Belly-button thoughts

Have I ever mentioned my weird and insensible fear that my belly-button will one day come undone and my all of my insides will fall out? I just have this crazy mental picture of standing there and watching all of my intestines and gut fall out through the belly-button hole. Ewwww. Hence, I refuse to have that part of my anatomy touched/examined/poked in any way...for fear of upsetting the belly-button glue holding it all together. Yes, I know this is not a rationale thought and the scientist in me laughs hysterically. Yet, I still think it is perfectly true.

Well...this thought leads me to my now growing abdomen and now stretching belly-button. Just last night, I'm lying there watching TV, feeling the little jabs from inside, and I realize that my belly-button isn't quite as deep as it was in the past. I am desperately praying that the sucker stays intact (nothing falls out) and that it stays pointing inward. Just the thought of it popping out gives me additional heeby-jeebies!

New Fruit = Squash

It's a new month and time for a new fruit! I'm officially settled into the third trimester and in month 7.
According to the web, our little guy is growing rapidly now and about 15.5 inches long. I often don't think of him curled up like a squash...especially when he's having a party on my bladder or kicking me squarely in the ribs!

Visiting our first hospital

We were able to go on a tour of one of our local hospitals last night. Luckily with our insurance and doctor we have several hospitals to choose from when the "Big Time" comes. And me, being the researching-type, has to go and check them all out before making a decision. The one we visited was Butterworth hospital and it is a huge unit in downtown Grand Rapids. We'll be checking out another hospital hopefully next week for a comparison. Check out this link for info on the hospital...and click on "on-line tour" on the page if you want the fancy-tour :-)

The pros:
Easy to get to with lots of garage parking
8 triage beds and like 32 birthing suites
Really centered on family and keeping baby with mom
One to One ratio with the nurse
Operating rooms for C-sections down the hall on same floor
Nurses seem to be really interested in following your birth plan
Balls, bars, and jet-tub available in the room
Recovery rooms and birthing suites are private
Couch in room folds out to bed for guests
Right next to the Children's hospital if something goes drastically wrong


The cons:
Very popular hospital, so very busy with people and patients: 8000 births a year.
Not much room in suite for people and visitor lounge smallish
Quite a walk from the parking garage to the birthing suites (about 10min)
Teaching hospital, so quite a few students floating around
May be asked to have a student view the delivery
No DVD player with TV
IV not mandatory, but really likely
Still looked really like a hospital room and not a comfortable room
Moved to recovery room after only 1-2 hours
Small tub, not really useful if we decide on a water birth

I realized this weekend that are vacuums just didn't suck anymore. It isn't that old, the belt had recently been changed, and nothing was blocking the hose that I could tell. It just...well...blew instead of sucked. So off to the great and awesome Meijer store to purchase a new machine. After staring at the choices for a good 15minutes and drooling over the over-priced Dyson models, we decided to go with a Bissell that advertised amazing sucking-up-pet-hair powers.

After getting the machine home, I read the directions for controlling the amazing suck-up-pet-hair powers. The best line in the entire gazillion paged manual in 15 languages was: "This device is to be used for the removal of pet hair from carpet. It is intended to be used for pet hair on carpet and upholstery and not to be used directly on pet."

Wait...What ?!! I am not entirely sure that Magellon would sit very patiently while I let this thing suck the extra hair off of him! Do people really think this action might work and not result in gashing blood wounds? Society continues to fascinate me :-) Anyways...this comic seems to go hand-in-hand with these "don't suck hair off the pet" instructions. Babies do need to be dried...dryers do dry things...

Start of the 3rd trimester!

Yes...I know...It has been nearly a month since my last little note on this blog. My apologies! I'm now back at school all week and I'm not sure where the spare time is going to. Health-wise for me, I've been doing great. I feel like I've swallowed a bowling ball, but I feel great. I have been noticing that I'm definitely waddling more and I'm much slower moving up stairs. Brian has compensated for my slowness by walking behind me patiently, since his normal gait is much quicker :-) The tiredness hasn't returned yet (knock on wood). However, my eating habits has sky-rocketed again. I keep thinking I'm hungry or I crave a food...but then two minutes later I think I'm full. Sheesh. Our little guy has been more active lately, and I think I've finally felt him having a bout of hiccups. He is pretty squirrely early in the morning, then again around mid-afternoon, then right after dinner, and, if I'm still awake, he's having a party near midnight. All the little pats, prods, and pushes, are always putting a silly grin on my face!

Our official first check-up of the third trimester was today with our ob/gyn. We got to go to their brand new office suite for first time. Very modern, and very huge! The entire building is considered a Women's clinic...so there are quite a few touches of pink everywhere. The waiting room for our dr. sported a crystal chandelier (with white, clear, and pink crystals), as well as pink chairs, and a modern funky pink couch. While giggling, I had to ask Brian if he felt his testosterone draining as we sat there :-) Anyways, the check-up went really well. Everything seems to be going on track. My blood pressure was on the low side for me, Great! And the baby's heartbeat was nice and strong. She also said I had passed my glucose tolerance test with flying colors (115, when they worry if it is 140 or above). Lastly, she said my hemoglobin count was on the lower side and asked if I was getting enough iron lately. For most of this pregnancy, eating beef was my quirky food aversions. It hasn't been until the past couple of weeks that I've craved a hamburger lately. So, I've got to eat some more BBQ or get a vitamin...its always something. We head back to the maternal specialist next week...and we'll get another little peak at our boy!

New fruit for this month! I've got an eggplant inside of me wiggling around :-) His little kicks and flutters are often making me giggle and grin.