Feb 21 Update

Once again I fell off the blogging wagon… sorry about that.

My Feb 21 ultrasound went well. The baby is measuring just as it should. We had this one recorded too, so it's all on videotape. I did get some pictures of the baby printed out, but honestly these are the worst ones ever. I can barely tell what they are and I was there when they were taken! This tech was the lousiest photographer yet. Oh well.

I took the 1-hr glucose test that day too. I just called the nurse and she said that they only call if the results are abnormal - but my OB is running behind on her charts, so she can't say for sure if my test was ok. But if I don't here from them by the end of the week, then it should be fine. OK, I can live with that.

I was also able to ask my OB some of the questions that you're apparently supposed to ask before you choose an OB (better late than never, right?). So I asked about her c-section rate and her thoughts on episiotomies. She said that she thought her rate was kind of high - 30% - BUT, that's because she has a lot of high risk patients. And she pointed out that it's a lot lower than the hospital's overall rate, which is over 40%. She said that there's no reason to think I would need one.

But here's the best news… she does not do routine episiotomies. The idea of an episiotomy was really making me nervous, so I was very glad to hear it. She said that there can be a medical need for one, but that she probably does about 2 per year! 2??!? Wow. OK, I can definitely live with that.

I also told her that I was thinking about natural childbirth but wasn't certain. She said whatever I wanted was fine (But I realize that my statement was broad and vague and her answer was vague, but good enough for now.)

Now I just need to decide what questions to ask next time. Any suggestions?  Rob and I started putting together a birth plan, but it was really hard to do! If I go back and read it I'm sure I can come up with many more things to ask. And also, for some things I wanted to wait until we had the childbirth class at the hospital because just learning their policies may clear up some questions.

R felt the baby move!

This morning R felt the baby move for the first time ever. Little Bugger was squirming a little more than usual for that time of day, so I pressed R's hand to my belly. Even though it wasn't the hardest kick the baby's done, R could finally feel it! I'm so excited by this, maybe even more than R is, but he did seem very pleased to have felt Little Bugger move. Baby got in a few more kicks before we had to get up.

:)

small update

       
Ultrasound appointment and OB appointment are set for the 21st. No available ultrasound appointments until then.

Nothing else to report - have a good week!

doctor's visit

I'm 23 weeks, 1 day today.

I went to the doctor this morning. Since I moved my appointment up by a week, I couldn't take my glucose test yet. But that's ok, I'll get the chance to take it when I go back next week. Yes, next week.

There's some white blood cells in my urine, so she put me on an antimiotic for a possible bladder infection. She'll test again next week.

She said I was measuring a bit large, and since when I had my anatomy scan done a few weeks ago, little bugger was squirming too much to get good measurements, I'm going back next week for another hospital ultrasound.

However, I did get back the results of my quad screen, and everything was just fine on that.

And last but not least, I've only gained 7.5 pounds for the entire pregnancy which is just fine according to my doctor. But I have to say, when I look down at this big ol' belly, I'm astounded that I haven't put on more weight. I'm really not trying to watch what I eat either - I eat what I want, when I want. Fortunately, most sweets just don't sound appealing, otherwise I'd probably have ballooned by this point! Also, I don't feel like I can eat very much. I just get full very fast.

So on a typical day, my diet consists of something like this:

• breakfast: glass of milk and oatmeal with raisins / or cereal
• morning snack: a banana or pear (or pastry if they have some at work!)
• lunch: always has been my biggest meal of the day, I've only now gotten to the point where I can occassionally eat my entire meal. More often, I eat about half what I used to eat.
• early afternoon snack: banana, apple, or pear
• late afternoon snack: mini-bag of popcorn and a cup of cocoa
• dinner: a glass of milk and something small. A 'snack-sized' serving of noodles, meat and peas is a 'big' meal for dinner. Sometimes just a coffee mug of cottage cheese and canned fruit (peaches, pineapple or mandarin orange).
• after dinner snack: a glass of milk

I'm really glad they put out free fruit for us at work! And we're going through 1.5 to 2 gallons of milk each week. Rob only has milk with cereal, so I'm pretty sure that I'm the one drinking most of that.

Later today I'm going to the eye doctor for new glasses - the headaches that used to plague me are gone though. I suspect they were hormone induced.

spotting

I had a scare last night. I'm okay, the baby's okay, but here's my story.

Getting ready for bed last night, I went to the bathroom. And, in the ritual of pregnant women everywhere, I always look at the toilet paper just to make sure everything's ok. And it was there. A streak of blood. Not more than a tinge really, the kind where you're not sure if you're seeing what you're seeing, and you move your hand just to make sure you're not catching a glimpse of your finger through a thin spot in the tissue.

But it was there. I wiped again and again, each time getting just a trace of pink. Not brown, this was fresh blood, just not enough of it to make it red.

I called the doctor's office, they took my info and spoke to the doctor. She called me back within seconds.

I explained that it wasn't a lot, that it was just a tinge of blood on the tissue. That I was not in any pain…. except… well, yesterday I felt kind of crampy in a gassy and constipated sort of way. Not extremely crampy -  I wouldn't have mentioned it except for the blood. She asked me how fast I could get to the hospital and told me that they'd be expecting me. We got there a little after 10:30 last night.

I went straight up to labor and delivery and a very nice nurse was waiting for me. She took urine and blood and hooked me up to some monitors. The fetal monitor picked up the heartbeat right away and it sounded good and reassuring to me. The monitor for contractions never picked up anything fortunately. She quizzed me about my recent activities, but I've done nothing that could have caused bleeding. She did an internal exam (wow, that was fun.) and told me that my cervix was closed up good and tight like it should be. I didn't have any more bleeding while I was there. The labs finally came back and showed my blood was fine and that there was a little blood in my urine, but not a lot (it certainly wasn't visible to the eye or anything).

I was told to just go to my appointment on Friday and my discharge papers say "no heavy lifting", but that's it.  Of course, at 1am I was a little mixed up and my doctor's appointment isn't this Friday but next Friday. I have a call in to the doctor now to get that moved up.

Week 22 and cruise update

Hello! And welcome to week 22 of my pregnancy. We will be serving severe heartburn and indigestion for the remainder of this flight. Please store your backache in the overhead bin if it will not fit under the seat in front of you…

No really, I'm fine. :)

Here's my pet peeve of the day. According to webmd, I'm 6 months pregnant. According to babycenter, I'm not even 5 and a half months pregnant. According to my own made-up calendar based on my due date, I'm a week shy of month 6. No wonder every pregnant woman quotes her time in weeks!

Anyway, I had a good time on my cruise to Cozumel. I was sea sick the first day despite the sea.bands I wore. I don't know if they didn't work at all or if they were doing a great job of preventing me from losing my lunch - and I was not willing to remove them to find out! I was awake for about 6 woozy hours on Friday, though we did manage to go to the art auction and bid on some stuff! the formal dinner was that night and I really wanted to go… so we went. And then I had to get up and leave after eating maybe 3 bites of beef tenderloin. Oh well, I tried.

Saturday in Cozumel was great. We were at Chaukanaub by 9am sitting on the beach with snorkeling in easy reach. I've always seen movies where people get drinks on the beach, but I've never had that experience until now - and I tell you, it's the height of luxury even if your drinks are just water and cokes. We went to Pancho's for a late lunch (it was ok, I'd not go back) and walked through the shops for a bit before we went back to the ship.

When I woke up Sunday, I was greeted by the wonderful news that my day at sea was going to be extended by 8 hours. Since my only other day at sea was unpleasant, I was not happy with this! Turns out that someone got sick and we turned around and went back to Cozumel during the night, returning at 3am. The good news is that Sunday was a much smoother sailing day than Friday had been. I managed to stay well enough that I could go onto the upper decks and we hung out at the pool (it was indoors) for a long time. We also went to the 2nd art auction and bid on more stuff. All in all, I think that we spent very little time in the room on Sunday. We even managed to go out and play minature golf in the fierce wind (if the wind or the sway of the ship moves your ball into the hole, that counts as a hole in zero!).

I didn't go to any of the shows, but R did - I didn't hold him hostage in the room when I was feeling bad or was just to tired to go anywhere. He also went to the midnight chocolate buffet where he learned that it's a bad idea to eat chocolate and then go straight to bed :p  He even went to a swing dance class because we knew that there's usually a shortage of men at things like that (R already knows how to swing dance, that's how we met, but he said it was a good refresher).

Monday we docked at 1pm instead of 7am, so we got a bit of extra vacation out of it. Mostly we just hung out by the pool, but we did play a fierce game of ping pong too.

All in all, I think it was a good trip. Would I cruise again? Yes, but not while pregnant. I want to be able to take any drug I may need to fight of motion sickness!