- 2 little girls with the middle name London

- some cool ones: Kai x2, Declan x3, Rowan x4, Everley, Avaleigh, Emerlee, Vienna as a middle name, Jace Donovan, Trevin, Drake, Roman, Asher, Brynleigh, Irelyn, Rylan, Kylon, Aubrianna, Trace

- an Alexandria,  Damon x2, a Hunter, an Ethan, Lucas x 2

- Aidan x 4, Eliana x 4, Sera x 2, Landon x 4, a bunch of Reeses, 2 Paisleys, 2 Willows

- Albert the 3rd, Larry, and Maximus

- the odd ones: Logan Viking, Thatcher, Briar,  Giovanni Valentin (this baby is destined to be an Italian clothing designer or something), Zakk, Ma’Riyah Zyerria, Stanislaw, Billie Jean (a boy), Balthazar, Atlas, Journey Raine, Zyaire, Breslynn, Dorian Gray

How your baby’s growing:

It’s hard to say for sure how big your baby will be, but the average newborn weighs about 7 1/2 pounds  and is about 20 inches long. 

How your life’s changing:

After months of anticipation, your due date rolls around, and… you’re still pregnant. It’s a frustrating, but common, situation in which to find yourself. You may not be as late as you think, especially if you’re relying solely on a due date calculated from the day of your last period because sometimes women ovulate later than expected. Even with reliable dating, some women have prolonged pregnancies for no apparent reason.

You still have a couple of weeks before you’ll be considered “post-term.” But to be sure your baby is still thriving, your practitioner will schedule you for testing to keep an eye on her if your pregnancy continues.

Fetal heart rate monitoring (called a nonstress test or NST) will generally be done as well — by itself or as part of the BPP. Or, you may have what’s known as a modified BPP, which consists of an NST and an ultrasound to assess the amount of amniotic fluid.

If the fetal testing isn’t reassuring — the amniotic fluid level is too low, for example — you’ll be induced. If there’s a serious, urgent problem, you may have an immediate c-section.

Your practitioner will also check your cervix to see if it’s “ripening.” Its position, how soft it is, how effaced (thinned out) it is, and how dilated (open) it is can all affect when and how your labor is induced. If you don’t go into labor on your own, you’ll be induced, usually sometime between 41 and 42 weeks.

What’s the procedure like?

You may be advised to eat a meal just before the test in the hope that eating will stimulate your baby to move around more. Although there’s no hard evidence that this works, it can’t hurt. It’s also a good idea to use the bathroom before the test, because you’ll be lying strapped to a monitor for up to an hour. The test consists of:

A detailed ultrasound to observe your baby’s body movements, muscle tone (flexing of the arms and legs), and breathing movements (the baby’s ability to move his chest muscles and diaphragm), and the amount of amniotic fluid surrounding him.

A nonstress test to assess whether your baby’s heart rate changes when he’s moving. For this, you lie on your left side. A technician straps two devices to your belly: One monitors your baby’s heartbeat and movement; the other records contractions in your uterus. The technician listens to and watches your baby’s heartbeat on an electronic screen.

So I had all of that done at my appointment today since I’m now considered “past due” of my Feb 13th due date that the doctors go by. However, since the original ultrasound due date was like Feb 18th, and she consistently measured behind like that at every ultrasound (and I’ve had 8 of them!), I don’t really consider her late yet. The nonstress test was actually kinda stressful for me, because I had Lucas with me in the room, and while I was *supposed* to be lying there restfully and counting fetal movements, I spent most of the time fussing at Lucas to stop pressing buttons on the machine and trying to keep him entertained. The midwife I saw today was able to get the results though, luckily. Then we did the ultrasound, which was kinda disappointing because Arianna is all lowered and in position (a good thing) so all the tech could see was the top of her head and not her face, so I didn’t get any pix this time. Arianna scored a 8/8 on her BPP  so everything is looking good in there. She measured at 7lbs 3oz currently. Her size measured her at only 38.5 weeks — even further behind than the other ultrasounds had been showing — but the tech said she could just be measuring small for her age. 

Unless I end up going into labor over the weekend, the current plan is: Monday @ 1 I go in to my regular doc for my 3rd NST (I had my first one at last Monday’s regular appointment). Monday evening I call the hospital and find out if they have a bed available for me, and as long as they aren’t full, I’ll check into the hospital Monday night. There they will give me a medicine(Cervidil) to prep me overnight. Then Tuesday morning I’ll be given pitocin to actually induce labor.

Your baby’s waiting to greet the world! He continues to build a layer of fat to help control his body temperature after birth, but it’s likely he already measures about 20 inches and weighs a bit over 7 pounds, a mini watermelon. (Boys tend to be slightly heavier than girls.) The outer layers of his skin are sloughing off as new skin forms underneath.”

Hmm even Babycenter didn’t have much to say about this week. Probably because nothing seems to be going on in there…it’s all just waiting. I had my 39wk check-up on Weds, and the doc said that nothing was going on. 0 cm dilated, ~50% effaced, and that she had lowered a little bit which was probably what is causing the ucky cramping i keep having. sometimes i can barely move. buuut, I’m hoping I still have until the end of next week, because anything before the 16th just doesn’t really work for me. i have my 40week appointment on Monday which will be when they schedule the induction. *fingers crossed i don’t go Mon, Tues, or Weds!*

Heather, one of my Girl Scouts, made me these awesome onesies for Arianna. Then all the scouts signed the back of one of them. So sweet!

how come in the movies/tv, when someone’s get-together gets crashed by being turned into a raging party, 100 people show up *all at once* and they come bringing kegs, cups, and stereos for the music? i have never brought my own stereo system to a party.

i don’t care if “the script called for it,” Mr D, it’s just stupid

How your baby’s growing:

Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. She’s shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement.

At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) Most likely she’s in a head-down position.

A post Paul put on my Facebook that made me LOL:

This is what it is like living with you while pregnant :D
http://i.imgur.com/7Eve8.jpg

So the heartburn has gone away over the past couple of weeks, but I still have the awful lower back pain when I try to sleep at night (or lie in bed more than a couple of hours). i still want to sleep all the time, and get headachey/dizzy occasionally.

we (paul) got the room painted and the border up!! i’m so excited how it is coming together

talked to a nurse today (my insurance has a nurse that calls me monthly to check on me), and found out that the ultrasound measurements are only accurate for due dates in the first trimester. that the babies grow at different rates, so just because she is measuring to be due Feb 18, doesn’t mean that is as scientific as it sounds. so now i have no idea when she will come. i’m sticking with *fingers crossed* my guess of the 16th. anyone else want to register a guess?

adding cream cheese cake icing to a reg vanilla shake is not very good. the icing doesn’t really blend and you just get clumps of it. also, the flavors don’t seem to mesh well.

I will keep you all updated as I discover new creations.

1/16 Lucas got his big boy bed today! paul converted Lucas’s old crib into a full-sized bed, and the mattress and box springs got delivered. so now his crib mattress gets moved to Arianna’s crib, and he gets the big bed!

a few days ago when it was storming a bunch at night, Lucas developed a fear of thunder and lightning. one night the thunder was really close and kept vibrating the house. at 6am Lucas comes to our bedroom door, duckies in tow, and when i asked him why he was out of bed he said, “Lucas scared.” so i tried to let him cuddle in my bed, but he would not stop squirming and would not stop talking. since then, he has started waking up during the night (for no reason that i can tell) and comes to the door wanting to cuddle mommy. hopefully with his new big bed he might break the trend.

the other night i was trying to get him to climb up on the potty, and he kept being all distracted. so i was going “get on the potty, get on the potty,” over and over. finally he says, “okay, Momma, quit. mommy so annoying.”

How your life’s changing:
By this week, fatigue has probably set in again, though maybe not with the same coma-like intensity of your first trimester. Your tiredness is perfectly understandable, given the physical strain you’re under and the restless nights of frequent pee breaks and tossing and turning, while trying to get comfortable. Now’s the time to slow down and save up your energy for labor day (and beyond).

–

“ Her fat layers — which will help regulate her body temperature once she’s born — are filling her out”…really? b/c i have tons of fat layers and none of them are helping with my fun new (as in the last couple of weeks) symptom of nocturnal hyperhidrosis, which is fancy medical jargon for waking up in the middle of the night having completely, literally soaked all the bedding in sweat. yuck.

“ By this week, fatigue has probably set in again, though maybe not with the same coma-like intensity of your first trimester.” nope — definitely coma-like. it takes forever to go to sleep at night, usually from major muscle/joint achiness in my lower back and hips and legs, the i wake up pretty much hourly to pee, so i’m tired like allll the time. i nap so much that every time i sigh lucas says, “mommy tired” and every time i leave the room lucas says, “mommy go night-night.” paul has him seriously trained now to never ever ever wake mommy up and he is sooo 100% good about following that rule.

the 2011 baby name list is out now. Arianna landed #22 on babynames.com and #32 on babycenter.com

we finally have our paint colors picked out and paul is going to start taping off the nursery tomorrow and mom is hopefully going to be able to start sewing. now that January has hit, i’m suddenly anxious to get the nursery ready. i also might be nesting, because i suddenly got the urge to organize the master closet and bath – the only two rooms left of the house that weren’t unpacked and settled.

we were watching a farmville video on youtube where the animals are talking, and when the pig was talking lucas says, “pig talking. not ‘oink oink’ “