Thursday, November 20, 2008

cake or death

My OB appointment on Monday got off to a rough start. First, I was informed upon arrival that I would be having my one-hour glucose screen. Surprise! Unfortunately, I'd scarfed down a piece of leftover shower cake immediately before leaving my house. I asked if having eaten cake half an hour earlier would skew the results and the nurse confirmed that it would, so no glucose screen for me. I apologized even though I wasn't sorry. I don't know about you, but I am of the opinion that if they want me to take a test that requires that I don't eat for two hours first, they should notify me of that more than 10 minutes prior to the test. I guess I'm just a pain like that. At least now I have something to look forward to at my next appointment. Ha!

Then came the lovely weigh-in. I watched out of the corner of my eye as the nurse fidgeted with the sliders on the scale - not too bad. Not great, but not too bad, especially considering I was recently on a week-long business trip during which I ate out for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. I'd lost all portion perspective by the time I got home. I stepped off the scale. The nurse began to write my weight in my chart, then paused and said: "I think I got your weight wrong. There's no way you gained that much in a month. You couldn't have eaten that much cake - ha ha! Hop back up there for me." So I did, and she re-weighed me, and it was exactly the same as it was the first time. Yeowch. She did not apologize. The offensive monthly gain? 7 pounds. Maybe I'm crazy but that doesn't seem too out there to me. I mean, as I said before - it's not great - but worth putting a hormonal pregnant lady through that whole get-back-on-the-scale routine? I think not!

The rest of my appointment (read: after the nurse left the room) went pretty well. The baby's heartbeat was in the 140s and I'm measuring one week ahead. The NP (like everyone I pass on the street these days, it seems) said I look even farther ahead than that but explained it the same way M and I have: Ridiculously short waist = no where to go but out. I talked to her about whether or not I'll have the freedom to move around and eat during labor (yes and a lukewarm 'not really but you won't feel like it'), whether I can have access to a birthing tub during contractions and/or pushing (yes), and whether they will require an IV and/or constant monitoring (no and no). She reassured me that my OB is well-known for allowing laboring moms to do pretty much whatever they want, as long as they and the baby are safe. I knew this and it's why I picked the doctor I did, but it's always good to hear it again.

I'm one for two on the tasks I promised myself I would complete by the end of the week, come hell or high water. We are successfully registered for daycare and our hefty deposit has been paid, but we have not yet registered for hypno.birthing classes. I'm kind of intimidated to make that call because (1) I don't want to hear how much the classes are going to cost (I believe they're around $300 - great timing for that kind of expense, huh?) and (2) I have no idea when we will squeeze them in around the holidays. That said, the longer we wait, the more precious practice time we are losing. Guess I'd better make the call tomorrow. Blech.

Next up: 24-week belly pic and case notes from two incidents of Acute-Onset Pregnancy Brain.

Monday, November 17, 2008

now that's what I call a weekend

I am off work today - a fact I am grateful for because I need some down-time to recover from my... well, down-time.

M and I went to a gathering at a friend's house after work on Friday. We stayed until almost midnight. It's been a long time since I felt up to that. I am so loving this second trimester energy!

The next morning, we woke up and went out into the freezing cold (literally) to attend our local prop 8 protest. M and I ended up being interviewed by our local news station, and of course we looked like big idiots because (a) we'd been standing in a 20-something degree windchill for 2 hours and had runny, pink eyes and noses and (b) they cut 85% of what we said leaving an uninspired and unsupported sound byte, but what can you do? (Answer: Say no when someone asks to shove a microphone in your face next time.) As we watched ourselves that evening, we tried consoling each other with the fact that no one watches the evening news on Saturdays, right? Right??

That night we went to the symphony. We ran into one person we knew there and the first thing he said was "Hey, I saw you on TV!" Awesome. The symphony was wonderful. It's more M's thing than mine and she said the performance of the most well-known piece was the best she's heard, which is saying something.

On Sunday, we'd planned to go to a working retreat for a group I'm on the board of. M is not on the board, but we'd been asked to invite partners and/or friends who might be willing to give input on some decisions we're making for 2009. I'd been asked specifically to bring M since she's helped out with many of our projects in the past. That morning, I spent a good couple of hours catching up on all the prep work I should have done in the two weeks prior to the retreat and I made M listen to more of it on the 45 minute drive to the retreat site. I packed up everything I thought I'd need for the retreat - board paperwork from the last few months, a notebook, extra pens... When we got there, it wasn't a retreat at all but a surprise baby shower! Even when I saw the cameras and the cake and the gifts and all the people yelling surprise (many of whom are not on our board), my thought was still "Oh, how sweet! We're going to have a little baby-thing on one of our breaks!" Yeah, I was completely clueless, as was M. We were SO surprised and so touched. Just last week I told a friend we'd really only registered for our own shopping list purposes because we probably wouldn't be having any showers. Our friends and family are so spread out, I just didn't think it would be feasible for enough people to be in one place at one time to have an actual shower. We were completely blown away and touched that these friends took it upon themselves to organize something, and it was super fun!

We got so many great gifts, and only a handful of them were off our registry since it's only been up for a week or so - oops! Our friends were giving us grief for not registering sooner (and here I thought we were doing it so early!) and I told them that was just one more indicator that this was nowhere on my radar. Had I known they were all out shopping, I would have been happy to make their jobs easier. Four couples got together (including the organizers) and gave us an A-Z baby basket. It had 26 gifts in it - one for each letter of the alphabet! Many of the gifts could have been used for more than one letter, so one of the shower games was to match up each gift to it's alphabet letter. Everyone had a sheet labeled A through Z and they wrote down the different items as we took them out of the basket. It was a great idea. There was also a gorgeous homemade cake. I have no pictures yet because who brings their camera to a work retreat? Not me. Fortunately, others were more appropriately prepared so I should be able to get copies from them. I'm just glad I showered and wore clean clothes!

We came home beyond exhausted, and beyond touched.

Today I have acupuncture and my 24-week OB appointment. Other than that, I plan to take it easy and maybe start on some thank you notes. Of course, that means I'll have to buy some first. Did I mention the shower was a complete surprise? :-)