30 Weeks

We're 3/4 of the way done!

Sea Monkey: approximately 15.7 inches, 3 pounds. His/her eyesight is 20/400, which means s/he can only see a few inches in front of his/her face. Currently surrounded by a pint and a half of amniotic fluid, which is supposed to decrease as s/he gets bigger. The majority of the next 10 weeks is going to be spent packing on weight and only getting a little longer.

I: am very tired. Very... very tired. I slept for 10 1/2 hours last night (with 2 bathroom breaks and a brief period of not sleeping because my hip was hurting), and I'm quite ready for a nap already.

Babycenter warns that around this time mood swings may pick back up. I laughed at this, because I don't think my mood swings ever slowed down.

Bending over is now an experience I dread. It's ridiculous (and kind of hilarious). When Zach and I go somewhere in the car, I usually put my purse by my feet....but now I've discovered it is not at all pleasant trying to bend over to pick it up when we get to wherever we're going. And it's worse when it's hot. It's ok, though, it won't be for long, and it's definitely worth it. Sometimes when I drop things, I just glare at it, willing it to hop back into my hand, because I really don't want to bend over to get it. So far, my mind powers are seriously failing me (I'd make a terrible Jedi =(   ).

Also, it's almost July. Can you believe it?

Time seems to be rocketing forward and at the same time slooooooooowly dwindling by. This past week seems like it took forever (which I think was mainly due to our air conditioner breaking RIGHT when the weather decides to happily stay around 100 and be nice and humid), but now that I'm officially 30 weeks, it's surprising to me.

I'll be very excited if the next 3 weeks fly by, though... Zach's parents are coming out from California for a visit/for the baby shower (see here), and I'm very excited about this. =) And then we've only got 6 or so weeks (after the shower) until we might expect Sea Monkey to arrive.

At childbirth class last week, we talked about all the things that could possibly go wrong during labor and what the midwives will do about them. It was a very "fun" class. I already knew about all the complications and things, but it was good to hear Val's reassurance about how they handle those things.

Also, I found out I have an increased chance of having a fast labor because my mom had fast labors with my brother, sister, and me (apparently there's a part of the labor length factor that's genetic). I'm not counting on having a 3-4 hour labor, though, but it is a possibility.

I have an appointment on Tuesday already. I like bi-weekly appointments. =) Soon it'll be weekly appointments and soon after that, it'll be time to meet Sea Monkey. 70 days until the due date, plus or minus however many until Sea Monkey is ready.

This sounds random, but I'm thinking about food right now.... But my favorite foods so far this pregnancy are:
1. Ice cream
2. Zucchini
3. Cereal (chex is my favorite)

That's all. =)

Night One in the Sauna.... and hopefully the last!

Yesterday was the hottest day of the summer (so far). The heat index was over 100 yesterday, and the weather people issued a heat advisory (because we needed them to tell us it's hot....). Fortunately today is supposed to be worse. Um... hooray?

Anyway, yesterday was the day our air conditioner decided to crap out (we think it actually stopped working Monday evening, but it just had enough cool air left that we didn't notice it until yesterday evening). Our thermostat downstairs only reads up to 90 degrees, and the little red arrow thing was way beyond 90. So downstairs, it was over 90, which means upstairs was even worse (because heat rises), and our bedroom was even more terrible, because of the sun beating down and super-heating the room. It was terrible. We ended up spending our evening at the lake in the nice water for a few hours and then at McDonalds in the air conditioning. I think we got back home around 10, and we were hoping that since it had cooled down outside, it would be cooler inside, too.... and no such luck. Upstairs was still swelteringly hot, and downstairs was only barely tolerable (I have no idea how people who don't have a/c can do it.... especially pregnant women with no a/c, because it's terrible!). So instead of risking melting to death upstairs, Zach and I set up camp downstairs in the living room- Zach slept on the air mattress, I was on the couch (it was too hot to be close to each other), and we were surrounded by a box fan, oscillating fan, ceiling fan, and a surprisingly powerful personal fan. It was still terribly hot, but it was ok for the night.

We ended up not going to bed until 12:30, because it was just too hot to even think about feeling tired.  Then we woke up at 3:30, hearing this absolutely horrid yowling from Mali- she was on the windowsill in the living room, all poofed up, and kind of jumping and screaming and hissing at something outside. Scared me half to death, and I'm pretty sure I teleported across the living room, because I was laying on the couch one second and the next I had grabbed my glasses and flung myself across the room and I was holding Mali (it didn't occur to me until later that you really shouldn't pick up a cat who is obviously terrified like that). We're not exactly sure what happened (I didn't see anything outside) but we think it was some animal outside that got Mali riled up. We're thinking a raccoon (there's been one around) or something just got curious about Mali, since she was hanging out in the window, and either got too close for Mali's comfort or it startled her (she might have been sleeping on the sill). It was a horrible noise, though, it seriously sounded like she was being stabbed- definitely made my heart start racing and my hands shake. It may have been a cat, too, I think there's been a stray around, but Mali usually only hisses at new cats, and this was a hugely dramatic reaction for whatever creature to just be a cat.

But whatever it was disappeared, and we checked Mali over for cuts or bites or something, even though the screen in the window was still in tact- she just had such a violent reaction that we were afraid there was something wrong with her. We didn't find anything, thankfully, and she's been acting fine, but it was definitely scary (then again, I'm extremely attached to our cat).

So that was our night. I've been drinking loads of water, doing my best to stay cool, and Sea Monkey is helpfully kicking away to remind me s/he's ok so I have one less thing to stress about. And someone is on their way to fix our a/c. Thank God.

I'm sure I sound like a complete wimp about the lack of air conditioning, since some people don't have it at all, but dangit, it's hot, I'm pregnant, and I've never handled heat well. I told Zach we now have to move to the beach (ocean beach, not lake beach) where the weather is pretty much perfect all year long (oh, Pismo), and then we just won't have to worry about it. So.... we're going to work on that.

The baby shower is in a month!!

Karen (of Karen and Richard, our housemates, for those of you who don't know or remember) is throwing a baby shower for us. And it will be fantastic. It will be July 24th, at our house, from 12-4 PM, or whenever we decide we want you to leave and sick Mali on you (flee from the oh-so scary declawed kitty! Watch out; she may harmlessly bat at you with her soft little paws!). Heidi will be 34 weeks pregnant then (roughly the size of a barge.. just like Gaston!). So it shall be a big ol' pregnant lady party. And there's going to be a really cool cake. Mmmm, cake.

If you wish you could come, aren't able to, but would still like to do something for this really cool little child we've got cooking, we have a page for you to look at (click here). If you've been following this from the blog, and not facebook, you may have seen the little box at the top right of the page that's been there for a while and has been very thoroughly ignored. But that page explains it. So go there.

29 Weeks-

Sea Monkey weighs about 2 1/2 pounds and is around 15 inches long. His/her brain is growing, neurons are neuron-ing, the head is growing to make room for the brain, and his/her bones are hardening (which means lots of calcium for me). Everything else is just maturing. So kinda boring.

I had my first "too pregnant to bend over moment" last night. I was cooking dinner and needed to get the colander out of The Irresponsibly Designed Cabinet (we call it Stupid Piece of Junk for short). The Irresponsibly Designed Cabinet is a cabinet that is nearly impossibly to get things out of. Picture a counter and a stove meeting together in an L shape. That little corner of the L shape is the back of this cabinet, which borders the stove half way to the door, so in order to get to anything in the back of the cabinet, you have to stick your head and upper body inside the cabinet and feel about in the dark to find whatever it was you were doomed to need. It's a pain. Anyway, as luck would have it, the colander was at the very back corner of the cabinet. So I mentally pictured destroying the stupid cabinet (and what a happy picture that was), got down on my knees, and tried to stick my upper body into the stupid cabinet and grab the colander. Except bending over like that pushed the baby into important body parts and I couldn't breathe or reach the colander. I had to have Zach grab it for me, and I'm pretty sure he was imaging destroying the cabinet, too, while fumbling around for the stupid thing. Bah. He did retrieve it, though, and I was able to use the colander for the whole 30 seconds that I needed it, which made the whole process feel entirely worthless. But our mashed potatoes were delicious!

So, rant about The Irresponsibly Designed Cabinet aside.... things are going well. Zach and I have started going swimming for exercise, and it's been wonderful, because the weather right now is disgusting. You kind of have to hold your breath if you plan on going outside because you'll drown in all the humidity (I'm only exaggerating a little). It's been excessively hot and excessively humid, which makes for an excessively cranky pregnant woman. Which is no fun at all, especially because it makes me want a permanently-refilling chocolate shake, and since I'm trying to not go overboard on how much sugar I eat, the lack of said chocolate shake makes me more cranky AND it's hot and disgusting.

....And rant about disgusting weather aside (I'm apparently in a pleasant mood today).... Swimming really has been nice. We've been going to this lake in town (it's man-made and not gross with all the floaty things in the water) and the water feels really nice and it's very relaxing. It's terrible getting out of the water though, it's so hard to keep balanced because I have to readjust to carrying all the extra baby weight again. But Zach and I have been playing frisbee in the water and just moving around a lot. Also, I'm terrible at catching a frisbee, but it's ok because it bounces off my hand and goes another 10 feet, and then I have to swim to get it, which gets me exercise, which is the point of the whole thing.

Also, we get to see Morgan Freeman while we're there. Or... a man who may or may not be homeless but who likes to spend time at the park who looks just like Morgan Freeman.

So there's that.

Also, one of the things I've been excited about for a while has finally happened and it was entirely anti-climactic. I've been waiting for Mali to lay down on my stomach and for Sea Monkey to kick her, because I thought Mali would jump up and stare at my belly and it'd be hilarious. And I've had to wait for a while, so the anticipation of the whole even has just been building up. Mali is not a very snuggly cat. She likes to be around Zach and I, and she follows me from room to room, but she just doesn't like to snuggle much, so it's been a long wait. Anyway, Mali was in a snuggly mood the other day and had curled up on my stomach and dozed off for a bit and Sea Monkey kicked her. Mali just opened her eye for a minute and then went back to sleep. I was bummed. I was hoping for a big reaction from her, but nope. She didn't care. Anti-climactic indeed.

Childbirth class number 4 (I think?) tomorrow.

And now I must go find food. Like a chocolate shake. Or chocolate chip cookie. Or a cupcake!
....Or maybe some grapes instead. Grapes are good. =)

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!

28 Weeks

We're officially in the third trimester. =) Zonino!

Sea Monkey weighs somewhere around 2 pounds, 4 ounces and is about 14.8 inches long. S/he's mostly just putting on weight now- the weight has doubled in the past month. =)

We have 12 weeks until the due date, plus or minus a couple for whenever Sea Monkey's ready to make his/her appearance. That feels like forever. It's only 84-ish days, but it just feels like it's dragging. The pregnancy up to this point feels like it's just sped by, but now that I'm in the final stretch, so to speak, it feels like it's dragging and September will never ever, ever be here. But hey. I've been hoping and dreaming and praying for this for 2 years, so what's another 3 months?

Zach got to feel the baby move more last night. =) They were distinct movements, too, and not subtle little kicks or whatever. It's been fun, sometimes the kicks are strong enough that my belly jumps to the side, like it's entirely independent from me. I keep hoping Mali will snuggle up with me and Sea Monkey will kick her through my stomach. It hasn't happened yet, but I think it'll be fantastically hilarious when/if it does.

We have childbirth class #3 tomorrow. And Tuesday is my next prenatal appointment. I have my glucose test then, and I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to eat carb-wise for the thing. I'm still really excited that I don't have to drink the sugar drink. I read in a Dr. Sears book about 2 months ago that the way doctors' offices do the glucose test isn't exactly accurate, because flooding your body with the sugar drink and then sitting for an hour isn't going to replicate the way your body normally processes sugar. I think that's what it said, it's been a while since I read it. But anyway, I get to eat a normal meal (with carbs), so my body's just going to be trucking along like normal before being tested.

Oh, earlier, I was running through the list of yoga poses we'd been given at childbirth classes; I was in the downward facing dog position, and Mali decided to come in and sprawl out on the floor underneath me. Then she started rolling around on her back (very dog like for a cat) and decided to attack my arm (y'know... one of the things that's keeping me from not falling... right on top of her). Then she moved, and about half a second later, there was this huge crack of thunder. It startled us, and Mali and I both jumped (which was a weird experience, being in the downward dog position). I ended up just kind of collapsing to my knees, but Mali jumped half way across the room and was glaring at the window like it had offended her. Then she slinked out of the room with her tail in the air. It was pretty funny, though.

I'm still feeling really well, for the most part. Mostly just tired. Val mentions at just about every appointment how well my body seems to be handling pregnancy, and I'm really praying that continues. =) It's frustrating not being able to sleep well (or comfortably) at night, but that's pretty minor, and I'm sort of used to being tired all the time anyway. I was tired through pretty much all of high school and college, because I went to bed late and got up early. But anyway.


Belly pic:

27 Weeks

Sea Monkey is 2 pounds, 14 1/2 inches. S/he sleeps at regular intervals, and opens and closes his/her eyes. That seems really weird to me, since there's all that fluid in there, but then, I've never been able to open my eyes under water. It's just weird. If Sea Monkey were to be born now, his/her lungs would function, but they'd need medical help. I already knew that, but it's really reassuring to see that in my weekly updates, instead of just a random factoid I've come across that will be applicable at X point in my pregnancy.

New this past week: leg cramps! Hooray! Due to my crazy-growing uterus putting pressure on some veins, leg cramps are now very common and will only get worse as the pregnancy progresses! It's a wonderful way to wake up (ha!). Really, I don't mind it. It lasts about 10 seconds and then I go back to sleep. Annoying, sure, but not a big deal.

Also new: itchy belly! Bah. I did have a fun (brief) conversation with a cashier the other night; she had just had a baby 3 months ago and could empathize with the itchiness. She had asked which hospital I was going to, and I told her I was having the baby at home. She asked if I was going to do a water birth, I said yep, and she seemed to think it was pretty cool. I was a little surprised that she thought it was cool, because apparently a lot of women planning home births get a lot of hostility for their decision to birth at home. But hey. It works for me. =)

27 weeks is limbo-land in terms of which trimester I'm in. One of my weekly updates says I'm in the 3rd trimester, the other says it doesn't start until next week. Why can't they just agree? It was like that in the transition between first and second trimesters, too.

I am in a near constant state of being worn out, and entirely lacking any motivation to do anything, whatsoever. It's particularly terrible when Zach and I get back from our walks. I've started spending part of my afternoons when I have a smidge more energy doing as much prep work as I can for dinner, that way I have a whole lot less to do. It helps a lot.

I'm officially in maternity pants now. My old jeans still fit, I just really don't like the feeling of the material touching my belly like they did. So maternity pants it is. And the elastic band.... very annoying. Really. I've only been wearing maternity pants for two days now and I'm already annoyed. Yikes. But I'm feeling very relieved that I only have to deal with them for the one trimester and however long it takes to get back into pre-pregnancy shape. Which hopefully won't be long, since it took forever for me to get into them to begin with. Also: why in the world did designers of maternity pants decide it was a good idea to not give those pants pockets?? Why? WHY would you do that?

Today (Saturday), Zach and I went to this store in town called The Children's Orchard; it's kind of like this thrift store for kids' stuff. You can sell baby clothes and equipment and buy stuff, but they have standards for the things they buy and sell; they want to have good quality things. Anyway, today they had a $5 bag sale, which is basically where you shove all the clothes you can into a bag that they provide and then you get all that stuff for $5. It's pretty cool. We got 2 bags of size 3-6 and higher clothes (a lot of pants and neutral tops). We totaled it up when we got home and figured out we'd saved about $115 from the sale, which is pretty darn awesome (it'd be even more if we'd bought them new). They only do the sale twice a year (and understandably so, since we made out like bandits today). So we now have a start on clothes for Sea Monkey for when s/he gets bigger. And we'll probably fill out the rest of Sea Monkey's wardrobe once s/he is here, so we can have clothes that are actually gender specific. And we'll hit up the next $5 bag sale in December. =)

That's really about it. Things are pretty boring, but that's fine with me, because I'd much rather have boring updates for the next 13 weeks or so than updates about pre-term labor, pre-eclampsia, etc. Boring is good.

Belly picture: