Tag Archives: development

Another Update (25w6d)

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How has it been another week already? Let’s see what’s new in the last week…

  • Blood Sugars: I’m concerned about my blood sugars. They’ve been really pretty good for quite a while now. My last a1c test (long-term blood sugar report card) was a smashing 6.0. But since my last appointment, my sugars have gone back up. I’m eating basically the same stuff, no real changes. If anything I’m not eating as often, but I’m eating larger meals when I do. I’m avoiding eating in the middle of the night when I get up to pee and find myself starving. But my fasting sugars are much higher than they used to be (averaging 110-ish or higher) and my post-breakfast sugars look even worse as a consequence. That’s the really frustrating part – I eat the same three things for breakfast every morning during the week. But for some reason now my blood sugar is blasting up 70-100 points after breakfast, as opposed to the 30-50 points it did before. (I take my morning whopping dose of insulin and then eat breakfast within 20-40 minutes.) I know this will be a big discussion topic at my next appointment. I’m aware that as the pregnancy continues that it’s not uncommon to have some impressive insulin resistance, but I’m concerned that this seemed to come on so suddenly. I’m kinda hoping that it has a bit to do with my stress levels of late. I’ve had a big project at work hanging over me for a couple of weeks now – a server install/migration that has gone wrong in every way possible. Hopefully this weekend will be the end of it – if not, my job might be on the line… so maybe if I get rid of this stress, my sugars will behave? Here’s hoping.
  • Weight Gain: I have no idea how much I’ve gained since my last appointment, but I can’t imagine it will be good. I don’t know how to deal with the fact that I’m getting bigger. Everything in my life has always been about *not* getting bigger at any cost – so mentally I have no mechanism to deal with these changes. I’m not contemplating dieting or anything… but I live in fear of that scale at Dr. Schwartz’s office. For the record, I don’t feel like I’m getting bigger anywhere but my belly and boobs – but what the hell do I know?
  • Swelling: Some days are better than others. I’m always swollen in my feet and ankles to some extent, with the left being more swollen than the right. (Not to an alarming extent, but I notice it.) If I spend an inordinate amount of time with my feet up, the swelling will go down some, but when I wake up in the morning, things are still swollen. That said, I have three pairs of shoes I can rotate through depending on how bad the swelling is on a given day. My hands and face remain un-puffy, which is good since that is a sign of pre-eclampsia. My wrists are still pretty swollen though, so the carpel tunnel issues continue, and actually seem to be getting worse. I’m looking into braces or something to help with this, since I can’t do anything about my job that requires me to be on a computer all day.
  • Names: We have a list of 23 names we’re working on. Not sure if this list is the final list though. I’m still on the lookout for a good baby-naming book and always listening for a good name. Those who have glanced at our list have been surprised at how ‘normal’ the names are. I guess people thought we would be naming the kid something from Star Trek or Canterbury Tales? (Geoffrey Tiberius, anyone?)
  • Kicks: Our little man is a dancing, kicking, punching, rolling, whirling dervish. I have no real idea what appendage is whunking me at any given time, but I feel him all throughout the day these days. Sometimes when he’s really on a tear it can be hard to concentrate on other things for all the activity in my belly! I’m pretty sure I had a little baby bum sticking out to the right of my belly button yesterday morning though. I was re-familiarizing myself with myself in the mirror before hopping in the shower, and noticed a lump about the size of a tennis ball to the right of my belly button. I poked at it, but it didn’t do anything. It was gone after my shower though! (As I’m writing this, he’s kicking at opposite ends of my belly – I wish I could see what on earth he’s doing in there!)
  • Kicks, part II: Paul felt the baby kick on Easter Sunday! (April 4, 25w3d) I was hanging out on the couch with my hand resting on my side. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my hand jump – and realized it coincided with a big kick. I watched as my hand jumped again, and I quickly called Paul over. He put his hand where I showed him and a few seconds later, he felt his son give a mighty kick! He gasped and kind of giggled as he got a couple more punches in quick succession. The look on Paul’s face is something I will never forget. He continues to be impressed with how quickly the baby moves inside me – Paul assumes that it’s all dreamy water-world in there, not karate practice!
  • Nursery: Progress in the nursery is still slow. But we have a deadline now – the carpet installation has been scheduled for Saturday May 1. So painting the nursery will more than likely happen the weekend of the 24-25 of April. Which means the clean-out portion of the program has to be finished by then! I’ve given up the dream of re-painting the baseboards in the house before the carpet goes in – just too much other prep to be done, since it’s like we have to move out of the house to have the carpet installed anyway. I’m excited that things will finally be moving visibly forward, but trepidatious at all the work that has to happen before then. I’m looking forward to having something to show friends and family when they’re out for the shower!
  • Baby Shower: To my knowledge, no RSVPs have been received for the baby shower that’s in just over a month. Starting to wonder if anyone wants to celebrate this kid…or see the nursery! (On Edit: I didn’t realize that my BFF Lisa has been *dying* with a cold, allergies and asthma all ganging up on her at once and then sticking around. I’m sure that the RSVPs are being well-tracked. She’s just been a little too sick of late to pass them on to me! That said, feel free to comment here after you’ve RSVP’d either way!)
  • Daycare: One day last week after I got out of class, Paul joined me for a tour of the daycare that I’d toured a couple of months ago. He was as impressed as I was, and feels comfortable about placing our baby there when the time comes that we’re both working again. Not sure when that will be, but I wanted Paul to tour the place and see what I was so excited about. It was pretty neat watching him check out all the babies in the infant room. He doesn’t get this panicked look anymore, more interested than anything. Which I think is a big step in the right direction. He had much the same look on his face last week when he finally met Caroline’s little girl here in the office.

    • I guess that’s about it. Other than feeling pretty tired in the evenings (and right around 3:00 every afternoon) I’m feeling pretty good. Definitely feel pregnant, and it’s an interesting experience to say the least!

General update (22w3d)

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Most common question I’m asked these days is “How are you feeling?” So I figured I’d update, since there’s nothing major to talk about really.

I’m feeling pretty good. I’m not sure where this whole “Holy crap, you’ll feel freaking fantastic and have all the energy in the world!!!1!1!” myth came from; but I do feel better than I did in my first trimester. I’m don’t feel like I’m walking through waist-deep water all the time, so that’s a vast improvement.

I’m getting bigger, of this there is no doubt. My waist is disappearing more and more every day. I’m positive that I’m gonna lose my belly button before this is all over. I’m finding it hard to squeeze between things I used to be able to pass with no problems. (Like between the dresser and the bed on Paul’s side of the bed.) I’m mostly OK with it all – just have to remind myself occasionally that I’m pregnant, not fat. (well, not fatter than I was already… ha!) I’m pretty sure that my internal organs are getting shoved up higher though, which is making me get winded a little easier than before.

My maternity wardrobe is holding steady. Some tops are getting too tight to wear fashionably, but I’ve got others that are still fine. I’m terribly grateful that no one at work really cares about what I wear. I’m in yoga pants nearly every day now. I miss my jeans.

My ankles and feet are swelling pretty much every day, but most mornings I wake up with non-swollen ankles and feet, so I’m not terribly concerned. I wear Crocs shoes every day, so the swelling hasn’t affected my footwear yet. I come home in the evenings and put my feet up, literally. The degree to which I’m swollen seems directly proportional to the activity level of my day – the busier the day and/or the longer I was on my feet, the worse the swelling is. But the swelling isn’t limited to my lower extremities. My wrists are pretty swollen too. I’ve definitely got some pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel going on. Numbness and tingling in the hands is pretty common now. So that’s annoying, but I have faith that it will go away once I pop the little man out.

I’m not bending over much anymore. It’s just not comfortable, and the kid kicks me when I do it, so I don’t think he likes it either. If you wanna know what it feels like, take a large honeydew melon and hold it tight on your gut, just at your belly button. Now, bend over at the waist. Yep. There you go.

Um, I feel like I’m back in high school in regards to my face. Oil slick city, man. Hair too. I had to switch shampoo/conditioner because everything I had was to combat the dryness out here in the desert. I’m now using a daily clarifying shampoo and an uuber-light conditioner. And I gotta say, my hair is looking pretty awesome. It’s growing pretty fast, which is making Paul happy. (Granted, I know it’s gonna fall out after I have the kid, but I try not to think about that.)

The little man is a flip-flopping, kicking, tap-dancing machine. I swear, sometimes it feels like he’s trying to tap-dance his way out already. But it’s cool to feel him regardless. I don’t have his cycles down yet, but it’s noticeable when he wakes up, that’s for sure. I can’t wait for Paul to be able to feel it.

My labs are all great. My A1c had dropped to 6.0 at my last appointment, and my blood pressure has settled down into 130’s over 80’s which is really much better than it was. My blood sugars are in a happy-making range for Dr. Schwartz, and I haven’t had a med adjustment in over 6 weeks. I’m still on 3-week appointments, but I know that’s gonna end eventually – by my last month I’ll be on twice-a-week appointments for non-stress tests.

I guess that’s about it. The state of the Sarah (and little man.) Did I miss anything?

We’re having a BOY!! (21w2d)

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So this week has been kinda a rough week, with Paul’s job going bust and all. (It was a hellish 2 weeks, actually.) Combined with our slight annoyance/disappointment that we didn’t get confirmation of the baby’s sex at this week’s appointment; and well…. we were looking for a happy.

I was looking into 3D ultrasound places here in Las Vegas and found one with great rates AND a coupon! They were able to get us in this morning at 10:30 for a basic package of 2D and 3D images and a guaranteed gender confirmation. (Seriously, if they can’t tell 100% for sure you get to come back for free and if they’re wrong you get your money back or another free 4D session. We were pretty stoked about our chances of finding out with policies like that!)

So this morning our friends Sibyana and Cheri met us at Miracle in Progress (it was like 5 minutes from their house – on the other side of the valley for us) and we had ourselves a little viewing party! The tech was really great – more gentle than the nurses at Dr. Schwartz’s office to tell the truth. She ended up working with us for 30 minutes instead of the 15 minutes our session was supposed to be. She wasn’t able to really do any of the 3D or 4D stuff because of the placement of the baby in relation to the placenta. The baby was laying *on* the placenta, using it for a pillow. But she kept trying and trying to get the baby to turn and “look” at her so she could get some 3D images.

So even though we only got one 3D image, we’re still stoked because we got the one thing we came for:

It's a BOY

It’s a boy for sure. I commented on the ‘tiny wang’ and the tech replied that it wasn’t small at all. Paul, ever the proud Papa, was beaming as we all collapsed into giggles.

We got a great view of our son as he waved his arms, yawned, gulped amniotic fluid, kicked, and wiggled. It was the first time that I’ve watched him moving around and was able to feel some of it. SO COOL.

3D image of baby's profile

So we have a DVD of the whole 28 minute session, and a CD with some pictures. I’ve culled the best of the pictures and put them in a gallery. I label one picture and then place the original behind it in the gallery so you can flip back and forth to see what’s what. For most of the session, the baby kept his back to us, so that’s why some of the best shots don’t have his face in them. (We’re gonna see about editing down the DVD of the ultrasound and posting some of that. A lot of it is kinda boring, but some of it is amazing – like watching him yawn right at us.)

Afterwards, we had brunch with Sibyana and Cheri, and then Paul let me hit the nearby Target to add blue things to the registry. :)

But yep. We’re having a Boy. And no, we have no idea for names yet at all.

Good appointment (20w6d)

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Great appointment today. Confirmed something important about our baby: it’s a little punk. Misty (Dr. Schwartz’s nurse) spent a good 15 minutes trying to coerce the little critter to show us the goods. We were looking up at it’s bum, like we were under the invisible little chair it was sitting on. But the baby just wasn’t about to open it’s legs and confirm what we thought we saw. The baby was flip flopping and bouncing around (maybe because of the two sips of OJ I had right before the ultrasound) but not about to show us what we wanted to see. DANGIT. Next time… (Misty and I both thought we saw something, but she wasn’t confident enough to call it.) It continues to seem odd to me to see the baby doing crazy acrobatics and I still can’t feel ANYTHING. Hopefully soon.

Dr. Schwartz was great about answering questions today, having been prepped by my e-mail last week. We covered a lot of things today:

  • I only gained half a pound!! Holy cats! I was totally shocked. I was honestly expecting a gain of 4-6 pounds because my clothes are totally fitting different (way tighter) and well…. I’ve been eating more than I ever have cuz I’m starving all the time!! Dr. Schwartz was happy to see the small gain, but cautioned me that I need to make sure that I actually am eating enough since the baby does need a fair amount of nutrition for all the growth it’s doing these days. He totally gets that my brainmeats are making it hard for me to eat as much as I apparently need to. At my next appointment he’ll be checking to make sure that the baby is growing and gaining weight as expected. But he was supportive (as always) that I must be doing things pretty well as far as nutrition and calories because my blood sugars are consistently improving, and my a1c results (like a 3-month diabetes report card) were down to 6.0 (from 6.5 and 6.3 the last two times it was checked.)
  • Speaking of proper nutrition, my Muscle Milks are TOTALLY FINE. Contrary to what the morons at GNC and Vitamin World yelled at me last week, there’s NOTHING of concern whatsoever for pregnant women to have protein shakes. The L-Arginine in the shakes (as a form of protein) is also found in most nuts. L-Arginine has been found to help with placental growth retardation, as well as preeclampsia: both of which I’m at risk for! (The lady at GNC was yelling at me that I was going to have a GIGANTIC, over-grown baby because of drinking protein shakes, and that my doctor was stupid for allowing them. Dr. Schwartz asked which GNC it was cuz he wants to have a word with them.) So I can happily keep drinking my yummy High-protein, Low-carb, vitamin-rich shakes. Hooray!!
  • The swelling in my ankles/feet is nothing to worry about yet. Dr. Schwartz thinks I’m just prone to swelling. (I’m getting a fair amount of swelling in my wrists too.) He encouraged me to continue to keep my feet up as often as possible. He agreed that striving for good hydration is a good idea, but that it won’t help this kind of swelling as much as it does for regular hot-weather swelling. He cautioned that it’s not gonna be fun towards the end of my pregnancy when it’s hot, cuz then I’ll have both types of swelling working together. Oy. (Oh, and apparently a restless legs / ants under the skin feeling in the evenings is normal too. Wheeeee.)
  • He also commented that towards the end of my pregnancy, he expects to see me twice a week for nonstress tests and whatnot. So I’m gonna have to work something out with him for scheduling, and work something out at work so that I burn as little of my paid leave as possible. (Maybe I can just not take a lunch EVER AGAIN.) I’m really concerned about my maternity leave. I’m taking as little leave as possible for my appointments, but any leave I take comes directly out of what I’ll be able to take when the baby is born. I have to take 8 weeks off because the daycare won’t take infants under 8 weeks – but there’s no way I’ll have that much paid leave saved up – especially if my appointments move to once a week or more. Unfortunately, we need both our salaries – so I’m not sure what we’re gonna do for several weeks that I’m gonna have to take off unpaid. I guess that’s what credit cards are for, right?
  • So, because I’m doing so well (blood pressure was lowest it’s ever been, blood sugars are consistently lower, weight gain is very small) I’m cleared for another 3 week appointment. No changes to my insulin or blood pressure meds for the 2nd appointment in a row! So I’m set for Wednesday March 24th at 3:00pm. (Dr. Schwartz is taking me as his last appt from now on so I can burn as little paid leave as possible – he just has to leave by 4:00 to catch his flight home.) Edit: I changed my appointment to the first of the day at 8:00am, because I actually lose less work time by going in the morning. Those first-thing appointments go fast tho, so I can’t always get them. There will be a full ultrasound at the next appointment to check growth and (hopefully) confirm sex for us.

Random thoughts and observations (20w3d)

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  • The raging psoriasis on my arms is gone. Apparently it’s a common occurrence during pregnancy because of the elevated estrogen levels. (I was surprised that it wasn’t from the progesterone, since that stuff seems to be responsible for everything else!) The stuff on my head is not nearly as bad, but I have been using a medicated shampoo for the first time ever – so I’m not sure what’s fixing that. (For those who don’t know, I have really horrible psoriasis on my arms: unsightly and extremely painful.)
  • I’m still not feeling anything from the baby. Really beginning to bug me. I think I’ve felt a flutter or three, but nothing more than that and not for over a week. Dangit, I’m more than halfway done with this process…. I wanna feel something! Plus, it’s just disconcerting to not feel anything. I want some sort of confirmation that everything is OK in there. I poke and poke at my belly, and I can feel the honeydew melon in there… but no response from it’s tenant. Wah.
  • Speaking of that honeydew melon… bending over is a thing now. Like, I avoid doing it now. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s not comfortable. And I figure if it’s not comfortable for me, it can’t be enjoyable for the baby. I’m noticing it more when I get into bed too these days. We have a fairly high-up bed, so it’s a bit of a climb to get in. Lifting my leg up that high kinda shoves everything up. Maybe it’s time for a little step-stool.
  • I have an appointment to see Dr. Schwartz on Wednesday afternoon. Dr. Schwartz said we could take another look and see if we can find out the sex at this upcoming appointment. I really hope the baby cooperates this time. I’m gonna drink orange juice on the way over to the appointment to wake the kid up. I REALLY wanna find out the sex. I’m pretty sure it’s a boy, but confirmation would be great.
  • I’m gonna talk to Dr. Schwartz about a bit of swelling I’m having in my ankles. Most days my ankles are a little swollen by the time I get home from work. If I put my feet up for a little while it goes back down, but it’s a little worrisome. I’m really concerned about pre-eclampsia, so I’m on watch for any symptoms.
  • Lastly, I’m STARVING. Like all the dang time. Doesn’t seem to matter what I eat, I’m ravenous again within 2 hours. I’m trying to make healthy choices, but it’s still worrisome. I’ve never been this hungry, this often in my whole life. It’s hard to deal with, cuz I know I’ve gained weight. Granted, I know that some weight gain is expected – cuz ya know, the baby is growing… but when you live your entire life trying to avoid any sort of weight gain, it’s hard to get right with this gain. (Plus the books and websites say I should gain somewhere between 0-14lb for the whole pregnancy, which short of living like I’m training for a marathon doesn’t seem possible or realistic.) I wake up a couple times a night to pee and most nights I’m starving for at least one of those trips to the bathroom. Usually I just ignore it and go back to bed, but then come 7:00am’s alarm I’m so hungry I’m nauseous. But eating in the middle of the night just seems so wrong. So yeah, there’s that.