Birthday Musings

Warning: some admitted whining ahead, followed by my normal sunny outlook.

Today was my birthday. Honestly, it didn’t start off very well. I stumbled out of bed this morning and got Morgan off to school, then went back to sleep for a couple of hours. I was woken by my doctor’s office calling to tell me I failed the glucose tolerance test I took on Thursday, and I’ll need to come in this week to take the three hour test.

If you’ve ever had this, you know how much it sucks. You start off by fasting for 8 hours or so. Then you go in first thing in the morning and have your blood drawn. Then they make you drink this awful syrupy glucose drink that tastes like flat orange soda that’s been sitting out for a few days.  And they want you to drink it really fast. Then you wait around for an hour. Then they draw your blood again. Then you wait around for another hour. Then they draw your blood again. Then you wait around for another hour. Then they draw your blood again. Of course during all of this you feel really crappy, because you’ve been fasting, then you have to down the gross drink, and you’re dealing with all the fun of hanging out in an uncomfortable waiting room in between getting repeatedly stabbed with a needle. So basically you’re tired, bored, hungry, sore, and usually a little nauseated.

So anyway, I called my mom to see if she could watch Daisy one day this week (because that adventure is not happening with a two year old in tow). She and my dad were on their way somewhere and just seemed really distracted and irritated to be bothered with the call, but she said, sure, she could watch her, but only tomorrow. So, I get to end my birthday by fasting. And neither one of them remembered that it was my birthday. I know that’s a really immature thing to complain about, but it kind of hurt my feelings anyway.

Also (and this is way petty, but I’m absolutely venting here, so just overlook me), Nick’s sister (in Texas) told him a few days ago that she was putting my birthday gift in the mail that day. Since all my gifts were opened at the family fall birthday get together a couple of weeks ago, I was really excited about having something to open on my birthday, something that rarely happens. Then she texted me this morning to tell me that she’s absolutely going to go to the post office tomorrow to mail it out. Honestly not a big deal (it’s not like she had to give me anything at all, and I gave her hers over a month late, when we went to visit them), but it was just something that added to the disappointing way the day started. But that just means I get to open a gift in a few days, extending the celebration a bit!

Things really did look up after that. I went and had lunch with Nick (with Daisy along for the ride of course), and we had Jet’s Pizza, the absolute, hands down best pizza I’ve ever had anywhere. And after that I got to go do some light shopping, and I bought myself a very nice (and deeply discounted) purse, as well as knocked out a couple of Christmas gifts for Morgan and Daisy (using a coupon of course!).

Nick very sweetly made me a delicious birthday cake last night, and I found out that 34 candles makes for an impressive blaze, but I got them all blown out in one breath. He also made dinner last night and tonight, and a couple of days ago he let me do some thrift store shopping. He worked incredibly hard this past weekend hauling off scrap metal and doing some mechanical work for a few different people. God really provided for us, allowing us to pay some bills we otherwise would not have had the money for. And my mom did call later to wish me a happy birthday and apologize for forgetting to earlier.

Since I missed Thankful Thursday, here’s my baby update for the week. Also, we finally settled on a name. I won’t post it here for privacy reasons (my girls go by alternate names here too), but I’ve decided to call him Jack on the blog. My last visit was this past Thursday, and everything is going well, although my doctor would like to see me gain a little weight. I’m about three pounds down from where I started when I got pregnant, and she’d like to see me gain those three pounds back by my next visit That’s hard for me to hear because I’m so used to hearing that I need to lose weight! I gained a ton of weight with Morgan and frankly never quite got back to where I was, so I was super careful about weight gain when I was expecting Daisy. With her I lost 10 pounds before I knew I was pregnant, then gained back those 10 plus 1 by the time she was born. She was perfectly healthy (in fact, her APGAR was 9), so I was really proud of doing such a good job keeping it in line (for the record, I’m um, voluptuous to start with, so it’s okay for me to gain less than average sized women). Anyway, since there’s a good chance I may be gestational diabetic again, it’s going to actually be a challenge to put weight on now (at least if I follow the diet like I’m supposed to!).

Week 24 of Pregnancy: Fetal Hearing

Your baby weighs more than a pound and a half right now and sports a crown-to-rump length of about eight and a half inches (standard letter size!). At this point in fetal development, that beautiful face (though still tiny) is almost fully formed.

Your baby weighs more than a pound and a half right now and sports a crown-to-rump length of about eight and a half inches (standard letter size!).
Wondering what (and who) your baby will look like?  If you had a baby cam at 24 weeks pregnant, you'd almost be able to tell by now.  That beautiful face (though still tiny) is almost fully formed.  What's still missing from the picture is the fat that will be piled on under baby's skin.  Until those fat deposits are made, that very tender skin is still very transparent, which means a close look would let you see clear through to all the organs, bones, and blood vessels. Fortunately, that see-through look won't last much longer. Babies at this stage of fetal development are gaining about six ounces each week — with much of that gain coming from fat, in addition to growing organs, bones, and muscle.

What's been playing on your little rocker's stereo system these days?  All kinds of sounds can be heard by your baby in your womb: from air exhaling from your lungs (deep breath now), those gastric gurgles produced by your stomach and intestines, your voice and your partner's (which your baby will be able to recognize at birth), and even very loud sounds such as honking horns, barking dogs, or a wailing fire truck.

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