29 Weeks

Made it to another week! I've officially started the "waddle." It really only happens when I'm tired, but me being tired is happening more often. It gets really interesting when it's accompanied my the ouch-I-just-sat-wrong-for-about-3-hours-and-didn't-realize-it limp. More often now I just feel like I'm lumbering through the office back and forth to the restroom. Not much longer to go though :-).

Went back to the doctor for the longer Glucose Tolerance Test on Wednesday. It was just about as bad as I imagined it would be. I'm probably making it sound a lot worse than it was, I was sitting there laughing and talking to the husband the entire time (he's being really awesome) but I still felt like crap. It hit faster this time (I'm imagining more sugar will do that to a person) and I felt sleepy and nauseated and just icky. All three feelings came and went as they pleased and finally we could leave. We stopped at Five Guys for lunch (I hadn't eaten anything since before midnight) and I was shaking while trying to eat. Not. Fun.

I decided to poke around my health records Thursday to see if any results had popped up (my doctor's office uses an online system that let's us patients check on how we're doing if we can figure out how to read it) and there they were. I tested in the normal range every time they drew blood except for the last time. It was lower than it should have been by then, which would explain why I ate like an 85-year-old. I did feel better once the food started getting into my system, but it's still freaky when you have the shakes and don't know why. I suppose my body overcompensated for the extra sugar and brought me down a bit too much. That's fine, means I'm healthy!

This week for Chloe:

• She should be about 17 inches tall and almost 3 pounds (closer to birth height, but not quite to birth weight yet, which will likely double and possibly triple)
• She's gaining fat that's being used for energy, which partially explains why she's been rolling around and boxing me more (more of that explanation is that she can tell we're out here and interacting with her)
• Her head is getting bigger to make room for supremely awesome brain
• She needs all the calcium, protein, folic acid, vitamin c, and iron I can get to her (which is probably why the doctor told me a lot of pregnant women become anemic during pregnancy and I got put on iron)

All of my sources have been talking about keeping track of Chloe's kicks and activity, but the doctor told me that if she's moving, that's all I need. More movement is always better than no movement. If she drastically lowers her amount of activity I'd be able to figure that out anyway. We have our little patty-cake moments already and she and the husband have either "settle down now" moments or high-five moments...she either chills out or goes harder when he's around :-).

~~~WARNING: SLIGHTLY GRAPHIC CONTENT BELOW~~~
There are many places inside your body a baby can kick. I've been warned about the ribs, the bladder, and all kinds of other various organs already. The one place no one warned me about is the crotch. Yes. The crotch. Maybe other babies don't kick as hard right there, or no one wants to talk about it, or whatever, but Chloe has been kicking me like you would teach someone to evade a rapist. The feeling such an experience provides is NUTS...it's a mixture of pain, having to pee, and well, a good poke to just the right spot. Leaves you confused not really knowing what to do with yourself. So yeah, warning, CROTCH KICKS. THEY HAPPEN.

~~EDIT~~
Ok, so apparently people do talk about them, just no one has talked to ME about them yet. Also, apparently, they aren't exactly kicks...baby bumping against nerves or the cervix will do it. Oh well. It still feels like she's winding up and kicking with all of her little might. Directly down.

The Third Trimester ~ 28 Weeks ~ On the Road to the End (or Beginning)

I had the glucose screening test this week. Not. Fun. Maybe I should have read about it beforehand and arranged to possible take the day off, but ick. They have you drink this sugary drink, which if you know me you know I can't tell the levels of sweet of well, anything. The nurse said that it would taste like flat Sunkist and she was dead on.I felt fine for a long time but then started feeling really sleepy on the way to work. I got a croissant from Java Monkey (YUM) and a iced tea (ICK) and figured I'd be okay. The struggle to stay awake was like 1st trimester sleepy. Added to that, I started feeling nausea, which is awful for me because I didn't really learn what nausea was until like last year. Test day SUCKED. Chloe's little heartbeat was healthy and she happily pushed back at the machine the doctor used to let us listen to it. We got advice that 28 weeks would be the cutoff for me travelling anywhere too far away. :-(

I got the test results back from the test and I have to go back for the 3 hour glucose tolerance test. That will determine if I actually have gestational diabetes or not. I was not having a good day after I got that phone call. I just felt kind of like I'd failed to stay healthy for Chloe. I should have this test next week and hopefully on a day that hubby can go with me so he can drive. I'm taking that day off though...I don't think I'd be any good at work after the longer version of the test. It sounds like that have you drink more of the sugary drink and I really don't want to feel sick at work like that again. Send good energy into the universe for us...I REALLY don't want to deal with this :-(.

I feel like I'm getting bigger by the day now. I actually hadn't gained that much weight in between this latest appointment and the last, so maybe Chloe soaked up the extra I put on before. Watching her play "let's feel what's going on on the outside" had been interesting. Sometimes it's all cute and fun and I just feel good about it and sometimes it gets a little bothersome and tiring. I'm pretty sure the level of activity isn't going to die down soon, but I'm hoping it continues to be less bothersome. I wonder how it will be when she starts to run out of room in there.

Grr...belly button popped :-/

This week for Chloe:

• She's 2.5 pounds and 16 inches
• She's settling into birth position, which could put her head into a position that's uncomfortable for me (eep!)
• Her sleep include REM cycles (she could be dreaming)
• She's happily blinking, coughing, hiccuping, and breathing away...practicing for being on the outside

It really did hit home that the time is going to come for us to meet our daughter soon at the doctor's visit. I signed the paper confirming that my doctor would be delivering Chloe and he explained that everything looked on track so far. My next appointment will be in 3 weeks and then they start happening every 2 weeks. Getting closer!

27 Weeks

A week as a wife has been....very similar to a normal week, lol. Well, similar if you include a regional poetry competition in town. I only took 2 half days off, so I couldn't go to the daytime festivities, but it's probably a good thing because I was still tired from the wedding anyway. It did make me really, really, really, REALLY wish I could go to Boston with the Atlanta poetry teams this year, but it would be a lot more responsible and safe if I just stayed my behind at home. I'll be 9 months pregnant during the competition and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be a lot of fun toting a huge tired lady around all week. Even though I know the teams wouldn't mind (or at least not act like it, lol) because poets are AWESOME people.

I had a moment of sadness last week. I figured out and decided that it was time for the navel ring to go for a while. Not only do I think that it may have migrated a little bit, but it just looked unhappy sitting atop my little popped-out button. That whole area is really tight now and just seems as if there shouldn't be a ring there. I hope the hole doesn't get much smaller so it wont be a big deal to put it back in, but I'm a good healer, so we'll see. It feels a little weird to be sad about it, but it was one of the first body piercings I got and I was really attached to it. Blargh.

This week for Chloe:

• She's about 15 inches and a little over 2 pounds
• She may recognize our voices by now(! ^_^)
• Her still immature lungs would be able to function (with medical help) if she were born now
• Hubby may be able to hear her heartbeat if he takes a good listen to my tummy

I went maternity shopping for real (the first time was just spring dresses from Garden Ridge) and some really stylish stuff. I feel more like a girl again (as it it weren't obvious enough). I got some capris that I can actually wear (with the big band on top) and a swimsuit (tankini!) and some nice stretchy, roomy shirts. I think I need to get another pair of bottoms of some sort (pants or capris) but other than that I think I'm good for the remainder of the pregnancy!

26 Weeks

Whoops...somehow I thought this was the beginning of the third trimester but nope...2 more weeks. Appetite kicked up a notch anyway and I almost thought I wouldn't fit in my wedding dress. I did! Everything went really well and Chloe decided not to kick the crap out of me. I wonder if she could feel that something important was going on.

Now it feels like everything is a waiting game. I still have plenty to do because we're moving into a bigger apartment in the middle of July...but it's in the middle of July. I still have time to figure that out. Besides that I'm waiting on the marriage certificates to come in the mail so I can get my name changed in the proper places, waiting for the next few days to pass so I can go to the Southern Fried Poetry Slam, waiting for next week so we can go to the doctor again, waiting for July so I can go to a coworker's wedding and have a long weekend, waiting for August to cheer on the Atlanta poetry slam teams from home while they go to Boston (I'll be 36 weeks...I'm pretty sure I'll be told to be still), and waiting for Chloe to kick her way out. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

This week for Chloe:

• her parents are married! (I know, not what you were expecting, but hey, I'm excited)
• She's 14 inches from head to heel and about 2 pounds
• Her eyes are starting to open :-)
• Her brain-wave activity is kicking in, meaning she can respond to the noises she hears in there

So, in the flurry of getting married I believe that I completely forgot to take my tummy pic this week. Darn. If I find it somewhere I'll post it. Oh well. I'S MARRIED NOW :-)