40 weeks and counting

Well my "due" date came and went and no Alivia. I've been feeling pretty good considering and just trying to enjoy these last few days of quiet and freedom. I'm starting on my third week of being off work, which has been really nice. I had quite a long to do list that I wanted to tackle before her arrival and I've almost managed to cross everything off. One of the biggest items that I'm most excited about is that I've managed to fill two small freezers and 1/2 of one larger freezer with pre made meals and snacks. I love to cook and figured I might not have as much time after Alivia comes so I've stocked them full of lasagnas, meatloafs, fried rice, zucchini bread, Syrian bread and all sorts of other good stuff! Tomorrow I'm planning to do some more cooking since I figured I will still be pregnant and needing something to keep me busy =). My grandma also suggested that I start a project since babies seem to like to arrive during the worst possible times or in the middle of a project so we'll see if my cooking projects tomorrow get things going.  Also since I have the time I figured I would jot down some of the things I've really enjoyed about being pregnant and some of the challenges or things I think I won't necessarily miss so I can reference them in the future =). 

What I've liked: 

• I love feeling Alivia's hiccups, kicks and movements. I find myself looking forward to her movements, if she's moving then that means she's OK 
• Watching my belly grow is pretty darn cool even if it has been alarming at times
• I like having an excuse not to work out =). I've been keeping pretty active but it's kind of fun not feeling guilty about hitting the gym. 
• I also like having an excuse to eat not so healthy things. Yes I know that I should not be eating ice cream a few days a week or 6 cookies in one day because according to my midwife I'm just "fertilizing" the baby. But I like not feeling like I have to count my calories after I eat those 6 cookies =). 
• I find people are so much nicer to you when you have such a big belly. Random strangers will just strike up a conversation with me or treat me nicer in general because of my "condition". 
• The fact that overall I had a pretty easy pregnancy and at times would even forget I was pregnant. 

What's been challenging: 

• The nauseousness of the first trimester will definitely not be missed
• The swelling in my hands and feet has been super annoying. Fortunately I've only had the swelling in my hands the last few weeks, but man is it painful. In the morning I have a hard time making a fist without a lot of pain, it seems to be getting worse the more pregnant I get. 
• Having a very limited wardrobe =). 
• Being treated like i'm disabled or can't do simple tasks for myself. Yes understandably there are certain things that are more difficult when I'm very pregnant, but I can still do normal day tasks they just take me a bit longer to complete =). 
• Getting easily out of breath and not being able to exercise as much as I used to.

Hypnobirthing

Last week was our first hypnobirthing class, tomorrow is our second of 5 total classes! So far i'm loving this approach to natural childbirth, it just makes sense to me. Our bodies were meant to birth a baby so why should it hurt, this has always puzzled me so I think that's why this method intrigued me. The idea behind hypnobirthing is that birth should not be a painful ordeal (uncomfortable sure, but not painful), but that in our current society we've turned it into a painful ordeal thru fear. There's currently so much fear wrapped up into the pain of birthing that most woman choose to get the epidural.  At the hospital that I'll be birthing at 90% of the woman get epidurals so i'll definitely be a minority if I can go all natural =).  Hypnobirthing teaches women techniques in which to release fear of birthing and to relax and work with the body in birthing. Some of these techniques involve self-hypnosis, which really is just a deep relaxation in which you're still aware of your surroundings you're just very relaxed. Now given I have never been in labor so this post is not meant to offend others who have birthed babies that experienced pain, this is just something I'm researching and going to try out for our birthing, hopefully it works =).

The class we're attending entails reading "Hypnobirthing, The Mongan Method" by Marie F. Mongan, listening to a relaxation CD daily, reading various articles and practicing various relaxation techniques as well as attending the 5 classes. The class we're attending has 5 other couples and is taught by a delivery nurse who is trained in hypnobirthing as well as hypnosis. During our first class the instructor went thru the history of hypnobirthing and went thru some of the physical things that will occur while birthing as well as most peoples reactions. This was the most interesting part of the class. It just made sense, she explained how most people's fight or flight instinct is triggered while birthing in which woman are fighting against the birthing process instead of working with it. That's where hypnobirthing comes in. Essentially what I've learned so far is that everytime there is a uterine surge the idea is to go into deep relaxation using different breathing techniques. Then once you reach the last stages of labor instead of pushing you actually breath the baby down. Now I know this sounds crazy, trust me I know. But we watched several birthing videos of women during hypnobirthing and the actual delivery and there was actually no pushing like you see in the movies they did a different form of breathing and working with their bodies the babies were able to be delivered. Sounds like over the next several weeks we'll practice these different breathing techniques and other techniques to help us relax with the help of our birthing coach. Surprisingly enough Rion didn't hate the class, he thought what was being said made sense. The only part he didn't like was that the class lasts from 7-10PM on Wednesday night so does make it hard after a long day at work to go and sit for that long.

Overall I'm just super excited about the birthing process now, I'm so eager to see how the birth goes and of course to meet this little baby girl. Now again I hope I'm not offending anyone by this post, I just mearly wanted to share what I've been learning about this method. I also have no judgement of people who have received an epidural, it's just not something I want to do mainly due to the fact that my fear of the epidural is much greater then any fear I have of birthing =).

Here's a website with more information is anyone is interested in learning more
http://www.hypnobirthing.com/default.htm

Handy Husband =)

In January we decided to convert our 1.5 bathrooms into 2 full bathrooms. Luckily I have a very handy husband that likes to do home improvement projects and is pretty good at them =)! Last year Rion remodeled our kitchen, which was a huge undertaking. I don't know how we lived without a kitchen for 2 months, but I'm so glad we did it. Below are some pictures of the progress of our once .5 bath, now a full bathroom and our kitchen remodel that we did last year. Hopefully the second bathroom will be completed before Alivia gets here!

The kitchen before we moved in, at this point in time I didn't realize how much work was really ahead of us =)

For the kitchen remodel we first had to take out the wall separating the kitchen and the living room. I helped with this project, since I figured I could handle demo. I wasn't wearing proper attire at first =). 

After I finished taking out the wall, it was hard work!!!

The boys putting up the support beam!

Beam almost finished, next step....demolish the kitchen =). 

The finished product!

The 1/2 bath when we moved in.....we painted this right away!

Here's the finished product!!

Shelves above the toilet. Can't believe this is the same bathroom!!

Alivia Lee Hiersche

Last week Rion and I went in for our 20 week checkup and ultrasound. The ultrasound was to make sure baby Hiersche had all fingers and toes and to find out the sex. 5 minutes into the appointment the tech asked us if we could tell whether we were going to have a boy or a girl as she moved the wand over to the bottom of our baby. Well it was pretty obvious that nothing was in between our baby's legs so that meant we were having a GIRL!!! I immediately looked over at Rion to make sure he hadn't fainted or started crying in fear of having a girl. For the last few weeks he's been anxiously awaiting this moment, he was hoping for a boy, only because he has no idea what to do with a little girl and keeps jumping forward to some of the challenges in raising a teenage girl. He surprisingly smiled at me and just shook his head, I think it was sinking in (he's super excited now so I think he just needed to think it over =)). I of course am ecstatic to have a girl, I didn't go in expecting a boy or girl just went in excited to know. Now I just can't stop thinking about what she'll look like and the woman that she'll become. Well now that we know we're having a girl we decided to give her a name, Alivia Lee Hiersche. Seems more real with her having a name for some reason. I mean I know she's in there, I started to feel her kick the last couple weeks and right now she's doing little flips or something in there. But now that she has a name we can actually talk to her and include her in conversation =).

21 weeks, only 19 more to go!

The First Appointment

Our first appointment was January 12th at about 81/2 weeks along. We weren't quite sure what to expect for this first appointment. I was pretty sure we wouldn't be having an ultrasound and I was prepared that we wouldn't be able to hear the heartbeat since I read that it can be hard to hear anything this early. So wasn't quite sure what we would be talking my midwife (Lindsey) about or what kind of exam there would be. I've been seeing Lindsey for the last few years and have developed a friendly, comfortable relationship with her. So I was excited to see her now that I was pregnant and have her and Rion meet!

I could tell Rion was a little nervous as we walked back to the room to meet Lindsey, most likely due to the fact he was the only male in sight =). Once in the room a nurse took my blood pressure and then started to go over the results of my blood test taken a few weeks previously. She began to tell us about how I was Rh negative, lacking a particular protein on my blood cells. I guess if the baby is Rh positive the mixing of our blood could create antibodies in my system that could treat the baby as an intruder in my body. I've never heard of this before so I was completely thrown off, but I guess it should be fine just means that I will need to be given a shot at around 20 weeks and be given another shot after the baby's born if the baby's blood is Rh positive. I guess these shots should prevent antibodies from developing or at least I hope so.

Eventually Lindsey joined us in the room and luckily since I had just seen her a few months prior we didn't have to do any physical exam! Yay! So she answered some of our questions and then pulled out the doppler to try and hear the heartbeat. She searched for a couple minutes with no luck and then all of a sudden there it was. The most beautiful sound I've ever heard! Tears of relief and amazement came to my eyes and streamed down my face. I was shocked that the emotions I was having were so strong, but I guess that's hormones ya =). At this point in the pregnancy I was so terrified that I was going to miscarry since my Mom and Grandma had both miscarried their first babies that it was a weight lifted from my shoulders that we actually did have a baby in there and he or she had a heart beat! Luckily Rion was quick enough to pull out his phone and get the sound captured on video. It was so sweet to see his excitement, he was equally amazed and couldn't wait to share the video with friends and family.

 I love listening to this video, whenever I feel negative about being pregnant I watch this video and remember the feeling I felt when I first heard this sound.

Baby's Heartbeat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8THiv0JquzM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

December 9th, 2011

Hopefully I will never forget this day =). To ensure I don't forget this day or the other experiences I've had in the last few months I'm jumping back into the blogging world! It's not so much that I hope others read this and find it entertaining, that would be a bonus, but I look at it as a resource to remember what I'm feeling and thinking months or even years down the road.

December 9th, 2011 was a Friday. I woke up that morning feeling a bit weird but thought it might be due to the one to many drinks I had the night before. Rion and I had just started trying to have a baby so I knew there was a possibility I could be pregnant and decided why not take a test before heading into work. When I saw the double positive line I smiled and then immediately thought, "oh crap, we're gonna have a baby". Yes this is definitely what we wanted, but once it happens it's a bit of a reality check. Questions like can we even afford a baby and are we ready to be parents started running thru my mind.  I walked into the bedroom where Rion was sleeping and told him the news. I think he said something along the lines of "yaaaa" but in a half asleep voice =). 

The rest of the day was a blur and uninteresting compared to the wonderful news I was hiding from everyone else. That evening we told Marcus (Rion's Brother) and Mary and Jake our best friends. It was so unreal and so exciting to tell others that we were actually pregnant! We were going to have a baby!

The next day we told the grandparents. For Rion's parents we just sent Thea (Rion's Mom) a picture via text message of the pregnancy test. Within a few minutes they called ecstatic with the news that they were going to be grandparents. For my parents I called my Mom and blurted out, "so I'm pregnant"......there was at least a minute of silence on the phone while she processed this information. See we kept telling people it would be at least a year before we tried to have a baby, had to throw them off the trail =). If I remember right she finally laughed and then started to ask me how I was feeling and all that other mom stuff. She then handed the phone over to my Dad for me to tell him "well Dad I'm pregnant"....again silence....nothing "Dad I'm going to have a baby, you're going to be a grandpa". Finally he broke out into laughter and Mom said she saw a tear in his eye.