May 2019 Moms
fatmonica
member
Group 3 check-in 12/31
fatmonica
member
Due Date / Weeks + Days:
Baby is the size of a(n):
Upcoming Appointments/questions:
How are you feeling?:
Rants/Raves:
Questions:
GTKY: Do you have a New Year's resolution?
Baby is the size of a(n):
Upcoming Appointments/questions:
How are you feeling?:
Rants/Raves:
Questions:
GTKY: Do you have a New Year's resolution?
Re: Group 3 check-in 12/31
Upcoming Appointments/questions: had anatomy scan today- went well although couldn’t get an in-depth view of the heart so have to come back in 4 weeks.
How are you feeling?: tired but less anxious after today’s appointment
Rants/Raves:
Questions:
GTKY: Do you have a New Year's resolution? No New Years resolution- just hoping this pregnancy still goes well and to try not to be so anxious.
Due Date / Weeks + Days: May 18, 20+3
Baby is the size of a(n): Banana
Upcoming Appointments/questions: Next week. I had to cancel my appointment last week because my son got sick and I wasn’t going to take a sick baby to wait in the waiting room with all the pregnant ladies. Unfortunately, my clinic closes for several days for new year holidays, so it got pushed back about 2 weeks.
How are you feeling?: Acid reflux is killing me. I feel like this is earlier than my last pregnancy and I really hope it doesn’t keep getting worse. I was throwing up blood by the end of third trimester last time and do not want a repeat experience.
Rants/Raves: My husband has the entire week off for New Years and it is so nice to have such a long vacation together.
Questions: Any good acid reflux solutions? I’ve been drinking almond milk and that seems to help, but will happily try some other things.
GTKY: Do you have a New Year's resolution? Nope, completely forgot about making a resolution this year.
Due Date / Weeks + Days: May 15, 20+6
Baby is the size of a(n): Banana
Upcoming Appointments/questions: Anatomy scan this Friday and dr visit on Monday. Can’t wait, it seems like forever since we checked on our Bean
How are you feeling?: Crappy, I think I have a UTI and I am in a lot of pain. Started antibiotics yesterday but not feeling better yet. Hoping today it gets better and that it is a UTI that will be easily resolved
Rants/Raves: Always excited about new beginnings, looking forward to what this year will bring
Questions:
GTKY: Do you have a New Year’s resolution?: Not completely defined yet, but will be something around being calm and focusing only on things that matter and staying healthy.
Baby is the size of a(n): bananna
Upcoming Appointments/questions: I don't go back until the 15th. Everything at our AS looked good. I do need to start thinking about if I want to deliver at our small local hospital or an hour away in a bigger town. Our hospital was great last time, but they don't have a nicu and I just found out through another expectant mom that they no longer have someone there who can do an emergency c-section. They have to call someone in. Those 2 things make me nervous. I need to get a lot of questions answered. I may be able to keep seeing my family doctor here through my pregnancy and just choose to deliver at the bigger hospital. Right now I feel like its a no brainer to deliver at the bigger hospital, but I need to figure out the other details.
How are you feeling?: pretty good. I still tire way too easily, but I don't have many complaints at the moment.
Rants/Raves: I'm feeling torn about our future doing foster care. Last year we had a 1 yr old for 6 1/2 months and then a few weeks after he went home we took a baby boy for a few months. Our worker who calls about placements is currently on maternity leave, so I haven't had any calls in awhile and we have just been doing respite care for other foster families for the last 3 months. Another worker called to check in on us last night and she asked why I didn't have a placement, and when I told her I hadn't been getting calls, she said she would add me to her call list. I just don't know if I can take on a needy child at the moment, but I feel guilty saying no to taking on kids when there is such a need. Foster care has been one of the hardest most stretching things I have done (though totally rewarding at the same time) and sometimes my heart still feels broken over not knowing how the two little boys we had last year our doing. I also am uncertain about balancing foster care and all the visits and potential appointments with a newborn in a few months.
Questions:
GTKY: Do you have a New Year's resolution? Not exactly, but I'm planning to declutter my house in the next few months. I assigned myself a room per week. Now to just not let myself be guilted into keeping stuff I don't want. I already purged my closet and it felt really good. DH promised me he would do his side of the closet this week to.
Due Date / Weeks + Days: May 21, 20w1d
Baby is the size of a(n): banana, as tall as a Venti Starbucks today ☕
Upcoming Appointments/questions: nothing until the 16th, all well with AS on Dec 19th so just trucking along!
How are you feeling?: Overall good. Still haven't felt the baby kick (like, for sure.. I think I might have once or twice over the past few weeks but I'm not positive, and keep hearing "oh, you'll know!")
Rants/Raves: @fatmonica totally understand the dilemma for where to deliver. Are you worried about having to make the trek to the hospital that far away while in &bor? My situation is a little different, where I live & plan to deliver about an hour away from where I work (and unfortunately spend the majority of my time). There isn't a small hospital in the area though, so at my work site I'm a solid hour+ from good medical care. Anecdotally, some women work up to 35-36 weeks on site but others stop earlier, and I do have the ability to work from home (just kind of frowned upon, def need a doctor's note...). Of course, it's a construction site so there have maybe been 5 women over the 2 years I've worked here in my "situation" - no good precedence either way. So I need to talk to my OB and figure out what she suggests, what the risks are being so remote, etc. FTM here so all the worries are magnified!
Questions: Would love to hear what other working moms-to-be are doing about working up to due date. Nothing else that comes to mind!
GTKY: Do you have a New Year's resolution? Nope, just survive this pregnancy and meet my son! 😁
Baby is the size of a(n): Endive???
Upcoming Appointments/questions: Anatomy scan tomorrow, can't wait to see this LO again, feels like ages since that 12 week appt. Will update again tomorrow after the appointment.
How are you feeling?: Great! Lots of energy, except for the cold/dreary weather we've been having kind of makes me sluggish.
Rants/Raves: Rant: Everyone keeps saying "Oh I'm sure you will have lots of showers" but no one has actually offered to throw one yet. I'm getting a little stressed about being able to afford everything we need and getting it on time. I know I still have plenty of time to go, but I'm such a planner that it's hard!
Raves: Movement has been getting more consistent and definitely stronger. DH got to feel 2 good kicks last night!
Questions: What classes will everyone take? Our hospital offers an infant care class, a labor class, and a breastfeeding class. I assume I should take all 3?
GTKY: To relax and not stress through the rest of this pregnancy.
Baby is the size of a(n): Banana!
Upcoming Appointments/questions: I've got my anatomy scan on the 10th. We already know he's a he lol but I'll be excited to make sure everything is on the up-and-up with him.
How are you feeling?: I'm tired (what's new haha) Still not feeling any movement because of my lovely anterior placenta, but hopefully soon!
Rants/Raves: None at the moment
Questions: Not really...
GTKY: Do you have a New Year's resolution? I'm trying to resolve to be more on top of my insulin injections. I take my long acting one pretty religiously, but the short acting one (that i'm supposed to inject 15 minutes before I eat) is a struggle. My work schedule makes it so hard to know when I'm going to eat, and I have to time it exactly. I can't eat before 15 minutes, or after. And if I go longer then 15 minutes, and the food still hasn't arrived, I have to eat something else to counteract the insulin. I'm really struggling with it. I know my doctor is not going to be happy with me at my next appt.
@bpietronicco glad the A/S went well. I had to get a fetal echo at 24 weeks due to an arrhythmia (all was fine). Hopefully it's not the case for your but they looked at EVERYTHING again so it was another 45-60 min appointment. There was a medical reason for it (had gotten the heart imagines at 20 weeks) so probably different.
@dfirstimer can you ask about cranberry supplements in addition to the antibiotics? I had some weird stuff going on that my doc thought was a UTI before getting pregnant with DD and my doc recommended them in addition to the antibiotics (which I took for a day before everything came back negative and it was actually just stress related). No clue if it's pregnancy safe.
@fatmonica a room per week is a great idea!! We're only in a 2BR apartment so have to reorganize a lot for baby's arrival (with a toddler already). I'm bad at tackling one thing at a time and then get overwhelmed by how the whole house looks horrible since I pulled things out of closets and use the dining room table as triage, start organizing clothes on beds that need to be slept in that night and don't finish...sigh. My aunt and uncle take in foster kids although more long term (my cousins are 33 and 28 so they started doing this when they left the house). They've had 4 boys so far, one - their first, has been with them since he was 8 and he's now 20 (on the spectrum so still in the system). Another is 21 and in college but still goes and stays with them for some holidays. I've moved away so don't know the other two as well - one of whom got place somewhere else as he had issues with the boy on the spectrum. Anyways, it's amazing to take these kids in! You are so thoughtful, but if you need some time right now, take it. As far as hospitals, the NICU thing would make me nervous, too. My OB (or someone in her practice) would perform my emergency-C if I needed it, though, so I'm not quite as familiar with what the set-up would be if that weren't an option. I needed a NICU doctor or nurse (can't remember which it was) to suction the meconium from DD's airways - there's meconium in about 15% of births and it's rarely a problem when correct and prompt action is taken but I'm curious how something like this would be treated with no NICU. ***Sidenote that's unrelated but since I mentioned meconium: I know not part of your question but with recent posts on here, just want to call out that brown amniotic fluid is old meconium and pretty normal whereas green amniotic fluid is new meconium and *could* mean that baby is in distress. Either way, this should be mentioned to your doctor right away and I believe they'd want you to go to the hospital (I was headed that way anyways when mine broke). I had meconium when my water broke and delivered a healthy baby 8+ hours later vaginally, but some cases would require intervention if the baby was in distress.
@atomiccatherine I worked up until my due date (ETA that I was planning to work until delivery, DD just arrived on the weekend the day before her due date). I have an office job on a computer and my boss is remote so I was pretty much exclusively working from home except for the occasional meeting (but I'm still doing that now, so just had fewer people asking me to come to in person meetings so far along). I didn't want to take any leave time away from time with my baby so it depends on how your state/company sets that up and what you can afford if it has to be unpaid vs. going back to work earlier. I will say that you hear about occasional cases of women going into labor and progressing quickly with their first (are you a FTM?, I'm assuming so apologies if not) but really, I was in labor for 23 1/2 hours with DD and labored at home for 16 of those. I timed my contractions once I woke up and felt them and didn't know for sure I was in labor for 2-3 hours. I work very close to Stanford so not quite the same situation but the hospital I delivered at is 5 mins from our apartment and literally a walk across the street from my OB's office so I was all nervous about going into labor while at the office and having to sit in an hour+ of traffic (although only 20 miles) to get to *my* hospital. In hindsight, I absolutely would have been able to drive myself and would have gone home, not to the hospital. As it happened, I went into labor on a Saturday anyways and didn't go into the office at all that last week just in case. Long story long - check with your doctor but we were given the okay to go an hour away on any weekend day trips if we wanted (I think maybe even 2 hours away but she was like "ehhh, the closer you get to 40 weeks, maybe limit that a bit").
Due Date / Weeks + Days: 20+6 (May 17)
Baby is the size of a(n): Box of dryer sheets (lol)
Upcoming Appointments/questions: Had my appointment on Monday so nothing for 3 1/2 weeks.
How are you feeling?: Pretty good. I have this odd concern that I'm going to go into labor early so it's just weirdly in the back of my mind (I was 39+6 with DD so this is pretty unfounded). It's completely irrational but I'm just thankful every day in a weird way, much more than with my last pregnancy, to still be pregnant (no loss or IF history - just concerned about the SCH which slightly increases your risk of preterm labor but it's less than 2%).
Rants/Raves: I'm just so excited for 2019! We're hopefully booking our "babymoon" to Hawaii this weekend and will travel in a couple weeks (does it count as a babymoon if you bring your toddler?)!
Questions: Is it super obvious to everyone that you're pregnant? I can't tell anymore if people are being polite. I've ended up telling people eventually (or it comes up or someone else mentions it) and sounds like it's more obvious than I've realized but I've had a few incidents of people having NO CLUE so I never know if I have a neon sign over my head saying I'm pregnant and some people are just clueless or what.
GTKY: Do you have a New Year's resolution? Nope! Normally I double down on working out or try something new with either online subscriptions at a discount or a studio with a discount but I can't work out much so just trying to focus on eating better after the holidays.
On your question, it depends on what I am wearing, if I wear regular clothes/scarves on top of my maternity jeans people don’t know I am pregnant and it is a surprise (they probably think I just ate too much pie during the holidays), but if I wear maternity shirts/sweaters people congratulate me on pregnancy as it is quite obvious
I think I'm going to order nursery furniture today
Baby is the size of a(n): Banana / Box of dryer sheets
Upcoming Appointments/questions: I have the AS on 1/11.
How are you feeling?: Last week was my first week that I didn't vomit since I was 7 weeks along...so that was great! Hopefully that is behind me. Now just fighting acid reflux and fatigue. My energy has been up the past few weeks, but this week I have been SO TIRED.
Rants/Raves: RAVE: I've been feeling baby girl kick a lot lately! She's getting strong enough that I can see my belly move sometimes. It's super exciting to this first time mama. My husband hasn't been able to feel her yet though. RANT: Not a big deal, but it's not super obvious that I'm pregnant yet...I can still wear a few normal/non-maternity pants. Most people have been shocked that I'm halfway through pregnancy and am so small. My mom will legit forget that I'm pregnant and see me and say "Oh you've gained a few pounds!" (she's literally never failed to tell me when I gain even like 2 pounds my entire life) then realize that I'm pregnant and laugh it off. I think it's just bothering me more than usual because I've been so sensitive lately. I'll be asking my doctor is baby is measuring normally or is too small, because honestly that is my biggest worry.
Questions: Is it weird to want to look pregnant? I just look like I've put on five pounds...well that and my boobs are enormous. Also when are you supposed to take childbirth classes?
GTKY: Do you have a New Year's resolution? 1. Save an extra $20-30k this year 2. Start and fully fund a Roth IRA 3. Be more present / stop mindlessly reaching for my phone 4. Read 2 books a month