I apologize for the late blog. Between school, Dr.’s appointments and presidential debates, yesterday was pretty hectic.

Pretty much from here on out, this baby’s just simmering. He’s getting fat and practicing breathing for the big day. He weighs over 2 1/2 pounds (butternut squash) and is over 15 inches long.

The doctor’s appointments are now every 2 weeks. Everything looked good this time. Heartbeat was 138 and I’m measuring 27 1/2 weeks (which is still normal).

I had some concerns going in that I asked him about. The first was that in both my 18 week and 4D ultrasounds, the baby was breech. He seems to prefer this position because I can often feel his head right under my rib cage and his kicks are pretty low. I asked the doc if this was a problem and right now, it isn’t. Once we get to about 36 weeks and he’s still breech, he will try to flip the baby by maneuvering my belly around. I looked up some exercises I can do at home to try to encourage him to flip on his own so I’ll try those every now and then.

The second question I had was if he recommended the flu shot, which he strongly did. I’ve never taken one before but many people and research encourage pregnant women to get the flu vaccination because it protects not only the mother from getting the flu (of which the resulting fever can harm the fetus) but it also vaccinates the baby until he’s 5 - 6 months old. Since Caleb will be here during the height of the flu season, I saw no reason not to get this shot.

Here comes the fun story: So on our way back from the doctor, Andy and I decided to be good parents stop at the Medimin to get this flu shot. When we were filling out our paperwork, the nurse noticed the insert of the flu shot warned that pregnant women should not get this shot because it has not been tested on reproductive animals (??). She got a little concerned and asked us to find another brand of the flu vaccine that has been tested. To make a long story short, about 2 hours later and several calls and trips to local vaccination sites, we realized that every brand of the flu shot hasn’t been tested and had that warning. Just to cover my bases, I checked with my OB, a local big wig doctor in the valley and pretty much any information on pregnancy and the flu shot. I concluded that since a new flu shot comes out every year, it doesn’t have time to be tested on pregnancy so it has to be labeled with that warning. But the CDC and every other medical expert would agree that it is safe and encouraged to be taken.

The end result to all this madness: I’m vaccinated.

I have my first baby shower this weekend which will be thrown by my dear mother-in-law and sister-in-law. We have all agreed this will not be one of those take-forever baby showers. 2 1/2 hours max; which I love. They have some pretty fun games planned and I will get to see some old co-workers, family and friends I haven’t seen in a while. It kind of saddens me that all of my family lives so far away and can’t be there for these little events. But we’ve been a “long distance” family for years and we always make it work between phone calls, emails and fun vacations. If we get pictures, I will make sure to post them up here for all of you who couldn’t make it.