28 week appointment!

As always, things are going beautifully, and I am so, so, so thankful for it. =)

Zach decided to document the appointment with pictures, so this will be a... "fun" blog entry. =)

I did the weight, urine, and blood pressure thing, and Val said everything's looking excellent, which always makes me feel pretty fantastic.

I was supposed to eat a normal meal, with carbs, an hour before the appointment to prepare for my glucose test today, which I did (and I was very nervous about it, because me and failing tests don't exactly go very well together). So Val got all her little gadgets, pricked my finger, and tested my glucose and hemogoblins (yes, hemogoblins. Gotta watch those tricky little hemogoblins). Result: I am not anemic and I do not have gestational diabetes. Yay!! Hemoglobin was 13.2, glucose was 114, which is right in the range of "most excellent-ness."

Pictures of that stuff.... 

Putting blood on the blood sugar tester

Hemoglobin results

Glucose results

And here Zach told me to point at my finger and make a sad face. So I did. Sort of. I was about to laugh.

She checked my fundal height, which measured 28, so we're spot on there. Val mentioned that it can be plus or minus 2 and everything's fine, so things are looking good.

This is Val checking my uterus/measuring it:

So I don't think I mentioned this, but late last week Zach and I were on a walk, like we do several times a week; I had this sort of cramp in my side, the kind that feels like a stitch in your side when you're running? We slowed down and I drank a bunch of water, but it wasn't going away on the walk, so we cut our walk short and went back home so I could sit and drink water. It went away after that, though. But anyway, Val asked about my exercise and I mentioned it to her (actually, I think Zach was the one who first mentioned it), and she explained that sometimes walking can be a trigger for round ligament pain. She suggested that it may be time to find a new form of exercise, so I think we're going to be looking into free places to swim, and I'll keep doing yoga when it rains, possibly upping it to every day.

We talked about Sea Monkey's movement, and I'm supposed to start doing kick counts. Seems like it'll be a little difficult, since the child is quite sporadic about when s/he decides to move.... sometimes mornings are excellent, sometimes nights, sometimes s/he just wants to sleep all day. It was kind of interesting; Val mentioned that from the time we (in general) notice a decrease in movement, we have about 3 days before the baby actually goes into distress. Usually decrease in movements will just be that the baby is sleeping or having a lazy day. Interesting, but ohmygoodness, it scares me when Sea Monkey's having a quiet day.

Val asked Zach about how I'm handling things, and he just mentioned that the mood swings seem to be more frequent than they have been. So Val asked about how I'm sleeping, and I told her that even though I get 9 or so hours of sleep (sometimes 10), it's not very restful because I'm waking up to go to the bathroom or I'm uncomfortable because my hip or my back start hurting. She mentioned that mood swings can have a lot to do with sleep, so the fact that I'm not sleeping well makes me more irritable, so I'm having more mood swings. Poor Zach. He handles my madness pretty well, though. =)

The other thing we talked about was sort of a "just in case" thing. Right around my due date, Val is busy on Mondays, and there's also a possibility she'll be taking her daughter to college in Illinois when I go into labor. So, just in case she's not around, Kim, one of the other midwives, will be taking over for her. Kim is very nice too (all three ladies are super nice!) and she's helped teach a few of the birth classes. Kim is also a massage therapist. Which is happy. =) They always have a secondary midwife lined up, I'm not sure if the second midwife always comes, but Ivy will be the secondary if Val is gone (Ivy is who we talked when we first got in to get signed up and who helped us when I miscarried last year). So that's all set up.

This is just us talking about something; I'm not sure when Zach was taking this....

Since I'm Rh-negative (and Zach is positive), I had to get my Rhogam shot today. And that was fun, let me tell you. Val said it hurts less when you get it in your hip, so hip it was. And it still hurts, more than an hour later. =( There's already a slight bruise. Boo, shots!

So today, I had my finger pricked for blood AND I got to be poked with a needle. What a good day. ;)

But, exciting news, we're now having appointments every 2 weeks. That means we're getting close! =) So next appointment is June 29th at 4(ish). And then it's July. Wow. That baffles me.

And a random fun fact that we learned today: Missouri is one of the hardest states to practice midwifery in (Washington, Utah, and Oregon are among the best). Practicing midwifery in Missouri was a felony 2 years ago (that has since been repealed). But yeah. Boo Missouri. Also, Missouri ranks 38 (or so) on the list of states with best maternal/fetal care. The ranking tends to correspond with how accepted midwifery/homebirths are, which is pretty interesting.

And I do believe that is it.... 80 days until the due date!