Grand Entrance

Cara is here! Cara Josephine Byrne was born at 4:01 AM on Friday, October 24 after a long, long labour for Mary. But it was totally worth it! She was a very healthy 8 lbs 10 oz and 23 inches. We had her follow-up appointment today and by all accounts she's an extremely healthy baby!

More to come!

Dr Appt #12 - Just a matter of time...

Well, we haven't had the baby yet but we did have our 39 week appointment today. Our regular Friday doctor wasn't there and her normal sub was out sick so we met yet another doctor and he was very nice and not as rushed as the others. My blood pressure was back to normal, the baby's heart rate was great and I'm measuring 41 (not unusual for me or baby!).

From feeling from the outside he said that the baby was still high up but he did an internal and I am 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced so progress is being made. He did a sweep of the membrane which can increase the chance of me going into labour in the next 24 hours by 15%. I thought it was worth a shot, we are ready for this baby!

I haven't had any contractions but have been feeling crampy the last few days - the nurse thought that was a very good sign of things happening.

Send labour thoughts toward Calgary for us! We will let everyone know when we are in labour!!

Dr appt #11 - Turkey Time

After an extremely long wait in the doctor's office this afternoon we had a pretty routine check up. My blood pressure was a bit high but the swelling has been much better so it might just have been the hour long wait that raised the pressure! I'm measuring 40cm at 38 weeks which isn't a big growth spurt (thank goodness!) and I actually lost 2 lbs since last week - maybe since my legs/feet aren't so swollen.

Now we're just going to enjoy Thanksgiving. We got a small turkey that we'll cook up on Sunday. The doctor said that maybe after eating a big turkey dinner I'll go into labour!! We'll give it a try.

Next doctor visit next Friday unless Baby Byrne decides to make her appearance before then!

Dr Appointment #10

Another Friday another trip to the Dr's office. We had our regular check up today. Baby Byrne's heartrate was good, my blood pressure was good, my measurement wasn't bigger (!!!!) so it looks like she took a break from growing for a week ;)

I'm having some swelling in my feet/ankles - the doctor compared them to the pilsbury doughboy! She was glad that today was my last day of work so that now I can stay off my feet and keep them up. Edema is normal and since my blood pressure is fine then there isn't anything to worry about...just an added joy of carrying a hefty baby around!

The results from the ultrasound are what we already knew - she is a bit big and is on track to be 9lbs at least at 40 weeks. Or she could slow down the growth and just be over 8lbs. Big baby either way. The doctor said they may send us for another ultrasound closer to the due date to check on the size again.

We pre-booked our next 3 appointments that will take us to 40 weeks - we are still hoping that she decides she's ready to be born before that! We're getting very excited to meet her :)

Ultrasound #4

We had the 4th ultrasound today to see what size Baby Byrne is. She is apparently in the 90th percentile for size (yikes!) for her gestational age. The tech figures she weighs about 7 lbs 10 oz as of today! This was a different clinic than our previous ultrasounds so we didn't get to talk to a doctor today and the tech couldn't tell us much (like head size) since she wasn't a doctor...we'll get more details on Friday at our regular Dr appointment. But she is a "chunky monkey" as the tech said with nice chubby baby cheeks - the ultrasound did not show any dimples but the pics aren't that detailed so we'll see in a few weeks :) The tech also agreed that she is a she!

This clinic did regular ultrasound pics for the Dr then she did some 3D pics for us and movies! It is totally weird and cool. We took these 2 stills from the movies we got today. We weren't going to buy another CD of pics since we have 3 discs already but we couldn't resist the 3D! They sucker the parents out of their money all the time I bet!

(Baby Byrne wouldn't move her arm out of the way of her face so that thing across her mouth is her arm - it won't be long until we get to see her face unobstructed!)