It’s been a busy few days, with my dad visiting, trips to see out-of-town friends, Adam in a baseball tournament all weekend and some of the hottest temperatures we’ve seen here in a long time.
I’m not going to lie, I’ve spent a lot of time going back and forth between cool showers and lying semi-clothed underneath our ceiling fan, Gus and I panting in unison.
(I’ve had requests from non-baby people to talk in MONTHS dammit like a normal person! So 29 weeks is either 7.25 months or 6.75 months depending on who you ask. Doesn’t really make things clearer, does it?)
I’ve been hovering at 130 lbs for a few weeks now, for a weight gain of between 15-20 lbs and baby is measuring perfectly and weighs around 2lbs 10 ounces with a heartbeat of a galloping 145 bpm.
I’m still feeling good, and am on Day 5 of the Diabeetus Diary. I swear this thing is like a part time job. I have set my phone alarm to go off every two hours (for either a meal or a snack) and while this is necessary because I am the queen of sometimes forgetting to eat for 5 hours, it still feels strange and overly regimented. I’m used to eating when I’m hungry or when I see something tasty, not when my phone starts beeping at me like an overly insistent Italian grandmother, “Eat! Eat! You so skinny!”
But I’ve been doing it. I’ve dutifully been packing a giant feed bag around with me wherever I go, along with my food journal and testing kit and have eaten every two hours, and tested my blood sugars six times a day and aside from one or two times where I was 1-2 points outside of the testing range, everything looks really good so far.
In other words, I am kicking gestational diabetes’ ASS! If this was an Olympic event I’d be getting a gold.
BUT. Here’s where I might be disappointed. When I had my appointment with the dietitian last week I spend a good portion of the time trying to talk myself out of he diagnosis (Me: “Is there any chance the test could be wrong? I slept in that morning so really I fasted for longer than 12 hours, and I read online that stress can affect it too and my husband and I were dealing with some issues with his business and I mean I have kidney problems so that could have thrown it off too…right?” Her: “(slowly shaking head”).
And while she wasn’t having any of my jibber jabber, she didsay the following:
Madeleine, just keep track of everything for a week. If it all looks good you won’t have to see us anymore.
And in my mind I gleefully kicked my heels together – huzzah! A way out! You see I interpreted this to mean that if all of my numbers are within the normal range, I can give the equipment back and be done with this whole thing.
Adam however, interprets it to mean that I will still have to continue with the regimented eating and testing, but just not have to meet with them on a weekly basis since I am able to control it on my own.
Looking at it logically I think Adam might be right. Looking at it with optimism born out of nothing more than desperation, and a strong desire to gorge myself on peanut butter and chocolate gelato, I’m still hopeful that my interpretation will prevail.
In non-diabeetus related news, my dad was in town to drop off baby furniture that we’re hoping to use for little Baby G.
Many years ago, when my older brother was born my dad built a bassinet for him. It’s been used for all of my siblings for the first few weeks of their life and so he offered to bring it out when we told him that we were expecting. It’s not your typical bassinet, being higher than most and we’ll likely only use it for a few weeks since it’s fairly small, but I’m a sucker for traditions and story telling and I can’t resist the idea of telling our baby that they slept in the same bassinet as I did, 28 years ago.
Unfortunately, it’s a little worse for wear, (six babies and five moves will do that I suppose) and so rather than being ready and waiting for a babe in our room, it’s currently sitting in pieces downstairs “re-hydrating” before getting fixed by my dad when he comes back in a month.
And because I am an OCD crazy person, I’m sitting here staring at it and feeling itchy and discombobulated because I had it in my mind that after this weekend our room would have a crib in it. And it doesn’t.
Obviously.
I know I’ve gone on and on about the nesting before but hot damn, I can not overstate how fiercely I am feeling urge to get things ready. Now. I just want things to look a little more prepared, a little more baby-ready, you know?
I’m only 29 weeks, if all goes well I still have anywhere from 8-10 weeks to go before we say hi to our little guy/girl, but it doesn’t feel like enough time. How can it? Seven months have already passed in a blur of belly pictures and doctors appointments, I feel like I know all too well how quickly the next few will fly by, too.
So the staring and the itching and wishing it was in one piece. I am trying to preoccupy myself by trying to find a mattress to fit its unique size, sheets too.
Also, in “Things That Will Make My Husband Go Cross-eyed With Rage” news, I’ve made a list of all of Adam’s possessions I want to sell (“Oh, you didn’t actually want this wii/wii fit/steering wheel & gas pedal video game accessory/cable box/generator/[insert name of anything you love dearly here], did you sweetie?”)
He found the list this morning and promptly vetoed everything, saying that he deserved to retain some of his possessions. What kind of world does he live in, thinking he’s allowed to have things? Things that take up space in our house, the same house that he pays to live in and shares responsibility for maintaining?
I mean LUDICROUS, right? Sigh. I don’t see me winning this one.
I bought a dresser this morning, it’s old and needs to be painted a delicious mint colour, but it has drawers! Working drawers! Working drawers that I can put stuff in instead of collecting it in random piles strewn throughout our home!
Seriously, baby stuff is beginning to pile up in every corner – we have a car seat stowed behind the guest bed, a vibrating chair lurking beside the couch. My vintage suitcases are crammed with diapers and onesies, toys my sisters have bought on their various travels are crammed into a shelf of my bookcase, and even with my minimalist approach to baby-stuff-buying it just. keeps. accumulating.
I love small houses, and I like this house, but lately I am finding myself wishing that it wasn’t quite so small. I’d love a dining space, one more bedroom. I spend a lot of time pacing irritatedly room to room, mentally rearranging things to fit better, get more space.
But we don’t have a dining room or another bedroom – won’t any time soon. So I guess this is where you get what you get and you don’t get upset (parents say that sort of thing, right?).
I’ll make it work. It’s just going to be a bit of a trick getting there without pulling all of my hair out or ruining my marriage by demanding that my husband liquidate all of his possessions. (Seriously Adam, THREE PAIRS OF SHOES? Shit is getting out of control. Pick one.)
In the midst of all of this planning and moving and purging, I am feeling SO much movement from Baby G. My belly is filled with a constant churning storm of energy, somersaults and hiccups and kicks. We now start midwife appointments every 2 weeks instead of every month. (Already?)
Next Wednesday is the ultrasound that determines if my placenta has moved. I hope it has, I SO hope it has. I feel like it might have, I rarely feel kicks or punches on my left side, whereas I do feel them quite low, so I’m hoping that’s an indicator that the placenta is now lying along the left side of my uterus instead of the bottom.
If you have a moment, send some good thoughts my way next Wednesday morning as I lay sweaty and anxious on an exam table somewhere, mmmkay?
Today at our midwife appointment she told us that the baby is lying head down, back facing the front, curled against my right side. This makes sense as we can usually feel The Butt squirming around right above my belly button. Somehow having this visual has helped me conceptualize that there’s an actual baby in there. I hadn’t realized how unreal this would sometimes feel, how hard to believe it would be that in two months I’ll be holding a baby. A real, live baby.
OUR baby.
Say whaaaa?
Happy 29 weeks Baby G! Keep growing big and strong, (but not too big, I’d like to keep my ladyparts in one piece please).
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