Waiting Patiently

That's the name of the game these days.

I have lost count of how many doctor appointments I've been to since the last post. I can tell you that instead of going once a week, I now make an appearance at the doctor's office twice a week. I think I may bring a sleeping bag and just stay at the hospital in between appointments, you know save gas and mileage on the car (new car actually, but we'll get back to that).

Since I was technically overdue today, the doc decided to go ahead and do a non-stress test, which is usually done when you are one or two weeks overdue. Since I had nothing better to do (I mean I have already wrapped every Christmas present I've bought), I willing allowed them to strap monitors to my big belly. One monitor measures my heartbeat; the other is for the baby's heartbeat. While hooked up for 20 minutes or so, I have to push a Jeopardy-type clicker every time I feel the baby move. The purpose of the test is to make sure the baby's heart beats faster when he/she moves and goes down when he/she is chillin'. Baby wasn't stressed at all, but mom sure got a little stressed off and on. All in all, the baby passed the NST and is just enjoying the heck out of being in the tropical paradise of my womb. I mean it is quite cold outside, even I don't want to be out there.

In other words, the baby is still moving down, I'm still thinning out, but my cervix just doesn't understand that it has to start opening if all of this is going to work properly. I'm going to stop expecting a dilation number when I visit the doc again, which will be on Thursday. So all of you people who picked a date later than Dec 7, well you're still in the running to win. (Although if you picked something before the 12th, I don't think it's looking good for you either). Either way David and I have decided to just be patient. Although it's much like knowing what you are getting for Christmas but then actually having to wait for Christmas to arrive. If that makes any sense.

As for the new car....well we quickly understood why so many parents drive mini-vans or SUVs. It's all about the space. When David got the car seat bases in both cars, we quickly discovered that Molly, my wonderful little Nissan Sentra, was just not going to be practical. Problem was that when you actually put the infant carrier into the car seat base, the passenger seat had to be moved way up. Basically if you wanted to be a passenger in Molly, you would have been eating the dashboard. So after David enjoyed his Consumer Reports research and we test drove a few cars, Toyota of Gastonia met David's offer (which he purposely set low b/c he really just wanted to leave) and we bought a 2008 Highlander. Bought that the day after Thanksgiving. And since we weren't really planning on buying a car that day, I had to say a quick goodbye to Molly. Don't worry I didn't cry, but it was kind of sad. I loved my little Nissan. But I'm quickly enjoying the Highlander as well (and yes she has a name already, come on, of course my car would have a name before my child).

I changed the blog's background to cheer me up a bit (besides the dots were starting to get to me). Now if only today is Chicken Tortilla soup day at McAlister's and the Panthers beat Tampa Bay tonight, I'll be very, very happy.

UPDATE: After the Panthers win and my Chicken Tortilla soup I was very, very happy indeed!