Hayley and Kate Minter

We arrived at Rex around 4:30pm - our scheduled appointment time. Apparently, though, everyone else in Raleigh was having their baby today, since 6pm rolled around and we were still in the waiting area, waiting for a room to get freed up. But there were none to be found, and Holly was getting hungry (since she hadn’t been able to eat since 9am).

So around 6pm, our doctor shows up, fresh from delivering a couple of babies. She said that there was still no room free, but while we were waiting, she’d take us up to the OB/GYN office for a quick ultrasound to see where the baby was positioned.

You can see where I’m going with this.

The ultrasound showed that, since Friday, she’d flipped back around into the preferred head-down position, like nothing had ever happened. If the ultrasound recorded voices, I’m sure we’d have heard her say “What? What did I do?”

So, with that, there was really nothing left to do. We left the hospital, hit Neo-China for dinner, and came home. I’m glad the doctors didn’t have to do anything, no matter how small the risk was. Now we just have to hope she decides to stay put until she’s birthed.

We hit our first real, albeit minor, bump in the road with the pregnancy yesterday when, at our weekly OB/GYN visit, we found out that our little girl has flipped herself from the proper head-down position at last week’s checkup to a butt-down “breech” position this week. Not ideal. So we go on Monday to let the doctor try a “version” - basically, they grab Holly on her abdomen and try to spin the kid back head-down. They say it works about 75% of the time, so we’re hopeful. If she stays breech, however, we’ll most likely have to have a scheduled c-section, which neither of us are thrilled about.

Top it off with a painfully pathetic 5-3 Canes loss to Atlanta last night (the first time the Canes have EVER lost to Atlanta), and it wasn’t a good end to the week.

We’ve passed the 37-week mark now, so that means that Hayley’s now considered “full-term”, so she wouldn’t be considered a preemie, even if she was born today. So that’s one less thing we have to worry about.

Holly’s ready for the baby to be born, too - she’s having a lot more trouble getting comfortable at night, and reports the sensation of an infant headbutting her bladder on a regular basis. I think shooting for delivery by December 31st might be too optimistic (she’d be my sweet little tax deduction then), hopefully we won’t go too far past the due date. At any rate, she’s coming sometime between now and the end of January. It doesn’t seem like that long ago when I was looking at a home pregnancy test saying “Hey look, you can see where the second line would be!”

Baby got some nice stuff for Christmas - a Boston U. outfit from Aunt Jenny, some picture frames, and assorted other stuff. And all of her clothes are washed now, and waiting for her in her room.

We’re planning on hitting the Canes/Atlanta game tonight - probably the last one before she’s born!

We went last night and met with our choice of pediatricians in Garner. They seem like a nice group, and come well-recommended by our neighbors. Talked a while with a nurse and one of the doctors in the practice, and got most of our questions answered. So the next time we see them will be in the hospital, post-delivery.

Had our weekly OB/GYN visit today. Nothing new, aside from the 45-minute wait. Heartbeat, measurements, see you next week. We did find out that they don’t have any problems with us going up to Virginia for Christmas, which is good. We also found out that they don’t start checking dialation and effacement until the 39th week, which is later than I thought it would be.

Last night marked the end of our five weeks of childbirth classes. It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long, but we’re less than a month away from the due date!

The classes were, all in all, pretty good. We reviewed a lot of stuff that we’d already read, but we also found out some helpful stuff we didn’t know. The instructor was nice, as were the other couples in the class, so I’ll chalk it up as a success.

Last night’s class was focusing on postpartum stuff, and life after you bring the baby home. That’s going to be the biggest adjustment. The pregnancy has been, knock on wood, pretty routine up to this point. Holly hasn’t gotten sick or really experienced many of the physical issues that a lot of women do. If it wasn’t for the big belly sticking out in front of her, things really wouldn’t be any different. But once we bring Hayley home, and we have to start figuring out when she’s hungry, when she wants to play, and so forth, that’s when the real challenge starts.

But we’ll make it through - our parents did, I guess.

This weekend was spent putting the finishing touches on the nursery, and we did a darn good job, if I do say so myself.

One of Holly’s co-workers was very nice and gave us a dresser/changing table combo. It fits perfectly between the windows, and we’ve already started to fill it with the clothes and whatnot that we’ve received. We also got a bookcase, since I’m sure she’ll be literate right off the bat. And for the final touch, we put up a shelf onto the wall. So now we have places to set things, like stuffed animals and whatnot.

Now all we need is the baby!

Got good news and disappointing news today as the baby doctor visits move to a weekly schedule.

The good news is that the baby’s still doing fine, although the lotion Holly uses to keep her expanding belly from itching was interfering with the doppler, so it took them a bit longer to get the heartbeat than it usually does.

The disappointing news is that the doctors don’t seem to be too keen on writing Holly an excuse to start her maternity leave early, like we had planned. Our idea being that having Holly driving an hour each way through RTP rush hour traffic when she could go into labor at any moment wasn’t a great idea. So hopefully we’ll be able to figure out a decent way around the problem by the time the due date rolls around. But I’m not pleased right now.

We had our Infant and Child CPR class Monday night. It was alright, I suppose. Kinda boring. Watch a video, practice on the manequin, repeat ad-nauseum. Our instructor was this nice grandmotherly type, though, which was fun. Two and a half hours was a bit long.

Tuesday followed with our next-to-last childbirth class, which was cut short due to our instructor wanting to get home to experience the joy of electricity in her house for the first time in about a week. We were lucky in that the ice storm last week only had us without power for 36 hours (~3:30am Thursday - ~3:30pm Friday) - as I write this, some people in Durham still don’t have it.

We’re supposed to be getting the last piece of our baby furniture puzzle this weekend - a dresser/changing table from one of Holly’s co-workers. Once we get that, we can start putting the piles of baby clothes away and getting the room finished.

Not much new going on lately - Holly’s belly gets bigger, Hayley keeps kicking, and the weather gets colder.

One bit of news from the last doctor’s visit is that Hayley has settled into the head-down position! She may move around some between now and the due date, but at least for the moment, she’s where she needs to be.

After next weeks’ visit, we go to weekly appointments for the rest of the pregnancy.