No Worries

The doctor just called to say my test results came back negative, so yay! I wasn't very concerned, but I am now reassured.

I am suffering with sinusitis, well not really suffering, but inconvenienced. I hate living with the feeling of allergies. But I will take this over morning sickness. Who knows when it will go away, so women have it their whole pregnancy. Other symptoms I'm feeling are general stomach cramps due to my body stretching. They come and go.

That's all that is new in baby world.

H Is For Horse

I just wanted to show a picture of the cute blanket Heather bought for Peanut. She also bought a matching onesie.

How cute is that?

Heartbeat

This morning, we got to hear the baby's heartbeat. It was loud and very strong. It kinda sounded to me like a train quickly approaching, chuga chuga chuga chuga. Dr. Dix says everything is going great, my weight is good (I put on 4 pounds) and the baby is right where it should be. She measured from my pelvic bone to my belly button and deemed that everything is going great. We drew blood to do the quad screening test (I'll explain in a sec), and made our next appointment for November 2. This will be the big 20 week appointment. We'll get to take home a VHS tape of the ultrasound.

The quad screening test (also known as the multiple marker screening) measures the amount of HCG, estriol, Alpha Fetoprotein, and inhibin A. This is to test for Down's Syndrome. While we are at low risk for that because of our age and health, it is offered to everyone. For more information, visit this link at Babycenter.com.

We also discussed with the doctor about where we will give birth. She's a little reluctant to deliver the baby at Fitzsimons since it is a brand new facility and have not had any babies over there yet. We may end up delivering at University Hospital in Denver (where Geoff used to work), but we'll see as March gets closer. Dr. Dix says she'd like to wait until Fitzsimons has delivered at least 100 babies, and to make sure they can handle any possible situation. Geoff's co-worker Tammy had her baby at University and was very happy there. We'll have to take a tour of it. On top of that, we found out Dr. Dix and her colleague Dr. Jacobson are the only two doctors who will deliver at University. Apparently the University of Colorado and the doctors at Rose Medical have some weird politics going on. So Dr. Dix is continuing to care for her University of Colorado patients, but won't be taking new patients with that insurance. She'll finish out our pregnancy, but it's doubtful we'll get to have her for our next baby (if we were to stay here). By then we may be on different insurance, which I'd like since I really like her.

So that's it for now. Continue to pray for a safe pregnancy.

Birthing Center Tour

So yesterday I dropped by the hospital at work. I wanted to settle some conflicting pieces of information that we had obtained this week. We found out that our insurance will not allow us to deliver at the Hospital where our doctor works. For those of you who are Canadian, you probably will be confused by this statement. It's not so strange really, as our doctor should be able to deliver the baby at whatever hospital we choose. At any rate, we were looking into the hospital near my work and found that they had a birthing center, but signs around the hospital say "No Labor and Delivery Services." So I went to investigate. It turned out that the birthing center is brand new and they would be open for business starting Sept. 12. It also happened that they were having an open house that day to celebrate the new facility. So I called Melissa to get her to come to see it with me.

This place is great! Melissa is totally sold on giving birth there. First thing we saw was the delivery room. The place was huge and very private. There is a big "baby admission" center that allows them to do everything that needs to be done to the baby after it has arrived. Stuff like weighing, bathing, categorizing, labeling, etc. It has a heater over the station so the baby doesn't get cold, although I'm sure making the transition from a constant 98 to room temperature has got to be traumatic despite that. Apparently the heater can be moved over the mother for breastfeeding as well. The actual delivery section of the room is impressive as well. The first thing that was demonstrated was the great light positioning system that they have. The lights are recessed into the ceiling and are controlled by a remote control. The nurse can point the remote control at any place on the bed and the lights will move to hit that spot. It was really cool! The room is also outfitted with a state of the art entertainment system: plasma TV and DVD player! The picture was very good, I was impressed. The couch/dad bed looked reasonable, but not something you'd want to spend much time on. Melissa was also interested in the bathroom, which is playing an increasingly larger role in her life these days. It was pretty big, with a nice big tub for birthing if that helps. All of the lights in the room can be controlled from the bed, although the controls looked pretty complicated. Picture something like the captain's chair from Star Trek with stirrups. I think I'll have to be in charge of that. The final touch to the room was the included rocking (feeding) chair. These things are the best thing about babies as far as I can tell, I can't wait to get ours (both the baby and the chair).

The post-partum rooms are pretty similar to the delivery rooms, with a more comfy bed for mommy. We also got to see the OR which looked like they could do open heart surgery in it (the nurses made a point of this as the tour was mostly for them). Everything was really fancy, and all the people there looked like they were really looking forward to working there. By the time we deliver they should have everything worked out. Now all we have to do is convince the doctor to drive all the way out to Aurora to deliver our baby. We were really excited about it all yesterday. I think if we could we'd have the baby now. Oh well we just have to wait. In the meantime, I'll start picking out the DVDs to bring with us.

It Begins

Like 2 weeks ago we got our first baby gift in the mail. It was an Ocean Wonders fishbowl from our good friends Jen & Greg in California. Jen also included a ton of baby & pregnancy scrapbook stickers. :) Now we've had some baby knittings from Diane for a while, and I know there will be more on the way. Geoff's co-worker Tammy is giving us her high chair, so we can cross that off our list. Diane & Glen are purchasing the stroller for us, and Geoff and I hope to buy the glider/ottoman for ourselves. The last big thing we need now is the changing table. I'm hoping some people may pool their money together for that, it's $100.

Heather says her mom bought some baby sleepers (I think) which she's sending down with Heather. It's so exciting. Before the baby came, Geoff and I teased we wanted to register at Sur La Table (it's a kitchen store). But I feel good about the registry we have now. The closet in the spare room needs a lot of work. There will be no room to hang baby clothes unless we figure out what to do about the stuff in there. It holds golf clubs (which I'm working on getting Geoff to either sell or donate to Goodwill) and all our camping stuff. Oh yes, and the boxes to all the big electronics (computer, printer, scanner, tv, vcr, dvd, stereo).

I was ill the last two days. Tuesday I had a horrible headache all day. My head was throbbing, and I felt hot. I ended up throwing up Tuesday night, something I haven't done in years. Wednesday I just felt weak and had a slight headache. But today I feel great. A 24 hour bug, or maybe morning sickness. Who knows!

Next appt is on Sept 21, so if you don't get an update before then, you will on the 21st.