Last night, Q commented to me that he had the same feeling as he gets a week before his birthday – when he knows he has a big present coming to him, and he just can’t wait to open it. I thought that was a sweet comment, and a really good way of looking at things with Sesame. I’ve been so focused on the baby’s actual delivery that I haven’t thought as much about the outcome as I should. I’m increasingly concerned about the amount of pain I’ll have to experience during labor… but I need to remind myself that (excuse the cliche) it will all be worth it once we see our present!

-M

Well, Michelle didn’t really elaborate in her last post, but the fact that she is over 80K platelets is amazing!  She thought for sure that she would have to go on moonface steroids her last 2 weeks of the pregnancy, but with 11 days to go, she is off the hook!  Friday is her next count and if she stays over 80K, she may not have to go on steroids at all!  I thought for sure that she would go on and on about not having to take steroids and it being only 11 days away, so I will just do that for her.

 Jon Q

Few people are as nutty about football (or fantasy football) as Q and I are. We have a little tradition on Sundays in the fall: get up early, finalize our fantasy line-up and spend the rest of the day watching all the games – usually with friends. This weekend was no different, and we had several people stop by throughout the day – including some we haven’t seen in quite awhile. Our friends Giselle and Jon came over with their two kids (adorable little girls), as well as many bagfuls of toys and clothes for Sesame. They have the most fun and girlie stuff, and I’ve had a great time going through everything today… We also saw Stacy and her boyfriend JD, who came with a surprise: two pink little Redskins and Packers onesies. (As Stacy said, she’s an equal-opportunity gift-giver!) It was fun seeing everyone and showing them the house and our (very girlie) baby’s room.

Speaking of the baby’s room, Q gave little Elena a tour – and Elena seemed to like it! I’ve really just been guessing that what we have will go over with Sesame (I’m not a baby girl, after all), so I feel much better now that we’ve gotten another little girl’s seal of approval.

Fast-forwarding to today, this was my first day of maternity leave. This didn’t mean I could sleep in, though, as I had a 8:15 doctor’s appointment. The appointment itself went well – no big news. I did casually say to my doctor, “It would be unusual for the baby to come this early, right?” – to which she responded, “Oh, no. It could come any time.” That wasn’t exactly what I was hoping to hear – I’m still hoping Sesame waits to make her appearance until closer to the due-date – but at least the doctor was honest! After the appointment, I ran some errands and did a bunch of holiday shopping. (I’m hoping to get the bulk of my shopping done before the due date. Who knows how I’ll feel in a few weeks?) When I was out and about, happily shopping, I got a message from my hematologist’s office; my platelets (which were checked this AM) are at 82K. Any count above 80K is good, for me, so I was thrilled with this news. A good day all around…

-M

Well, it’s been 2 days since our last post and the natives are getting restless, so I’ll give you a quick weekend update.  Michelle is doing well; besides some slightly swollen feet, she looks great (I’ll have to post some week 39 pictures soon.)  We also both won our Fantasy Football games this weekend, so it will be a happy Monday.  Speaking of Monday, Michelle has one of her last doctor’s appointments tomorrow.  I’m sure Michelle will update us all on her appointment  on her first day off on maternity leave.  Going to bed now…

Jon Q

Palo Alto is a great place to work. It’s sunny and relatively warm most of the year, and it’s home to an airy, happy shopping mall that happens to be just minutes away from my office. I have a clear memory of strolling back to the office at lunchtime a few months ago - with a Nordstrom shopping bag in one hand and a strawberry-vanilla Ice Storm in the other – and thinking how lucky I was. Not only was it beautiful outside, but I was heading back to a job I truly loved. Oh, and I had just gotten a great pair of shoes.

It will be awhile before I have another day like that. Today was my last day of work before maternity leave – which means it could be three+ months before I find myself on the Stanford campus (or at the Stanford mall) again. I’ve known about the date for quite some time – and Q typically gives me the countdown as I roll out of bed each morning – but it still felt weird to see the actual date show up on the calendar. Could it really be Nov. 10? Already?

Although I’ll be coming back in a few months, it was still hard to leave work and head north today. I’ve been going to the office every day for the last five+ years, and it will be strange not to get up in the mornings and see my friends and co-workers. And it occurred to me that I wasn’t just saying good-bye to friends/co-workers today, but I was saying good-bye, in a way, to an entire chapter of my life. The next time I come to the office, I’ll have a baby! I’ll have survived something I’m fairly terrified of (labor) and entered into something that I’m told is pretty amazing (motherhood). Although I’ll still be *me* I’ll also be someone’s mom – and I’ll likely have thoughts and feelings that I can’t even fathom right now… It’s all pretty hard to imagine.

For now, I guess I’ll just enjoy my time off and wait patiently for the baby. Oh, and daydream about the next time I do a Nordstrom/Ice Storm run (this time, while pushing a stroller).

-M

Another week has gone by as we inch closer to November 24th.  Today Michelle is a full 38 weeks pregnant (see the Babycenter update on the right) and starting on Week 39.  It is also her last day of work, and of course they are throwing her another lunch party. (I have never seen a work throw so many parties and showers for someone.)  She was very proud this morning, because she found something nice to wear to work every day of her pregnancy.  Now she can start wearing jeans and sneakers every day as she relaxes before the baby is due.

Since we have everything and Michelle is now done with work, there is nothing left to worry about. Oh, except for the birth…but Michelle isn’t really worried about that…

Jon Q

Another uneventful morning at the doctor’s office. Today was another testing appointment (ultrasound and fetal hearbeat monitoring), and everything looked good. The baby’s head is where it needs to be at this point – way low – and I was yet again able to see her little profile (and chubby cheeks), legs and arms. I was in and out of there in less than an hour – a real feat! – and I even got the nice technician (the one who lets me read magazines while I’m lying there, hooked up to the monitor). The only other thing of note was that the technicians weren’t able to get a good heartbeat reading for the baby of the woman in the next curtain-area over. A baby needs to be awake and active in order to give a good reading, and the technicians decided to wake up this particular one by sounding off an alarm clock and loudly yelling (repeatedly), “YOO-HOO. WAKE UP!” next to the mom’s belly. (Sesame actually responded by moving a bit – but I’m not sure about the other baby.) I found the whole incident pretty funny – in this day and age of technology, that’s the best they can do to get a good heartbeat reading??

-M

I’m talking about my feet. It may seem odd to dedicate an entire post to these extremities, but I’m absolutely amazed by how BIG they’ve gotten. (I read about edema in my pregnancy books, but – until about two weeks ago – I thought it was another unpleasant pregnancy symptom that I had missed out on. Boy was I wrong!) I recently blogged about having to give up heels… At this point, I’m about ready to give up shoes altogether! 

-M

I try not to read a lot about childbirth and labor – I want to be informed but not over-saturated – but I happened to read today a BabyCenter journal entry from a woman about to give birth to her first child. She commented that she just had a false alarm: she thought her “bags of water” had broken, and she rushed to the hospital. The first thing I thought when I read this was, ‘How could she think her water had broken if it really hadn’t? Isn’t that something you should be able to tell pretty easily?’ (According to my mom-friends, it is!) The whole idea that something that major could happen (or not happen), and a woman could not know it (or get confused by it) is pretty scary (and intriguing) to me.

Of course, that made me think about labor in general – and how to determine when it’s really happening. I’ve recently experienced what I assume are Braxton Hicks (“practice”) contractions, and each time I feel them now, I wonder “Could this be it?” And, “How will I know if it’s the real thing or not?” Books and people assure me that I *will* indeed know (I assume the contractions will hurt – oh, about 100 times as much), but it’s hard not to worry a bit about it.

On a related note, I’ve felt (perhaps optimistically?) throughout my pregnancy that I would deliver early. But now that the date is closer, I don’t want to! I really just want to finish up my week at work and have a week or two to relax (sleep in!), finish up some things around the house and just *be.* We’ll see how that all works out…

-M

Thanks to all of Q’s efforts, Sesame’s bedroom is finally ready! Yesterday, he put up all the curtains and blinds (NOT a small task, considering how many windows we have), as well as new light fixtures. He also put together a toy chest – and the two of us went out and bought some important, last-minute nursery items (monitor, diapers, wipes, etc.). We can’t think of anything else we need, really – and that’s a great feeling!

-M

PS. For you Redskins fans out there, what an exciting ending to today’s game! Unfortunately, though, only half of our household is happy… (The Packers lost.)

PPS. Q just put up the “Nursery Gallery” link.  More gallery links to come.

OK, I just uploaded some new pictures of Michelle from today.  We’re in the middle of week 38 with only 20 days to go.  You can also see the lavendar gingham drapes that were just put up today in the nursery… And don’t leave too soon – you may be able to catch a surprise ending on the page with Michelle’s pictures.

 Jon Q

So, I forgot to mention that my work threw me a baby shower on Wed. It was very sweet – and very pink, with balloons, flowers and a white-and-pink cake. Sesame got a lot of cute things, including a (pink) Stanford sweatshirt for when she’s older. A day earlier, my friends on the vanpool (on which I ride two days a week) also threw me a little party. It’s unlikely I’ll be able to take the van when Sesame is born and I return to work, and – after riding w/ some of these people for the past five years – I was sad to have to say farewell. (I should note here that I clearly take after my father, the most sentimental person I know. A classic family story is when he made my seven-year-old sister sad by suggesting she say good-bye to her bedroom when they moved from our old house in Milwaukee. Her bedroom! That’s just too cute.)

I’m heading back to work in late Feb., but I still feel sad saying good-bye to work and all my friends there. (My last day is next Friday.) I work w/ some wonderful people, and it will be weird not seeing them on a daily basis. I mentioned at my shower that I’ll miss everyone when I’m away, and my co-worker Amy (who had a baby a year ago) commented, “No you won’t.” She speaks from experience – and I know I won’t be thinking of much aside from Sesame when she actually arrives… But, for now, in Larry-like fashion, I feel a little sad about my upcoming last day.

-M

I mentioned earlier that I had a bad morning. Part  of my grumpiness stemmed from the hassle of going to the doctor *again* -  I’m up to twice-a-week visits now, and that’s a lot. BUT I just got a call from my hematologist, who tells me that my platelets were up to 88K today. (See the “platelets are my friends” entry to find out why that’s important.) That’s the highest they’ve been since, well – at least the year 2000 (when I was diagnosed w/ ITP), and I couldn’t be more thrilled. The human body continues to amaze me! And I will try to be less grumpy the next time I have to go to the doctor.

-M

I found myself reminiscing this morning. I was hooked up to the fetal monitor and listening to the baby’s heartbeat at my weekly appointment when I started thinking back to my very first trip to the OB. The doctor thought something didn’t feel quite right and sent me down to Radiology to get an ultrasound. She was concerned that I was having an ectopic pregnancy, and I remember being really afraid to look at the monitor once the technician started his work. (I didn’t want to have to see the baby if it was in the wrong place!) “Do you want to see your baby?” he asked me after a few minutes, and I quietly asked, “Is it where it’s supposed to be?” It was indeed, and when I turned to the screen, I saw a steady little flicker of light. The heartbeat. It was amazing to see, and it was that moment that I thought, “Wow. There’s no turning back now. I’m really having a baby.” 

That day seems like so long ago – and, in retrospect, I was barely pregnant then! I kind of laughed to myself when I left the appointment today and passed a woman and her husband talking to the nurse about some upcoming test. “We’re going on 13 weeks pregnant,” she said, and I just thought, “13 weeks is nothing! You’ve got soooo far to go.” (I also thought, ‘who is this ‘we’ she’s referring to? Can men now have babies, too?’ But that’s a different post.) I just feel like we’ve been through so much since those early weeks… 

I should tell you a little bit more about today. My doctor’s appointment went well, and the baby looks good. (This is now the third time Sesame has spread her legs – in a very un-ladylike fashion – for the technician, so I’m feeling increasingly confident about referring to the baby as “she.”) I also had blood work done, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that my platelet counts are where we need them to be!  Physically, I’m feeling as one would expect a pregnant woman at this stage to feel. I’m kinda tired and achy (I didn’t know feet could get that big or throb that much!!), and I haven’t been sleeping that well. Emotionally, I’ve hit the grumpy and hormonal stage of pregnancy. (Q would argue, I think, that this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this stage.) I’m not depressed or weepy – but I AM incredibly grumpy and prone to ridiculous meltdowns over ridiculous things. Getting upset over not being able to find parking before my doctor’s appointment was today’s big “event.” I’m hoping I’ll be back to my normal, non-hormonal self (albeit, a sleep-deprived version of myself) after the baby is here. In the meantime, please be extra-nice to Q. He deserves it – believe me! 

-M

 

I received a few emails from people asking me why we didn’t post anything yesterday (I won’t divulge names…you know who you are…).  Since nothing really happened, we didn’t post anything.  But today, lots of things are going on.  So, I decided to list them here…

1. Today is the end of week 37 and the start of week 38…just 3 short weeks away from the due date! (Check out the baby update on the right…)

2. We got new energy efficient windows installed in the nursery today.  This should keep the cold out and make Sesame warm and cozy!

 

 

3. Today, Michelle is considered full-term…meaning, it’s just a waiting game at this point since the baby is now ready to live in the outside world.

4. Michelle only has one more week of work left (one day of which she will be working from home) until she goes on maternity leave.

That’s about it for now…I won’t comment on Michelle’s parking meltdown this morning.  I’ll let her tell you about that in another post. :-)

Jon Q