After another weekly appointment, there is nothing to report. I'm still only 1cm dilated, ugh. So if I make it to next week we'll plan an induction date. I'm hoping that doesn't happen.
The weatherman at work says I'll have the baby on Thursday because its a low pressure day and apparently almost all of the women at work have delivered on low pressure days. Works for me.
I'm still feeling good, I have a lot of contractions but they just don't do anything. I've heard I'm supposed to eat the core of a pineapple, but it sounds gross. Any suggestions?
Monday, November 3, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Cloth Diapers Explained
So, as many of you know, we have decided to use cloth diapers. Trust me, they're not nearly as scary as they sound. First of all, take out of your mind cloth diapers of old.....you know the ones with folding and pins that you (or your mother) used? Yeah, cloth diapers aren't like that anymore. Well, some are, but those are for crazy people (not us, hah).
I think we have 24 diapers total, so we expect to have to wash the diapers about every three days.
So, I present to you one cloth diaper, cleaned, folded, and all ready for our baby's bottom. Notice the velcro (no pins!) and elastic around the legs:
Here is the diaper unfolded, as you would do to put the baby in it. You can see the white liner. This is a very soft fleece type material that allows all of the "stuff" to move through it into the insert, which you'll see in the next picture. Just an FYI in case you babysit our child, you cannot put any type of diaper cream on the baby! This reduces the ability of the white liner to let the pee get through to the insert (which means leakage!). Most people say that their children never get diaper rash with these cloth diapers, because all of the moisture is wicked away into the insert.
This is a picture of the two different pieces of the diaper. The outside cover which you just saw, and now you can see the insert that gets stuffed into the pocket (I told you these were different than normal cloth diapers!). This is the "newborn" insert, which is pretty thin. After a few weeks, our child will graduate to the normal insert which holds a lot more. Also, for added protection at night, it is recommended to put one normal insert together with a newborn insert. The inserts are quite easy to "stuff" when sitting in front of the TV. Peggy and I knocked out this "chore" in just about 5-10 minutes.
And here is the outside of the diaper. The outside is made of a waterproof material.
It's kind of hard to see, but notice the small buttons on the diaper. These are to change the size of the diaper. These diapers are supposed to get your child all the way through potty training. I unsnapped the first couple of buttons (on the left side) to show you how to make them bigger. Right now, they'll be set on the smallest of the three sizes. I think the child "graduates" to the middle setting in a few months.
And here are our cloth diapers hanging out to dry. I'm constructing a clothesline outside to dry them (although it might not work too well on those cold winter days). Notice the large assortment of colors (these are much nicer looking than having winnie the pooh plastered across my child's butt for the next 2 years). I think we have 6 colors in all.
The Pro's and Con's:
As with anything there are many pro's and con's we considered before making this decision.
Pro's:
1. Cheap! Yes, our water and gas bill will go up a bit each month (although if I used the hang dry method, these bills won't be much more at all), but we expect these diapers to pay off in around a year or so. Actually, for us they will pay off even faster, because over half of the diapers were gifts from my parents!
2. Easy! Yes, cloth diapers can be easy. The worst part is no doubt going to be the laundry, but I'm pretty sure we'll just get used to it.
3. Environmentally friendly! Did you know disposable diapers can last in landfills for more than 500 years, and that 2% of all the solid waste thrown out every year is diapers?! That's crazy! We're trying to just do our little part.
4. Disposables have all kinds of nasty chemicals in them. I would prefer not to have those chemicals on my baby's bottom (or in landfills for that matter).
5. Less diaper rash. Diaper rash is rarely a problem in cloth diapers because they breath much better than disposables.
Con's:
1. The washing. There's no doubt washing the diapers is a con. But, we already do laundry twice a week anyways, so the only difference is 2-3 extra loads a week (plus the baby's clothes). Like I said, I think we'll just get used to it.
2. The "icky" factor. This is fairly limited with these diapers. There is no "dunking" like in old cloth diapers. They have a hose sprayer now that attaches to your toilet that we will be buying soon. You just spray off the diaper over the toilet, and throw it in a bin until you wash it.
3. Harder to travel with. For small/short trips, we'll just throw a couple cloth diapers in the diaper bag, and we'll have a waterproof bag to throw the old ones in. When you get home, you wash them out like normal. For long trips (out of state, etc), we'll probably just switch to disposables for the trip.
Anyways, this is all I can think of for now. Obviously we've thought a lot about this decision, and it is one we're quite happy with.
The baby may just be a couple days away! In other positive news, I'm off on Monday, so I get to go to the doctor with Peggy for the first time in several months! Wahoo!
And finally, here's a picture of Peggy from yesterday. She dressed up as a pumpkin!
I think we have 24 diapers total, so we expect to have to wash the diapers about every three days.
So, I present to you one cloth diaper, cleaned, folded, and all ready for our baby's bottom. Notice the velcro (no pins!) and elastic around the legs:
Here is the diaper unfolded, as you would do to put the baby in it. You can see the white liner. This is a very soft fleece type material that allows all of the "stuff" to move through it into the insert, which you'll see in the next picture. Just an FYI in case you babysit our child, you cannot put any type of diaper cream on the baby! This reduces the ability of the white liner to let the pee get through to the insert (which means leakage!). Most people say that their children never get diaper rash with these cloth diapers, because all of the moisture is wicked away into the insert.
This is a picture of the two different pieces of the diaper. The outside cover which you just saw, and now you can see the insert that gets stuffed into the pocket (I told you these were different than normal cloth diapers!). This is the "newborn" insert, which is pretty thin. After a few weeks, our child will graduate to the normal insert which holds a lot more. Also, for added protection at night, it is recommended to put one normal insert together with a newborn insert. The inserts are quite easy to "stuff" when sitting in front of the TV. Peggy and I knocked out this "chore" in just about 5-10 minutes.
And here is the outside of the diaper. The outside is made of a waterproof material.
It's kind of hard to see, but notice the small buttons on the diaper. These are to change the size of the diaper. These diapers are supposed to get your child all the way through potty training. I unsnapped the first couple of buttons (on the left side) to show you how to make them bigger. Right now, they'll be set on the smallest of the three sizes. I think the child "graduates" to the middle setting in a few months.
And here are our cloth diapers hanging out to dry. I'm constructing a clothesline outside to dry them (although it might not work too well on those cold winter days). Notice the large assortment of colors (these are much nicer looking than having winnie the pooh plastered across my child's butt for the next 2 years). I think we have 6 colors in all.
The Pro's and Con's:
As with anything there are many pro's and con's we considered before making this decision.
Pro's:
1. Cheap! Yes, our water and gas bill will go up a bit each month (although if I used the hang dry method, these bills won't be much more at all), but we expect these diapers to pay off in around a year or so. Actually, for us they will pay off even faster, because over half of the diapers were gifts from my parents!
2. Easy! Yes, cloth diapers can be easy. The worst part is no doubt going to be the laundry, but I'm pretty sure we'll just get used to it.
3. Environmentally friendly! Did you know disposable diapers can last in landfills for more than 500 years, and that 2% of all the solid waste thrown out every year is diapers?! That's crazy! We're trying to just do our little part.
4. Disposables have all kinds of nasty chemicals in them. I would prefer not to have those chemicals on my baby's bottom (or in landfills for that matter).
5. Less diaper rash. Diaper rash is rarely a problem in cloth diapers because they breath much better than disposables.
Con's:
1. The washing. There's no doubt washing the diapers is a con. But, we already do laundry twice a week anyways, so the only difference is 2-3 extra loads a week (plus the baby's clothes). Like I said, I think we'll just get used to it.
2. The "icky" factor. This is fairly limited with these diapers. There is no "dunking" like in old cloth diapers. They have a hose sprayer now that attaches to your toilet that we will be buying soon. You just spray off the diaper over the toilet, and throw it in a bin until you wash it.
3. Harder to travel with. For small/short trips, we'll just throw a couple cloth diapers in the diaper bag, and we'll have a waterproof bag to throw the old ones in. When you get home, you wash them out like normal. For long trips (out of state, etc), we'll probably just switch to disposables for the trip.
Anyways, this is all I can think of for now. Obviously we've thought a lot about this decision, and it is one we're quite happy with.
The baby may just be a couple days away! In other positive news, I'm off on Monday, so I get to go to the doctor with Peggy for the first time in several months! Wahoo!
And finally, here's a picture of Peggy from yesterday. She dressed up as a pumpkin!
Monday, October 27, 2008
Finally Progress!
I'm 1cm dilated! And 50% thinned out! I know it's not much but its better than nothing.
My doc says she thinks it will be two weeks still which puts us right on the due date. The baby still has his/her butt stuck up in my ribs and isn't budging. At this rate the child will be walking when it finally comes out! The doc says its very common to have to fight the contrax with meds for a long time and then when you come off of them to have the contrax stop or slow down. Mine have definitely slowed down but have not stopped. She did another ultrasound and the baby has flipped over from my right side to my left... still don't know the sex sorry everyone.
My co-workers can't believe I'm still working, everyday I come in and they can't believe it. Plus for the most part I feel pretty good, I mean the contrax hurt but as long as I get enough sleep I'm in good spirits.
Also Dave and I want to say Congrats to Michael and Erin, Dave's oldest brother tied the knot Saturday and now we have a niece, Lily, she was a beautiful flower girl. We are very excited to have them part of the Pleimann family. Here's a few pics from the grand event.
The newest Pleimann Family!
The beautiful wedding party
Dave was pretending his napkin was the baby, he's ready can you tell.
The soon to be parents!
My doc says she thinks it will be two weeks still which puts us right on the due date. The baby still has his/her butt stuck up in my ribs and isn't budging. At this rate the child will be walking when it finally comes out! The doc says its very common to have to fight the contrax with meds for a long time and then when you come off of them to have the contrax stop or slow down. Mine have definitely slowed down but have not stopped. She did another ultrasound and the baby has flipped over from my right side to my left... still don't know the sex sorry everyone.
My co-workers can't believe I'm still working, everyday I come in and they can't believe it. Plus for the most part I feel pretty good, I mean the contrax hurt but as long as I get enough sleep I'm in good spirits.
Also Dave and I want to say Congrats to Michael and Erin, Dave's oldest brother tied the knot Saturday and now we have a niece, Lily, she was a beautiful flower girl. We are very excited to have them part of the Pleimann family. Here's a few pics from the grand event.
The newest Pleimann Family!
The beautiful wedding party
Dave was pretending his napkin was the baby, he's ready can you tell.
The soon to be parents!
Thursday, October 23, 2008
No Progress
I had my 37 week doctor appointment Monday, and sad to say no progress. The baby looks good, but he/she's head is still high and I haven't dialated at all. She did an impromptu ultrasound to see the baby's position, and the baby is head down but still too high. She did stop the anti-contraction medication, which for the first day had me contracting like crazy, but they have slowed down. I'm still having about 15-20 a day but they are not regular. Dave and I have been walking around the neighborhood everynight to see if that helps and it usually does for about an hour or so but they just die off. So it looks like I'm gonna make it another week, yeah! Poor Dave thought for sure he would be a daddy by now and is losing hope that the little one will show up this week. I keep reminding him its good for the baby to keep cooking but he is just too excited. We'll keep everyone posted!
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Still Pregnant
We made it to 36 weeks! Monday I was back at the doctors office for my weekly appointment. My doctor has decided to keep me on the procardia(anti-contraction) medication another week. The main reason is just to let the baby's lungs develop a little more. Plus she's pretty positive once I come off the medication I'll start contracting regularly.. and the baby will soon follow. She did say the baby weighs between 6.5 - 7lbs. I make big babies!
Over the weekend I had a lot of problems with my hands and feet swelling but that seems to have subsided. It's common with the medication, thankfully my blood pressure has barely risen since my first prenatal visit so the doctor isn't worried about pre-e or hypertension. I'm still betting this kid will show up next Wed 10/22 but we'll just have to wait and see.
It was my birthday this past weekend so my Mom and Marty came down for two nights. She did a lot of cooking and cleaning for us. She kept telling the baby he/she could make an appearance, but no luck. But it was great to have someone else clean and cook!
Over the weekend I had a lot of problems with my hands and feet swelling but that seems to have subsided. It's common with the medication, thankfully my blood pressure has barely risen since my first prenatal visit so the doctor isn't worried about pre-e or hypertension. I'm still betting this kid will show up next Wed 10/22 but we'll just have to wait and see.
It was my birthday this past weekend so my Mom and Marty came down for two nights. She did a lot of cooking and cleaning for us. She kept telling the baby he/she could make an appearance, but no luck. But it was great to have someone else clean and cook!
Monday, October 6, 2008
Three Labor and Delivery visits, and still no baby
All day yesterday, Peggy was having very strong contractions. Last night, just after we went to sleep, Peggy woke me up, saying that they were getting much more frequent. So, we started timing them. She had 4 in 10 minutes, but not consistent. Some were 45 seconds apart, others were 5 minutes apart.
We called the hospital, and they told her to take her anti-contraction medication early. That seemed to do the trick for the night.
But at work this morning, she continued having the contractions. She called her doctor when she got off of work, and they told her to go to the hospital.
So, today at work, I got "the call." The call that I've been dreaming of for a while. It was finally happening. We're all ready, or as ready as we'll ever be. Luckily one of my fellow science teachers has a student teacher. So, she was able to watch my students for me until my substitute arrived (thank you Kirsten!).
So I went home, and finished getting the things together for the hospital (the bags were almost totally packed already from previous visits). It just felt like the time. We even took some video before we left.
On the way to the hospital, I was very upbeat, but "fidgety" as Peggy said. I was just taking over the daddy role, and making sure my wife and baby were ok. But that required me going a "million miles an hour."
We checked in, per the normal routine. Almost as soon as we got there, they told us "we don't want this baby coming out yet." I just groaned (probably out loud). They hooked Peggy up to the monitors and checked everything out. She was not dilated AT ALL!
So they sent us home. They did increase the dosage on Peggy's prescription, but that's all they did for us.
Getting the medication was another whole story which I won't bore you with the details about. But, in summary, her vitamin price doubled, and we went to two pharmacies, both of which did not have her new anti-contraction medication....ugh.
Oh, did I mention that it's our anniversary?! Happy anniversary to us! It was such a crazy day that we didn't even get to eat dinner together on our anniversary (Peggy was sleeping).
So here we sit, waiting until next week when Peggy hopefully comes off of the anti-contraction medication.
Peggy, looking like she owns the place (we've been there so much, we just might by the time this is all said and done)
And me trying to get comfy on one of those impossible to get comfy couches (that's actually the name of the manufacterer, I checked)
We called the hospital, and they told her to take her anti-contraction medication early. That seemed to do the trick for the night.
But at work this morning, she continued having the contractions. She called her doctor when she got off of work, and they told her to go to the hospital.
So, today at work, I got "the call." The call that I've been dreaming of for a while. It was finally happening. We're all ready, or as ready as we'll ever be. Luckily one of my fellow science teachers has a student teacher. So, she was able to watch my students for me until my substitute arrived (thank you Kirsten!).
So I went home, and finished getting the things together for the hospital (the bags were almost totally packed already from previous visits). It just felt like the time. We even took some video before we left.
On the way to the hospital, I was very upbeat, but "fidgety" as Peggy said. I was just taking over the daddy role, and making sure my wife and baby were ok. But that required me going a "million miles an hour."
We checked in, per the normal routine. Almost as soon as we got there, they told us "we don't want this baby coming out yet." I just groaned (probably out loud). They hooked Peggy up to the monitors and checked everything out. She was not dilated AT ALL!
So they sent us home. They did increase the dosage on Peggy's prescription, but that's all they did for us.
Getting the medication was another whole story which I won't bore you with the details about. But, in summary, her vitamin price doubled, and we went to two pharmacies, both of which did not have her new anti-contraction medication....ugh.
Oh, did I mention that it's our anniversary?! Happy anniversary to us! It was such a crazy day that we didn't even get to eat dinner together on our anniversary (Peggy was sleeping).
So here we sit, waiting until next week when Peggy hopefully comes off of the anti-contraction medication.
Peggy, looking like she owns the place (we've been there so much, we just might by the time this is all said and done)
And me trying to get comfy on one of those impossible to get comfy couches (that's actually the name of the manufacterer, I checked)
Sunday, October 5, 2008
The one time a dropping baby is ok....
Yes, thats right, ladies and gentlemen, it appears as though Peggy is "dropping". Well, actually, the baby is dropping, but I digress.
On thursday, Peggy was home all day (it's sunday to her), and she noticed that her belly was strangely soft all day. So I felt it when I got home, and sure enough, almost everywhere was much much softer than normal. For the past month or so, her belly has been hard as a rock as the baby grows to fill what little space there is.
So we didn't think much of it, and were laying in bed watching TV later that night, when I had a realization. What if the baby's head made its way downward finally? Pretty much the entire pregnancy, the baby has been laying transverse across her mommies belly.
So I pushed and prodded a little bit, and sure enough, it seems as though the head is finally down. There is a large hard object just below Peggys belly button, and the rest is all soft.
Later that night, Peggy was feeling kicking on the bottom middle of her ribcage, where she never has before.
So, we're no doctors, but we're thinking that the head is finally down and thinking about making an appearance soon.
Peggys contractions have been really strong today, so maybe the head pushing on her cervix is going to increase the contractions? Again, we have no idea, but it makes sense to us!
I do know that as the contractions increase, the baby's head pushes on the cervix more. Pressure receptors in the cervix tell the brain to produce a hormone called oxytocin. Oxytocin then triggers more contractions. It's one of very few positive feedback mechanisms in biology. Sorry, couldn't help but give you a biology lesson (I don't get to teach it!!! :-)
Since we now believe the head is pushing directly on the cervix, the extra contractions today seem to make sense.
We're pretty much ready now (or as ready as we'll ever be I should say)....we bought some wipes from sams club the other day and got the car seat bases installed in both of our cars.
Now we just wait!
I (David) am launching my official prediction of October 15th. So there you have it folks (it just so happens to be a day after we think they're taking Peggy off of the anti-contraction medication, but that's not cheating, that's just being smart :-)
Peggy's official guess is October 22nd.
On thursday, Peggy was home all day (it's sunday to her), and she noticed that her belly was strangely soft all day. So I felt it when I got home, and sure enough, almost everywhere was much much softer than normal. For the past month or so, her belly has been hard as a rock as the baby grows to fill what little space there is.
So we didn't think much of it, and were laying in bed watching TV later that night, when I had a realization. What if the baby's head made its way downward finally? Pretty much the entire pregnancy, the baby has been laying transverse across her mommies belly.
So I pushed and prodded a little bit, and sure enough, it seems as though the head is finally down. There is a large hard object just below Peggys belly button, and the rest is all soft.
Later that night, Peggy was feeling kicking on the bottom middle of her ribcage, where she never has before.
So, we're no doctors, but we're thinking that the head is finally down and thinking about making an appearance soon.
Peggys contractions have been really strong today, so maybe the head pushing on her cervix is going to increase the contractions? Again, we have no idea, but it makes sense to us!
I do know that as the contractions increase, the baby's head pushes on the cervix more. Pressure receptors in the cervix tell the brain to produce a hormone called oxytocin. Oxytocin then triggers more contractions. It's one of very few positive feedback mechanisms in biology. Sorry, couldn't help but give you a biology lesson (I don't get to teach it!!! :-)
Since we now believe the head is pushing directly on the cervix, the extra contractions today seem to make sense.
We're pretty much ready now (or as ready as we'll ever be I should say)....we bought some wipes from sams club the other day and got the car seat bases installed in both of our cars.
Now we just wait!
I (David) am launching my official prediction of October 15th. So there you have it folks (it just so happens to be a day after we think they're taking Peggy off of the anti-contraction medication, but that's not cheating, that's just being smart :-)
Peggy's official guess is October 22nd.
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