MAY we all be blessed with baby! May 2013 and beyond (BFFs Seeking BFPs)

[melann13]

Doing well here, 28 weeks tomorrow. Can't imagine how I'm supposed to get bigger... Swelling has kicked in big time and it doesn't seem to matter what I do... walking vs sitting with feet up etc. I had this last time too... not pre eclampsia, my BP is only around 104. Pregnancy was flying by but it seems to be slowing down now that the school year has started and the end of the pregnancy is directly linked in my head to the end of the semester- seems ages away.
Have a good day everyone! I need to finish my lecture for this afternoon.

 

[RaeChay]

End of third tri has a way of speeding things up again... At least for me. Of course I'm not a teacher so there's that!

Hope everyone is well!

 

[newbie2013]

Melann! Totally agree. The kids have only been with us for one week and I'm exhausted! Thank goodness I'm not in a classroom any more so I have been trying to escape to my office every now and then for a rest. Sadly those rests have been few and far between - 900 kids takes lots of checking and monitoring! I'm so grateful that my faculty is wonderful and everyone seems to be doing their job as they should be

 

[melann13]

My office is in a high traffic area, so a lot of colleagues/students swing by to chat. Yesterday I was VERY close to shutting my door and laying down on the floor for a while. By the time I got home I was complete toast. I laid on the floor while my daughter played. I still interacted with her (much easier now that she's such a chatterbox, I feel like I'm not ignoring her as long as we carry on conversation while she plays), but I feel bad that I'm not as active with her as normal. In the morning I feel pretty good, but by the end of the day I'm just swollen and sore and exhausted. I'm thankful for every stray piece of curriculum that I can use from last year to prevent all the 10pm lecture writing... Still have some, but at least it's not every day.
Hope everyone is feeling well!

 

[kksy9b]

.

Just me complaining

 

[melann13]

I hear ya kksy,
My glucose test is Tuesday, which makes me anxious because I failed last time by a single point and had to do the 3hr, which I passed easily. I know your not supposed to fast for the 1hr, but not load up on carbs/sugars either, stick to protein. Well, my appt isn't until 10:45 with the blood draw at 11:45. I don't know how to make it from breakfast until then without more sustenance! I like eggs, but have a hard time eating them if there's no toast or anything involved. I usually have "2nd breakfast" (3rd tri is like being a hobbit) around 9:45... which would probably be a bad idea. I always bring something from home, so it's usually a muffin or scone or something... Maybe I'll just bring a jar of peanut butter and a spoon

 

[RaeChay]

the 3 hour made me so sick with DS that this time (after I failed the 1 hour *again*) I requested a different option....any other option. They let me do finger sticks 4x/day for 2 weeks, record the results & then email them to my OB. After 1 week my numbers were so good they let me stop. So that's an option if you really really hate the 3 hour.

 

[pathos]

haha hobit breakfast =)
I am 17 weeks but i think i was smaller in my third tri with L. I am huge, same weight gain so far but really i am very big =/ and i feel very ugly, unattractive. Last pregnancy when i was a whale, i felt like a ballerina. Now I am whale and i feel like one.
I am dreading the glucose test as well. It gave me 3 day long migraine last time =( hope you pass it.

Clandi has not been around, maybe she gave birth?
Do we have a fb group for this thread?

 

[newbie2013]

I was just thinking that we hadn't heard from clande in a while. Hope she's ok.

I found out that they don't do the glucose test here unless you're high risk. My brother has type 1 diabetes, which I've heard puts me in a risk category but not sure If they'll do it or not. Not sure I want to after hearing the stories from you guys! Good luck!

 

[melann13]

It's not THAT bad... just unpleasant. No one likes to drink a pile of sugar or get their blood drawn, and the GTT is a two for one deal. Plus it's a time suck. My new doctor at least schedules my normal appt during the one hour that I'm sitting around, so I don't just have to sit in the waiting room while my pancreas pumps insulin out...
The three hour is definitely tougher as you're so hungry from fasting and then have to drink that nasty stuff on an empty stomach. Last time they let me sit in a non-stress test room (quiet, in a recliner) for some of the three hours and I took a nap.

 

[ClandestineTX]

Sorry, LOL, still here (and 36+6 and going strong)

Yesterday - 36+5 and estimated 7 lbs 2 ounces - I was 9/6 and Hubs was 9/9, so we aren't stressing his weight estimate. It's almost 69th percentile and his height is almost 90th! Head is still down and definitely way in the pelvis, so keeping our fingers crossed we get our unmedicated birth we've been preparing for. I started gaining weight (up a total of about 30#) and no longer care - still walking the dog daily, trying to watch what I eat, but since he started dropping I'm a ravenous beast and the hunger wins. I am mostly fluid, but BP great (like 100-110s over 70s), so no one is worried (except me about the poundage).

I have been traveling for job prospects, waiting for final contract to back up verbal offer so we can put an offer on a house. Expecting a Dec 5th start date in a neighboring state. Between work, classes (birth, breastfeeding, newborn care, etc.), and trying to get everything sorted to change jobs - just zero time for online things! We had two baby showers, one at my work and one at a friends and we got tons of things from people near and far - my dining room table looked like "baby christmas" and we had a whole day of opening and figuring out what we still needed (which created a massive online order with gift cards and some of our own money). Bought a cheap crib that looks lovely and Hubster set up last night, mattress due for delivery today! I'll post photos in the next few days - no more travel for me, so hopefully will have more time to catch up soon!

And huge congrats to Athena!!!

 

[pathos]

Thank god, we do not have baby showers - but they started to appear here as well. I do not know what to think about them. It can be very useful with all that registry presents etc., but from what i see on fb, pinterest etc, it has a very consumerist side -, all those themes, paper cups, decors, food, sugar coat cakes, games, guest give aways. The cuteness makes me sick
Of course it is so much better than gender reveal party. That one I dont get. Who cares about the gender of someone else's baby? I would hate to be in one. Maybe i am very German on those things.
On the other hand, you see all relevant and irrelevant people before the baby arrives. Here, they come to visit you after the baby arrives -

 

[melann13]

I've had an thrown baby showers, both without most of the cutesy stuff, just as a gathering of women to talk about being moms.
We did a small type of gender reveal this time, only because we were already planning a party to put up a playhouse in our backyard. Our neighborhood is VERY close, and we just built a two story playhouse and wanted all the neighbor kids to feel like part of it, so they all came over with their hammers etc and helped raise the walls. It was pure coincidence that our ultrasound got scheduled for the day before (it actually got moved up from the next week), so we decided to have the tech write it down rather than tell us. My dad, who didn't know the gender last time (he really didn't want to, but everyone else knew), got to open the envelope by himself and poke holes in either a pink or blue balloon. At lunch during the playhouse party, he brought out the balloons and handed one to my and one to DH. We both tried to blow them up and the blue one was the one that filled- it's a boy! I'm not sure what I would have done if the whole party were themed around gender, but the way we did it was a fun way to make the announcement to our friends.

 

[ClandestineTX]

Hahahaha! You ladies have known me for YEARS you don't think I had one of *those* showers, did you? The work shower was a come-and-go (stop by for cake and punch, say "hi", leave a present) and my official shower was a co-ed, family-friendly (mostly) house party with a "spiking station" to make the non-alcoholic drinks appropriate for non-pregnant adults and a pinata that was full of candy and condoms (colored and flavored ones, at that). We ate tons of snacks and had a bunch of desserts - tons of good catch ups with friends from as far as 8 hours away that came in for the party. But no, wasn't one of those silly games and crazy decor type things where women sit around horrifying the mom-to-be with birth stories!

We got a LOT of presents between the two and from our registry shipped to our house - between those things and the gift cards, I'm not sure we spent more than a few hundred of our own dollars, so it was kind of incredible to have so many people in our lives help us out!

 

[ClandestineTX]

 

[pathos]

condoms, lol.

I meant no offence . Baby showers are an American tradition, and it might be nice for Americans, because it emerged out of their cultural values. I just find baby showers in i.e. German context to be very phoney. Ah, i sound very conservative but my view is not about cultural imperialism at all.

Have you watched Melisandre attending baby shower?

 

[newbie2013]

Baby showers are not really a "thing" in Australia either, pathos, but I work with a LOT of Americans and so, there's a potential of one of "those" baby showers... which I really don't want. Clande, yours sounds much more appealing, but inappropriate in the culture I live in. Condoms - haha! Love it. I'm not 100% sure I'll end up with a baby shower since I'm effectively seen as administration and I don't really socialise with the teachers, but perhaps they'll arrange something small.

Hope you're all doing well! Think about you all a lot

 

[momwithbabies]

I personally could live without them. I've thrown them and had them, too. But mine never involved condoms...maybe that's the trick! That's hilarious and I adore the piñata!!!

 

[ClandestineTX]

It's meant to be a celebration and a way to help the new family get what they need for the new addition. They are very common here, I would never turn down presents (especially when I get to pick most of them). We had a lot of fun! The traditional ones do make me very uncomfortable though, I'm also not a fan of leaving out the partners. I'm grateful to have such a fun group of nontraditional friends!

 

[newbie2013]

Clande, how are you doing? 38 weeks now... wow!

Have any of you had experience with a shorter, softer cervix at 24 weeks? Doc didn't seem overly concerned, but prescribed progesterone to help - he doesn't want to take any risks with this pregnancy. Makes me worried because they've always suspected that my cervix was one of the factors in our infertility. Hope it does fail me now