Rocker/glider!!

We got our rocker/glider and ottoman yesterday!





It's more burgandy than the pictures let on. New belly pictures posted in the photo album.

BG has been lifting weights and trying using those new muscles to try to escape through my right side. No longer is it cute little kicks, now it's brutal blows and spaz attacks creating internal bruising. The carpal tunnel continues. Today it was so bad when I got up, I couldn't write period, my hand couldn't hold the pen. But only in my right hand. The left has only had one episode of tingling. I've resorted to wearing a brace pretty much constantly at work and most of the time not at work. My next doctor appointment is next Monday, the 8th.

I'm finishing up my last week of first call for the year. Have 2 days of second call next week before leaving for Courtney's wedding.

Oh yeah don't forget to enter your guesses on the BGer's stats! Link to the poll is on the right side tool bar under the photo album.

GD results

Woo Hoo, I passed the 3 hour glucose tolerance test! That means I don't have gestational diabetes. That was the good news for the day, just had to share.

New belly picture to be posted soon, it's getting huge! BG is awake more often now, moving around more frequently, and kicks are getting stronger. She's also starting to do this new stretching of legs thing putting her foot in my ribs.

Yesterday, I started to get this tingly/numb sensation in my right hand when I was charting during my case. Continued today too, more frequently now, and not just when I'm writing, but when I'm doing any fine motor activity. (Actuallly it's tingly and kinda numb now typing.) I'll definitely have to ask the doctor about it. Just think it's kinda odd to show up all the sudden.

EDIT: Looked it up, my hand numbness has a name. Pregnancy-related carpal tunnel syndrome caused by increased fluid retention. (Funny cause my right hand, which is going numb isn't swollen, but my left hand is.)

Okay so I finally got around to doing one of these.

Want to see how your baby predictions stack up against the rest of the family's? Want bragging rights come BG's arrival? Click below and enter your guess on BG's gender, weight, length, and birthday. PS. If you're one of the few who know the sex enter in what your original predictions were before you found out, just to make it fair... although most of you guessed correctly anyways :)

Update: Doctors appointment, GTT, 3D Ultrasound

CATCH UP:
7.30.08: Wednesday-BG was very active
7.31.08: Thursday was a quiet day.
8.1.08: BG came back with a vengence on Friday. Kicking like mad starting at 3am. Was still breech at this time so the kicks were to the pelvic region. Punches to the round ligament, jabs to the pelvic bone, and entire River Dance numbers on the cervix. Around 10am there was a huge summersault. About that time I was getting ready for work and I got the biggest punch to some internal organ ever! It hurt like mad. I instantly got tears in my eyes and screamed out loud. This internal organ fight continued most of the afternoon. Think BG fell asleep around 5pm during my case, but I was so sore all weekend.
8.2.08: Thankfully BG woke me up Saturday kicking me in the right side. WOO HOO no more breech. I figured it was just a momentary phase, but she seems to like it there for now. We got BG's dresser/changer. It's all set up and full of the expanding wardrobe. Here it is:


8.5.08: Had my usual every 4 week appointment (okay so maybe it was like 3 since my last one, I dunno I don't do the scheduling). This time I saw another new doctor Dr. Hershe. I was one of the last appointments for the day and had a bunch to do at this appointment. I had to take the glucose challenge test. This is where you drink a super sugary drink with a known amount of sugar, and then they draw your blood an hour later and check your glucose level. It's a test for gestational diabetes. At the same time they do a test called the Indirect Coombs test, which you have to have done before you can get your RhoGam shot. I had to go back to get the RhoGam shot the next day (Chris found out his blood type is A+) since they closed before I got back from the lab. But my blood pressure fine (for once), measurements were good, did the ultrasound to check the baby's position and BG is head down now--YAY! The doctor said it's "very unlikely" that the baby will turn breech at this point, which would be completely lovely considering the great pain I was in on Friday.

8.6.08: BG was kicking like mad when we were going to bed. Since the feet are on my right side, I was laying on my left so Chris could feel the kicks. BG didn't let up, so I took the opportunity to poke around and try to see if I could tell if it was a knee, leg, heel, whole foot... I definitely found a foot. It was so cool. A little over an inch and a quarter or so long. BG held it up against my belly between my two fingers just long enough for me to figure out what it was.

8.9.08: Today was super busy! I failed my glucose screening test (by 5 points), so today I had to take the 3 hour Glucose Tolerance Test (GTT). Here's what the test consisted of:
*No food/drink after 8pm. Water is okay. Not too hard, but I really wanted something to eat this morning after waking up at 5:30am.
*Arrive at 7am when the lab opens (okay earlier if you want to be registered and start the test ASAP), so I got there at 6:45 and so glad I did. By 7 the place was standing room only!
*Fasting blood draw (RESULTS: baseline of 81 fasting.)
*100g sugar drink. Don't know what the one before it was, but I think it was 50g. But this one was fruit punch flavored.
*Wander around the hospital for a while. BG was freaking out jumping and spazzing all over the place. Little kick here, head butt there, knee to mom's arm...
*Played mario party on my nintendo ds. Thank goodness I brought that thing. I would have died from boredom!
*1 hour blood draw (RESULTS: 141)
*Texted Chris and my mom multiple times. Kept getting these little throw up burps of fruit punch. Ugh, I hate that! Discovered that Kaiser has wireless internet available on the hospital/clinic sites. SCORE, another way to kill time! By now I think BG went into a sugar coma and totally quit moving.
*2 hour blood draw. By this time I was getting that jittery feeling. (RESULTS: 156, tagged as high, no idea what that means for the final results).
*Some more Mario.
*3 hour draw. She had to stick me in my forearm. Never had blood drawn there before, and it hurt like mad! Was so excited to be done, and be allowed to eat. I made a bee line for the car. A granola bar never tasted so good. (RESULTS: 88)

Went to Ella's 1st Birthday Party. Can't believe it's already been a year. She's already walking!

Then we went to the 3D ultrasound. I really wanted to get one done just for the pictures. I think it's a neat keepsake of something that only happens once. So the good pictures are uploaded in the photo album. BG was stubborn (like Chris and I) and covered the face for the majority of the appointment. Spent most of the appointment napping, with an arm across the face, or a hand in the mouth sucking a thumb, and when the hands moved out of the way BG decided it was time to snuggle up against the placenta. So we only got a few good pictures. We also have a DVD, so we'll have to see how that turned out. Figures as soon as we leave the ultrasound place to go to dinner, the kicking and jumping around started.

Only 12 weeks (or less, since a lot of people have a feeling BG is going to make an early appearance) til we get to meet the BGer.

Aches and Pains are back! Furniture time!

This week my back has been killing me. Sciatic nerve pain sucks. I've tried heating pad, I've tried ice. I tried stretching. I tried my tennis ball to see if my vertebrae is twisted a gain. I tried massage, but got little relief the past few times. I can't believe I'm actually contemplating it, but I'm seriously looking into a chiropractor.

It's gotten so bad that sleeping at night has become hard b/c no position is comfortable, so I torque my body into funky positions which has put knots in my upper back.

My round ligament pain is back on the right side. Today the entire lower abdomen was sore like that. BG has been practicing tae bo so often my pelvis is sore from the abuse. Wednesday night I did a heart transplant overnight and so sore. Guess the BGer likes to be breech.

Washed more BG clothes. This kid has a better wardrobe then Chris and I. We ordered the rocker/glider today. We'd been putting it off for so long, it was about time. We are looking to order the dresser/changer soon, but back to contemplating what we want. Well we know what we want, but we don't have room for it. Oh well, we'll still search. We found a wood furniture shop down the street to day, we'll have to check to see what we can find there.

Oh and BIG NEWS for the week: My belly button popped out yesterday. Okay so it was just the top, but it's a start :)

New belly pictures are up from Hawaii, and one from Friday in the album.

whirlwind update: new doc, kicks and pains

Okay I've become a slacker. Didn't realize it had been that long since I'd updated!

Work has been very busy, I was definitely ready for a vacation. We left on Saturday 7/12, and got back at 9am this morning 7/20 from Maui. I'll post some beach belly pictures in the photo album soon.

Right before we left for vacation I had a doctor appointment with a new doctor. My doctor had told me that next appointment we'd do the glucose test, but he is booked solid at conferences and stuff all summer, so I have to see a different doctor the next 2 appointments. So on July 11, I saw Doctor Gordon. Such a nice old school type OB. He used the fetal Doppler so we could actually hear the baby's heartbeat instead of just see it on the ultrasound. He told me he was going to wait on the glucose test since I was only 23weeks6days, and it's done between 24 and 28 weeks. (All that prep work avoiding things that spike my sugars for nothing!) That way we can do the RhoGam shot, and glucose testing together.

**WARNING TOO MUCH INFORMATION AHEAD... SKIP BELOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW***
On Thursday (7/10) before my appointment I started to get a new pregnancy pain... a swift kick in a place I'd rather not be kicked again. Thursday I started to notice the flutters low in my pelvis started to become associated with this sharp pain in my crotch, often making me want to cross my legs and bend down in pain. Often making me yell at BG out loud. ("baby please stop!") I attribute it to the equivalent of a guy getting hit in the nether region. So Friday at the doctor, I asked about this pain and the doctor confirmed what I pretty much already knew... cervical tap dancing was going on! He did a quick ultrasound, and sure enough the baby was breech. No worries now, just something to keep an eye on in the coming weeks.
***END TOO MUCH INFO***

Saturday (7/12) I woke up to that same wonderful tap dancing and decided to call for desperate measures, as the pain is quite annoying and at times excruciating. Not a good way to wake up before getting on a plane. I got an ice pack and placed it low on my pelvis for a few minutes. BG definitely didn't like that, and kicked and kicked. But in the end I won. She turned enough so I could enjoy the plane ride (the best any 6 month pregnant person can enjoy a 5 hour plane ride). Although BG was still pretty angry because everything that touched my belly (arm, hand, gameboy, tray table) got a nice hard kick. BG's activity continued Sunday and Monday, but has since started to die down. Maybe all those car rides and walking around tired out the BGer?

BG is pretty quiet now, has been for a few days. Get the occasional moving around flutter, but no serious workout moves. Maybe it's growing time again? That's the past few weeks in a nutshell. I'll post when I put up new pictures in the album.

Crib, Kicks, and Goodies

Got the crib this week, way earlier than we thought we'd get it. And me being the impatient one that I am, we put it together already! So pretty. It's the official start of something that resembles a nursery.



Went to the doctor on Tuesday. Fetal assessment scan was good, everything looked normal. I'm allowed to fly at 32 weeks, so I can go to D2 wedding barring any problems that may come up. Next appointment I have to take the glucose tolerance test to test for gestational diabetes. The ultrasound pictures we got at this appointment were not very good, so there aren't any to share in that department.

I felt BG kick for the first time on Wednesday morning! :) I'd been noticing last week that around 8-10am I'd feel these strong movements, but every time I put my hand on my belly they stopped. I was also up walking around, getting ready to go on bypass most of those times. But on Wednesday I went into work later. Around 8:30 I felt the same type of movement while lying in bed. I quickly put my hand on my belly and BG kicked it pretty hard, and once more a little softer. I felt it a little last night around 3am during a potty trip. It definitely made my day! BG's not big enough to hit anything major yet, so it's still very cool to feel the movements. I know I'll probably be begging for it to stop when my ribs, liver, kidneys, bladder are getting abused.

I also got a box full of baby goodies from my mom this week. Apparently she took full advantage of sale priced baby items when she's been out and about :) BG's wardrobe before consisted of a 8 onesies, 4 sets of baby mittens, 2 hats, and 3 pairs of socks. It's definitely doubled with the package: 2 $3 onesies with matching booties. The cutest little bathrobe with a duck on it. 2 layette gowns. A set of matching long sleeved sleeper, hat, booties, and bib. A set of 2 onesies and pair of pants which was perfect coming from a grandma. And a UofA onesie! GO CATS! There was also stuff from our registry: 2 boppy slip covers, a pack of blankets, a swaddler, and a tigger blanket (which apparently she got before she knew the nursery was going to be done in pooh). Our pile of baby stuff is growing!!!! Here's some pictures of the goodies: