34 Weeks Along (Friday, 1/9/09)

After almost no sleep on Friday night, we got up early Saturday to take Betsy for a nice long walk, fed her a big breakfast of pureed leftover chicken, and cuddled with her. I asked her if she was sure it was time to go and her answer was an increase in her loud labored breathing. I took that as a yes and was thankful for her agreement. She slowly but obediently got in the car and rode to the vet’s office like it was any other car adventure. That broke my heart. After signing the consent form through tears, we took her straight into a room and they explained the whole process of putting her down. First she was given a shot of a sedative which took about 10 minutes to take effect. I sat on the floor with her petting her and talking to her. Her breathing was really labored as she sat with me but as the sedative took effect, it got a lot easier for her to breathe. As she got sleepy, she laid down with her head in my lap and drifted off to sleep while I petted her and told her what a good dog she was. Then the vet assistants came in and asked if we were ready to let go. How can you ever be ready? They gave her the shot which is basically an overdose of anesthesia. She woke up a little when the injection of the medication started then fell back asleep and stopped breathing before the all of the medication was even in her. They checked that her heart had stopped and told us that she was gone. Then they left the room and gave us time with her to finish saying our goodbyes. I continued to sit on the floor with her and stroked her silky ears and told her goodbye, how much I loved her, and thanked her for all of the wonderful memories for quite a while. I didn’t want our time together to end even though I knew she was already gone. It was so hard and we, of course, bawled through the entire process. Then we took her home and buried her in the backyard. In the spring we will make her grave prettier and get her a little headstone. When we came back inside, I emailed out Betsy’s obituary.
I had little time to compose myself before I had to start getting ready for my family baby shower at my Cousin Ashlee’s house. It was really hard to pull it together but I was kind of glad for the forced distraction from my grief. The shower was beautiful. Ashlee, Aunt Robin, and Aunt Margaret were the hosts and they really outdid themselves with the decorations, food, and everything. It was beautiful and very thoughtful, right down to the flower arrangements of lilies for Lilia. I got sleep sacks, pooh photo albums, books, two beautiful dresses that were handmade by Jeremy’s grandmother, bibs, cute handmade blocks with bells in them with a carrier and a beautiful blanket hand knit by Carol LaVictoire, a cute antique style handmade quilt by my mom, a stroller, a car seat, a crib mattress protector, a dishwasher caddy, a crib sheet, blankets, a sassy toy gift set, a diaper bag, car seat toys, a rubber ducky bath temperature gauge, a hooded pooh towel, magnets, window clings, ducky slippers, a Bumbo, some CDs, socks, and tons of onesies and other cute clothes. It was a very nice shower. Paul came with me but he hung out with my dad, his dad, and John at my parents' house during the shower. Here are some pictures from the shower:

some of the cute decorations-

Aunt Robin, Aunt Margaret, me, and Ashlee-

Mom and I -

Pooh hooded towel from Grandma-

the handmade quilt from my mom-

On the way home in the car, we had to tell Rachel about Betsy. When we walked in the door, we expected to hear Betsy’s tail thumping in her crate as always and instead opened the door to silence. I walked into the kitchen and instinctively looked into her crate, expecting to see her there and the crying started again. Before we went to bed, Paul turned on the back light and looked for animals in the backyard as he always does before her last walk of the night. Then he remembered she was gone and turned the light back off. It is going to take a long time for us to get used to life without her.
Sunday was the all day event of taking Rachel to the airport. It was crazy busy there. At least her plane was on time. Afterwards, we went grocery shopping. I had to sit down for a while in the store due to some cramping. My uterus was tightening and I finally recognized it as false labor. I was probably dehydrated, obviously stressed, and haven’t slept all week so I am sure that didn’t help.
On Tuesday I had my OB check. I will have appointments every two weeks instead of monthly now. Everything looked good. The baby is growing well and is in a downward position. I lost another pound making the total loss 12 since I got pregnant.
The rest of the week was fairly uneventful. I took down Christmas decorations but just haven’t yet been able to box up all of Betsy’s things. Amber needs her crate to climb up to the cat food and I am not ready to get rid of all signs of her in the house. It snowed this week and covered up her remaining paw prints in the existing snow outside. That made me sad. Paul did a lot of work on the mural. It is looking really good.

News from the womb…
The baby’s eyes are opening during the alert times of its daily cycle and closing when it sleeps. The eyes are usually blue at this time, regardless of the final color they will become, because the pigmentation that colors the eyes is not fully developed. Final formation of eye pigmentation generally requires a few weeks’ exposure to light. The baby has begun to develop its own immune reaction to infections in addition to the immune protection provided by me. The baby’s fingernails have now grown to reach the end of the fingertips. The baby has grown another ½ inch this week making it about 13.5 inches in length from crown to rump with another 3/8 inch increase in head circumference. The baby weights at least 4.5 pounds now.

33 Weeks Along (Friday 1/2/09)

On Saturday we met my parents at a halfway point between our homes in Fenton to pick up Rachel. We had a pretty relaxed day. Sunday the power went out about 4 in the morning due to high winds and didn’t come on until 4 in the afternoon. It was super cold out and got down to 59 degrees in the house. Paul couldn’t get the generator started which totally sucked. Especially since it is only a year old and has been used once. He finally got it going after the power was already back on. Betsy had a really good and energetic weekend. The only bad thing is that she is snoring super loud when sleeping but breathing fine when awake. Sunday night we met my parents at the halfway point again and dropped of Rachel for my mom to watch for a few days. My poor dad had been working all day driving generators around for the phone company so he was tired, cold, and hungry so they had dinner at the diner we met at and we had dessert.
Monday was pretty uneventful. Tuesday, my mom ended up taking Rachel to her best friend Katelyn’s house in Northville for a sleepover. Rachel was really excited about that! Paul has a cold and between his snoring and Betsy’s, I got little sleep all week. Tuesday night I ended up sleeping in Rachel’s room with her white noise machine blaring.
Wednesday we worked only a half day then picked up Rachel at Katelyn’s. Her parents are so nice. They offered to watch Rachel when I go into labor and offered baby supplies as their youngest is a toddler now. I may have to take them up on it once I have my last baby shower and know what I still need. We spent New Year’s Eve having a Christmas movie marathon since we were too busy to watch Christmas movies before the holiday. We watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and Elf. After that we watched the ball drop then went straight to bed.
Thursday was New Year’s Day so we didn’t have to work. The dog seems to be doing poorly. She has labored breathing even when awake which concerns me greatly. I know that the end is quickly approaching and we will probably have to put her down this weekend so she doesn’t suffer. It is so hard. We drove to my parents’ house for dinner and drop Rachel off so my mom could watch her while we work on Friday. We sure have exchanged her back and forth a lot this week! While we were finishing dinner, my Aunt Margaret called to say that she was in town (for my baby shower on Saturday) so we went over to my Grandma’s house after dinner to visit with her and exchange Christmas presents. We got home late and I was exhausted but couldn’t sleep hearing Betsy snore and worrying about her. She doesn’t thump her tail on the crate when we come home anymore which is a sure sign that she is no longer feeling good. It is tearing me up inside. I love her so much.
Friday morning it was decided that Betsy needs to be put down on Saturday morning. Her breathing is a lot worse and she has no energy except when she is outside or around food. I spent the whole drive into work crying and kept having to excuse myself throughout the day. It was so hard making the phone call to the vet to set up her appointment. I felt evil scheduling her death although I know that oddly it is the humane thing to do. When we got home, Paul dug her grave in the frozen ground and I worked on her obituary. There was a lot of crying on both our parts. It was odd because I have never seen Paul cry before. One nice thing was going through all of our digital pictures and setting aside a folder of pictures of Betsy. She has been such a wonderful part of our lives for the past 5 years. It was fun reliving the memories but so sad to think that we will not be adding any new ones. Betsy and I spent a lot of time cuddling. Needless to say, Friday night was another sleepless one.
On the baby front, I have been getting lots of kicks, peeing very frequently, and worrying about how all the stress is affecting Lily.

News from the womb…
The volume of amniotic fluid has reached its maximum. As the baby grows, there will be less fluid and more baby occupying the uterus. Considerable movements will be felt from within the womb as the baby will be resting on the walls of the uterus rather than floating in a fluid-filled space. As more and more fat has accumulated under the baby’s skin, its skin color has changed from dark red and transparent to pinkish and translucent. The baby is making its greatest demands for protein and fat right now. In the last six to eight weeks before birth, it will double in weight. The baby’s head circumference has increased by about 3/8 inch this week due to its rapid brain growth. The baby has grown another 1 inch this week making it about 13 inches long.

32 Weeks Along (Friday, 12/26/08)

I am eight months along now!
Saturday was probably about the worst day I have had in as long as I can remember. Notably it was also the 20th anniversary of the death of my Grandma Hernandez which my mom could not dedicate a mass to at church because apparently there is a two dead person dedication limit. How dumb is that!? The day started with a depressing trip to the vet’s office. A little over a week ago we noticed enlarged lymph nodes on the sides of Betsy’s throat. This is common when someone has an infection so we just decided to keep an eye on them. By Thursday they were noticeable bigger and harder and we observed that she was making some grunting sounds when eating and exerting herself as if they were pressing on her esophagus and windpipe so we made her a vet appointment for today. We took her in to see the vet today and he did a lymph node biopsy which showed that she has Lymphosaroma. This is an incurable cancer in dogs. Our three shitty options were to do chemo for $5000 which may buy us 6 months to a year with her, put her on steroids which are more for comfort but may shrink the tumors and will give us 6 weeks to 6 months with her, or let her go. All of the options suck because they all end in us losing our beloved beagle. We chose to go with Prednisone and a whole lot of love. I spent most of the morning crying. Once, she came running over and pressed up against my leg to comfort me. What a sweet and selfless pup. I had to pull it together to pick up Rachel from the airport which was yet another nightmare. We got there only to find out that her flight was severely delayed (in 10 minute increments, mind you) and the mean lady at the check in said that only one of us could go past security to the gate to get her. Clearly that would be Paul which meant that I had to wait in the crazy crowded check in area which had no seats. Since her plane wasn’t even in the air yet and we weren’t really keen on waiting in separate areas while paying $10/hour for parking, we decided to leave the airport until we got a call from Lisa saying that she was in the air. We went to a nearby Bob Evans where I broke down yet again. We had lunch and waited forever. The waitress kept coming by to see if we needed anything else and to confirm that she gave us the check. We finally got the call that Rachel was in the air and headed back to the airport. We got back in line to see if they would give me a gate pass and this time they did with no problem. I don’t know what was up with the first lady! We sat forever until Rachel’s plane landed (about 2.5 hours behind schedule) then fought the crowds at baggage claim until we were finally out of the airport a mere six hours after first arriving there. What fun! We decided to delay telling Rachel about Betsy so I had to stay composed all evening but I went to bed very early without dinner because I just wanted the whole entire nightmare of a day to be over with.
Sunday we were pretty lazy. We told Rachel about Betsy and she was sad, of course. She wrote about it in her journal and taped in a dog hair and a picture to remember Betsy by. I thought that was very sweet. Since Rachel was in New York during Paul's birthday, we made him a cake and celebrated his belated birthday Sunday evening. I always make him some kind of crazy cake for his birthday. This year it was a giant bloodshot eyeball.

Monday, Rachel stayed with her friend Kassiana while we worked. Kassiana’s parents, Pat and Auriel, hosted gathering after work with appetizers then we all went out to dinner. It was a gang of people that Paul used to live with and hang out with including Chris Heil whom we haven’t seen in a long time. It was fun but we didn’t get home until quite late so we were tired on Tuesday.
Tuesday afternoon, we received a call that the slides the vet sent to a pathologist were confirmed to be Lymphosarcoma. We knew it, of course, but I will still holding out for a miracle. She is not as perky as she used to be but still runs around outside with vigor and hasn’t lost her appetite. We did have to switch her to soft foods, though, which are easier for her to swallow.
Wednesday was Christmas Eve. Paul had the day off and I only had to work a half day. I made Paul get a picture of Rachel and Betsy in front of our “Eagle Run” neighborhood sign so that I can later Photoshop it into saying “Beagle Run” as we always call our neighborhood.

We have been meaning to do that for quite a while and now time seems to be running out. I got home at noon, did my makeup, changed, then we pack ourselves, our presents, and Betsy into the car to go to my parent’s house. One of the side effects of her illness is increased thirst, therefore increased drinking and increased urination so we didn’t want to leave her alone for too long. We went to Christmas mass at St. John’s then stopped back at my parents’ house to walk the dog and gather stuff for dinner at Grandma’s with Lee, Robin, Ashlee, Jeremy, and Todd. It was a really nice evening. The rain earlier in the day that had melted all of our pretty snow turned the roads to ice so our drive home was super slow. We didn’t get home until after midnight and didn’t get to bed until about 1:30am. We were exhausted.
On Christmas morning, Rachel woke us up at 8am. We had fun opening gifts but my enjoyment was hampered by the dog seeming to have difficulty breathing. It appeared to be a positional thing and when she got up from the way she was laying, her breathing improved. Her lymph nodes were even bigger, though, so I know that her time with us is quite limited. After presents, we had breakfast, got ready, and went to my parents’ house to open gifts with them. We brought the dog with us as we were going to be gone for a long time again.

We somehow got way behind schedule which was made worse by the fact that we hit a pothole on the way there and blew out a tire. Poor Paul had to change the tire in the slush in his nice clothes. Of course, to get to the tire, he had to unload all of our gifts and the dog crate onto the side of the road which was lovely. We finally got there and did a nice gift exchange with them. My parents got us a really nice HD camcorder to record special baby events. (NOT THE BIRTH!) While we were getting ready to leave their house to go to Gloria’s for dinner, Paul gave Betsy her dinner and I gave Betsy her medicine wrapped in a piece of cheese. I totally wasn’t thinking and gave her a piece that was too big for her to currently handle but a size she would have downed in a single bite just a week ago. Seconds after swallowing it, she fell over backwards convulsing. Having just renewed our CPR certification, Paul started doing back blows and chest thrusts while I rubbed her throat and tried to comfort her while she choked. My dad meanwhile was shining a flashlight in her mouth to see if he could see the obstruction while my mom tried calling the emergency vet and Rachel hid in the basement. We stopped CPR to let her die peacefully but somehow Betsy cleared the cheese. I call it a Christmas miracle. I was so stressed that she was going to die and it was all my fault. She was pretty much drained for the rest of the day, poor thing. She breathed okay from then on although her snoring is getting quite loud. We had a good visit at Gloria’s but I was distracted reliving the horrible incident over and over in my head which pretty much ruined the rest of the day for me. We left Rachel at my parent’s house that night because we had to work on Friday. We got home late yet again then had to unpack the car so we didn't get to bed until around 1 a.m.
Friday I was beat from all of the stress and lack of sleep. It is never a good time to lose a beloved pet but especially over the holidays when everything is supposed to be happy. Plus emotional pregnant women shouldn’t have to deal with stuff like this. Work was fairly uneventful. We were supposed to spend the evening packing to go up north for the weekend but Paul’s parents called us to tell us not to come due to the weather forecast for flooding on Saturday and refreezing of the roads with lots of snow on Sunday. Rachel was supposed to stay the week up there with them but luckily my mom volunteered to let Rachel stay with her instead. I feel bad that we missed spending time with them at Thanksgiving and now at Christmas but the weather up there has been horrible. Plus it’s probably best for poor Betsy not to do so much traveling although she does greatly enjoy the great white north. Her energy was pretty low today. I am worried. It has only been a week since diagnosis but she is going downhill so quickly.
On the baby front, the kicks are still intense and frequent. My hips have been pretty good this week. I get full so fast that I couldn’t really enjoy all the holiday food.

News from the womb…
The iris of the baby’s eye has begun to respond to the intensity of light by opening under dim lighting conditions and closing under bright lighting conditions. This activity is automatic and is called the pupillary reflex. The baby’s toenails are now fully formed. The baby weights about 3 to 3.75 pounds and measures 1 foot in length.

31 Weeks Along (Friday, 12/19/08)

Saturday was my baby shower with my friends given by my best friend Amy at my house. A lot of people didn’t end up attending due to various illnesses but we had a decent turnout and a good time. Amy really outdid herself with a beautiful ‘Welcome Baby’ sign that she drew and colored herself, a Classic Pooh themed décor, and Pooh approved snacks of honey related items. I got a lot of great gifts for the baby. I got a pooh bear bank, a diaper bag loaded with goodies, nesting baskets, pooh clothes, crib sheets, bath supplies, a bathtub, a bath seat, blankets, a gym, bibs including some handmade by my mom, a book, a calendar, a high chair, a spoon, a bowl, a dishwasher basket, sippy cups, a bottle brush, a harness, a soothing crib accessory, a bottle rack, pacifiers, a car seat cover, and lots of cute clothes. Here are some pictures from the event:



getting food under the cute sign Amy painted


the cake


the diaper cake and more


Julie, Meghan, mom, Cate, and Lois playing a game



Cate and Lois


Julie and Meghan


time to open my gifts


adorable bibs handmade by my mom

My dad came with my mom and during the shower, he and Paul put together the changing table that I had Paul get me for Christmas then went to the movies. After the shower, my parents took us out to dinner at Border Cantina to celebrate Paul’s birthday. It was quite a celebratory day.
Sunday was Paul’s actual birthday. He worked on the mural a little and took advantage of the relatively not-so-frigid weather to clean out the garage a little so he could set up his new table saw stand. I gave him his gift of a new work jacket which came in handy in the cold garage. He watched Sunday night football and helped me set up the tree then put lights on it for me. We had delayed putting up the tree until after the baby shower since it greatly decreases the usable space in the living room. I started hanging up the ornaments but Amber was so viciously enthralled with undecorating the tree that I decided to cut my losses in hopes that she would eventually grow sick of the tree as a toy. This has yet to happen.
Monday evening I had the fun pregnancy symptom of my hip pain. I could barely walk and could not bend over to save my life. We went grocery shopping and I had to have Paul get anything that required bending as I limped along leaning on the shopping cart. It took me forever to get back in the car when we were done since I couldn’t bend down. I finally had to drop into a sitting position from standing which resulted in me whacking my head on the top of the car. Not fun! It is so odd because I woke in the middle of the night with it still hurting then by morning it was magically better.
Paul worked on the mural a bit this week, not nearly as much as I wanted him to. He put countless coats of paint onto Pooh, Piglet, and Tigger then was able to shade Tigger. I finally put all of the ornaments onto the tree, concentrating on the branches that Amber can’t reach. Every day when I got home from work I had to rehang the branches and ornaments that she tore down. She should be thankful that she is such a cute cat because she is a pain in the butt sometimes. Thursday was no fun as the brakes on the car started making scary noises on the drive home which resulted in Paul having to finish cleaning out the garage, get new brake parts, and change the brakes in the garage in less than 10 degree weather until midnight. We wanted to get to bed early that night because of the huge winter storm that was forecasted to hit that night but no such luck. We got up really early and navigated the slick and snow covered roads into work on Friday without incident. The hardest part was just getting up the hill on our street. Most of our patients for the day cancelled due to the weather so it was a pretty easy day. I never found out how much snow we got but I assume it was about a foot. Tomorrow we pick up Rachel from the airport for her Christmas break with us. I am glad that she didn’t fly in today. The snow is supposed to hit New York too so hopefully things go okay tomorrow.

News from the womb…
By now, the baby may have a callous on its thumb from sucking it in the womb. The baby sits in the womb in a fetal position with the legs drawn into the chest because there isn’t room for them to straighten out. However, strong methodical movements from the baby continue to be felt. The baby’s brain is still developing rapidly, increasing the number of interconnections between individual nerve cells and identifying groups of cells that will perform complicated functions throughout its lifetime. Rapid ossification of the baby’s skeleton is taking place. The baby can now register information from all five of its senses but after birth, the sense of touch will be the most sensitive and well developed of all of them.

30 Weeks Along (Friday, 12/12/08)

Most of this week was spent with Paul working on the mural while I cleaned the house, finally put up Christmas decorations, and wrapped Christmas presents. I am finally done shopping now. Usually I am done before Thanksgiving or at least by the weekend after but this pregnancy just doesn’t have me in the mood for a whole lot of walking around and shopping. It’s too tiring and too likely to make my feet swell so I have to do it in small increments. Over the weekend we finished putting on the third coat of blue and green and Paul drew and painted Pooh’s house on the left side of the mural wall. He spent hours shading the tree which I thought was crazy until I saw how it turned out. It is amazing! I would have just painted it plain brown and been done but he added highlights and lowlights of many different colors until it looked almost real. He then did another tree during the week in the right corner of the mural wall which extends partially onto the adjacent wall. This tree he shaded amazingly as well. Then he drew and began painting Pooh, Tigger, and Piglet but ran out of time to finish them as it was Friday already. The mural is nowhere near done like I wanted it to be for the shower but it looks so much better than I could ever imagine that I can hardly complain. I have been taking pictures of its progress and will post them when it is all done. Tomorrow is my first baby shower. I am excited.

News from the womb…
The baby’s brain has now begun to take on a wrinkled appearance because of its rapid growth. A wrinkled, or convoluted, brain contains more brain cells than a smooth brain and is potentially more powerful. By now the red blood cell production by the spleen has been taken over by the bone marrow. However, the spleen retains its potential for blood cell formation into adulthood. Myelinization of nerves continues which speeds nerve cell transmissions. Most of the lanugo (the downy hair that covered the baby’s body) has disappeared now except for patches on the back and shoulders. However, the white (as yet unpigmented) hair on the baby’s head is well developed. The baby’s crown to rump measurement is now about 11 inches and its weight is at least 2.75 pounds.

29 Weeks Along (Friday, 12/5/08)

I didn’t sleep well on Friday night worrying that we would miss the alarm at 3:30am. I finally fell asleep around 1:30am to be awoken by choking on a bunch of acid reflux. That is a new one for me. What a horrible, gross, and disturbing way to wake up. It took forever for me to stop choking. I took some Tums, drank a bunch of water, and tried to go back to sleep but then I started wheezing because of all the coughing and the fact that probably some of it got into my lungs so then I had to get up again to use my inhalers. I still had a lot of residual coughing so I think I finally fell back to sleep about 20 minutes before the alarm went off. The very grumpy and sleepy Ryssos left the house about 4:00am to head to the airport. While we waited at the gate for the plane to board, Paul and Rachel worked on their Jonny Quest story while I tried really hard to keep my eyes open. With an unaccompanied minor, she is the first on the plane but we can’t leave the airport until her flight is in the air. That didn’t happen until about 6:45am and we got home around 8:00am. I went straight back to bed but poor Paul was awake by then so he stayed up. I finally got some good sleep which is fortunate because I signed up to work the afternoon shift in the Blood Gas Lab for some more overtime. When I got up to get ready for work, Paul was taking advantage of the nice weather and putting the Christmas lights on the house. He hates this task and his hatred of it was reinforced by all of the problems he encountered. First, only 1/3 of the strand would work and after struggling with it for a while, he decided to just go to the hardware store for new ones. Then he tried to hang the new strand only to find that most of the gutter clips were so old that they were breaking so he had to make yet another trip to the hardware store for more of those. Plus he discovered that the gutters were clogged so he got to clean those as he went. Thus, a half hour job turned into an all-afternoon extravaganza.
Sunday and the rest of the week we began working on getting the nursery painted. My goal is to have it ready by the baby shower that will be at my house on 12/13 which doesn’t give us a whole lot of time but we procrastinators work best under a tight deadline. We repainted three of the walls the same color yellow that they already were. The fourth wall which is the wall you face when you walk into the room is going to be a Winnie the Pooh mural. We worked a lot on the design this week but did manage to get the top half of the wall painted blue for the sky and the bottom half green for the grass. We got delayed a day on our paint buying run due to a lovely blizzard. This weekend Paul will begin the mural portion since I am artistically useless. I am more of a director. I tell him what I want it to look like and he makes it happen.
Lily’s kicks have gotten a lot stronger this week. Unfortunately some of those karate kicks are directed at the bladder. This sends me running for the bathroom even if my bladder is mostly empty. What fun!

News from the womb…
The baby’s brain has reached another milestone. It can now direct rhythmic breathing and control body temperature. This is important because if the baby is born early, the brain can usually stimulate the baby to breath without medical intervention. The baby is becoming mores sensitive to light, sound, taste, and smell. This is preparing the baby to see me, hear my voice, recognize me by smell, and taste the liquid nutrition I will provide. The baby’s eyes are moving in their sockets and the baby is practicing looking. What does it see? Under bright lights or sunlight and without the protection of clothes, the baby’s world may look pinkish as the light shines through my vessels. At night, with clothes, or in a darkened room, it must be dark. The baby is probably aware of changes in light intensity but “pink” is a stimulus that will takes months to perceive since, even at birth, the baby’s color vision apparatus seems to distinguish only among pure reds, greens, and yellows. The surface of the baby’s skin is smoother and whiter as body fat is accumulating under the surface. The fat the baby is putting on is white fat, not the brown fat that is used in temperature regulation earlier in the pregnancy. White fat is insulating and is an energy source.

28 Weeks Along (Friday, 11/28/08)

I am seven months along now!
Saturday we spent the morning cleaning the house then picked up Rachel at the airport. When she gets home she likes to spend time with all of our pets, explore the house for changes, and settle back into her bedroom. Then my parents came over and we all went out to dinner at Red Robin, one of Rachel’s favorite restaurants, to celebrate her being home. Sunday we had a lazy morning then went to the Exhibit Museum of Natural History on U of M’s campus, took a traditional voyage to Wal-Mart to do our grocery shopping, and watched Madagascar on the couch for movie night.
Since Paul and I are saving our time off for when the baby comes, we did not take Monday through Wednesday off to spend with Rachel but instead she spent the days while we were working at her friend Kassiana’s house. The girls had a blast giggling privately, having snowball fights, playing video games, sewing, doing spa treatments, and generally being goofy girls. They are excited to get together again so we may do the same for a few days over Christmas break if her parents are game. We spent the evenings with Rachel mostly talking and watching very old Jonny Quest cartoons that I had gotten Paul for Christmas last year. Paul and Rachel are very into bonding over the cartoons of Paul’s youth and even got the idea over the week to write their own Jonny Quest adventure. They are taking turns with every other sentence with me interjecting every once in a while. The story is going along well and they have plans for many more. My silly kids!
Monday I did my glucose tolerance test and Tuesday I had my monthly OB appointment. He said that my bloodwork was perfect and there was no concern or tendency toward gestational diabetes so that was good news. I lost another 4.5 pounds making a grand total of 10.5 pounds lost since the pregnancy began. My OB is still not concerned because the baby is growing well and getting all that she needs.
Thursday we went to my grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. She is 88 years old but still does everything on her own. What a woman! It was great visiting with her, my parents, my Aunt Robin and Uncle Lee, their kids Ashlee and Todd, Ashlee’s husband Jeremy, and my Aunt Gloria. We spent the night afterward at my parents’ house and watched a movie on their giant screen TV and home theater in the basement which Rachel always loves to do. The next day the girls went shopping, mainly for Christmas presents for Rachel as she is getting harder and harder to buy for in her ‘tween years. The boys stayed home to do a small amount of work on my car then go to the movies. Unfortunately, changing the turn signal in my car turned out to be a giant pain for them so the movie never happened. We had leftovers for dinner then headed home to pack up Rachel for her return trip to New York. Lisa booked her on a 6:15am flight which means that we will have to get up at 3:30am. No one is looking forward to that. The week really flew by but we all had a lot of fun. Poor Rachel had a few meltdowns over loving it here in Michigan and not wanting to return to New York but we reassured her that Christmas would come quickly and she would be back before she knew it to enjoy another holiday with us. In a way, we were also reassuring ourselves as it is never easy to part with her.

News from the womb…
By now, the baby’s body is composed of 2-3% body fat. The baby’s eyelids have unfused and now open partially. The baby’s eyes are completely formed and eyelashes are forming. The baby’s sucking and swallowing skills are improving. The baby now measures about 10 inches in length and weighs 2.13 pounds.