January31

Week 37

January 28, 2002

Well, I've made it! It's Monday noon and I'm still pregnant. Full moon and everything today. Dr. Teague told me I could go off my shaky pills "around Wednesday", so I've decided to stop taking them after my late-night dose on Tuesday (usually around 11 or midnight, depending on when the 4-5 hours falls). And I can't wait, either, not just because that means Natalie might come soon but because these pills have made me feel so out of it and miserable, so I'm looking forward to having my brain back again, and also not having to wake up with the alarm clock a couple times a night just to take a pill. I still get up lots of other times for the bathroom, but hearing the alarm go off at 1 in the morning and then 5 in the morning is really irritating. There's a big difference between being woken up naturally and hearing loud obnoxious music in the middle of the night. (I know, I know, wait till it's a baby crying...) Hopefully tomorrow night will be the last time I'll ever have to take the Terbutaline/Brethine!! Lately I've been feeling a lot of strange things and LOTS of contractions (especially when I've forgotten to take my pill for over an hour like I did yesterday...whoops...) so I'm just expecting something to happen at any time. The pressure is getting so bad down low now so I really, really hope she doesn't decide to stick this out another three weeks after I go off my pills. She has dropped so low that now I can only wear stretch pants, and only about half of my underwear still fits, most of them dig right in way down low. It feels like she's grinding her head against my pubic bone, and when I walk I feel like I have to hold up my belly so I can walk around her head. I keep getting the image of myself of that bird-like thing in Super Mario 2 that spits the killer eggs out. It waddles side to side holding a very low belly and tries to get Mario. That's what I feel like now. I promise to not start spitting out anything to my enemies though.

I'm just trusting God to bring her into this world at the right time for her (afterall, I've already gone past the amount of time the fetal fibronectin test said I should have) but selfishly, now that the danger zone time has past I'd really like it to be sooner rather than later. Nonetheless, when I pray about it, I still pray "not my will but yours" :-) I know that if she needs to stay in there longer, she's going to stay in there longer. But still, I think, goodness, I've already been going through almost continuous early-stage labor for what will be three weeks on Wednesday, so I think I've bided my time and paid my dues; I'm ready to get this show on the road now! At any rate, when I'm off the pills on Wednesday I'm also officially off bed/chair rest, so I plan on doing as much as I can to get my house cleaned up. It's gotten really gross over the last three weeks and I've just been sitting around watching the dust bunnies grow larger. Everything's ready for her to get here though. The car seats are in our cars, and the hospital and lamaze bags are packed and in my backseat. Last night Mom came over and put up our curtain rod and valance in the nursery, so now the room is completely ready and waiting for her arrival!

January 30, 2002

We had a true false alarm last night. All day long yesterday I was having stronger and stronger contractions, still not with any regularity, but sometimes they were strong enough that it took my breath away. I kept trying to time them, but it seemed so random. Sometimes they would come in quick succession, and other times it would be a half hour between them. Last night I stayed at work a little later trying to get something finished up, and by the time I got home I was having quite a lot of pain, this time it was even going into my lower back (around my hips) and I could feel squeezing at the top of my uterus and not just menstrual-like cramping near the bottom. I hadn't been feeling the baby move very much all day either. Phil asked if I wanted to go ahead and call the doctor, but I wanted to try to get something to eat first and just wait it out a little longer. Right before we left for dinner though it started getting so bad it hurt to stand up. Something was definitely going on. We went to dinner at Cooker and I ordered a soup and salad, and I only ate about half of each, I just didn't feel right and I was starting to feel nauseated too. Plus I was going to the bathroom just about every 15 or 20 minutes, and had some unpleasant experiences with that...Overall I was just beginning to feel pretty awful. After dinner we went over to Target to pick a few things up and by the time I left there I felt like I could hardly stand up. It felt like they were coming faster now, too. So we drove home and I called my doctor, and she told me to go on to St. Ann's to get checked out. Of course, right after she said that I started second-guessing myself, but she told me to go in so we did. The whole way to the hospital I was still having contractions; not quite as strong but still the same amount (I still couldn't say with certainty that it was 1 contractions every X minutes though, they just seemed to be coming MORE regularly). When we got there we were happy to see the parking lot was almost empty - a big change from the last time, when we had to circle around several times to find a spot! So we got a spot almost right up in front, and we walked in and went up to the second floor. (Okay, now for a second I'm going to insert a side story, back to the false alarm after that) The receptionist lady on the maternity floor was none other than -the EXwife of- Columbus Dispatch movie critic Frank Gabrenya: someone whose movie reviews I hardly ever agree with because he doesn't like movies that aren't full of gratuitous violence or car chase scenes. Anyway. We found this out because as she was checking us in, Phil saw her name tag and asked, innocently enough, "Oh, Gabrenya, like the movie critic?" Now, just this past Monday at our last Lamaze class we had all been talking about how in our "ideal birth situation" we wouldn't get a nurse that was going through a bitter divorce. The lady looked up at Phil and said, quite bitterly, "yes, that's my EX husband." And then went on and on for at least the next five minutes about why the man was the complete scum of the earth: she "shoulda known it when we were dating, he could never just go out to enjoy a movie, blah blah blah, one time I came home and he'd been watching our four month old and hadn't changed her diaper once, when I picked her up her diaper was so heavy it just fell off, blah blah blah..." Fortunately she WASN'T a nurse, she was the receptionist. :-) So she finally managed to get through her diatribe and still get us all checked in (this time I was already in the system so I didn't have to go through the question and answer session again), and then she led us to the triage area, to the same bed I was in the last time. It was really quiet in there last night, so we were thinking, well, if this IS it, at least I'll probably be able to get the room I want! I don't know if it was the receptionists' ramblings on or what, but by the time they got me hooked up to the monitor, suddenly everything seemed to start calming down. I was still having some contraction pain but not nearly the amount, and when I did have them it was more like the ones I was having earlier in the day: enough to catch my breath a little but no intense pain. After being monitored for awhile, we found I was having them around one every 15 minutes, which was definitely a lot more spaced out than they had been just before I called the doctor. The nurse checked my cervix and said I was still at about 2 cm dilated, 75% thinned. I don't know how thin I was before, but it was really frustrating to find out that after three weeks of having contractions I still hadn't dilated any more! She called Dr. Teague and let her know the results, and then said I could go home, of course with the instructions about calling when the contractions were 5 minutes apart or less, lasting for an hour, etc etc.. basically what I had been feeling earlier in the night. Phil and I felt really frustrated about the whole thing, especially the nurse's statement that "you could be back here in a couple hours or it could be a couple weeks, there's no way of knowing." So, we went home and went to bed. All night long I continued to have the lighter, intermittent contractions again (except for once when it was so bad I woke up suddenly and started coughing and choking because it took me by surprise) and I'm still having those same light, intermittent ones so far today. Overall we felt pretty frustrated and silly as we were leaving the hospital because they didn't see me having ANY of the strong contractions I had been feeling, but we just have to tell ourselves that we aren't in a typical situation, we've been going through this now for three weeks and we were just doing what the doctor told us to do, to call her when they changed and got stronger, even if I couldn't count them with regularity. I just hope from now, either they stay at this light contraction stage, which I've gotten used to, until she's really ready to come, or it just happens. Last night got really painful but I don't want to be running over to the hospital every other day just to be sent home again. I'm now off of the Brethine pills so we'll see what difference that makes. I never thought I'd ever wish for my water to actually break noticeably, but now I'm almost wishing for that. At least then I'd know for sure!

January 31, 2002

Well, it looks like I'm not going to have a January baby after all. Just as well, I know Nan will be happy since February's birthstone is amethyst, which is her favorite. I actually slept like a log last night. Well, I was still up to go to the bathroom but only a couple times, and other than that I slept really hard. Didn't even have any sudden contractions that woke me up. Beginning this morning I started feeling more intense contractions than what I was feeling yesterday though, and they're now closer to 10 minutes apart instead of 15. It's been going on this way pretty much all day; more this morning and more just recently though, I think my body took a little break from them around lunchtime. These are closer to what I was feeling on Tuesday night, although I still haven't had any consistent or really strong contractions like I was having then. Most of these today have just been the "enough to catch my breath a little" type. Enough that sitting here and trying to concentrate on my work is nearly impossible. Not that it matters too much anymore though, pretty much all my projects are either complete or those that are ongoing have now been passed off to my co-workers. That's a little frustrating too since it still COULD be days or weeks before this thing happens; I'd hate to be sitting here with nothing to do in the meantime!

Today's wandering thoughts have been: things I would really like as someone in her ninth month of pregnancy (besides the obvious number one thing, a healthy baby):

~ Handicap support bars in every single bathroom stall. I never knew how difficult it could be to sit down, and then get back up from, typical (non-handicap) size potties. Makes my knees ache. I'd like the bars in my home bathroom too.

~ A bra that actually fits my very narrow and slope-y shoulders. And I thought it was annoying to constantly pull my bra straps up before.

~ People to stop asking me EVERY time they see me "you're still here?" Yes, I am, and I was this morning when you asked me that too. And yesterday. Besides, what else am I going to do in this time of twiddling my thumbs? Sit home and stare at the wall? Might as well come here and sit and stare at my computer screen, at least I can feel like I'm attempting to do something productive.

~ People to stop telling me "oh, you can't possibly be that pregnant, you don't look more than "X" months along!" Yep, I've been hearing that since the very beginning. Apparently it's a compliment. Other people say I look huge. I tend to agree more with the latter but only because I'm the one trying to maneuver myself around these days.

~ Speaking of things people say, I also don't find it all that amusing to hear for the twentieth time "we might have to deliver that baby here in the conference room!" Trust me, I know where the hospital is and what the drill is by now to get there in time. I've already had one practice round and one false start. Got it.

~ Haircut places that actually close when they say they are going to close and not a half hour to 45 minutes early. Okay, this is really just a general gripe and not just now in my ninth month of pregnancy. Suffice it to say I just wanted to get my hair cut last night and no one wanted my business. Even the place that wouldn't close until two hours later but I still couldn't get in because "there was an hour and a half wait list"; looking around the place, not a customer was to be seen and two employees were sitting around reading magazines. Grumble...and speaking of general grumbles, I don't like rude drivers either. :-)

~ Some kind of picker-upper device with which I can pick up all the many things I drop throughout the day which are then lost unless I call someone over to bend over and get it for me. Needs to be strong enough to pick up moderately heavy things too; I drop a lot more than just pieces of paper and straws these days.

~ Motorized granny shopping carts in EVERY store!

~ Parking spots right up front next to the handicap spots at every store, designated for the very pregnant or mobility-challenged in general, like they have at Babies R Us. What a grand idea.

~ Chicken. I'd really like some chicken. Particularly heavily breaded and fried. Soon I will have it. Oh yes, soon.

~ Mmm, and a fully caffeinated, tall glass of cherry coke. Technically I'm sure I could have this now, but I've done so well avoiding caffeine this entire time, I can hold out a little longer. Of course, then I start breastfeeding...

~ A complete wardrobe of fully expandable, no-tying required, shoes. My one pair of canvas shoes with the curly spaghetti laces have just about had it. They will be quickly sent to the trash once I get back my feet and the ability to bend over again.

~ At least one or two more pairs of stretch pants with which I could rotate my clothing choice. With the exception of a couple pairs that just don't fit me anymore, but I keep wearing them just for variety's sake, I have a blue pair and a black pair that fit comfortably.

Okay, that's about all I can think of now. There's lots of other stuff, I'm sure. I'm very blessed in so many ways. With the exception of the last three weeks, the whole pregnancy was completely routine and normal. I've had the normal aches and pains and such but I couldn't complain too much, there are many people who have it much worse. I have a husband who has been really wonderful this whole pregnancy, even putting socks and shoes on my feet every morning. And he's never been much of an admirer of the foot. My mom and grandma (Grandma and Great-Grandma) made sure we had everything we needed to bring this baby home once we figured out what we didn't get at the baby showers. Not that we still needed THAT much more; we've had so many people do so much for this baby I still can't get over it. I have such supportive and helpful family and friends. As much as I can't wait for the baby to get here, there is a part of me that will miss this time too. Granted, a small part. At this point I just really want to meet our baby face to face. Last night I was playing with her Peaceful Planet aquarium, sitting in the rocking chair in her room. I had the lights off, toy sitting on my belly, and I was just playing with the different settings. When I got to the Brahm's Lullaby, which is the song to which Phil has made up some words and sings to my belly all the time, she started suddenly kicking up a storm. That's probably the biggest thing I'll miss, even if her kicks have gotten a little painful in recent weeks. I can't wait to see how she reacts to her daddy singing her song after she's here. Whenever that will be; I think she's just enjoying the repetitive "hugs" she's been getting the last three weeks inside my belly so she's not rushing her way out anymore. :-)

You know, the idea was to switch to SHORT, more frequent updates. So much for that.



	Week 37 January 28, 2002 Well, I've made it! It's Monday noon and I'm still pregnant. Full moon and everything today. Dr. Teague told me I could go off my shaky pills "around Wednesday", so I've decided to stop taking them after my late-night dose on Tuesday (usually around 11 or midnight, depending on when the 4-5 hours falls). And I can't wait, either, not just because that means Natalie might come soon but because these pills have made me feel so out of it and miserable, so I'm looking forward to having my brain back again, and also not having to wake up with the alarm clock a couple times a night just to take a pill. I still get up lots of other times for the bathroom, but hearing the alarm go off at 1 in the morning and then 5 in the morning is really irritating. There's a big difference between being woken up naturally and hearing loud obnoxious music in the middle of the night. (I know, I know, wait till it's a baby crying...) Hopefully tomorrow night will be the last time I'll ever have to take the Terbutaline/Brethine!! Lately I've been feeling a lot of strange things and LOTS of contractions (especially when I've forgotten to take my pill for over an hour like I did yesterday...whoops...) so I'm just expecting something to happen at any time. The pressure is getting so bad down low now so I really, really hope she doesn't decide to stick this out another three weeks after I go off my pills. She has dropped so low that now I can only wear stretch pants, and only about half of my underwear still fits, most of them dig right in way down low. It feels like she's grinding her head against my pubic bone, and when I walk I feel like I have to hold up my belly so I can walk around her head. I keep getting the image of myself of that bird-like thing in Super Mario 2 that spits the killer eggs out. It waddles side to side holding a very low belly and tries to get Mario. That's what I feel like now. I promise to not start spitting out anything to my enemies though. I'm just trusting God to bring her into this world at the right time for her (afterall, I've already gone past the amount of time the fetal fibronectin test said I should have) but selfishly, now that the danger zone time has past I'd really like it to be sooner rather than later. Nonetheless, when I pray about it, I still pray "not my will but yours" :-) I know that if she needs to stay in there longer, she's going to stay in there longer. But still, I think, goodness, I've already been going through almost continuous early-stage labor for what will be three weeks on Wednesday, so I think I've bided my time and paid my dues; I'm ready to get this show on the road now! At any rate, when I'm off the pills on Wednesday I'm also officially off bed/chair rest, so I plan on doing as much as I can to get my house cleaned up. It's gotten really gross over the last three weeks and I've just been sitting around watching the dust bunnies grow larger. Everything's ready for her to get here though. The car seats are in our cars, and the hospital and lamaze bags are packed and in my backseat. Last night Mom came over and put up our curtain rod and valance in the nursery, so now the room is completely ready and waiting for her arrival! January 30, 2002 We had a true false alarm last night. All day long yesterday I was having stronger and stronger contractions, still not with any regularity, but sometimes they were strong enough that it took my breath away. I kept trying to time them, but it seemed so random. Sometimes they would come in quick succession, and other times it would be a half hour between them. Last night I stayed at work a little later trying to get something finished up, and by the time I got home I was having quite a lot of pain, this time it was even going into my lower back (around my hips) and I could feel squeezing at the top of my uterus and not just menstrual-like cramping near the bottom. I hadn't been feeling the baby move very much all day either. Phil asked if I wanted to go ahead and call the doctor, but I wanted to try to get something to eat first and just wait it out a little longer. Right before we left for dinner though it started getting so bad it hurt to stand up. Something was definitely going on. We went to dinner at Cooker and I ordered a soup and salad, and I only ate about half of each, I just didn't feel right and I was starting to feel nauseated too. Plus I was going to the bathroom just about every 15 or 20 minutes, and had some unpleasant experiences with that...Overall I was just beginning to feel pretty awful. After dinner we went over to Target to pick a few things up and by the time I left there I felt like I could hardly stand up. It felt like they were coming faster now, too. So we drove home and I called my doctor, and she told me to go on to St. Ann's to get checked out. Of course, right after she said that I started second-guessing myself, but she told me to go in so we did. The whole way to the hospital I was still having contractions; not quite as strong but still the same amount (I still couldn't say with certainty that it was 1 contractions every X minutes though, they just seemed to be coming MORE regularly). When we got there we were happy to see the parking lot was almost empty - a big change from the last time, when we had to circle around several times to find a spot! So we got a spot almost right up in front, and we walked in and went up to the second floor. (Okay, now for a second I'm going to insert a side story, back to the false alarm after that) The receptionist lady on the maternity floor was none other than -the EXwife of- Columbus Dispatch movie critic Frank Gabrenya: someone whose movie reviews I hardly ever agree with because he doesn't like movies that aren't full of gratuitous violence or car chase scenes. Anyway. We found this out because as she was checking us in, Phil saw her name tag and asked, innocently enough, "Oh, Gabrenya, like the movie critic?" Now, just this past Monday at our last Lamaze class we had all been talking about how in our "ideal birth situation" we wouldn't get a nurse that was going through a bitter divorce. The lady looked up at Phil and said, quite bitterly, "yes, that's my EX husband." And then went on and on for at least the next five minutes about why the man was the complete scum of the earth: she "shoulda known it when we were dating, he could never just go out to enjoy a movie, blah blah blah, one time I came home and he'd been watching our four month old and hadn't changed her diaper once, when I picked her up her diaper was so heavy it just fell off, blah blah blah..." Fortunately she WASN'T a nurse, she was the receptionist. :-) So she finally managed to get through her diatribe and still get us all checked in (this time I was already in the system so I didn't have to go through the question and answer session again), and then she led us to the triage area, to the same bed I was in the last time. It was really quiet in there last night, so we were thinking, well, if this IS it, at least I'll probably be able to get the room I want! I don't know if it was the receptionists' ramblings on or what, but by the time they got me hooked up to the monitor, suddenly everything seemed to start calming down. I was still having some contraction pain but not nearly the amount, and when I did have them it was more like the ones I was having earlier in the day: enough to catch my breath a little but no intense pain. After being monitored for awhile, we found I was having them around one every 15 minutes, which was definitely a lot more spaced out than they had been just before I called the doctor. The nurse checked my cervix and said I was still at about 2 cm dilated, 75% thinned. I don't know how thin I was before, but it was really frustrating to find out that after three weeks of having contractions I still hadn't dilated any more! She called Dr. Teague and let her know the results, and then said I could go home, of course with the instructions about calling when the contractions were 5 minutes apart or less, lasting for an hour, etc etc.. basically what I had been feeling earlier in the night. Phil and I felt really frustrated about the whole thing, especially the nurse's statement that "you could be back here in a couple hours or it could be a couple weeks, there's no way of knowing." So, we went home and went to bed. All night long I continued to have the lighter, intermittent contractions again (except for once when it was so bad I woke up suddenly and started coughing and choking because it took me by surprise) and I'm still having those same light, intermittent ones so far today. Overall we felt pretty frustrated and silly as we were leaving the hospital because they didn't see me having ANY of the strong contractions I had been feeling, but we just have to tell ourselves that we aren't in a typical situation, we've been going through this now for three weeks and we were just doing what the doctor told us to do, to call her when they changed and got stronger, even if I couldn't count them with regularity. I just hope from now, either they stay at this light contraction stage, which I've gotten used to, until she's really ready to come, or it just happens. Last night got really painful but I don't want to be running over to the hospital every other day just to be sent home again. I'm now off of the Brethine pills so we'll see what difference that makes. I never thought I'd ever wish for my water to actually break noticeably, but now I'm almost wishing for that. At least then I'd know for sure! January 31, 2002 Well, it looks like I'm not going to have a January baby after all. Just as well, I know Nan will be happy since February's birthstone is amethyst, which is her favorite. I actually slept like a log last night. Well, I was still up to go to the bathroom but only a couple times, and other than that I slept really hard. Didn't even have any sudden contractions that woke me up. Beginning this morning I started feeling more intense contractions than what I was feeling yesterday though, and they're now closer to 10 minutes apart instead of 15. It's been going on this way pretty much all day; more this morning and more just recently though, I think my body took a little break from them around lunchtime. These are closer to what I was feeling on Tuesday night, although I still haven't had any consistent or really strong contractions like I was having then. Most of these today have just been the "enough to catch my breath a little" type. Enough that sitting here and trying to concentrate on my work is nearly impossible. Not that it matters too much anymore though, pretty much all my projects are either complete or those that are ongoing have now been passed off to my co-workers. That's a little frustrating too since it still COULD be days or weeks before this thing happens; I'd hate to be sitting here with nothing to do in the meantime! Today's wandering thoughts have been: things I would really like as someone in her ninth month of pregnancy (besides the obvious number one thing, a healthy baby): ~ Handicap support bars in every single bathroom stall. I never knew how difficult it could be to sit down, and then get back up from, typical (non-handicap) size potties. Makes my knees ache. I'd like the bars in my home bathroom too. ~ A bra that actually fits my very narrow and slope-y shoulders. And I thought it was annoying to constantly pull my bra straps up before. ~ People to stop asking me EVERY time they see me "you're still here?" Yes, I am, and I was this morning when you asked me that too. And yesterday. Besides, what else am I going to do in this time of twiddling my thumbs? Sit home and stare at the wall? Might as well come here and sit and stare at my computer screen, at least I can feel like I'm attempting to do something productive. ~ People to stop telling me "oh, you can't possibly be that pregnant, you don't look more than "X" months along!" Yep, I've been hearing that since the very beginning. Apparently it's a compliment. Other people say I look huge. I tend to agree more with the latter but only because I'm the one trying to maneuver myself around these days. ~ Speaking of things people say, I also don't find it all that amusing to hear for the twentieth time "we might have to deliver that baby here in the conference room!" Trust me, I know where the hospital is and what the drill is by now to get there in time. I've already had one practice round and one false start. Got it. ~ Haircut places that actually close when they say they are going to close and not a half hour to 45 minutes early. Okay, this is really just a general gripe and not just now in my ninth month of pregnancy. Suffice it to say I just wanted to get my hair cut last night and no one wanted my business. Even the place that wouldn't close until two hours later but I still couldn't get in because "there was an hour and a half wait list"; looking around the place, not a customer was to be seen and two employees were sitting around reading magazines. Grumble...and speaking of general grumbles, I don't like rude drivers either. :-) ~ Some kind of picker-upper device with which I can pick up all the many things I drop throughout the day which are then lost unless I call someone over to bend over and get it for me. Needs to be strong enough to pick up moderately heavy things too; I drop a lot more than just pieces of paper and straws these days. ~ Motorized granny shopping carts in EVERY store! ~ Parking spots right up front next to the handicap spots at every store, designated for the very pregnant or mobility-challenged in general, like they have at Babies R Us. What a grand idea. ~ Chicken. I'd really like some chicken. Particularly heavily breaded and fried. Soon I will have it. Oh yes, soon. ~ Mmm, and a fully caffeinated, tall glass of cherry coke. Technically I'm sure I could have this now, but I've done so well avoiding caffeine this entire time, I can hold out a little longer. Of course, then I start breastfeeding... ~ A complete wardrobe of fully expandable, no-tying required, shoes. My one pair of canvas shoes with the curly spaghetti laces have just about had it. They will be quickly sent to the trash once I get back my feet and the ability to bend over again. ~ At least one or two more pairs of stretch pants with which I could rotate my clothing choice. With the exception of a couple pairs that just don't fit me anymore, but I keep wearing them just for variety's sake, I have a blue pair and a black pair that fit comfortably. Okay, that's about all I can think of now. There's lots of other stuff, I'm sure. I'm very blessed in so many ways. With the exception of the last three weeks, the whole pregnancy was completely routine and normal. I've had the normal aches and pains and such but I couldn't complain too much, there are many people who have it much worse. I have a husband who has been really wonderful this whole pregnancy, even putting socks and shoes on my feet every morning. And he's never been much of an admirer of the foot. My mom and grandma (Grandma and Great-Grandma) made sure we had everything we needed to bring this baby home once we figured out what we didn't get at the baby showers. Not that we still needed THAT much more; we've had so many people do so much for this baby I still can't get over it. I have such supportive and helpful family and friends. As much as I can't wait for the baby to get here, there is a part of me that will miss this time too. Granted, a small part. At this point I just really want to meet our baby face to face. Last night I was playing with her Peaceful Planet aquarium, sitting in the rocking chair in her room. I had the lights off, toy sitting on my belly, and I was just playing with the different settings. When I got to the Brahm's Lullaby, which is the song to which Phil has made up some words and sings to my belly all the time, she started suddenly kicking up a storm. That's probably the biggest thing I'll miss, even if her kicks have gotten a little painful in recent weeks. I can't wait to see how she reacts to her daddy singing her song after she's here. Whenever that will be; I think she's just enjoying the repetitive "hugs" she's been getting the last three weeks inside my belly so she's not rushing her way out anymore. :-) You know, the idea was to switch to SHORT, more frequent updates. So much for that.