26 Weeks

To quote an age old classic female rock group of the 80’s, “Time, time, time…see what’s become of me….”

Ah the classics…

Happy 26 weeks!

If you’re anything like me, you find the whole trimesters/months/weeks of pregnancy thing confusing. It doesn’t always add up correctly in my head. But I found this chart online that helps visually show how it all lines up.

(source)

So according to this, I’m nearing the end of the 2nd trimester!

This week, as part of the ongoing pregnancy fun, I got to do the Glucose test for gestational diabetes. That means I had to drink a bottle of this super sweet orange liquid (Glucola), within 5 minutes, and then wait an hour for them to draw my blood.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I am not a fast drinker. So getting all the liquid down in 5 minutes was tough. At first it tastes like Orange Crush but after a while it turns nasty and by God I had to stop myself from gagging a couple different times. But I did it!

If I don’t hear anything then all is well. But if the doc calls that means my reading was too high and I’ll have to go in for a follow-up test. So far, no word so that’s a good sign!

Otherwise, all checked out well. Baby’s heartbeat was strong. My weight was fine (I’ve gained a total of 27 pounds so I’m still on track for averaging about 1lb a week). I noticed that I’ve gained more weight in this last 4 weeks than I had the previous 4, most likely due to the holidays and extra eating.

My belly is definitely expanding!

Let’s compare to the last picture I took, which was at 22 weeks –

Yep, definitely bigger (oh look, and I’m wearing the same shirt…how awkward…).

Now let’s compare it to how I looked at this stage in my first pregnancy:

This was taken at 28 weeks. The belly looks about the same but my face is definitely puffier which I think means I was gaining more weight all around and not just with the baby.

It’s harder for me to keep up with Isabella too. I hate that part. She is always on the go and play time with her tends to be like a Catholic church service – stand up, sit down, kneel, run around, sit, run some more, move to another room, and on and on. A lot of times I have to tell her “Sorry, Mommy can’t do this or that”, which I hate. I want to do everything she does but alas, I just can’t.

Isabella is not shy in pointing out how big I’m getting either. I only have a couple winter coats that still fit me and one of them is getting more and more snug. Every time I put it on, Munchkin says something like, “That baby sure is growing Mommy!”

In terms of unpleasant experiences, I got a Urinary Tract Infection this week. I have a history of getting those so I know the symptoms and can tell almost immediately when one is coming. This one showed up on New Year’s Day (happy new year to me!) so I phoned the on call doc and they wrote up an anti-biotic. Normally the docs would want me to wait until I can get in for a urine sample but since I’m pregnant, they didn’t mess around. Any untreated infection could move to the kidneys and that would be bad. So I’m glad we caught it early.

I’ve been having a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions too. That is when your uterus has sporadic contractions. They can start as early as 6 weeks and generally don’t hurt. Instead you feel a tightening or hardening of the uterus. They are nothing to worry about unless you get more than 4 in an hour or they start to hurt. I generally get them when I stand up after having been seated for a long time or after a lot of walking (like doing mega-shopping or something). I had CJ feel my ‘belly’ when I got one last night and he was like, “Whoa!” Your uterus really does feels hard as a rock and it’s kind of freaky the first few times. Isabella poked at it too and said, “Hard!”

We’ve also made a change in some decisions about the nursery. Instead of making it the room right next to Isabella (the famed “polka dotted room“) we’re going to change what is now the office into the nursery.

The office (the room straight ahead with the green sheets on the futon) is the closest room to the Master Bedroom (door on the left) so it would make nighttime feedings/changings easier.

Plus, being further away from Isabella would minimize opportunities of waking her up in the middle of the night to the baby crying (Isabella’s room is the door on the far right and the polka dotted room is the one right next to it). Eventually I’d like the 2 kids to have rooms next to each other as I think that would be fun when they’re older, but for now, we’re going this other route.

Aaaaaaand we probably need to get started…so, I stopped by Lowe’s on the way home and grabbed some paint swatches (for both the nursery and Isabella’s room)! Going to hang them up in the rooms tonight, live with them for a week or so and see what we like!