31 Weeks

About the baby:

By the 31st week, your baby still has 3-5 pounds more to gain, even though he/she is weighing in at an impressive 3-plus pounds. And at about 18 inches long (give or take as babies start coming in all sizes around this time) they are very near, if not already, the length they'll be at birth.

An important development this week is the impressive brain connections your baby is making. And he or she is able to put that complex web of brain connections to good use already - processing information, tracking light, and perceiving signals from all five senses. Your brainy baby is also a sleepy one. They're probably taking longer and more frequent snoozes, specifically REM cycles. This might be helping you get much better at determining your baby's sleep and awake times too.

It's been a pretty crazy week. 

To start, I was informed last Tuesday evening that I'd failed my 1-hour glucose test. Later, I was mainly just frustrated with this. They'd told me - and strongly stressed - that I shouldn't take any special considerations into my diet. 

Since, I'd been told not to think about my diet I wasn't thinking about the cupcakes and cookies I ate earlier that afternoon at my classroom's Christmas party - of which I consumed only an hour or so before drinking the glucose drink. 

When I went in for my 3-hour test this past Friday, I found out that I'd failed my 1-hour one by one point. Seriously.

The 3-hour test was miserable. I had to do a 10-12 hour fast. I woke up that morning not having eaten since about 6:30 the previous night to go straight into the OB's and drink 100g of glucose. Literally within minutes of consuming it I felt nauseated, dizzy, and very hot. I told them I thought I was going to vomit and/or pass out. They got me a room to lay down in and cool wash cloths. I was informed that if I threw up we'd have to start all over on another day. 

I had an initial blood draw and then one blood draw every hour after consuming the drink for three hours. 

I wasn't even suppose to drink, but they did let me sip on some cold water which seemed to help. 

The symptoms didn't start to fade until after that first blood draw an hour after drinking the glucose. 

That's about the time I saw the doctor. I wasn't worried about this visit, because I hadn't had any new symptoms. Not really. Still the cramping. Still the worry at not much baby movement. 

He decided to do a non-stress test. I'm not too sure why they call it that, because it was really just hooking me up to some monitors and doing crap to me to try and get some data to correlate baby movement to baby heart rate. 

I had a little clicker I was suppose to click every time I felt movement. 

After about an hour I'd only felt about 4 jabs. So they came in to try and stimulate him. Stimulating him involved putting this little vibrator thing all over my abdomen. He didn't seem to give a crap about that. 

The doc said maybe it was because I hadn't eaten and had just had the glucose stuff. So he told me after my final blood draw to go get a good lunch and he'd send me up to labor and delivery for more monitoring. 

The sucky part was that I was starving. The suckier part was that once I started eating I felt super nauseated and dizzy again. So I didn't even eat that much. 

When I got to L&D they hooked me up to everything and got to monitoring. After about a half hour a lady came in and asked me if I felt that. I asked her if she meant the movement. She asked me to describe what I'd felt. I told her it felt like a roll of pressure across my upper abdomen (happens on a pretty regular basis). She told me it was a pretty good contraction. 

I was pleasantly surprised. For some reason, I imagine contractions as these agonizing, painful things. And I'm sure once I'm really in labor they'll certainly be more intense. But, she seemed impressed with the degree of the contraction and the lack of my response to it. 

Sure, they're uncomfortable, and sometimes I sit down when I feel them. But… not too bad. 

They monitored me for about two hours and I was having about 4 contractions an hour. Simce my cervix was still good and I wasn't reaching the 6 per hour mark, they let me come home. They told me if I ever felt more than 6 in an hour to come back. 

She told me that the baby is moving and his heart rate is increasing with movement - like it's suppose to. That's what they were looking for. He's just not being quite as active as they estimate he should be, but he also doesn't appear to be in distress. She said he's acting more like a 32-34 week baby (as movement is expected to slow down then) than a 30 week baby. Of course, that's when she basically told me they had not a clue what that meant. It could be that he is just being lazy/mellow, it could be another early labor indication, it could be nothing at all. Real comforting. I have an another ultrasound tomorrow and another appointment with the doc on Friday.

Oddly enough, I've still been feeling mostly great. Yes, the pressure is uncomfortable when it happens. The cramping sucks. My legs and feet have finally reached the point of hurting when I'm up all day. My lower back and SI joints are giving me sporadic fits too (always corrected and feeling great after a visit to the chiro though). My stomach is super tight these days. And I definitely have a round pregnancy face now (why couldn't I be one of the lucky ones that didn't get that). I mean, I'm 31 weeks pregnant and I'm still doing a pretty moderate workout. I feel like I was owed the narrower pregnant face ;-)' 

But, I feel good. Nothing is too extreme, I guess. Maybe that's why I'm still impressed with how well I feel.

And, Nolan has been squirmier today, so that always helps a mom out too. 

Oh, and I got the phone call today that my sugar was fine. My first and last draws were even low. I'd have been ticked if I'd had gestational diabetes. I mean, I know that's sort of controlled by the hormones produced from the placenta, but still… I don't eat horrible and I'm active. Plus, I had all those problems in the first trimester with low blood sugar and protein, which is why we started incorporating fish into our diet anyway.

In nursery news, we are mainly setup. I made and ordered the artwork last week and it should ship today or tomorrow. We received our diaper bag and hospital and go-home outfits. We received the rest of our gDiapers. With the new arrivals I was able to fully prepare Nolan's hospital/diaper bag - it's ready to go. We have all of our infant care and diapering essentials too. 

We finally received our little night stand to go by the rocker. 

We pulled out the carseat and watched the installation tutorial. Lol. I think we've got it figured out. I'm not putting it in the car just yet though. And we got the carrycot, which is more perfect than I thought - and slightly bigger than I was expecting.

I'm just waiting to get the artwork/decor up and then I'll get some updated pictures to you :)

Dear Lovebug, 

I feel like you're just being stubborn at this point. I wonder who you get that from? Daddy, I'm sure. I love you more each day and I can't wait to meet you, but we have 9 more weeks to go before I can finally see your sweet little face. So, get comfy on that placenta pillow you have and sit tight. 

Love, 
Mom