Why I slosh when I walk

Fortunately, I passed my glucose tolerance test with flying colors. Bring on the sodas and the chocolate cake!

Well, ok, I'm not drinking many sodas and I'm certainly not eating chocolate cake. I'm trying to drink the 110 OUNCES of WATER EVERY DAY that the perinatologist's office suggests. So far, I've not been successful. I consistently drink 64oz 5 out of 7 days. I have a giant cup at work that I fill up with water and ice first thing in the morning at work and then I refill it at lunch. So in a 9 hour work day, I'm pretty good about getting the first 64oz. It's the remaining 46 oz that have been trouble. More often than not, I drink water (about half of a 16 oz bottle) with breakfast (which I generally eat in the car on the way to work) and dinner - which I don't generally measure. I also generally finish the bottle of water I started at breakfast on the way home when I'm stuck in traffic. So having looked at all that, I'm probably pretty close to the 110oz.

And that's another reason I'm not really drinking a lot of soda. I just don't have the bandwidth for it right now. I'm drinking so much water, that when I allow myself a treat, I'm not interested in anything to drink.

Right now, the cravings aren't too overwhelming. I still crave french fries and I still love iceberg lettuce. I like chocolate, but only when paired with caramel (Rolos - YUM!!) or in the form of Teddy Grahams.

The pelvic bone pain is pretty bad. Sitting for longer than about 20 minutes is agony. The gals at House o'Babies keeps telling me there's nothing they can do but give me narcotics, but I don't like that answer.

Basically, pregnancy hormones relax all the ligaments in the body - allowing the baby the space it needs and allowing the preggo's body the space needed to ultimately give birth. These hormones also relax ligaments that are supposed to remain stable like the ligaments in the front of the pelvic bone. Your pelvic bone is designed to be stable, but especially in women, it flexes to allow the passage of the baby during birth. I'm already flexing, which makes things like climbing stairs and sitting REALLY painful. Can we underline that? REALLY REALLY super painful.

Other than my pelvic pain, I feel fine. The baby is moving a good bit more especially in the early morning and later at night. In fact, I would swear that the little monkey was playing soccer a couple of mornings ago.

Moo has been totally convinced that we're having a girl and now I'm coming around to that too and routinely call the monkey by the name we've chosen.

In fact, I had the most vivid dream that the Sea Monkey was a girl. We were at the World of Disney at Downtown Disney at DisneyWorld (WDW). If you haven't been to WOD, as it's called by us Disney maniacs, then I'll explain that it's a VERY large store that contains almost everything (with the exception of park specific items) offered in any of the stores in the parks. Basically, it's a Disney Fan's Nirvana.

Moo, the Sea Monkey and I were at WOD. I was pushing a stroller and Sea Monkey was toddling around picking things up grinning and showing them to us. When we'd acknowledge her find, she'd giggle and move on to the next shiny object. She had blond curly hair, a bright smile, and was wearing a cute little pink dress with matching bloomers and white sandals. Neither Moo or I currently have blond hair, but Moo was a blond as a child. Moo was tailing her pretty close to make sure she didn't get in trouble.

Now, I'm figuring this dream refers to the trip we're taking to WDW next spring. The timing of our trip would make her 8 or 9 months old. I know, that's early to walk. But I walked at 7 months so I'm not really concerned with the time.

It's strange to dream of the little Monkey as grown up like that. It's been in my brain since I dreamed it two nights ago. I can't quite let go of it because it was SOOOO vivid. I've dreamt about the baby before, but I've never seen her face. This little face was so much like Moo.

Curses! Foiled Again!

So, I spent Monday morning feeling nauseous. I got to House O'Babies at 7:45 and drank the nasty orange drink at about 8:25. The phelbotomist got the first blood sample (a fasting one) right before I drank the glucola.

For the next hour, I sipped on cold water, hoping I could stave off vomiting. This worked. I then got hit by Vampira again. This time, she went for the other arm, but found that the veins were too small and rolled way too much. She tried for the top my hand and found the same problem.

In the next 5 minutes, I had 3 people searching my arms for somewhere - ANYWHERE - to hit me. The other hand looked promising, but was a little swollen. Finally, they agreed to hit my forearm. This resulted in an enormous bruise, but delivered the goods.

I waited for the next hour, wondering where they would be able to stick me next. Vampira headed straight for the other forearm since it worked so well before. The result was a fast hit and another, nastier bruise.

One more hour to go. The nausea has calmed down, but now my butt is protesting sitting so long. When we got there, I had opted for one of the couches, hoping that I could sit in different positions to help my butt. This was mostly successful.

Last stick, she went for the swollen hand, which wasn't too swollen. SUCCESS!! Now I can eat!

After a quick lunch, we headed for the perinatologist's office. Instead of the warm, lively sonographer, we got the person with the personality of a paper bag. This was supposed to be the big ultrasound, the one where we see the baby's heart and innards in detail and also get to find out the sex. Well, Paperbag Gal didn't see the heart, didn't see the innards she needed to see and wasn't able to determine the sex. She didn't have me change positions or empty my bladder as has been successful in the past for making baby move enough to see. Instead, we go back in April for another try.

I can't say that I'm not disappointed that we still don't know the sex. For one thing, it totally screws up my plans. I had planned on sending out the cutest little card saying something like "We're about to be joined by a baby (STATE THE SEX HERE) in July!" Additionally, I was hoping to be able to get started with the baby's scrapbook.

Moo says I focus too much on stereotypical pink and blue schemes and he's probably partly right. But I feel like I can use more floral patterns with a girl's page than a boys. A lot of patterns - the bold geometric ones I like a lot - go either way. I'm not afraid of using blue on a girl's page, but I feel funny using pink on a boy's page.

I should find out the results of my tests today. Moo says no news is good news, but I still want to know the results.

Ok, so I flunked.

I just got a call from my OB/GYN office. I flunked the one hour glucose tolerance test. The range was up to 130 and I was 169. Sigh.

I go Monday morning for the 4 hour test and I have to fast the night before.

I'm still optimistic that everything is perfectly ok. I was just "off" that day. Everytime I've tested with Moo's glucose monitor it's been perfect, so until I'm told otherwise, I'll keep doing what I'm doing.

5 month appointment

Had a great appointment yesterday.

The OB/GYN practice that I go to has 9 doctors and 12 midwives. Midwives deliver about 90% of their babies so the practice encourages patients to meet as many of the midwives as possible before delivery day. So far, I've met 5 of the midwives and only 1 of them has been able to get a fetal heart beat with a doppler.

Now to be honest, I met the first few when I first became pregnant and the heart beat was either not loud enough to be found with a doppler or it wasjust too early. However, at 5 months, I thought that the midwife would have no problem finding it yesterday. Especially since there was no problem finding it last month!

At any rate, because the midwife couldn't find the heartbeat, I got a quick ultrasound. Heartbeat is great - chugging away at 148 beats per minute and the gender is still undetermined because the baby had the cord between it's legs.

Second Post Today - watch out for BRAIN DUMP!!

I go back to the OB/GYN tomorrow for my 20 week appointment. The last time I was in the office, they told me they wanted to go ahead and schedule me for a 1 hour gestational diabetes scan for my next visit. What I failed to do and they failed to let me know was if I needed to fast before test.

A thorough search of the Internets (you know the Internets - it's a series of TUBES, but it's also not a truck ) showed that in most cases fasting isn't necessary. In fact, if I fail this one and have to take the 3 hour test, I have to eat extra snacks in addition to the nasty glucola.

I left a message for the doctor's office on Friday asking if I needed to fast for the test tomorrow and I finally got the call back this morning.

I don't have to fast tonight, but I also shouldn't eat anything out of the ordinary. Meaning I shouldn't eat a whole pizza followed by an entire chocolate cake washed down with a gallon of strawberry Quik, unless of course I always eat that way.

Steak and potatoes at Longhorn should be fine :) and I informed Moo of this with great gusto. Baby likes steak.

Next Monday, I go back to the Perinatologist's office for my 20 week ultrasound. They'll be looking at the Sea Monkey's organs and we should find out the sex. I'm sending out a few pregnancy announcements after we find out what we're having.

It's so weird. I'm not worried about gestational diabetes. I figure if I have it, we'll deal with it. I also don't worry about things like C sections and the pain of childbirth. I figure we'll deal with those things when we come to them. I've totally convinced myself that despite all the blogs I've read detailing horrible pregnancies and bad birth experiences that this pregnancy will be totally normal and problem free. In fact, in comparison to Julia or Cecelia, my pregnancy is downright boring.

On the other hand, I worry about how I'll raise our Sea Monkey. I worry about sex and violence on TV. I worry about using some of the techniques my parents used on me. I firmly reject some of my parents child rearing practices, but wholly embrace others. I worry about having a girl, because of the relationship that I had with my mom and she had with her mother and she had with her mother, etc, etc. But I worry about having a boy because I've never been responsible for the care and feeding of a penis (pets don't count - I didn't need to make sure a dog's woo woo was pointed down when I diapered them!).

I am a Jerk

Just hours after posting the previous e-mail lambasting my lack of pregnancy symptoms, I felt a WHOOSH in my tummy. Afterwards, I've felt a few other movements including a very distinctive KICK that surprised me into silence. It's still a little early to feel the baby move a lot, but having felt some movement makes me feel better about the pregnancy.

This is one time that I really hate being fat - I can't really see that I'm pregnant... but I can definitely feel my uterus when lying down. It's right under my belly button where it should be according to the books. Additionally, my weight loss has tapered off - just 20 pounds off since becoming pregnant. With the baby getting bigger and my weight not changing, I have to assume that I'm still losing weight, but the baby weight is making up for it.

Nausea is now a symptom of hunger. Or it could be that nausea is still a symptom of pregnancy, but I can relieve it by eating. Weird.

One little known pregnancy complaint - at least by me - is nasal congestion and snoring and HOO BUDDY do I have both of those. Previously, I only snored when I had a cold, however since becoming pregnant, I've awakened MYSELF snoring and apparently have the same decible level as a freight train. Poor Moo resorted to sleeping in our newly renovated guest room Saturday morning and last night used the ear plugs that I use when swimming. This morning, he declared that ear plugs were now the shower gift he would give expecting Dads.

My Effexor withdrawal is going well. I've completed tapered down to 37.5 mg and have begun to taper down further. For the last couple weeks, I've purposely missed one dosage each week.

I've read about others experience in withdrawing from Effexor and I have to say that I have experienced many of the same symptoms. The spacey feeling is probably the one I hate the most with tinnitus coming in at a close second. I've also had some decidedly irritable moments - pitched one little fit Saturday morning. Emotional instability is pretty common in pregnancy so I'm not sure whether the hissy fit on Saturday should be blamed on withdrawal or pregnancy.