Confessions of a Starbucks addict

What a long day! Today's appointments were rather long. I say appointments because I had a 32 week ultrasound, the regular OB appointment, and then I had to drive to another facility and get that follow-up fetal echocardiogram. Whew! I'm exhausted from all the driving.

I guess I'll start with the ultrasound, since it was first. Baby is measuring perfectly, on time, and at a great weight (4#4oz.). I got a blurry picture of one of his feet, but I haven't scanned it in yet. He's too big in there to get any good pictures. The other problem with getting a good picture...he turned breech! Ugh. He's been head down since 20 weeks and now he decides to turn? Geeze kid! Yes, I know that he can turn several more times before he's due, but sheesh! All my kids are stubborn. :) Oh, his heart rate was a nice 144bpm.

The OB appointment was uneventful. We went over the ultrasound and I got my lab results. I'm still anemic, but wasn't told to up my iron pill. I am going to go ahead and do that anyway. My A1c was 5.5%!!! This I wasn't expecting. I'm thinking I'm having a lot of nighttime lows that I'm not waking up for. I'm going to have to be more careful about that. Other than that we didn't really talk about much, except our kids. It's nice to have an OB who has kids that are older like I do. My last OB didn't understand teenagers...this one does!

Then it was off to the children's cardiology clinic. This was for the fetal echocardiogram. Baby's heart looks good, though there's a bit of thickening in the interior part of his heart wall. They think that was an artifact, since his position wasn't cooperating with them... so their advice was that when he's born I should ask for one of the cardiologists to come and do a quick echo on the baby, or when we're discharged just run over to the cardio clinic and have them do it there. No big deal, they just want to make sure that what they saw was an artifact. Really the only thing that the thickening could be is showing a murmur, which I guess is quite common in T1 mom's children. So that's all they'd be looking for. There's nothing really wrong with the baby's heart at all. :)

All in all a good appointment. I'm now going to have weekly non-stress tests along with my OB appointments. I can't believe it's so close! My house is *totally* not ready for a new baby. It's a pig sty and I don't have the nesting-urge going on, which sucks!

My goodness... this appointment took FOREVER. Most of it was the waiting...and waiting...and waiting. PJ had a good time in the lobby, making friends, watching Veggie Tales, finding the hidden objects inside the Highlights magazine, having me read a book to her, looking at the pictures of babies in the exam room, etc. It was mostly waiting.

I got approval from my OB to go back to injecting heparin, instead of pumping it. The bruises that I get from the pump are just awful. I'm looking a lot like someone who lost a punching contest in my abdomen area. It's just gross. Plus the bleeding from the sites is just insane. So, I'm done with the heparin pump. I'll be returning that sucker tomorrow!

The baby's heart rate was 158bpm. Doing well there. Also, she finally measured fundal height...it was 33cm! So, either baby is big, I have a lot of fluid, or I'm just fat! I'm going for the latter. I also lost weight from my last appointment. Stupid nausea! I just don't want to eat.

I also gave my OB the preliminary birth plan form that I'd filled out (in the case of hospital birth, i.e., induction). She didn't like that I will refuse Cytotec. Sorry, I'm not going through that crap again (Shayna was a Cytotec induction). I'll let her break my water, I think that's about it. I don't want to be on continuous monitoring which this hospital requires if you get pitocin. So, break my water, baby will probably fall out within an hour. :p I hate inductions, so everyone pray that the baby will come on his own at around 38w6d!

My next appointment is in two weeks. I'll be getting another ultrasound, then I'll see my OB, then I have to rush to the other side of Tacoma to see the fetal echo specialist...so I'll be getting two ultrasounds that day. Woohoo. Let's hope for more pictures this time!

Somehow I think I started having some nesting urges a bit early here... On Thursday I decided it was time to clean the downstairs bathroom. It's the one that pretty much everyone uses, mostly because it's easiest access, and it's also where the washer/dryer are. There was probably a foot of dirty clothing piled up, and the tops of both the washer and dryer were full of clean clothes that needed to be folded.

The trash was overflowing, I think mainly because everyone forgets that on garbage night, you're actually supposed to go around the house and get *all* of the garbage cans emptied and out to the big can... whatever. It was a mess.

So I cleaned. I scrubbed. I inhaled so many chemicals that I got dizzy and had to open the window (should've done that first, duh!) The only thing I couldn't do was was scrub the floor...the hands and knees thing is quite difficult these days.

I got the place cleaned, and it felt goooooood! However...

Friday I got up and started on laundry, continuing on from the day before, having done about five loads in between the scrubbing. One thing I noted though. Baby wasn't moving. No big deal I thought, I mean all the work must have put him to sleep or something. I went to bed, a little freaked out that I still hadn't felt him move, but knew that everything was probably fine.

So I wake up this morning and still don't feel him moving. So what do I do? I eat a jelly donut. :) He still doesn't move. So I poke him and I shake him (well as best as you can through your belly), poke him some more. I *finally* get a response. A light tap. Not good enough! I poke more, prod more, shake more. Then I wait. I figure that the donut's sugar hasn't hit him yet...meanwhile I'm panicking about maybe I need to go to the ER and get a doppler check on his heart rate.

Fast forward about an hour... this kid won't quit moving! He's hyper in there. All is well. Jelly donut to the rescue! Bad for blood sugars, good for baby moving.

I'm not cleaning anymore!

I'm so very upset! Baby is in the perfect position for birthing, which means that I can't get a good ultrasound picture to save my life! His face is toward my back and he's sitting cross-legged. Bad boy! Doesn't want mama to see him! :p

He's looking good. Measuring ahead now, at 29w1d (I'm 28w3d today) and is weighing in at 2#11oz. Fluid levels are perfect too. Woohoo!

I got the paperwork for preregistration at the hospital. My OB says that if I haven't gone into labor on my own by 39w1d then we'll induce so that I can definitely get my water birth. I don't like inductions, so I'm going to have a long talk with this little one...hopefully he'll listen! The other reason for induction is my T1, which I discount a bit since I've had full term babies before who weren't huge. We'll see. I may be ready to induce...it'll be June afterall. I'd much rather stay at home and have him in the bathtub, you know?

My OB appointments are now set up for the rest of the pregnancy too. Two weeks apart for the next month, then weekly appointments along with an NST (a requirement for T1 moms). My blood pressure was great, no protein spilling, sugar is good, so all is well.

A rather boring appointment indeed. :)