30 weeks! Zowie.

Have I used that title before? Seems like I have. Anyway, 30 weeks today. That means only TEN more weeks until Peanut gets here. Which doesn't seem like long and then again sounds like forever. It's more than two months, you know!

Went to the doctor on Wednesday and gave blood again for re-typing then got my Rhogam shot. Wheeeeee! It went fine -- I was sorta worried it'd be baddish because I've gone back to feeling so tired and weak and weird the past few days that the idea of being stuck with needles didn't sound like it could possibly come out well, but it did. I weighed 154 with my clothes on and full of water. At home, with no clothes on and less (but still well) hydrated, I'm at 150. I feel skinnier all over than I did when I was carrying Bean and except in the bump area my clothes still fit exactly the same as they did months ago. I guess this one I'm just going to carry in my belly and not in my rear end, which is great news!

The depression has been so much better since I started back taking iron. I had a bad day yesterday, but I blame that on being up in the night the night before with Bean and being generally fatigued and sick-feeling all day long. By day's end I was pretty much hating life, mad at Al, and annoyed beyond speaking (literally) with Bean. But we'd made up and were back in love, all of us, by bedtime. I just get frustrated because I'm sooooooooo tired out and life doesn't stop for that, and I need help when I feel awful but help isn't available and I just have to keep going, even though it would feel better and be better for all concerned for me to just go to bed. I hope today's better. I have plans to make sure it is, but sometimes it's a crapshoot with how I feel. Weird.

Peanut is sooooooooooo much bigger now. I can easily tell this because his movements are slower and the parts he shoves out at me are HUGE and rounded vs. tiny and pointed. He's getting cramped in there and he lets me know it. When I sit hunched over my bump he's still for a few seconds and then he starts shoving upwards into my ribs with his feet, so I have to sit WAY UP TALL and then he's happy and still again. Little turkey! It amazes me how much he still has to grow - I wonder where he's going to GO as he gets bigger because it doesn't feel like there's any room left in front. We'll see!

The skin on my bump is still free of stretchmarks, but it's sortof oddly purple and speckled around my belly button, and I continue to get more and more freckles and red spots daily - he's making his own mark on me, this one. I hope all of this stuff fades after I deliver him.

I've picked out the paint color for Peanut's room and it will be painted in the next two weeks, plus we have the chair ordered, as well, and it is fabulous. I think the nights will be easier on me with this chair AND the knowledge that all of the sleeplessness does end eventually. The benefit of already having experienced it all before cannot be overstated. I know he'll be different from Bean - I mean he already IS so different - but still there's a deeper level of understanding this time that everything is temporary with an infant - I don't need to project every situation out 18 years and worry that what I'm doing NOW will mess him up for a lifetime. What a relief.

I have slowly begun clearing out Peanut's room and moving his things in. It feels like such limited progress, but then I know that what's left to be done could be accomplished in a day or two, so I'm not worried. I don't have NEARLY as much to be done as I did before Bean was born, because so much of it's already been done. I'm still trying to decide, though, what to do about a changing table for him. I don't like changing babies on the floor, really, particularly just after they're born, because the up and down action is rough on my own body. And there won't be a bed in that room, and if I change him in his crib and he wets, then I'm stuck having to change sheets, etc. I used Bean's little changing table almost every time I changed her at home and it worked great, so why wouldn't I do that again? So I've been looking around for the "right" table for his room and I'm having a hard time coming to any sort of conclusion. Which is just how things work when I'm pregnant.

Here's a picture of me from one day last weekend. I want some shots of "all of me" while I'm carrying Peanut. The few pictures I have of my pregnancy with B are all just my belly or my top half.



I have updated shots for the belly gallery too, and I'll try to get those up in the next few days. I'm a lot bigger in the belly area now, thanks to all that growin' my baby boy's doing.

27 weeks, 3 days - OB Appointment

Quick update on my OB appointment this morning.

I weighed 152 with my clothes on, but I'd just downed a bottle of water, so.

Apparently I failed my one-hour glucose test, so I have to do a three-hour test at the hospital. Yeah, I'm in a HUGE hurry to get THAT set up. Not.

I'm also vaguely anemic, so I'm to go back on iron pills again. I can do that. Maybe I'll feel better.

Al went with me to the appointment and heard me being scolded for not getting enough sleep. Now he understands, I think.

I asked. I just ASKED about being induced so it'd be easier to manage having Nana or someone come stay with Bean. Dr. Howey was 100% amenable and suggested Aug. 5. I'm glad she'll consider it, but I really need to think about whether or not I want to do that. I mean, I know I don't WANT to do it, but would it be worth doing anyway? I'll have to mull it over for awhile. If anyone reading has had experience with induction and/or has thoughts one way or another, your input would be greatly appreciated.

Oh, and August 5 is just a few days before my actual due date, but it's the earliest she'd do it. And I went into labor with Bean about a week before my due date. So I don't even know that it'd help my cause all that much.

I told Dr. Howey about my depression and she referred me to a counselor. I doubt I'll go see her (the counselor) though. I suppose if it gets worse, I would consider that as an option. It's nice to have a name. And apparently this counselor works with patients who suffer post partem depression, so she'd probably "get it" better than others might. Dr. Howey seemed to feel I'd do a whole lot better if I would just get enough sleep. Well, okay then, I'll make that a priority. I hope my family will join me in my endeavors.

It was a good weekend - a good Mother's Day. All's well.

27 weeks - Grow Baby, Grow

Updated photos in The Belly Gallery - It looks like he's grown soooo much faster this time, but that's because I accidentally skipped a week, so it's been TWO weeks instead of just one since the last ones were taken.

He's a big boy. As I have said before. I noticed during week 26 that his movement has slowed down. Well, I mean, he's not quite as all over the place. He doesn't feel to be as FREE in his motion. He's started to feel more crowded - his movements are more budgy and shifty and less turny, twisty and rolly. If that makes ANY sense at all. It is quite hard to describe, yet very easy to identify physically when it's going on inside one's own body.

Mr. Hoppy Feet still has a major peak of activity at bedtime, as Daddy and I are lying down together. He will poke a body part out repeatedly, thump around, squirm, stretch (I think - he gets really rigid feeling, and I can feel him on both sides of me, poking out, and he sortof shudders or shivers like you do when you stretch really really hard.) He is SO different in all of this from how Bean was. It is AMAZING how different really. But he DOES have hiccups very often, just like Bean did.

He responds to Daddy's talking to him (with his lips brushing my belly) by squirming, and I've noticed that he also wakes up in the morning when Bean comes into bed with us and talks, or especially when we're in the echoey tile bathroom taking a bath together (Bean and I) and her voice is particularly loud. He tends to get flippy floppy then, as well.

I've gained maybe a couple of pounds? I lost two over the course of a few days at the beginning of week 26, I think, but then I got really hungry for a few days and put those back on. This week I think has been a huge growing week for P - he feels so large in there and I feel very round and short-waisted all of a sudden. I can still fit into my regular jeans, though I'm more comfortable in them if I do the "rubber band trick" at the waistline. They'll button, but depending on how I'm sitting or where P is in there, they do get snug. I can definitely wear and hold up maternity pants as well, though, and they feel good, even if I don't like how they look very much. I can't wait for the very warm weather so I can wear my dresses - they fit well and look decent, I think.

I am finding that although I do get hungry a little more often, I can eat so very little at meals right now without getting achingly full and nauseous. In fact, the nausea is always right there - and can come on really easily if I do much of anything to arouse it. Eat the wrong thing, don't eat/drink enough, get overtired, get upset, and I can count on feeling sick almost immediately. I've had some GERD-related pain in my stomach this week too, so have been babying my stomach even more than normal. I sortof spent the week in a haze, as I haven't been drinking coffee in the morning, as it tend to irritate the tummy. But I need just that tiny little amount of caffeine to get my head clear.

I'm drinking vast quantities of Gator-Ade in the original lemon-lime flavor. IT IS SERIOUSLY THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD TO ME WHEN I'M PREGNANT. It was the same with Bean. I have said to Al on several occasions that I would give up food altogether if I could and live on Gator-Ade for the next 13 weeks or so if I could. It feels so great on my always-parched throat and it's like a drug, in a way -- I can almost sense it flowing into my bloodstream as I drink it, and it gives me such a strange sensation of relief. STRANGE. As soon as Peanut is born, though, I expect that will go away, as it did with B.

I'm pretty tired and heavyish feeling. Going up stairs leaves me breathless and weak. I've noticed a strange bloodrushy feeling in my right leg, too, particularly in the evening after I've been up for a few hours moving around with Bean, making and cleaning up after dinner and then getting things settled in the house for the night. If I stop moving and take weight off the leg, or just sit or lie down, it goes away. It's not pain... it just sorta feels like my circulation has been interrupted to that leg briefly.

The Braxton Hicks contractions continue but they've been a little less frequent this past week as my activity levels have dropped a bit. I haven't walked again since the last time I wrote about it, which is a HUGE disappointment to me, but I've just not been in a huge hurry to feel that achey, tight, breathlessness again. I wish swimming were an option for me as exercise (someone commented recently that was a great option for them) because it actually does sound really nice, but that would require me to join a health club, which I know would be a total waste as I'd only get to use it a few months. And the outdoor public pool won't open until the end of May, will be too cold, and is not the place I want to be while I'm pregnant, given its, well, publicness. Wouldn't be a good time to be exposed to any e. coli or other gross, foreign bacteria. Plus. ACK. A bathing suit!

I'm still sleeping okay and am mostly comfortable at night. My left side feels best to me, which is good because that's recommended. Al says P kicks him at night - he's carrying on the family tradition, as B did that too. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this one literally kicked Daddy out of bed though. He's a wild one, and his kicks are really strong, like PUNTS.

The depression lingers on. I have a good day here and there and have had two pretty awful days the past two weeks. One was yesterday and the other was a week ago (Friday). Those days I spent on the verge of tears, angsty, angry and so incredibly tired. I have to go duck into the bathroom or a closet every now and again and pull myself together so I don't just fall apart in front of Bean. Little things like physical pain (bumping myself on something or being accidentally poked or punched by Bean) become unbearable, things not working or not working correctly bring on levels of frustration that are completely abnormal for me. I feel foggy and dazed and want to hide away from the world those days, and mostly I do.

But overall I'm fine. I dread those bad days, but they come and go and life is good in between them. I need to be getting 9 hours of sleep a night - that'd be so helpful! But the schedules of the other people who live there just don't allow for that, so I'll just have to live with 7 and try to force myself to nap during the day when I can. That's life!

I hate to end on a negative note again but Bean is done waiting for her mother now and I don't blame her. Time to go find something to entertain her!