Hello World!

I finally got the ultrasound pictures from last week scanned. Gotta love technology!!

Here's my pretty face!

As I said earlier, you could see a good amount of hair on a side shot of the face, but it's not too visible here. The ultrasound tech was amazed at Baby's lips in this shot though.

And here's my big foot!

Being that Baby was in the 83rd percentile for most of his or her measurements, I'm guessing this foot is bigger than average size too. Considering that I sometimes buy shoes in the little girl's department (sometimes they are pretty much the same shoe at half the price!), I'm guessing that Baby may take after Daddy in this regard.

It's pretty crazy to think that this was our last look at Baby before we will see him or her in person! If it's not apparent that Baby has turned around into the correct positioning, we may end up having another look, but hopefully it won't come to that!

34 week check-up and ultrasound

Now that we are in the home stretch, we're going to the doctor every two weeks. We also had the added bonus of having another ultrasound this week, since they wanted to check in on something they flagged in our last one.

The ultrasound showed that Baby's colon still may have a little more fluid in it than normal (we're waiting yet on the final ruling of the measurement), but it was small enough that the doctor ruled out anything wrong with any of Baby's major organs. It just might mean some nerves didn't quite form enough, which should happen as Baby gets older, but we might need to monitor it with our pediatrician.

Other than that, all was looking good with our kiddo....except that he or she is upside down, aka breech! The doctor told us that at this stage seven to 13 percent of babies are breech and of those babies, 50 to 75 percent of them flip into the right position by the time they deliver. So we're hopefully this kid will do what it's suppose to and get it's head down! The doctor gave me a few "tips" to try and get it to move, like staying hydrated and making sure my ab muscles aren't too tight, especially when I can feel Baby moving.

The other new piece of information we found out is that Baby is weighing in a little over 5 pounds, which means that if it continues to gain a half-pound a week (the average gain for babies), we're looking at an 8-9 pound kid! Which of course means it's healthy and growing, but hopefully it just won't cause any problems for Mom to get him or her out into the world safely. We'll just have to see!

We also got a chance to see Baby's chubby cheeks and profile. The ultrasound tech said she could see a lot of hair! They also checked on the blood flow in the umbilical cord, which is basically like checking Baby's blood pressure and that was normal.

Other stats from the appointment:
Mom's weight gain: 26 pounds
Mom's blood pressure and pulse: Normal
Belly measurement: 33 cm, which was right on track even though Baby is big!
Baby's heart rate: 132
Baby's weight: 5 pounds and some change, according to the doctor, which was in the 83 percentile. Baby is just an overachiever already!

We did get a few pictures of our dear child, but my scanner is acting up at the moment, so I'll have to get those up in the next few days.

If you'd like, send your thoughts and prayers to Baby Steinhoff, telling him or her to flip around!!

The showers keep on coming

I knew all of these baby showers were being planned, but when I look back at them all (and write out all the thank you notes), I am completely overwhelmed by the generosity of our friends and family.

I have had two other showers since my weekend extravaganza. My friends Ashlee and Stacy put together a wonderful gathering of some of my very best friends at my house last weekend and my co-workers in my department threw me one this week.

Again, everyone is so thoughtful to even think of throwing us a shower, let alone plan such creative ones and give such wonderful gifts!

Ashlee and Stacy stayed with the ocean theme for the shower and had special cookies made, as well as Goldfish crackers and Swedish fish!

These were adorable, and delicious, cookies compliments of my hometown bakery. (Probably the best bakery ever if you ask me or anyone else who grew up there!) 

My friend Dana made this awesome diaper cake. Sorry for catching you off-guard in the background Steph, but you look lovely!

My friend Kari even gave ME a present - a bottle of wine and some chocolate. We'll share the wine in a few months :) 

And then the awesome people that I am lucky to work with on a daily basis decided to throw a shower just for us. They have been so supportive this entire pregnancy and I will miss them while I'm out on leave...at least a little bit :)

Wanda, the shower planner, had this awesome inflatable stork in her arsenal of shower decorations already. I'd never seen such a thing before, it was hilarious!

We played a few games, including "Find the pins in a bowl of rice," and even the guys got in on the action! Go Jim Go!!

Thanks to all of these showers, we are pretty much set for things we'll need for Baby. It is an amazing help to us as new parents to receive all of these wonderful and necessary items. To anyone reading this who attended a shower, helped throw a shower or sent along a gift, THANK YOU from the bottom of all three of our hearts! We appreciate it more than you'll ever know and we love you!!



Showers galore

I've always known that both Chris and I have wonderful, generous and loving families, but the kindness and support that was shown to us and Baby last weekend was still overwhelming.

The celebrations started with a party for members of my Mom and Dad's families. It was held at my house (nice because I didn't have to transport all the gifts!) and thrown by my wonderful sister-in-law, with an assist from my Mom.

There was a lot of great finger foods and a lot of delicious desserts. My 4 1/2-year-old niece was so cute, wanting to help decorate as much as possible, but some of the wall decorations needed to be hung by someone a little taller. :)

Fruit kabobs - a great idea for parties so people don't have to use silverware. My sister-in-law is so darn creative! 



Not only was it a lovely party and great to see family members, but we also received many wonderful gifts. We got a lot of the "essentials," including bottles, onesies, bath stuff and blankets.

I got some special help with opening the gifts from Baby Steiny's cousin. She was bummed though because most of the gifts came in bags, not wrapping paper. What fun is that!

My Grandma made Baby a wonderful blanket, complete with ocean creatures. She was the creator of my "blankie" that I never slept without for quite some time, as well as the bedspread I had for most of my youth. It will be great to have a blanket for my child from her to love, just as much as I loved mine. **Side note, my niece isn't great with wearing headbands! :)

But the weekend didn't stop there! We drove up to Chris' parent's house on Sunday, where aunts and cousins from both his Mom and Dad's families came to celebrate with us too.

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law through a wonderful picnic party and we were once again given many thoughtful, helpful and lovely gifts. Baby got two other blankets from two special people - Chris' Grandma, who like mine has made him blankets all his life and they are very special to him, and his aunt. We also got our stroller/car seat, bibs, a much-needed closet organizer and some fun toys.

It was a beautiful day, so we were able to sit outside and eat our brats and hot dogs. It was a wonderful way to cap off a special day and special weekend!

Thank you to all our family members who came and celebrated with us, and also those that couldn't make it and sent a gift! We are so blessed to have you in our lives and Baby Steiny is extremely blessed (and spoiled) to already have you in his or her life as well.

32 week check-up

Sorry again for the lack of posts! I still don't have a good excuse, except for after working all day, trying to get in a little exercise at night and then being plenty tired, blogging is pushed to the back-burner. But I should have more things to report as we have more doctor's appointments now and I was lucky enough to have two baby showers this weekend (pictures to come later this week)!

But we did have our latest doctor visit last Thursday. Everything is still looking good! It was just a quick check-in to get my stats and do a once-over of baby, but the Dr. didn't check if anything was progressing or not.

Here's what we found out:
Mom's weight gain: 24 pounds. Ideally I'm supposed to gain between 25 and 35 pounds, so with 8 weeks left, it's looking like I'll be at the top of that scale (Mom likes her chocolate!)
Baby's heart rate: 132
Mom's blood pressure and pulse: Normal
Belly measurement: 33 cm. Still a little above where it should be, but the Dr. didn't seem too concerned.

That was about all we found out, but we'll be back to see him every two weeks now.

I'm still feeling really good and Baby's been VERY active the last few days. According to the books, I've been feeling more and more movement because Baby's getting bigger and there's less amniotic fluid between it and the outside of my stomach, so less to interfere with feeling those kickaroos!!

Which is bigger?

We bought this watermelon pretty much just to take this picture. Lesson learned, it wasn't very good :( While the weather might feel like it is summer already, I think the fruit isn't quite there yet!

No diabetes for me!

I was waiting until the results of my glucose test came back to write this post, which I just received, so here goes...

I had my 28-week doctor's appointment on Wednesday. This is the week when you do your glucose test to see if you have gestational diabetes. I had to go in and get my blood drawn to make sure my levels (of whatever it is they look for) were at an appropriate level, then drink 12 ounces or so of a sugary beverage (tasted like a flat Sprite - regular, not diet!), wait for an hour and get my blood drawn again to see how my body is processing the sugar.

As I said earlier, I just got the results and they were negative...just barely lower than the cutoff, but hey, lower is lower! Thank goodness! If I were to have gestational diabetes, it would mean major changes to my diet - no sugar and less grains and fruit and processed items. A good friend of mine recently had this and it's not fun, but is manageable.

My nurse (smart lady!) suggested that since I'll be at the clinic for an hour anyway, I should schedule my routine check-up with the doctor in the downtime. It worked out perfectly! And everything checked out well with Baby and me.

Here are the stats:
Mom's weight gain: Up to about 21 pounds, which is still right on track. I gained about 3 pounds in 3 1/2-4 weeks, which is what the doctor wanted to see at this point.
Mom's blood pressure and pulse: Still looking good on both counts
Baby's heart rate: 136 BPM  This was a bit of a drop from the previous appointments, which means Baby's starting to get ready to come out!
Belly measurement: 30 cm (Thank you to my friend Ashlee for correcting me that this is not measuring in inches, but in centimeters. Thirty inches would be enormous!!) The doctor said this is a little high (Again, thanks Ashlee for telling me that the centimeters should align with how many weeks you are), but that was probably due to my full bladder since I had just drank my 12 ounces of sugar water. He didn't seem too concerned that it was TOO big. (My dear husband was a large baby, so I'm always nervous he's going to tell me that I'm going to have to deal with getting a 10-pound+ child out of little-old-me!)
Check-up on if things are progressing for Baby's arrival: Negative! Thank goodness to this as well, because as much as I want to meet him or her, Baby needs to stay in there for a lot longer to get bigger and healthier.