her to stay in her bed, or at least get used to us saying no or giving her a boundary.  the first night, she got up 35 times.  she didn't come into our room that many times - after walking her back twice, silently and without giving her milk, I sat on the floor in her room quietly and without looking at her for awhile and let her work on me, plead with me, try anything she could.  then I went out, leaned up against the wall outside her door, and waited - when she came to the door and saw me there in the hallway, she wailed and went back to dramatically throw herself in bed.  this went on for about 30-45 minutes.  finally all was quiet, and I trudged to bed.

the next night, it took only 3 times.

and the next, one, with barely a squawk.

last night, nothing.  she even slept through my walking around and taking a nocturnal bath to try and relax ye olde Braxton Hicks contractions.

other things I think are helping:  not letting her nap for more than 2 hrs (and not past 4p), trying to stick with the general routine of eating dinner between 6-6:30 / bath 7ish / play-run around-get out the crazies / milk-downtime-books / bed-a few more books-singing-prayer-night-night by 8:15-30.  I sometimes let parts of this routine slip due to my own weariness, but I've stuck to it like clockwork the past 3 nights and she's gone right to sleep with no fuss, getting out of bed, or angling for more milk.  I'm not a hardcore schedule kind of person and because of the nature of our work we've actively tried to cultivate a flexibility in Magz in hopes that she'll be best able to roll with the kind of lives we lead - like, being able to sleep anywhere, be comfortable being fed/cared for by others and staying nights away from us, that sort of thing - but that certainly doesn't mean I can't see the value of a general schedule and the benefit of structuring the day to best play to her energy level/needs.

I'm sure it'll all be turned topsy-turvy when the new baby's here, but right now I'm feeling pretty accomplished and hope to enjoy as much rest as possible this week before I'm up nursing through the night.

I think this is the most mommy-bloggery blog I've ever posted.  sorry - I've been going back to remind myself of what to expect based on what I wrote when Magz was first born, and it occurred to me that I might find this info helpful in a couple of years when memory fails.  or you could just look at this post as a pretty benign alternative to anything political I could have written (aren't we all on overload from this week's happenings?).

kisskiss,

m.y.