33 weeks

Ah yes, 33 weeks already. I had a doctor's appointment today. My doctor expressed her annoyance that the nutritionist can't see me about my gestational diabetes until Feb. 9th. What she said was, "No. That's too long. You'll be almost done by then." And then she got her nurse to call and try to change the appointment.  But APPARENTLY this nutritionist only works part time and that is the very first time she can see me. 

Part of me is annoyed because, YEAH, I am going to be almost done by then. But mostly annoyed that they're making me go at all. Because seriously? I've done my research. I'm on the low carb diet. I have a glucose meter, and I know how to test my blood sugar. Can they not just trust me to do it right on my own? I'm pretty sure this nutritionist lady isn't going to tell me anything I didn't already read on Google. (And seriously, if my blood sugars continue to be good I'm going to call the nurse next week and ask if I really, REALLY have to see the nutritionist.) 

On the upside, I'm not measuring big, so that's good.

Alphabetically

I'm stealing this from K (what? She said I could!)


A to Z


A. Age: 29

B. Bed size: Currently a queen. Our king bed is (sadly) in storage.

C. Chore that you hate: Sweeping and mopping floors. I'm no good at it so it takes me forever and then I still don't feel like they're all that clean. 

D. Dogs: I'm a dog person, but I hate when people don't control/train their dogs. We loved our greyhounds and want to have some again someday, but not anytime soon. 

E. Essential start to your day: Breakfast. The kiddos wake up demanding it.

F. Favorite color: Green or blue

G. Gold or silver: Silver

H. Height: 5'4"

I. Instruments that you play: Piano, violin, and viola. None of them very well.

J. Job title: On a resume? Chemical engineer. Right now in my life? Homemaker.

K. Kids: Kalena- 3 1/2. Will- 2. Baby boy on the way- arrival slated for March 

L. Live: Colorado

M. Mother's name: Linda

N. Nicknames: Really not any. Unless there are people out there who think of me as vandeblogger? (My twitter handle.) Are there people who do? Does that even count as a nickname? I think I'm getting off track here. 

O. Overnight hospital stays: 2008 when Kalena was born (4 nights actually), and in 2009 when Will was born. 

P. Pet peeves: People who are chronically late. Braggy people.

Q. Quote from a movie: From The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, "You never can tell with bees." Brian and I say this to each other pretty much anytime anything odd or unexpected happens.

R: Right or left handed: Right

S: Siblings: Two older brothers, two younger sisters

T: (K didn't have one, so I made one up.) Time of day: I'm definitely a morning person. It's when I'm most productive. If I don't get my errands done before lunch, chances are I'm not going to do them.

U. Underwear: I wear it? What do you want to know here?

V. Vegetable(s) you hate: Raw vegetables (almost all of them.) Celery, cooked or raw.

W. What makes you run late: I try REALLY hard not to be late. When I am it can almost always be attributed to my kids.

X. X-rays you've had: Besides dental, my collar bone. I broke it when I was like 5. (I assume there were X-rays. I've never actually seen them.)

Y. Yummy food that you make: I make some delicious cookies and pies. I think I'm a decent cook generally, but I don't really have a speciality. 

Z. Zoo animal: Panda bears. They just look so cuddly! 


Want to play along? Leave a link to yours in the comments!

Some Kalena-isms

My dad finally got Kalena to start saying "knife" instead of "wife" but now she super-emphasizes the N sound.  So it's more like NNNNN-ife than just knife.  Anyway, here are some other things she says right now that I don't want to forget.

She says "last-er-day" instead of "yesterday"
My dad sometimes calls her "snicker-doodle" but Kalena says it "stinker-doodle"
I may have mentioned this already (I know I said it on twitter) but she calls ginger ale "gingerella"
She knows now that Will's name is William (and not actually Buster) so even though she still calls him Buster most of the time, she does sometimes call him Will-whem.
When Brian is working out she'll combine the phrases "doing his workout" and "working out" and tell me that he's "doing his working out."
She's getting better at saying prayers unassisted, but often when she starts saying things she's thankful for she'll open her eyes and just start listing stuff in the room until someone redirects her.
Okay, this one takes a little explanation.  You know how sometimes you'll finish a word or phrase with "what" to clarify something?  (For instance if I said "gestational diabetes" and someone responded with "gestational what?")  Well, Kalena has picked this up, only she just adds "what" in the middle.  So, if she asks what's for dinner and I tell her potato soup, she'll say, "Potato WHAT soup?"  And I don't know how funny this comes across on the old blog here, but it is hilarious, and she does it ALL THE TIME.

Anyway, that's all for now.  Although, I'm sure I'll think of more as soon as I publish this.

See, I came up with another one.  She constantly asks, "What you guys talkin' bout?"  She wants to make sure she's included in the conversation

Want to join us?

During the month of February my mom and I are working on a special project.  We are going to be making an effort to go out of our way every day to do something nice for someone else.  Not just the normal nice things, out of the way nice things.  (Meaning, my making dinner for the family is nice, but doesn't count.  My making dessert, however, would count because I CAN'T EAT ANY.  (Just had to throw that in there.))

So what do you think?  Are you in?

Failed again.

I knew the glucose test was going to be especially fun when I woke up at 2 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep until 4 am.  Because the only thing better than getting up at 6 to get blood drawn (repeatedly) is to do it on not enough sleep!

Anyway, I had forgotten how sweet the 3 hour stuff is.  The 1 hour stuff tastes like flat soda to me, so I have no problem drinking it.  The 3 hour stuff, on the other hand?  Is like drinking sno-cone syrup.  It was so sweet I felt like it should have been thicker.  But I got it down and the blood draws commenced.  I have about one good vein, so it's bruised all to hell (even though the nurse who did the 3rd blood draw managed to get a different vein.)

If you don't know how a 3 hour glucose test works, here are the basics.  You go in fasting 10-12 hours (hence first thing in the AM.)  They draw blood to check fasting sugar levels, then you drink the nasty sugar drink and then wait.  They draw blood again after 1, 2, and 3, hours.

At the last blood draw the nurse asked me if I wanted to know the numbers and OF COURSE I did.  Obviously she couldn't give me the number for the blood she'd just taken, but I figured if the others were good I'd be fine.  Here's what I learned:

Acceptable Numbers                   My numbers
Fasting: less than 95 (mg/dL)      83 (mg/dL) perfectly fine
1 hour:  less than 180                  255 Not okay
2 hour:  less than 155                  217 Not even okay for the 1 hour reading- HA HA HA.
3 hour:  less than 140                  Well they didn't have it yet, but considering the other ones I'm gonna guess IT DOESN'T MATTER.

So yes, it's welcome to gestational diabetes for me.  *sigh*

32 weeks

Well, we're getting to the end of things here, aren't we?  And be "we" I mean "me" and by "things" I mean "pregnancy."  Brian and I were joking about how getting gestational diabetes would really just top things off for this pregnancy.  Because it would mean I spent essentially the whole time sick with one thing or another.  At least I haven't had kidney stones right?  (When I was pregnant with Kalena I had kidney stones.  NOT FUN.)

At least I have an early morning gestational diabetes test tomorrow to look forward to!  Oh wait.

Will with bed head

It appears that Will has also inherited Brian's crazy hair.  He woke up from his nap yesterday looking like this:

And just as a refresher, here's what Kalena's bed head looked like at 16 months old:

More pictures of that here.

I guess it's a good thing Will's hair is short, otherwise it would get even crazier.  By the way, his expression in that picture isn't because he's still tired, it's because he's incapable of keeping his eyes open if the camera flashes.

More fun blood draws!

The nurse from my doctor's office called this morning.  As soon as I saw the phone number I knew what she was going to say- I failed the 1 hour glucose test.  This means I (once again) get to participate in the super-duper fun 3 hour glucose test!  Awesome right?  The nurse told me she'd fax the order over today and I can go anytime this week, but I'll be going in on Friday.  It's not that I'm putting it off (really I'd like to get it over with) but my dad has Fridays off so he'll watch the kids if I go then.  And I think we can all agree that 3 hour glucose test with zero toddlers will at least be more enjoyable than 3 hour glucose test with two toddlers.

I had to do the 3 hour glucose when I was pregnant with Will, but I've looked through the archives and can't see that I actually wrote about it, so here's what I remember.  I didn't fail that 3 hour, but I did have 1 high reading (I don't know the number, or how much higher than the cutoff it actually was.)  My doctor just recommended that I stay away from concentrated sugar (no soda, no dessert, etc.) and that was that.  If I remember right, it was the 3rd blood draw that was high (the 3rd of the 4) and the lab techs had a particularly difficult time doing that draw.  I tend to not have great veins and there's really only one that ever works but by the 3rd stick it was not cooperating.  Anyway, point being- that draw ended up being like 35 minutes late by the time they actually got it to work.  (I'm not sure if that affected anything, but that's how it happened.)

I do warn them, by the way, that I tend to have bad veins.  I've found the lab techs pay more attention and are more likely to get it on the first shot if I say that.  Plus they're more likely to bring in whoever is the bad vein "expert" if they start having trouble.

Anyway.  Fun times for Friday.

31 weeks

I forgot to mention that I *did* talk to my doctor about my forever long cough when I was there last week. She listened to my lungs and said they sounded clear so it was nothing to worry about.  And I am feeling MUCH better, by the way.  Only took like 6 weeks.  So here I am, 31 weeks along.

Less than 10 weeks to go.  We don't have a name picked out yet.  Definitely the longest we've gone without settling on a name.  When I was pregnant with Kalena we picked out her name, but we also picked out a boys name.  And used that name for Will.  Apparently we were only capable of agreeing on 2 names.  I'm sure we'll get it figured out eventually.

30 weeks in: so far so good

At my OB appointment last month, my doctor gave me the paperwork to go get my glucose tolerance test done.  I asked when I needed to do it and my doctor replied, "Oh, anytime you want."  And then turned around and looked at me and said, "Before your next appointment."  I sort of laughed to myself because OF COURSE I would get it done sometime in the next 4 weeks.  No problem right?  At that point I'd had my cough for about 2 weeks and I figured it'd be over soon (HA!)  So I was waiting to get better.  And waiting, and waiting, and waiting.  By this Monday I was coughing less, so I figured sometime later in the week I'd go do the test.  Then Tuesday evening I got a message from my OB's office reminding me of my appointment the next day.  WHOOPS.  Fortunately for me, I'd scheduled the appointment for late in the afternoon.  That left me time between Brian coming home from school (noon) and the OB appointment (4:20) to get the glucose test done.  Anyway, that's mostly just a long story to tell you that I did my glucose test yesterday.  I'd tell you the results, but the doctor's office didn't have them yet.  Apparently they'll call if I need to go in for the 3 hour test.  (I didn't have to with Kalena, but I did with Will.)

So.  Then I had my appointment.  I don't know if this is a third child thing, but I am paying way less attention this time around.  I know my blood pressure is good because the nurse always tells me the numbers (100 over 70 yesterday.)  I think I've gained about 27 lbs- ish.  That's based on my home scale.  And a guess at my pre-pregnancy weight.  Also, pretty sure I had gained more and I've lost some while I've been sick.  I don't know what I'm measuring (I assume she'd tell me if it was too far off) or what the heartbeat is (again, I assume she'd tell me if something was wrong.)  I also have a hard time keeping track of just how far along I am, but I think that's mostly because *my* dates have me changing weeks on Fridays, the original ultrasound dates had me changing weeks on Thursdays, but somehow the due date they gave me (based on that original ultrasound) has me changing weeks on Wednesdays.  I don't know how that happened.

Anyway, apparently I'm now moving to the every other week appointments.  And since I'm 31 weeks (yesterday, today, or tomorrow DEPENDING) I'm officially down to the single digits for weeks left.  Whoa.