Just 6 Weeks To Go!

Well assuming little junior shows up on time, that is. Yep, I'm at 34 weeks now. And this morning, I must confess I had a very sad moment. I found my very first stretch mark. Yes, I know, I shouldn't be complaining. Here I've made it this far without a stretch mark on my belly. But the last week or so, the skin on my lower tummy had been feeling sore, and today it finally manifested in a pink streak across my skin. I guess I should be grateful I've made it this far without one, meaning my skin is pretty stretchy. But still.

We spend the weekend down in Potosi, MO at my mom's place, for my first of two baby showers. We got our car seat/stroller travel system (Byron's most wanted item!) and tons of cute little clothes. But the 6 hour drive each way taxed my ability to sit comfortably in one place for very long - thankfully Byron did all the driving so I got to squirm and stretch as much as I could.

Little Bubba continues to grow at an exponential rate, but has yet to outgrow his hiccups habit. I'm pretty sure he's doing it on purpose at this point. According to the sources that know these sorts of things, he is now about 5 pounds, and packing on a half pound a week. People continue to tell me I don't look all that big, which is reassuring I suppose, but I feel like I have small watermelon strapped to my tummy. A watermelon with a large squirrel suffering from ADD stuck inside it...

32 Weeks and growwwwwwwing

Check out this big ole' belly! Can't take credit for the cute pose (ah, the internet), but love the pic anyways.
We had my 32 weeks appointment this morning, and everything continues to come along swimmingly. My tummy now measures 34 inches from top to bottom (the number of inches is approximately equal to your number of weeks of gestation). I think the slightly higher measurement means this kid is more likely to be early than late, but that may be wishful thinking on my part. (And besides, that would mess up our plans to see Star Trek in the theater before our tot arrives!)
The midwife says his head is downward, which is good, but explains why my ribs are suffering constant assault from his kicky little feet. Sometimes it feels like his toes are curled around the edge of my ribs, which I can assure you is a bizarre feeling indeed. Our little booger has gotten the hiccups several times in the last week or so, which goes from cute to annoying pretty quickly. A quick belly jiggle has scared him out of them on occasion. I imagine he thinks it's a sudden earthquake.
We've started working on the nursery, and are both begin to feel the onset of nesting fever. Also suddenly the intrinsic cuteness of baby items is becoming overwhelming. We headed to Ikea last weekend to pick up a dresser/changing table, and both said "awe....how cute" to about a dozen things in the kids area. And this from the woman who is not normally touched by cuteness. Now just the sight of a ridiculously small onesie is enough to get me misty. Hormones, I say. Yeah, hormones. Once we've made a little more progress on the nursery I'll put up some pictures of that for your entertainment.
Just 6 more weeks of work to go before I get off for maternity leave! WHEEEEE!!!!

31 Weeks!

Check out the growing bowling ball I'm hiding under my shirt.

My first baby dream

Last night I had my first baby dream. This was after hours of dreaming about cooking (we went to a cooking class yesterday evening). So I dreamt that our baby was born, and that I was out and about at the mall with Junior in a baby carrier. Then our little infant develops the amazing ability to speak at 2 days old, and looks at me and says with confusion "my butt just exploded," which apparently meant that he had pooed. At which time I realize I have made the ultimate new mom mistake - I went out without a diaper bag! And my poop-y little boy keeps telling me about his messy situation. I had just threaded my way through a huge clump of hoodlums and finally found a bathroom where I hoped to jury-rig a paper towel diaper, when the alarm went off. Whew. So in thinking about it, I guess it's a good thing that kids don't learn to talk until after they have better bowel control, otherwise our days would be filled with alot of, ahem, potty talk.

In other preggo news, I enjoyed a faaaaaabulous expectant mother massage over the weekend courtesy of my thoughtful hubby's Valentine's Day present. D-lightful. And we had my 30 weeks checkup yesterday, which went smoothly. Still have great blood pressure and all that jazz. And, for the record, still getting kicked and poked internally on a regular basis. And getting bigger every day! I'll try to get another picture up in a day or two to show you my blooming figure.

Childbirth Boot Camp

Well it's been a fun weekend. We had all-day childbirth classes at Birthways, a pregnancy/birth education joint here in Chicago. It was all pretty useful and interesting, but alot to absorb in two days. Not to mention alot of sitting on uncomfortable chairs for two days... Before you ask, no we didn't learn how to breathe. Or how to relax. The theory behind the way this class is taught (which is intended for those wanting natural birth) is that information and understanding is more useful than artificial breathing techniques, and that your instinctive responses to each stage (be it moaning, or moving around, etc) are generally the most helpful. And we got to enjoy a whole lot of birth videos, which all seemed to have been made in the late 80's and early 90's. As you can imagine, this meant a whole lot of fantastic hair and fashion. Good times. As we are wont to do, Byron and I enjoyed finding humor in some of the videos, like one where a laboring woman stood in the shower and was hosed down by her husband. I mean maybe that water spraying across her body felt good, but she looked like a prison inmate being processed with an involuntary shower.
Overall I'm feeling pretty good lately, getting more of those delightful irregular "practice contractions." Not so much fun, not only do my belly muscles get all hard and tight, but I also feel a little out of breath. I feel a little out of breath alot lately, surely because someone is trying to take over my entire torso. And doing a bang-up job of it so far. Someday, someday my internal organs will all return to their rightful homes.....

I passed!

Just thought I would share the good news from my 28 week appointment today - I passed the glucose tolerance test with flying colors! She said I had a perfect response and zero hint of any diabetes. Which is fabulous. So we can cross gestational diabetes off the list of potential pregnancy worries. She did note that my ankles were somewhat swollen, which I can live with. In the last few weeks my fingers have occasionally gotten swollen, but I must admit I had not been checking my ankles. So I could be on my way to getting cankle-y. For those of you who may not be aware, the term cankle is used to describe your ankles when they are very large and indistinguishable from your calves. Ankle+calf=cankle. Which led Byron and I to wonder out loud, if you already had cankles, how would you know if your ankles were swollen?

Mmmm, orange glucose drink....

Today I went and took my 28 week glucose tolerance test. Which, for the uneducated, involves limiting what you eat beforehand, then drinking a delicious (by which I mean nasty) orange sugar drink, then loitering in the waiting room for an hour, then having your blood drawn. The whole point is to see how you handle the surge in sugar, to get an indication of your likelihood of having gestational diabetes. We'll find out in a few days if I passed. The orange drink is decidedly unpleaseant, basically tasting like a can of orange soda that has gone flat. Yumm!
Thursday we head in for my 28 week appointment, at which point I have to start going in every 2 weeks instead of every 4 weeks. Guess that means we're getting closer! And I am most certainly getting larger. Mostly I'm feeling pretty good, except for the continually resurging heartburn and the not-quite-going-away lower back stiffness. All things considered, not too bad. And apparently I'm not as big as I think I am - two people I know casually at work just asked last week if I was pregnant. The one told me that I'm so tall it just isn't as obvious. Yeahhhh. I wonder how long they were thinking to themselves "hmm, she's put on a few pounds...."