And the belly continues to grow...

Many of you have been requesting pictures of Toni's belly so here you go! :) This picture was taken last week at the Brownsville baby shower. I think it's actually getting bigger by the day! :)

Today we had an appointment with the OBGYN and there's quite a bit to report on that. First, due to Toni's escalating sugar levels, we're going to have to double her nightly insulin (still a very low dosage) and add on some fast acting insulin before meals. Not great news, but not terrible either. With the end in sight, we're alright with whatever needs to be done. She should be able to get off the insulin after Caitlin is born so that's a good thing. We also had a long discussion about the delivery process. Both of us are a little nervous about it and the Doctor helped put our minds at ease a little by answering all kinds of questions that we had. After our discussion, they strapped a couple of heart rate monitors on Toni and monitored Caitlin's heart beat for about 30 minutes looking for any abnormalities. After reviewing the information, the doctor had only one word - "beautiful!". Everything with Caitlin's heartbeat looked great and she was extremely active during the monitoring. For the rest of the pregnancy, this monitoring will happen every week.

We also got some other surprising news. Because Toni is now on insulin, it is all but certain that they are going to induce labor early! It's really more of a question of "when" at this point. Pretty much any time after week 38 is what they are looking at. We'll hit week 33 this Thursday so it's coming very fast. The reason they want to do this is because there is a slight risk when a woman is taking insulin that the baby could be a still born the longer you wait. Although it's an extremely low risk, if the baby is ready to come out at week 38, then inducing labor is preferred.

So with roughly 5 or so weeks to go, I anticipate that time is really going to speed up. On the job front, I am still looking but I think that if I haven't found one in the next 3 weeks, I'll probably hold off on looking until after Caitlin is born. I'd hate to get hired somewhere and immediately have to take time off. I've interviewed with 2 different companies so far. I should hear back about the first job sometime this week but I'm not really too interested in it. It's a 6 month contract so essentially I'll be out of work again in 6 months. Yesterday I had my 2nd interview with Wachovia and I'm extremely hopeful about that job. I interviewed with the Manager and the Vice President of the department and I thought it went very well. The job is only 5 miles from the house, has a perfect schedule for us once Caitlin arrives (10am-7pm) and sounds like it has great benefits. I asked the Vice President about the recent change in CEO and if he thought that it would have any impact on his department and he said absolutely not. He said that in his 30+ years with the company he has never laid anyone off and doesn't plan to start. He blames layoffs on poor management and poor planning. Interesting take on the subject.. I should find out about the Wachovia job early next week so keep your fingers crossed.

This Saturday we have our mandatory 9 hour birthing class which should be interesting to say the least... The Doctor told us today that the class is really more for me than for Toni. Toni will actually have something to do and focus on during the delivery while the husband is simply an observer. He said this class will help prepare me for the situation so I'm hopefully a little more comfortable once it actually happens. We'll see....

So far we've had 3 people guess Caitlin's birthday. Feel free to add your guess to the comments at the end of this post:

Toni and Sarah - 7/4

Me - 7/10

Cuqui - 7/18

This Thursday marks week #33. Check out what's happening here - http://www.babiesonline.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/week33.asp