New Challenge!

You guys did so well on the last contest, we've upped the stakes! (or, added stakes?) The winner of this challenge will win the yummiest cookies I have ever been introduced to (Thank you, Lisa). Warn me if you don't like chocolate and I will think of another prize...

Here are the rules: you have until Friday to work this one out. Please email me (don't leave a comment or others will copy your answer!) your answer. All those right answers will go into a drawing and the drawing winner gets the yummy cookies!

Now, for the question...

What is significant about Kate's wall?

Little needles vs. Big needles

I get it. We lost some of you when we said we wanted used bottles (I admit, I have reconsidered this). Then, we lost some more of you when we said that we are going to use Gdiapers. And then, the big one, the doula question. And now, I'm afraid we might be losing some of you since we have mentioned acupuncture and crazy candles. I know. I never would have guessed I would be a non-disposable-diaper-using, doula-retaining, acupunctured mom, but here I am. We do have a doctor's appointment on Monday and hopefully our gracious doctor will by the laying of the hands instantly tell that little Kate isn't where she was (and even better, is where she should be). Then, yes, I will cancel our appointment. But, having researched moxabustion on the fab internet, and seeing that there was actually a randomized control group study that showed some promising results, I have made a tentative appointment.

Now if you ask me to explain how it works, that is something I am not sure I can do. My simplified version is that using little needles (accupuncture) you can avoid big needles (epidural/spinal block/C-section). And this is what my real goal is. I am not a needle lover. They make me pass-out, or, if you are really lucky, throw up. I am a wimp. I know this about myself. Little needles and sticking flaming hot smelly ashes to my little pinky toes typically are things I avoid. But, for the baby... Or, maybe, because of the baby...

Kate is super mobile though. She is squirming like never before. So, however she currently is positioned, she is enjoying new found movement. Unfortunately for her, she has a compulsive, anxious mama, which means that every 15 minutes (I kid you not) there is a cry for Daddy P to "come tell me if this is a butt or a head." Poor girl. I hope it's more obvious once she's born. Optimistic Mamacita says "this long hard thing here is a spine and this ledge is a butt" and trying-to-protect-herself-from-disappointment Mamacita says "she has a very long head and it's still up." We will see who wins come Monday.

The room is coming along! We now have all the necessary parts of the crib but they are not yet installed. Grandpa is coming over tomorrow to finish the job I think. We were lucky enough to get a whole bunch of hand-me-downs. Our latest batch (four bags!) comes courtesy of a friend of Daddy P's. Apparently she had gotten them from a bunch of girlfriends and when she found out she was having a boy, took all the blue/green/neutral colors out. As a result, I have two loads of bubble-gum pink clothes outside waiting to be laundered.

Okay, enough of this novel for now. Pics and more this weekend...

On the move

This week Mamacita and I have had a project. We've got to turn our baby girl around before it's time for her to come out and meet us. Thanks to Google, we found probably 50 different techniques for turning around a breech baby. We decided to try all of them.

So, at various points this week, a fly on the wall would have seen the following:

-Mamacita laying with her shoulders on the floor and her backside on the couch
-Daddy P holding an ice pack to her belly in the place where baby Kate's head has been positioned
-Either of us flashing an laser pointer at the point on Mamacita's belly where we are trying to entice Kate to end up
-Daddy P singing to the bottom of Mamacita's belly (this one seems the least likely to entice anyone to do anything)

And yes, all of these things are happening at the same time. Next up: acupuncture and some crazy special candle that you put on Mamacita's toes.

Hopefully more drastic measures won't have to be taken. Kate seems to be responding either to our methods described above or to the constant poking she is getting as we compulsively try to figure out where she is. This past week she has abandoned her pike position that she had maintained for the last 2 months. Mamacita is feeling kicks and movements in entirely new places and much stronger than before. We won't find out if she is positioned correctly or not for another week or so, but we are encouraged. More to come later...

Signs of a Breech Baby

Apparently, there have been many signs that Kate is a butt-sitter, but we just didn't know that we were experiencing them! So, should you be curious, or even in this situation yourself sometime, I thought I'd pass along what we've learned.

The obvious one, which we still didn't pick up on, is the whole, her head is up thing. Since early July I've been complaining about this hard part of her sticking up under my right rib. At the time I thought it was just me getting kicked in the rib, since I'd heard that from other moms. But this was constant, and really uncomfortable. She prevented me from bending over very well as she (and I) got bigger. And, well, there was this very obvious round and very hard thing right under my rib. Uh, duh.

Less obvious, but apparently just as much of a sign, was her constant kicking around my navel. I would tell Daddy P that I could feel her kicking but that he couldn't feel it because it was so low. Well, really, her feet weren't supposed to be that low, so yeah, tip off.

I have also been constantly lopsided. This whole time I've been carrying a big thing on my right side (her torso and head) and then something smaller and less pokey on the left side (her appendages). She'd move her feet up and down so I'd get kicked in my left rib or really low in my navel, but that was about it. She never really tumbled or moved around that much. She just stayed one big mass on my right side. Which brings me to what Daddy P and I came to hypothesize.

Kate is stuck. We decided that as she grew, her little butt got wedged in my pelvis and she couldn't get out. She didn't really want to be a breech baby, she just didn't have much choice in the matter. So this week we set about trying to help our baby get unwedged from her little predicament.

More to come...

Disoriented

We are slowly settling in. Actually, we are more settled at this point than I ever dreamed thanks to a certain Aunt who flew out and spent three days straight unpacking, putting away, and straightening. When my folks came over to lend a hand the place was really buzzing.

Kate's room is getting there. Both the changing table and the crib had parts that were damaged, and Graco is hopefully going to send us some new parts. Daddy P and I have both started at work, which is a bit of a shock to the system, and are getting into a routine.

Apparently our little one doesn't have a good compass in the womb. She is currently head up and feet up and thinks she can enter the world butt first. So I am currently trying to prepare myself for the possibility of a C-section. At first I was very hopeful we could get her to turn around, but she's had her head smashed under my right rib for a month now and I don't see her moving anytime soon. We will see! But considering how terrified I am of a C-section, I think this warning was very good for me so I'll be able to spend the next two months mentally and physically preparing for the possibility.