Thursday, December 25, 2003

34 weeks pregnant.


Fasting blood glucose today is 102. I'm supposed to be 90 or less. After dinner at mom's it was 155. So I need more practice eating at other people's houses and eating out. At least we're home for the next 2 days before I have to tackle eating out at my MIL's house. Then New Year's, baby shower, and 2 birthdays and I don't have to deal with any more holiday eating. Thank goodness!


Mom's was very low key and casual -- we played another round of Pictionary and then watched Chicken Run and Lilo and Stitch since my parents hadn't seen those yet. Karen had asked me to lend her a mess of movies so we grabbed a random assortment.


Dad is stressing out because I have yet to back a bag for hospital. He doesn't seem to understand that I have a limited amount of clothing that I can wear right now and I have to be wearing it, not storing it in a bag.


Mom boiled all the natural Chinese Prefolds for me and washed them twice. She said they looked like gigantic wonton in the pot and she was right. But the wax came off and I'll probably run them through 2 more washes here at home to be sure.


I had a weird night. Even though visiting my parents for Xmas Eve was fun, I poop out sooo easy these days. Somewhere around midnight Paul was trying to show me new screensavers he'd designed but I kept fussing and went to lay down. He's been trying to show them to me for days and I felt kind of bad about cutting him short but I just felt so blah I couldn't deal with sitting up looking at wiggling things on a screen. I went to bed and burst into tears because my feet were hurting and I felt so moody. My feet were annoying me from having worn my sandals instead of sneakers to mom's. The only shoes that don't make my feet hurt are my sneakers but I wore a dress so couldn't wear sneakers with it. That's one article of maternity wear I never could find -- dress shoes that were comfortable and supportive.


Then I had this weird pressure start in my groin and lower back and it was weird enough for me to call Paul.


He came over to where I was and for the next hour he massaged me, talked to me, played guitar, and just tended to me while I suffered weird cycles of... pressure. Oh, and the baby was moving around like a crazy person. I can't say it was painful -- it was just a lot of pressure. My bursting into tears earlier was from emotional duress rather than physical.


I don't know if these were supposed to be a different kind of Braxton-Hicks, real but light contractions, baby moving down closer to being engaged, or what. All I know is that it felt weird, my lower back and tailbone would ache, the baby quit squirming while it was happening, I'd get slight chills or shakes, then when the chills were done I'd get a break for a while before starting the whole thing all over again.


Paul asked me to describe it and I couldn't do it very well. I told him it was a mix of something like feeling a lot of pressure in my lower abdominal or baldder area like someone pushing on it, feeling pressure like I wanted to poop, and feeling pressure like squeezing. It was different than what I think were BH before -- those tend to start at the top of my uterus and squeeze downwards and then go away. My belly gets all hard all over on those. With these, sometimes my belly would get hard and sometimes it wouldn't.


I made Paul check the list on the fridge and neither of us felt I was having anything so major it warranted a trip to ER:


RETURN TO HOSPITAL TO BE EXMAINED IF:

A. Your water breaks or you think it is leaking

B. You bleed from the vagina (a small amount of pink, red, or brown discharge may be normal after an exam)

C. Over 37 Weeks: regualr, strong contractions (labor pains) every 5 min.)

D. Under 37 weeks: any regular contractions, regular pelvic pressure, persistent backache, persistant abdominal cramping, or notice any changes in vaginal discharge

E. You feel burning when you urinate or pass water

F. You have a fever greater than 100.4

G. Your feet, hands, or face swell

H. You don't feel well due to bad headaches, fainting spells, spots before your eyes, muscle twitching, or chills

I. You have extreme pain and/or rigidiity (hardness) of the abdomen

J. You do not feel the baby move. Kick count: if less than 10 fetal movements over 8 hours, call your doctor, come in for evaluation, or follow the fetal kick count per office instructions


Whatever these things were, they didn't come at any kind of regular interval and after an hour they tapered off and went away completely. Paul was feeling baby doing her wild little dance with his hand and stuck his head on my belly to listen and he reported more movements and squiggly noises like I was either hungry or digesting. Then baby gave him a really hard kick to the head which made him say, "Ooh!"


I didn't feel esp. hungry but he went off and made me a small ham and cheese sandwich anyway so I ate it (which is probably why my fasting is higher than normal -- eating so late) and eventually got to sleep once baby quit bopping me.


Who knows what today will bring.

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