Third Trimester: The Final Frontier

Jan 19th 2011

28 weeks - It's getting hard to move.

Today I’m officially 28 weeks, which marks the start of my 3rd trimester. After this one’s over, There Will Be Baby. Yikes.

Today also happens to be Hyphenated Husband’s 31st birthday, so Happy Birthday, Darlin’! We get to celebrate tonight by going to night #3 of our Brio Birth class, and he’s so jazzed about this class that there’s no other way he’d rather spend it. Isn’t that adorable?

Yesterday was my last monthly prenatal appointment, and now we start going every two weeks, which is always my mental signal that things are getting close. I also took my One-Hour glucose screening yesterday (to test for Gestational Diabetes, very routine).

And speaking of these tests – let me tell you all about the MASSIVE difference between getting glucose testing under homebirth midwifery care, or getting this test under the care of an OB:

When I was with an OB, taking my glucose test meant taking extra time off work to go to the lab at the hospital. They made me take a number and sit in line with the other millions of people there for a lab test. When my name was called, they took me into an ugly room, and gave me a concoction to drink that, to me, tasted like a suspicious mixture of the syrup from Sprite, and crushed up aspirin. It makes some women gag. Then, I had to wait around the lab for an hour before they took my blood and then sent me on my way.

With my midwife, I was told I could drink anything I wanted that contained 55 grams of sugar, and she suggested picking up a tall bottle of one of those delicious Odwalla juices to satisfy this requirement. I LOVE THOSE! All I had to do was drink my juice in the car on the way to my regularly-scheduled appointment, and at the right time, she collected my blood. Voila! Done.

It will be a few days before I get the results, but since I’ve never had GD before, and I’ve gained a very normal amount of weight so far, I don’t predict any problems in that area.

Meanwhile, I’ve spent the last few weeks drifting between sheer terror and subtle excitement when I think about the birth, the baby, and everything that comes after that. Hyphenated Husband is working two jobs plus going to school full-time until he’s done in June, so I’m alone – a LOT. I only see him a matter of HOURS per a week, so that leaves me plenty of time to think “Oh my god I cannot do this with another one I’m going to lose my mind please I take it back I didn’t mean for this to happen oh my god oh my god this is going to be the death of me.”

But then, I breathe a little, or cry a little, and I start to feel better. She’s coming. Ain’t no stoppin’ it now. And just like with the last one, I’ll figure it out once she’s here. I went through one day where I was excited about putting the crib together and spent the entire day stressing over where to find a stupid white crib skirt, and then I completely lost interest and haven’t done a single other thing to get her space together.

I DID manage to throw together a Facebook invite to the Blessingway I’m planning for myself in March, and most of my friends are coming to that. At the request of some of my very-excited long distance friends and cyber-friends, I’m also planning on doing a “Virtual Blessingway” on the blog, which I think will be super fun. I’ll post details on that in a month or so.

I also have another big-huge-ginormous announcement coming soon regarding the big Birth Day, but I’m not quite ready to let the cat out of the bag on that one yet. Trust me… it’s good though, so stay tuned.