Saturday, February 26, 2011

Baby Update :)

As I write this, I am nearly at the end of my 27th week (the picture above was taken last week). Depending on what charts you look at, I'm either at the very, very end of my 2nd trimester or just finished the first week of my 3rd. Apparently this transition is open to interpretation. Judging by the fact that I'm getting slight bouts of nausea back again, I'm saying that I've hit the 3rd. All my symptoms (with the exception of the exhaustion) switched off as soon as I hit my 2nd trimester, so why wouldn't they switch back on when I hit my 3rd? Nausea is supposed to come back and the exhaustion doesn't get better, it gets worse as I get bigger and attempt to find comfortable positions to sleep in. Technically I'm not really supposed to be sleeping on my back anymore, which just leaves either side. Turning over is a challenge, my stomach muscles are shot and basically no good for anything besides holding the baby up, so I end up having to swing my hips around. I didn't realize how much I used my stomach muscles for until I couldn't really use them at all.

My belly at 25 weeks. Crazy amount of stretch marks or "Flames of Creation" as one of my books calls them.

At 22 weeks, the baby was measuring around 1.5 pounds, which means he's well over 2 now. Since our 19 week ultrasound, he has been measuring big, the last ultrasound he was measuring 4 weeks ahead of where he actually is! I'm not sure how that is going to translate into how big he will end up being, I really hope it doesn't mean that he ends up coming early! I'm only taking the week before my due date off work, I really don't want to go into labor two weeks early and not only explain to the kids why I'm leaving in the middle of class, but also drive all that distance to the hospital!

My favorite ultrasound yet. Done at 22 weeks, he has his hands and feet up by his face!

This coming week I will be going in for my glucose test, where they find out if I've developed gestational diabetes. It's also a regular checkup and my doctor is out of town so I'll be meeting one of the other OBs in the practice which is fine. I have to go in a few minutes early so they can give me this sugary drink, then I do my checkup, then sit around for an hour and wait to see how my body handles the sugar rush. It's no big deal, but they have to draw my blood in order to do it which means that I have to go during normal hours while the phlebotomist is there and that means time off from work. Normally, I'd just take a sick day and be done with it, but it's report card time and we've already had one snow day mess with the exam schedule and we don't want it to have affected the report card and grading schedule as well. So depending on how quickly the appointment goes, I'll be heading back to school to work on report cards. After that appointment, I'll be going in every two weeks for checkups until the baby's born. I don't know if I'll be getting anymore ultrasounds or not, I want to see the baby but then I don't want to pay the bill, so either way I'm happy ;)