27 weeks! I am so happy to be here! 😀 For the first time, I felt the baby kick straight up where abdomen meets chest area. That’s a whole hand’s length above my belly button! My uterus feels like it has grown as high as it can go now. Methinks I’ll be growing outwards after this!

Good day! 😀
Little Gym was yesterday and was a setback. Bren was very close to not going in at all. He didn’t even want to be in the building. About 20 minutes into the lesson, DH was holding him in him lap in a chair by the exit door. I was in poor form last night and got to crying and just couldn’t stop. I went over to him and finally said, “Okay, Brendan. We can go bye-bye. But if we go bye-bye, we can’t come back because Little Gym will be over and you won’t get to play. Do you want to go or do you want to go swing on the bars, run and jumps with the boys and girls and play with the balls and bubbles?”
He replied, “Swing.” And off he went to play on the equipment.
He participated in one skill led by the teachers- which was climbing up a big mat mountain and figuring out how they wanted to get down. He shied away from a lot of social interactions like not going to get his own ball and then playing with it in the empty side of the room and doing things on his own or with Daddy. He didn’t bring the ball back to put it away either, just threw it in the teacher’s direction. He did improve in a skills area though- he got up on the low, wide balance beam and walked it by himself- previously he has been shy of it without holding our hand.
2 more “parent & child” classes before the big switch. Hah!
Potty training is moving at a snail’s pace but continues to be child-led. Easier on me AND him and I’m not in a hurry. Bren has been in a very loving mood lately. Love the hugs ‘n’ kisses! He has started experimenting with his V-Smile but, unfortunately, thinks it’s funny when his little guy dies. LOL. Still a Tom & Jerry nut and loves to watch Between the Lions with me. He can sing 1/2 of the intro song and it’s so sweet! 😉
*****
It’s the 17th again! 3 months to go! Baby H remains nameless. Just printed the 2005 “Top 500” list yesterday. The name I like is just not DH’s favorite. It has been voted off the island 2 pregnancies in a row now. Maybe third time is a charm? 😛 We have pretty much everything we need to start with though I would like a bouncer to put him in. We got a wonderful deal on diapers and now have 40 newborn Pampers and 400+ size 1-2s (a size between 1 & 2- weird) in the closet. 450 diapers sounds like a lot but it’ll cover less than 2 months.

My 1 hour glucose screening results were 154 (cut off was 130). I forgot to mention that.
My 24 hour urine test and bloodwork (creatinine?) were normal. Yay!
Very tired today. Haven’t even done the dishes. Go me. Little Gym in 2 hours. Looking forward to it for once, lol.

26w4d. Man am I happy to be free from my jug-o-pee! 😛
Weight still the same, heehee. Blood pressure was down to 120/80. Still high for me but a fair amount lower than last time. Iron level is fine. All my high blood pressure related bloodwork came out fine and my OB told me that a Uric Acid test level of over 4.5 kind of pinpoints that that person is likely to go on to develop pre-eclampsia. My level was good at 3.7. Crisis over it seems. Still waiting on the urine test since I just finished it- should hear something in the next day or so.
Down to every 2 week appts now. And, of course, I failed my glucose screening. Next Monday I’ll do the 3 hour GTT. Next OB appt on Tuesday, May 30th at 3:45.

26w0d.
Blood pressure 146/90 🙁
Blood pressure #2 130-something/86 🙁
Headaches?- yes 🙁
Protein in urine- good this time but +1 last time
Earned myself extra bloodwork, a 24 hour urine test & another appt on MONDAY. Good grief.
I am amused with my weight gain though. Last time the nurse wrote down my weight as being 10 pounds lighter so instead of looking like I lost 5 pounds, I really gained 5. Well this time she did it again. The dr mentioned that I was not gaining and I told her no, I had gained 8 or 10 pounds since my first appt. I guess the nurse must’ve written it down wrong. So, just to be sure, I go weigh again AND I’M WRONG! I have the same weight as when I started?!!! I know FOR SURE my scale at home runs between 6 and 10 pounds total gained depending on how much salt I’ve eaten. I weigh myself about 2x a week!! Maybe my scale is messed up?! Who knows! I was floored and am going to really laugh if on Monday I’ve gained 10 pounds. 😛
Did the nasty Glucose screening- gave me the jitters and then a stomachache but I kept it down. I failed it last time- I imagine it’s likely I’ll fail it again. My breakfast was 2 eggs though, so I didn’t contribute any additional carbs. Had to get the blood out of my hands again after my inner elbow vein played hide and seek. Not a big deal any more. 3 vials taken in all- I know I also had a CBC done, mostly to check for anemia and then another test or two for something to do with the high blood pressure. Don’t know what exactly because the nurse called them in to the lab.
Baby kicked the doppler and had a good heartbeat. I measured 29 weeks. GULP. Looks like I’ll be staying home on Sunday to fill my jug. Don’t think it’s big enough, lol.

We got to the Little Gym 15 minutes early this time so Bren was able to wake up some from his car nap and get used to being there. It only took 5 minutes this time to get him into the main room with the other kids though he ran back to the waiting room several times during the session- just to get our goats it seems. He once again refused to participate in the whole group stuff but when the class broke for individual play on the equipment he was great. His one improvement is that when an instructor demonstrated a skill at one of the centers, Brendan ran over to her to try it out! After hesitating on the first one and almost missing his opportunity, he was a maniac for trying out the other 2 skills. He kept going back for more and then dive-bombing DH for an “I did it!” hug. It was great! I’d consider that a big improvement.

100 days to go!!! I’ll be in the double digits tomorrow! Just 79 days until I am full term.
25w5d. I am so damn tired and irritable. I cried this morning at a stinkin’ PBS commercial where a little girl is sad and her mother doesn’t have time to sit and chat with her. I’ve been waking up with sore throats the past several days so maybe that is partly to blame. But honestly, I have almost no energy at all. I am tired of it too!!! I keep thinking he must be growing a bunch to wear me out so much but I really don’t think he’s bigger than normal right now. Total weight gain so far (my scale) is 7 1/2 pounds. From my lowest point it’s 10 1/2 pounds. I am okay with that.
Straight from my journal, here’s how things played out last time:
36 wks- very soft but corked up tight
37 wks- 1 cm dilated but no effacement
38 wks- almost 2 cm, 50% effaced, lost some mucus plug
39 wks- 2 cm, no effacement change
40 wks- 1 to 1 1/2 cm (yes, backwards!)
41 wks- no change, baby estimated to be 10 1/2 lbs and free floating
Tonight is Little Gym #3. Thursday is my next OB appt.

I have been looking for the connection between effacement percentages and cervical length and finally found some information.
“The unaffected cervix in the third trimester usually measures between 3.5 and 4.8 cm in length. Fifty-percent effacement corresponds to a cervical length of 1.5 cm, and 75-percent effacement corresponds to a length of 1.0 cm.”
So if I am told I am 50% effaced when my dr checks me, then I’ve gone from 3.75 cm at my 18 week ultrasound to 1.5 cm.
*****
I scored another win on Ebay- a new DVD of “Dr. Jack Newman’s Visual Guide to Breastfeeding”. It costs $25+ shipping from Canada to order it from his website. I won it for $12 total and all of that is donated to LLL. Yay!
*****
Remember Bren’s calling me “Dam”- where he switches from Dad to Mom mid-word and then cuts it off? Well now he also calls DH “Mud”. Sames thing, he starts off calling him Mom and then changes over to Dad in the middle of it. We don’t care to be called Dam and Mud. :/ LOL.
In better news, Bren’s sentence structure took another leap recently. His sentences are filled with hard to figure out filler words now. His new tv love? Tom & Jerry! He’s been rather well behaved and loving lately… knock on wood.

I finally found the supplemental nursing system tubing on EBay- yay! So now I can be prepared Dr. Jack Newman style for any needed supplementation via the breast without the cost of an expensive SNS.
Also, Brendan has used the potty 2 more times! In a row!!! Last night he climbed on and did his stuff without prompting. This morning after breakfast I noticed he was still dry so I prompted him to “go pee-pees in the potty” with me and he did! Double yay! His reward? A happy dance and lots of praise.

those muffalettas were so gooooooood! I am one stuffed happy preggo mama!!! 😀
Future reference:
-My olive relish recipe makes 2 large muffaletta sandwiches
-The recipe was perfect- I wouldn’t change a thing!
-Each sandwich feeds 3-4 adults
-I grilled the bread as for a grilled cheese sandwich (didn’t want the oven to heat the house up)
-I pan-fried the meats too for a hot sandwich