34 Weeks

Something rather exciting happened this week that both Dave and myself were able to experience.  We felt Griffin hiccuping!  I had heard stories of people feeling this and had wondered how one could tell that's what the baby was, in fact, doing.  Now I get it.

Tuesday I hadn't been feeling well and I was laying on the couch praying that the fierce pain in my back would go away.  And all of a sudden I felt a little kick against my hand that was on my tummy.  I continued to feel it every couple of seconds, almost like there was a pattern to it.  I told Dave that Griffin had the hiccups and if he didn't believe me that he could come check it out for himself.  I lit up as I pictured little Griffin in there bobbing around with each little hiccup.  Oh, I can't wait for little newborn hiccups. Dave decided that Griffin needed a cure for his ailment, so he proceeded to scare him by yelling at my tummy.  Needless to say, it did not work.

At the baby visit with Dr. B this week I was told to focus on my due date.  Since the appointment was on my birthday I meant to ask him if I could have Griffin then for the special occassion, but like a pregnant woman, I forgot.  Everything is still going great: blood pressure is low and sugar is right where it needs to be.  I am beginning to think that I really don't have gestational diabetes as a result of how simple this stuff is to control.  I really didn't have to make any drastic changes to my diet.  I think I just rearranged what I was eating and, more importantly, when I was eating certain things.  However I must say that I have the highest gratitude that the diabetes hasn't even been the slightest problem whatsoever.

Dr. B explained the signs of labor to Dave and me, and let us know when to call.  These Braxton Hicks contractions have been making me wonder how I will know the difference of the real ones.  I get BH all the time and they're pretty intense at times.  Dr. B told me that I would just know and then told me how real contractions typically move around and down the tummy, and tend to be painful.  I'm glad he described them a bit, since I thought I knew I was having a contraction the other day.  I have new and different feelings every single day, no--make that every single hour...a little guidance won't hurt at all.  We still have those child birthing classes coming up, where we plan on gaining an over-abundance of knowledge.  Pretty soon we may have an idea of what we've got ourselves into....hahaha, who am I kidding?

33 Weeks

Once again not much is new, just growing my waist line and my anxiousness.  I am blessed to feel pretty good now and I feel like we're (hopefully) smooth sailing here on out.  Thankfully the heat is gone, yet I consider the humidity my worst enemy.  I am hoping that the rain subsides soon and brings a nice cool Fall.  Sadly rain is in the forecast till my birthday, and that's NINE days away! 

I think I have a got a hang of my new diet.  Honestly it's a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.  I am allowed three full meals a day plus two snacks.  Basically I avoid all concentrated sweets: cokes, cakes, pies...However I was given permission to have a little cake at my baby showers.  The basic premise of the diet is to keep my blood sugars under a certain amount (120).  Once in the morning and then an hour after each meal I stick my finger and use my handy dandy blood-glucose meter to tell me my blood sugar level.  At each meal and snack I am given a basic guideline to follow to make sure that I'm not giving myself a sugar overload.  I've kind of made a game of trying to figure out what my level is going to be after I eat, and it's kind of neat watching how my body responds.  So far I haven't felt deprived of anything and I have even felt satisfied for longer periods of time because I am eating the right kinds of foods together.  Most likely I'll be continuing this diet after pregnancy, well....I may  probably will be taking a little break for Thanksgiving.

I had mentioned that when I met with the GD nurse they did a ultrasound to get all of Griffin's measurements to see if the GD had affected his size.  He weighed 4lb 2oz and is in the 30th percentile.  Like I had said, he's right where he needs to be.  His results put him on the small side of normal.  This was my biggest fear with the diabetes, now I really have no worries about this.

A while back I pulled out some of my baby pictures to try to imagine what Griffin would look like.  I then became aware that I had not ever seen a baby picture of Dave.  I had seen late elementary school pictures and I could remember him from middle and high school.  I had come up with my own mental image of what baby Dave looked like, and it was quite awkward.  With the 4D ultrasound, there was a bit of commotion that Griffin resembled Dave.  But here I was only being able to picture what Dave looks like now, just miniature.  Last night we were over at Dave's parents' talking about what Dave looked like as a baby, and then his Dad pulled out the slides from his birth.  I should say that I now feel guilty for the weird baby that I had pictured Dave to be; he was actually really cute!  And I can completely see that Griffin's going to look just like Dave.  Take a look!

I'm still in awe as to what we were able to see with the 4D ultrasound.  I don't think I'll get over that any time soon.  

At the end of this week we'll be heading to Charlotte, NC for the wedding of a very good friend.  I won't mind if Griffin comes a little early, but I really hope it's not the plan to come a month and a half early.  We've watched the YouTube video showing how to deliver a baby in a car, yet I don't think we are at all prepared for such a task. 

Updated belly collage.  Click to enlarge.

Week 30

This week is treating me much better than last week. The non-worrier in me wasn't used to all this worrying that the news of having gestational diabetes brought. I spent too much time feeling guilty that I had caused this to myself. I was really convinced that it was because of all the ramen noodles that I've been eating or because I haven't been exercising regularly since it got really really hot. However, yesterday I had my 30 week visit with Dr. B and he assured me that I had it all wrong. He told me that GD wasn't as preventable as I had thought. Since it's hormonal, it was bound to happen if it was going to. One of my biggest fears since finding out about GD was having a 14 pound baby. If you are unaware, GD can lead to macrosomia, or "fat baby." This happens because the sugar in your blood just hangs around since the insulin isn't working correctly to break it into energy, consequently turning into fat. Dr. B explained that the only way this would happen was if I ate Snickers for lunch every day and had no control over my diet at all. During the ultrasound he said that little Griffin is still the little baby that he's supposed to be. So this shows that my diet hasn't been out of control so far. He also told me that my case for GD was rare. During my three hour test, my fasting and one hour sugar levels were low but two and three hour were high. This means that my cells aren't immediately sucking all the sugar in, it's my insulin that's not kicking in and doing its job. I was assured that this would be easily controlled by my diet. Now I am a part of the population that considers sugar the enemy, now and probably the rest of my life.

I was surprised the other night when I woke up from my sleep feeling like my nose was running. Before going to bed that night I did feel a bit stuffy so I wasn't too worried. But it wouldn't stop and it felt like it was running down my face (TMI, right?), I tried to keep wiping it away and go back to my sleeping but something said to get up. I couldn't see much of anything so I told Dave to wake up to turn on the lamp. Dave was sleeping pretty hard and just made some noises at me, so I said a little more emphatically, "Dave, I think I'm bleeding. Turn on the light, please." This apparently got his attention as he rolled over and turned the lamp on then left the bedroom. My hand was covered in blood and I even found blood on Jack, who was sleeping at my head. I was too sleepy to worry much and it stopped pretty soon after finding it, so I decided it was no big deal and just related to my stuffiness from earlier. When I mentioned this to Dr. B he explained that nose bleeds are common in pregnant women and the reasons why. What I didn't realize until right then is how much I startled Dave in the night. Next time I'll know to specify that it's my nose that's bleeding when I wake him up.

I was asked if I was going to do a video with my weekly belly pictures to show the succession of its growth.  My plan is to do so, but in the meantime I made this college as a preview.
 

 click picture to enlarge

Also I wanted to share this video, which made me smile last week. Hopefully it will bring a little smile to your day too.

29 Weeks

Not much to say this week, you've already been informed of how exciting it has been. I do want to make sure I express how insanely grateful and truly blessed I am to be carrying around my little Bean Sprout. I don't care what I have to do; I am going to do it for him. So I hope that my whining doesn't out shine that.

There is something that I haven't shared on here yet, so I guess this is as good of a time as any.

Bean Sprout now has a first and middle name. It's Griffin Van. That has been the name that we have been "feeling" for a while now, just had to sit/sleep/eat on it and it has passed the test for us. The more I say it, the more I love it. Now, I am a little picky about the way it's said. Don't worry; I won't jump down your throat if you don't conform to my pickiness. This is mainly for me. After I tell most people that his name is Griffin Van, they immediately respond by saying GrffinVanJeffers, really fast and all together. I, however, don't like the sound of that. I prefer to say GriffinVan [short pause] Jeffers. Anal, I know. It's very nice that we now have a name for him; I was getting worried that we'd still be going back and forth while filling out his birth certificate.

Update: I did get the call back from my doctor this morning telling me that I do have gestational diabetes. The news was very disheartening and scary to say the least. I had got myself so worked up over diabetes of any kind; I should have known it would knock me down if I ended up with it. After being upset with it for a while, I decided that instead of worrying about it I am going to look at it as an opportunity to learn to eat a lot better. And if I didn't have a reason to keep an active lifestyle, here it is. I prefer eating healthy and being active, and maybe a little guidance on how to do so won't hurt in the least. Like I've said, I'll do whatever it takes to make sure Bean Sprout is taken care of in the best way possible.