Matt & Andrea Thieman

Well, we had our last pre-natal doctor appointment this afternoon, so of course that means that we have news.  All of my measurements still look good (baby is still growing), but my cervix still isn’t “favorable” and doesn’t seem to be getting “favorable” very quickly.  As we’re past our due date now, our doctor was pretty adament that we pick a date to induce, since she says going past 41 weeks is neither beneficial to a baby nor a mother.  So, we’ve picked a date now, and although we don’t wish to share exactly when we’ll be going into the hospital, we’re happy to tell you that our little Peanut will arrive into the world during the early part of next week.  That is, unless he or she decides to surprise all of us and arrive “the old fashioned way” sometime this weekend.

In any case, I know that the pregnancy will be over soon, I’ll get 6 weeks off of work, and Matt and I will be able to start our lives as a family of our own.  Not to mention, I’ll finally be able to tell everyone the gender of our baby – yay! 

I thought that having a date picked would get me motivated to finish the last minute things I want to get done around the house, but it turned out to be the exact opposite.  Once we returned home this evening, all I wanted to do was lie on the couch…so that’s what I’ve done.  Maybe it’s because having a date picked helped me realize that my evenings alone with Matt are truly numbered?  Maybe it’s because I know my body needs to be rested up and prepared for labor?  Or maybe I’m just scared crapless with the reality that labor and delivery are truly inevitable?  Regardless of what’s keeping me on the couch tonight, I have to admit it’s been a nice evening of just hanging out with Matt (and the dogs, of course).  I think I’m going to miss evenings like these.

Only a short amount of time remains now…

It’s official – we’ve made it to our due date!  And oddly enough, it doesn’t really feel like the days are taking forever to pass like everyone said they would.  Maybe it’s because we’re not that anxious to have the baby.  Quite honestly, I’m freaked out about going into labor, so I’m happy for each day that I don’t go into labor.  Last night I had a dream about being induced, and it was a horrible dream, so that doesn’t help my desire to go in and have something done about our lack of a child right now.  I’ve also heard true birthing horror stories over the last couple weeks – one guy who works at the bank lost both his wife and their baby when she had a brain aneurism during labor a couple of weeks ago, and last week my boss’s daughter’s baby spent four days in NICU because the doctor accidentally knicked the umbilical cord while using forceps to pull the baby out which caused her to bleed out while still in the womb.  Matt has told me to stop talking to people in the office, but I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen when we go in to deliver now.  And because of the horror stories, I’m in no hurry to go in.  Last week I was ready to be done with work, but this week work doesn’t seem so bad.

I think my co-workers are ready for me to be gone though.  The remnants of the horrible cold I got a week and a half ago are still lingering and the poor office folk have to listen to me cough and blow my nose all of the time because the approved medications don’t help relieve the symptoms.  Today they probably weren’t too upset to see me arrive though.  Matt and I stopped by Lamar’s donuts on our way to the offices to pick up some “due date donuts” so everyone could celebrate with us.  I can’t speak for his co-workers, but my co-workers were pretty excited to see donuts.  Of course, it doesn’t usually take much to excite my co-workers.

You know what’s funny?  Each day at the office this week, I’ve had at least one person walk up to me and ask one of the following questions – “You’re still here?”, “You’re still fat?”, or “What are you still doing here?”  Is it just me, or aren’t these dumb questions?  Of course I’m still here.  If I weren’t still here, you wouldn’t be seeing or talking to me right now.  Of course I’m still fat.  If I wasn’t still fat, I wouldn’t be here right now.  And I’m still here because I’m still fat.  Being the logical thinkers that computer programmers are, I usually don’t have to state the obvious to the guys asking these questions because shortly after asking the questions they realize they’ve asked a dumb question and somewhat redeem themselves by admitting to the stupidity of the question.  The most classic dumb question though is the “Do you know what you’re having?” question.  My dentist’s assistant was the first one to ask me this question, and my logical mind and quick mouth got the best of me by blurting out, “We’re pretty sure it’s a human”.  I felt bad right after I said it because I truly didn’t mean to be such a smart alec with my response, and I could tell that she felt insulted.  So these days I make sure to give myself a second or two of thought process time before I respond to someone’s question, but seriously people – stop asking dumb questions.

Tomorrow we have our weekly pre-natal appointment – check back on Friday for an update on the baby.