23 Weeks ?!?!?!

Where has the time gone?  How can I be 23 weeks already???  Somewhere between this week and 25 weeks, the baby's chance of viability should he be born prematurely will go from about 10% to over 50%.  Now, let's be clear, babies born this early have serious and long term disabilities if they are lucky enough to survive.  So I'm hoping baby boy is safe and sound inside for another 14-17 weeks, but just the fact that we are approaching the gestational age of viability is amazing.  And um, holy crap - the idea that I will be full term in 14 weeks is pretty terrifying.  The time is going by remarkably fast.

However, as an always present reminder of how much further we still have to go in this CRAZY journey, my body is keeping things interesting.  I have caught the terrible cold that my son had last week, and I have coughing fits that literally feel as though they are going to split my pelvis apart.  And we (my doctors and I) believe that is what resulted in some bright red bleeding yesterday.  It was minimal and short lived.  There was no associated cramping.  And baby boy is doing an amazing job of kicking me fairly consistently around the clock - so I didn't need to go in.  But let me tell you, there is no greater reminder of how quickly this could all still fall apart than seeing bright red blood when you go to the bathroom - no matter how small the quantity.

In growth news, he should be 11.4 inches long and 1.1 lbs - about the size of an eggplant.  For a child that's only grown about an inch in the last 2 weeks, his mama surely has exploded.  Not so much weight wise, I just feel HUGE.  I mean seriously like a bus.  I can't get comfortable at night any more and I feel like I look 7 months pregnant already.  I guess that's what they mean when they say someone has "popped."  I just wish it didn't feel like I was literally going to pop open yet.  These last 3-4 months are surely going to be interesting.

No bump picture again this week.  With the terrible cold that I have caught, I can barely muster the energy to get through the day.  Hopefully next week.  (You will not believe how much bigger I've gotten!)

22 weeks

(Note - I actually drafted and tried to publish this update while out of town.  It looks like it didn't publish, so I've backdated it for when I meant for it to show up.)

I totally dropped the ball on updates this week. Sick kid + out of town travel = exhaustion and blog updates being the furthest thing from my mind.

I assume things are still going well. Baby boy has crazy spurts of movement which are fun. And my severe crotch pain has returned with a vengeance - which I'm hoping is a function of plane travel and less than optimal sleeping arrangements. (In other words - I'm really hopeful that once we return home this will subside some.)

Nothing much else is coming to mind to say right now, other than I'm really looking forward to getting back to my own bed and getting back into a normal routine this week. I forgot how exhausting pregnancy can be - even during the "easiest" parts of it.

Nursery Update

So my $100 clearance bedding for the guest bed arrived. Sigh. It's definitely not the $500 bedding I wanted. And if it hadn't been on hug clearance, I'd probably send it back. But it's fine. Nice quality for the price even if it isn't perfect.

Unfortunately though, I'm not excited enough about it to start plowing through all the junk in there.

Hormones

Pregnancy hormones are so weird. I had an hour to get a pedicure today. I walked into the place and there was a 40 minute wait, and I couldn't wait that long. Not a big deal at all, right? Yet I got in my car and cried. CRAZINESS.

21 Weeks!

I missed my weekly update yesterday - baby is now the size of a banana.  And 21 weeks marks a somewhat interesting milestone - it's when you stop talking about the baby's length in terms of crown-to-rump and start talking about crown-to-heel.  Are you ready for this?  10 1/2 inches long.  I don't know what's more scary . . . the fact that 10 1/2 inches already sounds long . . . or that this boy is going to DOUBLE that length before he makes his debut.

Not much to report this week.  Pregnancy wise, I'm still feeling good.  Little boy is CRAZY active.  He is still nameless.  My husband and I have started tossing some names out there and agree on nothing, so he will likely remain nameless for quite a bit longer.  I have still done absolutely nothing to work on getting our guest room cleaned out.  And I have 3 weeks of work left as of today.

I was hoping to have a bit more energy and motivation by this point in pregnancy, but if being tired and lazy is my only complaint right now, then we are in GREAT shape.

You know what's awesome?  That everything in life is so boring and so normal at the moment that I really don't have much else to say here.  :)

First Nursery Purchase - Check

I purchased bedding for the guest bed in our nursery.  I could not bring myself to splurge on the bedding I really wanted.  I found something that appears to be the right color and worked out to being 1/5th of the price.  It had free shipping and can also be returned with free shipping, so I'm not taking a huge risk here.

My hope is that it will come, I will love it - and it will motivate me to start cleaning up that room.  Motivation is a weird thing.  The child practicing his kick boxing moves inside can't get me motivated, but maybe a queen size quilt will?  That makes no sense at all, but one can hope, right?

A great appointment today!

Let me just keep up with the good news - I've got wind in my sails and I'm going to go with it as long as it lasts.  Baby boy did not play hide-and-seek with the doppler this morning - my midwife found his heartbeat right away . . . nice and strong.  Of course, I was not worried at all today because he's doing a fine job of letting me know that he's in there.

Blood pressure was good.  A bit higher than normal for me - but I was stuck in traffic, late, and flustered by the time I got there - and it was still a very normal blood pressure.  Weight was just okay.  Nothing to be concerned about - especially considering the rough first trimester I had, but in a perfect world, I won't gain this much weight every 4 weeks.  Trust me when I say that if weight gain is the only thing I have to worry about for the rest of this pregnancy I will be one happy (and unfortunately fatter) woman.

I got my flu shot and Tdap booster.  With a toddler who seems to be a petri dish for illness, and a baby who will be born in both the peak of flu and pertussis season (and will be way too young to be immunized), I'm trying to do my part to provide immunity through breast milk.

We talked about my glucose test from my 17 week appointment.  While not nearly as low as the results from my first pregnancy (54), my test results were 80.  80 is a great fasting blood sugar, but pretty low for a result 60 minutes after consuming straight glucose.  So it looks like I'll likely be battling with hypoglycemia again.  (Not a huge surprise as I am still feeling pretty crappy after I eat.)  I may purchase a glucose meter to keep an eye on it at home.  The combination of the results from my pregnancy with my son and my results from 17 weeks get me an exclusion from the standard 28 week 2 hour fasting glucose test that my midwives perform.  I still have to take a glucose test, but since it seems unlikely that I will have GD, I get to take a modified test (not fasting, and I get to provide my own sugar in the form of fruit/juice) and only if those results come back problematic would I have to take a more official fasting test.  This is music to my ears - because I seriously fear passing out whenever people talk to me about pregnancy, fasting, and sugar water.

I think that's about it.  Great news all around - even with the weight jump and the hypoglycemia news.

Send some motivation my way, please.

Well it's almost official.  Barring no major changes at my office, I will be a stay-at-home mom starting on October 5th.  My company is being awesome and encouraging about me trying to find a new job within the company.  But being completely honest, by the time October rolls around, I'll be 6 months pregnant and the holidays will be just around the corner.  Does anyone want to hire someone who is 6 months pregnant and will be out for at least 3 months right after the holidays are over?  And even better question, do I want to start a job at 6 months pregnant right before the holidays and then feel rushed to take the minimum amount of maternity leave?  But I'm being open minded.  If the right opportunity with my current company came up, I would take it.  (I'm just skeptical about that happening . . . )

Anyway, that changes my "getting ready for baby" timeline significantly.  Because it means that if we leave my son in school for the whole month of October (which we are considering doing), that I could have 3 glorious and wonderful weeks to myself to get some things done around the house that are just going to be impossible to do when I have an almost 3 year old under foot constantly.  My plan to clean out the guest room by the end of 2nd trimester and fix the nursery in the 3rd trimester was assuming that we'd mostly be working on nursery stuff in the evenings and on weekends . . . BUT if I have 3 wonderful weeks to myself in October, I need to accelerate that plan significantly.  

So why, OH WHY, can't I find the motivation to take some of my free time and get my butt into that guest room and start cleaning it out?  I found out about my job on Friday and you know what I did this weekend other than get a haircut?  I sat around and did nothing.  I didn't even walk into the guest room once.  Nor do I want to.  I walk past it . . . see the 2 large dressers full of clothes that need to be re-homed.  Not to mention the closet that is busting with clothes, shoes, and bags.  I just don't want to deal with any of it.  I want to close my eyes one night and wake up in the morning to a room that's been purged for me.  It's so overwhelming that I don't even want to start.  So I don't.  I keep making excuses about having plenty of time.  I DO, in fact, have plenty of time.  But it would be so much smarter to work now and rest later.

Why is the motivation for this task so elusive?  Just writing about it makes me need a nap.

Ouch

Fact: If you or someone you know has suffered through any form of infertility, then you know how many people are completely uneducated and unaware on this topic.

Unfortunately, uneducated and unaware often translates into insensitive.

As I'm enjoying my Saturday getting my hair cut, my stylist and I start talking about pregnancy. She has no idea that I've struggled with trying to conceive our second child.

She asked me if I am a conservative pregnant person when it comes to what I will and won't do in pregnancy. I said I'm probably somewhere in the middle once first trimester is over. I'll have some caffeine and some Tylenol if I need it. If I was at a wedding I'd have a sip or two of champagne, but I'm definitely not that pregnant person who will have a glass of wine on a Tuesday night just because I want one.

I don't know how the conversation turned into how easy pregnancy is for some people and how fragile it is for others. And the words that came out of her mouth were almost paralyzing.

"I know people who have had, like, 3 or 4 miscarriages. Don't they get it? Their bodies are trying to tell them that they can't have a baby."

And with absolutely nothing else to say, "Well I guess it's probably one of those things you don't understand unless you've been through it," made its way out of my mouth.

I was stuck on her words. I could not move past them. Not nearly as painful as they would have been six months ago - what if this conversation had been 6 months ago? Or what if the woman in the chair next to us is struggling with infertility? Why must people who know nothing about this issue share their opinions when they know nothing about someone else's personal journey?

At least I got a good hair cut.

The 20 Week Baby Bump

I did take this picture yesterday, but thought 3 posts in one day was quite enough.  Now that the expansion has started, I predict it will be exponential.  :)