Hello from Portland

By kate on January 15th, 2006

Steve and I are enjoying a fun weekend in Portland. We’re staying at the Hotel Vintage Plaza, in one of their “starlight rooms”. The room has a 45-degree window that gives a view of the sky (for most patrons) or the skyscraper across the street (in our case). The room is decorated with a classy, modern star theme (picture).

We attended what may be our last rock show for a while, and Zippy’s first: a performance of Seattle band “Awesome”, which was great. We spent yesterday walking around, shopping in home decor stores and thinking about how we want to decorate the basement. A relaxing late afternoon followed an ill-advised greasy Chinese lunch, and then we went out for a fancy dinner. Today’s plan: check out of the hotel and spend most of our time at the world-famous Powell’s.

On the pregnancy front, I’ve started experiencing spontaneous Braxton Hicks contractions. I had a few yesterday. These are normal and don’t hurt; they’re kind of the uterus’s way of practicing for labor. They’re so non-intrusive that many times it’s Steve who notices that one is happening (with his hands).

Our midwife appointment on Wednesday was pretty non-eventful, since I’m not having much in the way of complications. One good bit of news is that she confirmed that Zippy has aligned herself head-down, and is not likely to change. This is good! Also, my urine did not contain any sugar, which was a nice result to get after my brush with GD.

Finally, our childbirth classes start on Tuesday (and run for 6 weeks). We’re looking forward to learning more about labor and birth – it’s getting close.