My Theme Song this Season

If my life were a TV show, the theme song this season would be Danny's Song. Does a song ever hit you as being about you because it describes your situation and/or feelings exactly? There have been a few songs that I remember feeling that way about in the past few years. If life were a TV show I think the theme song would need to change every year or so, and it would be the underlying mood to what happens each episode that season.

I came across Danny's Song a week or so ago on Pandora Radio and found myself humming it a few days later. I remembered only a few parts of the lyrics and decided to look up the rest. When I did, I found that it is a song originally done by Loggins & Messina, though I had heard a remake by another artist. I thought it was funny that I hadn't remembered that it was a Kenny Loggins song since he is one of the artists I spent a lot of time listening to growing up.

If you aren't familiar with the song or know it and want to hear it, here is a link, (this link is a real treat because it has pictures of a very hairy Kenny Loggins as well as the lyrics as the song plays, lol). If you can't or don't want to play the song but would like to read the lyrics, go ahead and click here.

It is highly amusing to me that my parents probably really liked this song when they were my age, since they were married only a few years after the album debuted.

Life keeps going on

Lately it seems like there isn't much new. I am happy that the pregnancy is uneventful at this point because that is what it should be! Thing are pretty much the same as they have been for the past few weeks; the baby still moves quite a bit. I wonder, "what it is trying to do in there? What it is thinking? Does it think it is going to get anywhere if it hits me harder?"

I went in for my glucose screening this week to test for gestational diabetes. I drank this sugary orange concoction that reminded me of a mutated McDonald's orange drink. It made my stomach a bit queasy and an hour-ish after downing it my blood was drawn. When the results come back if I'm not in the normal range I will have a 3-hour screening to better determine if I have diabetes. I'm hoping I'm in the normal range!

Pondering

Sometimes I sit at the computer and visit my own blog to watch the baby widget. I click on the days to review how many days and weeks it has been so far and then how much longer the baby needs to grow with me. I sit there and just watch it slowly move around in the bubble, knowing that it looks something like that.

It seems like such a dorky thing to do, to watch a widget, but I think it is also something that a mother might do. Since I'm the baby's mother, I guess it is appropriate. I am used being pregnant and I can imagine having the baby here with me after it is born, but it still seems weird to think of myself as a mother. It is exciting and I know that I will like it because I'm sure that I will like as well as love the baby.

I remember when my sister was pregnant the first time and it seemed so strange to see her belly grow, knowing that her identity would never be quite the same again. She was no longer my big sister and someone who looked after me when I needed her; she was going to have someone who depended on her for everything, needed her more than I did, and was more important to her than me - she was going to be a mother. While she always did take care of me more than may have been her responsibility as a sibling, it was a new dynamic. Now, as the mother of four children, being a mother is such a huge part of who she is and it fits her. So I know that it will seem strange for a while that I am the mother, but once it finally sinks in I'm sure that it will fit just fine.

I think that being pregnant helps me get used to the idea that the baby will be there all the time and I will always need to make sure it is looked after. It is never going to just take care of itself - make itself a sandwich when it's hungry like Josh does - someone, usually me, will have to make sure that everything is taken care of for it. Maybe that is why some people get a pet before having a baby - but I'm not interested in having something that sheds hair worse than I do!

Moving all around

In the last week or so I've felt the baby move a lot more than before. Before I could feel small little movements and occasionally a bigger poke. Now I'm feeling the bigger movements much more. They are more than just pokes from the inside out; I feel a foot or something move across. When there is a big movement, it usually catches me off guard; I feel like somebody was standing right behind me where I couldn't see them and pushed me forward and I had no time to prepare my reaction. I can only imagine how it will be as the baby gets even bigger!

It seems to move quite a bit late in the evening and sometimes I think it wakes me up in the middle of the night. I wonder if it will like to stay up late like me? I guess the real question is how early it wants to get up!

The skin on my belly is itchy on a regular basis now as it is beginning to stretch. They say in the books that having good genes and a diet that supports healthy skin are the only effective means of preventing stretchmarks. The diet I can work on since I am trying to eat well for myself and the baby, and who knows how much skin elasticity I've inherited? The books all say that lotions and creams don't really work to prevent stretch marks even though there might be a thousand lotions or creams out there that claim to make them disappear. I have been using lotion on my belly because that seems to help keep it from itching but I'm not counting on it to keep me from getting stretch marks. I figure that even if I get stretch marks in all the common places, there will only be a few people who will ever see them and even fewer of them will care.

Another Appointment

We met the second doctor at our latest appointment. This doctor is a bit younger than the other doctor and only joined this practice a couple of months ago. He was very nice and seemed eager to answer all the questions I had.

I asked him if he was concerned that I have not been weighed at any of my office visits. He said that how much weight I gain is more of an additional way to assess that the baby is growing at a normal rate. He said he could feel that my uterus comes to just above my belly button and that is where it should be at 21 weeks. With the holiday over the weekend, the ultrasound tech's report did not reach the doctor's office yet, so the doctor didn't have those results as additional confirmation that the baby is growing fine. He said the tech will usually call the doctor if something weird shows up on the ultrasound, so he thought the tech probably didn't find any problems. He wasn't concerned that that the baby is too small or that I would gain too much weight considering how I'm doing now, so basically it doesn't matter!

I have been getting an estimate of how much weight I've gained by having Tim hold me on the scale and then he subtracts his weight (which I appreciate very much). Since we started this at the beginning of the second trimester, I've gained around 8lbs. That is pretty good, I think, considering that I'm sure I lost weight in the first couple months. I'd like to gain about a pound a week the rest of the pregnancy.

I also talked to the doctor about who I would have for the delivery. He said I can request to have a midwife or a doctor if I want, or I can just take whoever is on-call at the time. He said the midwives are good about calling a doctor in if things get more complicated than they are comfortable handling. I'm thinking that I would rather have a doctor this time since I don't know how it will go. I'd rather not take risks with my baby that I don't have to take! Both doctors have now told me that I can plan on a natural delivery unless other complications arise. If things go well this time around, maybe the next pregnancy I will feel comfortable with a midwife. I'm going to be at the hospital regardless, so I'm sure a doctor is not too far away if I need one!

Ultrasound

We had the semi-standard ultrasound last week to check the baby's progress. We were really excited to see how big it is now. From the measurements that the tech took, she estimated that the baby weighs close to a pound. From the books I have, being almost a pound is a little big for this length gestation, so maybe it is taking after it's father already! I can't give Josh all the credit, though, because we were both 8 pound babies and I was early and he was late.

We decided not to find out its sex yet. We had been going back and forth the whole time, one of us wanted to wait and the other wanted to know, then we would switch positions, and switch back again. When the tech asked us if we wanted to know if it is a boy or girl, after only a moments hesitation and long look at Josh, I replied that we wanted to wait. In the end, looking forward to knowing if it is a boy or girl will be something fun and exciting to look forward to regardless of any other anxieties or fears I have about the labor and delivery.

Some people have said they think it is a boy or think it is a girl. We even had a friend do an old-fashioned test that she said will tell you the baby's sex. She said she has been 100% accurate when she has done the test before, so she made me close my eyes and didn't tell us what the results were. She wrote down her results and tucked the paper away in a box so she can tell us later.