A Picture May Say 1,000 Words

But this one of me appears to be screaming them instead.

This is the only picture that came out of the trip my husband and I took to go to Chicago.  There I am, on the left, Brian, and his brother Justin and his girlfriend Sabina. 

I am absolutely miserable in this picture. I feel fat, bloated, gross, disgusting, ugly, embarrassed, ashamed, guilty. Just to name a few. 

Upon some self-reflection, I did a brave thing and signed up for Weight Watchers meetings as well as the online. So I have both of them now, for $43/month. I think it was worth it. The meeting was packed, full of different types of people, both women and men, young and elderly, bigger and smaller. It was great!

I have my official weigh in from Wednesday: 244.2 lbs. Here's to new beginnings.

An Eventful Day

Was able to see the doctor today. They were able to squeeze me in at 10:30 am. I had not slept all night, and continued to stay awake. I ended up taking the dog out, feeding him, scrubbing dishes, taking a shower, getting dressed, making coffee, making breakfast (bacon and pancakes, yum) and crocheting another square for my afghan. All within 2 hours. I woke Brian up, he got dressed, fed and filled with caffeine and off we were to the doctor's.

I was having panic attacks. I kept trying to tell myself that it was "all in my head" and I was really fine. Sure it hurt to do anything and the puffiness was spreading up my legs, but I'm sure I'm fine.

We get to the doctor and check in. It doesn't take long for us to be seen. She checks my urine for protein- a symptom of preeclamsia- but I'm clean. She takes my blood pressure and once again, I'm clean. She asks if I have swelling anywhere besides my feet- yes, it's moving up my legs and my vagina is swollen. Is that normal? Hmm. She jots down some notes and I'm shown the exam room.

I'm told there will also be a pop-quiz: a pelvic exam! this counts as my appointment for the week.

I get naked and put on my over sized paper towel and sit on the table. I'm starting to feel stupid. Who goes to the doctor for swollen lady bits and feet? Apparently me. Is there anything he can do about it? I doubt it. Why am I wasting every one's time, especially my own? I could be sleeping.

Again, we don't wait long. (apparently, "squeeze me in" really meant "we have ample time to see you today") The doctor and nurse come in and inspect my feet, legs, and lady bits. He presses and pokes and says "yeah that's normal. You can take some diuretics if it's painful to walk." I feel extremely dumb now.

He grabs the doppler and finds the baby's heart beat. A flicker of concern flashes across his normally impassive face. He checks my cervix. Still closed.

"The baby's heart beat is 110 beats a minute. This is in the low side of normal and it concerns me, especially since he has had such a strong heart beat up until now." The baby usually pushes 160. "I'm going to hook you up to the fetal monitor for a while and see what is going on."

My panic levels are through the roof now. We wait another ten minutes or so until they can prep the monitor and move us to a different room.

I'm hooked up, but suddenly we can't find the baby's heart beat. I can't feel him move. I'm trying to be calm. It takes us ten minutes to find the echo of the heart beat, and probably another 5 to find his actual heart beat.  I'm terrified that I am going to be rushed for an emergency c-section at this point.

Finally we find the baby. I'm given a clicker to count his kicks and they also put a contraction monitor on me. I laughed and said I wouldn't need that, I haven't had any contractions. I'm left alone with Brian for 30 minutes while the machine ticks out paper, graphing the heart beat. The heart beat starts out on the low side again (115-120) but by the end of the test, he's pushing out of the high end at 165. I'm trying not to focus on the graph, and just focus on the kicks. I press the button each time. Apparently I'm good at finding the height of his movement.

The nurse came in. "Wow, this looks great!"
The head nurse comes in "Wow, this looks REALLY great! Like, text book perfect."
The doctor comes in. "Everyone keeps saying how great your chart looks, I have to see for myself. Yes, this looks very good indeed."

All three: "Look, you're having contractions. See these little waves?"

Apparently I have been having contractions. What I thought was extra baby wigglings was actually a small contraction. And I get them pretty regularly too. They are "real" contractions, but they just aren't doing anything.

"Unless you go into labor, I'll see you next week. Cancel your appointment for Thursday, we've already done it." the doctor said on his way out.

He's pretty laid back and doesn't really dilly dally much, so it didn't surprise me that he just left the room.

I go back in on the 27th, 2 days before my due date. Weee.

I was able to get a nap in before work. I don't feel quite "rejuvenated" but I feel functional. I feel a lot better that I went in and that there was a reason for my impromptu visit today. I feel silly calling for things that seem like no big deal, but today could have easily been a very big deal. We were half expecting to be sent to the hospital for a c-section.

But all is well, and the baby still hasn't made an appearance (natural, or otherwise) and we keep pluggin' on, thankful that everything is as it should be.

Twitchy

This week has been dragging for me. Ever since I hit the 75% milestone of 30 weeks, the days have been dragging. Here is where we get so close, yet seem so far. 

Thursday is my next doctor's appointment. It's annoying to me that I am going every two weeks but it happens to fall on odd weeks (yep I'm weird). Thursday will be week 31. Nothing exciting is going to happen this week at the doctor- no blood draws or nasty sugar drinks- just weighed and measured like a horse going to auction. 

I seem to be getting a little anxious or twitchy. I keep wanting to do things. Paint the nursery. Put up curtains. Decorate. Rearrange the furniture. Clean. 

I feel like because I am not doing anything "productive" (painting is not productive- the baby doesn't give a shit if his walls are blue or white) that I am going to be totally unprepared for when the baby arrives. 

Truth be told- I'm solid on prepared. I have everything I need and probably a bunch of stuff I don't. I've been reading What To Expect The First Year and plowed through the first two sections of newborn and first month. I'm hesitant to read further, since the book itself isn't very long and also because I don't need to know the developmental milestones my child will be expected to hit at age 6 months when he is not even out of the womb yet. 

I keep talking to myself and trying to get myself to think logically. Right now I'm a hormone fueled fire that wants to engulf everything... but I gotta keep in mind that a small fire can heat the pot of chili just as well. More fire doesn't necessarily mean better results. I don't know wtf was up with that analogy. But now I'm hungry for chili.

Brian suggested I should write out a master to-do list. Everything we still need to accomplish in the next 9 weeks to get ready for the baby, and then start breaking it all down into weekly and daily chunks. 

My brother in law came over last night to catch up with us. He's been super busy with things and it's good to catch up with him. He's getting excited for the baby as well (he doesn't emote much, so it's hard to tell at times) but he agreed whole-heartily and readily to paint the nursery with Brian :) We talked about it last night and we decided, since our lease is up in March and moving with a 3 month old was probably not the best thing in the world, we were going to stay one more year here. 

It sucks. Every year when our lease is up we are bound and determined to move, yet we really like our apartment complex as a whole. We love our current building and our current neighbors. No one bothers us. No one bothers anyone. We are on friendly "hey how's it going" terms and that's the extent of the conversations. We do want to move and we want to move closer to my family.... but it's just been a matter of timing and finances. Ah well. 18 months left to figure it all out. 

I think the reason I am most anxious and twitchy is because I am reading all of these blogs lately where ladies have given birth to their children (a lot of them are new moms) and the babies are so precious. I guess I take after my dad- he thinks newborns are the most beautiful, while my mom gets more excited about babies when they can smile and be a little more interactive. 

I cry when I see pictures of my friend's baby. I cry when I look at blogger babies. I look at the ultra sound pictures and try and imagine what features Drake has from me and what ones he's got from Brian. Right now, I think he's got Brian's lips. LOL I'm weird, I know. 

The logical and the emotional are fighting for first place all the time. One minute I'm fine and "oh we've got plenty of time" the next I'm all like "WTF why is nothing done?!?! The freezer isn't stuffed full of meals what will we eat after the baby gets here!!!??" So yeah, it's been great. Max and Brian are loving it. They think I am insane. And I am, at times. Luckily, I have started to realize when an episode is coming on and can usually negate it completely or at least partially diffuse it. Brian's been amazing and understanding of it all. He keeps telling me that the only thing he knew about pregnancy before we got pregnant, was that pregnant women were a little crazy. Hahaha. Fair enough. 

I'm off to go write out this master list. Hopefully it doesn't become too long or annoying. Sigh.