Well it’s been an eventful week.

Last Tuesday I received a package in the mail. Excuse me, I just got kicked. Sorry- our little one got a package in the mail. Silly me. See, it was addressed to me, but the contents were purely for this little squirming bundle in my belly. I took the photos right away and was going to post but other stuff came up that I’ll get into later.

The mysterious box that I wasn’t expecting in the mail.

Wha….?

I’m sorry to say that even though it’s not for me, my first thought was “how perfect for knitting!”.

In the back pocket of the bag was this really cool changing pad.

If you can’t read the writing, this package came courtesy of the nice folks at Nestle!

Inside was (from top left) a magazine, an Avent bottle (yay!), some samples, a can of formula, a gel ice pack, a “baby on board” sign, a pack of Carnation Instant Breakfast for the busy mom, and some coupons.

Thanks Nestle!

In other news, I haven’t been posting for a week because I’ve been pretty much in bed for the last week. On Wednesday the innocent little Braxton-Hicks contractions I’d been getting randomly decided to start coming more regularly- in fact one every hour. When this happened from 9:30am through to 2:30pm, I called the case room of the hospital where I will be delivering, and they asked me to go in right away. I went in and wound up being there until 9pm. With the monitor hooked up it showed contractions every 20 minutes or so. They made me drink a pitcher of water to try and stop them, and instead they increased to every 10 minutes, then every 4 minutes (but eventually stayed at around every 6-10 minutes). Finally around 7:30pm they gave me an IV with a huge rush of fluids, and that stopped them for about 45 minutes. The last 15 minutes I was there I did have 3 strong ones, but by that point they had checked me twice and I still wasn’t dilated- meaning I was having contractions but not in labour. At that point they said I could go home but to stay home from work until next week (I should have returned yesterday). (By the way, the reason that labour would not be a good thing right now is because I was only 27 weeks pregnant! They would have had to give me a shot to try and boost the development of the baby’s lungs and so on, and/or medications to forcibly stop the contractions).

The contractions continued about every 40 minutes on Thursday, and randomly but regularly on Friday (10 minutes, 20 minutes, 7 minutes, 15 minutes, 11 minutes, etc…) When they hadn’t let up by Saturday we decided to call the case room again and they asked us to come back. Luckily I was only there for about 2 hours this time, as the same doctor checked me out as had on Wed and I still wasn’t dilated so he wasn’t worried that I would start labour. He pulled me off of work for another week, then I got to go home and vegged the rest of the weekend with Yannick.

On Sunday we had an open house here to try and sell our place, so I took Sam and went to hang at my parents’ house for the two hours it took. I’d been doing a LOT of knitting to get the project done in time for JCA and it was nice to take a little break and just sit and talk to people, since I’d been home alone since Thursday morning.

I did the same old bunch of nothing but knitting on Monday, but yesterday was a big running around day. As luck would have it I had my monthly ob-gyn appointment on Tuesday, so I knew I could ask her about the contractions (which were now stuck at every 20-30 minutes since Monday morning). Yannick was already in CSL so I drove down to meet him at my dad’s store. We gave his friend Kevin my car to drive home, and Yannick and I went to the appointment. After all the stress of the last few days it was great to hear that she’s not worried about them at all. She checked again and still no dilation, so she said she’s not concerned at all that I won’t carry fully to term. Everything else looks good, although I did lose another pound since the last time I saw her.

From there we went to my optometrist as he wanted to check out my eyes during pregnancy, what with all the hormones and the Impaired Glucose Tolerance, both things that can affect your prescription and/or your vision. Everything was fine there too, but he’d had to dilate my eyes completely so I spent the next 2 hours with sunglasses on even though it was after 5:30pm in Winter when it was already dark out, and had Yannick laughing that my eyes looked like black marbles. I was going to try to take a photo but decided that the flash would be a horrible idea so just picture my eyes with no colored area, just the entire circle part black. (Yes, I’m a bad optician’s daughter who doesn’t know the names for all the parts of the eye).

Lastly last night we had our 2nd prenatal class. It was a lot of fun and was all about breastfeeding. I learned so much stuff! So many myths and misconceptions were cleared up, plus we all got to sign up for breastfeeding “buddies” from a volunteer program who will be like mentors if there are any problems. There was an amazing video that showed a newborn(!) baby placed on its mother’s belly immediately after birth and left there, skin-to-skin for 2 hours. After 2 hours the baby CRAWLED(!!!!) directly to the mother’s breast and latched properly and began nursing. Amazing the instincts we are all born with! It was a super-informative class and I’m so glad that Yannick is coming with me to them! (It was also really funny when one of the dads-to-be had to pin on a cloth boob and demonstrate how to hold and approach the baby to get a good latch. He was a great sport!).

So now I’m home until Tuesday. I still have work to do on the JCA knit but it’s blocking right now and pretty wet so I will take advantage of the time to get some baby knits done, and veg my little butt off.

Oh- and I’m officially starting my Third Trimester today! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

As this pregnancy progresses I have felt the baby kick or move around more and more. It has been very exciting for me because it took a long time before I started to feel movements, so I love it now that the frequency has increased and the feelings are stronger. Unfortunately they haven’t been strong enough for any one else to feel yet.

Yannick and I have tried sitting around for a half hour or so each night with his hands on my belly but it seems like this little kiddo has stage fright. (To me it seems like each time I think there *might* be movement Yannick shifts his hands and we have to start all over again). We’ve even tried just staring at my belly, because there are times when I know I’ve seen it twitch and jump…but of course every time I’d ask “did you see that?” the answer would always be a very disappointed “no” from Yannick.

It’s been frustrating because ever since I started mentioning how often I feel the baby now, he’s been trying to feel or see it to and hasn’t been able to. Until now! :]

Last night for the first time ever Yannick felt the baby kick! (Or elbow or knee or punch or something). I had pushed Yannick to try again because he’d wanted to wait a few days “for the baby to get stronger” and I didn’t want to wait. He put his hand on my belly and I swear within 8 minutes or so there was such a kick- it was the strongest one I’ve ever felt. The baby had been moving under his hand but I knew he wouldn’t feel the rolls and swishes, and then all of a sudden there was this lightning-fast jab and I knew he’d *had* to feel that one, and I asked him but before he even answered I could see by his face that he HAD felt it. YAY!

To those annoyed by the baby blather…sorry! I know I’m gushing but I’m just really happy because Yannick was getting SO disappointed with each passing day and last night he was so completely elated that he FINALLY felt it…it’s even more real for him now, and he kept trying to coax the baby to do it again. Baby didn’t obey.

In other news I picked up some yarn last night from Veronik Avery. Veronik and Mona work at (run?) the Montreal office of JCA Crafts and I’ve done some sample knitting for them in the past, and they had another job for me to do now. (I DO like to load up my plate, don’t I?)

The yarn itself isn’t in yet but they had one ball lying around so I could swatch over the weekend. I don’t know how much I’m allowed to show or tell, so this photo is my attempt at being vague and mysterious: