My Appointment Today

This morning I saw my OB. She said I was 4cm but not quite ready to be admitted in the hospital and induced. We'll give it 3 more days, hopefully there will be more progress. On Saturday morning she told me to check into the hospital and they will most likely induce me.

38 Weeks

I made it to 38 weeks and 1 day. Now I'm officially at term. I did have another scare last week, on Wednesday, I think. After the first false labor, I decided to only go to the hospital if either my water broke or my contractions were strong AND painful. Well on Wednesday (I think) I was having severe abdominal pain that was not going away and was getting even worse with contractions and baby's movements. I called the hospital and they told me to come in and there they put me on the monitor. The monitor didn't show regular contractions and my dilation was not changing. After about 2 hours they sent me home again. I was so embarrassed! The abdominal pain continued for the next 2 days and 2 nights and was very severe. I couldn't sleep more than a couple of hours at night and couldn't eat much. I realized at some point that it was a severe case of heartburn and stomach pain, which is not unusual during pregnancy. After 3 days and 2 nights of pain, I finally felt better.
Now I am determined to not go to the hospital unless I am very very sure it is the time.
My next appointment with my OB is on Wednesday, April 16. She said that if she finds me at 4 or 5 cm, she will probably just admit me in the hospital and break my water, which is what I kind of hope will happen. April 16 is a perfect day to give birth, it's Pope Benedict's birthday! Lucky day!
We'll see what happens. I do feel ready!

Choosing a Name

Choosing a name for this baby has been a nine months long process. It's been so hard for Dominic and me to decide on names but we've finally made our decisions. With this baby, for the first time, we decided to not discuss our name choices with anyone. From our experience with the other children, when you tell people your name choices before the birth, there will always be a few (usually family members) who will not agree and will suggest other names or try to make you change your mind. I think it's hard enough for a husband and wife to agree on a name; when other people want to have a say in naming the baby it becomes impossible to make everyone happy.
Over the last months I've presented lists of names to Dominic and asked him to vote. He would return the lists with just about all the names crossed out. We finally found a couple of names we both like so those are the ones we are going to use.

Did any of you have difficulty choosing names for your babies? How did you and your spouse decide? Did you choose to hide the name from everyone else until the baby was born or did you like to call it by his/her name even before (s)he was born. I'm curious what your opinions are.

4D Video of our Baby at 31 weeks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoRyh8z641k

I'm Back...

Hi everyone. I feel like it's time to reopen my blog as I'm sitting here waiting for this new little baby to be born and introduced to our family and friends.
I've posted some pictures during the time the blog was closed but I still have to post more of the pictures between November and present. After all this is my diary and I like to have everything recorded.

Anyway, to make a long story short, last summer I found out I was pregnant and it was a total surprise. I usually like to space my babies at least 2.5 years apart but was hoping for at least 4 years this time...didn't happen. This is the shortest age difference between two of our children (Alex is only turning 2 in July). I'm a little scared of the chaos that will be in our house, but at the same time I'm excited because we always wanted 5 children and every time God gave us a new one, He also gave us plenty of love and patience to take care of him/her, so I know that things will work out just fine.

This pregnancy has been a little harder on my body than the other ones and I don't know if it's the fact that it's my 5th, or my age or what, but especially these last weeks have been no fun. I'm having a lot of discomfort and I can't wait to get my non pregnant body back.

My due date is April 27, so right now I am 37 weeks and 2 days but I am expecting to go into labor any day now. I started dilating at 34 weeks and have been having contractions often. On Saturday I checked into the hospital because I had labor signs. They put me on the monitor and I was having regular strong contractions and at some point went to almost 4 cm. They admitted me in Labor and Delivery and I spent the night there waiting to give birth. The day nurse even told me when she left in the evening:"Tomorrow morning when I come back I'm going to see a baby here". The contractions, however stopped over the night and I even went back to 3cm. They sent me home on Sunday morning and since then I've been in this limbo, waiting, counting contractions and wondering when this baby is going to come and whether I will get my much wanted epidural on time. The good thing is that the baby will benefit from the extra days in utero. I'm still not quite at term and I'd rather have a 7.5 pounder than a 6.5 pounder.

Keep us in your prayers and I'll keep everyone posted.