39 weeks and a new camera.....

yup.....39 weeks! we got a new camera, so we can have better shots of the baby and no 30 second delay between shots. our old camera was needing an update. clearly (ha!) we need to take more time practising. sorry, this shot is a bit blurry. we'll get it next time.

we had a check up yesterday and our doula, stacy, joined us. our doctor was so excited to meet her. things are going well in the planning of things as natural as we can get them. dr. song has relaxed many routine (and i believe, unnecessary) procedures for us. we are so thankful for her willingness to work with us for the best possible birthing day, assuming everything goes well. she has said many kind things to us over the past few appointments, which help make me feel like we chose a good place to have our daughter. a couple of weeks ago i was about to leave.....so this is very nice and reassuring! she told us yesterday that she feels that we are very good people and that she likes me very much, so she wanted to give our birth plan a try. she even admitted to turning away other foreign couples who wanted a different birth than she's used to, but that she wanted to work with us. i am so thankful for that. i have liked her from the beginning and love the fact that the clinic/hospital is only 10 minutes away, so i didn't really want to switch to a different place........but things like supplementing my colustrum with formula and having the baby taken care of by the nurses, routine episiotomy, etc. etc..........wasn't settling well with me. she (along with the nursing staff) have agreed to let me breastfeed asap, have my baby with me at all times, and some of her compromises surprised me. for example, she seems willing to give my parineum an oil massage in order to prevent a tear (or episiotomy). i was shocked because she seems to sure that episiotomy is the way to go in preventing a tear. stacy asked her about holding the baby back for more stretching time and about the oil massage, to with the doctor said (basically) let's try it. it is so nice to have her willing to try our wishes. that's about all we could have asked for.

to end this post i'll show you the first photo taken with our new camera, for laughter's sake. teddy looks really impressed that i wanted the first one to be of us, huh?

getting oh so very close!

we're so close now! only about 2ish weeks to go (maybe!)! it's hard not knowing which day peanut will choose as her day. i am so excited to see her. this is the biggest lesson in patience i have had yet.

our discussions of natural birth preferences pretty much wrapped up at this week's appointment. it seems like the doctor is all a go for most of it. i am so thankful that she's willing to change some of her routines for us. the biggest vistory was having them agree not to supplement my colostrum (or "first milk" as it is also known) with formula and glucose solution (neither of which my baby's brand new stomach is ready for---not to mention all the other negatives of doing that). it seems like birthing can be so archaic here sometimes, but i hope to show my doctor and the nurses another way, that they hopefully see as better. please pray it all goes well. of course birth can never be predicted, but wanting things natural and unintervened needs to be addressed. especially if it's not the routine, like most places here in korea.

and there it is.......week 37 photo! a little late. we did take the photo days ago, but i kept forgetting to put it up. we are so close now it is crazy!

so here we are.....september......and quite possibly our birth month! it's getting so exciting! only weeks to go now. moving around has gotten quite a bit harder this week. my pelvis is definitely getting ready for a birthing a baby and doesn't care much for walking. it's slow going now! and i thought i was slow a few weeks ago! ; )

we had a check up this week. they did a bunch of tests to get ready for birthing day. i gave blood and urine, they did a chest xray and an ecg, and also a prick to the ear to time my blood clotting. it was a busy appointment, compared to other times. as always, we checked in on peanut to see how she's doing. all seems well. we got this photo:
on the way home teddy and i were discussing how the nurses are better and getting a good photo of the baby compared to the doctor. teddy was saying that she had a good opportunity to stop and click but waited a second too long. by the time she got the photo he said "it looks like a jellyfish drowning in tar." i thought it was quite funny. the photo is pretty bad, but i thought the story was funny.....so i posted it.