10 weeks to go!!??

30 weeks pregnant!  I can hardly believe it!  AJ is now the length of a cucumber!  Or is he?  According to the ultrasound I had last Thursday, he's probably a bit bigger than that already.  But let me start at the beginning of the story...

Thursday morning my mom, Tyler and I all piled in my van for my OB appointment.  They go with me because, well, they are there and I like to have a second set of ears around at my appointments.  Plus I was having an ultrasound and who doesn't want to see baby on ultrasound??  So we aren't two minutes down the road before we have to turn around because the road was closed due to construction.  While we were re-routing, the van started to overheat.  Very quickly.  So, new plan.  We rushed back home and I got in my mom's car. Since we didn't have time to move the car seat (and Adam wasn't there to do it) I went on to my appointment alone.

So back to my ultrasound...the tech started out by taking measurements.  Every time they take a measurement via u/s there is a little ticker thing that counts, in week and days, what the measurement is coming out to.  She measured his head, his belly, his femur, etc and each time the measurement was NOT showing up as 29 weeks, but rather in the 31-32+ week range.  She also measured the amount of fluid around the baby.  Then she told me that AJ is measuring at just under 4 lbs already!  WOW big baby!!!  I was actually a little nervous about that!  He's measuring solidly at about 32 weeks and in something like the 97% in terms of size.

So he's big.  He's also looking very healthy, which is awesome!  He was hiding the fibroid, so she couldn't see it very well, but she was pretty confidant that it hasn't grown, which is also good.

Next I had an appointment with the nurse, because my OB was on vacation.  Megan was very nice and assured me that it's okay that he's measuring a little big right now. That tells us that for now, the fibroid isn't restricting his growth, which is good.  Even though we'd check the heartbeat during the ultrasound, she measured it again with the dopplar--steady 140-150 range.  She measured my belly and I am WAAAAAAAAY ahead of the curve, measuring a whopping 35 weeks.  Remember, I was just over 29 weeks at this appointment!  Again she told me not worry about measuring big.  She listed these reasons for me to measure ahead:

1. Big baby--According to her, the ultrasound could be up to .5 lb off, but regardless, he's a good size baby for his gestation.
2. The fluid levels are measuring on the high side of normal.  Again, not a concern, but certainly a factor in a larger measurement.
3. Big fibroid--it's still there, measuring at least 5 cm.  Get out your ruler--that's a pretty decent sized thing in there.
4. Not my first baby--everything stretches out easier the second time.
5. Naturally larger physical build--I'm not a petite girl!

So all in all she said they would have been worried if I wasn't measuring "huge" (yep that was her word).  She said that they will continue to watch closely for signs of pre-term labor, a risk factor of having fibroids.  She seems to think that the baby being larger and me measuring bigger could also contribute to me going into labor naturally before my due date.  She said there will me more weight and pressure on the uterus and that can encourage things to start on there own.  Of course they would work to stop any labor that occurs before 37 weeks, but after that, they'd let the baby come.  Even though they seem to be pretty confidant that I will go into labor naturally, maybe even early, I can't seem to imagine it.  I mean, last time I was scheduled for an induction.  I just showed up at the hospital when they told me to, and they did their thing.  I can't imagine how it would be to go into labor at home or at work.  I just can't wrap my head around it!  I guess we will see though!  Hopefully my body does what it is supposed to do!

So everything looks good!  My blood pressure is good, no protein in my urine and AJ seems great.  This is my last week without a doctor's appointment!  Next week I have a regular appointment and then I start weekly appointments with BPPs and NSTs.  They have actually scheduled my appointments through my due date!

So, back to the van.  We managed to get it to a mechanic Thursday afternoon and unfortunately not long after we dropped it off they called me to say that it looked like we had a blown head gasket in the engine.  The mechanic was pretty frank at saying that to repair it would cost at least a "couple thousand" dollars.

Yikes. Not at all what I'd expected to hear.  Not at all what I wanted to hear.  We bought this van two years ago when Tyler outgrew his baby car seat.  We were driving a crossover (a Pontiac Vibe) at the time and discovered that our fancy convertible car seat, generously provided by my employer, was too large to fit rear-facing in the back of the car!  Since Tyler was way too young to be forward facing at the time and even a small car seat would leave us no room for passengers in the back seat, we decided to trade it in for a van.  We would have finished paying the darn thing off later this year, something we were looking forward to. It's been quite some time since we only had one car payment.

Adam and I have some savings, but we don't have THAT much.  After talking about it, we decided to have the van towed to a local dealership where my dad works.  We wanted to have their service center give their opinion and make absolutely sure about what we were dealing with.  Then, if the repairs were going to cost more than the van was worth, we'd see if we could trade it in.  We went to the dealership Thursday afternoon and evening to start filling out paperwork and taking a peek at options, just in case.  Tyler had a good time.  We entered one show room featuring a fancy red sports car and Tyler yelled "I like this!  We'll take it!" Such a boy!

Fast forward 24 hours and the verdict was in.  Blown head gasket and probable cracked engine block.  Translation?  Strong possibility of needing a totally new engine.

So that meant it was back to the dealership to see what we could do.  It was a long night and not without stress (they wanted to give us very little in trade, which freaked me out into thinking we wouldn't be able to get a payment we could afford) but in the end, they made it work.  We drove home with a 2002 Honda Odyssey.  It's in good shape, with decent miles and lots of space inside.  My favorite feature is the automatic doors on both sides--our old van only had them on the passenger side and with another baby coming that second door will come in handy!  I'm bummed that we had to sign on for another 3 years of car payments and we'll be paying a little more per month than we will, but all in all, it worked out and we have two reliable modes of transportation, so that is what counts.

WHEW week 29 was pretty eventful!  Hopefully week 30 will be quiet, I need a break!  So much so that I have decided to take next week off of work!  I had a week of vacation left and there won't be much time left in the year when I return from maternity leave (and work will be insanely busy), I decided to go ahead and take it.  We're having a yard sale this weekend at the house and the State Fair starts this weekend, so hopefully the weather will be decent enough (read: not as hot as Hades) that we can go enjoy a day at the fair.  Adam is going to work most of the week, to save his vacation time for when the baby comes, but mom and Tyler and I will find some fun things to do and maybe I'll make some more progress on the baby's room!

Check out baby AJ's latest photo shoot!

He doesn't like to show his face, so this was the best we could get. The tech said he was snuggling the cord, it's up by his face.

BIG FOOT!

And me, 30 weeks and feeling huge!