Saturday, December 28, 2013

32 Weeks

For some reason, I always think of 32 weeks as the beginning of the homestretch, so, fittingly, I've been buckling down more this week. I'm working on cutting down on the extra sugar in my diet, which should be much easier to do now that the holidays are winding down, and I've finally increased my water intake to more of what it should be (still have another 10oz or so to go each day, but it's much better now). I've upped my daily exercise, so on the days I'm not doing yoga or an hour of cleaning (like today), I'm now walking 30 minutes at a brisk pace on the treadmill.

Ryan and I also went through my to-do list and made some adjustments to it and even made some decisions: we now have names picked out (still a secret!), a plan for daycare (same place Josie was at before, assuming they have space), and a plan for new baby's sleeping arrangements (we briefly considered a co-sleeper, but now will be sticking with sidecarring the crib to our bed again) and my "nursing nooks" (a smaller setup in our closet for at least the first few weeks, and a secondary setup in the baby's nursery). We also oxi-cleaned all of Josie's old clothes that were in need of it, and brought down all of the baby stuff from the attic to organize and clean. Josie is now in her full size bed too, so since the bed had been stored in the nursery, that opened up a lot of space in there. We still have to arrange the furniture and closet in the nursery, but we'll tackle that next month.

I'm still sick, but I feel like maybe I'm getting better? My nose is slightly less stuffed up during the day, although it's still been bad enough a couple of nights that I had problems sleeping since I couldn't breathe. The sleeping situation was slightly better this week - I'm still waking up several times a night and not exactly feeling refreshed in the morning, but I feel like I may be moving towards acceptance now: I'm functioning (for the most part), I actually am feeling pretty good (despite being diseased and sleep-deprived), and I'm not quite as frustrated by my inability to sleep as I have been. Also, the new baby keeps me company in the middle of the night, since it likes to give a good, hard kick whenever I shift positions, so that's kind of the bright spot of my multiple wakeups each night :)

New baby added scraping movements to its repertoire this week: I don't know if it's an elbow or a leg moving across my belly, but it's definitely disconcerting. It was kicking so much at work yesterday that I found myself working most of the day with one hand on my belly to better feel the baby kicks :) Ryan's mom and both sisters also got to feel the baby kicking on Christmas, which was fun to be able to share that with them, although Ryan's younger sister's reaction (screaming) was my favorite ;)
IMG_0693     IMG_0727

Saturday, December 21, 2013

31 Weeks

Well, after mentioning the lack of hiccups in last week's post, new baby promptly remedied that and got the hiccups :) Just once so far, though.

We're all still sick from last week, although Josie seems to be almost better at least. Ryan and I perhaps are getting a second wave of disease, since while I started feeling better towards the beginning of this week, I now feel even worse. My sore throat is gone, but now our congestion is really quite unpleasant for Ryan and me. And despite many, many strange and intense dreams this week, I actually slept pretty well (read: only one wakeup) one night... and then that all went south again, as I'm now waking up more than ever.

I had an appointment with the midwives this week, with the last of the four midwives who I hadn't met yet - despite her being one of the two most likely to attend our birth (based on location). That went well, with my belly measuring 30cm (as it should), and my blood pressure and baby's heartbeat still doing well, and no edema quite yet. New baby still appears to be posterior (facing my front), which is not great since it can make labor longer/more intense, but hopefully it will turn around on its own sometime in the next few weeks... and if not, I will be trying my best to get it to turn :)
IMG_0685     IMG_0693

Saturday, December 14, 2013

30 Weeks

This week has been a very exhausting week. Josie came down with a cold last weekend, which of course meant that Ryan and I are now sick again too. She was not sleeping super great all week and was waking herself up coughing, which meant even more wakeups for me than usual, and then I lost 1-2 hours of sleep a couple nights because we just ended up bringing her back to bed with us since that was the easiest way to get her back to sleep. Which meant she and Ryan got back to sleep just fine, but I have more problems getting back to sleep after 5am (when this kept happening). So even though Josie was behaving herself and didn't kick me in the head at all (which marked the last time she had slept in bed with us, almost a year ago), I just got to lay there the rest of the night and hope that resting would have at least some benefit to me.

So I was basically a zombie by Friday, went to bed at 8:30pm (after Josie went to bed two hours early too) and got up at 8:00 this morning. My nose is still completely stuffed up and my throat is sore, but I'm at least awake and (mostly) functioning :) And poor Josie's ear drum ruptured this morning, so I guess that explains why she was so fussy last night before she fell asleep in Ryan's arms at 6:45pm :(

New baby was still moving all over the place this week, and I got caught for the first time at work while I was staring at my belly waiting for the baby to move ;) There have been a few more side-to-side, belly-shaking movements this week, rather than the usual kicking and punching. Still no hiccups yet, though!

We've also been making some progress on our to-do list - I got the paperwork/deposits sorted out for a couple of birth-related things, and we've also been working on names. We're going with the same boy name we decided on when I was pregnant with Josie, and we had a girl name seemingly all picked out but then we started second-guessing it, so we've been poring over girl names again the last couple of weeks. I'm just curious to see if we end up going with the first name we had picked out, since we did almost this exact same thing with Josie too :)
IMG_0658     IMG_0685

Sunday, December 8, 2013

November

November proved to be a busy month, with Josie starting at her new preschool, Ryan being gone for a week, various outings, and Thanksgiving.

Josie did really well for her first day at the new preschool, not even caring when I left and jumping right into the activities they were doing. I took that day as one of my required government shutdown-related PTO days, so I picked her up after lunch, and we headed down to the river after her nap for snack time. This is one of her favorite things to do now, as she always asks to go to the river and just wants to cuddle on the bottom step and watch the water (and leaves and fish) go by.
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[All ready for her first day at the new preschool]
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[Heading out to the river]
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After that, we headed over to the mall to try to find some pants for her and try out the mall play area. The play area was a fairly harrowing experience (a kid pulled her off the slide by her leg, then pushed her into another little girl, who accidentally knocked Josie over, making her burst into tears - all within the first five minutes), although she eventually found her little corner to have some fun where she wasn't getting run over every couple of minutes. We struck out on finding any pants for her, but she did get some quality dancing time in at Old Navy.
Things were not so rosy the next week, though. Ryan was in Iceland for work, so my mom stayed with me to help out, but it was still hard with the time change (that Josie actually did very well with, but me, not so much) and Josie realizing Ryan was gone for the first time, on top of the transition to the new preschool. So she asked where daddy was multiple times a day, and while we at least got to video chat with him before she went to bed most nights, it still seemed like his absence affected her more this time than any previous trips.

After the success of the first day, Josie started crying each morning when I dropped her off at preschool, which, since she never did that at her previous daycare, I probably took harder than I should have. She had several very emotional days, and some worsening fits during morning dropoff (including screaming, crying, kicking, throwing herself around, and refusing to be comforted by me or her teacher), but then she started doing a little better towards the end of the week. She was still crying in the mornings, and super, super excited to see me in the evenings and drag me out the door, but she was beginning to play with the other kids more and was less emotional throughout the day.

Once Ryan got back and took over dropoff duties again, she still had a few days of being sad at first, but now apparently runs to her teacher to give her a hug, takes off her jacket right away (which she refused to do the first couple of weeks), and then runs off to play. She is fully participating in the activities throughout the day, and loves music time, outdoor time, lunch time... basically, everything. And her vocabulary has really expanded, her language skills have gotten better, and she sings now. Oh, she sings. She sings all the time, anything seems to set her off into a round of "Baa Baa Black Sheep" or "The Wheels on the Bus", and there are very definite rules to the singing - as in, we're not allowed to just start singing with her, and she will let us know when it's our turn ;)
[Clean up, clean up!]
Josie also had some troubles adjusting to changes to our routine at home too - namely, we're waking up a bit earlier in the mornings to give her breakfast before preschool (she used to eat at her previous daycare instead). So breakfast turned into a battle for maybe the first week or two, until we got a timer to put some parameters around how long the meal would last (she gets less mad at the timer than at us) and we started involving her more in the process. She also now picks whether she wants to have cereal or eggs, and then helps us make it too. She is back to eating all of her food again, although she's still fighting the cleanup and tooth-brushing a bit afterwards, but not nearly what it was.

Josie's sleeping situation has been a little odd this month. She's still doing great with not even attempting to get out of bed (although once she dropped her kitty out of the bed, and I watched her on the monitor as she very gingerly got out of bed - keeping one hand on the bed at all times - grabbed her kitty and jumped right back in), but we've had to go in several times to spin her around since she sometimes gets her legs hung up on the bed rail or has her head hanging off the bed... she stays asleep through this, but cries enough in her sleep that it's better for us to just take care of it rather than let her eventually work it out on her own (or fully wake up). She has also had several nights of crying out every hour, and since that tended to happen Monday nights, I'm not sure if preschool was stressing her out or something.

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house again this year, and despite the last-minute stress with Ryan falling ill at the last minute, the food was great and it was so nice to spend time with our families.
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[Josie dancing with her cousins]
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[The spread]
Josie also helped us prep the meal too, and she was super excited about helping me bake the pumpkin pie (possibly even more excited than she was to eat it!). She also sort of helped Ryan prep the vegetables for the veggie tray the night before, but with a little less success...

We met up with my mom, brother, and sister-in-law at a local park/farm, where Josie had her first carousel ride. She loved it, and even named the horse she had picked out to ride ("Horsie"). She also went on her first wagon ride, which I skipped out on in case it was too bumpy - instead, I headed over to the indoor arena to watch the Quarter Horse show that was going on, but I sadly had just missed the classes I used to show in (and this was actually the last place I ever showed my old mare too, way back in 2001). I suspect we'll be back to this park more often, especially once it's warmer, since there were lots of activities and animals for Josie to see. And we've already been back once, to play on the playground and pick up some of their (free-range) eggs :)
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Miscellaneous cuteness:
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[Raiding my closet]
 Untitled
[We had to take a family picture to send to preschool - this isn't the one we sent, but was still my favorite :)]     

Saturday, December 7, 2013

29 Weeks

This week I started getting comments that my belly "popped". I'm not sure if that's the case (especially since I seem to have shrunk in my picture for the week - although I may just have been larger in last week's picture because of Thanksgiving!), but I do definitely feel bigger. I now have to put on my shoes in a lunge since I can't bend over to put them on - it's not just that I'm uncomfortable with my belly in my way, but it almost hurts. Even getting up from sitting is becoming more difficult - although I magically seem to have not lost any agility yet while doing yoga, so maybe it's at least partially mental ;)

Despite the fatigue and illnesses lurking around (I've had a sore throat when I first wake up the last few days, but it hasn't developed into anything more yet), I still feel pretty good. I don't have any of the aches and pains like I did around this time with Josie, nor any edema yet (yay!). I'm even doing fairly well about sleeping on my side now, except for it's on the wrong side (right instead of left), and side sleeping leads to back pain for me (although at least that usually goes away fairly quickly).

I am still waking up multiple times a night, only now sometimes it's for a bathroom break, which is a little more disruptive. I am still having vivid dreams every single night, but they've been a bit darker than normal lately (e.g., teaming up with a former high school classmate to solve a murder at a private/public hybrid high school, helping locate the evidence needed to bring down Walter White (from "Breaking Bad"), which for some reason happened to be at my old trainer's barn in Michigan).

On a happier note, my appointment with the midwives went well this week. We had a wide-ranging discussion to start off the appointment (from Thanksgiving to "Breaking Bad", which may at least be an explanation for what triggered that dream), started working through some birthing logistics, and then checked on the baby. My belly was lopsided when I laid down, which was the first time I've noticed that this pregnancy - new baby is big enough now to make my stomach look weird :) My belly is measuring right on track, my blood pressure and the baby's heartbeat were really good, and new baby is still very active. I've actually been feeling a lot more movement this week, but I think it's still only a fraction of what new baby is actually doing, since the midwife could hear (and see) the baby moving all over as she was trying to get the heartbeat, and yet I only felt a few of the movements.
IMG_0641     IMG_0658

Saturday, November 30, 2013

28 Weeks

I'm now two-thirds of the way through this pregnancy: hello, third trimester :) Besides the usual sleep/fatigue issues, I felt fine this week... at least until Thanksgiving. Ryan was feeling pretty awful so he went to lay down, which - until Ryan's family came over to help - left me on my own to clean and cook in preparation for everyone coming over. So I was on my feet most of the day, and realized (belatedly) that only eating an egg for breakfast and having nothing to drink all morning did not do me any favors, as I was on the verge of passing out as I was trying to make lunch for Josie and me. I'm not even sure what or when we ate, although I did note that Josie ate everything on her plate (yelling, "happy plate!" as she did so), so at least she liked it :)

I held up ok the rest of the day after I got some food in me, but then my back basically seized up just as everyone was leaving, and then I could barely move the rest of the night. Two days later, my back is doing a lot better but it's still bothering me enough that I haven't been able to resume my daily walks yet, and I keep having to take sitting/lying down breaks when it hurts too much.

Now that I'm in the final trimester, I started reviewing everything we still need to do to make sure we're as ready as we can be in 12 more weeks. We're in pretty good shape, and we've at least started on the big things left to do that we can't finish right now anyway (e.g., finishing the nursery, which is on hold for another month or so until we switch Josie to her full-size bed, or deciding on childcare for the new baby, which, since we're most likely going to go with an in-home daycare provider again, we can't do too early since they won't know their availability this far out).

I also scheduled all of my remaining midwife appointments now (except for the home visit), and then I'll hopefully be meeting with our doula next week for my first pre-natal appointment. Our birth plan is roughed out now, at least - I think I'm just going to use what I currently have more for discussion with my midwives/doula, and then will pare it down to just a few items for the final version again. But it was still interesting to work through what's important to us this time around, as we're much less concerned about trying to stave off unnecessary interventions since we'll be at home with midwives we trust to intervene only if necessary... and if we end up at the hospital, we will deal with whatever interventions come our way, since they'll likely be far more necessary then anyway.

To mark the start of third trimester, below are several more comparison pictures from the normal ;) First up, here's the usual comparison picture between last week and this week:
IMG_0597     IMG_0641
Here's my comparison panel from Josie, from start to beginning of second trimester and then third trimester:
5-14-28 week comparison
And here's a comparison of the start to the beginning of third trimester with new baby (I left out the 14-week picture since it messed up the formatting, and pretty much looked the same as Josie's 14-week picture anyway):
IMG_0056    IMG_0641

Saturday, November 23, 2013

27 Weeks

I guess I'm nothing if not consistent. I just checked my post at 27 weeks for Josie, and besides saying almost the same things (I don't recommend comparing my pregnancy posts, since it's actually a bit embarrassing to see that I still use the same phrases/do the same goofy things), I apparently missed the milestone of dropping into the double-digits of days left for her, and I retired my non-maternity work pants then, just as I did this week for new baby too. At least this far along with Josie I was already dealing with heartburn, which I haven't had any problems with this time (so far).

The fatigue and hunger are still pretty bad. I've been eating to the point where I definitely feel full, and yet I still feel like I'm starving. I had been tracking about the same as my weight gain with Josie, and although I started out weighing a little bit less with this pregnancy than with Josie, I think I've caught up in the last week to where I was with her this far along with all the food I've been eating. So I definitely feel bigger this week, and with a few days of just feeling a little "off", I've been more cognizant of not overdoing things. I know Braxton-Hicks contractions are perfectly normal and fine, but after feeling some tightness in my abdomen a few times this week, I was worried enough to take a couple nights off from the normal chores and walking.

I also had my last monthly appointment with the midwives this week, so now I have appointments every two weeks until 36 weeks, when I'll go to weekly appointments. This was a group appointment, so I got to meet a few other ladies about as far along as I am, and we all got to go through the fun of the gestational diabetes screening together. I remember it being just awful with Josie - the glucose drink itself isn't so bad, but I felt pretty crappy the entire rest of the day then. This time I ate right before, drank a bottle of water right after, and then ate an hour after drinking the glucola, and something seemed to have helped since I felt just fine the rest of the day. And I passed the screening, which is good :)

We had just a quick individual prenatal visit, and my belly measured right on track at 26cm and the baby's heartbeat was a good 155 bpm (with my midwife noting lots of movement while she was trying to catch the heartbeat again!). New baby has been hanging out (and kicking) pretty much just under my ribs on the right lately, which doesn't seem comfortable for either party, but I guess I don't get much say in it ;)

I also went to the other midwifery practice on Monday and got my Rhogam shot, so now I'm set on that until after delivery. If this baby has a positive blood type, then I'll need to get another shot within 72 hours, although I may try again to find someone else to give me the shot, since driving nearly an hour each way in the winter within 72 hours of giving birth just does not sound like fun.
IMG_0532     IMG_0597

Saturday, November 16, 2013

26 Weeks

I'm considering changing from calling this baby "new baby" to "elusive baby"... because it is an elusive one. Ryan has only felt it kicking maybe once or twice, and I really haven't caught it moving from the outside all that often either. New baby also was moving around almost all day Friday - from distracting me during my first meeting at 9am until giving me a kick good-night when I went to bed, there were maybe a few half-hours of quiet, but that was it. And yet despite actively trying to catch its movement on the outside, new baby rarely kicked twice in the same place, so I only caught it a couple of times.

With only a couple weeks left in second trimester, I guess I'm giving up on the "second trimester burst of energy" I had been looking forward to, because I'm still completely overcome with fatigue. I felt like I was barely functioning some days, especially after the random night that Josie shrieked in her sleep every hour (and woke me up) all night. But then the next night, I slept straight through to 4:30am until my first wakeup, and I felt awesome! I was refreshed and super excited to start the day, even at that hour. Funny how much better something can seem when it comes on the heels of something even worse ;)
IMG_0529     IMG_0532

Sunday, November 10, 2013

October

Josie was very fun and entertaining last month, due in no small part to her improving language skills and imagination. She just loves our new car, since she can see out of the back window better - and she has realized that she can interact with the people behind us. As shy as I am, I'm kind of horrified by this development, but she is also a wonderful and ridiculous child so I'm trying to deal with it :) So several times now, she has managed to charm the people behind us into waving at her: tired commuters, teenagers, etc. I've caught sight of them all in my rear view mirror grinning and waving at her :)

She has been singing more and coming up with little games, and is never at a loss of great ideas for us to do (which is how, after several "Mommy do this?" requests, we ended up with our hands behind our heads giving each other high-fives with our elbows instead of eating breakfast). Although usually every time Ryan or I note how fun or hilarious she is, the hilarity is quickly followed by a meltdown... ah well. Two is still proving to be far more enjoyable than either of us thought it would be, so we'll take it :)

Josie has been such a good helper lately. She has enjoyed cleaning for a while, but has also been helping us in the kitchen more (trying to clean the dishes, loading the dishwasher), and with food prep (putting ingredients in bowls, helping pull the guts out of her pumpkin). We also got light switch extenders so she can turn some of the lights on and off on her own - which has led to a few strobe light moments, but she seems to also really enjoy being able to do that on her own. She has also kicked Ryan or I out of her room a few times lately and then shut the door - this is much more ok now that it's finally fully child-proofed in there, so we can usually safely leave her alone until it gets too quiet (quiet = she's doing something she shouldn't be). The other day she was squealing for a while so I finally went in there to see what she could possibly be up to... and all the squealing was over the two books she had pulled off her bookcase to read. When I questioned her, she yelled "I'm reading!", waved at me, and went right back to squealing.

As far as food this month, Josie has been enjoying the tour of "Stacey's favorite foods" we've been conducting lately - lots of avocados, artichokes, pomegranates, and peanut butter on everything.
She learned how to scrape her own artichoke leaves, which made me very proud :) She also is remarkably good at pulling out pomegranate seeds, which I guess shouldn't be that surprising given that small fingers can probably get at the seeds better. But she really enjoys that, and loves the couple of slices of avocado she gets just about every day - although her pronunciation could still use some work ;)

As I mentioned, we finished child-proofing her room last month, so it was finally time to take the front rail off her crib and start transitioning her out of her crib. We switched out some of the furniture in her room, but still need to get a dresser and we'll move her full size bed in there in a couple more months probably. Her first nap in the new configuration didn't go super well - she climbed out of bed four times, although, oddly enough, she immediately dove under her bed to lay there each time rather than go play with her toys. But we immediately went in to put her back in bed each time (and the last time she jumped back in bed herself as soon as I opened the door), and she seems to have gotten the message since she hasn't tried to get out of bed again since.

We had been planning to move Josie to a new school anyway a couple of months before the new baby is due to arrive, but our timeline ended up getting moved up some. Josie had started biting again at daycare (once on a kid's face... eeesh), and since she mainly seems to bite when she's trying to assert dominance now (since it's almost always when a new kid starts daycare), we thought it might do her some good to not only get into a different environment where it's a little more school-like but where she's no longer the oldest one there. So we toured five different schools in the area, and really liked one (conveniently, it's also the one closest to our house :) ). It seems like it will be a good move for her, once she's fully transitioned (I'll probably give more details on that in the November update, since we're still in the thick of that now), since she's doing pretty well with learning the routines there, and is already picking up some stuff from the other kids in her class (who are all just a bit older than her).

My dad and stepmom brought a pumpkin and some pumpkin decorations for Josie when they visited earlier last month, so Josie got to decorate her pumpkin and I got to avoid potential carving injuries. I was really impressed by her first attempt - she got almost everything spot on, although we're still working on what exactly mustaches are and their appropriate placement ;)
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We also went to a pumpkin patch with my mom, Ryan's sisters, and the cousins, and had a great time walking all over the place, seeing all the animals, and going down the slides. Josie got to pet and feed some goats, we went through a corn maze where she was enamored with her (distorted) reflection in the mirrors, and she had a great time playing on some hay bales. She also picked out her own little pumpkin to take home, which she is still decorating over and over again, now that we've cut up and eaten her original big pumpkin ;)
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This year was the first time we went trick or treating with Josie. She did super well walking all over Ryan's parents' neighborhood, and while she tried to go in each house at first, she figured it out soon enough. She was quite excited about getting to ring the doorbells and grab the candy - she wasn't too forthcoming with saying "trick or treat", but she did very well with "thank you" and "you're welcome" (she normally says both herself, and "you're welcome" comes out more adorably as "i yoakam"... which made me wonder - for the first time ever - what Dwight Yoakam has been up to lately).
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Miscellaneous cuteness:
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[Another entry in the unflattering Josie pictures collection I'm working on - this was during her attempts at climbing onto a stool]
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[Her tv-watching location of choice]

Saturday, November 9, 2013

25 Weeks

This was a bit of a tough week, although new baby helped it not seem so bad by being super active :)

Ryan was in Iceland for work most of the week, so my mom stayed over to help with Josie, which was good. But the combination of Ryan being gone (and Josie being aware of it for the first time), switching Josie to her new preschool, and the time change was pretty hard. I still haven't adjusted to the time change, so in addition to all my apparently usual wakeups throughout the night, I've been mostly awake for the day by 4:30 or 5am. Josie's transition to the new preschool has been a lot rougher than I was anticipating (although her teachers have assured me that she's doing really well), so there have been quite a few tears for both of us this week, since I'm sad that she's sad about being left at a new place.

So, perhaps needless to say, I'm pretty exhausted and drained. I've also eaten a ton this week since I'm constantly hungry (even when I'm feeling a little sick from having just eaten too much), so I'd like to say that new baby is having a growth spurt, but I think it may just be me :-\ But regardless, my constant companion was very active this week, which was nice to feel him or her kicking (or punching) around so much. I also got my Rhogam shot situation figured out, so I'll be going to visit the very nice and accommodating midwives at another practice kinda sorta near my work in a couple of weeks for that.
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Saturday, November 2, 2013

24 Weeks

So this week marks an important milestone for new baby: viability! At 24 weeks, most hospitals would try to save the baby if I were to deliver now - although the baby would not be without some serious health concerns this early, so obviously we want it to stay in for about another four months.

This week I'm feeling decidedly more pregnant: I'm super hungry, irritable, completely exhausted, and my legs and feet are starting to get really achy, especially when I first wake up. I was feeling a tiny bit discouraged about all of this until I just checked through my notes with Josie, and apparently almost the exact same thing happened when I was this far along with her too - and I'm not sure how I did it now, but I loved second and third trimester with her and felt great for the most part (although maybe I have a bit of amnesia going on!), so hopefully I'll adjust to this soon so I don't feel so much like crawling into bed and crying from my inability to sleep.

We crossed a few items off the task list this week, the most notable of which is probably taking the front off of Josie's crib so it's now more of a daybed. We did add a bed rail, though, since she'd otherwise be falling out every couple of minutes given the way she flails around in her sleep, but she can get herself in and out of bed now. We'll keep this configuration for probably another couple of months and then move her out of her crib entirely and into her full size bed. Then we'll move the crib out of her room and set it up so it's all ready to go for the new baby :)

Another task list item that was supposed to be an easy to-do was to make an appointment for my Rhogam shot. I need to get this around 28 weeks to help prevent against my body developing antibodies against the baby's blood, if it's Rh positive and leaks into my blood stream. The midwives I'm seeing now can't issue the prescription for the shot, so instead I called my old midwives, despite the potential for awkwardness there... and, unsurprisingly, there was some awkwardness. Since they don't have the shot in-house anymore, they are unable to write me a prescription since I'm not under their care for this pregnancy (as they mentioned no less than four times). So then I called the hospital, ended up leaving a voicemail with somebody (i.e., someone who didn't return my call), and then called my regular doctor and left a voicemail with the nurses (who also didn't return my call). So now next week, I get to make more calls to basically beg someone to do me the favor of giving me this shot.... that I don't even necessarily need. It's strongly recommended for moms with Rh negative blood, but I'm actually Rh positive. My positive allele is apparently just very faint though, so depending on how sensitive the test is, I show up as either positive or negative, so given that, we decided it would be best to go ahead and get the shot. Now I just have to find someone willing to do it.
IMG_0463     IMG_0527

Saturday, October 26, 2013

23 Weeks

This week I had my monthly appointment with the midwives, which went well. I measured right on target, gaining fine, and baby was still a bit feisty when she tried to listen to the heartbeat. We talked mainly about food and nutrition (which I'm doing well with, just need to eat more yogurt and perhaps fewer cupcakes), and it turns out they did receive my sequential screen results from 6 weeks ago (it was just filed in a different place online than I was expecting), so it turns out we're still in a really good risk category (i.e., very low) for the genetic issues the test screens for. New baby also is kicking harder, it seems, since I was able to watch it kicking very clearly from the outside :)

I'm participating in a couple of different studies, one of which is looking at any correlation between physical activity and duration of labor. I had the first interview to talk about that this week, and although I was feeling pretty good about my physical activity beforehand, I felt decidedly less so afterwards, since when it comes down to it, I apparently really don't carry Josie that much or play with her that strenuously. I have to keep in mind that that's on purpose, though, to avoid overdoing it while pregnant, but it was still a bit eye-opening and made me a bit more committed to doing some physical activity every day. I'm back to doing yoga once a week and walking at least 20 minutes every day, so at least that's something.

I had a couple of days this week where I felt I maybe was going to get over my lingering illness, but now it looks like I'm coming down with something else since my nose is stuffed up again and throat is scratchy. I don't have anything new to say about the sleep situation, except I've had a couple of odd dreams (at least of the ones I remember): one that Ryan and I renewed our vows in a foreign country, and I wore my same wedding dress (ignoring the fact that, in real life, the boning is messed up so it was quite painful to wear at our reception, and therefore it currently lives in a trash bag in our attic) and we were over an hour late to our own vow renewal. The second I don't actually remember the dream itself, but it apparently involved tickling Ryan's face in real life... which is when I woke up, a split-second before he did, and he was decidedly not pleased about the situation.

Below are my comparison pics for the week. For consistency, I've continued to suck in my belly for each picture, although since I'd gotten quite a few comments this week that I'm really starting to show more, I included one where I'm not sucking in too :)
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Sunday, October 20, 2013

22 Weeks

This week we got our doula situation straightened out, and also picked up the majority of Josie's furniture so we could start moving her out of her crib. We ended up going with a doula who works at the birth center, since the price (significantly less than pretty much every other doula we looked at) and experience (much more than pretty much every other doula we looked at in our price range) was right, and she obviously works very closely with my midwives already, so that's a big added bonus as well.

We finally completely cleared out the nursery this week... and then promptly filled it with furniture odds and ends. Since we decided to have new baby take over Josie's crib rather than convert the crib to a full size bed for Josie, it seemed to make the most sense to just switch all of Josie's furniture over to the new baby and get new furniture for Josie. Ryan went out to Ikea this week and got pretty much everything (just missing a dresser and nightlight), so we've been putting together her furniture the last few days, and now have a mishmash of old and new furniture in her room and the new baby's until we can get everything set up again in Josie's room.

As far as cleaning out the nursery, unfortunately it's not because we had actually organized/purged stuff, but more that I just moved all of the remaining office stuff up to the guest room, where it now lies in big piles waiting for me to sort through it again. Due to the government shutdown, I've had to take a day off each week for the last two weeks, and although the shutdown is over now, I still have to take two more days within the next month. So during the first two days, I tackled painting the garage (now a much more pink version of the peach I thought I was painting it - oops), and then for the next two days off I'll most likely be working on the guest room and some other miscellaneous painting to hopefully finally finish off those projects.

I've talked about basically everything else but the new baby since there isn't much to update on the actual baby itself :) New baby is still kicking me in somewhat uncomfortable ways, and seems to like (or possibly hate) loud music since it was kicking a lot when we went to see a band play last night. I'm still slightly sick, cranky, and having troubles sleeping - although I have had much better luck staying on my left side sleeping last week, so maybe there's actually a chance I can get used to it and get some better sleep.
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Sunday, October 13, 2013

21 Weeks

This week I had what should be the last ultrasound for this pregnancy: the anatomy scan.  All body parts were accounted for, and new baby's sex remains a secret for everyone but the ultrasound tech :) New baby is apparently measuring spot-on for its gestational age (which is odd, because it seemed a lot of the individual measurements were measuring almost a week ahead), and weighed about 14oz. I have an anterior placenta again, meaning that the placenta is between the baby and my stomach, so that probably explains why I'm not feeling as much movement as new baby is producing. There was also briefly a concern that the placenta was too low, although it had risen back up by time the doctor checked again, so they said it was nothing to worry about.

Below are images from the ultrasound, including some 3-D ones :)
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My ongoing illness(es) continued this week, with a sore throat, stuffed up nose, and fatigue. On top of my other sleep issues lately, now I'm also waking up multiple times a night to get a drink of water to try to get rid of the incessant tickle in my throat. My appetite is also up somewhat this week - it's still not the all-encompassing, gnawing hunger it could be, but usually in the morning, I'm almost immediately hungry again after eating. I recently discovered how wonderful (saltless) pretzels are dipped in peanut butter, so at least that's a fun addition to my snack rotation :)

After getting a bit stressed with several ongoing "projects" related to getting ready for new baby, without any coming to completion the last few weeks, we finally made some good progress. We wanted to have Josie in her new school within the next month or two so she would be fully settled in a few months before new baby came, so we toured five preschools for Josie and ended up liking the second-to-last one (thank goodness), and she is now enrolled to start there next month. We also did some more research into daycare options for new baby, but still have a lot to figure out there: do we get an au pair or nanny, use the same in-home daycare as Josie is going to, find a new one that's closer, etc. Our awesome doula from Josie's birth also just confirmed that she is no longer taking clients, so I'm working on researching doulas too and should be contacting some next week. We also made some decisions on Josie's new furniture, so we're hoping to get that in the next week or so, move her current furniture to new baby's nursery, then get Josie's room set up (and fully child-proofed) for her to start transitioning out of the crib.
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