Stress

Oh, where to begin...

Today we are 31 weeks, 4 days into the pregnancy- 8 weeks, 3 days to go!

The past week has been absolutely insane! I feel like I haven't stopped moving at all.. As I've mentioned several times in the past, we have been on a waitlist for a new house closer to where Matt is now working since July. After our wonderful vacation home, I decided to give the housing office a call last Tuesday to see what the deal was, and if there was a chance we could speed up the process. I'm getting bigger by the day now, and really didn't want to end up moving weeks before Juliet is due, or worse, right after she's born. As it turned out, Teresa, our leasing agent, informed me that she actually had a house available for us, and could show it to us the next morning! Knowing that we were only eligible for a 2 bedroom home, and that most of those homes were much older than the beautiful new 3 and 4 bedroom homes, we didn't have high expectations for the house she was going to show us.. We were quickly proven wrong when we arrived! Our new neighborhood is about 5 miles from where Matt works, and only 7 miles from North Shore, and it is literally in the middle of huge pineapple fields! I love it because it is so quiet, nothing like the busy, over-crowded Honolulu area. Plus, it only takes Matt 10 to 15 minutes to get to work, much better than the 25 minutes to an hour from our old house! The house itself is gorgeous. It was just renovated, and we are the first to live in it since. There are hardwood floors everywhere except the bedrooms, which are carpeted. My kitchen is HUGE and beautiful, I love it! The bedrooms are big, and the bathroom is completely new and shiny! The living room area is huge and open, which I really love! The best part about the new house- we have air conditioning!!!!! It's amazing! Our windows are real windows, instead of the ones we had at the old house that were just 4 inch slats of glass that cranked open like mini-blinds. That means that I don't have to deal with nasty red dirt blowing in the windows and covering everything we own! I honestly can't express with words how happy I am that we no longer have to worry about that! So after seeing the house, and how perfect it is for us, we signed the new lease that same day! We picked up the keys Thursday morning, and had until today (Tuesday) to be completely cleared from the old house. Because we weren't expecting to move so soon, nothing was packed. We hadn't even finished unpacking from our vacation!! That gave us only 5 full days to do everything, so needless to say, we were incredibly busy! I really can't complain though, because their policy is to give 72 hours, and they did give us a couple extra days. Somehow, we managed to get everything done (with a lot of help from our friends, of course!). Anyway, the house is still cluttered with boxes and whatnot from moving, but just as soon as everything is put away, I will take lots of pictures to show everyone our beautiful new home!

Sunday was our one year anniversary, and we did some shopping for the baby (we bought the crib and dresser for the nursery!!), and then we went out to dinner at a little italian restaurant we found. The food was delicious, and it was so nice to get out and spend time together without dealing with the chaos at either of the houses! I love my husband with all my heart, and have honestly had the best first year of marriage that I could have imagined!

But because we had been so busy and stressed (I'm assuming) the evening was made all the more interesting with my first taste of false labor. I've been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for a while now, usually just 2 or 3 a day, not very close together, and nothing more than a little discomfort. Sunday night was different though. I started having contractions back to back, ranging from every 11 minutes, up to every 2 minutes, and these were pretty painful! I also had a horrible 'pushing down' feeling that just wouldn't let up. As soon as we got home, I got comfy on the couch and put my feet up, and everything stopped, much to my relief! Matt and I kept joking that little Juliet could not be born on our anniversary, that's our day! She would also be 2 months premature at this point, and while she would still be ok, that's much earlier than I would be comfortable with!

I also wasn't too worried, knowing that my 32 week appointment was scheduled for the very next morning, so I could tell the midwife what had happened and make sure everything was ok. That appointment came along with lots of news that I hadn't expected. Every appointment up to this point has been incredibly simple- show up, take vitals, measure belly, listen to heartbeat, go over any questions, make appointment for four weeks later. Not so much this week. I showed up and took my vitals. As usual, these were all normal. Then I went back to the exam room, talked with the midwife for a little while about the contractions, and how they were most likely a result of travelling and then moving. She felt around my belly, and told me that she was not head down (she had been at the 4D ultrasound a few weeks earlier). That got me worrying, even though they say babies have until 37 weeks to turn head-down. Then she got out her measuring tape to measure how big my belly was. For those of you who don't know, they measure from the pubic bone to the top of the uterus, in centimeters. The number of centimeters should match the number of weeks pregnant you are. Being that I was 31 weeks, 3 days at that point, we expected 31.5cm. After trying several times, she was only getting 28cm. She looked a little concerned, and decided to have me go in for an ultrasound to measure the baby's growth and make sure everything was ok. Then she checked Juliet's heartbeat, which was still a strong 150bpm. That made me feel a little bit better. We left the exam room and went back to her office, where she called up to the Antepartum Diagnostic Center to see when they could squeeze me in for the growth scan. After quite a bit of persistence on her part, they got me in at 1pm that afternoon. I called Matt, who had been at the old house taking care of the pre-inspection to move out, and he met me at the hospital and we had lunch before going up for the ultrasound. I hated the idea of possibly getting bad news, and being by myself, so I was so thankful he was there! As it turned out, the Antepartum Diagnostic Center had messed up a little, and didn't schedule me for the growth scan, but instead, a non-stress test and fluid level check. I felt so bad, because they didn't even let Matt in the room for the non-stress test, so he had come to the hospital for nothing. Fortunately, everything was great with the test, and my fluid levels were good. They measure the fluid in centimeters also, and anything between 5 and 25 is considered ok, but they prefer the number to be in the double-digits. I was measuring at 14. Because of the scheduling issues, I had to wait until today for the growth scan. The ultrasound tech checked everything again, like they had at the 20-week diagnostic ultrasound, and she is breech at this point- frank breech actually, which means her butt is down, and her head and feet are up. While everything looks good and healthy, they only measured her at 2lbs, 15oz, which is average for a 28 week baby, not almost 32 weeks. Based on the measurements of her belly, head, legs, and so on, we learned that she is in the 15th percentile for growth at this point. I don't like that number at all, but they said that anything between the 10th and 90th percentile is technically normal. Because she is measuring so tiny, and I have no real reason for that (smoking, high blood pressure, malnutrition, etc), they are concerned that the placenta isn't doing its job, which is causing her to not grow as fast as she should be. Because of this, I have to go in every Monday and Thursday until she's born for the non-stress testing and fluid level checks. I also have another growth scan scheduled 3 weeks from now to see how she's growing. I'll be 34 and a half weeks at that point. As the ultrasound tech said, if she's still measuring small, they'll consider at that point "whether or not to let you stay pregnant." I don't know if it's the way she worded it, but that scared me. That phrase has been running through my head all day. "Whether or not to let you stay pregnant." I know, of course, that if for some reason they do induce labor at that point, it's because it will be better for the baby, but I'm still a little freaked out about it all. I just keep telling myself that she's ok in there, because even though she's tiny, she's still super strong, and very active! I'll keep you posted on how everything goes!


Aside from all of that, I'm looking forward to Christmas. We're having some good friends over on Christmas eve for dinner, and then on Christmas we're planning on heading up to North Shore! It should be a lot of fun! And after that, I'm planning on doing nothing but getting unpacked, setting up the nursery, and resting as much as I can.


Merry Christmas everyone, we love you!