Happy Halloween!

32 weeks 4 days

We had the first of our ongoing biophysical profiles today. The baby is doing well. He is on track with his growth at 4 lbs 6 oz, already bigger than Zack was at birth! He passed all of the ultrasound measurements with the exception of practice breathing. I already know he is doing that because he gets hiccups occasionally and they tend to occur from the breathing. The tech was measuring his head and all of the sudden we saw a little foot pop on the screen. It was pretty cute. She counted and he had all 5 toes. Seems like an uncomfortable way to hang out, but I remember Zack chewing on his feet so they are pretty flexible little monkeys. Also she confirmed that he is still a boy!

He was being a bit stubborn for the non stress test. What they are looking for in the non stress test is to see his heart rate go up when he moves. Every time he moved he would move away from the monitor so we kept losing his heart rate, but he had enough variance in his heart rate that he passed. We also talked about how far she is going to let me go. She was pretty clear that she is not comfortable with me going past 39 weeks. Given my history with both Zack and the last pregnancy, I'm very comfortable with this. Of course I'd prefer not to be induced because of the worst pain in my life experienced when I was induced with Zack, but that's why God invented epidurals and narcotics. Yea for drugs!! If he doesn't decide to come before, he'll arrive sometime around the 15th of December. Zack's birthday is the 16th!!

Going forward I'll be seen every week on Thursday. Only 6 weeks left!!!

Update on everyone

We had a quick appointment today with a different Dr. in the practice as my Dr. is out on vacation this week. Everything was fine. I told her about my numb hands and she said it's a common thing in the third trimester. I didn't have numb hands with Zack so that was new to me. I didn't have an ultrasound this week so I don't have an update on measurements, but she measured my "fundal height" and I was measuring at 31 weeks, right on track. Next appointment is in two weeks and will be weekly after that until delivery.

We also have a very short list of names picked out and there is a front runner but have decided that we are not going to share until he is born. So don't ask! :)

In other news we met with an attorney last week to get the ball rolling on the step-parent adoption process for Zack. The attorney said our case was so straight forward that we didn't need to see him and could meet with his paralegal and save $150 an hour. The paperwork has been complete and she will be submitting that along with Zack's birth certificate and Brian's death certificate to Hennepin County shortly. She said the hearing will be in December or January and that will be it. I'm just hoping that I don't go into labor on the court date... We might push for a January date to be safe. After the hearing they will issue a new birth certificate listing Erik as the father and Zack's last name will be legally changed to Schefers. We decided that it was just easier for everyone, especially Zack, to have the same last name. Erik doesn't want him to feel different or not as much "his child" as Stitch because he has a different name. We will give him the option to change it back when he is old enough to understand what it means. Right now we just want to do what's best for him, and to us that means everyone having the same last name. He will always know he had a Daddy Brian who died before he was born, but that doesn't mean much to a 4 year old.... He is excited to see the judge and make it so Daddy is not his "illegal Dad" any more.

28 weeks 4 days

Stitch is doing really well. His growth is right on track and he weighs about 2 lbs 6 oz. He is gigantic!! I'll start going in every two weeks now and in 4 weeks we will have another ultrasound to check his growth. So far so good.