28 weeks

The last couple weeks have pretty much been a blur, but I guess that's this pregnancy + life with a toddler. I am 28 weeks Friday, which is just crazy to me, that it has gone so quickly, that I have made it so far uneventfully again (err, disregarding that whole infected dog bite/hand fiasco). This was my OB's major goal for me when I was pregnant with Luke, which doesn't seem like much of a goal for a lot of people I guess but when you've had to deliver at 23 weeks, every extra week you get is a huge blessing and can make a huge difference for the baby's well-being. So hooray for 28 weeks!

In a quick nutshell:

Last week I had 2 dr appointments (no more lovenox- hooray!) and an ultrasound (all good), cleaned my house like a mad person, packed us up for Chicago, we drove there Wednesday, spent 1 full day / 2 nights in a hotel, drove back Friday morning. Then Saturday and Sunday we had birthday parties.

By this Monday I was sick with a bad cold and Luke was super crabby, by Tuesday we were both sick and miserable, luckily by Wednesday I was feeling a ton better even though Luke was still pretty sick, today we are finally both mostly better. I finally got around to taking my 1 hour glucose test this morning. (I didn't have time to deal with it the week before when we were getting ready/going to Chicago. I meant to do it Monday but then was sick.) I'm not too optimistic that I passed so trying to enjoy as many carbs tonight as I can. Also yesterday we found out that the HR person at Joe's work made a huge mistake that is most likely going to cost us around $5000 that we were not expecting to be paying, and it's probably also going to screw up our taxes for the year. So, it hasn't been the greatest of weeks, but it's bound to get better sometime soon.

Chicago was fun. Luke really liked seeing all the fish in the aquarium, though I don't think we'll go back there again. It was way too crowded with a lot of bitchy workers. Luke wasn't really any more impressed with the bigger water animals than he was with the regular aquariums of fish. (I mean, granted, they were pretty and everything, but we could have taken him to a pet store for the same effect.) It was AWESOME to see my friend Maggie though and we almost managed to convince her to come live in our basement and be our nanny. She hasn't seen Luke since last October so he's changed a lot and probably didn't remember her, but he warmed up to her pretty quickly and she carried him around the aquarium for us which was really nice. (Most of the aquariums were too high for him to see very well from the stroller.) By the time we got back, my feet were insanely swollen from all of the walking (and probably crazy cleaning in the days before). Luckily that seems to be better now. The drive was easy and went really well. Luke slept for half of it, and then watched Blue's Clues on the portable dvd player my parents loaned us, the rest of the drive. I read a couple trashy books and we discussed baby names and got nowhere.

Some pictures:

Blowing a kiss while playing outside at the hotel after the 5 hr drive

Luke's first train ride

Bed hogs- we had a king size bed

Luke's first train ride, sitting by daddy

Are you done taking pictures yet? I'm trying to eat my granola bar in peace!

Luke and Maggie- I couldn't use my flash so this was one of the few "decent" pictures I got of them.

Looking at fish

Watching beluga whales and waiting for the dolphin show

 

Reading an Elmo book on the train ride back

Bye bye lovenox!

Everything looked pretty good today. The baby was an estimated 2 lbs 6 oz, 62%ile, which is great for 26.5 weeks. All his measurements were about a week ahead this time.I know this because she gave me a printout for my doctor with them. At this time with Luke, he was more like a week and a half ahead. And Olivia, I was already almost 3 weeks postpartum. This pregnancy still seems so new so much of the time (although in some ways it feels like I've been pregnant FOREVER, like since 2009, which is almost true, this is my 4th year in a row that I've been pregnant.)  It's still hard for me to believe I'm already 3 weeks farther along then I made it with Olivia. What a short time we had with her.

My high risk doctor asked me today to compare movement between the three. That was easy- Olivia I never really felt much other than a twinge randomly- she only weighed 10.5 ounces-and I don't think she moved much either- or at least not as much. This baby seems less active than Luke, but it's hard to say, I have less time to overanalyze how many times an hour he's moved or if it's been an hour.He's moving just fine right now. Since he's clearly growing well, she's not too worried about it.

In fact, I am DONE jabbing needles in my stomach for this pregnancy. I stopped around 28 weeks with Luke and was more than happy to stop them now. I am still taking baby aspirin daily.  That was the best news of the appointment.

We talked about when we are evicting this baby officially, 36 weeks with an amnio or 37 weeks. An amnio at 36 weeks risks my water breaking- again- and then having to deliver a baby with immature lungs anyway (which is the point of the amnio, to check lung maturity.) Or worse, it could make me go into labor (after my water breaks), which could cause my uterus to rupture. 37 weeks is IT, period. They don't let me risk going any further (the whole labor-uterine rupture thing), though I suppose I could try to be difficult about it, 37 weeks is as far as I really wanna go anyway. The only risk of waiting 37 weeks is that in the week between 36 and 37, I could maybe go into labor which would again risk rupture, or the extra week could give more time for trouble to start. So really, the risks of waiting an extra week are probably not that much more than risking an amnio breaking my water and sending me into labor. If I start having a lot of contractions or things start going awry, they are going to deliver anyway. So I think I feel okay about 37 weeks. My MFM likes it. I asked if I could have steroid shots for his lungs to help just in case, because I'd rather not have a baby in the NICU at 36 OR 37 weeks, it might not be necessary but can't really hurt. She said absolutely, we can do them around 33 weeks, and she thinks they'll help. I feel a lot better getting them, than not. (Yay more shots!) So, October 26th it is. Maybe. So far we are 0 for 2 as far as babies coming on schedule (although Luke was only a few hours early). Just maybe, this baby, who has by FAR been the easiest pregnancy (at least mentally, and the physical difficulties have a lot more to do with my 27 pound 15 month old), will get the memo and stay put and drama free. We'll see. Considering I've already spent 4 days in the hospital this pregnancy, (not that I can blame the baby for my stupidity), but I'm not holding my breath.

26 +2

Man, oh, man. This pregnancy is flying by. That is a good thing, mostly.

The heartburn has started with a vengence, pretty much no matter what I eat. I hate it. It makes me nervous since my symptoms started with bad heartburn with Olivia. But I remember having a lot of bad heartburn with Luke too. And my feet are getting pretty swollen by the end of the day, which has my radar up a bit too, although no headaches, no dizziness, no other pain or symptoms. I don't think I am very swollen anywhere else.

This week is going to be REALLY busy. Three appointments (all medical for me), a quick trip to Chicago, and then next weekend we have parties both days. Somehow between packing and cleaning, I know I need to still take the lovely 1 hour glucose test. I figured I'd wait till we are back from Chicago, which I know my doctors won't be thrilled about, but I am hopeful I might actually pass, maybe, this time. But if I don't pass, counting carbs and checking my blood sugar is a really huge pain in the butt. (And eating all of the time is annoying too.) I'd like to put them off as long as possible. I already passed the glucose test once this pregnancy, so I feel okay waiting a little longer. Fingers crossed.

Luke is SO busy. He does not sleep nearly enough. And he is heavy and likes me to carry him a lot still which sucks for my poor back. But he's also fantastic and so funny. My sister has been working with him on dancing. He now will spin around in circles waving his hands and considers it dancing. Then he gets really dizzy and tries to walk while we laugh at him. It's awesome. Now, when I want to catch him to change his diaper, I don't say, "let's go change your diaper." I say, "show me how you dance", then wait till he's dizzy to pick him up and change him. Less resistance that way.

Today we went to a picnic for SHARE (an infant loss group). The weather was perfect and it was nice. Those kind of things are always bittersweet, but infinitely better and easier now that we have a
living child. Even though all of the families have had a loss, going to stuff like that when there are other kids and families, would have been hard for me. Last year we didn't go because Luke was still pretty young and it was hot. The year before, I don't think I knew about it but probably wouldn't have gone anyway, but this year, I'm glad we went. We also have a walk coming up at the end of October....that is going to be tricky. I think I want to try to go, but I'll be 36ish weeks pregnant, so probably not walking, possibly not even pregnant anymore. So we'll see how that goes.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day and Luke will probably be awake again any time now, so I better get some sleep while I can.