36 week appointment- check!

Well we have done it! We made it to the final month of the pregnancy! Almost feels like yesterday when we found out we were expecting. And to think now within 4 weeks we should be able to meet our little girl. We are truly beyond words and have nothing but excitement for her arrival.

Today was our 36 week appointment. From here on we are going to be going to the doctor every week. Camdyn is measuring great and we are at a point now where the Dr told us that if she is ready to come he won't stop her, so it really is up to her at this point :) Gabrielle's blood pressure was a little elevated but the Dr isn't too concerned at this point. Her protein checked out well and her numbers weren't at the levels that would draw concern for potential preeclampsia. It is something that they will continue to monitor regardless. Her swelling seems to be normal and hasn't really reached her face much, mainly her feet and then fingers some. The really good news from the appointment though was that Gabrielle's body is progressing! We have a thinning and ripening cervix which is a great start (sorry if that was too much for some :) ). So we are in process but do have some time left, no rushing yet. The pain and pressure that Gabrielle has been feeling is still very much around, and it is something that she is going to have to try and deal with the best she can till Camdyn arrives. It is basically from the position of Camdyn which doesn't leave much room for making better. Her best bet is to try and stay as comfortable as possible when she can.

The nursery is about 98% done, just waiting on the recliner to arrive...should be just about any day now. We will take some final pictures of everything put together once it arrives. And with arrival, we have now figured out how to email from our phones to the blog and it looks like also able to text to here. So what we figure we will do is send out a mass text to those interested letting you know to keep updated with the blog and that way Ben can post things as we get more information for Camdyn's delivery. It will probably be the easiest and quickest way to keep everyone as posted as we can.

In other news, we have continued to see great improvement with Rory! We aren't quite sure what that was all about but we are definitely glad that she is making improvements and back to herself - even if that is slightly crazy on the norm ;-)

It looks like we were spared from a possible tropical storm, thankfully. We have been getting a lot of rain here though!! Fortunately it hasn't been anything like Fay was a couple of years ago...that rain was just ridiculous. Hopefully we can finish the rest of Hurricane season as fortunate.

Well we hope that this finds everyone well and safe. We love you all!!

Love always,

Ben and Gabrielle

Daddy test

Just testing the mobile blog posting capability.

Sent from my iPhone

Test #2

Well it looks like the first testing post worked!  YAY!!  So now to test if pictures will post as well :)  We have tried to post another picture of Camdyn from the last ultrasound we went to back on August 28th.  

If this works we are in business and should be good to go.  You will be able to keep posted on things very easily straight from the blog, since we know that not a lot of family uses texting, etc.  

We have had an interesting past couple of days to say the least.  For a bit there we were getting to worry about Rory and some of her behavior.  She was almost starting to act like she had something wrong mentally.  We immediately took her to the vet and all of her vitals were perfect.  We decided with our vet to wait a few more days to see if things would change before we progressed with blood work and then x-rays, etc.  She slowly started coming back to normal and is about 92% back to what we would consider her normal (I think we all know she is a little crazy as is :) ).  So we will continue to monitor her and hope that it was just some random thing that happened and doesn't come back.  I think Rigby can safely attest that Rory is back to normal as he takes the general brunt of her active and playful self.  

Gabrielle is still definitely feeling a lot of discomfort in these last weeks.  We are now under 5 weeks left (4 weeks, 6 days to go, not that we are counting :) ).  She is definitely having contractions though they seem to be still "irregular" with their timing.  We thought we were getting close yesterday as there was definitely a period of about 3-4 hours where they were coming every 30 minutes but that has since seemed to have changed some back to irregular and the discomfort and pain she was feeling yesterday has also definitely calmed down a ton so far today.  We think the ability to try and rest and stay hydrated is helping and most of what she will be doing this weekend.  Our next appointment is on Wednesday and that is the start of us going every week until Camdyn is here, we will look at updating sometime soon after our appointment.

So that is about where we are for today.  We hope that everyone has a great weekend.  

Love always, 

Ben and Gabrielle

Test

In attempt to try and keep everyone updated for Camdyn's arrival on the blog, we are testing out a way where we will be able to email/text straight to the blog the status and updates from the hospital (well for Ben to :-) ).  

So here is our first test trial on this!  Let's hope it works!!

Love, 

Ben and Gabrielle

Time kind of got in the way

Oops! So we let things kind of slide under the radar the past several weeks and started to slack on updating on here. To be honest though, there really hasn't been too much that anybody has been missing. Things in the Rivera household are pretty calm and pretty much the same.

The nursery is now pretty much 99.9% complete. The only thing left to do is put the bumpers on the crib. Everything else is ready for Camdyn. Feels kind of nice to have that done so we can start to just wait for her. Speaking of Camdyn though, we had another ultrasound on August 28th and wanted to share some of the pictures from that session.

This was Camdyn almost the whole session. Where on Earth did she get hands so big???

The pregnancy has been progressing along. We have finally hit a point where the easy-going-ness of it has stopped. Gabrielle has been having pains for about an entire week now...and while "contractions" have been pretty random and far apart they have been hurting her. Most of the pain is attributed to Camdyn's head being down and in Gabrielle's pelvic area so she feels constant pressure there, something she has been told she is going to just have to deal with till Camdyn comes. This afternoon definitely hasn't been one of the better days(even after an amazing day at the spa for a pregnancy massage and pedicure thanks to her amazing husband!!) but we are doing what we can and just anticipating our daughter's arrival. We know it is only going to progressively get worse, so here we go! The great news is though that we are only a little over 5 weeks until the due date (we are 34 weeks, 2 days today). It is really hard to even believe.

Ben is working on trying to figure out a way to keep friends and family updated through the blog or even other means easily for the big day. We will figure something out (thanks Matt for your help so far!). But you can definitely guarantee we will have updates with lots of pictures :)

Well that is really all we have here. We will try and get some more blog posts in without as much time passing this next round.

We hope that this finds everyone well. We love you all!

Love always,

Ben and Gabrielle

PS We forgot to add a couple pictures of the bellly-my how things have changed :) This is from 34 weeks, 3 days.