Another week down.

How far along? 27 weeks!
Total weight gain/loss: Another pound up, so 21 total.
Maternity clothes? Yep. Pretty much all dresses now, since Georgia apparently likes being 70 degrees in February. It's great now, but I'm terrified of what temperatures July will bring...
Stretch marks? None yet. I'm sure they're coming, though.
Sleep: The sleep itself is great, but the pee breaks during the night are awful, especially since it's starting to get harder to get myself out of bed.
Best moment this week: Passing that glucose test. Also, eating brownies afterward.
Movement: Lots, and getting stronger - I think I can see them from outside sometimes, but I might just be lying to myself.
Food cravings: Homemade mac 'n' cheese, with just a wee little bit of mustard.
Gender: He.
Labor Signs: None at all.
Belly Button in or out? In.
What I miss: Lying on my back without feeling like I'm going to pass out.
What I am looking forward to: Touring labor/delivery soonish - should be terrifying.
Weekly Wisdom: Never put yourself in a situation where you don't have access to a bathroom. Ever.
Milestones: Third trimester starts now! Holy shnikes.

Thursday.

My appointment Thursday was pretty uneventful, if a tad lengthy. I showed up the standard ten minutes early for my ultrasound and waited for about thirty minutes to be told that actually there was a scheduling error and I wasn't having an ultrasound after all. (awww, sad face) I wound up waiting another thirty minutes to see my nurse practitioner for the other important stuff.

By the time they called me back I was incredibly thirsty, since I foolishly forgot to bring a bottle of water and the water fountain was broken, and there were also no magazines in the waiting room (very mysterious - there are always a zillion copies of the standard How to Not Screw Up Your Kid and Fifty New Ways to Get Pregnant and Haha You're Never Going to Lose the Baby Weight magazines in there). Life is so hard. Fortunately, I discovered another water fountain just outside the waiting room (felt very stupid - it was about ten feet away from where I was previously dying of thirst) and managed to drink enough to provide a suitable urine sample for them to test.

The actual appointment was pretty good. My blood pressure is fine, my weight seems okay, and all my bloodwork from last time came back looking perfect. My blood glucose is apparently exemplary, which was rather a pleasant shock - I celebrated once I got home with far too many brownies. Jim's heart sounds lovely, and I'm still measuring about two weeks big, which is apparently normal for me.

We discussed the birth plan stuff after that, and she was very supportive of all the granola-hippie crap. She thought it all sounded very well thought-out and recommended that I transfer to a doctor there who apparently specializes in natural births. Her reasoning was that she, as a lowly nurse practitioner, didn't have a lot of authority down in labor and delivery, but the new doctor has a lot more sway and can help make sure I get what I want. So, I'll probably be meeting a new doctor soon, which should be moderately interesting.

So, the end result is that I go back in another two weeks for a regular appointment and a growth ultrasound (prediction: fibroid unchanged, Jim's head still massive), and shortly after that I meet the new doctor. Should be fun.

Category: Things I Don't Have

HALP I'm shrinking!

I'm pretty sure I'm looking smaller now than I was at 23 weeks, but maybe it's just the black shirt. Harumph.

Birth plans are stupid and I hate them.

Alas, they are apparently important if you want anything other than a standard chock-full-o'-drugs birth, and my nurse wants me to have some idea of this before our appointment Tuesday, so... Birth plan it is. It's a tad overwhelming, though - waaaay too many decisions. So far I've got:

• I want to be able to walk around and move freely, so no IV (a port is okay, in case of emergencies) and no constant or internal fetal monitoring unless it's absolutely necessary. I'd like to stay wireless if possible.
  
• No unnatural induction-y stuff (ie, pitocin or breaking water) unless there's danger to me or Jim. I'll progress as slow or fast as I need to.
  
• I don't want to be offered any pain medication, including the epi. I know what's available, and if I want it, I'll ask for it. I'm way too weak-willed to refuse something offered to me, but I think I'll be okay if they don't try to push it on me. This, of course, goes out the window if I need a C-section - in that case, I want every drug they have available, including the doctor's private stash.
  
• No episiotomy - if I'm going to tear, let me just tear. I hear it heals up a lot easier that way.
  
• Shower and/or tub available would be nice, as would be not-too-bright lighting and no unnecessary people in the room.
  
• No mirrors! I really don't want to see what's going on down below. I am way too squeamish. This goes double if a C-section becomes necessary - please please please don't make me watch.
  
• Delayed cord-cutting sounds like a good idea, but I'm not quite sure yet, so I need to check into that. We'll probably also decline the eye drops, since I'm reasonably sure I don't have chlamydia, and the vitamin K shot, since we're not circumcising.
  
• I want to hold James and try breastfeeding as soon as possible, before they whisk him off to be weighed and measured and so forth. That stuff can probably wait half an hour or so.
  
• I want him to stay with me if at all possible, but if he does get taken out of the room for something, I want to make sure he's not given any pacifiers or bottles (formula, glucose, or just water). I hear that can cause breastfeeding issues, and I'd prefer to make that go as smooth as possible.
  

Reading back over that, I feel like a crunchy granola hippie. I don't think I'm being too unreasonable, though. This is obviously all ideal scenario stuff, and if there's real danger to me or Jim, I'll be glad to do whatever I need to and won't beat myself up over not sticking to plan.

Still, that's what I've got so far. I don't think it covers everything - if you see something I haven't addressed that I maybe should mention, I'd appreciate suggestions.

26 week update.

How far along? 26 down, 14 to go.
Total weight gain/loss: One pound gain for the week, which brings me to 20 total.
Maternity clothes? Yeeeeeah.
Stretch marks? Nope. Pretty good burn scar, though!
Sleep: Okay. Getting harder to find a comfy position, though.
Best moment this week: Nothing particularly stands out, but it's been a pretty good week.
Movement: Quite a bit. I think he's getting into a regular sleep cycle, maybe.
Food cravings: Oatmeal, cornmeal mush, cereal... Large piles of damp carbohydrates, basically.
Gender: Definitely a boy.
Labor Signs: Nope.
Belly Button in or out? In.
What I miss: My real clothes.
What I am looking forward to: Another ultrasound (to check that fibroid and Jim's huge head) on Thursday! Maybe I'll try to talk the tech into better pictures this time.
Weekly Wisdom: Don't panic.
Milestones: None right yet, but I'll be in the third trimester in about three days, so that's something.

Exactly 100 days left.

Good lord that's scary. Seems like not a lot of time at all, and it's making me kind of nervous. I mean, what the heck do you do with a baby? I've never held a baby in my life. I'm terrified of screwing it up somehow.

*breathe*

I know it'll be fine, but it's scary as hell at the moment.

Baffling.

So they only gave us three pictures at the ultrasound last week. One was a "oh, yeah, definitely a boy" shot (which I won't post here for the sake of common decency), one I cannot figure out at all, and the last is this one.


Note enormous cranium.

I'm not exactly sure what's going on here either, really. Obviously it's a side profile, but what's up by his mouth? Is he stroking his chin malevolently? Or possibly practicing for future malevolent mustache-twirling? Could be just sticking his foot in his mouth (malevolently, of course). I dunno, but that's what they gave us, so here, enjoy.

Lizards and burns and 25 weeks.

Yesterday was relatively fun. It was a nice day out (sunny and 60s, and supposed to stay that way all week!), so we went to check out a nearby park. It was extremely fun - we walked around a pond that had some ducks and geese, and found a cool lizard. Brown-phase green anole, I think. Last time I lived in a place that had lizards was probably when I was like seven years old in missionary camp in Missouri. All I really remember was that we would catch skinks and Emmy would accidentally squash them because she was so excited to hold them.


Sample anole. This is not the one we found.

After the park we came home and were lazy. I made some boiled eggs for Noah's lunch box this week (gross, but he likes them), and the excellent idea of making myself some popcorn afterwards. This required emptying the boiling water from the pot immediately, instead of letting it cool like I normally do. Long story short, I wound up dumping half the pot down my front and screaming like a banshee. Noah came charging in somewhere between the "WHAAAAAARRARRRRHHH!!!" and the burst of profanity to rescue me. It all turned out okay, though. Due to quick intervention (hot clothes off, ice pack on) I don't even have a blister this morning - just a kind of hurt-y red mark.

Weekly stats:
How far along? 25 weeks!
Total weight gain/loss: Up one pound from last week, so 19 total. That seems reasonable.
Maternity clothes? Yep. Need more. Sick of wearing the same six shirts in rotation.
Stretch marks? None yet.
Sleep: Not bad. Getting up at 5am for Noah's PT has sent me back to naps three days a week, though.
Best moment this week: Ultrasound, of course. I love ultrasounds. Have another one on the 24th, too, to check on Jim's big head and my big fibroid.
Movement: Lots. Constantly. Fun except for when I'm trying to sleep.
Food cravings: Plums, but we're out of them. :(
Gender: Definitely a boy. Double-checked.
Labor Signs: None. Even had a decrease in the B-H contractions I'd been having.
Belly Button in or out? In, but increasingly tight.
What I miss: Sleeping on my stomach.
What I am looking forward to: Third trimester in about a week and a half!
Weekly Wisdom: Get your menfolk to dump large pots of boiling water for you, people.
Milestones: I've had quite a few comments from strangers, so I think I look pretty definitely pregnant now. No more "baby or bacon?" confusion.

Might not have made a birthday cake, but...

...the cupcakes I made yesterday do pretty well as a stand-in.


Red velvet with cream cheese frosting, all from scratch.

Shiny fancy doctor visit.

So, Thursday I went to the doctor, and there's really not a lot to report. Noah was free early, so he could come with me (and drive and park in the terrifying parking garage), which was really nice.

They kept us pretty busy from the second we arrived. I had to run straight downstairs to get a glucose drink in me. It was...not as bad as expected. It was basically just like drinking thick flat orange soda, and not a lot of it - half a small glass. So that was a lot less scary than I expected.

After chugging that, we went back upstairs for an ultrasound. It was a little odd - I'm used to it just being the u/s tech and me in the room, but this time there were two random doctors hanging out watching it as well. They were pretty amusing, though, and the commentary was fun, so all was well. It turns out that James looks perfectly normal, except that his head is enormous. Actually, all of him is pretty big. They said he was about 1 pound 13 ounces, which about two weeks bigger than normal.

We also had the excitement of watching him pee on the ultrasound. Weird.

After the ultrasound was the actual OB appointment. The normal stuff was done - urine test, blood pressure (much higher than usual - 135/70, as opposed to my normal 105/60ish), weight, etc. My nurse got Noah to check my fundal height (still a little bigger than it should be) and find the heartbeat with a doppler. He said this made him feel like a kindergartener on a field trip.

Last of all, we went straight back downstairs to get the blood drawn for the glucose test, exactly one hour after drinking the orange crap. It hurt, and I whined (to Noah, not to the tech - can't be looking like a wuss in front of strangers, now). For some reason I'm absolutely convinced I'm going to fail it and have to get the three-hour test and live on brown rice and plain chicken and other non-cupcake items for the remainder of the pregnancy, but I haven't heard back yet, so... So far so good.

We didn't really get any good pictures from the ultrasound, but I'll try to post the few we did get later on. We're planning on a lazy day today (Noah's birthday!), so I might instead just lounge around on the couch with him while he digs gardens to make his pinatas happy.

Bad news for my female bits.

Size of Jim's belly: 57th percentile
Size of Jim overall: 68th percentile
Size of Jim's head: 98th percentile

I guess it really shouldn't surprise me that Noah's son has a big huge freaking massive head.

An idyllic breakfast scene.

It was a pretty early morning today. Noah had to do PT at some ungodly hour, and he's still on his learner's permit, so I had to get up with him in the middle of the night so he could drive on base to do jumping jacks and pushups and what-have-you. That was fairly unpleasant, but it was made up for by the fact that he could then come home to stay for a few hours before heading off to do important stuff.

For whatever reason, he decided that he was going to make us a big omelette for breakfast. Naturally I rejoiced – there is no breakfast so delicious as one I didn't have to cook. Plus he makes a pretty mean omelette. That said, when he reached for the jalapenos in the back of the fridge, I was mildly concerned. Last time I put jalapenos in something, I made the error of not wearing gloves to dice them and not washing my hands sufficiently afterwards. I was left with burning fingers, a burning nose where I scratched it, burning eyes where I rubbed them while crying about the burning nose... Bad situation all around. I tried to warn Noah, but he apparently thought I was just being a baby about it and went ahead and just diced up the jalapenos for our omelette.

I was setting the table when I heard him start howling. I looked around and he was babbling semi-coherently about “BURNS! My EYES! Buuuurning! WHY?”

Naturally, the man was rubbing his eyes in a misguided effort to make it better. I told him to quit rubbing more jalapeno juice into his eyes and pushed him into the bathroom to wash his hands with hot soapy water and spend some time rinsing out his eyes with cold water. It seemed to help, but I think he'll be spending the rest of the day looking like he's got a bad case of pink-eye. At least he no longer thinks I was just being a wuss about the previous batch of jalapenos.

The omelette did wind up being delicious, I'm delighted to report. I'm slightly less happy to report that I threw up the entire thing ten minutes after I finished it. Oh hi, morning sickness – welcome back. Always a pleasure.

All apologies...

Sorry about the slight hiatus. I wish I could report that it was because I've been out being uber-productive and so forth, but really, we've just been lounging around. It's kind of nice. I feel almost criminal complaining about the weather here, but really, it's hard to want to do anything when you've got a week of solid rain and 45-degree days. (sorry, Northerners - that counts as crappy weather for me now)

Still, it's been a pretty good week. Noah's finally been moved to a real (-ish) job, so he's now going to be out of the house a lot more, apparently, but I'm not sure for what. He delights in being all Secret Squirrel. Such is apparently life when married to the military.

How far along? 24 weeks.
Total weight gain/loss: Up 18, I think, depending on how much I'm inclined to trust the scale.
Maternity clothes? Yeah, no change there.
Stretch marks? No!
Sleep: Excellent. I've gotten a weird burst of energy and haven't been needing my customary morning nap this week.
Best moment this week: Probably all the movement - James has been somersaulting* around all day long. I can almost tell what he's actually doing sometimes.
Movement: See above.
Food cravings: Apples and oranges and popcorn.
Gender: Still a boy.
Labor Signs: B-H contractions are getting a little more frequent, but that's all, fortunately.
Belly Button in or out? In, but it looks weird.
What I miss: Bike riding. I don't even have a bike right now, but I got the urge to do some cycling, and the internet graciously informed me that I can't. Bastards.
What I am looking forward to: Ultrasound on Thursday! (glucose test also on Thursday, but I'm not looking forward to that one)
Weekly Wisdom: None. Feeling unwise at the moment.
Milestones: Viability! 24 weeks means that if Jim came out right now, the doctors would do everything in their power and he'd have about a 50-50 shot (or 30-70, depending on what source you go with, but I like 50-50 better).

*Please indulge me in a moment of pride for spelling that correctly on the first try.

So just how big is a papaya?

Apparently Jimmybear is papaya-sized now, so I took to Google's lovely image search to find out exactly what that means. I still don't know just how big one is, but apparently it's roughly the size of a bikini model. Thanks, Google.


Cannibal love goddesses should always be named after oddly-shaped fruits.