I'm Effaced! - 35 weeks

The time is coming nearer! I went to my OB today and am 60% effaced (effacement is the cervix shortening/thinning out), with no dilation (dilation is the cervix widening). The cervix usually fully effaces to 100% and then the contractions/ dilation begin. It will probably take a week or two for me to fully efface and even then, I could dilate a few centimeters and stay that way for days. My OB seems to think Harrison will be arriving a few weeks early, so we're looking at 2-3 weeks until we finally get to meet this mysterious creature that's been doing somersaults in my belly all of 2008. His head has dropped into the birth canal, which my Aunt Jan and I noticed on Monday. I definitely felt more of a pressure "down there" and with that comes some good news - I can breathe easier! My lungs have gone from the size of a peanut to the size of a grape! :)

There is still the chance of Harrison waiting until the very last minute to make his debut, which would be 5 weeks away, but David and I really think he'll be here mid-September. I guess if he wanted to stay longer, I'd be willing to even share my September 27th birthday with him! ;) What an awesome birthday present that would be!

The other day, David brought it to my attention that I've been pregnant for almost a year, counting our first pregnancy in Sept 2007. I am ready to NOT be pregnant any longer and enjoy this little boy that we've been waiting on! I'll definitely be taking some time off after this one!

My next appointment is with the high risk OB on Sept. 8th, so we'll know even more then. More updates to come!

Houston Showers/ Mom and Aunt Jan in - 34 weeks

This weekend was so much fun! My girlfriends threw me the nicest shower in the morning and that evening, my neighbors threw me a little soiree!

My girlfriends changed the location of the shower 2 weeks ago to my house, which was so fun and easy for me to just walk down the stairs! Paige's house unfortunately flooded out of her laundry room, so they were desperately looking for a new location. When I came home on bed rest, it just made sense to relocate to my house so I wouldn't be moving around a lot. It was awesome and I got all the last minute items that were on my shopping list for my Mom and Jan. Everyone made sure I stayed seated and that I was waited on hand and foot - It really was perfect!


The hostessess: Amy, Paige, me, Sherri, Shannon

The Grandmas - Audrey, me, Mom (GiGi)

Audrey and Harry got us our fab stroller and car seat. I haven't been able to stop playing with the stroller. It's my new favorite toy!

Shannon, me and BIG Harrison: I have gained 28lbs - bed rest is killing my 25lb. weight gain goal, but oh well. (Average is 25-35 lbs.) I've been chowing down on the protein and drinking my milk, which is hopefully why he's a pound heavier than the "average" baby at this point. Today, he weighs 5 lbs 13 oz. and my weekly email said the average baby is 4 and 3/4 lbs.!

Creekside Soiree

Neighbors - me, Sydney, Will, Harriet

Will made sure I had food and water the entire time! I didn't get out of my chair but to snap a few pics! He and his Mom live down the street.

The hostess with the mostess and me!

Kathy, Jan, Mom, me, Jana, Annabella (Jana's Granddaughter)

David went to Austin for the weekend to meet up with his MBA boys to do a Fantasy Football Draft (his 1st of 2 Fantasy teams - he's obsessed!!!) :) When he got home, he got to work putting together the swing and the monitor, and moving stuff around for us!

The Nursery

Mom and Jan helped so much - I would not have been ready for the baby if they had not been here this weekend. They washed load after load of baby stuff, put together toys and accessories, got me organized, sorted the hundreds of childrens' books that Mom brought of mine from home, cleaned, fixed meals - AHHH, it was heaven! :) And to top it off, I got to direct them for once, as I laid back and propped my feet up in Harrison's glider!

Mom also brought all my keepsakes as a child - she gave them to me at the shower, which was such a surprise!

This child is so blessed - look at all his stuff!

Our video monitor is one of our favorite toys - it's worth the money to get a handheld monitor - they really work so well!

I have a feeling the burp cloths and bibs to the left of the chair will be my new best friends!

It was a great weekend, but I have to admit that by 34 weeks, I am feeling every bit of what this cartoon says - add facial and limb swelling and hormonal craziness and we'd be right on target!

After waking up so swollen on Saturday, I chugged lemon water like no other. By Sunday my swelling had gone down so much that I lost a few pounds overnight, even with eating shower food and cake all day! Water retention is awful!

Health wise, I got to the doctor this Thursday so will post a new update for you all at that point. I am feeling like a normal pregnant woman at this point, but I am still contracting 1-2 times every hour. I'm still taking medication for this, and will probably continue to do so until I go into labor. David and I are sooo glad to have hit the 34 week mark and now are hoping to make it 3 more weeks to 37 weeks, which would be full term. If Harrison gains the average 1/2 lb every week, we'll be looking at a 7 lb 5 oz baby at that point. If I go full term to 40 weeks, I am going to demand full anesthesia when laboring!!! ;)

It's all about the nose!

Today, I took a trip to the perinatologist again. Everything is looking great still and I'm to just take it easy until Harrison decides it's time to come! He's weighing in at 5 lbs 5 oz, which is the 65th percentile for weight, meaning he's going to be around 8+ lbs if we go full term. (50% is your average 7lb. baby) Dr. Kirshon was also able to tell me that he's measuring long, which coincides with David's 22 inch length on his birth day! Basically, he's a big, healthy baby and we are so pleased!

Dr. Kirshon was able to get a good 3d/4d shot of his face and the big debate now is who he's going to look like! I told David that Harrison had a hook nose just like his daddy, but David thinks that I'm the one with the hook nose!!! I got on my computer and started looking at archived pics from our rehearsal dinner photo montage and posted some below. (okay, maybe the Smith genes are dominant, because my Dad, brother, and I all have that same looking nose Harrison has.... but I would never call it a HOOK NOSE!) :)

Harrison - 33 weeks

Total Smith Nose and Cheeks

Mom, Dad and me - a head full of brown hair!

OMG - my cheeks are HUGE!

Okay, here you can see Andy and my similar nose... Harrison's does favor ours, I must say! And, look at those cheeks on Andy!

The fam - neither of us really look like my Mom. :( Seriously - look at the size of our cheeks! Those Smith genes are STRONG!

The cousins - Andy, Kate, Me, Mitchell playing cowboys and dress-up!?!? Look at the big Smith cheeks and similar noses here!

David's Baby Pics

So sweet looking, with that big ol' noggen.

Woah - talk about flared nostrils! :)

I'm hoping Harrison gets the dimples! In this picture, their noses look sort of similar... maybe?


Sorry, honey - had to put this one. OMG - the length of those legs. His nickname growing up was the electric mosquito and now I see one reason why!

Harry's 70th Birthday

Last night we celebrated Harry's 70th birthday by having a lovely dinner out on the town! It was great to be able to get out and celebrate with the grandparents.

Every Sunday, Harry does a children's sermon during the church service at his church. The kids ADORE him and race up to the altar, pushing each other out of the way for the spots on the stairs right beside him. It always amazes me how he can hold their attention for several minutes as he teaches a little lesson! And at the end, they all love praying with him in unison with their little heads bowed and hands together... it really is so cute! I know he's going to be such a great Grandpa to Harrison. He might have just turned 70, but you would never know it by how active and busy he is!

Personal Servitude Part Two!

Need I say more?!!

Good News From the OB! 33 weeks

A very tired Mom - sleep is very broken these days!

I got back from a visit to my OB a few hours ago and received some great news from the ultrasound! Harrison is looking nice and healthy, as is my uterus! YAY! I am still on bedrest, but it's more of a "modified" bedrest where my main restrictions are from lifting things or exerting huge amounts of energy. I can, however, go out to dinner, prepare my own meals, and do small things around the house.

So, many thanks to those of you who brought meals the past few weeks - they were delicious and helped us cope more than you know. From here on out, we'll be able to manage things until this little one decides to come!

Personal Servitude

Monday night I had another big outing to our birthing class. Fortunately, because of my situation, I didn't have to perform all the pelvic tilts and floor exercises that the other pregnant women were doing!!! At the beginning of the class, we split up into Moms and Dads and each group compiled a list of their Best and Worst parts of pregnancy. Ten minutes later, the leader went over what we all had written down. It was no surprise that the Worst list of the Moms were all the symptoms/adverse effects of pregnancy and the Worst list of the Dads' were all the symptoms the Moms had that affected them (i.e. tired, moody, etc.). (GIVE ME A BREAK!) As the instructor went down the list of Worsts for the Dads, she stumbled upon one that only MY wonderful husband could have written down - PERSONAL SERVITUDE!!! HA! It only took one glance at him to know that he was the culprit, as the other men were saying, "yea, I didn't want to be the one to suggest it, but we were so relieved that David did." Immediately, I piped up and said, "well, he SHOULD be my slave - I'm on bedrest" and throughout the room of the 8 other Moms, all you heard was "uh huh, yea, that's right!" So, needless to say, the ice was broken, the line was drawn, and he massaged my neck the rest of class!!! We all got a good laugh out of how absolutely hard it is on our husbands to go through pregnancy. (can you hear my sarcasm?) I just know that it must be so hard for them! The siatica nerve problems, a rib or 2 popping out of place, the bed rest, the bloody noses, the nausea, the aching backs, the stretch marks, swollen feet, heartburn, indigestion, aversions to food and smells, weight gain, the constant trips to the bathroom, the constipation!, the acne, the hormonal changes, the crazy dreams and loss of sleep, and on top of all that - worrying about if you are doing everything right for your baby! Wow - think of what they are dealing with! ;)

So, I was forwarded this T-shirt by one of my dear friends and immediately ordered it for my DARLING husband. I think it fits, what do you think?!!!!

RBS Baby Shower - 32 Weeks

Today was an exciting day for me! Not only was I allowed out of the house for the first time in several weeks, but my outing was to attend the RBS baby shower that was thrown for Komal Stoerr (a colleague's wife) and myself. Komal and her hubbie got married a few weeks after David and I did, and now their baby is due exactly a month after Harrison is due! The shower was so much fun and it was awesome to catch up with David's coworkers/coworkers' wives. Besides my birthing classes that begin this week, this was the only excursion I've been approved to do by my OB, so you can only imagine the fun it was for me!


Komal and me


The Hostesses:
Debbie (a colleague's wife), Komal, Susan (David's boss' wife), Me

Talk about amazing women - Debbie just finished up her last chemo treatment for breast cancer and Susan has just a few more to do. They are both beating their cancer, but it's been a long year. And, they still have radiation/surgeries to go through. They are truly inspiring women!

Good News from the Perinatologist - 31.5 weeks

David and I just got back from the high risk OB, who took at look at things and gave us a good report! YAY! He said that there are no more tears and the blood loss is not significant enough to make Harrison anemic or cause any harm to him. His Rx was bedrest, ofcourse, but I begged him to increase my activity just a little and he said by the end of the week if there was no more bleeding I would be allowed to fix my own lunch and slowly start doing small things around the house. YAY! We'll see him again in 2 weeks and he's predicting a successful full term pregnancy and delivery if we stay on this path!

Also, Harrison is weighing in at a whopping 3 lbs 14 oz.! He's gaining about an oz. a day, and his kicks are getting stronger and stronger. I can't believe that he's probably going to double in weight - my stomach is already busting at the seams!

New Update - 31 weeks

Well well well, about an hour after I wrote my update last night, I was on my way to the hospital again. There was a little more bleeding, so my doctor told me to go straight into the hospital to be monitored and check. They did some tests and everything seemed to be checking out fine. We were waiting on bloodwork for 3 hours, so David and I called my doctor and told her we just wanted to go home and to follow up if the test results did not come back in good light. The three of us were sure that the blood work was going to come back fine. They were doing a KB test, which tests to see if the maternal blood and fetal blood have mixed. If they have mixed, this is confirmation of a placenta abruption, which is quite serious.

This morning, I got a phone call from my OB that unfortunately my test came back positive for having higher than normal levels of fetal blood mixed with my blood. :( We were stunned and surprised, as they performed this same test in Canada and it was negative. As of now, the baby is fine - still moving and heart rate is great. But, I am on strict bedrest - as in going to the bathroom only.

The implications for a placenta abruption are very scary, but with bedrest and proper monitoring, we're hoping to go full term with Harrison. I'll be seeing a high risk OB on Monday, then my OB twice a week until I deliver. The main concern is that the placenta does not tear anymore. Since this is the tissue that delivers oxygen and nutrients to the baby, it's important that there is no more bleeding or tearing as to not comprise Harrison's health. The risk of hemmoraging is low, but with the blood flow to the uterus being 1 liter /minute, it would only take a few minutes for a large tear to become fatal for both a baby and his mom. (this is highly unlikely and very rare, but still something we have to consider) We are taking every precaution necessary and David will be working from home as much as possible for a while.

Since I will be bored out of my mind, I'll keep the blog updated for anyone who wants to track Harrison's progress!

Keep your fingers crossed for another 5 weeks - we really want to get to 36 weeks and are hopeful to go full term and continue on with a normal, healthy delivery. If the placenta does not tear further, our doctor feels confident that we will be able to deliver at full term and everything will go smoothly.