35 Weeks

We had another fun baby shower this past weekend. My aunts threw it for me in Yoakum at a pretty little bed and breakfast. I'm happy that so many people were able to come. Here are some pictures from Sunday:

We have almost everything we need for Southern now. I got his crib all set up and ready to go thanks to my mom (who bought us the crib), my dad (who bought the bedding), and my grandparents (who bought the mattress). Yay! :)

34 Weeks

This weekend was both good and bad. I'll start with the bad news...

Starting on Thursday, I noticed that my tummy below my belly button was starting to itch a little. The same thing was happening on Friday. By Saturday, I asked Dustin to look at it (since I haven't been able to see it for some time now) to see if it was getting red from all the scratching. He said yes and to try not to scratch. Easier said than done. I began putting lotion on it a few times a day. By Sunday it was worse, and then on Monday Dustin said he could see red bumps there. So I looked online to see what was going on.

It looks like I have PUPPP - "Approximately one percent of women will develop an itchy, raised rash in the last part of their pregnancy called PUPPP (pruritic uticarial pupules and placques of pregnancy). The cause of PUPPP is unknown. It appears to run in families and, oddly, 70 percent of women with PUPPP give birth to boys. This correlation has given rise to the hypothesis that male fetal DNA acts as a skin irritant. PUPPP usually develops during a first pregnancy and appears first on the abdomen near the belly button and then spreads to the thighs and extremities as the small, red wheals of the rash gradually merge to create larger wheals. There is no cure for PUPPP, but the irritation usually can be relieved with cortisone creams, high strength steroid creams, or oral steroids if the itching is severe. The rash and the itching usually resolve a couple of days to a week after delivery."

So I called my doctor and told her about it. She confirmed the PUPPP diagnosis, and faxed a percription for me to pick up at the pharmacy. I took one of the pills last night, and as soon as it started working, I was not itching at all! Unfortunately, it also put me right to sleep. So I'll probably only be able to take them before bedtime. Until then, I'm itching like crazy and trying not to scratch and thinking just how lucky I am to be a part of the 1% of pregnant women affected by this. ;)

Now on to the good news - Dustin had off the entire three-day weekend, and we had absolutely no plans! It was wonderful!! We went driving around, walked around at Landa Park, hung around the house, ate out a couple times, and got some work done on the house. We now have a ceiling fan up in our bedroom, the white storage cabinet for our sheets and towels is built and in our bathroom, and Southern's curtain is hanging up in his room. We also moved the small white storage cabinet that was in our bathroom to Southern's bathroom and added another towel rack. And Dustin put up a new shower head in our bathroom. It's one of those fancy ones that has two heads and feels like you're standing in the rain... he just loves it.

33 Weeks

We went to the doctor's yesterday. I was orginally scheduled to have a sonogram that day as well, but something happened with the sonogram tech, and she couldn't make it. She usually is only in the office on Thursdays. But this week, she needed to come in today instead of yesterday. Well the doctor doesn't work on Fridays. Sooo I had to go in yesterday to see the doctor and again this morning to get my sonogram. Luckily, the only free time they had for me today was during Dustin's conference period. So he was able to make it. He only missed one class since he has his conference period, 4th period, and then lunch. He just left to go back to school.

Anyway, so we had our appointment yesterday at 4:30pm. The nurse weighed me and took my blood pressure. I've gained one pound since last month, making that about 16 lbs total so far. Then the doctor came in, and we went over my birth plan. We then listened to the baby's heartbeat - it was 156. And she measured my tummy. At first she got 37 cm and said no that can't be right (since I'm only 33 weeks along). So she measured again and got 35.5 cm. She said Southern must have been stretching out.

This morning we went back for the sonogram. I was so excited. But just like last time, Southern was sleeping and cuddling up to the placenta so we couldn't get a good look at his face. She took all the measurements and made sure his organs were all still functioning normally. My tummy measured out at 35 cm today, and Southern weighs 5 lbs 13 oz. Yikes! Big baby!! All the books say the average weight for a baby at 33 weeks is about 4.5 lbs.

Here's a picture of his little arm.

Here's a side view of his face.

This is a shot of his little nose and lips. The tech said he had my nose.This is a 4-D picture of his face. You can see the top of his head, eyes, and nose. That's the placenta covering his mouth.

32 Weeks

I can't believe I'm 8 months pregnant already! The time sure does fly. We had a wonderful weekend with our first baby shower on Sunday. We had a terrific turnout, more people than we expected. I was a little worried about the superbowl, but most people complimented us on our timing - they were able to swing by our house on the way to their other parties.

We had a lot of fun, and the baby got some much needed items. Dustin and I also got some Target giftcards so we were able to buy his dresser with those. Assembling it is my project for today. I'm excited to be able to start putting some of Southern's clothes away. I've already started washing the smaller sizes.

And my mom got us his crib! Yay!!! It was shipped to the store yesterday so we just need to go pick it up. Putting it together will be my project this weekend while Dustin works on grad school.

Here are some pictures from the shower:

Me with Simon, Dustin's godfather, who won the ribbon game

Me with the co-hostesses (and the best friends ever) Tasia and Jessie