Pregnancy Week 39: Almost There!

This week, baby girl is still about 19-22 inches long, but now weighs around 7 pounds. The app says she is also officially the size of a watermelon. I don't think she weighs that much though; she measures small at all of my appointments.

8 weeks	39 weeks

At my last prenatal appointment, the nurse decided to check me since I had some signs of impending labor throughout the previous week. As of Thursday, I was a little more than 2 cm dilated, 50% effaced, and baby girl was at 0 station. Here is a visual of the various stations. 

I've been contracting all weekend, but they never really get going. They either don't get regular or they come regularly but they don't increase in intensity. It's making me super antsy haha. I wouldn't mind the waiting if she wasn't causing killer sciatica pain. Ever since she dropped way down, my back has thrown in the towel. 

My mom has come down to help out with little miss though, so she gives me back rubs :D Back rubs are the best. 

So now it is just a waiting game. If any of you would like to start doing your hurry-up-and-be-born already dances on my behalf that would be great. Hopefully my next post will contain cute baby pictures and her name reveal!

ETA: My mom likes to call the baby Turnip because she didn't know her name. She calls her Turnip specifically because that was what the app said her size was somewhere around the middle of the pregnancy. Anyone who's talked to my mom during this pregnancy knows she calls baby girl Turnip. I just received this from my MIL in the mail:

So many giggles. 

Pregnancy Week 38: Nursery, Crafts, and Stomach Flu

This week, baby girl is still about 19-22 inches long and weighs around 6.5 pounds. Even though this has not changed from last week, the app has decided she is the size of a swiss chard. Winter melon sounded much cuter. Baby girl is pretty much just working on chunking up and fine tuning her brain. Otherwise, she is fully developed and can come at any time :D

I feel like the bump has changed into a very weird shape. These pictures don't capture it fully, but she looks much more blocky and less round, particularly on top.

8 weeks	38 weeks

I was horrendously ill Thursday and Friday. I went to bed early on Wednesday night because I felt kind of off. I ended up tossing and turning until about midnight. By that point my stomach hurt too much to lie down. Then around 1:00AM the vomiting started. Every 30-40 minutes I would trot off to the bathroom to heave my guts up (among other unpleasant side effects of gastroenteritis).

I called OB triage around 4:00AM as I was worried about dehydration. The nurse told me to call back at noon if it hadn't stopped. It didn't stop, so I called again. That nurse seemed to think I needed to be expelling my insides for 24 hours before they would give me fluids. That may be the case for non-pregnant people, but holy crap. I'm pregnant. Dehydration causes contractions. 

I was contracting for a solid hour every 8-10 minutes when I called again. For some reason, they still would not see me. Another couple of hours went by and I still couldn't keep any fluids down; my contractions had progressed to every 4 minutes and were noticeably uncomfortable by this point. I called again and STILL they would not see me. 

Thank god for friends. One of my friends went to the store and got me pedialyte and a ton of other stuff for my stomach. I was able to keep the pedialyte down and slowly the contractions stopped. The initial 24 hours were the worst of it, then next 24 hours I still couldn't eat much beyond crackers, but I felt significantly better. 

In more fun news, I also completed some crafts for baby girl and her nursery is set up :) I only have one picture to share of the nursery at the moment because her name is hanging on the wall in all the other photos. Just a couple more weeks until that big reveal ^_^

That picture on the floor is obviously not staying there, and a diaper changing table will go in front of that window once it arrives. However, you can see the awesome painting I got, my reupholstered glider, and her curtains.

I also finished reupholstering the Moses basket. It was my brothers when he was born.

Pink camo! Within seconds of finishing it, Nona tried to claim it. I have to keep it shut away in my room for now. All she wants to do is sleep in the Moses basket haha. If she fits, she sits.

This is a project I'm working on currently that is almost complete: The Neapolitan blanket! One of my friends got me some yarn for Christmas and I'm putting it to use :)

And last but not least, my Valentine's Day flowers <3 My week was filled with sickness and suck, but it ended on a high note! Nona is clearly feeling very jelly.

ETA: I also got this super awesome gigantic coffee mug. About to be a new mom? Not going to get any sleep? Obviously a giant coffee cup was very necessary.

Pregnancy Week 37: Full Term!

This week little miss is considered full term :D She's still about 19-22 inches long, but weighs around 6.5 pounds now. This is the size of a ~winter melon~

8 weeks	37 weeks

I'm beginning to wonder what on earth baby girl is doing. She make a lot of very large (and painful) maneuvers. She's been head down for weeks, so I'm kind of nervous that she's shifting into a not so great position. She was sitting like a frog for a very long time (super weird), but I can feel both of her feet up around my left rigs now. We shall see.

A lot of people comment that she isn't very big. I feel like a house, but I also realize she's fairly small looking for how far I am into the pregnancy. I decided to have some fun. From certain angles, she can look quite gigantic. These pictures were taken within minutes of each other.

I also got baby girl's curtains! The nursery is almost complete :D I'm just waiting on some items to arrive from Toys R Us then I can take pictures.

This brings me the absolute nonsense that is Burlington Coat Factory, the other place I registered. I received a BCF giftcard at my baby shower. I was visitng family for quite an extended amount of time, so I figured I could go to their local BCF if I needed to exchange anything. My actual home address is not anywhere near a BCF. In fact, the closest BCF is 71 miles away.

Now that I am back home, I assumed I could use my BCF giftcard online. Apparently not so much. BCF has two kind of giftcards: the kind you purchase from their store and the kind you can get at Walgreens and other stores (from that giant wall of giftcards to various stores). It should not matter where the giftcard was purchase, but apparently BCF feels otherwise.

The kind you get from them directly has a PIN, which is required to complete online transactions. The kind you can get anywhere else does not have a PIN. Why BCF decided to let places sell giftcards without this necessary PIN is beyond me. I checked their site and they are clearly aware this issue exists.

Their FAQ instructed me to call a number, which gave me a canned recording instructing me to call another number. That number was not available over the weekend, so I sent them a Facebook message (for some reason emailing customer service never works, but social media does?). I also decided to try the number on the back of the card.

That number resulted in me getting transferred 5 times just to ultimately end up on the line with the original person I was talking to who had no clue what I was talking about or how to fix the issue. He told me to call BCF on Monday. So I did.

The woman I spoke to was actually very polite and tried to help me. She told me to try the number from the website; I told her that gave me the number to her. She put me on hold to try it herself; sure enough, I was correct. She then told me to try the number on the back of the card since it is a third party card. I told her I did and they ultimately referred me back to BCF. She put me on hold to try that number herself as well. When she came back she agreed they most certainly do refer you back to BCF.

At this point she informed me that I am pretty much SOL (but in a much more professional/polite way than that). She said I could try sending the card back to the person who gave it to me originally. That was the only option she had. I get it. The card came from a third party, BCF can't issue me another card since they don't actually create the cards not sold in their physical stores.

Another representative contacted me in response to my Facebook message and told me to send an e-mail with my contact info, so I did. I received a phone call that covered all of the same territory with the same end result.

What makes me angry is the fact that they obviously know this is a problem. Their site wouldn't have an FAQ dedicated to cards with PINs otherwise. Instead of fixing the problem (ensuring all cards have PINs or doing away with the demand for a PIN for online transactions) they have chosen to completely and utterly screw over those of us with the other type of giftcard.

I cannot drive to a physical location, nor can I use the card I have online. Even if I had a physical location near me, BCF's baby section in store is not nearly what it is online. They would not have what I want. I could try ship to store, BUT OH WAIT you have to prepay for that. Which I can't do with this kind of giftcard. Of course, this speculation is all moot because I don't live anywhere near a brick and mortar BCF anyway.

I've called my friend who got me the card and thankfully instead of being extremely offended (because holy crap Burlington, it is not polite at all to tell people the gift they got you isn't going to work) she is going to get me a card from their physical store using the card she got me initially. This, of course, involves me mailing the card back to her, waiting for it to arrive, her having to take time out of her day to drive to BCF to get a different kind of giftcard, then sending me the card info.

This kind of nonsense is unacceptable from a major company and I am extremely dissatisfied. Thankfully, what I want to order from BCF isn't something I need OMG RIGHT NOW for baby girl (crib sheets and a side table), but it would certainly be way more helpful to have it before she arrives. Now that seems unlikely. Thank you for your astoundingly terrible service Burling Coat Factory.

Update: BCF has sent me an e-mail now claiming the number on the back of the card should be able to provide me with a PIN. I as well as the original customer service person I spoke to tried this route once before, but we shall see.

Update 2: The number from the back of the card has disconnected twice. I'm just going to try again in a little while when I am not filled with rage.

Update 3: I finally got through to the number on the back of the card. She had no idea what I was talking about and was going to "forward me on to escalate the claim." The number she forwarded me to? Burlington. The same number I used originally that told me I would have to call the number on the back of the card. Unbelievable.

Update 4: After leaving a very disgruntled public post to their Facebook wall, a customer service rep called me back. I am now being sent a replacement card that I can use. Amazing how many hoops I had to jump through to reach this point, but oh well. All's well that ends well. Side note: the customer service rep I spoke with was actually really helpful and tried very hard to get the situation rectified for me. If you ever have issues with Burlington, ask to work with Emily. She's the one who managed to get me the replacement card.

Pregnancy Week 36: One Month to Go!

This week, little miss is around 19-22 inches and weighs in around 6 pounds, which puts her at roughly the size of a large cantaloupe. Only 4 more weeks until baby girl's due date!

8 weeks	36 weeks

Her nursery furniture is finally set up how I want it; however, not everything has come in yet so it's still not 100% complete. Once I get it all set up I'll post pictures :) I still need to wash and put away all her little baby clothes. She has so many cute outfits. Hopefully she gets the chance to wear them all.

I'm starting to get really uncomfortable (I also feel freaking huge). My right ribs are constantly in pain and kind of feel like they are burning. I've been told this is my ribs spreading because of baby girl, but I can feel where she is. She is significantly lower than the painful ribs (2+ inches lower). If anything it would make more sense for my left ribs to be in pain as she likes to ram her butt and feet into them all the time. I'm thinking it's baby girl squishing all my organs up under my ribs. How nice of her ;)

I'm also having an incredibly hard time sleeping. At first it was the discomfort and constant need to get up and pee, but the discomfort part pretty much got taken care of by my massive nest of pillows. I'm just not sleeping for no apparent reason. I will be exhausted and ready for sleep but end up just lying there awake. The same things happens when I try to take naps during the day. I'm not really sure what that is all about.

Hopefully (like every other less than fun pregnancy symptom) it will go away once baby girl is born. I realize I won't be getting much sleep with a newborn, but I would really like to have the ability to take naps/sleep when the opportunity arises rather than this weird insomnia.

I'm thinking I'm going to start my food prep extravaganza soon. I have the intense urge to do everything right this second, but I'm thinking I should hold off on freezing a metric ton of food haha. Hopefully this way I will just be able to throw everything in the crock pot or defrost whatever it is I want to eat without having to spend a lot of time making it. I have the feeling once little miss arrives, I'm not going to feel much like cooking right away.

In other news, my birthday was  last week and I got some pretty jewelry.

 

I also got a ton of balloons and some sour skittles because every mature adults needs candy. Obviously.

I still feel really far behind and like I'm running out of time. Hopefully once the remainder of her baby stuff arrives I will be able to relax. I'm ordering a bunch of must-have items this week as well, which makes me feel a little better.

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We are registered at Babies "R" Us (#54941451) and Burlington Baby Depot (#34080180). They can be found by searching for either my or Josh's name.