Week 34

I had my doctor's appointment today and - so far - cutting my work hours has helped. We are going to give it another week and still keep an eye on my blood pressure. If everything stays on track the new goal will be to induce the third week in December. Meanwhile, I'll just keep things simple and stay off my feet as much as possible.

Our boy is doing great and starting to move around a lot! Sometimes I think he's swinging around on my ribs like a monkey. Which figures as his nursery has just a few monkeys hanging around as well. Yep, we have finally finished it. (Well almost, just a few more decorative touches to go.) It's painted, furnished and my mom made us some great crib dressings and curtains. We have a few more pictures on our flickr site so check them out!

Pregnancy Update

I have now been to the doctor at least 12 times in the past 8 months or so and have gotten to know my Dr. pretty good. If you have heard me talk about him you would know that he is a very high energy kind of guy. He's fast, efficient and loves it when your baby's daddy comes along to the appointments. (I picture him and Chris having a beer right after our little one comes out!) Needless to say I never have to wait more than 10 min for my appointment and once we are in, he's there buzzing around the room with so much energy you get an instant high. So, with that little bit of background, imagine my surprise when after we talked for a few minuets he pulled up a chair and actually sat down! I knew I was in for some not so great news. And I was right. :-( He isn't so passive about my swelling as I have been. (See post below) Apparently what I thought was normal for being on your feet all day isn't normal at all, at least not at 33 weeks. So...he has put me on a 4-step plan until December. I now have to go in every week for blood pressure checks and to see if I need to move on to the next step of our plan - see below.

1. Cut my work hours in half
   
2. Stop working and bed rest at home
   
3. A week's worth of bed rest at the hospital
   
4. Induction (aka: get the baby out of there)
   

Even with all this planning, if at any time my blood pressure (which is great right now) decides to take a dive we will skip steps 1 and 2 and go straight to spending some time with the lovely people at Plano Presbyterian Hospital. Cross your fingers for me that this isn't necessary. As of right now, other than the swelling, I feel good. My goal is to make it to December and at least 37 weeks. On another note, our boy is still doing great. His weight is about a week and a half ahead of the average so if he has to be born early at least he'll be closer to fully-baked.

So now that I know I am going to have a little more time on my hands, off my feet, anyone have any ideas of what I can do? Know of any great books or shows that I should check out? I'd love the recommendations. :-)

On a happier note, some good friends of ours, Colin and Megan, had their twin boys yesterday, and my uncle Dan and aunt Brenda had their little guy last week. Both moms are doing great and all the boys are healthy and adorable! Congrats you guys!

Kankles!

I am currently a few days shy of 33 weeks. I have now gotten used to the fact that by the end of the day my ankles completely disappear and my calves continue straight on to my feet. I was prepared for the fact that my belly would swell to an unnatural size, but my ankles? LOL The real kicker is that even after I take off my shoes...you can still see them imprinted. It's just beautiful!



(Please don't judge me on the small patches of polish left, I can no longer reach my feet to give myself a pedicure. )

Placenta on the rise

Following our now bi-weekly doctor's appointment, we have some good news.  My placenta has moved out of the way so now our boy can be born without a cesarean.  Some other news is that our little guy isn't so little! Currently at 31 weeks he weighs 4lbs 4oz.  If we go another 9 weeks, he will likely be 9-plus pounds! Can we say ouch! Maybe we should hope for about 7 more weeks and 7 to 8 pounds. But as long as he is healthy we won't have any complaints.

I have been given the go ahead to continue to work as long as my back pain and swelling don't get any worse. We will continue to monitor it every two weeks from now on.

Unfortunately we did not get any sono pics this time as he was facing my back and didn't want to turn around. But, in just a short time we will have more than enough pictures to go around. We can't wait! Should we start taking bets on who he is going to look like? My money is on Chris with maybe some red hair like I had.

Sugar, weight gain and braxton hicks

Today I had my gestational diabetes test. For those of you who do not know what this entails, basically I have to drink 10 ounces of a glucose mixture and then get my blood checked after an hour. I should get a call tomorrow with the results. My glucose happened to be orange flavored and tasted a bit like Orange Crush with about 10 cups of sugar added. Now anyone that knows me knows that I can handle sweet: chocolate, cakes, candy...there haven't been many things that have been too much to handle. Let me tell you, I found out that after today I think I have had enough sugar for the rest of the week and I probably will not be able to drink orange flavored anything for a long time to come. Let's hope my results come back clean so I don't have to do it all over again!

I have also now gained a total of 14 pounds. That's right on track so far and I'm expected to gain probably another 8 to 10 before this whole thing is over. Since I gained 5 pounds this last month I have now passed up Chris in his sympathy weight gain. He has held at 10 pounds. Which brings me to the question: is this sympathy weight really attributed to this pregnancy or has his diet and activity level just adjusted as mine has? Are there any scientific studies that link it to hormones and is this pregnancy really wreaking havoc on my husbands body as well as my own? Hmmm...

Also worth mentioning are these weird contraction-like sensations I have been having. Apparently they are called braxton hicks contractions and are pretty much like labor contractions except so far they haven't been painful and don't affect the cervix. Just leaves me a little sore after a while. That, combined with my growing back aches, may unfortunatly leave me with the possibility of having to cut my working hours down yet again. Cross your fingers that I can stay on my feet for the next 10 to 12 weeks until this baby comes.

As for that nursery I keep mentioning, it is painted! But yet still not finished. Chris and I still have a chair rail to put up and then wait for our furniture to arrive. By next week we should have a picture. At least one of an empty room. There's no word (yet) of when our furniture should be here but hopefully in the next two to three weeks.

Stay tuned.