28+ weeks

Late again but the holidays decided to get in the way.  

Over a week ago I had my 28+ week appointment.  

Life so far in the third trimester has been a piece of cake!

At my appointment I did my glucose test which to be honest I was dreading just because I had been craving so much fruit which has natural sugars in it that I thought for sure I was going to be diabetic.  So I got there at 1pm to drink my orange drink which to be honest was not bad at all.... 

Hello Sunkist- It was almost like a treat!

I then waited for an hour and had my blood drawn and rhogam given because my blood type is negative.  A shot in the butt- nothing says Happy Holidays more!

My 28 week appointment itself was uneventful.

Blood pressure is good.

Up 6 pounds from pre-pregnancy weight so now Joe can get off my back.

Measuring 27 weeks via fundal height- a little small but as my midwife pointed out- 

"You are small!"  Thanks for the obvious statement there.

Fetal heart Rate 150s

I did find it funny when she was listen to your heartbeat bug that she commented on how strong my abdominal muscles where and why that is probably why I am not showing more.  I came back with "Well that is what happens when you throw up for 4 months straight!"  Which got both a chuckle out of her and the nurse.  

The rest of the visit was pretty normal.  

Their discussion points I had already pretty much figured out.

At a 28 week visit they discuss

1) Peditricians- Check already done!

2) Circumcision- Check already discussed

3) Probiotics to help decrease chance of GBS- Check already purchases and have been taking daily

4) Cord blood banking- no thank you- I am not a believer in this! 

Now that we are in the third trimester they want us to come in every 2 weeks- this is craziness.  

So fortunately I asked the midwife if she would be ok if I made it ever 3-4 since I live in Fairfax with the knowledge that I would call if I had any problems.  They were very agreeable to this which made me very happy! So our next appointment will be in three weeks from our last or two weeks from now.  

I got a call a couple days later from my midwife letting me know that I passed my glucose test with flying color- WAHOO!!!

Some notes about the third trimester so far:

For the most part I really have no complaints.  

I find that I am still having a hard time eating full meals and have accepted that from now on I am just going to snack when I am hungry and not eat when I am not.  (Again poor Joe who will be eating dinners by himself.)  The meat aversion still continues as well as my cravings for fruits.  

I am becoming a master sleeper.  

I can sleep anywhere- the car, the couch, and I can sleep 12+ hours a day if I have the time.  The nap has become my favorite thing to do.  

Pregnancy clothes- well it happed.  

At 27 1/2 weeks I broke out the Maternity Jeans and the other maternity clothes that I have.  I have only purchased a couple things which I am hoping will get me thru the pregnancy.  Maternity clothes shopping can be very frustrating- I went into find a long white t-shirt that I could wear as an undershirt or with my sweaters and basically nothing fit because I am so short!   Fortunately I think I am going to try Target after the holiday craziness has stopped.  

Bug- Clemson I think offically knows that you are coming.  

I went looking for all of his toys two weeks ago and found it funny that he had brought them all up stairs to your room.  So I moved his dog bed in there and his toy bin.  

Your room is now his favorite place to sit.

So cute!!!

 

Joe has started talking to you at night and whenever he goes to feel you move, of course you stop moving.  This totally makes me laugh!

 

We are slowly getting your nursery put together - more to come on that later.

Trial Run

The last two weeks have not been my week....

I caught a really really bad head cold that started on Monday.  

I tried to fight it all week but no luck.  

Thursday after multiple nurses and doctors in L/D telling me I looked like death- I came home early and took a sick day for Friday.  

Friday consisted of bed, couch, and more bed. 

Chicken noodle soup and Orange juice were pretty much what i lived off of from Thursday till Saturday.   

Saturday I was feeling a little better but still not great so I decided to just take it easy and take Clemson for a walk just because I needed to get out of the house. 

Clemson came running down the stairs and took me out while I was on the stairs.  

Yes- he took me out- legs when flying and I went tumbling down the stairs.  

It hurt like crap and of course I screamed out.  

Normally I would just take it easy but of course be pregnant- I know the risk of falls.

Placenta abruption, fetal death, bleeding, etc-  

So Joe helped me up and I went and sat on the couch for a while, 

while I thought Joe was going to kill Clemson.  

This was actually kind of humorous because Clemson had no idea what he did and as soon as I fell he wanted nothing but to give me kisses and sit next to me.  

So I laid down and just could not feel him move at all- which is weird because he is a mover.  

I started having a little cramping which was nothing compared to the back pain.  

Being a midwife, I knew that I should call my practice and they were going to tell me to come in.  

Fortuatnely the midwife I have been seeing for most of my visits was on and she wanted me to come in to be on the safe side.  

This part was a little commical because while I was totally being Zen Pregnant Laura.....

Joe was being Crazy Pregnant Joe. 

 If fact at one point- I asked him to stop stressing because he was stressing me out.  

Of course we get to triage in the hospital and he starts moving like crazy, so much that it took two nurses and me holding the monitor to keep him on.  After about 1 1/2 hours of monitoring, everything looked good and the midwife offerred for me to go home.  

Of course I jumped at the chance to go home.  

They advised that I will be sore for the next couple days because of the fall- which I am, and that I should still monitor for kick counts, preterm labor signs and symptoms and bleeding- which thankfully have all been normal.  

While this is not how either of us wanted to spend out Saturday afternoons,

it was good to have a trial run with the hospital for Joe's sake more than mine!

He now knows where to park, where to go, what to expect, etc....

All I want for Christmas...

It has been come a joke around our house...

All I want for Christmas is ....

A Crib!

After having such a hard time with the crib as previously blogged about,
I was starting to think that come March we would be bring bug home to a pack n play. 
Which would be fine but I just totally did not want to deal with a crib AND a new baby at the same time if could be avoided.  

So I was so excited when I got a call last Sunday to arrange dropping off the crib and dresser.
It only took 2 weeks to come in- Christmas Miracle!

It came this Friday....

So excited....

So thank you to my parents, Joe's parents and Joe for getting me the best Christmas gifts ever!

Now we can work on the rest of the room....

 

Adding some Lemon into Life.

All and all I can not complain about being pregnant, however lately I have been wanting more variety in my drink selection.  It hard when people are having a glass of wine or beer and I am just drinking boring water!  For a while I would buy sparkling Lemonade when I saw it at HomeGoods but I felt guilty because it was anywhere from 70-140 calories a serving. 

So I decided to look for another option.
When I was in Bed Bath and Beyond completely my Christmas shopping I spotted this County Time Lemonade for our Soda Stream- i.e Sparkling Lemonade. 

They make a Crystal Light Lemonade for Soda Stream but have not be able to find it in the store and only online at the SodaStream Website where I have to pay 7 dollars for shipping which is a little ridiculous!

 It was 35 calories a serving so a little less guilty.
 I decided to try it at $5.99 minus 20% coupon that I had.  I decided to put only a half of a cap full in thinking it would be
1) Less calories and
2) Less Sweet.  

I totally love it!.  

It is so good and nice to have something different and fun to drink.  

Maternity Tour

Joe and I signed up for our Maternity tour and went a couple of weekends ago.

Yes I was only 24 weeks but the two dates that they had in December did not work and the two dates in Janaury also did not work- and I was not waiting until February to do the tour because the Farmers Almanc is calling for some major winter storms, not to mention we had time to do it now.

So Saturday we headed over to drop off Clemson at my parents since we were going to have dinner with them later and then headed out to the tour.

The Birthing in at Loudoun Hospital is nice in the fact that it is a separate part of the hospital and it does have a very calming atmosphere.  It only has 9 labor rooms which is minor when compared to Fairfax which is why I picked it. 

So we showed up for the tour which was large.

Probably at least 15 couples or 30 people.

The tour was given by a hospital administrator- not a nurse which I thought was interesting. 

We were walked thru triage, Labor and Delivery room, Postpartum room, nursery, etc. 

It last approximately 30 minutes. 

While it was probably great for Joe, I thought it very very generic compared to the tour we give where I work.  This might be because ours is given by a nurse. 

Joe and I did find humor in the questions people asked. 

For example, one lady was fixated on the fact that you can have gatoraid during labor and wanted to know what flavors were provided.  Seriously, I do not think you are going to be worried about this when you are trying to push a watermelon out of your vagina. 

Joe felt good knowing where to go and what to expect. 

Me the only thing I learned that I did not think of was to bring my check book to fill out the social security info.  Considering this was free it was worth doing, however if baby number 2 ever comes I think this is definitely something I will bypass even if delivering at another hospital. 

Clemson on the other hand had a busy day at my parents and was exhausted by the time we got home. 

23 week Visit

Bug,

 

Sorry I am late to getting around to this again, but that is life.  

I was originally suppose to have my 20 week appointment that got canceled because of Sandy so it turned into my 23 week appointment last week because that was the earliest I could get in without taking time off.    It worked out because Granny was able to go with us because she had the day off. 

Bug, today you are officially 24+ weeks.  

This is a big one- one that I as a high risk ob nurse at heart was counting down to.  

You are viable- which means if for some reason you come at this point (though you should listen to your mother and stay put) you could survive.  Every week from here on out it just gets easier, so please stay put.  Our next big mark is 28 weeks and then 32 =0).

Things about you that I have noticed since our last visit:

Well we found out that we are going to have another little boy in our life, Clemson being our first.  At first this was alot for me to wrap my head around because I do not know anything boys, but I think we are going to do just fine!  You have your name picked out and it is offically because we finalized our wills and started an email account for you which we will be in charge of for many years to come.  We ordered your letters for the wall for the nursery... the only thing is we are the only ones who know your name and love our little secrete.  

You are a crazy mover!  

In the words of the ultrasound tech-  "He is going to skip crawling and go straight to walking." 

I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes:  "He is going to be a soccer player!"

Do not worry- we are totally ready for you!  

I love that you have fallen into a pattern of moving like checking in with me multiple times to let me know you are ok.  I also love when I am listening to other babies heartbeats at their mommies appointments you start kicking me to let me know you are there.  It is like you are saying hi to the other babies.

Thank you for saying goodbye to the all day sickness.  It is so nice to be able to eat normally- well not normally but actually keep stuff down.  I have noticed I have to eat smaller meals and dinner has totally gone out the window.  Your poor father has not had dinner cooked for him in probably two weeks because I just have no appetite when I get home.  I still hate the smell of meat and am loving everything fruit related.    I am offically back up to my pre-pregnancy weight which I do not really understand since there is definitely a small belly which was not there before.  

I have been trying to be good about walking and jogging when I have the energy and Clemson has kept me company.  I have been fortante to really not have any pregnancy discomforts at this point.  

I am still able to fix into alot of my regular clothes but I know that any day that is going to change when you pop.  I can already tell that you are going to be like a little basketball which I love!

I have had a couple stressful moments and the "pregnancy Laura" came out the other weekend when the crib drama hit the fan- more to come on this later.   But the good news is your room is painted, the crib is ordered, the chair is ordered and we are starting to get ready for you!

I received my Dtap shot to make sure we keep you from getting Whopping Cough when you are born.  Next visit I have to do both my glucose and my rhogam which I am not really looking forward to it but it should be the last time that I hopefully have to get blood drawn. 

You are measuring right on!  23 weeks at 23 cm.  Your heart rate was 155s.

In closing a happy thought- My favorite part of the day is when we are in bed and you are kicking me as you always do when we get ready to say goodnight and Clemson comes and lays his head on my belly.  My two boys already bonding!

Next appointment 28 weeks....

Crib Drama

You may remember when I blogged about our crib selection:  MTV Cribs

We made our decision a Baby Cache crib from Babies R Us.

Only it was not meant to be. 

We went into to purchase it in October and was told it was on back order until the begining of November.

Checked the begining of November- backordered to end of November/December.

Checked again toward the end of November- now even further backordered until late December.

Yeap in true pregnancy style.... I lost it! 

Well we would just find a replacement crib - right? 

Seriously this was hard. 

All I wanted from a crib was for it to be pure white and for it to look nice and be a convertible. 

Well you would be amazed how many different types of whites there were! 

There is

Off white

Cloud

Distressed White

French White.

Seriously!!!

Then you cut out the cribs that are ridiculously priced-there really went that many options.

So basically all the cribs at Babies R Us were out because they did not have any other pure white cribs that were also convertibles.

Buy Buy Baby was out because they quoted us 12 weeks to get the crib.  Seriously I would be 36+ weeks.

I do not think so!

So upon a recommendation from someone Joe works with we headed to Great Beginnings in Marland.

It is basically a baby wearhouse. 

First they scare the shit out of you telling you it will take 12 weeks to get your crib in- making you feel bad for waiting till 24 weeks. 

Well it was not my choice to wait- life just happened.  It was also very expensive and again overwhelming.  We left and I got in the car and cried. 

That sales lady totally made me feel bad and stressed me out!

So Joe looked at me and said-

"Lets go to the place in Manassas- we have nothing to loose at this point."

I agreed with him, so we headed to Baby 2 Teen. 

I will tell you I had a completely different experience this time. 

We walked in and started looking at cribs - we found two that we love. 

The sales rep came over and asked us if we had any questions. 

Answered all our question and was very knowledgeable. 

Joe basically told him what happened and our crib story so he called the companies and made sure both cribs we were considering were in stock and ready to be shipped.  They were. 

I was amazed that he did this considering Joe just told him what happened and did not even ask him to check.  Then he started telling us about the specials that they are having on black friday- basically if you buy a crib and dresser you get the conversion kit for free.  We explained we were not going to be here because we are going to Florida for Thanksgiving and he said he would honor it today or if we came in again because we would not be here.  The conversion kit is basically a $200 expense that Joe and I were going to pay for so this was a bonus. 

So I looked at Joe and we decided we were not going home without ordering a crib.

So we ordered the Pali Marina in White.

We opted for this one because I loved how it went down a little in the front because I am short and loved the finish.  It looks nice but still boyish, some of the white cribs definitely have a femine style.

All in all the total for the crib, dresser, conversion kit, and delivery was only $100 dollars more than if we had purchased at Babies R Us because we got the coversion kit for free. 

I totally love it!!!!!