Procrastinator

Today it made total sense to me why she isn't here yet! I am the world's worst procrastinator, the kind that would wait until 11 p.m. the night before a paper was due to start writing it, the kind that presses snooze on the alarm every morning for 45 minutes, you get the idea. I work best under pressure, and the term failure avoidance made total sense to me when I learned about it in educational psychology when I was getting my teaching credential. I've gotten better at procrastinating in the last couple years, but still do it. My daughter is already taking after me, and is obviously a procrastinator too! 

Today, I made Mike go to work for a bit, we were getting cabin fever and becoming irritated being together non-stop all week :) His boss (and Dad) sent him home before lunch, to "watch" me. The couple hours apart was just what we needed, and now can stand to be in the same room together again! We went out to lunch by the beach again, and then to the pet store to stock up on litter, cat food and new scratch pads.  

The pool in our complex should be heated starting this weekend, I hope to get in one more pregnancy swim, we've gone twice in the last couple weeks, but it was way too cold to really enjoy. I need to get more use out of my maternity bathing suit!

Last Pre-Natal Doctor Appoinment

Today was our 40 week doctor appointment and official last pre-natal doctor appointment! I was checked to see if I was dilating any more since Sunday, a big NO, still at 1 1/2 cm...8 1/2 more centimeters to go. We had an ultrasound to check the size of Miss Madeline, her head is measuring 40 weeks 6 days, and her limbs are catching up at around 40 weeks. The estimated size of baby right now is 8 lbs. 11 oz., although this is only an estimate, our doctor said this is likely to be an 8 or 9 pound baby! Everything looked good, but since she is already measuring so big and we want to try to do this without ending up in a C-Section if possible, I will be induced on the 27th if she is not here yet. Hoping Maddy decides to make an appearance before then! 

After our appointment, Mike's mom Jane took us out for lunch, and then we stopped in to see my Dad. By then we were exhausted, headed home and I took a 3 hour nap! Mike picked up a new stack of work to do from home today, so he'll be really busy until baby comes. I am working on my resume and letter of intent for a part time coordinator job available at my school next year (more on that if I get it). 

All the excitement and anxiousness we have been experiencing this week has hit us today, and we are both dragging ourselves around. 

Cross your fingers for some contractions or water breaking tomorrow!

Walking, Walking and more Walking

We got a little tired of walking around our complex so we headed over to a park with a huge lake to walk around...but missed our turn and passed by the South Coast Botanic Garden and decided to check it out. There are 87 acres of gardens but we only walked through part of it :)

Afterward we headed over to the park we were initially headed to and walked a little more. The lake is very marshy, and we found a turtle on the grass headed away from the water. Mike suggested we take it home (crazy boy!), I carried it over towards the water and placed it closer to home. Unfortunately we didn't have the camera on us when we found the turtle. 

Still no signs of labor, but I am feeling great. My feet had been swollen for the last month straight and finally today the swelling has gone down completely, must be the warm baths everyday. 

Mike sitting on a bench in the children's Garden.

Due Date

May 20, 2009

Today is our official due date! I think I read somewhere that only 5% of babies are born on their due date, and most are born after. No signs that she is coming today...yet, but there is still time :)

Late last night, while Mike and I were doing our second walk (really more of a waddle) of the day in our complex, we passed a couple getting out of their car bringing their baby daughter home from the hospital! I thought it was very ironic, the new mom asked when it was our turn and I got to say "Hopefully tomorrow!" 

We are staying close to home today, I get very nervous looks from people when they see how pregnant I am! 

Blog Name

It just dawned on me that I should explain our blog name. The term "Hapa" is the Hawaiian name for people who are half white and half asian. So our daughter will be a Hapa Baby. Get it, hapa + happiness = hapaness! I thought it was clever :)

Beach Walk and Lunch...Still Pregnant

We got out for a bit today and took a walk along Redondo Beach and then had lunch overlooking the ocean, it's nice having Mike home with me! Getting lots of calls, emails, and texts from eager family and friends, unfortunately there is still no progress and nothing new to report. Tomorrow is the official due date, maybe Baby Maddy will decide to make an appearance then!

Still Pregnant

Slept in until almost 10 am! No signs of contractions yet, will do some more walking and soaking in a warm bath today to hope to get the contractions going again. 

Will post any changes :)

Spoke Too Soon

Contractions stopped by late morning, so back to waiting around. Tried walking and soaking in a warm bath to get things going again, but no luck. 

Officially in Labor!

I am officially in labor! We headed to the hospital around midnight last night due to bleeding, we thought we'd be coming home with baby, but got sent home a couple hours later. They monitored me and baby for about an hour and a half, and I was having contractions every 2 minutes, but were very mild, and I wasn't dilating past 1 1/2 cm, so they sent me home, officially  in early labor and said to come back when the contractions became stronger (painful!). 

Mike and I were so tired by the time we got home, and passed out until this morning. Contractions are still very mild, and barely noticeable, so it may be a long wait. All 3 cats slept at my feet last night (and are staying very close to me so far this morning), they seem to know that something is going on, and last night's earthquake didn't help their nerves either.

We were in the car driving back from Mike's parents house celebrating his brother and mom's birthdays, and came home to everything knocked off the walls, broken dishes in the kitchen and broken bottle of rice wine vinegar...stinky! We had to go ask our neighbors what happened, it looked like someone came in and ransacked the place! We need to rehang pictures today and get all the cans. etc. put back in the pantry closet.

Still Pregnant

Although I am not due for 3 more days, I am surprised to still be pregnant. Baby has been low for weeks now, and I have felt my pelvic muscles and bones spreading...causing a lot of soreness! I have been doing a few of the old wives' tales to try to help labor get started: walking everyday, drinking my "3rd Trimester Tea" with red raspberry leaf, and eating spicy food. I am ready to get this thing they call labor over with and to meet my daughter!

I have definitely been nesting, this weekend we have been to Lowes 2 times, Target and Babies R Us. Mike has had to: install new blinds in our bedroom, put up a fabric chandelier light (featuring cupcakes of course) in the nursery, finish the shampooing of the carpets his brother Kevin did for us, by doing a plain water run of the shampoo'er. I have vacuumed, laundered cloth diapers again (the more you pre-wash the more absorbent they are), prepared the envelopes for our birth announcements (address labels, return address labels and 44 cent stamps), put together a storage ottoman from Ikea we will use to keep Mike's work stuff that he brings home to work from home (which luckily he can do as needed after the baby arrives), and put up baby gates on our bedroom and the nursery windows (large 5ftx5ft windows that certain cats think are fun to climb the screens, leading to certain cats almost falling from our 2nd story condo while their claws are stuck in screens, and making a nervous kitty mommy who wouldn't let husband open windows past 2 inches! Now we can have the windows wide open and cats can't get their claws in the screens, phew). Mike has been a good sport putting up with me and my need to get things done "right now". 

My friend Christy has designed the skeleton of our birth announcements for us, all we need now is the birth information, photo...and baby!

If there is no sign of baby by Monday, I plan to go get a maternity massage, manicure and pedicure using gift certificates I received from friends for my birthday.