My Father's Birthday

Today was my father's birthday. He passed away two years ago, he would have turned 75 this year. I still miss him a lot, and I have to admit that I had kind of hoped that this baby would have been born on his birthday. But at least it will be close to his birthday, so that's something. Makes me feel that he and the new baby are connected in a way, even although he will never see our baby in this life. The picture shows my father, mother, and Erik, when I traveled to the Netherlands to say goodbye to him. I am glad I was able to do that. And I am glad he at least got to meet Erik. But also sad that I never will see him together with this new little one.

I am happy my friend was here today, which made the day easier than it would have been otherwise. And she watched my kids, so Sander and I could go to the midwife together. Hoping that this was my last prenatal, LOL. She went over 'what to do to support karen and baby during birth and what to have ready' with him. We also did the normal prenatal stuff and found that I weighed 175 lbs according to her scales... 2 Weeks ago, I was 162 lbs... Sounded like a wee bit too much weight gain... So she checked and she thought it was off. She zeroed the scales and we tried weighing again. Now I was 179 lbs... Which seemed too much too. LOL. We ditched the weight and just did the rest of the prenatal.

Urine was fine, blood pressure was 100/70 and baby's heart rate was 128 bpm. All perfect. Baby was posterior, which is less than perfect, but I guess all the walking and digging and gardening I am doing should hopefully get him to turn before the birth. She asked whether I wanted to do a vaginal exam, but I declined. The numbers mean so little, I will just find out when the baby comes out. I got my first 'Are they going to induce you????' from a stranger yesterday, when I told her that I was 2 days overdue. Geez!

Tara and Jane had a cleaning at the dentist today. No cavities, but two referrals for orthodontics. Blech! Not going to worry about it for now though, will concentrate on having this baby first :-) They could choose a tooth brush at the end of their cleaning and Jane asked Tara which one she had chosen. Tara replied that she had taken a random one. Jane looked puzzled and said that her room didn't have any random ones LOL.

Had a fun day with my friend. We baked Tara's birthday cake, but didn't assemble it yet. I found out that my friend is much better in separating eggs than I am ;-) I will make the frosting and the blueberry topping tomorrow. The kids enjoyed playing together. Although Erik made sure to put most of his stuff out of reach of her toddler LOL.

When they were gone, I spent some time mulching my plum trees, cranberry bushes, and forsythia. I would have liked to do more, but I had promised Tara to take her grocery shopping to get ready for her party tomorrow. We spent quite some time in the grocery store, it was hard for her to decide what kind of candy to put in her goody bags :-) But she finally decided on just the right junk food and she and Cees have gotten them all assembled already.