It's all good

I had a little bit of a scare at my last doctor visit because I had taken the 1-hour glucose test and had not passed it. I thought for sure this meant I probably had gestational diabetes (especially because I have a family history of diabetes). Since I had failed the 1-hour test, I had to go back this Monday and take the 3-hour test. For this test I had to fast for 10 hours (overnight), come into the office in the morning, and have them take my fasting blood sugar. Then, I had to drink this super sugary drink in five minutes. This stuff was pretty nasty...it had 100 grams of sugar in one 10 oz. drink. Ugh! Then they took blood from my arm every hour for 3 hours. I wasn't allowed to eat anything until the test was over around 11:30. I was STARVING!!

I ended up with two bruised arms from all the needles, but at least I found out that I passed the test and had normal results...woo-hoo! Not that it would have been the end of the world if I had GD but it would have been one more thing to worry about and it wouldn't have been fun having to completely cut out sweets. I also would have had to go in for diet counciling and frequent sugar tests. So I'm so relieved that everything checked out okay. From what the nurses told me, LOTS of people fail the 1-hour test but it's rare for anyone to fail the 3-hour.

My blood pressure was good and the doctor said I was measuring at 30 so the baby's size is right on target for me being 30 weeks pregnant. I've gained about 13lbs. since my first visit and they said I'm doing good with my weight so far. I'm so thankful that everything is going well!

Rey and I are going for a visit tonight to the hospital where our baby will be born. I'm looking forward to seeing where I'll meet my baby girl for the first time and getting some of my questions answered. :-)

Childbirth classes

It's really getting real now that we're going to be having a baby soon...Rey and I started our Childbirth classes this week. They started us out by having us watch a video of 5 childbirths (each had their own different circumstances) and boy, was that um...eye-opening. Yikes. They didn't hide anything from the camera and I must say that when you see the head coming out, it just doesn't look right! I know millions of women have gone through this process before me, but it still amazes me that my body is going to be capable of doing it.

One of the guys in the class commented that he wasn't going to look because he gets queasy and he was planning on staying up by his wife's head while she was giving birth so he wouldn't have to see the baby coming out. The nurse giving the class literally just laughed at him and told us that that is not how it's done and that he better be ready to see it all. Rey and I had sort of had the same idea, but I guess that's out the window now!

For next week's class we're going to start actually practicing for childbirth...we're supposed to bring pillows, a focal point and a stop watch. Should be interesting!

Doctor dilemma

I had my 28 week appt. yesterday and it was such a yucky experience. Let me preface this by explaining that my doctor's office has 5 OB/GYNs and their policy is that you rotate through seeing all of the doctors during your many visits so that you've seen all of them at least once or twice before your baby is delivered. Then, whichever doctor is on call when you go into labor is the one that delivers your baby. I wasn't too thrilled with that, but after calling around to a few other offices in our area, I found that they all did things the same way so I didn't have much choice.

Anyway, back to my appointment. I met with the last of the 5 doctors yesterday and I really disliked the whole meeting. He didn't greet me and introduce himself (as all the other doctors had) and he just kind of looked at my chart and talked to himself. I don't think he even looked me in the face a single time. I was wearing pants with a full belly panel on them and when he went to listen to baby's heartbeat, he just yanked the panel down instead of asking me to roll it down myself...I thought this was quite rude. And then when he used the ultrasound wand he pushed it into my tummy really hard and it hurt! After hearing the heartbeat, he measured my belly but he didn't explain what he was doing so I don't know if I measured big, small or average for being 28 weeks pregnant. I think I heard him mumble that I measured "30" which, after looking on the internet today to see what that means, it would mean that I am measuring as if I was 30 weeks. However, I don't see how that's possible. There were several other women in the waiting room with me and we were all 28 weeks pregnant (I know this because we were all there getting our glucose tests done which is always done at the 28 week mark) and I by far had the smallest belly. Some of these women were huge in comparison so if I measured 30, then they would have to be measuring WAY ahead. So I think something's wrong here.

After that, the appointment was over. He did not even ask me if I had any questions. I think the whole meeting with him lasted all of 2 minutes. I ended up asking one of the nurses my questions and she was super nice and helpful. I really, really, really hope I do not have this guy on call when I have my baby b/c I would be very uncomfortable with that. I would be fine with any of the other 4 doctors, but unfortunately, I think I would just be stuck with this guy if he was the one on call because that's just how they do things. If anyone has any suggestions on how I can handle this situation, please let me know.

Growing pains

This has been a bit of a rough week for me. I swear my belly has doubled in size since last week and I think that's been causing me to have round ligament pain. My lower abdomen feels really tight and kind of sore and sometimes if I move a certain way, I'll get a sharp pain. The closest thing I can compare it to is a pulled muscle. If I'm sitting down and being still it doesn't bother me, but when I stand up or especially when I get out of bed after laying down for awhile it is very uncomfortable. I've also had heartburn just about everyday this week. Thank God for Tums. :-)

I'm hoping that my body starts to get used to this new shape soon so I won't be hurting so much. I still have about 12 weeks to go....I'll be 28 weeks on Wednesday. 12 weeks sounds like a long time to me but I know it will fly by! In preparation for her arrival, we got another few things last weekend for our baby - we got the car seat and our first packs of diapers and baby wipes. Buying diapers was really weird but I guess we'd better get used to it!

Freebie ultrasound

Rey and I lucked into a free 3D/4D ultrasound yesterday. The company we had gone to when I was about 17 weeks along sent out an email saying that they had hired some new ultrasound techs and that they had 4 time slots available for free sessions so that these new technicians could practice with their machines. This was a special offer available only to existing clients and I happened to be one of the first people to email them back so we got one of the spots! I was super excited because I had just been thinking the other day that I wished I could see my baby again.

She looks so much more developed now than she did at 17 weeks. She's got some baby fat on her now so she doesn't look so bony anymore. We were able to see her sucking her thumb and moving her arms and legs around. She kept trying to put her hands in front of her face and after awhile she got so annoyed with the ultrasound machine, she curled herself into a ball and covered her face with her hands AND her feet! Silly girl! Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from our session:

Belly pics

I'm sure some of you may be curious as to how big I've gotten with this pregnancy...so here is an updated pic. This first picture is the last one I took at 21.5 weeks:

The second pic was taken this morning at 26 weeks:

As you can tell, I'm still carrying very low but I'm starting to get a bit bigger through the upper part of my mid-section.

As far as pregnancy symptoms go, I'm still dealing with the sinus congestion (decongestants are my best friend) , my lower back pain has started to get a bit worse and I get heartburn several times a week now. I know it could definitely be worse, but I will be glad to have my body somewhat back to normal in a few months!

Nursery update!

The wall border is up and the crib is put together! Rey put the crib together all by himself and I think he did a great job. :-) We still have lots to do to the room before it's ready, but the basics are done now. Here are a couple pics of our progress:

We're planning on putting the glider chair in the corner to the right of the crib when it comes in. The shorter chest of drawers you see in the first pic will be used as our changing station. We'll just add a changing pad on top. I'll post some new pics once the glider comes in and we get more decorations up.