Weeks 23-24

Within these two weeks, pregnancy started picking up. Joe felt the baby kick, I started having my first burdensome pregnancy symptom – GERD, we finalized names, and I took the glucose screening at my doctors visit. Christmas was at the end of week 24 and we were ready for a trip home to Wisconsin. I decided to switch from posting monthly to every two weeks. As we get closer to the 3rd trimester, pregnancy is getting more eventful. 

Since the moment I could feel the baby move, I was asking Joe to feel my stomach to see if he could feel. For the longest time he would let me know he could not feel and he knew my disappointment. One day, just to make me happy he lied and told me he felt baby B move. I knew he was joking because the baby is inside me and I can feel it! After three weeks of me getting him to touch my tummy and him feeling discouraged that he could not feel anything, it happened. Joe felt baby B kick, it was a hard kick too! We both looked at each other and knew he felt it. Joe shrugged his shoulders and put his head by my tummy and in the silliest voice said “bebe be nice to mommy”. This moment was so cute. Since then every time Joe feels the baby move or talks to baby B, he speaks in a little voice and says bebe with an accent. It will be interesting to find out if this is Joe’s version of baby talk. He is going to be such a great dad. 

After work one day, Joe said “I have to tell you something”. This is a big deal since Joe rarely starts a conversation in our house. I was nervous to hear what he had to say. He revealed he decided on baby names.  We had talked about names before, usually on our nightly walk with Zoey. Girl names we had a couple names we both agreed on. I knew what names I wanted, and Joe HATED them. Therefore when Joe would suggest anything other than the three names I was set on, I would immediately shut them down. I realized Joe’s unwillingness to budge and the week before I told him to just pick a boy name because I would never like anything he suggested more than the three names I wanted.  We are not going to share names until the baby is born. Anyways, Joe told me the names and his eyes were so excited. How could I not love them too? Joe was confident. I loved it. That was that. We had a boy name and a girl name finalized. 

Weight: 159lb.

Symptoms: GERD- At night I felt a lump in my throat and like it was labor some to breathe. I have had acid reflux (due to stress) before and it was not quite the same. I did not know what I was experiencing at first, but after 2 days of uneasy breathing after I ate, I decided to google it. Sure enough GERD. I eliminated, tomato based products, spicy food, and stopped eating by 5:30 to give me 3 solid hours before I laid down. We also made sure I walked or biked after dinner. 

Acne – This is still a struggle maybe when I am home next week and not wearing a mask constantly, I will get a handle on this.

Workouts: Pentatonix Christmas Ride, sign me up! I was still loving my bike set up. I started adding weights. Since I started thinking about prepping my body for birth, I decided to make sure I am keeping up with strength not just cardio. I read a quote that went something along the lines of -You don’t attempt to run a 10k without training, you shouldn’t expect your body to go through 8 hours of labor without training either. 

Food: I was cautious to eat, I hated the GERD feeling. I was eating very bland. I got back on the smoothie train. Joe was super supportive and made sure dinner was made when I got home from work so that I was not eating to late. Gerd was under control within a day of changing my eating. I was not noticeably hungry and had no cravings. 

Doctors Visits: So far each doctors appointment has been pretty much as follows: The nurse takes a urine sample, blood pressure, weight, verifies I am not depressed, feel safe, am taking a prenatal, not smoking or drinking and then lets me know the doctor will be in shortly. When the doctor comes in they typically say a vague “everything looks good, do you have any questions” I never really had anything I felt worthy of asking and figured they would tell me what I need to know when I need to know. Well at this visit as they took my urine sample they let me know they would be testing my glucose. Since I have been reading and researching I knew I would be drinking an orange drink, waiting an hour, and then getting a blood draw. I was caught a little off guard that they did not tell me we would be doing this ahead of time, or explain what it was or why this was being tested. I went with the flow without much more thought. The provider did not say anything about it to me and I didn’t ask as I read about it on my own. 

My results showed up on Mychart flagged red with a note from a nurse to call and schedule a “3hr gtt”. I called and got into the lab the next day. I was disappointed, I have been trying so hard to be intentional and have a healthy pregnancy. How could I possibly work out more or eat less sugar? What more could I do to get my blood sugar under control. I felt like I let my baby and Joe down. After research I realized this test was just a screening and I would need another test to really diagnose me with gestational diabetes. When I went into my 3hr glucose test, they checked me in and called me back to draw my blood. The nurse told me that she was going to take my blood every hour on the hour 4 times. Now while fasting, drink the orange sugar drink, then 3 more times. She did not explain that my last result was high or what normal range was or what this test was looking for. I did not ask either as they seemed busy. The nurse taking blood seemed new. She poked each of my arms two times and swirled the needle around to try to get blood to flow into the tube. She finally gave up and had another nurse near by collect my blood. The next two times they called me back the same new nurse tried once in each arm before calling over the other nurse to draw. The new nurse was so embarrassed that she could not draw my blood. I was trying to be patient since everyone has to learn at some point. By the time I was on my last (4th total 3rd after the sugar drink) blood draw the other nurse drew my blood without letting the new nurse try first. At this point I had my arm poked so many times that when she tied the blue band around my bicep all the poke holes in my arm below started oozing blood.  They let me know I could go home and it was my last draw. 

I waited anxiously for my results and had googled reference ranges and how to better manage my blood sugar. My arms were sore and had giant bruises from being poked over and over. The results came back flagged again. Ugh I was so let down. I made a plan to manage this new information. Three days later I received a MyChart message from the nurse saying “You passed”. This is when I started to spiral. What does that even mean? The team I was trusting to tell me what I needed to know has confused me more than anything. I did not feel like I was being informed adequately. I called my brother in med school to talk about the results and he explained that I might be high but not high enough to diagnose me with gestational diabetes. I suddenly felt like I was missing things. I re-read the packet my provider gave me at my first OB visit. It only had the importance of breastfeeding, medications & foods to avoid, and how to sign up for breastfeeding and prenatal classes. I followed all the links to get signed up so that I could stop feeling overwhelmed by all I didn’t know. Due to COVID there were no classes available. Shouldn’t my provider be giving me resources to find this information vs relying on the patient to figure out everything on their own? How do other women get through this that do not do as much research and reading as me? That’s enough. I decided to change my attitude and stop spiraling. I was going to up my workouts, eat 0 sugar, low carbs since they turn into sugar, and look at all drink/food labels to be sure.

Money Spent: OB visit –

Nursery – Joe’s Mom got us the adorable sloth picture and Giant stuffed animal. 

Sleep: Due to the GERD issues, I spent a couple nights on the recliner. I propped myself up with all the pillows and then slept great.

Our To Do List:

• Find birthing podcasts, youtube, and books. What to expect while your expecting was good surface level information but I needed to feel more prepared. Joe and I committed to every Tuesday night learning. 
• Try harder to keep up my activity levels, cut out all sugar in diet.
• Organize the nursery( the closet is currently jammed packed with craft supplies).

Did you switch OB offices? Did you feel prepared and informed by your health care provider? Before you found a provider what research did you do? How and when did you finalize your baby names? Was your partner eager to feel the baby move?