24 days! (but we're not counting down or anything...)

Here's a picture of me at 36 weeks 4 days:

Here's a picture of our new car!!!

Here's a picture of the amazing Halloween costume I made! (I painted the design with fabric paint on a t-shirt):

And, here's a picture of Austin and Sydney, who are anxiously awaiting the arrival of their new baby brother or sister!
On Friday we had another OB check-up and we have a few things to report. Taking the advice of many of you, I decided to mention something about how dissatisfied we were with the OB/GYN we had met the previous week and how uncomfortable the exam went. We first mentioned it to the medical assistant when she asked us if we had any concerns. I tacked on a little something about how I'd never felt uncomfortable during a pap smear or bimanual exam, and she proceeded to explain to me how a pap smear is performed... she's like, "you see, we just use a small little spatula to scrape off cells from the cervix during a pap smear, whereas during a cervical check we have to be a little more invasive." At this point I'm thinking, "yeah, lady, I performed like 10 pap smears this morning. I kind of understand how they work." So, we decided to bring up our concerns once the doctor came in too. She explained that cervical checks are frequently uncomfortable, and can even be worse with a female physician because their fingers are generally shorter, so they have to push in farther (sorry for the overshare...). And, as it turns out, she was completely right. It was not much more comfortable when she did the exam. So, I guess I'm just a wuss.

She also checked the baby's heart rate, which was between 120-130. She wanted to make sure that the baby was in the head-down position, so she sent us off for a sonogram. On the ultrasound, the technician pointed out that the baby has a full head of hair! She nudged the baby a little bit and we could see the hair waving back and forth. It was so crazy! We still don't know if Baby Z is a boy or girl, but we do know that he/she inherited Jordan's Italian hairiness, though at seems at this point that the baby has more head on his/her head than Jordan...

My contractions have started becoming more intense and occurring more frequently, and according to our doctor, we're partially effaced, so we're really getting down to the wire! It's really starting to set in for both Jordan and me that we're going to have a baby, as in a person, as in a lifetime committment. We're still incredibly excited, but we're getting a little nervous about being new parents too. We took our tour of the labor and delivery unit on Monday, which turned out to be a huge learning experience for me. They showed us a video of a woman receiving an epidural, and the camera was focused on her face, watching her wince as she had a contraction. I became frustrated, thinking, "They're not even showing her spine! How do they expect me to learn how to do this??" I soon realized that it wasn't an instructional video for me to learn how to give an epidural, but rather how to receive one. Oops. Then, later, we went into one of the birthing suites, and the nurse pointed out where Jordan would be standing, and where the baby would be cleaned up and checked right after delivery... I stood there anxiously awaiting her to explain where I would be. Would I be behind the physician, or would I be catching the baby? Um, no. I would be the one in the gigantic double-wide hospital bed with MY feet in the stirrups with a baby coming out of MY body. OMG. O.M.G.

But in all seriousness, Jordan and I are getting really excited. I feel like this baby could come any day now, but we have a few deadlines we'd like the baby to abide by, if at all possible. I only have 5 more days of my rotation in Family Medicine, which include two days of clinic and three days of testing. As long as I'm able to stay relaxed (which hasn't been a problem on this rotation yet), then we should be fine. As far as I'm concerned, the baby has my permission to arrive any time after Friday at 5pm. But, Jordan has a lot of work to do in the lab in the next two weeks, so his preference is for the baby to arrive anytime after Oct. 24th. We shall see... it's clearly not up to us! We'll have to see which one of us the baby chooses to obey! ;)