Pop goes my belly

25 Weeks

So, I've popped.  I feel like I've suddenly gotten huge.  Since Chris took a long time to tie his tie this morning, he didn't get to take a picture, so I'll have to take one later.  But seriously, he's suddenly there. 

So how am I feeling now (besides huge)?  Well, I've noticed that if I sit hunched over or when I'm laying down, sometimes I need to take deep breaths.  They said that would happen.  He's taking over my lung space.  Movement has picked up.  I'm starting to feel sharper body parts as opposed to little bumps...it's like an elbow or a knee jamming into my stomach and then wiggling around.  Luckily it has not yet become uncomfortable (except for when he decides to dance on my bladder or cervix -- NOT FUN).  At church on Sunday, you could see my stomaching bumping from the little party John was throwing inside.  Apparently, he likes to rock out to church music.

Heartburn is happening still, but it's not getting worse yet.  I've been trying to take the recommended precautions to help head it off, at least for a little while.  I'm trying to eat more often, not drink mass amounts of water on an empty stomach, chew non-mint gum (did you know mint can make heartburn worse...and your saliva can neutralize stomach acid, thus the chewing of gum to produce saliva), and keep my tums close by my side.  Ice cream and chocolate milk help, too :)

We've been making headway on the getting ready for baby front, as well.  I signed us up for a childbirth class yesterday.  Because of our work schedules, we aren't able to take the one that meets for an hour over a 6 week period.  Instead, we get to spend an entire Saturday learning about the joys of labor and delivery :)  We'll get a tour of the hospital, too.  I'm hoping we also get snacks.

We've also started registering (there's not much on there yet...hopefully we'll get the rest of it done, soon) and we picked out furniture for our little guy's room.  Too bad his room STILL isn't cleaned out.  Soon, I promise.  It's kind of crazy thinking about how his arrival really isn't that far away.  And can you believe Thanksgiving is next week??

24 Weeks

Whoa, 6 months!  Can you believe it?  I know I can't.  Just 4 more to go (since technically, it's 40 weeks -- I have 16 weeks left).  My little countdown to the right will soon be under 100 days! 

I'm still feeling good.  One bad thing, though.  Heartburn has started, I think.  In the past week and a half, I've had it 3 times.  You're probably like wimp, what's 3 times, but I NEVER get heartburn...I think I can count on one hand how many times I've had it before now.  And frankly, I don't know how people deal with it -- it's awful!  And what a horrible thought that it's probably just going to get worse.  My friend, Gina, told me to get a big bottle of tums and carry it with me at all times, because I'm going to need it.  I've started to notice kicks up under my ribs during the day at work, and the heartburn usually starts around midday, so I wonder if it's our little Johnny actually kicking the acid out of my stomach that is causing it.  Thanks, buddy :)

Can you believe the holidays are almost here?  Starting after this weekend, I feel like things really start to pick up and we're not going to have time to take a breath until the new year.  And then the baby is almost here!  I knew that would happen once November hit.  We've got to find time to decorate John's room sometime soon, though. 

Belly pic coming soon...

Doctor Visit #6

Today I had my next appointment. Everything is looking good. I gained 5 pounds this month, whoops, a pound more than ideal. John's heart rate is at 154 beats and I measured at 26 centimeters. Remember when I said that it's supposed to be 1 cm per week? Well, that means I should be at 23 cm +/-2 cm. So apparently our little Johnny isn't so little. I asked the doctor what that meant and she just said it meant he was growing well :) My mom and Maggie came to the appointment so they could hear the heartbeat. The doctor was having some problems getting a good reading because he was moving around so much :)

I have to go next week for my glucose test. What happens is I fast for 3 hours, then go get my blood drawn. Then they make me drink some nasty sugary drink and wait an hour, then draw my blood again. If my sugar level is good after that, then I'm all good. If it's high, I could have gestational diabetes, so then I have to go for a three hour test to know one way or another for sure.

You may not know this about me, but I can sometimes freak out about things that otherwise sane people may take in stride (if you've ever seen me when there is the threat of a tornado, you know what I'm talking about). Anyway, my ever present tummy ache fulfills many of the symptoms of preterm labor. Yesterday I was totally convinced that I was going into labor. Well, shocking, I wasn't. I just had a stomach ache all day. Just to be sure, I asked my doctor today how to tell the difference between a stomach ache and labor. She explained much clearer what preterm labor would feel like, way clearer than the books, whose job I think it is to scare the crap out of you. Now I know and this will save me plenty of moments (or hours) of panic.

And here is the belly at 23 weeks 2 days:

23 Weeks

We've made it to 23 weeks! John has been kicking up a storm, sometimes so strong that we can see my stomach move. I tried to get a video of it last night, but of course he wasn't cooperating then.

I'm still feeling pretty good. Sleeping is getting increasingly uncomfortable and I pretty much always have a stomach ache (gotta love gas), but if those are the worst of my complaints, I think I'm doing pretty well.

We've been trying to make decisions about baby stuff (Only 17 weeks left!!). We picked out bedding this weekend. It's got whales on it and is super cute :) We still need to get his room cleaned out though, it is currently a disaster.

Belly pic coming soon (I'm on the train right now. It would be quite a sight for me to try and take one now).

P.S. I had some more interesting dreams last night. In one, I was helping out this homeless guy. I got him some food and I was going to give him some money but I couldn't find my debit card to withdraw money. In another I was at the Quarry (the ghetto old one with the blue bottom and chain link fence. Batavia people will know what I'm talking about). My brother was there and he brought Daisy for some reason and then he lost her. I was so angry at him but he told me not to worry because there were some salt caves under the Quarry and she was probably hanging out down there. And then she came swimming up to us. And I think there may have been one about boogers. It was a busy night.

Dreams

Pregnancy can bring on some very odd dreams.  It's even more odd for me since most of the time, I can't remember my dreams.  For your amusement, here are just a few that I've had since I became pregnant.

Just last night, I had a dream that I was in the hospital to have surgery.  I had a new doctor who was going to perform the surgery, who was studying under my OB/Gyn (although I was not pregnant in the dream, nor did the surgery have anything to do with girl parts).  I waited and waited, but no one came to do the surgery.  So finally I was like this is stupid, I'm leaving.  But when I tried to leave I found out the hospital was on lock down because they had been doing some kind of experimental treatment with radioactivity on athletes (??), and it had leaked, so we were all potentially radioactive.  They were performing tests on people to see if they could leave.  Basically, if you hadn't become totally stupid, you were fine to go.  I was totally fine and trying to leave, but then this army general looking guy was trying to make me stay, so then I had to escape.  I was running away through the parking lot when I woke up.

I've had a few marriage ones, too.  One, for some reason, our marriage certificate had expired and we needed to get married again.  The oddest part was that the wedding was at my OB/Gyn's house and she was performing the ceremony.  But then she said she couldn't do it because Chris had been divorced before.  They had even had a cake, but they wouldn't let us eat it because we couldn't get married.

I also had one where we were getting married again.  I was upset because I didn't like the wedding dress I was wearing and just wanted to wear the one I wore for our first wedding.

Way back in the beginning, I had one where my friend Jessica and I were competing at the state gymnastics meet.  My old gymnastics coach was there and she was yelling at me and told me I had to do bars (now, if any of you know anything about my gymnastic ability, you know that bars was always a joke of an event for me -- in high school, I was even told I could skip that rotation at practice and just do floor or vault again instead).  I didn't have my wrist bands for my grips, so I had to borrow Jessica's which were like 3 inches thick, so I could barely get my grips on.  Also, there was a huge mat under the low bar that left like a foot of space.  I asked the judge if I could move the mat because I couldn't mount if it was there, but she told me I couldn't.  My coach yelled at me again and told me my feet better not touch the mat (which was impossible, since there was only about a foot space between the mat and the low bar).  And then it started raining in the gym.

I know there are more random ones like these, I just can't remember them anymore.  I've heard a lot of people have dreams about giving birth and the like, but I'm not even pregnant in any of my dreams.  It has been fun for me, though, to actually remember them.  I think Chris just thinks I'm crazy :)

A Good Sign?

So Daisy has always been a cuddle bug.  When we first got her, she used to sleep across my neck like a scarf (waaaaay to heavy to do that now), then for a long time, she slept curled up by my head.  I have always been a stomach sleeper, but due to the insistence of my dog (a cold nose incessantly nudging your face in the middle of the night is good encouragement), I had been sleeping on my back a lot so she could sleep in her lately preferred place in the crook of my arm.  She's always been a hot little dog, so she would sleep with me or Chris for a bit, then jump down and sleep under the bed for a while to cool off.

Since I've been pregnant, however, her sleeping habits have curiously changed.  She now will dig at the blankets until I lift them up for her to go under, and then she curls up right against my bump.  At first, I thought it was because I had a pillow between my legs and she wanted to lay on the pillow, but she does it if the pillow is there or not.  I wonder if she can feel it when he kicks at night.  In any case, she is already cuddling with her little brother (yes, we are those kind of dog people...I'm probably going to get her a shirt that says Big Sister.  Unfortunately, Daisy is not one of  those kinds of dogs.  We will put it on her, take a picture, and then have to take it off before she rubs up against every wall in the house trying to get it off.  It makes Chris proud).

I hope this bodes well for when John gets here.  Hopefully she will like him and not be too mad at us when the level of attention she gets drops (luckily she is too small to drop her ball in the crib for baby Johnny to throw to her).  And for those of you who fear I may be slightly crazy, no, I will not allow the dog to sleep with an infant.  I may love my dog, but I'm not dumb.  She will get supervised visits, though.  And once John is big enough, they will be best friends.  Especially once he learns to throw that ball.