All good news appointment

I took the day off from work today. I slept on and off all day and made us a detailed grocery shopping list. My body desperately needed to regenerate. I’ve had a monstrously busy run for the last two weeks and I refuse to let myself get too run down.

We had an OB appointment tonight at 5:30. We saw the new delivering midwife at the practice, Linda. This was actually our second time seeing her. We saw her at our last appointment 3 weeks ago right before Thanksgiving. At that last appointment she told me I’d have to take the glucose tolerance test (GTT) again because I was high risk AND I’d taken it before 28 weeks. Apparently 28 weeks is when you’re most likely to develop it, so my passing with flying colors at 24ish weeks wasn’t good enough. I wanted to protest–after all the OB at the practice AND Dr. McMumbles (my endocrinologist) told me I didn’t have to take the test again. Deep down I knew Linda was right, so this past Saturday I took another 1hr GTT.

Today’s appointment started with a weigh in. I’ve only gained 1lb in the last 3 weeks. I attribute this to eating almost exclusively out of our new kitchen instead of constantly eating out. I will pat myself on the back b/c this time frame includes Thanksgiving.  My blood pressure was 124/74–close to my usual 120/80. The new midwife then gave me my GTT results. I got a 101! My last test was a 71. The goal is to be between 70 and 130, so I officially don’t have gestational diabetes! Linda isn’t big on unnecessary u/s so we listened to Izzy on the doppler and palpated to confirm that she’s still head down. My fundus is 31weeks. All is fantastical!

Then we met up with a friend and drove to a supermarket known for it’s fresh produce (F.airway for those who live in our hood). We stuck very close to our list and stayed in our budget. Once we got home I made a menu of 11 meals for the next two weeks. Between the menu and the cooking we did this past weekend, we should do just fine to make it to Christmas. I expect we’ll bring lots of leftovers from my parents…so perhaps we can get away with not doing a big shop for 3 weeks.

Tomorrow morning we have a high res u/s at the hospital. I initially started going for these every 4 weeks after mentioning that I was insulin resistant at my Level II u/s. The dr at the hospital wanted to monitor the size of Izzy and make sure that she didn’t get too big. Our little girl has consistently measured around the 50th precentile. Linda, C and I agree that if she is still averaged sized that we should stop going to these appointments. I think they have served their purpose. It is the place where we went for our growth scan at 10 weeks and learned that Hayden’s heart had stopped beating. It was nice to have the reassurance that all these high tech looks at our baby have given us. We’re ready to stop them. Besides, we’ve now graduated to every 2 week appointments with the OB/midwife and don’t need any extra appointments.

31 weeks: The scoop

I haven’t been doing this all along, but I figure it’s a good opportunity to give an overview of my preggo world.

How far along? 31 weeks
Total weight gain: Not sure, not worried . I can still fit into all of my pre-pregnancy suits at work so long as I wear two belly bands.
Stretch Marks? Shockingly NO! They must be around the corner
Maternity clothes? Yes. I have a long torso and giant boobs, so maternity shirts are starting to get short on me. Maternity pants are still magical.
Sleep: Sleeping pretty well with the pregnancy pillow and the foam mattress cover.
Best moment this week: Seeing our little lady’s name on the evite for our shower. I get choked up every time I see her name in print.
Movement: Yes, but I feel like her movements are a bit muffled by my anterior placenta.
Labor Signs: Nope. This week I was formally introduced to Braxton Hicks, which for me is painless tummy tightening.
Belly Button in or out? I started out an innie and now it’s flat.
What I miss: Putting on my own socks and boots. I could take 10 minutes to struggle with it on my own or just have dear C help me and be done with it in 1 minute.
Weekly Wisdom: Hmm…wisdom. Lots of friends have been inviting us over for dinner. I think it’s wise to take advantage of friend time and free meals while we can.
Milestones: 31 weeks! I’m in the thirties and loving it! We have a ton of stuff to do still! Yikes!

Running out of room! (pics)

That’s the story of our lives these days!

The third trimester is all about discomfort for me.  Not terrible discomfort, but there’s no way that I can forget that I’m pregnant anymore. My carpal tunnel is at its worst. I’m dropping things regularly, can’t open anything without help and have near constant tingling in my fingers. The wrist braces no longer work. Folks, it’s difficult to brush my teeth or open a bag of chips. I think I’m going to have to try acupuncture.

I feel like my belly has grown considerably in the last week! Suddenly strangers are asking me questions about the baby. Here’s a pic from tonight. We spent the day trying to make room for baby in our little apartment, so forgive the less than glamorous look.

I can feel that Izzy is starting to get a little cramped. I’m pretty sure she’s still head down. She is now big enough to manage putting pressure on my lungs, stomach and bladder at the same time. That’s okay. I take the subway stairs really slowly, consume lots of Tu.ms and take frequent bathroom breaks (which provide an opportunity to wash my hands more than usual during flu season). No matter what, I’m positively thrilled to have made it this far!

C’s sister gave me a giant C-shaped pregnancy pillow which the whole family appreciates. I sleep with it just as it’s pictured below, so C and I can share it. Between the pillow and the foam mattress pad that we just purchased on sale at O.verstock.com, I usually get a good night’s sleep. Here is a picture of our naughty kitty, Dru enjoying our new prize:

Now there isn’t much space in our bed with C, Dru, the pillow and me. Last night I actually rolled out of bed onto the floor! THUD! I am okay. We were all startled out of a dead sleep. Poor Dru jumped out of bed never to return–I think she realizes that there’s no longer room for her.

And finally, here’s a picture of C after a long day of cooking for the week, doing laundry, baking and cleaning. Yup, C baked a trial run of our holiday chocolate chip cookies. She brilliantly decided to make a sandwich with mint chip ice cream. Ice cream sandwich+football=bliss:

30 week pic

Well, it’s actually the evening of 29weeks 6days. C and I were on the way to a friend’s holiday celebration. I think if my bump was bigger I’d get a seat on the subway. Oh well. I seem to be following in the tradition of the women in my family and am hiding a lot of this baby. Let’s see how long that lasts. I feel really great (when I’m not exhausted) and I’m still thrilled to be pregnant!

Had an awesome day!

I have had two totally unexpected fantastic things happen today:

1) I won a hearing that my boss and I accessed as damn near impossible to win. I am super-proud of my performance. I just had one of those days where I was on top of my game. Yeesss!

2) After winning the hearing at 4:59pm today, I attended a 5pm office wide meeting with my boss’ boss to learn that I am getting a 9.375% raise that is retroactive to January 4, 2009! (#2 is not b/c of #1, all of my colleagues got raises. Still awesome though.) Yeesss!

Holy fuckin shit! Days like this don’t happen often!

No worries

My massive work load’s got my tongue.

All is wonderful otherwise.

I can’t wait until work slows down…which should be after December 14th.

See you then.

A Tale of Two Appointments

In the last two days I’ve had two doctor’s appointments. Both of them went well, thank goodness! If you’re interested in details, continue with my ramble-y post below.

Yesterday, I visited the endocrinologist. I’ll call him Dr. McMumbles (thanks for the namespiration Puffer and Eva!). A little background on him: He’s at the top of his field, British, mumbles, is pretty negative and is the one who FINALLY diagnosed me as insulin resistant. Without him I would not be pregnant. I don’t really enjoy seeing him b/c of his pessimism, but he’s just too darn good at what he does to leave.

I see him every six weeks. He has me monitoring my blood sugar once a week both fasting and two hours after a meal. He also has me going to the lab for a blood draw a week before each appointment for some sort of blood panel. I have chosen not to learn the intricacies of this panel b/c frankly, I’m tired of knowing too much. My appointments usually go like this:

• Walk into office as first appt of the day and it appears no one is there
• Dr. McMumbles comes out to greet me smelling like cigarettes
• He asks about my home glucose monitoring and looks at my most recent blood panel. He then expresses SHOCK and amazement that my blood sugar is under control
• He mumbles something about keeping up with my exercise and low glycemic index diet as they are the only things keeping me from developing diabetes
• He reminds me that there is a 99.9% chance that I will develop gestational diabetes and how that will double my chances of developing type II diabetes post pregnancy
• He weighs me and no matter how little I have gained it seems to be too much (note that in my first three weeks seeing him I lost 9lbs due to a drastic change in diet+metformin)
• He takes my blood pressure and expresses SHOCK and amazement that it is 116/79 and reminds me how important it is to continue exercising
• He tells me that I can only breast feed for one month b/c he wants me back on the Dostinex to manage the prolactin producing pituitary tumor I have, as he’s afraid that breast feeding will cause the tumor to grow

Well yesterday’s appointment was a little different! When I got to his office there were other people there and I actually had to wait. (Gasp! ) He was in very good spirits and asked me about our trip to Ireland. He looked at the results from my glucose tolerance test that I took with the OB and the blood panel I had done last week and declared that my body was managing sugar wonderfully! For the first time, he’s conceeding that I just might not develop GD! He even said I don’t need to take another glucose tolerance test this pregnancy. Hooray! He weighed me and congratulated me on gaining only 11lbs since my lowest weight dip in August.

Then we went back to standard appointment discourse when he mentioned for the billionth time that he didn’t want me breastfeeding for more than a month. Now, I don’t even know how long I want to breastfeed, but the fact that he keeps dictating that I can’t has been burning me. For some reason I’ve been afraid to challenge him on this. Probably b/c when I envision myself challenging him on it I see myself reaching across the desk and smacking him. I just get so frustrated and upset about it. I’ve spoken to C about this and we’ve agreed that she will come to an appointment so that she can be the calm rational negotiator. She will be the breast negotiator. We’ve even begun discussion some alternatives the doctor may be amenable to. Yesterday, I got the courage to throw one out there. I asked him if he would consider “allowing” me to breastfeed for more than one month if I went for CAT scans to monitor the size of my tumor. I held my breathe, waited for his answer and asked the universe to give me the strength to stay calm. Well, McMumbles surprised me when he agreed that was a reasonable course of action. Yahoo! I decided to leave the door open by indicating that we’d continue the breastfeeding discussion at our next appointment. (Read: the appointment where I bring the weapon of my choice, C.)

The appointment ended with him saying that I was doing so well that I didn’t need to come back until sometime in January (or earlier if I’m worried about something). I left the appointment feeling optimistic. A first.

This morning I had a growth scan at the hospital. I have to go for these every 4 weeks as part of monitoring my insulin resistance and ensure that the baby isn’t growing too big, which could be a result of getting too much sugar. This is the appointment where I aim for average.

The appointment was off to a rough start when the tech told me to undress from the waist down. C and I were confused and told her that we hadn’t had a transv u/s since around 10 weeks. She then explained to us that since we were having two babies the rule was that we would be needing a trans vag. (Insert the sound of a Mack truck hitting me.) The Mama Bear rose up in C and she assertively explained that it’s not acceptable that they can’t keep their records straight and how she’s had numerous conversations with them to ensure that they were aware that one of our twins passed. The tech stammered about how it needed to be in my file as part of my medical history and apologized for not reading my chart thoroughly enough. I am tired of reiterating that one of my twins is dead to someone who is holding my fucking medical chart. Especially since we learned this fact at this very office. Sheesh.

/rant

Anyway, the tension in the room dissipated once we saw little Isadora. She is measuring in the 47th percentile and weighs 2lbs5ozs (+/-4ozs). She’s getting a little more meat on her. Her legs and cheeks have some chub now.  My cervix is more than 4cm long (anything over 3 is great) and Izzy has gone from being transverse to being head down! I hope hope hope to heck that she stays head down as this is step one towards my goal of being one of the rare women in my family to avoid a C-section.

If I had it to do over again

(in no particular order)

• I would have worried less during the earlier months of my pregnancy–really what does worry do or change (HA! Easier said than done, but I needed to say it)
• I would have refused betas and just come in for a 5w u/s to ensure that the pregnancy wasn’t ectopic (mine didn’t double properly and I’m still pregnant)
• I would have asked C if we could have kept the pregnancy a complete secret for the entire first trimester
• I would have insisted on getting one last u/s picture of Hayden on the appt where we learned s/he no longer had a heartbeat (the tech just assumed we didn’t want one and handed us pics of only Izzy as we walked out)
• I still would have refused the NT scan, b/c we knew we weren’t going to terminate and the 20wk scan would give us enough time to prep for any special needs our baby could have had
• I would have blogged more about my emotional highs and lows instead of just remaining silent

That’s all I can think of for now…

Things are still good

Things are still going well. I’m can feel myself starting to slow down though. I’m excited to be in the THIRD TRIMESTER! Yahoo!

This past weekend we took the me.gabus down to Philly for an unbloggable sports tournament. It was fun and we got to catch up with a lot of people we haven’t seen in a while. My favorite part was going here for a fantastic ice cream sundae: http://www.franklinfountain.com/icecream.php. The one that I ordered was called the Franklin Mint (officially described as: MINT CHIP and VANILLA ice creams covered with chocolate syrup, FLUFFY MARSHMALLOW glaze and Creme de Menthe finished with homemade whipped cream and a mint green maraschino cherry)

Is it silly that I took a picture of it? What I couldn’t finish I took to the hotel and put it in the freezer. The leftovers were the perfect pick me up the next day after I learned we’d missed our bus home.

We are super happy to report that we returned from Philly to a complete kitchen. The contractor has a couple of finishing touches to take care of today, but the kitchen is fully functional! C has been fantasizing about cooking meals there, so I’m expecting to be well fed with home cooking from here on out. I have to admit that I am NOT looking forward to writing that last check, but that’s life. You get what you pay for–and besides it’s increasing the value of our apartment. (Like the way I talk myself through this big expense.)

We have a lot of work ahead of us to get this apartment baby ready. Right now the kitchen is done, but empty. The contents of the kitchen are in our living room and COVERED in dust. I did my best to clean up a little last night, but seriously shouldn’t expose Izzy or my lungs to that. Once the kitchen’s out of the living room we need to seriously clean out and make room for baby. We’ve cleaned out one closet thus far and it’s becoming apparent that I’m not that far off from one of the people featured on the A&E show H.oa.rders. Well…that may be an exaggeration, but the truth is that I hold on to too much crap and then hear myself making irrational excuses for why I can’t give things away. Poor C has her hands full. I keep telling her I love to give her additional opportunities to use that masters of social work degree that she has.

Anyway, I just wanted to drop in and let you know there’s nothing to worry about. I’m doing well and settling into pregnancy.

All is great!

I know I’ve been quiet lately. I guess I don’t know what to blog about. Things in our world are fantastic. I’m feeling great. I’m so in love with C and Izzy. I feel like I’m walking on clouds.

This past weekend we got to see my sister’s little girl. This weekend we’re going to a family baby shower in Boston for C’s cousin and we’ll get to see the rest of our nieces. Kissing the little faces of all of our nieces within 8 days is pure BLISS. Life doesn’t get much better.

Work is really busy, but busy makes the days go fast. Our kitchen still isn’t done, but I’m so happy about life that it isn’t bring me down. The Y.ankees won the World Series and their parade went right by my office today. No one pinch me, because I don’t want to wake up.

I hope you all have a great weekend!