29 weeks update

I went to the OB of Friday - everything looked good.

I got my glucose test numbers. My blood sugar was 100. She said that 140 was the cutoff for gestational diabetes, 130 was high enough to modify my diet, but that 100 was fantastic and there are no worries. So that's good to know.

Only odd thing is that I lost 2.5 pounds (which leaves me up 7 lbs total over my pre-pg weight). The doctor wasn't very concerned, she asked if I'd been eating well, and I said that I thought I had. But really, just thinking about all the ice cream, cheese, and beef I've eaten should be enough to make me gain 5lbs, so I don't know what the heck is going on. I guess I'll just try to eat a bit more... but I really don't know how I'll manage that since I feel like I eat all day long.

Don't worry, a lot of the pregnancy weight most people put on is from their body putting on an extra fat layer to have reserves to feed the baby - my "extra fat layer" was already well established pre-pg and there's plenty of fat available to create a milk supply, so that's why I don't need to gain much weight, though I really shouldn't keep losing any and I'm honestly not trying to lose any. Oh, and of course, your weight really does fluctuate a little each day, which could account for a lot of the 2.5 lbs I 'lost'.

Anyway, the doctor had said before that after this appointment she'd have me come in every 2 weeks instead of monthly. But on Friday she decided that I was doing really well (see? so weight loss is no biggie) and there was no point in going back in 2 weeks, so my next appointment is 4 weeks out - April 20th. And then I'll do one or two fortnightly appointments before going to weekly appointments.

That's all for now. Everybody go have a nice milkshake and think of me. (A *nice* milkshake, not one of those nasty things from Mc.Donalds or Wend.ys)

Week 28 update

I smell bad. 

I took a shower today and I'm wearing deoderant, but I swear I still smell. In the last week I've really noticed an increase in my body odor. If I take a shower at night, deoderant must be applied immediately or I can't stand the smell of myself as I try to fall asleep. I have deoderant in my desk drawer at work for emergency stink.  I had noticed a change in b.o. strength early on in my pregnancy, but then it seemed to go away - but it's back. Try not to stand to close. (Sorry R, you have to stay close to me, no free pass for you, just try not to breath through your nose.)

My back hurts.

I had a preggo massage last weekend, which was great, but had no long lasting effects on my back pain. It's not horrible pain, it's just constant and annoying. It's hard to get comfortable.

I cry a lot.

Not serious crying, I just get weepy at everything. Especially the news. Is it just me or are there a ton of dead/abused baby stories in the news right now? I can't even scan the headlines without a tissue in my hand. Want to read a sad one? Here's the story of a boy who fought to get his baby sister a proper burial. 

I did have a few weepy moments last night that were more like infertility flashbacks. As R admired my bare belly and I stared at the curve of my belly under his hand, I just started crying. I never thought it would happen. And sometimes I still don't believe that it is happening despite feeling Little E kick the bejesus out of me.

A name.

Yeah, that's right, I called the baby Little E, not Little Bugger. I think we've chosen the names for a boy and girl. Don't worry, it's not the same name, they just both happen to start with the letter E. Weird, huh? But don't run out and get us a monogram or anything, we reserve the right to change our minds upon seeing the kid - ok, I reserve the right to change my mind and to change R's for him :p After all, I'll have just given birth, do you really think he's going to argue with me? Both E names, and the back-up names are just names we picked out and like, they don't have special meaning and aren't family names. The middle names have been decided for quite some time and they are family names.

Classes.

We're signed up for childbirth and breastfeeding classes at the hospital for late April. We've signed up for infant care and cpr classes at a local hospital that's closer to the house, also in late April. I think we're going to take some Lamaze classes too, which would start in the next week or two. Still not sure that I can or will do this without drugs, but if I'm even going to try then I figure I need some lessons!

Next OB appt is the 23rd. After that we go from monthly appointments to every 2 weeks.

Nesting

It's March 7th - 3 months exactly before the due date. So in my mind, the 3rd trimester begins today. Of course I'll only be 27 weeks tomorrow. Depending on who you ask, 3rd trimester begins either at 28 weeks or 30 weeks. (30 weeks? How is only 10 weeks supposed to be a third of 40? It's certainly not 3 months!)

Anyway, I had lunch yesterday with a co-worker whom I see about once a month. As father of 2 kids under the age of 3, he's familiar with the emotional stages of pregnancy. He asked if I'd started nesting yet.  I said no. He told me how his wife had done it before both her sons were born - organizing everything and getting the house ready. I said, oh, well, I did clean out underneath the kitchen sink and bathroom sink last weekend!

He laughed a bit and said, well, you can tell when a woman's really nesting by looking at the linen closet - if all the sheets are stacked up and it's amazingly orderly…

At which point I started laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes because I had to 'fess up that I organized the linen closet the weekend before - and that not only were the sheets stacked by size, the shelves are labeled.

Oh dear, maybe I am nesting.

When I started to tell this story to R, and told him that I told my friend I wasn't nesting, he said - Oh yeah, you're nesting all right. See, last weekend I made this whole list of things to do around the house ranging from clean the patio and clean under the sinks to go grocery shopping. In my mind, this was a list to fend off the annoying question "what do we need to do this weekend", but apparently the list got put in the "she's nesting" category.

preparing the nursery

Just thought I'd share the nursery colors. This is the fabric for the chair in the nursery and hopefully I'll get around to making a valance too. The walls are sage green, somewhere bewteen the skinny darkest green stripe in the fabric and the next darkest green. (sorry about the black background, I promise there's no black fabric planned for the nursery)

The furniture is already in of course, but there's still some junk that needs to be removed. I'll try to take a picture later.

discussing post-maternity-leave options

Had an interesting conversation with my co-worker this week…

I work on a very small team. There are only 3 of us now - my boss (P) and my co-worker(S). P is an older guy (old enough to be my parent at least) and S is a woman a few years younger than me. I'm pretty close to S. We all go out to lunch a lot, and I like P, but due to his being the boss and just his general personality, I don't tell him as much as I tell S.

So S knows that I'd like to stay home with the baby but that I probably won't. She knows what I'm hoping to do for childcare, that I'd like to take off all Fridays and exactly what kind of flexibility I'm looking for. But P doesn't because it seems too early to have these discussions with him.

Well one day last week when I wasn't in the office, S and P go out to lunch together and as they are walking past the campus daycare the kids are out playing and P tells S that he thinks I won't come back after I have the baby! So S, always willing to walk that fine line between keeping secrets and steering the boss in the right direction, has a conversation with him that goes something like this...

S: um, I think she's planning on it.
P: oh really? has she talked about it?
S: some… but I think she'd probably want some flexibility with her schedule
P: oh, of course, that's not a problem.

So now he's been primed and is ready for a discussion about me working a few less hours a week and will probably be agreeable :) That's good to know. I also know a couple other things that make me feel better about my chances of arranging a good schedule 1) it took P a long time to fill the position; 2) P likes my work; 3) P hates change in the sense that he'd prefer to not have to 'break in' a new person for this job.

Anyway, I'll talk to P as soon as he's back in the country - but that's not until March 12th.