No doctor appointments this week, but we do have a few other things to report on. Tim and I finished our birthing classes last night. I guess we are as ready as we are going to be. We learned a few good stretches and techniques to use to help with the pain of labor. The stretches they say to do now, and the pain techniques will come in handy later.
We have seen ads and all kinds of stuff all over the place talking about cord blood banking. As if we don’t have enough normal baby stuff to worry about, now we need to figure out if this is something we should do or not. We talked with our doctor as well as with the birthing instructor. It seems that our original thought was right. If we had leukemia or other types of cancers in our family then this is something we should probably do. But, being that the only cancers Tim and I are aware of on either his or my side is lung cancer (and the cases we know of were life time smokers) banking the cord blood is probably not something we should be worried about. Thank goodness, it’s kind of expensive. However, in reading up on it I did see a lot of places that take the cord blood as a donation. Many people are not able to find bone marrow matches. I think I am going to look into donating ours. It’s either that or it just gets discarded. If it can do someone some good, then why not.
Tim has been looking into video options. He is looking to post to the blog from the hospital with a video feed of the baby so everyone that can’t be here with us can still see the baby right away. I am not sure exactly when it will be, but keep an eye on the blog in the next 3-5 weeks and you should see the video post. Don’t worry, there won’t be any birth video, it will all be after the baby and I are cleaned up.
We talked to our OB and were able to find a pediatrician this week as well. We meet with them on 4/27. We both have a lot of questions about the test that are performed after birth, immunization schedules, etc, so having some time ahead of schedule to go ahead and get the insurance details on file and ask our questions will be nice. They tried to get us in sooner, but that was the earliest they could do.
Tim and I are both working up until the baby is due (I have 1 week before, but not much). So right now we are both focusing on getting as much done as we can so that while we are out we can enjoy each other, the baby, and not even think about work.
We start our weekly appointments on Tuesday (the final 4 weeks). They are doing a full work up next week. There is some state mandated test they have to do (strep B, etc). After the full work up we should have a better idea of what to expect for delivery. We should know if the baby is getting into position yet, if the size is going to be greater or less than expected, etc. So next week I should have a good bit to report on.
Hope everyone is doing great, and be sure to check back often. The last few weeks should have many post, and very soon the baby video and pictures!
