36 Weeks today

We had a scan at the hospital yesterday to see the growth of our little girl is going well. She is growing fine but is a smaller than average baby and yesterday she was measured at approximately 2,2kg at week 36.
Also we thought she turned around into the right position, but it looks like she is preferring to sit head up. So she is still breech, and by the looks of it she has begun to engage into my pelvis with her bum. The doctor said yesterday that the chances now that she will manage to turn around are slim, so we were then given the options of a Breech natural birth or the chance to book in an appointment for a C-section.
After all of the scary we have heard about Breech births (brain damage, babys distress etc) we have decided to go with a c-section. Not the path I would have originally liked to have chosen, but the health of the baby is our priority.
We will now also be giving birth in Linkoping in Sweden, and they schedule c-sections for 2 weeks before you actual due date. This would mean around the 7th of Feb, which is in two weeks from now... eeek :) but yeay!
In a way we are lucky, Peter will be able to spend the whole month with our new little addition. So everything has its pros and cons.
I still have all my bits crossed that she will manage to turn in time - but either way a safe arrival is on our wishlist!

Week 34

According to the our midwife, our little monkey has finally turned around into the right position! Papa Peters talks to her have seemingly paid off! :D
Fingers crossed she will stay in this position for birth!

Nowadays getting kicked in the night and woken up is nothing out of the ordinary...
Or the many midnight pee's. ;)

I have a feeling we are getting pretty close to having a final decision on a name.
It would be nice to have already chosen one before she is born, instead of calling a "nameless" "Schnuckem" "Pumpkin" or "Kitten". :)

Week 33

Happy New Year!

It is now officially getting closer to our daughters due date! We are in 2012! :)
Peter and I had a New Years Project of building the baby a Rocking Sheep! And we did it!!
And if I may say so myself, it is pretty perfect!
Well done Papa Poppin... your fantastic measurements and eye for detail have payed off!

Before Christmas Peter and I were walking around Strömstad and saw a small sheep made out of wood and wool in a very sweet little shop.
It made me think that a rocking sheep would be perfect for our little girl. Peter said that he could build a nicer one. At the time I was slightly doubtful whether it would happen ;) :).
(I completely take that back now!!)
Here is a similar picture of what the rocking sheep looked like in the shop.

After Peter was finished at the SIM in Stansted, he travelled back to Skavsta to spend New Years with me at his parents home.
I was looking online on google images pictures of rocking sheep to get a few ideas and see what the costs were.
These were the favourite ones I found

But we decided to take a project and right there and then build one :)

The wood that we used to build the sheep was originally used for building Peters parents house in the 1940's. They were old wooden planks that were found in their garden.

We bought a sheep skin from Ikea and a pillow for padding for sitting on the sheeps back.

I made shaped the leather ears from an old handbag that used to belong to Peters Mum when she was younger! :)

And here is our final result!

32 weeks

Peter and I were supposed to drive back to Strömstad on the 25th of December. One hour into the journey I was having contractions again and was very uncomfortable, so we decided to drive back to Linköping. And I was to stay there until Peter had finished the SIM in Stansted. Which turned out to be a great idea, and I was very relaxed and well looked after by everyone :).

It's almost Christmas!! And Happy Birthday Mum!

Yesterday it was 31 weeks for me and the tiny dancer! :)

Interesting start to my 3rd trimester!

To celebrate my 30 weeks I was sent to hospital with regular painful contractions. They were happening every 5 minutes during the whole day on the 12th of December.
They decided to keep me in for the night to observe me.
Here are some photos of me being monitored on the CTG machine. Our little girl didn't approve of the machine and kicked off the parts from my tummy several times.
I think the nurses got slightly frustrated as well when they couldn't find her heartbeat though she managed to follow the monitor around in my tummy and kick it whilst they were looking. ;)
That was her saying "I don't like being poked" :)

When I was admitted - the CTG machine measures how often the contractions happen and how strong they are and also the baby's heartbeat. When I arrived they were 80%, and when I left the next day they went down to 20%.

On the 13th of Dec, my contractions slowed down to every 30 minutes. After a final examination the doctor allowed me to go back home!
One of the most painful nights of sleep, so I was so happy to be able to collapse on the couch when we got home and have a snooze with Fieval!

Today we got our pram! Very exciting!! Thank you Grandma and Grandad for your generous contribution. We will be using this great pram for all of our children!

Today I started washing the baby clothes.
Here is my proud first batch of clothes hanging on the rack.

Play gym

I love this play mat! It is great!!

29 weeks + 1 day

Our daughter trying to smile

My sweet little baby 3D ultrasound photos

28 weeks 3 days

Week 27 day 2

Today we went to the midwife!
She measured the size of my tummy, took a urine sample, a blood prick test, my weight and my blood pressure. Then we listened to the heart of the baby... well we tried. Our baby seems to be a shy one, and once we found a heartbeat she kicked the monitor away. She probably takes after me, grumpy after being woken up. ;)
Another thing the midwife mentioned was that she is lying pretty far down with her head at this stage of the pregnancy, although she said this is nothing to worry about and that I just may have wider hips... this explains the urge to pee!

Well...other than that everything seems to be fine! And our next appointment will be in Stromstad with the midwife on the 12th of December.

Coming to a final decision on a name is really difficult.... as soon as we have the move to Stromstad behind us, we can sit down and make a little list.
I'm sure Peter and I will be able to agree on something. :)

She is so big now I can feel her legs pushing up against my ribcage! This gets worse when I am sitting down to eat, bless her... there is obviously not much space in there for my big baby.

XXX

Baby must have grown!

It feels like in the last two days the baby has grown so much. I am actually waddling like a duck now too.

Every day she pushes so hard you see her whole body shape just by looking at my tummy. That is her way of telling me that she is growing faster than my tummy is... and she needs more space please! And she definitely prefers the right side of my tummy, that is usually the side that sticks out the most :)

Regarding a name - We really like the name Freya, but I may feel a different way when I look at her and she is born.
But because she is a little person, and I would like to refer to her with a name, we will call her Freya for now.
We particularly liked the name Freya (pronounced: Fray-ya), which is the name of the Norse Goddess of Love. She is also the only Goddess that is accompanied by so called blue cats (which they believed to be Norwegian Forest Cats), that would pull her chariot. The kittens were a gift from the Norse God Thor.
How the kittens came to Freya is really funny actually. I researched this, and pasted it in for you to read for yourself :)

"Freya chastised Thor soundly one morning for awakening her from her beauty sleep with his boisterous and noisy preparations to "go fishing" for a sea dragon. While he was on the way to his fishing spot, Thor kept hearing lovely song-like noises that seemed to be lulling him to sleep.

Stopping to investigate the source of the odd sounds, he found them coming from a nest of mewing blue kittens being tended by a tomcat. The sound that Thor had heard was the male cat singing to the kittens, "Sleep, sleep, my dear little ones".

Thor suggested (in forceful terms) that the cat stop singing the lullaby and the cat sassed him back, suggesting that Thor had no idea how difficult it was for a single-parent male to rear his children and asking if he knew any women who would be willing to take them in.

Immediately Freya came to mind, and Thor agreed to take them to her. Like all cats, this one was not quick to show appreciation and added  that, being blue,  they were very unique cats and deserved an especially fine home. Thor took offense at the comment and thundered back at the cat who, not the least impressed, bared his claws and then turned into a bird and flew away.

Kindly Freya was enchanted with Thor's present and did the kittens honor by letting them accompany her on her daily rounds across the sky."

Fieval (Our cat) is a blue bi-coloured Ragdoll cat. We thought this story was perfect, and when our daughter Freya would be born, she would have her own "Blue" cat already waiting for her. :)

Some images of the Norse Goddess Freya