Finally... An Update!

We got a little behind on the blogging.  Really we got so overwhelmed with moving and unpacking that it seemed irresponsible to sit down and write when we should have been cleaning or putting things away or shopping for various household items we still needed.  When we did sit down we were just too exhausted.  I've actually been sleeping really, really well since we arrived in Alabama - I think because I've been working so hard.  Finally, though, we're nearly settled.  We have pictures and curtains to hang, but we are pretty comfortable now.  We even managed to install the car seat and start setting up the nursery.  Here's a picture of the nursery so far:

We had a wonderful time visiting our families during our couple of vacation weeks.  All of our travel went smoothly.  We got to see many good friends and relatives we don't always get to see on trips home.  We also had a really lovely baby shower thrown by my mom and sister.  Then we flew to Alabama.

Alabama has been quite an adjustment for us.  It's hot and very humid, but those things don't bother me as much as all the bugs.  There are tons of giant cockroaches, mosquitos, and all kinds of other bugs I don't have names for because I've never seen them before now.  I guess you could say this place is very full of life in that respect.  Oh and then there's this from my walk with the dog a few mornings ago:

We've also noticed a difference in culture, of course.  The biggest cultural difference I've noticed since we arrived, is how often people (mostly women, but some men too) comment on my pregnancy. I had only received one comment from a stranger prior to arriving here.  Now I get comments and questions everywhere I go.  Mostly I don't mind, but when someone says, "Wow!  You're going to have a good-size baby!" in response to hearing my due date, I'm a little offended.  It seems any people I've encountered have at least learned to ask before touching a pregnant woman's belly - I sincerely appreciate that.  But it also appears, that there are a few slow learners out there, who have yet to understand how rude it is to comment on a pregnant woman's size.  On the other hand, one very kind woman who passed by me at Ikea said simply: "You look so beautiful."  That was so sweet I nearly cried.

I've been to my new OB/GYN twice.  Interestingly, my high blood pressure has ceased to be an issue because all my blood pressure measurements have been normal here.  I suspect it has something to do with the pleasant office environment and the very kind staff.  Also, at my last appointment I had an ultrasound to check up on my placenta.  It had been low-lying (too close to my cervix) at my 20 week ultrasound, but now it's moved up out of baby's way.  The ultrasound technician also took various measurements of baby girl's anatomy, and she is head down and right on schedule for her age.  It's so nice to have the reassurance that everything is going well as we enter the last two months.  Here is a cute profile picture the technician printed for me:

I have my next appointment, the 34 week check-up, this week.

Lee and I have attended childbirth class, breastfeeding class, and infant CPR and safety class.  We've toured the hospital where I'll be giving birth.  We have one more class on caring for a newborn, but otherwise we're nearly "ready".  Ready in the technical sense that we've done what we can to get ready, not necessarily actually ready.  We are kind of actually ready.  Ready to meet our girl and find out what she's like - though we are still working on names - and taking suggestions!  Any suggestions?  On the other hand, we have no idea how we're going to handle labor and delivery, or for that matter, caring for our infant after delivery.  It seems like there is so much we just have to figure out as we go.

Otherwise, I'm tired.  I guess growing a kid wears you out.  I'm also a little swollen with all the heat and humidity here.  But, I am sleeping well thanks to A/C and my special Snoogle pillow, and that keeps me feeling pretty good overall :-)  Six weeks to go!  

For those who noticed it's been over a month since we posted to the blog,  I expect we'll be back to posting updates more regularly now that things have settled down.

Heat Wave!

The last week brought record breaking temperatures to Germany and other parts of Europe.  Germany, for generally good reasons, has very little AC.  Unfortunately, we've all been suffering for that choice over the last week - especially all the pregnant ladies - and to be dealing with this in the middle of finishing up our move... it's been awful.  Fortunately a couple of weeks ago Lee and I caved to our desire to do one more thing before leaving Europe and booked a trip to Amsterdam.  We've both been there before, but we'd missed a couple of things we wanted to see and do including the Anne Frank House and the Rijksmuseum.  The trip proved worth every penny, and reminded us why we like cities so much - Diversity!  It was still hot in Amsterdam, but it was about 10F degrees cooler than in Germany on the hottest day, and 20-30 degrees cooler on the other days.  And, most importantly, our hotel room had AC and an incredibly comfortable king size bed!  It was glorious!  We didn't want to leave - ever.

We did leave though.  We had to pick up the dog, take care of our last bit of packing, mailing, and paperwork, and catch our flight.

I had my last Germany OB appointment this morning.  My blood pressure was too high again, but this time they sent me right up to Labor and Delivery for testing and monitoring.  They took my blood pressure in the OB clinic 3 times and it was too high every time.  In Labor and Delivery, they took it 7 times and every time was perfectly normal and healthy.  They also monitored the baby's heart rate during all that which was pretty cool.  I was finally released after an extra 3 hours at the hospital with the conclusion that baby girl and I are totally fine.  Ultimately I really appreciate the care they took, but honestly... I'm trying to finish packing and taking care of all the necessary last minute details today before flying out tomorrow - might that be the reason my blood pressure was a little high?  Still, I can't complain too much about 3 hours relaxing with my book on a hospital bed in an air conditioned room on a super hot day like today.

Big picture: we managed to get everything done and we're all healthy and ready for our trip tomorrow!

GD

GD is what all the pregnancy message board posters call gestational diabetes for short.  I will not be calling it that - I think that kind of internet shorthand is annoying because I always find myself having to Google the acronyms to find out what on earth they mean.  Also, I don't have have gestational diabetes - hooray!!! - so I can afford to type it out one more time and never think about it again!

I did find out yesterday that I failed my 1 hour glucose test.  My blood glucose level was 145, and it needed to be less than 140 to pass.  So today Lee and I sat in the laboratory waiting room with 2 other expectant mom and dad pairs taking the 3 hour glucose test.  It was a glucose testing party.  The 3 hour test involves testing your fasting blood sugar level, drinking twice as much glucose drink as the 1 hour test, then testing your blood sugar level 3 more times 1 hour, 2 hours, and 3 hours after drinking the glucose.  That's 4 blood draws in all.  Fortunately, I have no problems with needles, and phlebotomists love my big, dark veins.  I felt and still feel awful from the sugar high this morning, but Lee took me out to lunch and then we ran some errands after the test.  On our way home we stopped back by the OB clinic to get my results.  You have to pass 2 out of 3 of the post-drink blood draws.  I passed all 3 by very comfortable margins :-)

And that brings us to the end of 2nd trimester testing (big sigh of relief)!  My next appointment will be right before we move at the very beginning of my 3rd trimester.

Vaca - and Full-Length Mirrors

Our get-away to the mountains was wonderful and exactly what we needed!

We stopped at Dachau on the way there.  We'd been meaning to do that.  While it is educational and a part of human history that I think is important to understand and remember, I don't think we can be blamed too much for not exactly being excited about this visit.  We're glad we went though, as we learned some things we hadn't known and there's just nothing like seeing a place with your own eyes to help you understand.

The next day we walked from our hotel to the tourist area of Garmisch and mostly we just wandered with no agenda.  We picked up a poster we'd seen on our first visit to Garmisch but failed to buy.  It's a map of the Alps with South at the top of the map and North at the bottom - a unique perspective. We sat at an outdoor table and enjoyed lunch and apple strudel.  In the afternoon we headed back to the hotel and took naps and read, feeling no guilt as it was raining outside.

In the morning we got up early in an attempt to get a view from the top of the Zugspitze, Germany's highest peak, before it was completely socked in by clouds.  We had no luck, though the cable car ride was thrilling :-)  And again we spent the rest of the day relaxing and reading.  I had my first maternity massage, which was wonderful.  We even stayed in for dinner.  It was just so nice to have no place to be, no looming deadlines, and no schedule - a perfect short vacation!

While we were gone I did come to realize that most of our household goods, including our only full-length mirror, have been packed up and on their way to our new home for over a month now.   So really, other than brief reflections in store windows, it's been five weeks since I've had a chance to see myself in a full-length mirror - I guess I've just been judging how I look by how others react to seeing me.  I think it was between 20 and 22 weeks when my belly seemed to become the first thing friends noticed about me.  Well, our hotel room had several large mirrors, and I got a good look at myself.  I actually stood in front of the mirror for a while - shocked.  When did my belly get so big?!  When did I get to be 25 weeks pregnant?!  This is some crazy stuff!  These are all good things, of course, but seeing that belly definitely caught me off-guard :-)

Today we're spending one more day relaxing at home.  Tomorrow begins our final week of living in our wonderful German house.

Happy Father's Day, all!

So Much Testing!

It seems like the 2nd trimester is full of testing.  This is supposed to be the fun, feel-good trimester, but I'm feeling a little bogged down in the testing and other things that they can discover that can go wrong.

Yesterday I took my 1 hour glucose test.  I heard all kinds of horrible things about the glucose drink and it being nauseatingly sweet.  Overblown.  It was fine.  It tasted like sprite, and since I'd been eating light, it actually made me feel better for about 30 minutes while I rode the sugar high.  Then gradually I started to feel unsettled and ended the day with a slight headache/sugar hangover.  Apparently if I passed, the hospital here won't tell me that until my next appointment 3 weeks from now.  I called and requested a phone consult, so I should hear either way by next week :)

Fortunately, we're heading to the hills tomorrow to get away from it all!  A retreat in the Alps is just what we need!

A Little Scare

We had a mostly good appointment yesterday.  The really good news: the 20 week ultrasound showed that our girl's anatomy looks really good and she is growing normally.  Her heart rate was strong and healthy as well.  Our midwife also confirmed via ultrasound that we are in fact having a girl :-) My fundal height (the height of my uterus) is a very healthy 24.5 cm - I don't understand how on earth it's going to reach full height inside my little torso, but lots of petite ladies have babies, so there certainly must be a way.

On the not so good side of things, my blood pressure was a little higher than it should have been, so I had to go in today and have it tested again.  The risk was potential preeclampsia.  Fortunately, today, though I was quite anxious, my blood pressure measured low enough to relieve the worry of preeclampsia for now and additional tests were not needed.  Hooray!

Next week we get to tackle glucose testing!

Vacation!

I've fallen a little behind on the blog the past couple of weeks.  Partly that's because we went on an amazing vacation to the Lofoten Islands in Norway and I was trying to "disconnect", and partly because there's not been a whole lot to write about.  Everything seems to be progressing well.  We never received any calls about major issues discovered at our 20 week ultrasound, so we'll review the results as planned at our scheduled appointment in a week.

Feeling the baby move has been pretty much a daily thing since about week 18 - I'm 22 weeks now.  Lee still doesn't get to regularly feel her, but it's fun to see his whole face light up when he does.  According to some developmental blurb we read, the baby can now perceive light from outside the uterus.  Of course, being the scientifically minded people we are, we immediately set about testing her response to outside light.  Lee shined a flashlight at a specific point on my abdomen, and she kicked at it, or hit at it, or something - I felt her move right where the light was anyway.  It was so cool to actually be interacting with our kid!

I'm generally feeling well.  It's seems like I revisit my morning sickness days about once every other week, but I recover quickly and can move on with my day.  The craziest thing I've felt lately is the days when I get so hungry I could clean out our whole fridge and not be satisfied.  I feel really, really hungry, like I'm starving every 2 to 3 hours for a day or so.  The hunger is not an everyday thing, maybe just once a week.  I can't remember feeling anything like it ever in my life.  Guess that happens when you're growing another person.

I got my first Stitch Fix this week.  They started offering maternity sizes in March, so I decided to give it a try.  I loved it!  I would have kept everything, but the size on one item was just slightly off.  I think the key was a Pinterest board of styles I like that I linked to my style profile.  If you're a woman who hasn't considered it, I definitely recommend giving it a try.  If you use my referral link I get referral credit. https://www.stitchfix.com/referral/5140704  This will be my only push for that :-)

We'll update more and share some of our big ultrasound results next week after our appointment!

Here's a picture from the Hurtigruten portion of our trip.  You can see my belly even though I'm trying my best to cover it up with a down jacket :-)