We did it!!! We are finally in the 3rd trimester!!! I wasn't sure if we were going to make it to Thursday, but we did! We had a lot of baby stuff to do this week:
1. Target Registry: which is DONE! Woot! We went at 7 p.m. after Travis had been at the engineering expo all day. Poor Travis, I am glad he got to bike this morning because this week has been rough on him.
2. Doctor Visit: I will have to do the diabetes test (you drink a nasty, orange, sugary drink, and they draw your blood). I hope I don't pass out, but I have 2 weeks till I have to worry about that! Other than that, Aria is doing good. I don't know if the placenta has moved up yet, but I am going to guess no because I am in more pain than I was in before. Oh.... and I weight a LOT. Like probably as much as some guys in singers. Its scary and embarrassing. Thankfully, I haven't caught Travis yet, but I think I might by my 9th month.
3. Child birth class: We had our 2nd class, and it went well. I don't think I really learned anything new. Well, except that I am starting to reconsider an epidural. A friend from high school theater mentioned that epidurals can increase your risk of needing a C-section, but that isn't what is scaring me the most about epidurals. I know someone who had an allergic reaction to an epidural, and it could have killed her. On one episode of a baby's story, a woman had swelling in the brain from her epidural. And a pretty common side effect of an epidural is having decreased blood pressure which is alarming to me because that is why I faint when I give blood; my blood pressure drops. I don't know. There is just a lot to think about. AND my hospital only offers full strength epidurals (not the walking ones). There is one other option besides getting an epidural. I could get IV drugs, but they have a lot of side effects on the baby. Babies tend to come out sleepy and occasionally don't breath. Also, the sleepy baby (from all of the drugs) doesn't want to breastfeed right away, so you don't get a pattern established early on. The IV tranquilizers do this to the baby because they are put into your blood stream, so the baby actually gets some of the medication. The epidural is a combo of drugs that are similar to the IV, but an epidural is inserted into the epidural space in your spine and just bathes the nerves with medicine rather than getting it into your blood stream. So, that's that issue.
4. Finally, we got to take a tour of the hospital! This was my favorite part of this week by far. I think I almost started crying while I was there because it was just so overwhelming. First of all, we walk in, and our instructor started to show us what one of the rooms looks like when we see a scale being rolled into a room across the hall. Then, we walk by and hear a baby start crying. A baby was born like on the other side of the door while we were there!!! It was soooo crazy. We looked at the rooms that we would be having the baby in, and it was just surreal to think that we would be back there in 3 months to have Aria. On a side note, our hospital is really into letting the baby and mom meet each other, spend as much time as possible together, and helping the mom establish feeding patterns before the mom and baby leave the hospital. So, once the baby is born, it is with you until you leave except for a brief couple of minutes in the nursery while mom is moving to the postpartum area of the hospital (assuming the baby doesn't have any medical complications). Anyway, then we went down to the nursery, and we got to see a new dad with his newborn. It was so sweet. The guy couldn't stop smiling, and the baby couldn't stop crying. You could tell the baby wanted to be back with it's mommy. Then we went by the NICU ( baby ICU). There were a few babies getting oxygen, and one was under a heating lamp for jaundice, but they looked pretty healthy besides that. It was strange to see all of the little newborns. They were bigger than I expected but had smaller heads than I thought babies had. I am going to go with that being a good thing for obvious reasons... Also, all of the babies looked identical! So, we ended up in the postpartum rooms after that, and they were nice. Then our tour ended.
I am going to guess that all of this stuff is probably only interesting to me but whatever! Next week is our last class, and then the week after is our diabetes doctors appointment... I don't know. I want time to go by faster, but everything to still get done. I feel like I have a lot of paperwork hanging over my head that I either a) am to lazy to tackle or b) can't because people haven't gotten back to me *COUGH COUGH medicaid*. I kind of feel constantly stressed because I have so many loose ends that need to be tied up in 3 months, and I can't live with so much uncertainty, especially when it is important stuff.
For everyone who hasn't seen me pregnant yet, I am huge. Okay, I look like I gained 5 pounds and then stuffed a basketball under my shirt, but it is kind of ridiculous. In my first trimester, I kind of judged people who gained more than they were supposed to because I was only gaining a pound a month. But now I understand, sympathize, and will probably be one of those women. Wouldn't it be nice if you could walk out of the hospital your pre-pregnancy weight? I am going to educate ya'll really quick on why this is not possible. I think that most people don't get that there is a lot more than just an 8 pound baby inside you. There is also the 2 pound placenta, the 2 pounds amniotic fluid, and our blood volume increases by 50% (4 pounds). So, you loose about 15 pounds right after birth, BUT you keep some of the extra blood volume for feeding. Then there is the obvious fat storage in our boobies (for feeding) and other places that we gain fat so we have the energy to last the 18 hour process of child birth (9 pounds) plus the fluid in that tissue and milk produced (4 pounds). And our uterus increases in weight (2 pounds). If you add all of that up, that's 31 pounds. They say you should gain 27 because some of that fat storage you have on from before you are preggers.
So I am going to stop here or else I will rant about a bunch of random stuff. BUT on the bright side, to any girls who are reading, you have something to refer to now when you get pregnant, and you have a friend who has been there and done that! Guys... meh, if any are still reading after that rant, I applaud you.
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