30 Weeks and Funny Bailey

I'm 30 weeks today! 10 to go! I'm still not feeling "huge" yet, but I do feel big. Rolling out of bed is getting a little harder! According to books, the baby is approximately 3 pounds now. So cute and so big!! Crazy to think that his or her weight will more than double between now and birth.

One week from today my sister, her husband, and baby Micah are flying in for my baby shower!! I'm SO excited to see them. It's so hard to live so far away! :( To make life easier on them, Micah is going to use our baby's carseat while he's here so they don't have to lug theirs on the plane. So this week we bought our travel system! (And our lovely model Bailey as always...)



My parents are meeting me for lunch today so I can hand off the car seat to them, so that we can be all ready for Micah!

I have a funny Bailey story from yesterday. We had our pest control people come spray the house, and Bailey was loving every second as usual. She loves to follow the guy around and "help" him. She's so inquisitive, always wanting to know what he's doing! She followed him room to room, he was laughing at her. Well, time came for him to go into the nursery. When he started working in there, Bailey started BARKING at him!!! Not like a vicious "I'm going to kill you" bark or anything, but just a weird "What are you doing" bark! So I wonder if Bailey can really sense something different about this room, and almost seems to "KNOW" or if she thinks we're doing this room for her, because she sure does enjoy spending time in there. :)

Poor Bailey also threw up 3 times yesterday evening. I'm not sure what made her sick, poor thing. I went into the nursery and sat down in the glider to relax for a bit. Bailey wanted up, and was out cold within 2 minutes! She sure loves being rocked! So cute!

Hospital Tour

Our hospital tour last night was great! It felt short and sweet, but by the time we left, it had been an hour... I guess time flies when you're having fun! They walked us through the process we'll go through when we come in labor, from the doors we'll want to enter through, and the way up to the Labor & Delivery floor. They showed us an L&D room, and walked us through the process of what happens in there, and how long we'll be there. Basically we're there all the way through labor until about 2 hours after the baby is born. They do the cleaning and warming of the baby right there in your room, do the initial tests, then give the baby back to mom and dad for some bonding time and the first nursing session. After that is done, dad and baby head to the nursery for baby's first bath. It's really cool - they have 5-6 bassinets in front of the windows in the nursery, reserved for babies less than 4 hours old. This will likely be the first time friends and family will get to see the baby. They'll get to watch the process as dad and nurses give the bath, and go through some other routine care things. The baby will be in the nursery for about an hour, while mom gets transported down to her post-partum room and gets settled in. At that point, friends and family will be able to come in and visit anytime!

Jeff and I thought the facilities were really nice. Especially the PP room seemed less hospital-y than most rooms we've visited when friends had babies.

Maybe because I had hospitals on my mind yesterday, and we're having a slow period at work, I started my hospital packing list yesterday. It's amazing how much stuff you have to bring! Thankfully we have a Walmart and grocery store less than 2 minutes from the hospital, so if we were to forget anything crucial, we can always send someone out to the store for us!

In my mind, that whole process seems so far away. I think the whole pregnancy I've been thinking "May 9 is sooo long from now, don't even think about it or you'll drive yourself crazy." Well, I'm still telling myself that, and we're down to 10 weeks now. I think it's going to come sooner than I think it is! Thankfully I'm still going through all the motions and getting everything ready, prepared, and purchased, but I still feel like I have 6 months to go! It's almost March... Which leaves 2 months until May! Everyone tells me the third trimester is by far the slowest, but so far I beg to differ. That first trimester seemed never ending. Check back with me when I'm 36+ weeks, huge, and uncomfortable. :)

Getting Some Practice!

Poor Bailey is the guinea pig for all of our baby gear!

She has tested out the swaddle blanket:
(Bonus points for anyone who can identify the movie in the background)



And made sure the crib is nice and comfy for the baby:



She's a good sport about it all. She wasn't too crazy about the swaddle though! The other night I was wanting to just relax in the nursery and rock in the glider. I picked Bailey up and started rocking her. She was a little squirmy so I put her down, but she wanted right back up! So I picked her up and continued rocking her, and she was asleep within 5 minutes! Awww! I probably shouldn't get her used to doing that though, because pretty soon there'll only be room for the baby in mommy's arms!!

Jeff and I went to a Dallas Mavericks game with some friends last night. The family sitting behind us was the most obnoxious, loud, hick family I've ever experienced. I was sitting right in front of the dad of the family, and he seriously had the loudest single voice I've ever heard. He was one of "those" fans that was yelling and screaming the ENTIRE game, even though our seats were the 2nd to LAST row in the entire arena. Yeah buddy, the players can hear you from way up here. Every time he yelled something, my ears seriously rung he was so loud. I think I was deaf by the time the game was done! I think the baby was scared, or didn't know what to think! The entire game he/she was VERY high up in my stomach, curled into a tiny ball! Poor thing! The baby didn't come back down out of that position until we were home.

Good news for the day - over the weekend I tried on a pair of my pre-pregnancy jeans for fun... I can still get them on, and buttoned! Woohoo!

29 Week Picture

29 Weeks!



Well, for an update with the crib mattress issue... I just decided to keep the one we bought originally. We loaded the mattress up in the car, and I took it back to Babies R Us, but before returning it, I went and checked out the rest of the mattresses, specifically the particular mattress my baby ratings book recommended. Well, when I compared the recommended mattress to the one we had bought, ours was actually QUITE a bit firmer than the recommended "204 coil" mattress. There was a little poster over in the mattress section about how to pick out a mattress, and the poster said that it's not necessarily all about the coil count... It's the firmness of the coil that matters. For instance, you could put 300 soft coils in a mattress and have it be much softer than a mattress with 100 firm coils. So I feel pretty good about our decision overall. I think it will be fine, like my mom said, who knows what kind of mattress I slept on when I was a baby! It feels fairly firm and I think a mattress would have to be awfully plush for the baby to sink in and suffocate... Plus for the first few weeks (and months?) the baby will be sleeping in the sleep positioner, for one more added layer of safety, and by the time he/she doesn't need that anymore, they will most likely have the strength to push up and move their head if they were to get stuck facing downwards. Plus, that's what the Angelcare mattress monitor is for - to tell me if they've stopped breathing!

Today on my lunch break I'm headed back to Babies R Us (I'm thankful I work so close to it!) to buy our travel system - car seat and stroller. I think that is the last "big" item we have to buy, that is so exciting!

By the way, have I mentioned how much hair I have lost??? I forget when it started... But I think right around 12 weeks. I wouldn't say it comes out in clumps or anything, but every time I brush my hair or take a shower, I lose a good 10, 15, 20 hairs. I'm to the point now where I'm shocked that I look like I still have a head of hair because this has been going on so long! Now I'm REALLY dreading the post-partum hair loss, because I won't have anything left to lose! I know it's common to lose your hair after having the baby, but I've never heard of losing so much during the pregnancy! It's starting to show a little bit too... The early hair loss is now growing back to the point where it sticks straight up off my head in the form of frizzies. Great.

29 Weeks!

I am 29 Weeks today! Only 1 more week until 30! That is crazy! Pretty soon counting backwards it'll be weeks in the SINGLE digits!

Our latest stress is crib mattress shopping. Mattress makers sure know how to prey on new parent fear. Jeff and I picked out a mattress that we liked, seemed fine, and as an added bonus, it was made to fit our Babi Italia crib. Better yet, the price was reasonable. But then I started researching mattresses (shouldn't I have done that BEFORE we bought one?? Oh well..) and found that the "recommended" minimum number of coils for a crib mattress (to reduce SIDS risk) is 150. The one we picked has 117. So now I'm all scared about this stupid mattress I picked out and am wondering if it's going to kill my baby. Why would they make a mattress too soft? I'm sure this mattress would be just fine, but I guess I'll admit I'm buying into the fear-based marketing. We loaded up the mattress and I'm going to go pick another one out this evening, with a minimum of 150 coils... And I'm sure I'll end up spending about 2 times what I originally planned! Part of me just wants to keep the original mattress, but I know if anything ever happened to our baby while in bed, I'd think back to this decision and never forgive myself for not being the most educated shopper I can be.

Last night I think I had my first Braxton Hicks contraction. The whole time we were sitting at the table eating dinner last night I was a little uncomfortable, but couldn't place my finger on anything specific. Overall I felt like I could breathe well, and had to keep leaning back from the table to try to give my belly some room. Then when I stood up to go put my plate in the dishwasher, I couldn't really stand up straight because my belly was SOOOO hard, tight and stiff! It wasn't painful or anything, just hard as a rock! From what I've heard, that's what BH's are like! It went away within 20 seconds or so, and was gone! Weird.

I have high hopes for this weekend, to get the nursery more organized and finally get our glider in there. We have it in the family room for now because we like to sit in it while we watch TV! haha.

Baby Hiccups

I have been starting to feel a little left out lately in the last few weeks. All of the books and pregnancy updates I've been reading tell me that I should have been feeling Baby's hiccups for a few weeks now, but up until yesterday, nothing. Well, as I was sitting here at my desk yesterday morning, I could feel a little activity going on, but I couldn't nail down what Baby was up to. I put my hand on my belly, and felt a very rhythmic thump, thump, thump, thump. It was so cute!! It lasted about 5-7 minutes or so. I was very excited. It's so amazing to think of my baby in there! One girl on my "May Due Dates" board had her baby early this week, at 28 weeks. She posted pictures of her baby girl, and it's amazing to think that my baby looks like THAT. It was small of course, but fully complete and beautiful! Just crazy.

Last night was our third childbirth education class. The class was mainly on epidurals. Out of the entire labor & delivery process, I am the MOST scared of the epidural! Don't get me wrong... Not scared enough that I'd consider going without one... But scared none the less! And they say that education gives you power, but if anything, after last night I'm MORE scared! haha! But I'm sure when it comes down to it and I'm having contractions, I'm not going to care what they're doing to my back, as long as it makes the pain go away! So I try not to think about it. :)

They also told us last night that from now until delivery, the baby will be gaining about 1/2 pound a week. Whoa, baby!! That's some incredible weight gain! Considering it took the entire pregnancy thus far for the baby to reach 2 - 2 1/2 pounds.

My itchiness is still around, but I think I've gotten used to it. Thanks to medicated lotions it's very livable.

Last night was a rough night related to acid reflux. Thankfully I don't really experience any pain or burning in association with it, but it's very uncomfortable and makes me feel like I'm going to throw up. Normally I take 1 Gaviscon tablet and it goes away, but it was having no effect last night. I had to sit up in bed for about 30 minutes from 3 - 3:30, and then when I laid back down I propped up 3 pillows behind me to try to keep myself somewhat elevated. I was up probably 6 times or so... I guess I should go back and look at what I ate yesterday! Either that or get used to it, as it will only get worse for 11 more weeks! :)

Guess What We're Having!

Ok blog readers, come out of the woodwork, and guess who baby Blair is, and when he/she will arrive! You might have noticed the "ExpectNet" icon I added in the top left corner of the blog. Just click on it and enter your guess! Looks like so far, with 14 guesses, boys are winning! And just a hint, the lighter in weight you make my baby, the more I will like you. :)

28 Weeks

All is well and I had a very quick 28 week appointment this morning!!

First of all I gained 7 pounds in the last 3 weeks! The nurse laughed and said "Somebody had a good month!" They didn't say anything to me about cutting back or anything, probably because the weight gain has been so slow up to this point, but I'm going to make a mental effort to try to eat better or something! But I could tell my belly has gone through a HUGE growth spurt in these 3 weeks too, so I'm letting the baby take some of the blame.

I brought up my itchiness again, and told him the "experiments" I did on myself, and he said it sounds like it really was the iron I was reacting to in my prenatal vitamins. I told him I've been taking Flintstones vitamins, and he said that would be just fine to continue. We'll check my iron levels at my next appointment to make sure my blood iron is still ok despite not getting any in vitamins. (Flintstones have no iron.)

One thing I haven't discussed yet in my blog, is my difficulty breathing. The first time it happened was on the plane up to Minnesota a couple weekends ago. All of a sudden it felt like I couldn't breathe very well, then my heart started pounding and beating very quickly. I was like, "Great, I'm going to pass out here on the plane, we'll have to make an emergency landing and I'll be on the world news tonight." haha! But I was ok. I reclined my seat, put on some relaxing music, and took slow breaths. Within 10-15 minutes it went away. But it kept coming back, to the point now where I'd say it happens about 3 times a day.

So at the appointment I asked him about my breathing issues, and corresponding heart rate increase. He said it's totally normal. (Annoying, but normal!) It's called "Oxygen Hunger" or something like that? Something about the uterus/baby being in a bad position or up too high, cutting off lung capacity, and not allowing the diaphragm to do its job, which in turn causes the heart rate to accelerate and/or beat harder, which is exactly what I've been feeling! He said just try a position change whenever that happens, because while it's not harming me, it's definitely uncomfortable and not good to be "oxygen hungry" and a rapid heart rate for long periods of time.

Now I'm on bi-weekly visits! Yikes!

And for fun, here's a 28 week belly pic.

The Third Trimester!

I've made it! According to some, the third trimester begins at 27 weeks. Other sources say 28 weeks. I figure, 1 day shy of 28 weeks, it's pretty safe to say I'm in my third trimester!! That second trimester sure went quickly. I barely know where it went! Exciting, none the less. It was very weird when I read this week's pregnancy update that said, "You will be holding your baby in 12 weeks." Wow.

I ordered the glider for our nursery yesterday, so that should come in within the next couple of weeks or so. I've been thinking about the decorating and what I want to do with the walls. Above the crib I will have the baby's name, and I also bought 2 shelves to hang on the wall, so I needed one more piece to sort of balance things out. I've decided to make a ribbon board. I will go buy more curtain fabric, so that'll help tie that in with the room a bit too. I'm really excited! I'm not sure when I'll get around to making it, I'd like to say this weekend, but I have other things planned. I'm not sure if I'm at the beginning stages of nesting, or just fed up, but in the next few weekends I'm locking Jeff and me in a room and we're not coming out until we go through the entire room, top to bottom, throw away what we can, re-organize, and clean. I'm excited about it. I'm sure that on Saturday, when we wake up, I won't be quite as enthused, but I'll feel good when it's done. The project for Saturday is our office.

27 Week Picture

Here is 27 weeks!



Our Childbirth Education classes continue tonight. They told us to bring a pillow and blanket, so I have a feeling we'll be on the floor doing some breathing exercises! ha.

We picked up and set up the dresser for the nursery last night. Now all we are missing is the glider, which I'm going to order today! Then all the major furniture will be in, from that point it'll just be fine-tuning and decorating! I'm still not sure if I'm happy with the arrangement of all the furniture, I think I have to get used to it and see what I think!

Fun Weekend in Minnesota!

I'm back from the frozen tundra! I had a great weekend. At the time when I was planning all of this, I definitely still wanted to go and see my friends, but at the same time I really was looking forward to a quiet weekend at home to relax. But Jeff and I both agreed that I better take advantage of situations like this while I can, because after the baby is here, stuff like this will be few and far between! So I'm very glad I went.

Saturday night we went out to dinner downtown Minneapolis, and afterwards we had to talk about a block and a half to the parking garage to get to the car. I think by that time, it was about -11 outside, and the wind chill was somewhere around -30!!!!! CRAZY. I really had forgotten what that is like, and just how cold that is. Wow. But we made it fine, and I survived! Once we got back into the garage, I asked the baby what it thought of that, but I didn't get a response. :) Must be nice to have a 98 degree incubator environment at all times! When I got on the plane yesterday to come home, they came over the speaker and announced that it was currently 73 in Dallas. Everyone on the plane let out a gasp/sigh... haha! It felt great to step off the plane into the breezeway and feel that nice warm air. It was fun to go up to Minnesota for a weekend, but I really think Texas is HOME!

A couple minor complaints at this point in the pregnancy... I will say I'm very thankful I have nothing HUGE to complain about!

I still have constant itchiness, but it's at a live-able level, and it doesn't keep me up at night. Thank God for Gold Bond medicated lotion, that's the only thing that keeps the itch at bay.

Acid Reflux. Ugh. Constantly. Once again, thanking God for another product, Gaviscon. Tums and Rolaids don't do a thing for me, but as soon as that Gaviscon hits, the reflux is GONE.

Just in the last week I've noticed the baby encroaching on my lungs and breathing ability! In order to be able to breathe comfortably, I need to be sitting in a semi-reclined position! I try pushing at the baby to get it to move back down, and every once in a while it works, and ahhhh I can take a deep breath again.

Last night I had sort of a first, I felt the baby not quite kicking, but just stretching the limits of its space in there... And I could definitely tell I had a foot gently pressing outwards on my upper belly. So I felt on my stomach where the foot was, pressed down, and definitely hit some resistance! And then all of a sudden the baby KICKED back with force! haha! I think I scared it or something! hehe. But that was the first direct interaction we've had! So fun!

Nursery Curtains

When I got home from work last night, I looked over at the pile of fabric that was to become the nursery curtains. I figured now was as good a time as ever, and I just wanted to get it out of the way! So I sat down and got to business. The brown curtains weren't too difficult to deal with, the fabric is solid and sturdy enough that an iron will easily fold over the seams. But the white sheer curtain underneath.... That thing was a PAIN! If I ever have to sew one of those again, it'll be too soon. :) I'm sure the seams are not straight, but at this point I don't even care. They are done, and hanging up, and I love them! I thought I had bought enough fabric for floor-length, but it turns out I didn't. Oops! Oh well. It'll make vacuuming easier. One of my friends called it "tea length" for curtains!



In other exciting news, I'm headed to Minnesota this weekend! We were assigned a couple new projects at work yesterday, one of which is in Rochester, Minnesota. I was nominated by my co-workers to be the one to go. :) I looked up the weather forecast, and the overnight low Saturday night is -13, and the high on Sunday is -1! I asked my co-workers... "Are you SURE nobody else wants to go?" HAHAHA! They are all very thankful I have family and friends up there. The best part about this assignment is that there's not even a building in place on the land - it's a vacant tract waiting to be developed. So basically all I have to do is drive to the site, take some pictures, walk the perimeter, and I'm done! It'll take probably about 20 minutes. And they're flying me up there all for that! I love my job. :) I'll do the actual work on Monday, but in the mean time I'll go up to Minnesota tomorrow morning to spend the weekend with friends. Woohoo!

Class Report!

Class last night was so much fun! There are probably about 11 other couples or so. I was afraid we'd be the latest due date, but we're right in the middle of the crowd! I think the earliest due date was April 11, and the latest was May 20. So we're right in there!

Jeff and I were joking on our way there, wondering at which point we'd have to watch the actual birth video... We thought surely they wouldn't jump right in and make you watch it the first night... hahah YEP they did!!! It was pretty tame though, and wasn't very graphic. A lot of it was animation. It got me a little scared though! haha!

They had us all introduce ourselves, our due date, our doctor, what we were having, and the name of the baby. We're the only ones who don't know the gender! It was funny, when I said that we didn't find out what we're having, several people let out a gasp! HAHAHAHA! During our break between the 2 hours, one girl came up to me and said I must have a great husband for letting me use the name Noah! She wanted to name her boy Noah, but her husband didn't like it. So that was cute. :) They had just gotten back from the Bahamas. So jealous!

It was very much an intro class, but she told us about the hospital and their procedures, security procedures (it sounds really cool and hi-tech, keeping the baby safe from kidnappers!) food availability, what the rooms are like, and all sorts of stuff. The security system they have, I was really impressed with. Basically the mom's and baby's wrist/ankle bands have a GPS chip in them, the instructor called it a "lo-jack" for babies. If the baby comes within a certain distance of an open elevator or open stairwell door, an alarm goes off and all the cameras in the area point to that door! And if a baby comes within a few feet of the wrong mother, it also sets off some sort of alarm telling you it's the wrong match! Very cool! The bracelets are put on before the baby ever leaves the mother's room, right after delivery, so you know it's the right one. Plus, the chips have a sensor on the back of them that reacts to skin contact, so if the anklet or bracelet is ever removed, another alarm goes off that it is being tampered with. I have no question my baby will be safe!

I'm excited for next week! At the end of the night we practiced a breathing exercise for early labor while our husbands massaged our shoulders and necks. :) Nice!

Childbirth Education

Tonight, Jeff and I begin our "Prepared Childbirth Education" classes! I'm excited but a little bit nervous for some reason too. We have it every Wednesday night from 7-9 pm, running for 7 weeks. Originally they pointed us to the classes that start the first week of March, but by the time the 7 week course was over, we'd only have 3 weeks left until my due date. They recommend completing the classes 4-6 weeks before your due date. Starting now, in February, when the classes are done we'll have 7 weeks until my due date. We figured we'd rather feel prepared and be done early than not know what will happen in those last weeks, what complications I could develop, how uncomfortable I'm going to get, if I need to go on bedrest, or even deliver early!

So it's exciting to be taking the next step in getting closer to our baby! I wonder how many people we will have in our class. This week was also big in one other area - we finalized our names! Noah Ryan has always been our boy name from Day 1, but we could never settle on a girl name. Well, we finally did - Katherine (Kate) Marie! It's a lot of fun to know that I'm carrying around either Noah or Kate! We've even used one name or the other casually in conversation... It feels SO weird to be saying a name instead of "the Baby!"

One little fun trick I've been experiencing in the last few weeks is here at work... When I scoot my desk chair in so that my stomach is touching and sort of pressing into the desk, the baby will kick at it like "Get out of my way!!" So cute. :)

Itchiness - Same old, same old. I have mild to moderate itching just about every day. I think I need to settle in for the long haul.

26 Week Picture

Here is 26 Weeks!



Getting bigger! I think the growth seems to be more and more rapid lately! One week is making a bigger difference than it used to.

In the world of itchiness, I have it under control overall with twice daily application of medicated lotion, and the occasional spot-treatment during the day, and overnight. It's still there, but not life-altering like a couple days were in the last few weeks. I'm starting to wonder if it is an early/mild case of PUPPPs, but the only way to know is to wait and see. I sure hope not. I googled images of some cases of PUPPPs, and if what I have experienced thus far is a mild case, looking at these poor women... It's no wonder they end up inducing PUPPPs women a week or two early!

Nursery Progress

We had a great weekend with Jeff's family. It's always fun to relax and see them!

Before they arrived on Friday night, I got the bookshelf about 80% put together. I've learned that I actually do enjoy projects like that. I guess it's seeing something go from a pile of boards to a pretty bookshelf!

We met them for dinner at Texas Roadhouse when they got into town. Yum! When we got back home, we finished putting the bookshelf together. Isn't it pretty??



On Saturday, we set out to get the ceiling fan hung. Boy was that an undertaking! It makes me happy to know now that ALL of the bedrooms in the house have a fan, and we'll never have to do that again (at least in this house!) What a pain. Jeff, Ronnie, and Patrick worked hard and eventually got it in and working! As soon as the Blairs left for the weekend, I was kicking myself that we never got the camera out and took some pictures. I like having progress pictures and hopefully our kid will appreciate someday seeing all the efforts his/her family is putting into the nursery. :)

After dinner Saturday night, the Blairs headed for home, and Jeff and I set out to put up the crib. I had no idea how long it would take, but I was figuring it would take several evenings of work, but it wasn't a big deal at all! I think it took about an hour, or hour and a half? I love having the crib up and put together. It is so pretty, I love it, and I love looking into that room and just thinking about how real it's all starting to feel. My chore for this week is to get started on the curtains. I think if I just sat down for several hours one evening, I could probably get it all done. Here are some pictures Jeff and I snapped in the crib-assembly process. As you can see, Bailey was a good little "helper" for us! She was in the middle of everything! :)











All done! I love it! I know the crib skirt needs ironing, but I just tried it on for size, and I also realized it'll probably do me no good to sew a little ribbon of the curtain fabric on the bottom of the skirt because the bottom of the crib hides it!



Seeing the crib and bookshelf in the room made me realize that either the furniture is bigger than I thought, or the room is smaller than I thought... or both. All of the furniture will fit in there, but it's going to be a tight squeeze, that's for sure!

And an update on my itchiness... Friday and Saturday were great days. At some point in there, I had a 24 hour period of NO itchiness! That was wonderful. I looked at the ingredients on the Flintstones vitamins I've been taking, and there is no iron in them. So at this point I'm convinced it's iron that I'm reacting to. Especially as bad as it got last week when I took that iron pill as an experiment. Yesterday I did have a bit of itchiness, especially on my legs, but some medicated lotion helped that and made it tolerable. So far today, so good.

No Relief From Itching!

***yawn***

I had another miserable night last night, but more on that in a minute.

Instead of just being a good patient and following my doctor's orders, I went into "self diagnose" mode and browsed the internet to see what I could do about it. I had read on Wednesday that an iron deficiency can cause itchiness, so when I got home I compared the boxes of my old prenatal vitamins to the new box. The old box had MUCH more iron in them than the new box, so I assumed low iron HAD to be my problem... So Wednesday night I took an iron pill thinking the itch would be gone by morning. :)

Let me say, that from the time I stopped taking my prenatals on Monday through Wednesday, the itchiness HAD gotten better. Quite a bit better actually, the itchiness wasn't gone completely, but I was only needing itch ointment on occasion rather than every hour on the hour.

Low and behold, Wednesday night / Thursday morning, I woke up in the middle of the night to some pretty bad itchiness! I was able to fall back asleep without much effort though. Yesterday was pretty miserable, I was itchy all day, despite numerous applications of itch cream. Then we come to last night. The worst it has been the whole pregnancy. I woke up at 2:00 to firey itchiness on my neck and upper chest. I put on some ointment, and tried to ignore it and go back to bed, but I had no such luck. I was just miserable lying there in bed, so I got up and went and sat down in the bathroom for a while, so I wasn't tossing and turning, waking Jeff up. I remembered my mom had read something about putting a cold wash cloth on the itchy area, so I decided to try that. MAN did that feel GOOD. I was amazed! I also dug around underneath the sink and found a tube of hydrocortizone cream. Probably not the smartest thing in the world to apply steroids to my skin while pregnant, but I was desperate. I figure one application can't hurt too bad. If nothing else, the baby will be a better linebacker someday. :) So anyway, I put some of that on, and took the washcloth back to bed with me. I laid it on my neck / upper chest, and tried to fall back asleep, this was around 3:30 am. I woke up this morning, so apparently I did make it back asleep! The washcloth was on the floor, but it's nice to know something worked for a quick fix like that.

So I'm DONE with iron. I don't have any proof that's what brought about this last itchy bout, but it's the only thing that changed this week, so I'm suspicious. I'll go back to my doctor's orders and go without my vitamins today and the rest of the weekend, and see how it goes. If I don't see improvement, I'm going to call my doctor on Monday because itchiness can also be a sign of liver malfunction, which I don't seem to fit all the symptoms for, but I don't want to play any games.

And I want the itchiness to go away!

26 weeks today! It's my last week of the Second Trimester. Third Trimester here I come!