Lookee, a baby bat!

I was walking past Barnes & Noble and I saw what I thought was a large hairy moth with folded wings. But no, it was a baby bat, sleeping upside down. The large end at the top is the bum! I peered closely in like a crazy lady to see the little hands and a bit of the face. I thought it was very cute. It was about 2 inches long.

A midnight ramble

Hi y'all. The kids' first day of school is tomorrow. They laid out their clothes, and I have their bookbags all ready to go. As a treat they will be allowed to buy lunches for this short week, but after that, they will be packing lunches from home. I have new lunch kits for them and new sandwich boxes to keep their sandwiches from being crushed.

I made banana bread tonight to use up some overripe bananas. I used a new recipe that took forever to bake and now I am too tired to sleep.

Some other moms and I are going out for lunch to celebrate school starting tomorrow and I laid out my clothes. I'm excited! I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes today so I will be watching what I eat and drink, I promise. Steve came home and did his part to encourage me to eat better by giving me the evil eye for drinking soda. I had to finish the last bit inteh house, and savor it, right? And he and the kids finished off the last of the ice cream in the house. It's ok--I had some previously, and I didn't want any. :-)

It is going to be hard to give up soda cold turkey. Sigh. And Steve gets us donuts on some Sunday mornings. Oh well. I am in no mood to birth a 10 or 12 pound baby!

I shampooed the carpets the other night, after everyone was asleep. It looks nice. The kitchen floor needs mopping again though.

We have internet after two days of not having connectivity. Our provider stinks, but they have a monopoly in our area, so what can we do?

Tomorrow night's dinner (or is it tonight, since it is after midnight?) is chicken and corn sauce. Sounds nasty, but tastes good. I promise.

Steve was pretty ill last night and today and I think he is slowly feeling better. Just some random bug that affected only him, thankfully. But poor Steve!

I change weeks every Tuesday so today (yesterday?) I hit 30 weeks. Steve told me on Monday that I have "popped." Yeah, my belly pokes out a little!

My next doctor's appointment is on Friday. I will learn more about GD and how to handle it, as well as get the Ffn (fetal fibronectin) test for early labor. I am doing ok. I am moving ever slower as each day passes. I still have the achy joints and my hips and pelvis get ready for delivery. I'm excited--will I go early again or actually make it past 37 weeks? If I don't, I cannot deliver at the birth center and I must deliver at the actual hospital. We shall see what happens!

So when the kids go to school tomorrow, I can do my maintenance cleaning on the main floor, and fold the laundry waiting on my folding table, and feel productive, and probably before 10 AM! Yay for the first day of school--because I am excited, I will be able to pop out of bed! Of course I will end up exhausted tomorrow afternoon, but oh well.

I need to find my camera. It is either on my nightstand or downstairs in my Winnie the Pooh bag. I think. But I need pictures of the kids on their first day! Jonathan will be in 6th grade, which would be middle school in other places but is still elementary here. I remember his first day of school, where his bookbag was standard size and swallowed him up, and he was mad because they had an orientation where we all drove to school. He wanted to ride the bus, thank you!

And Katie will be in the second grade. I remember her first day of school--we showed up early to peek in the window before her day ended and her hair was in pony tails, and they were so droopy by then, and so were her shoulders. She was sad from missing us by then--and it was only a half day!

Well it is 1 AM now, so I am going to try and get some sleep before tomorrow!

Nesting!

Steve and I were both nesting today, doing tons of things. one of the things was actually hanging the altered letters on the nursery wall. I am going to get some butterfly wall clings to liven it up, because the wall is a little bare, but here they are! Hope you all like them. It's late and I am beat. Will post later!

Appointment update

So I went in at 9, swilled down the orange slop, sat there for an hour with both kids and then got my blood drawn. We killed time at a few stores, went out to lunch, then it was back to the doctor for test results and RhoGam. I failed my glucose test and have to do a redo next week, the 3 hour test this time. I lost 5 pounds of water weigh in 7 days since I have been there last--holy cankles, Batman! I also had to give a second urine sample when the first showed blood in it?? I have no idea what that is about. I am not spotting, I have no pain. Maybe it is a budding bladder infection? I gave a second sample so they are going to grow cultures in it and see what's going on. That's about it. I expected a ho-hum, in and out appointment, and I was there all day. My blood pressure is better though. And I start going every 2 weeks now. I will keep you updated, but right now, I am tired and want to go lay down.

Pictures!

OK I will write a little while I wait for my pictures to load up...

Tomorrow is my doctor's appointment, and I am drinking a ton of water for two reasons--one, I enjoy waking several times a night to use the toilet, and two, to hydrate myself for tomorrow's blood draw. I have to fast after midnight until my blood is drawn so I am trying to fill up with water so maybe my veins will be more cooperative tomorrow. Eh, yeah right!

I am trying to upload my 28 weeks / 7 months pregnant picture. Yay for the third trimester!ETA: It is uploaded and is an okay shot, but does not have the best background. I just told Steve to take it with me standing in front of a chair. You can barely see the chair, but at least you can see the fridge in the background--I am not that big yet! Sorry for the blinding light from the kitchen!

The other 2 pictures are of the new puppy--a face shot and then one of her curled up on Max, the long-suffering big-brother dog. My cell phone is SLOW. OK they are uploaded at the top now!

So what else? I can't wait for school to start! The kids have new backpacks and lunch kits, and a few school supplies, but we are waiting for specific lists from the teachers. We got new socks and underwear and a new outfit each. Maybe tomorrow we will get some new shoes. Maybe not tomorrow. I don't know.

I am so tired lately--it has been 7 years since I was this pregnant and I forget how tired one becomes just doing small things. Stephanie will be here in a few weeks! Whee!

A few of you have been asking how I have been doing. I finished my prednisone prescription and the inflammation is greatly reduced. It hurts to talk, so I haven't been on the phone much. My teeth still feel "electric"and eating is a challenge to keep them from touching, lest I end up on the floor, writhing. Just kidding! I do have to eat carefully, but as days pass, fewer teeth feel like they are live wires. As long as I don't think about anything that drives me insane, or get worked up at anything and raise my voice, my face does not start the "death twitch."

That's about it. I will update after tomorrow's appointment, but I don't expect it to be too exciting. Off to chug water before bed! --Jenn

Two appointment updates for y'all

I could not wait until today's appointment to get my facial pain attended to. I went in on Wednesday. I have been diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuralgia, (look it up, it is interseting and it sucks, too) which in my case is caused and exascerbated by stress. So those three stressful event basically made my face explode or erupt or something. I am under doctor's orders to have NO stress for the remainder of my pregnancy, and to minimize it thereafter because it can certainly recur.

Steve is under orders to be my stress-interceptor for the pregnancy. He has seen me in some serious pain, and I know he will do all he can to keep it from coming back and putting me through that again. I know he wanted to help me, but there was nothing he could do to alleviate my pain. There still isn't anything anyone can do. I cannot take narcotics because of the baby. I am on prednisone for a few days to try to lay the smack down on my inflamed nerves. Hopefully it will work ok and I will start meditating or something because I can't do that pain any more. It is debilitating. I can give birth unmedicated but with this all I could do was lay in a ball and sob, and live in fear of the next attack. Yesterday I had a few episodes but I felt so much better that I made a cherry pie, 3 loaves of homemade bread, and my first homemade chicken pot pie.

So today I went to the OB, and everything is ok for now. We listened to the baby's heartbeat, I am measuring right on schedule, and I go back next week for my glucose test and Rhogam shot. Because I am a little swollen and my blood pressure is a little up, they will also screen me for toxemia. The doctor is not too alarmed yet, because my pain might be what is raising my BP, and also swelling is normal at this stage in the game. He says he is just being careful.

That's about it. I think next week's lab tests will determine if I am still at monthly appointments or if I go to 2 week appointments, and I will keep you posted. For now I am going to take my sore face and lay down. Oh yeah--Baby is doing well, and getting big. She should be about 2 pounds and 14 inches long. The other day she kicked me in my boob! Woohoo! Also, I promised a belly pic--I will have Steve take one tonight and post it later.

Um, ow. My face hurts.

Ok I am going to complain for a minute here. My face hurts on the right side. It is a nerve gone haywire and it has been a bad few days. I first noticed it a couple of months ago. I would wake up in the middle of the night with horrible face pain. I thought it was a sinus thing and brought it up to the doctor at my next visit. He told me some medicine I could take, but I didn't because the pain didn't recur. Fast forward to the past two weeks, where these episodes have increased in frequency and severity. I am in throbbing pain (and tears) multiple times a day. It is a pain to cry silently (with a cold compress against my face) so I don't scare my kids.

I described my face pain on the internet to my message boards. One board is a group of pregnant women, and I asked if anyone else had pain like mine--coming suddenly, intense pain that radiated from the temple/eye, down through the nose and lips, and the whole upper and lower jaw, and making my teeth feel electric. Lather, rinse, repeat countless times a day.

A lady said that it sounded like I have what she has--Trigeminal neuralgia. I looked it up and there is an illustration of the face, and the trigeminal nerve. Lo and behold it goes all over where my pain is!

I don't know if my OB has ever heard of this, but I am taking a printout of the description with me to my appointment on Friday, to either get it ruled out or to get a diagnosis. Either way I need some pain relief because Tylenol is not touching this pain. The pain laughs when I take Tylenol. Loudly.

I wonder if it gets worse with stress? Because I was pain-free for a couple of months and then all of a sudden, in the past week, when I have had three very stressful issues crop up and get my hormones raging. For te past three days, here I am with a face full of pain. I hope it goes away when the baby is born, if it is pregnancy-related, or sooner if it is stress-related. I will take up meditation if I have to. I have got to do something about this pain. I thought my pregnancy aches were bad? Please. I still have them and they are overshadowed by this face pain.

You know what's funny? I would rather trade my sciatic nerve pain and my crotch pain o' doom (thanks for the term, RockPrincess) every day for the rest of this pregnancy, *and* go 2 weeks overdue than have my face hurt even one more time. Please, G-d? Please? I need some prayers y'all because this face pain HURTS.

Off to meditate, and try to sleep.

Six and a half months

It has been a few weeks since I updated. I cannot sleep much at night because of SPD pain. Basically, everything around my pubic bone is stretching and growing and loosening, and it can cause some major pain. I didn't have this with my previous pregnancies. It's a whole new ball game. Couple that with sciatica, which is also new to me, and walking is fun! Walking, sitting, standing, sleeping. I spend couple hours in the bathtub at night, because the warm water helps, but after I haul myself out of the tub, I get stiff again. I spend part of the night in my bed, and usually end up sleeping sitting up in my big blue chair. It is a nice, overstuffed monstrosity, and sheer exhaustion makes it a nice place to try to sleep. I get about 4 or 5 hours a night, then Steve and the kids get up. I am alert for a while, but then I snooze for a while to make up for lost sleep. Not complaining, just updating.

I did whine to Steve the other day, and he (nicely, not verbatim) asked me didn't I know what I was getting into when I got pregnant again? Isn't he a funny man! I told him I didn't have these same problems before. Otherwise it would not have been such a surprise.

I have a burning to the left of my belly button. There is a nerve just under the skin and when the baby kicks it, oh man, does it hurt! Morning sickness decreased for about two weeks, to where I was only throwing up 2 or three days a week. It has returned, bringing with it my old friend nausea.

According to the internet, the baby is about 14 inches long from head to toe and weighs about two pounds. I am 26 weeks and two days on Thursday, which is about 30 minutes from now. I told Steve that I feel like we have 10 good weeks before I feel like I am on borrowed time.

The other night I was very upset about something. It was not anything silly like me bursting into tears because I wanted a burrito--this was a real problem. No pregnancy hormones involved. I tried talking about it with my mom, Steve and a neighbor for advice and I still couldn't see a peaceful resoltion. I was very agitated. Then I had a few stabby cramps in my cervix and freaked right out. I drank a load of water and took a warm bath and also laid on my left side and "let go" of the agitation. No way was I in the mood to have a micropreemie! I had some pretty scary, tight Braxton-Hicks for over an hour, but they lessened in severity ater 45 minutes, and would only recur if I moved. So I went to sleep. Lesson to self: don't get so spun up over stuff, even if it is actually a big deal.

I feel bad for the doctor, who I go to see again on August 10th. For the past months I have been a quick, in-and-out, no-problems patient, and this visit I get to go in with a laundry list! Pitting edema and high blood pressure about a week ago which took three days of water guzzling and major salt reduction to fix, recurrent edema (but not to the level of pitting because I am still reducing salt and guzzling water), horrible SPD pain, Sciatica, persistent morning sickness, Braxton-Hicks, etc. I am going to ask when I will go on light duty and/or bed rest. I feel like it will be soon and I told Steve that I need to get a few things done before I go to the doctor. I am afraid he will hear my litany and say "Go lay down!"

It is not quite nesting, it is just fear that I will be confined before I can scrub my baseboards. I already scrubbed out my refrigerator gasket with a toothbrush. How does it get so nasty? Heh. Maybe it *is* nesting. I also want to bake things, like a cherry pie, which I got the fixins for today, and bread from scratch like I used to. I am going to make a chicken pot pie too, and I have never made one before. I made blueberry jam last week.

I have yammered on long enough. I will update again after the doctor's visit. I am going to try and lay down. Oh yeah--Stop and Shop's brand of Maple Cinnamon bread is divine. That is all.