Madame Zaritska predicts...

From the Madame Zaritska predicts your birth experience website:

The day you deliver, outside will be foggy. Your baby will arrive in the late afternoon. After a labor lasting approximately 19 hours, your child, a girl, will be born. Your baby will weigh about 6 pounds, 5 ounces, and will be 19,19-1/2 inches long. This child will have dark violet eyes and barely there auburn hair.

Uh...dark violet eyes? 19 hours? No thanks Madame Z., I'm sending your prediction back to you. You better not be right. Except for the 6 lbs, 5 oz part. Now that is a prediction I like.

March showers bring April babies!

On Saturday I had my second shower, hosted by 4 of my most wonderful friends. We had good eats like cinnamon wrap ups (not sure of the correct name--one of you help me out here), other wrap-ups, an edible arrangement, cheese & crackers, veggies, sherbet punch, etc. We played fun games like guess the baby food and guess the nursery rhyme. I bombed guessing the baby food, but I totally rocked the nursery rhymes. Thanks Mom and Dad for the background knowledge.

Everything we got will be loved and used and appreciated very much. We got the car seat (whew!), the changing table, changing table pad, super cute clothes, homemade blankets--2 crocheted, and 1 rag quilt--toys, teethers, books, a Moby Wrap, a Boppy, storage bins, bath stuff, etc. Baby Rain will surely be very loved by his "aunties" and their moms; I have no doubts about that.

Aunties, L to R Top: Laura, Steph, Brooke

Aunties, L to R Bottom: Leah, me, Kristin, Jess (and baby friend Nolan)

Big weekend ahead! A family shower and (cross your fingers!) the possible completion of the nursery! Eep!

Midwife Appointment

At yesterday's first once-weekly appointment, the following stats were "achieved:"

Weight: Up another 4 lbs. That's 12 lbs in 6 weeks. 28 lbs total. I swear, this week's 4 lbs was not cupcake-induced. I believe the weight has been distributed in the form of water in my now apparent cankles. I've always had slender, nice-looking feet. That is, until about a week ago. I bought a pretty pink new water bottle at Target yesterday hoping it will motivate me to drink more water and make the swelling go down. I'm also thinking about getting a pedicure in the hopes of reducing the fatness.

BP: 92/60. Good thing it's low so my midwife doesn't start worrying about pre-eclampsia.

Belly measurement: on track. Which perhaps proves the water-weight theory.

Baby's heartbeat: ??? I wasn't told, and forgot to ask. It's becoming so routine now. You don't ask what your bpm is when the nurse takes your pulse at appointments.

Baby's position: ??? Head down, I'm guessing. I wasn't told otherwise.

Cervix: First of many checks in my new future. Soft and closed. This is where I'm expected to be at 36 weeks.

My midwife sort of crushed my dreams of having a water birth. Her water birth success rate for first-time moms is 20%. Long story short, the conditions in order to have a water birth have to be absolutely perfect, and I can't expect those conditions to actually be perfect. Obviously--I'm a realist. So if they are, great. If they aren't, baby will be born "on land." Either way, I get a baby out of the deal so I can't stomp my feet about it. And really, I think when D-Day comes, of course I'm going to hope for a water birth, but will I really care? I'll just want it out.

Today I'm headed across the border to a shower thrown by my very wonderful friends. I am excited to see them, their moms, and other friends who will be there. I will update about the shower and its antics later this weekend, as tomorrow I'm re-crossing the border and going to Leah's shower.

36 weeks: Crenshaw Melon

One more month to go! EEEE!!! Raina weighs in at about 6 pounds and measures about 19 inches this week, which is the size of a crenshaw melon. I know you've all eaten a crenshaw melon before, so I don't need to post a picture. Or not. Here you go:

Raina's body is round and plump as new fat stores are made to keep her body temperature a teeny bit warmer than mine. That teeny bit of warmth for her goes a LONG way for me. I feel like I'm roasting out of my britches these days. Now I can see why being 9 months pregnant in July or August is not fun. And I also understand the term "bun in the oven." Anyway, Raina apparently turns toward light sources, which is known as the orienting response. Her bones are flexible, but getting harder. At birth, her tibia will usually be completely ossified into bone. She's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body, as well as the vernix caseosa. She's swallowing that gunk, which means her intestines are accumulating a considerable amount of meconium.

Belly pics this week:

Today I had a math curriculum meeting in the morning. I was at the elementary school hanging out until I had to leave to go to the district office at about 8:00. My sub was obviously in my place, and she had taken my students to gym, which is by the art room. I got back to school at about 11:30, and the teacher who teaches across from me asked where I had been. I told her I was at the math curriculum meeting, and she was relieved. And apparently, people (namely, the art teacher) were worried about me since I wasn't there! Too funny. As much as my class is a handful sometimes and I'm going to really appreciate my time off during maternity leave, it was nice to come back to a good report from the sub and a few smiles and "I missed yous" from some of the kids. I had a great (half) day with my class, so I'm going to keep talking about them. In science, we're studying electricity. I gave them a battery, a wire, some tape, and a light bulb, and without any instruction, challenged them to light the bulb. That wasn't working, so I gave them another wire, and they got their bulbs to light. Then I challenged them to make two bulbs light. When they got the two bulbs lit, they asked for more wire and more bulbs, and some of the partnerships joined other partnerships to make all of the bulbs light up. It takes a very interesting lesson to keep them all engaged. I think they all LOVED this experiment. I just let them investigate on their own for a good 40 minutes, without any behavior/teamwork problems. I have never before seen them so engaged in anything like they were with this. I'm so excited to do more electricity experiments, and usually I dread them. Now let's hope I didn't jinx it!

Finally a little organization!

The baby project for the weekend was assembling 1 of 2 closets. The clothes closet is going in in 2 weeks by my dad, but the toy closet we decided to tackle ourselves.

The original concept, which was a self-designed ambitious mixture of different divisible-by-12 cubes, some of which are tall, some of which are wide, and some of which hold fabric baskets (hence the small rectangular "handles"):

turned out to be very different than the much less awe-inspiring end product.:

In my heart, I hope this isn't the end product, because I really loved my cube design. However, since my husband nearly gave up and walked away mid-measuring, sawing, and drilling just for this simple number due to crooked walls, uneven drill holes, uneven cuts, etc., I shall wait patiently and see if the vertical parts are necessary for the future. We're not sure how we'd pull them off.

See that pile of adorable baby clothes, 2nd shelf from the top? I'm so excited to wash and hang those up in just 14 or so more days when the other closet is done. All in all, I'm just really glad that all of this stuff isn't piled inside of the crib or on the bookshelf we are temporarily storing in baby's room anymore. Now if Rain or Raina (uh...by the way, have you cast your vote yet?) decides to come early, he or she will at least have an empty crib to come home to. And by empty, I mean it doesn't have a mattress yet. :-/ Yikes.

Oh, and I found out today that our neighbors, who are about our age, just had a baby! Their baby girl came early. She was supposed to be born right around the same time Rain/Raina is. Maybe our kiddos will be good friends. Or at least ride the bus to school together. Either way.

Back to school tomorrow. Spring break is over. I only have about a month left and I'm outta there! :D

35 weeks: Honeydew

Rain is now over 18 inches long and 5.25 lbs, which is the weight of a honeydew melon. He's running out of room to do a whole lot of big movements, but believe me, he's still able to deliver a good jab or kick. He's also very capable of stretching out. Rain is spending most of his time putting on more weight. His kidneys are fully developed now, and his liver can process some waste products.

Note: I do not recommend Old Navy maternity jeans. See the little slit of white on the elastic band? Yeah...ripped. Both sides. Since, oh...about week 20. But I refuse to buy another pair of pants I only intend on wearing for another 5 weeks. Next time around, I'm going to spend a little more on jeans that will last!

I captured some belly movement on video the other day, and tried to upload it into the blog, but it wasn't working. I'll try again some other time.

Polls

If you look to the right, you'll see two new gadgets. The first is an easy poll. Guess whether we're having a boy or a girl! The second one is also easy, just a little more detailed. Click on the orangey box and it will take you to expectnet.com. Here you can guess the sex, birthday, weight, and length of our baby. You get points for each correct answer. The person who earns the most points is the winner of the game. What do you win? Bragging rights and a feature spot on the blog once the winner is declared.