30 Weeks!

I’m 30 weeks today! 70 days left! Baby is probably around 3 lbs and 16 inches long! I have not had any Braxton Hicks contractions and I’m wondering if I’ll experience those soon. It is amazing how God made the human body. With pregnancy, I am amazed at how a woman’s stomach can grow so big! And I still have 10 weeks to go! I haven’t gotten any stretch marks yet. I use a lot of lotion on my skin, but I’m not really worried about trying to prevent anything like that.

I’ve been considering what to write on my birth plan. I will try to upload a copy of it when I finish. Our hospital is very pro-natural birth, as I’ve seen from talking to my OB as well as the birth center tour I attended. They also provide birth plan paperwork to fill in, and the first question they ask is if you desire a natural birth with no medication and only natural ways of reducing pain. So, that is great!

I’m having a little bit more back pain, actually in my upper back, which is unusual. I’ve been going to the chiropractor once a week and actually have my next appointment today so I really think that has been beneficial.

I feel pretty prepared and excited. I have all the diapers I need to start, I recently prepped all my prefolds and inserts. I’ve been working on several different projects. One new thing is that I started another website/blog. It is a personal finance blog mostly geared toward mothers: www.momspersonalfinance.com. I know there are already so many of these types of blogs, but I really enjoy reading various frugal ideas and I think everyone has different experiences to share. It will also be a motivation to myself to keep living frugally. So, I will keep this blog as just a personal family blog and expand my personal finance ideas on the other website.

OB Appointment Update

I had my last monthly appointment today and will go to appointments every 2 weeks now. My OB felt my stomach and said the baby is facing down in a good position! I don’t know how she can know that by feeling, I’ve tried to feel the position of the baby and I can’t figure it out! She forgot to give me the flu shot, so I’ll do that in 2 weeks. My next appointment will also include the Group B Strep test. Hopefully I don’t have that, but she said it’s pretty common and in about 30% of all women. I will also start to rotate appointments with all OBs in the group, so I can get to know them all, since there is no way to know who will be on call when I go into labor.

I visited the pediatrician’s office and found out when the next “meet and greet” will be. They have these open appointments where you can go and meet all the pediatricians to decide who is a good fit for your baby’s pediatrician. The next thing I need to do is write my birth plan. I’d also like to attend a La Leche League meeting. I just read that exclusive breastfeeding will burn 500-600 calories a day, which could add up to 1lb of weight loss per week. Great way to help lose the baby fat!

29 Weeks

Time is going by really fast. Baby is about 2 1/2 pounds and 15 inches long. I still feel kicking every day but I noticed if I’m busy and moving around a lot I don’t feel her until I sit down and relax. I’ve gained about 25 pounds so far which is a good amount. I bought some compression socks to combat my ankle swelling. I’ve actually noticed that I’ve had less ankle swelling recently, even when I do not wear the socks, so that is interesting. It’s really hard to bend over so it’s not cool to drop something on the floor and have to pick it up.

I really like my chiropractor. Over the weekend, I went to a lot of different places with my husband and we walked around for several hours and I got a pinched nerve pain in my back. That was my first back pain. I put an ice pack on it and the next day went to the chiropractor and the pain is totally gone now. She gave me some stretches to do to prevent future back pain so that was helpful.

I had a baby shower last Saturday! It was such a fun day. The friends who organized it had it all scheduled with games and other events and it will be a great memory. My husband came along in order to take pictures, but they also used him for several of the games. My mom gave me a really nice baby memory book for the first 5 years, so that will be something special to use.

We went on a tour of the Family Birth Center. My mom also joined my husband and I. It is a relatively new part of the hospital and is very nice. The rooms were a lot larger than I imagined and they provide many things for the laboring mother: drinks, snacks, jacuzzi, television, DVDs, music, etc. All rooms are very private and have their own bathroom, lazy boy chair and a fold out bed for any support person that comes with you that might want to sleep. They are also very pro-natural birth and have a lot of items to use for natural pain relief during labor, such as big exercise balls, squat bars, the jacuzzi, etc.

I’m starting to get more tired in the afternoons. I actually took a nap yesterday and I never take naps. I read that you should try to practice taking naps, since that will be necessary when baby comes and you should nap when she does. It will definitely be a life change. I do not have any other normal pregnancy problems like heartburn or constipation, so I am very grateful. I feel that I have my long torso to thank since perhaps it gives baby more room and doesn’t crowd my esophagus!

28 Weeks

I am 28 weeks today and officially in the 3rd trimester! I had my 3-hour glucose screening test yesterday. I just found out the result today and my glucose is totally normal, so that is a great relief! The test was very long, I was at the lab for 4 hours, and I was so tired the rest of the day, but I am so glad it came back totally normal!

I had my first chiropractic appointment today and it really felt good. She said I have tightness in my neck, which is normal for someone who used to work at a desk all day. I am no longer working at my very stressful accounting job, but I still work on the computer several hours a day at home, but it should not be as harmful as my full time job. She thinks the neck tightness is the cause of the numbness in my arms. She also gave me a Jade Plant! I was admiring the beautiful plant in the restroom and asked her what it was. She said it was from a large Jade tree that she separated into several different plants and transplanted them and then asked me if I’d like one. I put it on our windowsill next to the baby crib. How sweet!

Our last Lamaze class is tonight. I’ve really enjoyed the class and can’t believe it’s over. 12 weeks until baby comes!

27 Weeks

I’m 27 weeks pregnant today. Only 13 weeks left! I was ironically talking last week about how I haven’t had any type of health issues during this pregnancy and have felt great the whole time. My doctor’s office called a few days ago and said I was slightly anemic (my iron was low) and my glucose was slightly high after the 1-hour glucose test. I was very surprised because I think I eat a pretty healthy diet. I eat a lot of vegetables and good proteins. Anyway, I started taking an iron supplement, which is no big deal and I will have to do the 3-hour glucose tolerance test to check if the first test was just a fluke. I read online that it is very common to have false positives on the 1-hour test, because it is so strict. So, most women who need to take the 3-hour test find out that they do not have a glucose problem, so I hope that is also the case with me. I also checked my own blood glucose with my mom’s glucose monitor. I checked it 3 times: before I ate, after I ate and later at night. My fasting glucose was 78, which is lower than the average range, the other 2 numbers were 90 something, which is still very low, especially after eating, so that is strange.

I’ll have this test next Wednesday. It is a lot more involved than the 1-hour test. My instructions are to eat normally (above 150 carbs) for the 3 days prior to the test. Then I will fast starting at 10pm the day before the test. The test is at 8am the next morning. I will go into the lab and they will take a blood sample after fasting. Then I will drink this high glucose drink and wait in the lab while they take 3 more blood samples at 1 hour, 2 hours and 3 hours after the glucose drink. So, I’ll be in the lab about 4 hours. Fun stuff.

Nothing else is really new with the pregnancy. It is getting harder for me to put my shoes on, which is such a weird experience. Our baby girl is still kicking every day, but I haven’t had any movements that I can see visually. I’ve heard that you can sometimes actually see your belly move and change shape as the baby moves, but I haven’t experienced that yet. We have our 3rd Lamaze class tonight. The class is 4 weeks long, 3 hours each class. Next week I start going to the chiropractor and the week after that, we will have the tour of the birthing center, which I’m very excited to attend.

One amazing thing that happened last week is that I put an ad on freecycle to ask if anyone had any baby girl clothes they didn’t need or wanted to get rid of. I got an email from a very nice lady who said she’d like me to give me all of her 3-12 month baby girl clothes! So, I met her and she gave me 3 large boxes of clothing! She has 2 daughters and the youngest no longer fits in any of them, so she wanted to get rid of them. The clothing includes onesies, pants, shirt, jackets, socks, hats, 4 pairs of little shoes, and a few swimsuits. They are definitely used, but most of them are very cute. I think that wonderful lady probably saved me a few hundred dollars! A few items I will probably donate, like there is a cute shirt that says “Kiss Me I’m Irish”, but there is not a speck of Irish in either of my husband or I, so yeah, I probably don’t want that one 🙂 but I will definitely use everything else.

Baby Wipes

I made some flannel baby wipes. Yes, I’m getting a little weirdly creative in my downtime. It was fun for maybe the first wipe, but yeah… I’m just not a sewing person so I don’t think I’ll do that again. I used my mom’s sewing machine, which must be at least 30 years old, and I only broke it once. Well, two unidentifiable metal pieces decided to dislodge themselves from somewhere and I couldn’t figure out how to get them back in for a while… but it all worked out in the end. I also ran out of white thread and was too lazy to re-thread the lower bobbin, so I just switched to black for the remainder of the project. Yes, it’s pitiful. But, it’s a baby wipe, who cares what color the thread is. Here’s what I did:

I basically cut 8×10 inch pieces of flannel with a zigzag scissors, then stitched the edges with a large zigzag stitch. Oh, I also found some random camouflage handkerchief material and thought I’d stitch that up as well just for fun. Interesting project. If I need any more cloth baby wipes, I will probably just use some thin baby washcloths like these that I was given.