Fun appointment

I had my appointment yesterday with the endocrinologist so I can start taking my blood sugar levels. It was going to be a pretty busy day, I had the appointment at 9:20 and then had to head to Hartford as we were hosting a fundraiser for the Senate President. I had gone shopping the night before so I had all the beer, wine and paper supplies for the event in my car, and had already organized the ad book and most of the paperwork needed for the 4 pm fundraiser so I wasn't worried too much about time.

Until, at about 9:50 as I was sitting in the doctor's office and start feeling not quite right. I ask for a glass of water, but it doesn't help and I continue to get that clammy feeling and feel like I might pass out. They take my blood pressure, which was 118/64 when I came in, and it was down to 90/54. My normal blood pressure is 100/60 so I'm not sure how much lower 90/54 is, but they were concerned. They give me a little bit of orange soda to try to make me feel better and it does for a minute but as soon as the APRN starts talking about stuff again...I start feeling sick again. Finally I just had to lay down for about 15-20 minutes until I was back to normal. The nurse told me not to go to work, and John had to pick me up for the doctor's office because she didn't think I could drive. What a mess.

So I had to call work, my boss picked up all the stuff from John, which was so nice of him and Vicki (our office manager) had to take over for me here. Everything worked out fine, fortunately I was pretty organized. It pays not to wait for the last minute to do stuff :).

It was nice to have a day off though, I really didn't do anything and my body felt so relaxed and recovered. None of that late day/evening soreness and tiredness that I am used to. I even went on a cleaning spree before Brian H. came over to "move furniture." Brian was going to help move some stuff down to the garage and out of the soon to be nursery, but the rain never stopped so he had to settle for a couple Sam Lights. So Jenn H., if you are reading this and hear that Bri needs to "move furniture", you're welcome to join him next time!

As for my levels, I think I'm doing pretty good. At least so far...so hopefully it continues this way and I am able to stay off insulin. The nurse recommended pretty much the same diet as I was already doing, so now I'll just find out if the food I'm selecting are the right choices. Apparently all carbs aren't equal. It's still hard to fight off the cookie urge, especially when there are some tasty ones left over from last night from Congress Rotesserie...yuuuum. Oh well...Only 9 1/2 weeks left....

Baby Dreams

So I think last night was the first time I actually had a dream where I saw the baby. I think it was a girl, but not positive. I actually had two dreams.

First I had a dream that I was going to have the baby on Monday. I went in for an appointment and they did an internal and said, wow look at that you're 3 cm dilated! Looks like you're going to have your baby on Monday. I freaked out and said that can't be, I'm not ready...the baby isn't ready...it needs to be in there longer. Then I looked down and could see that I had dropped, my belly was way way down. But they didn't seem concerned at all that the baby would only be 30 weeks. I started crying and didn't know what to do, I was going to call John but for some reason I couldn't and got all overwhelmed because I knew I had stuff going on at work this coming week and so much stuff wasn't done. And I didn't want to walk anywhere or do anything that would encourage labor so I was just stuck in the waiting room at the doctor's office. Then my logic started setting in and said, well how come you aren't admitting me now to slow down the labor and putting me on bed rest? They still didn't care. Baby was coming on Monday.

So then, later on I had a dream that I was somewhere with Vicky and Becca, who is about 15 months old, and I was trying to put both of the babies in the backseat of my car with the car seats, but they weren't installed correctly...they were only tied in with a seatbelt and the LATCH wasn't connected at all. Fortunatley Vicky knew how to fix it. But then my baby was just on the seat with a seatbelt at one point, and its butt kept falling through the crack into the trunk, very strange. Finally, both babies were in their car seats and I realized I hadn't nursed in a while and my baby was hungry but I could tell that Vicky was getting frustrated with me because I was taking so long to do everything. Finally I said we could just go home and I would feed the baby there and hoped the baby would be ok until then. Baby wasn't crying but just looked really weak and I was afraid I was hurting it by not feeding it right then. I think that's about when I woke up.

Very strange indeed. I think the first one stems from the conversation with my boss yesterday where he said he figured by about the 2nd week of September I'll be completely miserable driving back and forth and will want to go part-time, and he thinks I'll end up delivering 3 weeks early. Yikes...oh and he thinks I'm having a boy. I guess the other one is also just a fear of not being ready and the fear of being a mom and doing everything right...needless to say it doesn't make for a good nights sleep.

29 Weeks

Here's my latest belly shot. I'm not sure that I look that much bigger than last time, but the doctor tells me its perfect. So that's all I care about.

I just got back from my doctor appointment. It took forever for them to see me!!!! I am used to going in the morning and I'm one of the first appointments, but today I was at 4 pm and it as 4:50 before they took me. Ugh. But its a Tuesday, so they were happy to actually be done a little after 5 :). The doctor expressed his frustration that we aren't able to get me into a see a specialist faster, they finally got me an appointment for Friday, September 1st which is still 9 days away. He did recommend that I call to see if the dietician or a nurse could see me and train me on how to take my sugar levels before next Friday so at least I can get started. I'll still have to meet with the actual doctor next Friday, but its a start. When I got home I actually had a message from the specialist, so we'll see what they have to say tomorrow.

It looks like I will be at the doctor quite a bit. I am already into my 2 week visits (which is normal, they told me last time I went I would start 2 week visits next time), and then at 34 weeks I think he said he would begin non-stress tests weekly, unless I have to go on insulin. Then non-stress would begin at 32 weeks, weekly. And I can expect an u/s every three weeks to make sure the baby isn't growing too fast...so I'm not sure when that begins, because there aren't that many weeks left! And he told me to expect to go to the specialist weekly, at least at the beginning so they can check my levels.

Besides all that, he said the baby seems great. Still measuring on target, and the heartbeat is still pretty fast so he predicts its a girl. The baby has turned so I'm not breech anymore (I was at my 20w u/s). The head is down, butt is on my left side and legs are on the right. But I think the butt switches sides because the hard lump moves. Baby was moving all over the place when he was trying to get a heartbeat, which I guess is a good thing.

Now if I can just get Tigger and Mountain Kitty to stop fighting life will be good. They have taken to actually chasing each other around the neighborhood, ok, more like Mountain Kitty chasing Tigger, rather than just his regular stalking.

It's Official

I told one of my bosses today that I plan to take at least a year off. We've been talking about for a long time and over the weekend John asked me when I planned to tell them I was taking a year off. So I figured since she was in, I might as well get it over with. She handled it pretty well....I can't believe I'm really not going to be working next session. It seems strange to even think about not being there, but hopefully I like staying home. I am sure I will. I never thought I would be a stay at home mom, but I am looking forward to it. Now I just can't wait for the little one to actually be here :).

Time is going by so fast though, and from what I've read there is a chance that I could deliver earlier than my due date because of gestational diabetes. I guess babies tend to grow faster, so a lot of times they come early or the doctor induces you at 38 or 39 weeks to avoid a large baby. I guess we'll see...

I'm still waiting to hear from the doctor about seeing a specialist. I called this afternoon and they were still having a hard time getting me into see someone in a relatively quick timeframe. You would think that doctors would have slots just for patients with gestational diabetes, but I guess that would make too much sense.

Good news first....

The good news is that we had an ultrasound on Wednesday and the kidneys actually shrunk so the baby is no longer considered a risk. Yeah :)! It was measuring right on target, heart beat was 155 bpm and they estimate the baby weighs about 2 pounds, 9 ounces right now. They told me that meant the baby was in the 35th percentile. I asked if that was ok, and she said yep, you don't want to have too big of a baby. I agree.

So on to the bad news. I failed my 3 hour glucose test which means I have gestational diabetes. I guess it doesn't surprise me that much. I know that my fasting levels were normal, and I think the tests that show whether or not I've had a problem for long than now came back ok as well so it should just be gestational which means it will go away shortly after the baby is delivered.

I will find out much more next week when I have my regular appointment on Tuesday and they are trying to get me into see a specialist so I can learn how to test my blood sugar levels and also more about an appropriate diet for me. For now, I have to do a revised South Beach type diet, I guess more along the lines of Phase 2 from what I've been reading so I can still have the right kinds of fruits and right kinds of carbs (not like the beginning when you cut out everything for 2 weeks to lose weight.) But it's a little more difficult, since I have to limit juices now, but can't have regular soda and can only have 1 diet drink a day (nutrasweet and splenda aren't recommended when you are pregnant.) So I'm not sure what that means I can drink other than water, and I'm going to keep drinking my milk because I know I need calcium. And I'm not sure what the story is with sugar free snacks, because a lot of them use nutrasweet or splenda as sweetners as well. I've already begun making a list of questions to take with me to the doctor.

Hopefully I am able to keep my levels at a normal range by changing my diet without having to go on insulin. That is definitely a motivating factor in eating the right way, that's for sure.

So that's it...I'll be doing so low carb grocery shopping today :). We are also going to Tile America to pick out tile for the bathroom so John can start tiling. Tomorrow is going to be a rainy day so I see lots of cleaning and organizing in my future.

New Hampshire

Here we are on the Kancamagus Highway at one of the Scenic Overlooks. It was very pretty. It was so nice to get away for a few days, even though it went by really fast.


And it was fun to see all the kids. We went to Polar Caves, the Flume and Story Land. Woohoo :)! Preparing for all the fun kid things we'll get to do once the baby arrives! Here are a couple pictures, John, Elizabeth and Thomas on the Bamboo Chute and John and Sadie on the Observation Deck at Polar Coaster.






Things are going ok here. On Wednesday before we left I went to take my 1 hour glucose screening test. I passed the fasting portion but I failed the 1 hour test so I need to go back today for the 3 hour. Hopefully it goes well. I haven't had any carbs since yesterday morning, and I figure if the bagel yesterday morning really affects it that much I probably do have a problem. Ugh, I'm already hungry though. This is going to be a long morning. My test isn't for another 55 minutes.

Tomorrow we are going for our follow-up ultrasound at the hospital to make sure the kidneys are still doing alright. Hopefully all is ok in there. Baby is definitely growing, I can tell by the lovely stretch marks I have. I've been putting some cream on them, but I'm not sure it's preventing anymore. I guess they say they can get pretty itchy after a while, so cream is good for them anyway.

So it's a busy week here, and a busy week at work as well. There are two fundraisers I am working on, one Thursday and another Friday. Thursday's is coming together well, now we just need to get a few more people to Friday's event.

Our 1st Anniversary

Time goes by so fast. A year ago at this time, we were outside Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church for our receiving line....it was a beautiful day last year and another beautiful day today! Our wedding was so much fun, I miss it sometimes....I wish we could do it all over again. Everyone was so happy and having a great time. It's not very often that you are able to have all of the special people in your life in one place at one time.

Our big anniversary plans? We've been taking it easy, watching the Red Sox game. Looks like they might actually pull off a win today. Then we are going to dinner at Carmen Anthony's. Neither one of us have ever been there so I hope it is good, everyone says it is. We had thought about going to Block Island for the day, but honestly I'm happy we decided not to go. Baby has been kicking me an awful lot and I've been getting tired. So a day of doing nothing is perfect.

I thought about trying on my wedding dress....but something tells me it wouldn't fit right now. I guess the goal is to have it fit again next year :). I'll just have to settle for the defrosted wedding cake. I already tried the frosting and it tasted yummy.

And Happy Anniversary to everyone else: Amy & Chris, August 5th; Mr. & Mrs. Hannan, August 6th; Dan & Dawn, August 8th; and Mary & Matt, August 10th!