Week 32 Checkup and First Swim

This morning was our 32-week checkup. I gained a whole pound since the last appointment 3 weeks ago. The doctor made a joke that it was clearly all in my belly. Peanut is 4 lbs already! The baby is still head-down and now starting to move farther into the pelvic bone area. It's hard to make out much in the ultrasounds anymore because the baby is so big. Based on the head size, the doctor thinks Peanut will be around 6-7 lbs, which is perfect for me!

After work today, Kim and I decided it was time to hit the pool. Thanks to my friend Myleen who loaned me a suit that fits, it was time to see if Peanut enjoyed swimming laps. We got in the water and started swimming and I felt like a normal person again - couldn't tell I had a big belly on me cause I floated about the same. My goal was to do 4 50's and then a 50 of kicking with a kickboard. Well, I felt so good I kept going at the end of my first 50... 100 here we go!! But when I got to the 75, I felt a small cramp in my abdominal area. I decided not to push it, so I stopped at the wall. I guess that was a good thing because it got worse. A LOT worse. I was basically buckled over hanging off the wall waiting for it to pass. It took quite a while - like 2 minutes (which when you are just floating by a wall seems like a very long time.) I was finally able to swim my last 25 back to the starting wall. I rested a little and then decided I needed to stick a little closer to my original game plan. So I swam 3 more 50's, then kicked for 2 50's, then swam another 2 or 3 50's. I was so happy to get that exercise!! And Peanut did just fine. The fun part was then getting out of the pool with this big belly. I quickly realized I wasn't able to pull myself up the side (cause I tried and wound up back in the water). So I had to cut over 2 lanes and use the ladder. How funny is that!!! But I'm excited to have another form of exercise that seems to work well with Peanut, so we'll be doing that once a week.

Save My Back!

Well, I thought Peanut and I had an appointment today, but apparently when we scheduled our "every other week appointments", the girl didn't count right, so Peanut will be checked out next week. I decided to take the opportunity to go see another "doctor". I call him my own personal miracle worker. His name is Noel and Kim found him a few years ago. He's about the only person that seems to be able get my hips inline to relieve pain.

So today I went to see Noel. He said my hips were badly out of whack (which I assumed since I had such bad pains lately in my tail bone area.) My arsenal of tricks to realign my hips myself have been failing, and getting out of the floor positions apparently makes me look like an 80 year old woman that fell and is trying to get back up. (Graphical description courtesy of my husband!)

Noel worked on me for about an hour. He did what he could, but you know, there's a baby in the way so he can't exactly get to all the muscles he wants. He said he's hoping the hips will stay put, but at this point in the pregnancy there is no guarantee. Tonight I am finally home from work and icing my back. I'm hoping everything stays somewhat straight, but I have the feeling I'll be visiting Noel in another couple of weeks. We'll see. All I know is that I now look more like a 50 year old woman getting up after falling! :)

30 Week Show and Tell

Finally, we have some more pictures. Words can get so boring... :) So, here is the 30 week baby belly, and oh yea, the new hair. (Although I have to confess, this was actually one of those bad hair days.) Enjoy!


p.s. 2 days after these pics were taken I removed the belly ring.

Peanut is Still On Track

Today started our last trimester appointments, so we'll be seeing Dr. Plimpton every other week. Peanut is doing great. The baby has turned head down. I thought that was great - no breech, but Dr. Plimpton said the baby has room to turn back if it wants, so we'll just keep waiting to see.

Peanut is 2lbs 14 oz and is on track to be a 7.5 lb baby if we actually do deliver around May 20. So now I'm hoping for maybe May 7 or so. That should give us a 6 lb Peanut, right!?!?!? :)

I've gained 15 lbs so far with the pregnancy. This visit we asked more questions, like about circumcision if we have a boy. We talked about the Braxton-Hicks contractions I was having and if they were a sign of problems. (BTW, I have a great doctor. He said that throwing someone on bedrest isn't the best thing all the time, so he wouldn't have done it anyway unless the contractions didn't stop on their own.) We also talked about C-section for just in case - I wanted to make sure I had a good stitcher for a doctor! :) My glucose tolerance test came back normal, so no problems with gestational diabetes. We're looking good. Doc said I didn't even need him. I told him I needed him to catch. :)

The Buzz

I've done what is expected of every new mom... I chopped my hair. Call it a whim, call it "something to do", call it "wanting to have a very easy do for when I don't have time to really put in the effort", or call it "this is what happens when you come back from vacation".

I seem to change my hairstyle about every 6-8 months anyway, so this really doesn't seem like a huge thing. But it is a bit shorter than I'm used to wearing.

Here's my thinking... Kim and I just got back from a short vacation in Hawaii. We were there for a wedding. Well, the humidity in Hawaii makes it so I can't do much with my hair. It just curls the way it wants to go at the bottom, and the top just sags. Ugh! But, I managed to spend about 5 minutes or so a day on it and make it look relatively cute. When we got back home, I was spending a good 15 minutes or so a day on my hair only to find it just looked "okay". Granted, it was time for a haircut, so that didn't help. I decided that if I could spend 5 minutes a day and most of the time it looked cute, that would be a good thing. I mean think about it - you spend 15 minutes and you don't like your hair, what a waste. But you spend 5 and you don't like your hair, you just say "oh well - what do you expect when you only spend 5 minutes on your hair!".

All I know is now my husband now looks at my hair and calls me "fiesty". :)