How Hard Can It Be?

Yesterday was our 31 weeks appt (yay!) and our labor and delivery tour and meet and greet. The appointment I was excited about because now we are going every 2 weeks and at every appt we get to see Baby A on the ultrasound. He’s growing right on track, we saw his chubby chin and lips practice swallowing on the ultrasound and he is adorable. Only a mom thinks a grainy black and white xray view of their child can be adorable… but there ya go. He is. He is very active, as my Dr mentions every appt we see her. Yes I know this. I'm the one feeling him play trampoline on my bladder or hide and seek with his butt and my ribs. I’ll take it though. All of it. Dr doesn’t seem worried he’s measuring a little big, she said that’s normal with both hubs and I being tall. I got the whooping cough vaccine while I was there.. yay needles! Immediately after poke I felt the only common side effect.. sore arm. Still feeling it today. I also had her look at a skin irritation I have on my foot. Ok fine. An infected part of my foot from over scratching an itch. The “I told you so” on my hubby’s face was why I specifically didn’t look at him when I pointed it out to my dr and she put me on a 10 day 4 times a day course of antibiotics. Yes I know I shouldn’t scratch it.  Yes I know better. But really. It ITCHED. Boo. After the appt we left for the branch of the hospital where we are delivering. We got there and checked in… along with 107 other couples (!!!) for the tour and meet and greet. It was pregnancy overload. Never have I felt so insignificant in my life. EVERYONE was huge! No longer was I the center of attention like I am used to “oh how cute/you’re pregnant/what are you having/when are you due?” instead it was 10 deep lines for the bathroom every 30 minutes. We learned where to go and check in and where to park and what happens if it is after hours etc. We then waddled all our behinds to the actual labor and delivery floor (this hospital has a L&D and a birthing center) and got to see the rooms (ooooo aaahhh) and then up to the other floor to see the postpartum rooms and the birthing center. The BC isn’t an option for me with GD and lack of pain meds, but its pretty neat with hydrotubs and four poster beds. While walking around and sitting in the rooms I started having a mild anxiety attack about the fact that a) last time I was in a L&D my child stayed when I left, and b) I will be back for real in 2 months and then back to a). I started getting hot and nervous and had to distract myself (“oh look. Real wood. 2 windows in this room. That is not a good maternity shirt.”) After that surprisingly hard experience we went to meet some of the team and hear about delivering at our hospital. They had a fun and delicious spread of fruit and cheese etc to eat while the panel talked. My love of fruit plus my serves put my number directly on the acceptable highest number and that didn’t help my now sinking by the minute mood. It also meant I couldn’t eat more of the crispy wanton-like bread I wanted and fixated on while I was listening to the speakers. So after I was all funned out and we went home and hubby cuddled me for an hour to cheer me up. I love that man.

A quick update on thanksgiving. We ended up being able to go up and see hubbys parents. Our sister in law had her daughter Wednesday morning and so when we got there I got to cuddle a brand new baby. She is beautiful and snuggly. They didn’t find out she was a she until she was born and now they have THREE daughters! We got up there Thursday morning after leaving at 7am for the 4 hour drive. One McDonalds pit stop later and half the English muffin part of my mcmuffin in the trash later we were ready to go and I had good numbers. We hit almost zero traffic on the drive which was amazing. And we arrived at 1130 at his parents’ house. Seeing everyone was really heartening. I love my in law family. They are amazing and uplifting people. Even if they are Vegan. Don’t worry. We still had turkey. Us, plus hubs sister are NOT vegan so we had our own turkey. Dinner that night was delicious and I had my Dr’s permission to skip checking and eat what I wanted. So I did. I ate until I could barely breathe and literally had to rest after so I could function. But I was happy and stuffed. I did check 1.5 hours after eating for no reason other than mental browbeating.. and 160 was better than I thought. His family is big on games of the card and board variety which I was born to play. And so we spent a lot of the weekend playing. I won quite a few if I might add :) We also went on a walk around his parents neighborhood to see the alpacas, the live turkeys (they were apparently NOT dinner), and the mini ponies. All at different houses. Love his town. Black Friday most of the fam went to Home Depot and took the two oldest girls, 1.5 and 3. So I stayed behind and hung out with the baby and the baby’s mom. Hubby was really nervous with the new baby and had no idea how to hold her, so of course we kept handing her to him for practice. He did love holding her though. He spent quite a bit of time playing with our other nieces too.. house, and pretty pretty princess. It was precious. General relaxing and playing and baby holding filled the remainder of our weekend and all too soon we headed back to our house and reality. We did agree on a shower date for my shower, January 12. Two weeks before D Day.

Maybe I’ll update tomorrow for 30/31 stats