Full Term

Well folks today is 37 weeks - that means that Baby Koi is officially full term and is hereby invited to vacate the premises ANYTIME. I'm pretty much done at this point - and here's how I know:

• my feet are so swollen that walking has become difficult. I sort of hop/limp my way up and down the hallway at work to get to/from the bathroom.
  
• when Lily runs to me saying "Mommy I have to poop!" and then commences to do just that quite easily on the potty I no longer feel pride that she is totally potty trained (in this area). Instead the emotion I experience is a deep, deep envy.
  
• I can no longer stand the sight of peanut-butter crackers, cheese, and cashews. Just the thought of ice cream or cake or anything yummy sends me over the edge
  
• I am quickly running out of clothes to wear. All of my warm-weather maternity stuff was worn during the 2nd trimester with Lily. Most of it is not so much working out now.
  
• I am down to one pair of shoes
  
• I can barely remember my own name lately. I have locked myself out more than once in the past 2 weeks, left my wallet in the car while grocery shopping and gone to the doctors with a sweater on inside out.
  

It's been awhile since I gave a pregnancy update here - five weeks I think - and a lot has happened. There was a period of time there during which I was a little down on the whole pregnancy/health thing - so I just refrained from writing/talking about it. But I don't want to let this stuff go undocumented, and I'm feeling better lately - so here goes.

The first update is on the gestational diabetes. I went through some frustrating periods with that - when it seemed like no matter what I ate I'd still have sugar numbers slightly above what they wanted me to have. Finally things settled down and I was able to control it well on diet alone. Then around 35-36 weeks my fasting numbers started creeping up and there was little I could do about that. So as of this past Monday I am now injecting myself once/day with insulin. I had to skip the blood sugar medication and go straight to injections because of a sulfa allergy. But honestly, I don't mind the injections all that much. I mean I'd rather NOT be doing it - but it's a really small amount (only 4 units) and only once/day (so far). Being the crazy perfectionist that I am I would get all upset when my numbers were high, so I'm happier waking up to a nice fasting number in the 80's now.

The good news on the GD front is that Baby Koi seems to be doing just fine. We had an growth ultrasound around 32 weeks and s/he was 40th percentile - so no worries. We just had another ultrasound this past week and are still on the same curve - yay. So my slightly elevated sugar hasn't yet resulted in a "big baby". It helps having that feedback to make me feel like all the effort controlling this stuff has been worth it. At the recent ultrasound they guesstimated that Baby Koi is at 5 lbs 13oz, putting him/her on a similar size track as Lily. The OB won't let me stay pregnant too much longer because of the GD, so we are targeting an induction on May 22nd (less than 3 weeks now!) if nothing happens unassisted before then. So everyone send me good labor vibes.

The fly in the ointment in the past month was a strange pain I suddenly had below my belly, but above my thigh, just after my return from Houston in late March. It started right after the GD was diagnosed (totally coincidence). The first week it hurt so much I could hardly walk. Oh and there was a little lump under my skin there too. My doctor was away on vacation at the time so another OB looked at it. At first I was told it was an ingrown hair. Then, the following week, she looked again and told me "oh, I don't know WHAT that is". Hmmmm helpful. By that time it wasn't nearly as painful and only hurt when touched or when Baby Koi moved around in that area. My doctor finally returned the next week and after checking it out told me I had a femoral hernia. Don't google it - it's not fun.

I, of course, came home immediately and googled like a fiend. Then got really freaked out. My OB also said I'd need surgery to repair the hernia after the baby was born. At this point I had very little information, so my mind took over and filled in all the blanks - darkly. I was immediately convinced that I would need a C-section now for sure, that I would be back in the hospital right after birth getting more surgery AND that I would do something horrible to the hernia before baby came and would require emergency hernia surgery that would lead to an early birth.

Of course - none of that happened. If fact, the "hernia" hardly hurts at all now. I went to see the surgeon last Friday and she and her term checked it out and told me: "huh, that's not really in the right spot to be a hernia". They used terms like "cyst", "hematoma" and other medical-sounding things that I can't remember, but no one in the room seemed too concerned about. In the end I was told that they had a "very low suspicion of hernia". I went home, my mood much improved, promising to return a few weeks about Baby Koi's arrival to have an MRI. Secretly, my hopes are pinned on "weird pregnancy thing #5,416 that will just disappear when no longer pregnant". So yet another reason for Baby Koi to hurry up out.

So, here I am, still pregnant, but pretty ready to meet Baby Koi. We even managed to get a bunch of our baby stuff back last night AND I went to a used clothing sale and stocked up on some summer-appropriate onesies! Look at me go!