32+4 week update

I'm still pregnant and have not been admitted to the hospital since last Saturday.And holy cow, we've made it all the way to April! Hopefully Lucas will be here safely by May.

Lucas looked good at monitoring on Tuesday and fantastic today (in fact, the doctor said this must be a different baby.) And the nurse, before she knew about the drama from last week and previously, said, "This test strip is so beautiful! I wish all of our babies looked like this!"  This kid is going to keep things interesting, clearly. When they checked my fluid levels both Tuesday and today, he was breathing, too. So all is well as far as that is concerned, at least for the time being.

Things aren't quite so fantastic on my end, but not horrible either. I've inexplicably lost all the weight I had gained in the last 4 weeks, last week. I thought maybe that could be explained by my amniotic fluid levels measuring 19 cm last Friday morning and by Friday afternoon they were 12. But apparently that wouldn't have made that big of a difference in my weight. So who knows. (It's certainly not because the baby isn't growing, and my diet/activity hasn't changed.) I'm more swollen (not just in my head, high risk doctor pointed it out on Monday) and my blood pressure is still weird but not alarming. I'm pretty sure I managed to catch a cold (hopefully just a cold) from the pediatrician's office- sore throat, check. dizzy and lightheaded, check. suddenly feel like I got hit by a truck, check. Blech, I guess it's always something. I don't really have time to be sick, suddenly April 27th is only 26 days away and there is so much to do, so I hope this is short lived. And really, high risk doctor and I weren't very optimistic about things on Monday with the swelling and my blood pressure being funky (it was high but then they retook it and it was better), she said that if it goes high and stays high, I'll be admitted until delivery, she isn't even going to mess around with home bedrest at this point and with my history. But here it is Friday and things seem mostly normal again. (Monday and Tuesday my blood pressure was up and down all day. Wednesday it kept going up and up and up and was only a couple points away from my call in number. Thursday and today, it's been normal.)  So anyway, I wasn't even all that sure that I'd make it through this week without at least being admitted for good, but here we are.

I got the steroid shots for Luke's lungs on Monday and Tuesday. I'm not sure if it's just a coincidence or those steroids really are working because he's been almost constantly active ever since. Not that he wasn't active before, but now there are very few hours when he's not rolling around. He's also had hiccups 3-4 times a day, which I'm assured is normal and even a good thing.

We found a pediatrician. Actually, it was pretty easy. We really liked the doctor that my youngest brother sees, and he's open to spreading vaccinations out and not following the official AAP vax schedule (and I especially appreciated that he didn't try to lecture us or convince us why we should follow it), so that was good. (Except suspiciously 2 days later, now I feel like crap. Then again, I suppose I could have picked up this cold somewhere else or it could be our freaking crazy weather.) Just having that settled is a huge relief, now that I'm at medical appointments 3-4 times  week, I'm just not up for a big doctor search. I guess supposedly it's recommended to interview several pediatricians and then pick the one you like the most. I'm kind of just doctor'ed out at this point. And I figure we can always change later if we need to.

So all in all, this week has been a pretty decent one. I have new (much better) 3D pictures and stuff to upload later, but for now, I'm going to bed to hopefully sleep off this ick.