The Saldana Zoo

Well, let's let all of you hear it straight from the horse's mouth before anyone calls me freaking out =).

As my ticker on the left there says, I am 34 weeks pregnant now and I had my 34 week check up on Friday. The check up itself was fairly uneventful but I did mention to the doctor that I felt like Elise was pretty low. When she measured my belly she said that I was measuring exactly the same as I had been 2 weeks ago so Elise had indeed dropped. Otherwise I should have measured 2 cm larger than I had at my last appointment. She wasn't concerned at all and said it could be normal and she would be monitoring me every week now anyway since I had a history of delivering pre-term (even though Matthew appeared to be full term developmentally and he was perfectly healthy).

Well, over the weekend I experienced some changes that I only experienced with Matthew right before I was admitted to the hospital so I called the on-call nurse and gave her my history and told her what was going on and she said to take it easy, avoid stairs, avoid lifting Matthew if possible, and stay hydrated. She then said to follow up with the doctor in the morning to see what she wanted me to do.

That brings us to this morning. I saw my doctor and she went ahead and checked me out to find out what was going on. Apparently, I am already dilated but my cervix is still high, back, and long (sorry to any males reading this who are offended by the proper terms for female anatomy =)). Elise's head is also pretty low. In other words, while I am dilating early, I am not the ticking time bomb I was with Matthew. The doctor doubts I will make it to my due date but in an effort to keep Elise safe inside Mommy's tummy for at least another week and a half, I've been instructed to take it easy. She also said that if I were to go into preterm labor at this point, she wouldn't do anything to stop it as Elise would be fine.

I am able to take care of Matthew and lift him when I need to, but I can't carry him around too much. That's not a big problem here at home since he's pretty independent. I've been restricted from most housework (which is driving me a little crazy) and told to listen to my body and just stop if I start to have contractions. I can't even make a trip to Target that would require me to walk through the store... which really bums me out because I have gift cards to use for Elise. I can leave the house, but I have to be mindful of how my body feels. My mom is on standby in case anything changes and I think she's planning on being here in the next week and a half anyway just to play it safe.

Good times. I will update soon with what few pictures I have from the last week. In the mean time, just wanted to let everyone know what's going on =).