And the date is...

June 15th. Monday, the 15th I will have my baby. That is, unless she decides she wants to make an earlier appearance. While it would be funny if after all the planning she did come on the 12th anyway, I'd rather her stay in as long as possible just for health's sake.

But things are truckin' along. I'm starting to get the sympathy glances and the smiles now from random strangers. I guess since I'm finally completely bumped out, they look at me with pity. Too bad I can't be too casual here at work because I would buy a t-shirt for every day of the week that had some snarky comment on it. But, sadly, I cannot.

Carter has been a piece of work lately. I'm not sure if it's just him acting three and a half, or what, but wow!! Each morning is a fight of some sort getting to school. Either he doesn't want to stop watching Disney to eat/get dressed/whatever or he doesn't want to leave the house or gets upset when his favorite song isn't playing at the time of our departure. Today, we had a fairly calm morning until I pull up to the daycare. I parked a few slots further down than I usually do and you would have thought that the world was ending. "Want you to park down 'dare" complete with crocodile tears and all. Then his refusal to get out of the van. Then, his anger at me for picking him up and carrying him to the door. Then, he didn't want to put his bag in his cubby so I did it for him. That started it all over yet again. When we finally got to the class, the teacher in there told me she was happy to see that he does that to me because apparently he has been Mr. Do The Opposite of Everything Said lately. It's just sad that he can make me go from zero to pissed off in no time flat. I honestly hope that this gets worked out in his head before Ali comes.

Whew...is today over yet?

It's been one of those days! Besides crazy work stuff that I do not go into here, I had a doctor's appointment today. The appointment itself was fine and normal. I left work in normally adequate time just to find that the slow and steady rain of earlier was now monsoon-like and flooding everywhere. The drive down York Road was quite fun.

I got to the office and signed in. After waiting for about an hour, I finally got called back and could finally pee! I hadn't eaten yet so my tummy was GROWLING! A half hour more passes before the doctor finally got to me. Apparently, he was really backed up but he was still the chattier of the doctors so he just kept getting further and further behind. But, he's perfectly happy with my progress. He told me that I passed the glucose test with flying colors. My number was 98 and the cut off point is 140. So, that was very good news, especially since diabetes runs in my family!

After we were done, I made arrangements to set a date for the delivery. I'm waiting now to hear back from the receptionist, but hopefully it will be Monday, June 15th. I tried to get it for June 12th, because the 12th of the month is pretty common in my old group of friends for birthdays. However, the person on call that day is the nurse practioner and she doesn't do scheduled deliveries. Oh well!

So, after the appointment, I had to stop at McDonalds, the only food place on that part of York Road, to get something to eat. I shoved a large order of fries in my mouth on my way back to work, spilling a quarter of them on the floor when I hit the brakes a little too hard. The tea that I got was filled almost to the very top with ice so I had maybe four good slurps of actual tea.

All in all, I was very stressed by the time I got settled back at work. My blood pressure was awesome at the doctors...it could have been considered high after getting back to work!

Now it's time to start kicking into planning mode. :) I'm getting excited!

Ugh...Yay for third trimester

Yeah, it's official. I'm now uncomfortable. I mean more so than usual. All day yesterday I was exhausted from not getting a good night's sleep the night before. I didn't wake up tired, but it was apparent by day's end that the sleep was not restful. Then today, some slight Braxton-Hicks contractions have started. Nothing very painful, just uncomfortable.

I'll be 29 weeks on Friday. It's hard to believe but I also feel as if June is forever away. I am slowly getting more and more excited for the big day, but I'm just anxious to start getting this weight off. I'm now the heaviest I've ever been and I know that it is contributing to my uncomfortableness (is that a word?)

Another doctor's appointment on Friday as well. I hope they give me a scheduled date this week. I need to go talk to the HR guy here to get maternity leave all straightened out. At times I wish there was just a blanket policy on leave everywhere. That way it would be much easier to understand. Oh well!

New Pic

Here I am, one day before 28 weeks. Things are going just fine. Being kicked to death. :) I think she is still laying breech, but I also think she's a bit diagonal. It's weird. What's funny is the shirt I'm wearing in the pic isn't even maternity. It's a shirt that I've had for a while now but was just loose throughout. That's always good! That means it will still look normal afterwards.

Well, it's dinnertime and I have no clue what this household will be eating!

Now begins the every two weeks!

This morning was my glucose test. For some reason, they told me to fast for this one. After waking up and having my tummy yell at me for a while, I looked it up online and saw that for the initial test, fasting is not required. So, instead of drinking apple juice and having my full-blown breakfast, I drank water and ate some peanut butter crackers. I even took my coffee with me but ended up only have a few sips of it.

After drinking my yummy fruit punch, I had my appointment as well. I've gained even more and when I lamented over the number, the nurse just looked at me, matter-of-factly, and said, "Well, you are growing a baby!" I guess since the doctor's aren't worried about it, I shouldn't be. I've now gained 17 pounds. Hopefully that will slow down or else, I have a lot of work to do after June!

But, once again, everything looks and sounds good. When trying to take the baby's heartrate, she kept kicking the wand again. The NP started scolding her in a joking way that if she didn't stop moving, she couldn't check the heart! Eventually, we got a count. My blood pressure was back up to my normal range, 120/80 so that's good.

I will either hear back maybe tomorrow if the test was failed, or I won't hear anything. I'm definitely hoping for a no call because I honestly do not know how I will manage a three hour test! I hope that at my next appointment, we will go ahead and schedule a date.

Very soon I will be starting to get the room together. I think we will be buying the dressers next month so then I'll start going through clothes and figuring out just what I need and such. I'm excited. I think it's the nesting as well as the change in seasons that makes me want to get things organized.

Maybe it's nesting already??

I'm in planning mode. As I get older, the more I like to plan. I think it started this time after Emily gave me a cute little dress for the baby and then this past weekend, seeing our niece for the first time. But now I feel like I want to get the room all ready and start gathering clothes and such. It's still early though so I don't want to do too much.

We have the crib and Chris discovered that it is white the other day. Not my top choice, but hey, the crib was free so I'm not complaining. We need to get a changing table because with Carter, we had a make-shift one and that's gone now. Since we are getting that, I have picked one from Ikea that has a dresser to match. The changing table converts to a three drawer dresser as well. So, that's planned. Now I'm starting to think about the gear and all the neccessities we will need. I'll be going through what we have from Carter as far as clothes go to pull out the neutral and not overly boyish clothes to use. Most of the gear just needs to be brought down from the attic and cleaned up. We won't need any of the big things, is just all those small things that add up.

We won't be having a shower because I, along with my family and friends, don't feel I need one. Showers are for getting the big things mostly and we are set there. But, getting clothes is going to be the main thing. I have a few friends that have had girls, so hopefully I can score some hand-me-downs from them, but mostly, everyone I know has boys. I'm sure Susan will pass along anything of Bethany's once she's done with them. So, I know that I'm worrying for no reason, but that's what mommies do!

Part of me can't wait these next three months. But then most of me knows that I need the time to prepare. I have several friends on Facebook, though, that are on the edge or just have had their babies. Some it's their first, but most it was more than that. So I'm seeing the pictures of the babies and know that soon that's going to be me.

24 Weeks Down!!

I had to reschedule my appointment today once again due to the weather. Of course I had an appointment scheduled on Monday, but we got our one decent sized snow this year that morning so I cancelled. So, I went today. I saw the midwife today for the first time ever. She was very nice and very personable! If I were trying for a natural(ish) delivery, I would definitely ask for her again. But, because it's going to be cesarean, I'll stick to one of the other doctors.

My blood pressure was very low today. I've always had low BP and never have had it even remotely elevated, at least when it was read. But today, the nurse took it once and then asked me what my BP was usually. I told her it was usually low. She said "Okay, because it was 90/70." I was shocked. I told her it never was that low and she tried once again with a different cuff just to get the same number. Crazy. I asked if I should be worried, but she said that was still within normal range, just at the low end. "Nothing wrong with low blood pressure" she said! I only gained one pound from a couple weeks ago. That was good because there was a spike that time, probably due to just eating prior or something. But, I've gained 11 pounds total now. As long as it stays at that rate, I'll be fine with it.

When we went to listen to the heartbeat, Ali began kicking the doppler. It was pretty cute. But, her heart sounds great.

Chris' brother and his wife have a new little one. Bethany Eliana was born on Monday. We plan on going down to Virginia this Saturday to see her.

My co-worker just found out yesterday that she's carrying twins. She went for her first sonagram last night and the doctor just had a strange look on his face, she said. This is her first pregnancy so of course she is freaked out. I hope all goes well for her.

Carter has a touch of bronchitis. We took him to the doctor's yesterday and Dr. Mike checked him out. He doesn't have a full-blown case of it, but the doctor has seen many kids with the same symptoms lately that has turned into bronchitis so he went ahead and prescribed him some medicine. It was standing room only at the office last night! So many kids are sick right now. I just hope all the time Carter spent laying on me and coughing on me this weekend doesn't catch up with me. Ugh! But, while there, Dr. Mike felt his belly and said he thought the spleen was a bit smaller than last time he saw him. That's good. The hematologist had called on Friday to tell us all the tests came back negative or normal so there was no diagnosis. We are going back in six months just to see the progress. I think we are finally getting to the point of just writing it off as my son being slightly weird. :)