Ally’s Pregnancy Journal

There really has not be a lot of changes as far as baby is concerned other than my pelvis has been hurting more, which means it is widening more as well as these sharp pains started happening last night. I could feel the baby moving around and then all of a sudden this pain as if the baby pinched a nerve sending this pain down to my groin - it gave me the quick feeling like I was going to pee my pants! After talking to a few moms today about it they say they don’t know exactly what it is but it happened to them as well towards the end of their pregnancies so I’m guessing that the baby is head down since I don’t think anything other than a head (hmmm or maybe a foot) could get this far down, though I’m guessing head since at the same time I’m getting kicks to the rib cage! Bryan again was just the perfect hubby as he knew I was in pain, forgetting about dinner so he made me dinner and brought it to me while I was keeling over and then drew me a bath after since I have been able to somewhat be on my belly in the tub, which would hopefully get the baby out of that lower area (I lay with my elbows propping me up in the front and with buoyancy the belly doesn’t even touch the bottom of the tub).

I have been looking into doing a belly cast, my friend did one and it came out great, I think this would be a nice way to later show the baby how big I got with him/her inside. This same friend actually just had her second child today - she thought she was having a girl and turns out she had a boy - this is making me second guess myself now as she was as convinced as I am on what she was having. I know the next time we have a baby I will not be able to hold off on finding out - even more so since we really only plan on having 2 kids total though we are not ruling out a 3rd if we had 2 boys or 2 girls but 3 would be the absolute most since we know that more kids = more money!

The baby is moving around as we speak, very sweet, soft and slow movement - seems the baby does these kind a lot in the afternoon - the evening just before bed is another thing - that seems to be the time the baby goes crazy - I’m guessing the baby will be quite active in the evening once it is born as well, which is fine with me since the mornings are pretty quiet and at night the baby seems pretty relaxed in the movements. I just can’t wait till the doctor can tell me the baby’s exact position at the next appointment as I am thinking it is an elbow that runs across my belly while the feet are kicking the upper belly and the ribs while the other hand is punching my bladder, bowels and pelvis area! Oh and when I wear the belt I get all kinds of crazy pushing on that, not sure if it is a shoulder or arm, but either way the baby hates when I wear it! I also find that if the baby is moving around and I keep my hand or a finger pressed in somewhere on the belly I can not only feel the baby reposition itself, but it repositions to be able to kick or punch my hand or finger away. This is quite handy when the baby is poking out of one side really hard, I just poke on the other side of my belly to get the baby to move - this is something the ultrasound techs did early on in the pregnancy to get the baby to move, but I didn’t realize it would be that effective later in this pregnancy!

It is hard to believe we are down to the last 2 months before the baby arrives!

Sleeping has been a challenge lately, the baby is so active and moves so much I find it will stay on the quiet side only if I sleep on my back - though to do this it requires many pillows under each side of my back, a body pillow under my knees and my nice thermarest one under my head, this doesn’t keep me from waking up though - I have woken up a few nights with really bad heartburn as well as to the baby kicking. The other night I got my first kick to the underside of my rib cage. I have been wearing my support belt from time to time as the pressure below can get pretty bad too - if I’m not wearing it I keep it in my pocketbook just incase!

Last night we attended a Caring for your Newborn class and though I thought we had already read a lot and knew a lot from being around babies for years I found I still was able to take more than a whole page of notes. The class was given through Harvard Vanguard and we absolutely loved it, no pressure to change the dolls she sent around or to try the carriers she brought and so most of us attending all ended up participating. The instructor was very informed and really tried to keep everyone engaged.

Well we are almost 2 weeks into the new year now and time is counting down till Little Pike will be here - 72 days till the due date arrives, though Little Pike could come anywhere from 2 weeks before to 2 weeks after that date.

New Year’s Eve was wonderful, Bryan surprised me with a dinner cruise on the Odyssey Yacht out of Rowe’s Wharf in Boston. The food was wonderful, we danced and got to see the fireworks from the boat with the Boston Harbor Hotel in the background. Truly a night to remember and most likely our last New Year’s in Boston for a while as we know we will want to spend it at home as a family. Here are some photos from the cruise.

Here is a view we had of the Boston Skyline

Us at dinner

Bryan got me to put on the Happy New Year tiara

Us out on the stern of the boat

After having a few long weekends due to the holidays it was hard to get back into working full weeks but didn’t take us long.

Last Saturday we had our Birthing Class that was given through my doctor’s office and we were amazed at how well the nurse did keeping everyone involved, answering everyone’s questions and telling us funny stories in-between to break things up. I was a little worried about doing an all day class but there were 2 breaks, a short lunch and the walk over to the maternity ward really helped break things up and keep you moving in-between all the sitting. There were 12 couples in the class and most of them were within a week or 2 of our due date. About half the class found out the gender of their baby and about 70% hadn’t picked out names yet - though most had a list of names they liked. It was nice to see that though I have had co-workers tell me that they didn’t think I was gaining enough weight that most of these women had a similar belly size to mine.

After the class we met up with my cousin Elizabeth, our friend Laura and her daughter who is 6 months old. Bryan was very much into holding her and I loved seeing how great he is with other people’s babies, I have a feeling I will be taking a ton of pictures of him with LP and couldn’t help but grab my cousin’s camera phone and snap a photo of the 2 of them! I so had wished I brought our camera!!

This week they also released the 2005 top babies names and I was very disappointed to see that Abigail is #3 on the top 100 list, I really hate seeing that there are soo many babies out there with the name we thought was a name that wouldn’t be that used from our family tree. So over the last couple of days we came up with an alternate girl name - Claire. Claire was my 4th Great Grandmother’s name. But because we couldn’t decide which other name to drop to become the middle name we decided that we would go with a double middle name - so she would be Claire Abigail Muriel Pike - quite a mouth full but it sounds nice. We also said that if the baby comes and is a girl and we really feel Abby is a perfect fit for her we will keep to our original Abigail Muriel Pike - just dropping the Claire. I’m really not crazy about a double middle name but from some research it is getting to be more common here in the US and it has been common for years in other countries such as Ireland.

Last week we also signed up for a Caring for your Newborn class as well as a breastfeeding class, due to other weekend commitments we had to make those weeknight classes. We are also trying to find and schedule a baby massage class but have been having a hard time finding one. We are unsure if it is better to wait on that one till the baby is born but we know it is something we will want to start right away.

The 7th was our first date anniversary - 7 years ago we started dating and we met 9 years ago - it is amazing how time flies!! We had celebrated instead on Friday and went out for Japanese at Takemura in Cambridge and got a bunch of house rolls and inside out rolls - all with cooked fish and all of them were excellent! We were amazed at the quality and definitely put this place at the top of our best sushi list!