Un-Shower and Ninth Prenatal Visit!

 This past weekend was Angela’s “Un-Shower” for us 🙂

Sunday was a generally cooler day than the rest of the week (only 89F rather than 100F+), and we caught the train out to the ‘burbs. The train had no A/C and all the windows were closed so we were already sweaty by the time we arrived. Delightful.

The carnival theme was super cute and awesome and not at all ‘baby shower-y’.  Bunting, string lights, balloons & lanterns.  Games included: ring toss, balloon pop (and guess the gender), knock down the cans, duck pond, bouncy castle, balloon animals (!), and of course the usual piñata 🙂 Lewis and Ian even broke out the flaming juggling torches and devil sticks toward the end of the night!

Food was typical carnival fair: hot dogs and all the fixings, chips & dips, chex mix, sno cones, candy floss, cake pops… all tasty stuff 🙂

The official schedule was listed as 1pm-7pm but we got there closer to 12:30 and most people hung out until past 9:30pm! It was a long hot day. It was exhausting but lovely. I wanted to stay to help clear up but it was already late and Dugan needed to load up the car and get a bunch of us all home to the northside (not to mention the massive amount of gifts!).

So many people coming out to celebrate with us made it comparable to our wedding in my mind. I mean Angela throws a bunch of parties and not everyone can make it to all of them, but I felt so honored that so many people managed to make the trip out to the ‘burbs to spend the day playing games 🙂

The Prenatal Visit:
This evening I had another doctors appointment. I am 36.5weeks pregnant, weight is 178lbs (yikes!) and BP is 124/70. Truth be told I’m kind of depressed about my weight gain. I know I’m carrying a baby and I know I’m dealing with water retention and I know that the hospital scales might be calibrated slightly differently from my scales at home, but it still bums me out.
Today I had a Non Stress Test. They said it’s a routine test they do on women of Advanced Maternal Age, but that it’s just a one off and not a weekly thing. So they hooked me up to a couple of monitors and I lay down to ‘relax’ with the instructions to press the button every time I felt baby move. Except baby wasn’t moving too much so I wasn’t exactly ‘relaxed’. Today I have been having a lot of intestinal discomfort too so I had to focus really hard to guess whether what I felt was baby or bowel. After I don’t know how long, the doctor came in and made sure I knew when to come to Labor & Delivery and covered a few other things while I was still hooked up, she left for a few minutes before the nurse came back and unhooked me and had me undress from the waist down for the rest of my appointment. Apparently after looking at the graph they decided they weren’t happy with baby’s level of movement so I had to get hooked up again. This time I drank some more water beforehand and baby seemed to perk up. Of course baby perked up even more back to usual wriggly-ness when I was done with everything and back in reception sorting out the next few weeks worth of appointments. So frustrating! At least when I was done my belly was doing it’s usual wonky thing so that added to the proof for my doctor that baby was moving around.
I had my first internal exam and while I am ‘carrying low’ and baby’s head is down, his/her head is still high and my cervix is still closed. This makes me feel *so* much better about Lewis going off to California for a week on Sunday. Dr W said that I should be fine for about 2 more weeks before we start seeing any change down there.
She was sympathetic about my swollen ankles and saluted Lewis’s efforts with foot rubs etc 🙂

So now I’m having appointments every week until baby miller’s arrival and we actually scheduled an appointment for August 9th (after my due date) just in case he/she is still hanging out and they need to check anything.

interna
Confession: I actually had a mini breakdown when I went to bed after the not-at-all-relaxing ‘non stress test’, which even while I was sobbing with stress about already being a bad mum was telling myself that this probably wasn’t healthy for baby either. I just got so scared that I haven’t been looking after myself/baby well enough or something. I know I’ve felt baby move *a lot*, but having him/her be quiet and resting during a test of movement made me overly anxious. Now I am hyper aware of feeling for baby move. I will be doing lots of kick counts today to reassure myself.

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Seventh Prenatal Visit & Childbirth class #2

Well here we are at Week 32, Day 5. Only 7 weeks or so left to go, this year is passing in a blur of weeks, trimesters and appointments.

Lewis didn’t make it to this visit as he was stuck in an install for work. I was taken through to pee in a cup, get weighed and have my BP taken. It is getting harder and harder to pee in that cup! I missed what my BP was this week but my current weight is 163lbs. My bathroom scales are lying to me for sure! It’s telling me that I am 2-4lbs lighter than the doctor’s office and I swear I weigh myself at the same time of day in the same level of clothing as at an appointment. Blah.

Yesterday I met Dr B (another of the potential doctors who might be on call when Baby Miller makes his/her arrival). She was *so* much better than Dr H from the last visit. It was still a short and speedy visit, but I didn’t feel like I was just some faceless uterus being hustled through the system. We talked about my carpal tunnel briefly (I can take Benadryl to help me sleep better or Tylenol PM for the pain & to help me sleep better), and suggested using a stress ball when I’m ‘sitting around’. She told me that while I might think I’m waking in the night to pee it’s actually my body preparing itself for light sleeping when baby arrives. We agreed that it would be nice if our body just started this preparation two weeks before our due date rather than 2 months or more 😛
She felt baby’s position (baby is head down- hooray!- but explains why I need to pee all the time as the head is against my bladder), and measuring at 34weeks. All in all that was a good visit. Baby’s heart rate is in the 130s which is right in the middle of the healthy range (110-160 according to our childbirth class). Next visit I meet *another* doctor and get  my Group B Strep test. Woo hoo. I asked about shift changes during my stay in L&D and was told that the doctors are usually on call from 7am-7pm so if I came in at 5 or 6am there might be a shift change, but it wouldn’t affect me, but if I was in transition or pushing at the end of the shift they would stick around and finish out the birth. It seems like most of my time in L&D I’ll be dealing with nurses anyway and the doctor only comes in for transition and pushing.

 Prepared Childbirth Class #2

I had just enough time between my prenatal appointment and class to walk home, change into fresh clothes, grab a quick snack and walk back to the hospital with my new ‘birthing ball’.

First we had a quick catch up amongst the group as to what was new with us all since last week (Sharde was starting to feel baby move *a lot*, Liz has to sleep in an upright position, I have carpal tunnel- everyone else was late and missed this part). We watched a short video on comfort measures during labor and then spent some time practicing some massage and whatnot. I am seriously in love with my ball! Sitting on it and rocking back and forth is great, leaning over it on a table/bed and rocking is also great! And the support partners got to try out some massage tools on us to see what we liked (tennis balls, dryer balls, spiky rolling pin, rice sock etc). I think Lewis and I were the most vocal about what seemed to work for us, but I had minor back pain from work so getting a massage was kind of just what I needed 🙂 I did feel a little silly practicing the slow dancing in a brightly lit room full of strangers. Oh and the hip squeeze was weirdly good too!

Next we watched a video of ‘Chelsea’s Labor’ and went into much more detail about epidurals, analgesics, and all the stuff they put up inside you to monitor the baby, encourage the baby to come out etc. yikes! The stick with a spiral of wire, the tool to measure contractions, the catheter, the crochet hook to break the waters, the vacuum cup or the forceps… I don’t mind needles as much as Lewis, and I know all this is happening because you’re so numb from the epidural that you can’t feel anything down there, but it just made me want to avoid this even more. Lewis squeezed my hand happily when Chelsea’s baby arrived and I know he’s excited to meet our little one.  

Next week we cover c-sections and complications and get a tour of the birthing center. We’d had a quick slide show of the room (hooray for the amazing birthing bed that converts into various positions!), but seeing it in real life will be fun, and I think we’ll have a better idea of what to pack. All in all, it was another very informative class and I feel better prepared and excited about the impending big day. I’m still nervous about the pain, but Lewis and I are going to have a think about when I might want to resort to any pain medication, get some things written down so we don’t find ourselves having to make major decisions at an awkward time.

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Sixth Prenatal Visit

Today’s appointment was less than exciting.
Before I left work I needed to pee so bad that I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold it until the doctors, but once I peed I was worried I wouldn’t be able to pee when I had to for the doctor. I had to drink almost 2 glasses of water on my way to the doctors.
Work was so crappy this morning and I was basically further behind at noon than I was when I arrived at 6:45. I had to work right up until the last possible minute and then rush to the appointment from work and was not in the best mood. Lewis was held up at work (having the same crappy day that I’d been having) but made it to the doctors in time for the appointment. But then he wasn’t ever called in so it was somewhat of a wasted trip for him (except to pay for it from the HSA). Bah. Frustration!

Today was the first appointment where we (I) got to meet one of the other doctors from the practice in case my doctor isn’t on call when I go into labor. Today it was Dr H and while she was pleasant enough, based on today’s meeting, I don’t want her delivering my baby. She was so brusk and didn’t seem to actually care about how my pregnancy was going. Mostly she just looked at my charts rather than ask me about my experiences. Perhaps she was also having a less than great day and I was just unlucky, but still 😦

The heat has managed to slow my weight gain so I only gained a pound since last visit (bringing me to 159lbs) and my my BP is 110/60.
I did find out that my glucose tests barely qualified as normal. My number was 129 and apparently they consider 130 the cut off, so if I’d been one point higher I would have been considered at risk for gestational diabetes.
We talked about my edema. If I haven’t mentioned this before, my feet have been swelling a little bit, but my hands have been worse, especially my right hand. For the past week or so I wake up with swollen fingers and can’t close my fist. On Sunday my hand was tingling too which concerned me, but Dr H said that I don’t have any other symptoms that would have her concerned about preeclampsia  (whew). She said if it gets really bad I could see an orthopedic specialist and get an injection of steroids, but that it’s just some thing most of us have to deal with. Blah 😦

While she was listening to the baby’s heartbeat I asked how they can tell what way baby is situated from just feeling my belly. Baby Miller moves around a fair bit, and sometimes I feel a bump but I don’t know if it’s a head bump or a butt bump. She just said it was hard to explain to someone who isn’t a doctor.

The appointment was at 3pm and I was back in the reception area by 3:18pm feeling happy that everything seems to be progressing well, but frustrated that it was so rushed. Now I’m remembering a bunch of other questions I wanted to ask, but next week we have our first birthing class which will probably answer some of them. I feel like my regular doctor (Dr W) would go along with my desire to let baby make the decision on how to progress, while Dr H would encourage inducing and drugs and all that stuff. Obviously I don’t know how I’ll feel in 9.5 weeks, but I’m still aiming/hoping to let things progress naturally.

We walked home slowly, but made up for the crappiness of the work day by finding a couple of geocaches and now Lewis is off working off his stress by rock climbing. I am more and more envious of the energy and level of activity that Lewis and others are able to enjoy. I miss running, I miss cycling, I miss climbing, I miss just being able to walk at a decent pace!

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Fifth Prenatal Visit

So, I’m 28.5weeks pregnant and this week was my 5th doctors visit.

One of the guys from work gave me a ride to the bus stop, and then another guy from work saw me waiting for my bus and drove me most of the way to the doctors so I got there super early. I made the most of it and sat in the park for a while enjoying the nice weather, drinking my water and texting Christina about peeing in cups and oh-my-god-baby-will-be-here-any-day-now!

!! 🙂

Blood pressure was 104/60, weight is 158lbs – a bit of a jump from last time, but I swear our bathroom scale lies to me. When I weigh myself at home (in the evening, same as my appointments) it says I’m 150-153 so I’ve been trying to eat more! Oh well. Blood sugar levels etc from last visits glucose tests came back good so no worries there. whew.
After the nurse was done another nurse came in and gave me my RhoGAM shot. she explained a bit more about why I need the shot and whatnot and then I had my first ever butt shot (as far as I can remember, maybe I was given some as a small child?). It was pretty painless. Once baby is born they will do a blood test on baby and if he/she is Rh+ then I will get a 2nd RhoGAM shot within 72hrs of delivery. And I have to go through this every time I get pregnant, unless we find out Lewis is Rh- too and then there’s *much* less chance of baby being Rh+.
Lewis arrived soon after this and we hung out waiting for the doctor.

Doctor is happy with all my stats, baby is moving enough for her liking and heartbeat is still healthy and loud 🙂 She measured my tummy and said I was right where I should be. She said that the tape measure was about as accurate at measuring babies weight/size as an ultrasound and I asked about how they measure where the top of the uterus is. So now I know how to do it myself at home 🙂 I measure at 30cm 😛
She asked if we knew our birth weights and when I said I was 7-6 and Lewis was 9-something she said she hoped baby took after me 🙂
She asked if baby was moving a lot and I said yes but most of the movement I feel is all in the lower left quadrant. I said that I do feel movement everywhere, just mostly in this one area and she said it could be because the placenta is acting as a cushion in the other area so I’d feel it less. Today baby was hunkered way down low, kicking at my cervix a lot. I had to get a piece of foam to sit on on my stool because it really hurt otherwise. He/she was also kicking my bladder a lot today and almost every hour I had to pee.

I’ve started having back pain as of pretty much the start of my 3rd trimester. By mid afternoon my back starts to hurt, or if I’m sitting on the cta trains for more than a 1/2hr. The gave me some good stretches to try and a list of ways to relive the pain. If it gets too much they’d suggest physical therapy but while it’s uncomfortable right now it’s not constant enough for me to think that’s necessary.  I noticed last night that the pain eased up after I pooped so I bet some of the back pain is because baby is taking up space and other stuff is being squished.

This week is being as exhausting as I expected. I plan on having an early night tonight after being out until 11pm on Monday and 10:30 or so last night. Tomorrow will be another late-ish night too.

As I lay in bed on Mother’s Day evening I had a mini panic attack along the lines of “oh my god. I didn’t think this through. I’m not ready. I’m going to have a  baby! I did *not* think this through! oh shit oh shit oh shit!”.

So, on the one hand when I look down at my belly I don’t think i look too huge, and then I see my profile and am surprised at how pregnant I look. I am generally happy looking pregnant, but then I go to work and see all these non-pregnant girls walking around wearing clothes that look cute and I start to miss my pre-pregnancy body. This is the first I’ve started to feel frustrated with it, because like I say, generally I feel happy to finally look *obviously* pregnant. Only 9-12 weeks to go until I can start to reclaim my body though 🙂
I am so clearly in the 3rd trimester, the 2nd trimester was definitely the honeymoon period and almost as soon as I hit 6months I started getting the back pain and now feeling frustrated with my growing body. It’s pretty text book. But I’ve got off pretty lightly so far all things considered (not too much swelling, no hemorrhoids, no major constipation etc).
oh well, I’m exhausted so I’m going to bed.

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Fourth Prenatal Visit

This week was my 4th visit and it was pretty quick.
I was taken through to pee and drink 10 fl oz of sickly sweet orange drink for my glucose test. Initially I didn’t think it was too sweet, but about half way through it started to get pretty disgusting.
I’m now 23.5weeks. Blood pressure was 110/60, weight is 148lbs (so still on target- whew, I have been trying to eat more).
Poor Lewis spent all of his evening sitting in waiting rooms. Our regular nurse wasn’t there today, so he wasn’t called through as normal, but like I said it was a pretty quick visit with not much for him to learn.
Doctor is happy with all my stats, baby is moving enough for her liking and heartbeat is still healthy and loud 🙂
I was told I should be aiming to drink 12 glasses of water a day though. Eek 😦 On a good day I can manage 8, another 4 is going to be *tough*. Lewis is all “I don’t see what’s so difficult, even if you’re only awake for just 12hrs a day that’s one glass an hour. Easy.” Pfft. I do not have the same bladder as him, and also he doesn’t have a baby squishing his!

I booked my next appointments right up through week 37 (!!). Next visit is in 5 weeks to get my RhoGAM shot and then I start rotating through some of the other doctors at the practice for a few visits. I have to meet them because we don’t know who’ll be on call when baby decides to come and this way I won’t have some random doctor doing the delivery.

Next, we went down to get my blood drawn for the glucose test, if anything shows up they’ll be calling me by Friday and I’ll have to go and do a 3 hour test, but fingers crossed I’m okay. Although even if I have gestational diabetes, it’s rare for it to continue after baby arrives. I’d just have to manage my diet better and potentially see my doctor more often.

I can’t believe I have appointments booked up until week 37. That’s full term! After that I’ll be seeing the doctor every week and could pop at any given time. Whew.

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Third Prenatal Visit

Tonight was our 3rd prenatal doctors appointment.
I went in first and saw the nurse (weight 143lbs, blood pressure 100/60) and was told that next month I will have my glucose test and what that will involve. My doctor also explained this later and assured me that even if I’m having a sweet tooth lately I can’t ‘give myself diabetes’ 🙂

Once again we didn’t get a sonogram this time, but we did got to listen to peanuts heartbeat. As we only had out 2nd trimester ultrasound last week there wasn’t much new to learn about how baby is doing, but our doctor told us again how baby has a good heartbeat and is a very good size (‘right where we want to be’). She was pleased with my weight gain and amused that I was tracking it by myself. I had figured out my starting weight and what I should aim to be by 40 weeks and figured out how much I should weigh at each appointment. This way when I step on the scales each night I know if I’m gaining too fast or not enough. I know that some women gain a bit, plateau for a while and then gain more so I’m not holding myself to the dates too strictly, but so far I am gaining steadily 🙂

I asked about whether we’d be able to take a trip to SC for our friends wedding in July (week 37) and sadly it looks like we’ll have to skip it. My doctor said that it’s hard to judge where I’ll be pregnancy wise at that point and 37weeks is technically full term so it’s risky. She said that some airlines wouldn’t allow me to fly that far along and would make me get checked out and have a doctors note. But she agreed that 2-3hrs in a plane is probably preferable to 16hrs or so in a car (especially in the height of summer heat!). If we decide to book a flight we should make sure we get refundable ones just in case, but it looks like we won’t be going 😦 Hopefully we can take a mini break somewhere else at some point though…

I’m trying to drink enough water in this heat wave. I am managing 6 glasses of water and a glass of milk per day, but need to be better. I have to aim for 8+ glasses of water plus 1-2 glasses of milk. whew.

Other baby news & thoughts:
On Monday evening I think I felt baby move for the first time! After I got home from my usual Monday evening date with friends, I made myself a sandwich and went to bed. Later I felt a kind of flip flop in my tummy area, a few flip flops actually. I was like ‘is that my sandwich digesting or the baby!?’, I put my hand on my belly to see if I could feel anything from the outside when it happened, but I couldn’t 😦 But I have felt a few similar flip flops since then 🙂 It’s kind of a fun feeling, but I could see it getting tiresome if I was trying to sleep 😛

-My boobs are still growing. Currently they are 2.5″ fuller than pre-pregnancy. Most mornings they are tender when I get out of bed.
-I’m not waking as much during the night, but when I do I’m generally able to get back to sleep okay.
-I am hungry. I eat breakfast around 6am and by 8am I am hungry. Break is at 10am, so I try to go until then, but normally I have to nibble on a granola bar by 9am or risk falling over. The afternoons are much better, and then in the evening I get hungry again.
-I was told it’s okay if I sleep on my right side (my preferred side). I have been trying to sleep on my left side as instructed, but often roll onto my back (bad for uterus and baby), but if I sleep on my right side I can sleep through the night and wake feeling refreshed. If I sleep on my left side I roll onto my back and wake in the night and sleep fitfully. So hurray for being able to sleep on my regular side ❤

Today at work one of the carpenters and his girlfriend brought their new born (1 week old!) baby girl, Camilla, to the shop to show her off 🙂 He brought a tonne of burgers and sausages and chips and grilled everything up for us! Everyone was asking what Lewis and I are going to do when our baby arrives 😛 He set a high bar for us to match! Plus their daughter was adorable and slept most of the visit. I’m still kind of shy around other people’s babies. I don’t want to impose on them for cuddles etc and I don’t know what their rules are or whatnot, whereas when my baby arrives I get to make the decisions and hopefully will feel more confident/comfortable.

I had a minor panic yesterday. Just realising that come August I’ll have a baby and my parents will come to visit and will I be expected to entertain/look after them at the same time as figuring out this new person!? Lewis will hopefully get 2 weeks of paid paternity leave plus any vacation days he wants to add onto that, mum said she and dad are planning on staying for 2-3 weeks. Right now I’m thinking 2 weeks will be a fine amount, but I want them to get as much time with the new baby as possible, because they won’t get to visit with us (or us with them) as much as they get to visit with Chris’ kids. I don’t want to deny them grandparent time. But that is 4+months away so I’m not going to stress myself out too much about that just yet…

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First Prenatal Visit!

Today Lewis and I went to our first prenatal doctors appointment!
I went in first and saw the nurse (weight 136lbs, blood pressure 100/60- i think) and answered a bunch of questions. I had to go and pee (which I was able to give them enough even though i didn’t really need to go- nobody warned me about the pee sample), then my doctor came in and gave me an exam.
Once that was done, they called Lewis in and we went to get my first ultrasound!

Seeing my little peanut wriggle around definitely made it all the more real! Neither of us had any trouble seeing the head, torso and arms, although the doctor did point out the heart for us 🙂 Doctor printed off 4 pictures for us that I’ll probably scan into the computer soon and we went back into her office to discuss some stuff. Because I’m 36 I’m considered ‘Advanced Maternal Age‘ so the odds of certain complications go up so I was given a massive amount of info about tests and screening things and whatnot. So this afternoon I’ll be reading up on all of that. yay.

I got sent down to get some blood work done and not knowing how long I’d be waiting there I let Lewis to go back to work, but thankfully I didn’t have to wait too long- although they asked me to pee again which was harder seeing as I’d only pee’d about an hour before.

So, so far things seem ok and doctor doesn’t have any major concerns, except for my age. I have appointments booked for February, March and April already and they are all evening appointments so Lewis doesn’t have to take off any more work if he wants to come along. I was glad he came along today, I think the ultrasound definitely brought it all home for both of us 🙂

Predicted due date is August 5th. Happy birthday Lewis 😉

Let’s make this pregnancy official! Maybe?

I just booked my first prenatal appointment for January 10th.
Ideally I would have liked to have been seen this week or early next week before we go to England, but the earliest she could fit me in was the 27th, so I’m being seen immediately after I get back from England. If all goes as well as expected, I’ll be 10weeks pregnant by then!

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