Adventures at the Doctor's Office

I'm not a worrier.  At least, I try not to be, but it's really hard to always stay positive when there's a little person growing inside you, who depends on you for so much.  Well, today is one of those days where I breathed a big sigh of relief.  At my doctor's appointment two weeks ago, the doctor said that she thought the baby was breech--it's little butt was down where his or her head is supposed to be.  She just said it in passing, mentioned that it was no big deal because babies flip all the time, sometimes even during labor, and said we'd know for sure at my ultrasound today.  I tried to tell myself it wasn't a huge deal, and that worst case scenario, the baby refused to flip and I'd end up having a c-section.  At the end of the day, we'd still have a baby.  It wasn't my ideal situation, especially given the ridiculous number of surgeries my stomach has been through with hernias and my appendix, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.  Even after I told myself this, I worried.

I spent the past two weeks doing everything I could to get this baby to flip.  I talked to Mum, who gave me yoga to do and points to hold.  Mum had even found Youtube videos for me to watch!  I discovered that there are tons of websites out there with suggestions on how to get babies to flip.  My favorite one was http://spinningbabies.com/.  It's amazing all the things you can do.  Jim would just look at me and shake his head as I was crawling around the living room with Lilly, or doing handstands in the pool (which I can imagine was quite the sight, seeing that I'm rather rotund at the moment), or lying in any number of positions suggested to provide the baby with maximum room to move.  And then this morning, we found out that the baby is, as the ultrasound technician said, "head down, face down and ready to go!"  Granted, this baby moves a lot so could flip around but, once again following Mum's suggestions, I'm spending lots of time doing "squats, squats and more squats" to get this little one to stay down.  The ultrasound estimated the baby's current size as just over 6 lbs, which would make it a much bigger baby than Lil when he or she is born (closer to 9 lbs if they're right), but they overestimated for Lilly (who was 6 lbs, 13 oz one day past her due date) so I'm guessing they're overestimating this time too.

So, huge sigh of relief aside, I have to share our waiting room experience this morning.  Jim, Lilly and I were all at the doctor, and spent quite a bit of time in the waiting room between the ultrasound and seeing the doctor.  In that time, all the nurses came out to say hi to Lilly.  She even went back into their offices with them (without so much as a glance back at Jim and me) to go and get stickers.  Once again, she came out with a huge bag of them...everything from Mickey Mouse, to Hannah Montana, to Tinkerbell and this time, she even got some Batman stickers.  She was chatting away in the waiting room and was thrilled to discover a fly that had been trying to escape for sometime and seemed to be giving up on life, which meant that it wasn't going anywhere.  She sat there watching this fly, and called Jim over every few minutes so that he too could experience the fly.  The other people in the waiting room were smiling and laughing, and eventually, started talking to her as well.  As Jim and Lilly were sitting on the floor watching the fly, the following conversation took place with the lady next to them.

Lady:  (to Jim) She's absolutely adorable!
Lilly:  Thanks.
Lady:  What's your name?
Lilly:  Wiwwy.  What's your name?  (Lilly asks everyone what their names are now...it's only natural seeing as how everyone asks her what her name is.)
Lady:  I'm Holly.
Lilly:  Oh.  This is Jim. (pointing to Jim).  Everyone in the waiting room started laughing.  Jim later told me that nothing makes him feel less like a dad than his two year old daughter calling him Jim.  He definitely felt like "the boyfriend" here.
Holly:  Is Jim your Dad?  (said with a huge smile on her face)
Lilly: Oh, yeah.
Holly:  What's your mom's name?
Lilly:  Oh. That's A-maya (close!  Amelia's a tricky one to say).
Holly:  How old are you Lilly?
Lilly:  I'm TWO (trying to hold up two fingers...sometimes it's one, sometimes it's four. You never know)
Holly: Wow!  You're two!  When's your birthday?
Lilly:  April (WHAT?!?! Jim and I were floored.  We had no idea that she knows her birthday is in April.)
Holly:  When's Jim's birthday?
Lilly:  Ummm.  On Friday.  (We explained to Holly that Jim's birthday is in fact in March.  When Lilly's not sure when something is, she makes up a day!)

Lilly proceeded to show everyone her stickers and was definitely the morning's entertainment.  She has gone from not wanting to say hi to anyone when we're out to having conversations with everyone, which means that I'm meeting a lot of people while we're out these days.  She started talking to the lady in line in front of us at the deli today, who I subsequently learned still doesn't have power after the hurricane and is living on her boat for the week.  All these things I'd never know about the people around me if I didn't have Lilly by my side.

Anyway, after being in the waiting room, she came back to see the doctor when I was called, got more stickers, a cupcake from one of the nurses, and left with a cup of water from the cooler (which may as well be magical water to her, probably because she gets to pull the lever and pour it herself).

For me, this morning would have just been a doctor's appointment.  Seeing the morning through Lilly's eyes, it became so much more.  For her, this morning was an adventure.  Maybe even an expedition, although those usually involve heffalumps.

Now that I have the all clear from my doctor, do I go to Wisconsin for the Ironman or stay back in Stamford with Lilly?  As Mum and Dad's plans depend on my decision, it's got to be made soon.  I'll talk it over with Lilly and see what she thinks.

Here's our little character at breakfast yesterday, after "getting dressed" which involved changing from short sleeved pajamas into long sleeved ones, with Jim's help of course, thus creating even more work for me once he headed off to work...

Very proud of her newly discovered ability to display "hook em horns".  Papa taught her how to do this when she was in DC last, and she's been practicing.  When she gets it by herself, she's pretty excited.  Wait until her uncles see this :)  I think a trip to Texas should happen in the not too distant future.