TGIF

I know you're all chomping at the bit waiting to know the latest and greatest. So here it is:

I don't have gestational diabetes. I only have one dose of antibiotics left for the UTI. I'm still gaining weight. My blood pressure is fine. The baby's heartbeat is great. My belly size is 28. I'm anemic.

So it's all good news except the anemia, but that's treatable with an iron supplement (and lots of fiber--advice from the nurse).

More good news: It's FRIDAY!!! And Dave took the night off! Yay!

Glucose

At my last doctor appointment two weeks ago, the doctor realized that I hadn’t done my Glucose test yet. It’s supposed to be done between 24 and 28 weeks. My appointment was at 28 weeks, so she told me to do it as soon as possible.

Well, my next appointment is on Friday, so in classic Sarah procrastination style, I decided I should probably do the test Wednesday or Thursday, since Dave would have time to come with me. Yes, I drag Dave to my appointments—plus we only have one working car, so it was either that or walk.

The plan was to get up at 7, shower, go take the test, then get to work by about 9 or 9:30. Yeah, I got up at 8:20 or so, showered, and then got to the doctor’s office at about 9:30.

They gave me the glucose drink, which really isn’t as bad as people say. I wouldn’t choose to drink it if I had a choice, but it really just tasted like flat fanta.

For the next hour I felt worse and worse, and eventually I had to lie down on a teeny tiny bench while I waited. I was lightheaded, nauseated, and kind of jittery feeling. Honestly it’s the worst I’ve felt all pregnancy.

Then they took my blood. The Phlebotomist was really quick about it (thank goodness!!!!), and Dave distracted me, so I didn’t pass out. Then my eyes leaked for a little while, and Dave took me home where I downed some milk with Carnation Breakfast Mix in it, lied down for a while until that digested some, then headed in to work.

Summary: the drink isn’t gross, the effects are gross.

I’m assuming I’ll get the results either tomorrow, or at my appointment on Friday. I really hope I don’t have to do the 3 hour test, because I just don’t think I can.

SAHM

Note: the point of this post is not to get the response “oh, you’ll be so busy being a mom, you have no idea.” I’m also not trying to offend anyone—so please take the next couple of paragraphs with a grain of salt:

Honestly, I’m nervous about being a stay at home mom. After being either in school and working, or just working full time for years now (almost my whole life, except summers growing up), I’m not sure what people do all day at home. Somehow they fill their days, right? Yes, I know at first I will have the job of food supply, and then I’ll have a toddler running around getting into everything. But, women everywhere are able to work full time jobs and have children that they take home. I want to be a stay at home mom, but I also want something to satiate my need for keeping busy.

Example: On Labor Day, I had gotten all my chores done on the Saturday prior and had nothing to do (except my big list of to-dos that I’m avoiding), and I started wondering what “occupation” (in addition to being a mom) I will have once I’m not working full time anymore.

Wouldn’t it be nice if I could make millions in the process?

Well I’ve been thinking about my friends Jacob and Kalli, who are quite successfully supporting themselves via an internet business. I watched an interview they had recently. You’ll need to watch it to know what I’m talking about: http://www.getrichclick.com/withclickbank/jacob-hiller/?autoplay=1

As Jacob says, “If you have something that you absolutely know will give value, then it’s just a matter of being yourself and telling the truth.” Of course, it has to be something that has a good market to sell, too. I mean, I could be passionate about something like how to pick my nose, but I’m pretty sure there’s not a market for that.

Kalli has been telling me about how great this opportunity is for a while, so I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of something that I am passionate enough about. I’ve realized that I’m a pretty flakey, A.D.D. person who doesn’t really get passionate about one thing. I usually try things and then move on to something else. I could give you dozens of examples.

Let’s leave that subject for a bit, and move on to another: Blogging. There are many people out there these days that make quite a bit by blogging. Again, I don’t think my life is interesting enough to get millions of followers that click on links enough to pay me the big buck$. Here we have the same problem – I don’t have enough passion about one thing. I don’t have something original and fresh to offer the people of the world.

Today, I put a couple of thoughts together and came up with what I have to offer the world! I can also do it while being a stay at home mom quite easily. I’m VERY excited about it, and I can’t wait until I can get it up and running.

No, you can’t know what it is yet! I don’t want people stealing my idea.

UTI Update

So I peed in a cup on Monday morning for a urine analysis, right? Well, yesterday (Thursday) I finally called the doctor to see if I was dying or not. They told me, "Well, the initial analysis showed that something's going on, but the culture can take up to 72 hours, so we'll have to wait until tomorrow for that. For now we're going to put you on this antibiotic. It's important that you start taking it right away and take all the doses." Uh, thanks for letting me know when you got the results on Monday or Tuesday.
I'm not too happy with the service I get from this doctor's office. *I* have to call in to find out the results from my test, which are that I should be on antibiotics. Also, last time I counted, 72 hours is 3 days...I left the sample on Monday morning...Tuesday (1)...Wednesday (2)...Thursday (3)...yup, that's 3 days.
Also, when I had my 20 week ultrasound, *I* had to bring up to the doctor that there was something fishy on his neck, or she would have never even noticed.
Are all OB doctors so un-personable and busy because everyone and their mom are having babies around here, or did I just pick the wrong one? What has been your experience with OB doctors around here?
On the other hand, I really like the Perinatologist. She knows exactly who I am and what the situation is without me having to remind her. She had even done RESEARCH on her own time about the problem.

Pregnancy Update - Perinatologist Appt. #2

Tuesday morning I had my second Perinatologist appointment. Here’s the news:
The baby is now head down, thank goodness. He was lying on his side/stomach though, so it was hard for them to get a good view of the esophagus, which is what they were trying to examine.
She measured all the important bits like his femur, skull, stomach, my fluid, etc. From those measurements we know the following:
He’s measuring at 30 weeks even though I’m 28 weeks and 3 days.
He’s a little over 3 lbs already.
My fluid levels are normal (14 cm).
His stomach is visible.
His esophagus is visibly smaller.
The doctor had looked up a plethora of case studies on this type of problem and she found only 6 babies that had the same symptoms (enlarged esophagus, but still swallowing right, fluid levels not high, visible stomach). All 6 of the babies’ esophagi were normal by week 33 and none of them had chromosomal problems, like down syndrome. I know 6 babies isn’t much of a statistic to go off of, but I am going with that being a good sign.
They have me scheduled for another ultrasound on November 4th, when I’m 32 and a half weeks along. If the esophagus is still enlarged then, they’ll schedule a day for me to deliver up at U of U when I’m about 39 weeks along. If it’s not enlarged anymore, I’m assuming I can deliver any day I go into labor, and anywhere I choose.
So...good news!

UTI

On Sunday I started feeling like I had to pee all the time. I’m not saying it felt like there was a little more pressure than usual. You know what it feels like when your bladder is so full that you’re scared to walk to the bathroom for fear of peeing your pants? It felt like that…all day.
After trying remedies to get the baby to move and hopefully relieve some pressure, I decided it was probably a bladder infection. On Monday I called the doctor to see if I should come in, or if I should just consume enough cranberry juice to turn my skin pink.
They had me go pee in a cup at the lab, and, well, I’m still waiting to hear back. Meanwhile I’ve been drinking lots of water and cranberry juice and peeing as often as possible. I’ve even been setting my alarm to wake me to pee a few times throughout the night.
Side note: Last night when my 3am alarm went off and I returned to re-set my alarm again, I noticed I had an email time-stamped at 3am from my brother, Alex, who is on his mission in Germany. Usually he emails in the middle of Sunday night. We exchanged emails for a half an hour or so while he was burning 18 copies of General Conference to give to people.
I’ve been feeling better in the bladder area, since Sunday, so hopefully it’s getting better, but I’ll give the doctor a call tomorrow to make sure I’m not turning into a Britta water filter.

Pregnancy Update - Doctor Visit

I just had my 28 week doctor appointment. Basically my OB knows about as much about this condition as I do, since it’s so rare (1 in 4000 births or something). She said she saw a case of it in her residency, but none since. So here are the updates:
1. I still may need to deliver up at the U of U hospital to be close to Primary Children’s, but the Perinatologist hasn’t gotten back to me nor my doctor about what the Neonatologist said about that.
2. This condition is sometimes related to Down Syndrome, so they may want to do an Amniocentesis on me, but there’s really no point to finding out, because either way they can’t do anything about Down Syndrome.
3. Nothing else in the ultrasound 3 weeks ago looked abnormal.
4. I have to wait until my Tuesday appointment with the Perinatologist to find anything else out.
5. I have to do my glucose test this week or next week. I might do it tomorrow morning before breakfast.
6. I'm now on a 2 week appointment schedule.