30 Weeks and Counting...

So I just thought I'd do an update to herald the fact that I have finally made it to 30 weeks. I've officially been 3rd trimester for a couple weeks but some how the number 30 seems to make it real... That or the fun side effects are settling in. lol. 

So far the baby is amazingly active. In fact he's so active it leads me to wonder when he sleeps because all the books say he should start regular patterns of sleep and awake now and personally I'm wondering if the kid is an insomniac. ;) Also he's now getting big enough that him being active is starting to hurt, which is no fun at all. His feet have also discovered my ribs and I don't know if baby's do any learning in utero but if I were to attribute that type of behavior I'd say he's found a fun new toy and he likes to dig in with his heels and toes to play with this new toy... 

I'm also feeling LARGE. I know I'm not that big- I mean for me I'm huge but compared to a lot of the pregnant women I've known - this far along I'm small. I think its just b/c I'm so long in the body and have wide hips that I absorb a lot of the kids size that way instead of just going OUT. But for me... this is HUGE. My stomach has never gone this far forward EVER BEFORE and its becoming uncomfortable to bend over. I have to spread my legs like a giraffe so that my stomach can go between them if I wanna pick any thing up off the floor. And I'm discovering the joys of cocoa butter. I have no hope of avoiding stretch marks, but the cocoa butter seems to make the skin FEEL better- less taut and stretched. 

Otherwise my nesting obsession continues. I'm just getting slowed down now by increasing fatigue and if I stand or walk for a long period I start to hurt. And the hurt continues and gets worse until I stop and sit or lay down. So I'm just trying to do what I can and listen to my body- I figure pain is its way of telling me to back off so I try to do what I'm told. 

And I continue to lose weight. The baby looks perfect in all his ultrasounds, my blood work is good, my blood pressure is lower at every visit so the doc isn't worried. In fact she seems to be increasingly amazed. lol. Apparently she's only had one or two other people ever who can really blame their weight problem on their metabolism. She keeps asking if I've changed my diet - a lot of women start eating healthy when they're pregnant. And my answer is if anything I've been just a little bit BAD lately because last month was my birthday and valentines and yes I did have a bit more chocolate that I probably should have. And I still lost another two pounds. 

Personally I keep getting surprised every time I see myself in a mirror, my butt and thighs are that much smaller. I have no idea what size I'm going to be after I have this baby. But mostly I really really hope it doesn't all come back and bring friends as soon as the baby is here. I'll have to be careful... 

Well this is getting really long so I'll just end it here. We have our first child birth class tomorrow night so I'm excited. Its a series of 3 classes so for the next 3 Thursdays we're booked. ;) And I've started seeing the doc every 2 weeks. It's getting closer!

The Fifth Ultrasound

So I've determined that there are a couple of upsides to being plus sized and pregnant- or at least silver linings. While I may not look like the cute little pregnant ladies - I mostly think I just look fatter - strangers can't TELL that I'm pregnant. This means I don't have strangers coming up and wanting to touch me with out permission or offer horrifying advice. And since I had a friend that actually carried a fly swatter b/c she got so tired of being touched by strangers I consider this to be a bonus. ;) 

The other upside is that there is too much me in the way to use the tape measure to check baby's growth. Sooooo... Oh Darn. We have to have another ultrasound. :D And personally I LIKE to see my baby so here are the latest shots from the ultrasound this morning! He looks perfect - he weighs about 3 lbs now and is about the 60th percentile for length. His heart and brain both look perfect, his heart rate is totally normal and I have the correct amount of amniotic fluid so things look awesome. So with out further ado his new pictures:

Our Adventure with OB Triage

Before we begin - I'm fine and so is the baby. 

So yesterday we got to discover the OB Triage unit at Scottsdale Healthcare Shea. For those unfamiliar with the modern OB dept - just like the ER has a triage to do a preliminary check up OB departments have their very own triage unit just for the prego chicks. 

What prompted this visit was the fact that I kept seeing stars. The only other time I've had that kind of visual disturbance was as a precursor to a migraine, so when I first saw them I went "awwww crap" but I was confused b/c I didn't have any of my other usual precursor symptoms and usually the visual disturbance is one of the last warnings right before the pain hits. So I go about my business and over the course of about a day I have this happen about a half dozen times and no migraine. So I decide this is weird and I remembered reading about visual disturbance being tied to pregnancy induced hypertension so I figured it was worth a call to the doctors office to settle my paranoia. 

So late yesterday afternoon I called the doc's office and left a message. They called me back (PROMPTLY) and said that yes visual disturbance is often one of the first signs of a problem but that the office is closing in like 5 minutes so go to your local pharmacy and use their blood pressure machine to check your blood pressure. If your BP is 140/90 or above call us back and go to OB Triage. So I go down to my local CVS and shove my arm in their machine. Problem #1 - their blood pressure cuff barely fits my fat arm. Problem #2 - I tried three different times and got three different wonky results. At least one number each time was over the 140/90 mark. 

So I called the dr's office back and left a message with the answering service. Then I got a call back from the dr on call. And she explained that since pre-eclampsia is famous for being very sudden onset - particularly in the 3rd trimester and I just started my third trimester - she wanted me to go get checked out at OB triage. So by then my hubby was home from work so we both jumped in the car and drove to the hospital and got all checked in and hooked up to a whole bunch of monitors.

And everything is fine. The only issue we had was apparently the baby was asleep when we first got there so his heart rate was very, very steady - which sounds good except if he's kicking and wiggling it should go up and down depending on the acrobatics of the moment so unless he's asleep that ultra steady heart rate can actually be a sign of fetal distress. So they pulled out this little grey buzzer button thing and buzzed my stomach to wake him up and sure enough he woke up and started kicking up a storm. So he's fine and my blood pressure was fine so we got to go home. 

And some would say it was a waste of time but given my symptoms I'd rather be safe than sorry. Yes I am a paranoid first time mom but it was a something that made my mother (RN), my mother in law (pediatrician) and my doctor nervous. And I think it was worth it to calm my poor husband back down cuz while he tried hard to hide it I think he got more than slightly freaked out. And honestly I was fine until the first time I sat at that blood pressure cuff and it came back wayyyy high and I went - oh frickin' crap. After that I admit to being just a smidgen on the anxious side until I was all hooked up and things were looking nice and normal. So totally worth the trip just to get some decent sleep that night.