Keira Evelyn Martinez

Born October 19, 2008

8:31 am

6 lb 7 oz - 19 inches

First Family Picture

Bright Eyed With Uncle Brenty

Grandma and Baby Keira

Ready to Go Home!

More details to follow after I get some sleep!

Bad Butt Skin

I have been living in my apartment for 2 years now, without renter's insurance. I know, shame on me. I have been meaning to get it and looked into it several times, but never followed through with it. Well, maybe it's just that I've been watching the news more since I've been on leave, but I have been noticing quite a few apartment fires. Two of the ones I saw on the news were within a couple miles of my house, and I finally stopped procrastinating and bought a policy through Allstate. There is just no telling what can happen to your house especially living in an apartment complex. Two out of three of the fires I heard about were caused by unattended candle, one was caused by a cigarette, and one was caused by someone running from the police. You have no control over what your neighbors do and one stupid mistake on their part could cost you everything you own. I don't know about you, but I couldn't afford to replace everything I own. My policy is effective as of midnight tonight, so as long as my house doesn't burn down in the next 5 hours I'll be ok. Call me paranoid if you want, but I am also going to buy a fireproof/waterproof safe and do a backup of all of my digital pictures to put in it among other things. I think it will make me feel a little better about life in general to know I'm well insured.

I had my 39 week checkup today. Still at 3 cm and haven't had any significant sets of contractions since my trip to labor and delivery last week. The doctor says she thinks I will have this baby in the next couple days, but she was probably just trying to give me some hope because I looked so miserable. I wish I was as hopeful as she is. I'm exhausted and can't sleep at night, can't stay awake during the day, can't muster the energy to do anything, and am borderline depressed. One of two things needs to happen at this point, either I need to get a really good night's sleep or I need to pop this baby out. I just need some kind of resolution for my sanity.

I was getting in the shower day before yesterday and found big ol' stretch marks on my butt! I thought I had made it through this entire pregnancy without getting any stretch marks, and I guess I was counting my chickens before they hatched. All hell broke loose upon my discovery of the stretch marks. I was BAWLING. It wasn't so much the stretch marks, but a combination of things that caused me to build up a hunk of resentment toward my innocent husband. The stretch marks were just the straw that broke the camel's back. I couldn't understand why it is I have to sacrifice my body, sleep, energy, time, job, etc., and endure stomach acid, weight gain, stretch marks, diminishing self-image, etc., while Art didn't have to sacrifice anything! Then I found myself mad at the baby for not being born a week ago when I went to the hospital because then I would have never gotten these stretch marks! I just can't understand why I got them on my butt and not my stomach, when I know my stomach expanded much more than my butt did! The only explanation is that I was just not blessed with good butt skin, but now I am paranoid that my stomach skin will explode at any moment too which compounds my desire to pop this baby out before any more damage is done. I am now at 145 lbs. from 103 lbs. I realize that I am now barely registering in the normal rage on the BMI charts for my height, but I still feel like a fatty- or at the very least like I'm carrying around a 40 lb. backpack all day every day. Depends on my mood. Oh, the joys of the third trimester.

Limbo

Well, I'm still pregnant. Since my last post, I have had two, 4-hour sessions of labor that started out with contractions at 4 minute intervals or less with some back to back contractions. Then every hour the contractions would slow down by 2 minutes til they stopped! On Tuesday morning I went into labor and delivery because my contractions were so close together and strong but as they monitored me, they slowed down and eventually stopped altogether. That night, the contractions picked back up again at the same rate but I figured I would wait at home for 4 hours to see if they lasted longer than that morning and sure enough they tapered off too.

Fortunately, these contractions have not been in vain. I'm now dilated to 3 cm and baby has dropped down to a zero pelvic station which means she is just about ready to emerge. I'm a third of the way there! The doctors say that it's a good thing that I'm getting most of this early labor out of the way at home because it means I should have a much quicker delivery.

I'm trying to be patient, but it's hard to be when I've already been in some degree of labor twice! I'm hoping that next time my contractions pick up it will be for the long haul. In the meantime, I'm home from work now and I have been SOOOOO tired. I feel like I should be getting all kinds of stuff done around the house since I'm not working but my energy is GONE. Hopefully that fabled "burst of energy" will come and swoop me up soon, because I think I ran down my battery over the past few weeks.

Ready or not, here I come!

I have been having a surprising amount of fairly powerful contractions lately and I was excited to find out whether or not they were doing any "damage" down there. I had my 37 week checkup at the doctor this morning and discovered that I am 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced! Hooray! The doctor was very excited, as was I, and said I could have this baby tonight, this weekend, any day now, and most likely won't last through the next week. I was just glad to hear that the chance she will be camping out in there past her due date is very slim.

I had been trying to prepare Art mentally for an early arrival by explaining to him on numerous occasions that she could show up any time between now and my due date but he didn't believe me. He thought there was no way she would show up early and that I was just overreacting. You should have seen his reaction when I told him the news from my appointment today. Are you SERIOUS? Are they SURE? Did they check? But we don't have a middle name picked out yet! Do I need to stay home from work now? But she isn't supposed to be born for 3 more weeks! Oh, he cracks me up. I told him, "Sorry Baby, but she is coming whether you like it or not!"

Looks like I better finish getting my hospital bags ready! Wish me luck this week!

Before and After

From ugly pine...

To cool black shine...

The baby's corner is finally done! Well, minus a couple missing bolts... See the awesome ladybug knobs??? And the red and black blanket I made for her??? I am SO excited to have this done. Thanks Mom, Lauren, Art, Brent, Vivian, and Kyle for any and all your help with painting, moving, or building the crib and dresser. I thought it would be an easy task, but now I know I couldn't have done it alone!

Showered With Love

My baby shower was on Saturday. It was a beautiful day and nice and cool in the shade. All of the decorations turned out awesome. I'm not too crazy about shower games so I picked out a simple purse scavenger hunt to find items busy moms would accumulate. Art's mom had the most busy mom points. Then we played gift bingo by having everyone fill out their own bingo card with what they thought I would get then they crossed them off as I opened presents. I got lots of baby girl clothes and a few key items such as my stroller and car seat.

Here are some pictures...




Thanks Mom, Lauren, Tracy, Kylie, Brent, Vivian, and Robyn for your help in preparing for, setting up, entertaining, and taking down everything for the shower. Thank you Ann for letting us use her gorgeous yard. And thank you to everyone who came to celebrate with me and for your wonderful gifts. With all the gifts in my house now the reality has really set in that I'm having a baby soon!

34 weeks

A Puffy Day

Today was the first day that my feet got so swollen that I couldn't fit them in my shoes. I attempted to wear normal shoes to work then I had to call Baby Cakes to bring me some flip flops because my feet wouldn't even slide into my shoes far enough to wear them. I'm thinking that all the running around and standing I did this weekend must have caused additional swelling. I'm certainly hoping that the swelling goes down because it feels like I'm walking in someone else's feet. They feel big and cumbersome instead of normal and useful.

Mom and I drove back to Modesto today to re-try the 3D ultrasound. We had dim hopes of getting any pictures, but much to our surprise, she removed her face from my placenta just enough to get a glimpse of her. She is positioned so low that we couldn't get a head on angle of her, so all of the pictures are angled from her chin up. It made her face look kind of pudgy. I guess she was having a puffy day too. The pictures are not very clear at all and mostly distorted, but I'll take distorted pictures over no pictures at all any day of the week.

Here is my obstinate baby at 34 weeks.




I know I still need to post about my baby shower, but it is way past my bed time. You will just have to hold on to your underwear.