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.