34-week update

How far along: 34 weeks

Meds: all taken daily – prenatal vitamins, vitamin D, DHA, probiotic, Levothyroxine 100 mcg

Gestational diabetes: Getting a sporadic high number once or twice a week, but not consistently. We’ll see how the next week goes. I see the MFM next Thursday for a growth scan, and he’ll review my log.

Baby is the size of: a canteloupe

Belly pictures: I may have to switch to just side shots alone soon since it’s getting hard to fit the belly in these side-by-side pictures!

Total weight gain: Up 0.4 lbs from last week, currently 17.8 lbs up from pre-fertility treatment. Will be interesting to see how fast the weight goes up when I stop work in a couple weeks, the OB said not to be surprised by that. I plan to stop SUP at 37 weeks, so will need to make good efforts to keep up with walking, yoga, and whatever weightlifting I still feel comfortable doing at that time. But for now, I still plan to attend SUP yoga class every weekend.

Stretch marks: Nope.

Sleep: Definitely getting tougher, I’m up 2-3 times a night to pee. Currently I’m sleeping in a modified reclined bound angle yoga pose (without the strap) so that my head and torso are elevated. Sleeping on my left hurts my shoulder after a while, and I still get a pain near my right scapula when I lay on my right – that’s how it’s been for months and it’s only getting worse as things get more cramped in there.

Symptoms/Feeling: Fatigue is starting to kick in, along with more constipation and heartburn. Overall I think I’m still doing pretty well for 34 weeks – I have energy to work out and cook, just wish that would translate to quicker charting, which I’m currently ignoring in favor of posting this 😛

Best moment of this week: Many moments, of course leading with seeing baby girl again this morning after a hiatus, and seeing that she’s in the ideal position for labor and delivery – left occiput anterior! I can deep squat to my heart’s content 🙂 And jumping off from last week’s best moment, the friends we visited had their baby this week!

Miss anything: I’m pretty sure this will be TIME for the rest of my pregnancy. Today is supposedly my day off, but I’m here at work after my appointment trying to catch up on charts before interviewing another candidate to join our group, then squeezing in a massage before we finally head to Ikea.

Movement: Lots of visible movement throughout the day, I noticed recently none of the pets really want to hang out on my lap anymore, haha.

Food cravings: Still stuff I can’t really eat much of until after delivery.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope, just some heartburn if I don’t sit up straight after a meal.

Labor signs: A few Braxton-Hicks.

Belly button in or out:  I don’t know what to call it – the skin is now pooching out more often than not, but with the indentation still there in the middle. A wannabe outie?

Wedding rings on or off: On and a tiny bit tighter but still easy to move. They still come off a couple times a week for aerial yoga class, so I’m sure one day I’ll notice that I need to keep them off.

Happy or moody most of the time: Sleepy happy with a little stressy moody? I’m trying not to stress about everything that I want to get done before she arrives – as I keep reminding myself, all that REALLY needs to be set up is the pack & play, and everything else can wait if needed.

Purchases/preparations for baby: Still have 2 big piles of gifts and gear hanging out, waiting for space.

Looking forward to: We’re shooting maternity photos Saturday, pretty excited since we’re not big picture people. The only professional photos we’ve ever had done were for our wedding almost 11 years ago!

Crazy busy weekend, leading to a bleeding freakout

With that worrisome title, I’ll start off by saying that baby girl is fine, thank goodness! I didn’t want to wait until weekly update time since there’s been so much going on the last few days, so here goes – warning, it’s a long post…

We attended a coed baby shower on Saturday for friends who are due just 2 days before us. Was great catching up with several friends there, and the mommy-to-be and I took pictures together with our bumps, I’m sure the first of many pictures with our daughters. Right after that, we headed 20 minutes away for a wedding, which was lovely and a fun chance to catch up with some coworkers. Had a nice low blood sugar after the wedding dinner, so allowed myself to indulge in a small slice of wedding cake, which is from one of my favorite bakeries!

I started off with a SUP yoga class Sunday. We paddled out of the harbor, not realizing how choppy it really was, so I dropped to my knees when the waves started to buffet me from both directions. Paddled back into the calmer waters of the harbor and enjoyed a nice stretchy yoga class there.

After a quick rinse-off at home, I drove to one of hubby’s teammate’s homes for the first baby shower in my honor. Indulged in bites of yummy food, and brought home some sweet treats to portion out for bedtime snacks, along with an overflowing trunk of gifts. I was truly overwhelmed by the generosity and love – baby C has so many people excited to meet her 🙂

Finished off the weekend with an amazing float session. The last thing I remembered before conking out was laying back in the water, and next thing I knew, I heard soft music playing, indicating that 90 minutes was up! Just what I needed after such a crazy weekend.

Worked my usual 10-hour Monday, and unfortunately was running behind from the start. It was tough squeezing in my required snacks, but somehow I managed, and was able to get home with enough time to get dinner made by 8pm. Afterwards, I noticed I was experiencing kicks higher than normal, so I became hopeful that baby C was finally flipping from breech to head down.

My last ultrasound was almost 3 weeks ago at 28 weeks, and the next appointment wasn’t scheduled until 34 weeks since my OB will be out of town, and the other clinic OBs will also be on spring break. We’d decided there wasn’t much value to seeing a random covering OB in between, and from 34 weeks on, I’d be seen weekly anyways.

I guess baby C wasn’t on board with this plan, because just before heading off to work this morning, I found a dime-sized drop of dark dried blood on my pantyliner. I think it likely happened early in the night, and I didn’t notice it at 5am when I peed because it was dark. I immediately started calling to see if I could get an appointment, and also left a message for my clinic scheduler to block any of my open slots for the day until I knew for sure when I’d be seen. After exhausting the usual routes and being told all the clinic OBs were booked, I texted my nurse asking if she could send me the direct lines for my OB and his nurse (why I didn’t save this in my phone before, I have no idea). She one-upped me and sent me his cell phone in addition, so I called him as I hopped in the car to drive to work. He told me there was no reason to panic based on what I was describing and the fact I was still feeling her move a lot this morning, but that it was definitely reasonable to get me in for a quick ultrasound.

Arrived at clinic, quickly dropped off my stuff in my office, and went down the hall for my appointment. OB immediately found a strong heartbeat, and baby C showed her displeasure at getting prodded by kicking back. At this point, I noticed that we were looking at her legs with the probe well above my belly button – and I exclaimed, “OMG, did she turn??”. He verified she was head down, and said it’d be unlikely for her to flip again at this point in the pregnancy – hurray! He thinks the bleeding was from the combination of all the recent days’ activity with little rest in between, combined with her flipping, based on the change in where I was feeling movements yesterday evening.

So long as the bleeding doesn’t continue, I can keep up my usual activities including work and yoga. If i continue to get spotting off and on, he said he’d take me off of work. Which I really cannot afford to do at this point, so I’m going to be really conscious of hydrating and resting from this point on. I’ll continue to lift but scale it back – PRs in deadlifts can definitely wait! And I’ll definitely keep paddling so long as I feel nice and stable on the board – with knees and sitting always an option.

Oh yes, my maternity StitchFix arrived, and I was bummed with the selection 😦 The stylist said they were out of stock on maxi dresses, and instead sent a LONG-sleeve gray striped maternity dress that squeezed me in all the wrong places – um, what? Highs have been 70s and even up to 90s here! The navy blue-striped maternity top was cute but not worth $54 when I’m already 7 months pregnant. She also picked a regular-sized white denim jacket, which I did like, but could not imagine trying to keep clean once baby arrives. The necklace is interesting but I can’t see myself ever wearing it. Finally, the only item I decided to keep so as not to waste the styling fee was the LA Made Maternity blue cap-sleeve dress with a nursing panel – at $84, it’s much more than I’d like to spend on a maternity dress (for comparison, I found this dress for my maternity shoot on eBay for $40 – I just need to have it hemmed), but at least I can get future use out of it for nursing. I really hope their petite stylists do better, but I can’t really recommend the maternity styling for anybody who’s already well into their second trimester, unless you have a much higher shopping budget than I do!

Bump on board!

Or “Bump on SUP”, maybe? Haha, reminds me of Dr. Seuss’ “Hop on Pop”.

It was so nice to take my first SUP yoga class in 5 months this morning, I’ve missed it so much! Even though I had to heavily modify, it felt great to paddle, then flow on the water. I did fall in once doing a modified side plank but it was no big deal – I just have to remember that little adjustments make the board rock a lot more than before! Baby girl enjoyed it, as usual she was lulled by the waves, then became a lot more active during savasana 🙂

29-week update

How far along: 29 weeks

Meds: all taken daily – prenatal vitamins, vitamin D, DHA, probiotic, Levothyroxine 100 mcg

Gestational diabetes: Sugars have been nice and stable the times I check – I’m currently just checking a first-morning fasting every other day, then 1 hour after either breakfast, lunch, or dinner on the other days, so it’s possible I could be missing some highs. But I will believe in my diet and willpower! I made this delicious lentil vegetable soup with bacon Sunday night, and that made it easier to have something ready to go when I came home for dinner. We’re expecting our first delivery of Hello Fresh today (if you’re interested, you can use my referral code 6KPDSS to receive $40 off your first delivery), since I didn’t like the options for Gobble this week (and Gobble only delivers to CA and NV at this time).

Baby is the size of: a butternut squash

Belly pictures: We’re experiencing a heat wave! Which makes me happy to finally wear my warm-weather maternity clothes 🙂 Another lovely find from Target.

Total weight gain: Crazily enough, no change from last week, so still almost 16 pounds up from pre-fertility weight. She’s definitely growing based on the increased strength of kicks I’m feeling. I think I gained too quickly prior to the GD diagnosis, and I’m now evening out more to where I should be (my mom gained just over 20 pounds with me and my sister).

Stretch marks: Still nothing, and very thankful!

Sleep: Had my first bad night’s sleep in a long time last night, getting up 4 times to pee. I think I’m going to have to give up my occasional green milk tea as bedtime snack The caffeine seems to affect me more now. Will need to find myself a nice vanilla rooibos to drink instead.

Symptoms/Feeling: Hips still hurt occasionally, but I continue to exercise a lot, and I think this has a lot to do with how I feel and look. People keep marveling that I have no swelling whatsoever. I think every woman is different with every pregnancy, but I’m sure the GD diet contributes to me feeling this great!

Best moment of this week: Enjoyed a gorgeous Saturday morning stand-up paddling, then in the afternoon I PR’d my one-rep max barbell deadlift at 180 lbs, completely smashing my prior record! I probably could have gone up another 10 lbs, but both hubby and I agreed my form broke a bit at 180, and I’m not willing to push myself to injury. But I do feel like 200 lbs is a distinct possibility in the next month or so. Crazy!

Miss anything: As always – time. We originally planned our big Ikea trip for this weekend, but looking ahead, hubby and I don’t really have the time for crib and shelf assembly for a while, so why bother adding more craziness to the clutter? Going to wait another month or so.

Movement: Definitely stronger movements in there, I just hope that includes turning herself around from breech! I’m starting to look into Spinning Babies a bit in the hopes that it helps, though my next visit/ultrasound won’t be for another 5 weeks.

Food cravings: I indulged in a piece of zucchini bread for my morning snack, hopefully that holds me over on sweets for a while. I’m hoping to find time to make these chocolate peanut butter energy bites soon, using stevia as a sweetener.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Getting a bit of heartburn in the evenings, but no nausea at least!

Labor signs: Just the rare Braxton-Hicks.

Belly button in or out:  It’s definitely still an innie, but it looks like it has a hood now, lol.

Wedding rings on or off: Still on and loose. We’ll see how long this lasts as it continues to heat up!

Happy or moody most of the time: Happy with a little bit of time-crunch anxiety mixed in. There’s a lot that needs to be done in the next few months, including for my job and keeping up with certifications and license renewals. Not to mention taxes and drawing up a will!

Purchases/preparations for baby: We finally sat down together Sunday to view the online Lamaze class. While it was helpful in suggestions for different positions, I’m glad we didn’t fork over more money for a full childbirth prep class. My husband already found it too “granola”, with its constant admonitions about making sure your OB wasn’t pushing you towards more unnecessary procedures. I had to laugh, knowing that classes on Bradley method and Hypnobirthing are much more into natural birth than Lamaze! My current plan is to try laboring naturally, but knowing that I will request an epidural when I can’t take it anymore. Of course, this is all only if baby girl will turn in the next several weeks!

I also took a great breastfeeding preparation class last night. In my profession, I’ve encountered many lactation counselors, many of whom I consider to be breastfeeding Nazi’s. Like the baby will have lost 13% of their birth weight and need to be admitted for jaundice and dehydration, and they still tell the mom that they don’t need to supplement like what the doctors are recommending! Seriously… So it was a pleasant surprise to meet one who is much more even-keel, and all about making sure that both mom and baby are healthy and supported, no matter how much breastmilk and/or formula baby receives. I definitely picked up some good tips that I can use not only for myself, but in my practice as well! After talking with her, I finally forked over money for a little-known breast pump that’s been getting more press lately. I was lucky enough to find somebody on Amazon that was selling it brand new after she won it in a raffle at a nursing conference! I really do feel like my biggest hurdle in the first year of life will be trying to pump after I return to work, so I decided the extra money was worth spending to try and reach my goal.

Looking forward to: Sunday will be lovely – SUP yoga in the morning, followed by brunch with good girlfriends, and then a massage 🙂

28-week update

How far along: 28 weeks – holy crap, less than 3 months to go!

Meds: all taken daily – prenatal vitamins, vitamin D, DHA, probiotic, Levothyroxine 100 mcg

Gestational diabetes: Had a high blood sugar after unwittingly over-eating at a restaurant, but otherwise my numbers have been nice and on target. And I still get to indulge in a small scoop of ice cream before bed, or sometimes a milk tea. Hurray!

Baby is the size of: an iceberg lettuce

Belly pictures:

Total weight gain: Down 1.2 pounds from last week, and almost 16 pounds up from pre-fertility weight. Bump and baby seem to be growing fine, but think I need to carefully increase my calories on my more active days.

Stretch marks: Nothing that I can see, and my massage therapist confirmed I have nothing on my back. Hoping I’m lucky and it stays this way!

Sleep: Strangely lately I’ve been feeling fine after only 6 hours of sleep. May need to experiment with sleeping upright in the glider, to see if I can stay asleep for longer. At least I don’t feel tired during the day.

Symptoms/Feeling: Still feeling good overall, I feel very lucky so far! The sore hips are annoying, but I can live with them, and have figured out how to position myself better when I sleep to minimize the ache. In fact, I’ve been feeling so good, that when weightlifting this past weekend, I actually came very close to my previous PR on deadlifts! So my goal this weekend is to set a new PR, and capture it on video 🙂 I was sore as heck the following few days, but recovered fine despite not being able to take Ibuprofen or use Salonpas.

Best moment of this week: Always great to see baby girl on ultrasound with hubby at our appointment this morning. As usual, she was kicking and moving a ton in response to the probe. You could see her actually holding the umbilical cord while covering her face with her hands – yeah, pretty glad I decided not to get a 3D ultrasound, she is just not that cooperative in there!

Miss anything: Indulging in chocolate throughout the day. And if only time could stand still just long enough for me to get some serious de-cluttering and nesting done around here.

Movement: Crazy active in there, and I have to admit, I’m not doing formal kick counts because she kicks and moves so much throughout the day, I figure I should be fine.

Food cravings: I’ve consumed 4 eggs today. Normally I eat half of this healthy pancake recipe for a snack (bananas have a lot of sugar), but since I was home this morning, I indulged in the full recipe for lunch. Yummy!

Easy flour-less protein-packed pancakes: Blend 2 eggs, 1 banana, 1 Tbsp natural no-sugar-added peanut butter, 1/2 tsp baking powder, and pinch of salt (I use a Vitamix, a food processor should work fine). Pour silver dollars onto a greased skillet/griddle on low heat. Add pinch of chia seeds prior to flipping and finish cooking.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope, and very thankful!

Labor signs: Just the rare Braxton-Hicks.

Belly button in or out:  It’s smaller, but still an innie.

Wedding rings on or off: Still on and loose.

Happy or moody most of the time: Happy for sure – staying active definitely helps me feel good!

Purchases for baby: Picked up the glider! More gifts have been arriving on our doorstep – thus the serious need for de-cluttering, especially with the first of 3 baby showers taking place in just over 2 weeks!

Looking forward to: Stand-up paddling this Saturday – SUP yoga starts up again Sunday but I have to work. Will definitely be taking class the following weekend if this weather holds! We also have a breastfeeding class next Wednesday. I feel like hubby probably doesn’t need to attend, but at the same time, I expect breastfeeding to be the toughest part of the first few months, and any extra support I can get from him would be great.

27-week update

How far along: 27 weeks – OMG, how is it the 3rd trimester already?!

Meds: all taken daily – prenatal vitamins, vitamin D, DHA, probiotic, Levothyroxine 100 mcg

Gestational diabetes: I survived the wedding and birthday party without too much trouble! And yes, a slice of delicious marble wedding cake was my bedtime snack that night – with an awesome fasting sugar the next morning 🙂 It’s nice not having to poke myself 4 times a day, but tougher to remember when I should be checking. I seem to have developed a good routine for the work week, and will hopefully add more variety after the gestational diabetes nutrition talk I attended at a local motherhood center.

Baby is the size of: a cabbage

Belly pictures: Seriously, Old Navy maternity dresses are the best!

Total weight gain: Up 0.4 pounds from last week, so now an even 17 pounds up from pre-fertility weight. Much more on target than when I weighed this much over a month ago!

Stretch marks: Still none I can see! But my linea nigra that had previously stayed below the belly button seems to be making a thin winding-road appearance above!

Sleep: Mostly good – I stay on my left side without a problem for at least 5 hours, but then my hips start to ache and I flip to my right, only to realize baby girl tends to push up into my ribs more when I lay that way. So back to my left – think I’ll reposition the Snoogle so that it supports my belly more, and hopefully that helps.

Symptoms/Feeling: The occasional sore hips and round ligament pains, but really, I feel pretty darn good! We’ll see how things go as this trimester progresses.

Best moment of this week: Hard to say – it was a whirlwind weekend. It was nice to enjoy some pampering, and get my nails and hair done before the fancy black-tie wedding Saturday. Then the next day I attended my aerial studio’s closing/teacher’s birthday party, and danced one last time in that space. Very bittersweet, but so amazing to feel loved and inspire the other women there. Afterwards, my friends took some fun pictures of me handstanding against the wall, climbing, and holding various upright aerial poses. If I can figure out how to convert them to silhouette images, maybe I’ll post on here some time. A friend suggested I even hang one in the nursery, haha.

Miss anything: Whoa, 3 months to go, and still 2 months of work left, along with weekends packed with various social obligations, and of course baby and lactation prep classes. Not sure exactly when we’re going to be able to clean and set up the nursery??

Movement: Still her most active at 9pm. Oops, guess I should’ve started kick counts tonight.

Food cravings: Chocolate… I miss you so much! 😦

Anything making you queasy or sick: Thankfully no!

Labor signs: The occasional Braxton-Hicks.

Belly button in or out:  The forever innie, it seems.

Wedding rings on or off: Still on and loose.

Happy or moody most of the time: Pretty happy this week!

Purchases for baby: We’d been meaning to replace the decades-old small chest freezer in our garage, and I finally purchased a bigger upright version from Sears, to prepare for more storage we’ll need for breastmilk and ready-to-cook meals for us. Oh, and I highly recommend The New Mama Guide for all the expecting moms! It’s an inexpensive, short read that was written by a friend’s friend. I took advantage of the free Kindle release when it first came out, then my friend actually sent me the print version. Seems to have some useful tips for that 6-weeks postpartum zombie phase!

Looking forward to: Somehow I ended up with both a massage and a float session scheduled for Sunday – sounds like a great day to me! 🙂

Awesome day, and blood sugar success!!

Today was a great day all around! Spent a gorgeous morning stand-up paddling with a friend. I’m not as efficient since I can’t twist as much as before pregnancy, but balance was no issue and I still felt pretty strong. I wasn’t planning on leaving the safety of the harbor, but when I saw how calm it was outside, decided to try heading out. I went to my knees through the wave break, then hopped on up, and felt great! Stable enough to paddle out far enough to visit the sea lions at their buoy. A woman who paddled towards us called out to me about how great it was that I was out there – up until that point, I hadn’t really thought about how much I’m showing right now, especially since baby girl had been lulled to sleep by the wave action. We also spent a good amount of time leisurely sitting and paddling, and catching up. It felt amazing to get out there after 4 months away, and I can’t wait until my next chance! I still had enough energy for a kettlebell workout in the afternoon while hubby and his friends did their regular weightlifting workout.

And another big reason to smile today, my first day of all great blood sugars!

• Fasting of 72 after my small scoop of ice cream with Brazil nuts last night.
• 102 an hour after breakfast – chicken, spinach, and bell peppers with 1 Tbsp Greek yogurt (great substitute for sour cream!) wrapped in a multigrain tortilla.
• Orange and hard-boiled egg for morning snack before paddling. Afterwards I ate lunch of Vietnamese shaking beef, watercress salad, and garlic noodles (leftovers from Valentine’s dinner I cooked). Blood sugar 100 an hour later.
• Half of this recipe for 2-ingredient pancakes (2 eggs + 1 banana) for afternoon snack after kettlebell workout. Then we went out to dinner with a friend at a place known for their Chinese soup dumplings. I was really nervous about this, but ate only 7 dumplings (as opposed to my usual 15+), 1 slice of green onion pancake, a spare rib (after blotting off lots of glaze), and lots of asparagus and mushrooms. And an hour later, blood sugar of 102 🙂
• Tonight instead of ice cream, my bedtime treat is a green tea latte (Taiwanese style). Yay!

So now I know my approximate carb tolerance – <20 g for breakfast, <45 g for morning snack and lunch, <45 g for afternoon snack and dinner, and <30 g for bedtime snack. This is pretty low, but on previous days when I’ve gone a little higher, my sugars went out of range. Today showed I definitely have more room to go up on carbs when I exercise vigorously (not just relaxation or prenatal yoga). It feels great to finally be getting the hang of things!

Shhh, don’t tell my acupuncturist

But I went out for SUP yoga this morning. Her main concern being to avoid getting my uterus cold (yes, a very Chinese medicine way of thinking). Now, I haven’t fallen in the water in probably over a year now, and I know my limits, and am making sure to listen carefully to my body these days. Who can resist the water when it’s this hot? It was almost 70 degrees at 7:30am!

It was wonderful, and while the water wasn’t completely calm, I felt very steady, and modified the yoga when needed. The instructor freaked out a little when I told him I was pregnant, but I explained that I’d already run it by his boss, who was fine with my word that my RE had cleared me to full activity. It was glorious to be out there and moving again after over a month away, and I felt good both during and afterwards. I drank 8 ounces of water beforehand, and another 16 ounces during the 90 minutes on the water. I actually still had some good energy afterwards, but I did have a nice 3-hour nap this afternoon 🙂

I’m going take advantage of warm days to get out there when possible, but I did also buy a set of 2 prenatal fitness DVDs off eBay that I’m going to start soon – Suzanne Bowen’s Slim & Toned Prenatal Barre Workout (I’ve done bar classes before so this seemed like a good fit) and Summer Sanders’ Prenatal Workout, which has more cardio – which I really need to incorporate.