Quickly, so I don't forget: I passed my glucose challenge, my blood sugar score was 110, and I'm told anything under 120 in a pregnant woman is right on the money, so I'm pretty much in the clear in terms of gestational diabetes. Woo!
They may do a fasting blood sugar again in 4 weeks just to make sure, but I'm feeling like this is just one more piece of good news.
And now, I'm back to my regularly scheduled Sunday programming: more of the same, enjoying fall break and doing the last of my wash. Yeah...rethinking that decision to buy only one pair of maternity jeans...
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Too Much Spongebob, or How I Spent John Mayer's 31st Birthday
The Girl has a four-day weekend starting today, and I have no school this weekend! Full of win.
I had a doctor's appointment today. Officially, I'm 28 weeks, and in my third trimester. This pregnancy has flown -- on one hand I feel like I've been pregnant forever, but on the other hand, the past 28 weeks or so have been some of the best of my life. I'm in such a good place right now... school is (mostly) under control, the Girl is thriving in Kindergarten, I'm healthy, and I've dealt with so much crap in the last year that I think it's time to take some time for myself and sit back and enjoy.
Yes, this time of year is rough on me. I have had so many bad things happen during the cycle of Libra, which is really strange considering it is normally a time of balance. Perhaps I'm supposed to get my bad out now, in order to balance the good and Awesome that happened this summer? Karma can be a bitch, if you believe in her I guess.
Anyway, I plan to do some school work this weekend, but I also plan to camp out with the girl, watch too much damned Spongebob, bake some banana bread and catch up on laundry, and generally chill.
Today, we did just that. Except the part where we went to the OB's office. The Girl was thrilled -- she's beyond excited for this new baby and she loved the idea that she could go and hear the baby's heartbeat. I also had to take my glucose challenge test, which should frankly be against the law for its grossness and disgust. (Come in early after fasting 3+ hours, drink 5 oz of nasty flat cola soda without bubbles, go see the OB, come back, get blood drawn and pee in a cup, await result.)
The idea is to see if you have either developed or have the possibility to develop gestational diabetes, which can be bad bad bad if undiagnosed. Ironically enough, I purposely scheduled this appointment on the 16th, because I knew I wouldn't forget it if it was on JM's birthday. Such is the life of a fangirl.
In case anyone's interested, the appointment by the numbers:
Fetal HR: 150 (rock steady at this rate since we first caught it. This kid is nothing if not consistent).
Fundal Height: 32cm (appx 3-4 weeks ahead, again consistent)
BP: 130/65 (top number high most likely because the lab monkeys had their heads up their asses, and it got me riled up)
Weight: +3 since last appt, +10 total pregnancy.
In other news, looks like JM is back with his last girlfriend. I actually think they are pretty good together...they just have to work out a timeline that's good for both of them. I really hope if they decide to have kids together they decide to move someplace quiet -- this latest brouhaha with the police escort in front of his house is just too much to put a kid through. I also hope her ego is strong enough to handle living somewhere like NYC or another place where nobody cares who they are. I do wonder if her ego is feeding some of the crap, but I don't know her personally. He seems to have no problems slipping back and forth between the public and the private, and it's nice to go a few weeks without seeing a picture of him at dinner. I love it when he gets a week of positive publicity for spending time teaching class and mentoring music students at Berklee. If I had a birthday wish for JM this year, it would be to be happy and be in love, but make it all about the music.
Happy Birthday, John.
I had a doctor's appointment today. Officially, I'm 28 weeks, and in my third trimester. This pregnancy has flown -- on one hand I feel like I've been pregnant forever, but on the other hand, the past 28 weeks or so have been some of the best of my life. I'm in such a good place right now... school is (mostly) under control, the Girl is thriving in Kindergarten, I'm healthy, and I've dealt with so much crap in the last year that I think it's time to take some time for myself and sit back and enjoy.
Yes, this time of year is rough on me. I have had so many bad things happen during the cycle of Libra, which is really strange considering it is normally a time of balance. Perhaps I'm supposed to get my bad out now, in order to balance the good and Awesome that happened this summer? Karma can be a bitch, if you believe in her I guess.
Anyway, I plan to do some school work this weekend, but I also plan to camp out with the girl, watch too much damned Spongebob, bake some banana bread and catch up on laundry, and generally chill.
Today, we did just that. Except the part where we went to the OB's office. The Girl was thrilled -- she's beyond excited for this new baby and she loved the idea that she could go and hear the baby's heartbeat. I also had to take my glucose challenge test, which should frankly be against the law for its grossness and disgust. (Come in early after fasting 3+ hours, drink 5 oz of nasty flat cola soda without bubbles, go see the OB, come back, get blood drawn and pee in a cup, await result.)
The idea is to see if you have either developed or have the possibility to develop gestational diabetes, which can be bad bad bad if undiagnosed. Ironically enough, I purposely scheduled this appointment on the 16th, because I knew I wouldn't forget it if it was on JM's birthday. Such is the life of a fangirl.
In case anyone's interested, the appointment by the numbers:
Fetal HR: 150 (rock steady at this rate since we first caught it. This kid is nothing if not consistent).
Fundal Height: 32cm (appx 3-4 weeks ahead, again consistent)
BP: 130/65 (top number high most likely because the lab monkeys had their heads up their asses, and it got me riled up)
Weight: +3 since last appt, +10 total pregnancy.
In other news, looks like JM is back with his last girlfriend. I actually think they are pretty good together...they just have to work out a timeline that's good for both of them. I really hope if they decide to have kids together they decide to move someplace quiet -- this latest brouhaha with the police escort in front of his house is just too much to put a kid through. I also hope her ego is strong enough to handle living somewhere like NYC or another place where nobody cares who they are. I do wonder if her ego is feeding some of the crap, but I don't know her personally. He seems to have no problems slipping back and forth between the public and the private, and it's nice to go a few weeks without seeing a picture of him at dinner. I love it when he gets a week of positive publicity for spending time teaching class and mentoring music students at Berklee. If I had a birthday wish for JM this year, it would be to be happy and be in love, but make it all about the music.
Happy Birthday, John.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
When I'm Sixty-Four
When I get older, losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a valentine, birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I'd been out till quarter to three, would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?
"When I'm Sixty-Four"The Beatles
I need to call my mother-in-law. She's 64 today. Funny how you mark time in another person's age: I remember how old she is by thinking about the fact that they boy and I had our first date the day before her 50th birthday in 1994. Therefore, she was born in 1944. Therefore, I can calculate her age based on the current year. Sound convoluted? Perhaps. It's one more example of my addled thought process.
She really is a blessing in my life. Perhaps the fact that we met when I was so young solidified her standing with me -- when my own mom wasn't someone I wanted to talk to about something, my mother-in-law was always one for a cup of tea and a good chat. It's still one of the first things we do whenever we get together: amazing how much is cured and talked over and accomplished with some face time and freshly brewed chamomile. I nearly always send email to her with the salutation "Dear Favorite MIL" -- it's a bit tongue in cheek but it's true. So many of my friends drew the short ends of the stick when it came to their mothers-in-law: whether it was a clash of personality or a different family's way of doing things, it can be an inevitably difficult relationship.
I have the best of both worlds: a mom who is awesome, and a mother in law who is awesome too.
Happy Birthday, Favorite MIL. I hope I can be all you are when I'm sixty-four.
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a valentine, birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I'd been out till quarter to three, would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?
"When I'm Sixty-Four"The Beatles
I need to call my mother-in-law. She's 64 today. Funny how you mark time in another person's age: I remember how old she is by thinking about the fact that they boy and I had our first date the day before her 50th birthday in 1994. Therefore, she was born in 1944. Therefore, I can calculate her age based on the current year. Sound convoluted? Perhaps. It's one more example of my addled thought process.
She really is a blessing in my life. Perhaps the fact that we met when I was so young solidified her standing with me -- when my own mom wasn't someone I wanted to talk to about something, my mother-in-law was always one for a cup of tea and a good chat. It's still one of the first things we do whenever we get together: amazing how much is cured and talked over and accomplished with some face time and freshly brewed chamomile. I nearly always send email to her with the salutation "Dear Favorite MIL" -- it's a bit tongue in cheek but it's true. So many of my friends drew the short ends of the stick when it came to their mothers-in-law: whether it was a clash of personality or a different family's way of doing things, it can be an inevitably difficult relationship.
I have the best of both worlds: a mom who is awesome, and a mother in law who is awesome too.
Happy Birthday, Favorite MIL. I hope I can be all you are when I'm sixty-four.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
In Due Time
"How wonderful!"
"You look great!"
"When are you due?"
It's that last question that bugs me. Let me clarify. It's when people don't accept my answer to that last question that bugs me.
When someone asks me when I am due, my standard reply is "this winter, likely around the New Year." The reply is generally, "oh, do you have an actual date?"
Yes. Yes I do. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my chart at the OB's office, calculated by a combination of a magic wheel with a pharmaceutical logo on it and a dating ultrasound done in June, there is a Date. A specific Date by which, it seems, everyone must live or die. A date that was plucked out of the air by the use of my self-reported last menstrual period date (LMP for short, and highly dubious, as I hardly paid attention to my cycles during April and May of last year -- finals, you know), plugged into the magic wheel, and presto! The Date.
The Date was confirmed (roughly) by the ultrasound, which measured the Bean against what I must imagine are actuarial tables and normative values, plugged into the scanner's hard drive by some code monkey at GE Medical Systems. Measure here, plot there, compare to chart, presto! You are X weeks along, and your Date is Y.
However, in my usual manner, I am being recalcitrant and stubbornly refuse to acknowledge said date. Why? Because I had a number of dates with the Girl, none of which coincided with her actual birthday. All of which were fairly inaccurate. And that got me thinking.
For hundreds of years, woman has expected her child based on nature cycles, moon cycles, old wives' tales, and a general communal knowledge. Women could look at other women, and just know. Before doctors, midwives would anticipate gestational age by "quickening" and maternal feelings, as well as outward signals -- a change in skin condition, hair color, and the obvious swell of abdomen. Perhaps a prairie woman would say she was due "after harvest." A Native woman might count lunar cycles and say "around the time of the Wolf Moon."
In other words, the baby will come when the baby comes.
Of course, I balance this outlook with one of modern practicality: had we continued to wait upon the girl to decide to be born, there could have been massive ramifications for both of us. In my mind though, the flexible attitude regarding the Bean's birth actually bodes well in that aspect. I'm more apt not to cling to a particular date, and I'm also more aware of what my body does when it grows babies. If I go a couple weeks early, or if I wait it out a little while, it's all good.
This little Bean knows when she's supposed to be born, and she'll let me know. It'll be around the turn of the new year.
"You look great!"
"When are you due?"
It's that last question that bugs me. Let me clarify. It's when people don't accept my answer to that last question that bugs me.
When someone asks me when I am due, my standard reply is "this winter, likely around the New Year." The reply is generally, "oh, do you have an actual date?"
Yes. Yes I do. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my chart at the OB's office, calculated by a combination of a magic wheel with a pharmaceutical logo on it and a dating ultrasound done in June, there is a Date. A specific Date by which, it seems, everyone must live or die. A date that was plucked out of the air by the use of my self-reported last menstrual period date (LMP for short, and highly dubious, as I hardly paid attention to my cycles during April and May of last year -- finals, you know), plugged into the magic wheel, and presto! The Date.
The Date was confirmed (roughly) by the ultrasound, which measured the Bean against what I must imagine are actuarial tables and normative values, plugged into the scanner's hard drive by some code monkey at GE Medical Systems. Measure here, plot there, compare to chart, presto! You are X weeks along, and your Date is Y.
However, in my usual manner, I am being recalcitrant and stubbornly refuse to acknowledge said date. Why? Because I had a number of dates with the Girl, none of which coincided with her actual birthday. All of which were fairly inaccurate. And that got me thinking.
For hundreds of years, woman has expected her child based on nature cycles, moon cycles, old wives' tales, and a general communal knowledge. Women could look at other women, and just know. Before doctors, midwives would anticipate gestational age by "quickening" and maternal feelings, as well as outward signals -- a change in skin condition, hair color, and the obvious swell of abdomen. Perhaps a prairie woman would say she was due "after harvest." A Native woman might count lunar cycles and say "around the time of the Wolf Moon."
In other words, the baby will come when the baby comes.
Of course, I balance this outlook with one of modern practicality: had we continued to wait upon the girl to decide to be born, there could have been massive ramifications for both of us. In my mind though, the flexible attitude regarding the Bean's birth actually bodes well in that aspect. I'm more apt not to cling to a particular date, and I'm also more aware of what my body does when it grows babies. If I go a couple weeks early, or if I wait it out a little while, it's all good.
This little Bean knows when she's supposed to be born, and she'll let me know. It'll be around the turn of the new year.
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