A look back

Cindy and I were chatting about a woman in the Twin Cities who is going to document her entire pregnancy online AND (and this is the kicker) allow a live web cast of the birth. Don't think I'll be doing that. No video and no cameras pointed in my direction in my delivery room.

But, I will do this again. Here's the most pregnant I was with Jacob, taken a little over 12 hours before his birth. 40 weeks and 5 days. Yes, I was eating baby carrots because I was hungry, they were in the fridge, I knew it might be a while before I got to eat again (it was almost 24 hours) and I figured they wouldn't be all that bad to throw up later if I needed to (I didn't). That's a 8 pound 15.2 ounce baby in there and I don't think I'm anywhere near that big now, so either I'm going to have a smaller baby or I'm really going to explode in the next six weeks.

Monthly post

Since it's the last day of April, I guess it's time for the April summary. Hope I can remember back that far...

Sometime at the end of March I found out one of my best friends, Jen, and her husband Chris are expecting their first in November! I had a feeling that before I was done being pregnant, she would be.

We spent Easter with Nate's family in Eau Claire. Jacob got royally spoiled by the Easter Bunny once again. Thank God he'll have a little brother or sister to split the booty with next year. We still have candy in the house.

I had a wonderful bout with a cold/allergies in mid-April. Missed a little work and felt pretty much like crap for about a week and a half. Nate ended up with it too and Jacob had some sniffles. I'm glad to be past it.

I had three doctor's visits this month, two scheduled and one not. At my early April one I gained too much weight in my opinion (doctor didn't say anything) and my blood pressure creeped up more to 136/81. At the second visit, I did the glucose tolerance test to check for gestational diabetes, and as predicted, I digest sugar like a pro. I also lost two pounds between visits (again, no comment from the doc) and my blood pressure actually fell, a lot. It was 98/62. I asked the nurse if that was right.

Then comes the fun stuff. This past Sunday I started having low back pain and in the afternoon it became a sharp pain in my side. I thought here we go again, since with Jacob I had to spend the night in the hospital for a kidney infection. I wasn't running a temp at all, so I waited to call the doc until Monday morning and they had me come in right away. First I did a screening for a UTI, which came back all normal so no kidney infection. After feeling around my right side and checking my blood pressure which was even higher again at 140/81, my doc said it was probably one of two things. The first was HELLP syndrome, a serious liver condition which would require immediate delivery of the baby. (&*$!@#^&*). It made it more possible because high BP makes pregnant women more likely to get it. All the needed to confirm it was a little blood. The second was a gall bladder disorder which could be diagnosed with an ultrasound and how to treat it would depend on how bad it was, but basically surgery is the only cure for that.

So I did the blood test and worried about having an infant 10 weeks premature in a NICU. About half an hour later, the tests came back that it didn't seem to be HELLP so I was not having a baby that day. I went in for the gall bladder ultrasound Tuesday and got the results this morning. Meanwhile, the pain is now nearly gone and I'm feeling lots better. It turns out I don't have any gall stones, but the test showed the walls were thickened meaning I do have an irritated and inflamed gall bladder. Basically, that means pain control when I need it with hopefully just tylenol and try to cut as much fatty food out of my diet as possible. If it gets worse or I get a stone, then I might have surgery. If it doesn't go away after the baby is born, we'll talk about having it removed.

So that's pretty much all the excitement for the month. In May I'm hoping to do a little traveling and visit some friends before I can't go too far for a while. Plus I'd like to recruit some help to get some plants in the ground and my flower beds looking nice before I get too huge to move. Two months to go!

Ultrasound and more

Nate and I went in for the "big" ultrasound last week Friday. We let the tech know we weren't going to find out the sex right away, so she didn't even take a peek because she didn't want to accidently spill the beans either. Watching an ultrasound is like one of those magic pictures, I think. You are staring at screen really not knowing what you are looking at, then the trained eye starts pointing out what things are and by the end you can actually tell it's a baby and it has 10 fingers, 10 toes, and all the other necessary parts.

Since we're keeping the gender a surprise, there weren't any huge revelations, but we did learn a few things. As of last Friday, the baby weighed about 1 pound, 7 ounces, and the ultrasound measured a due date of June 30 plus or minus 10 days. Since that's a little off from my original July 13th day. My doctor's office called this week and let me know it is officially changing to June 30. I don't particularly enjoy being pregnant (although the outcome is definitely worth the means) so knowing I have two less weeks of it is good! We also found out I have an anterior placenta, meaning the baby is attached in the front. This explains why I haven't felt a ton of movement even with such a big baby already. I am noticing the last day or two that I'm feeling less little pokes and more big movements like Flipper's rolling around in there. Still no painful kicks so I'll take these as long as I can have them!

I also had a regular visit after the ultrasound for weight, labs, BP, etc. Everything is still good, and my blood pressure even went down a little to 130/76. The little brown pills must be working. I'm still not down to normal (my first visit was 116/60) but it's below the 140 danger zone. I asked my doctor what the prognosis for pregnancy-induced hypertension is and she said my BP is likely to go up again later in pregnancy, so they'll be keeping an eye on it more closely as I go along. I also asked if it was possible that it was actually chronic high BP, and she seemed to thing that was pretty unlikely, although she won't know for sure until after the baby is born. Next visit is the first week in April.

Kaitlyn came to visit last weekend and helped me paint the office/baby's room. The office is kind of small and I don't see why Jacob can't share a room, boy or girl, but for the first few months I wanted to have the baby separate so Jacob can sleep. We painted it a pale yet somewhat brighter green. I think the color was called Melon something. We also got paint for the backdoor entry way where Nate comes it. Kaitlyn is home for spring break starting yesterday so she came home to help me finish it. We painted that area a greyish brown called Coffeehouse. It reminds me of a cup of coffee with cream in it.

Kaitlyn took Jacob today to spend the week with Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Jerry. Whenever he goes I always feel a little bad for a few days, then I start to enjoy the quiet house where things stay where I put them. I requested a vacation day next Friday, so I plan to head down there Friday morning to spend the weekend with my family, then come back with Jacob Sunday morning. Who knows if I'll have the time and permission from my doc to drive 3 1/2 hours away later this spring, so I wanted to get at least one visit in.

Time to get something done!

P.S. In the pic, Flipper has his/her hands over their ears. If I had to make a guess, I'd say boy!