Monday, February 18, 2013

22 Week update: Midwife Appointment, Active Baby, Hormones, and General Life Update.




22 weeks!! And 18 weeks to go, baby!! Yay! It makes me excited… with each coming week it just gets less and less and we are getting closer to meeting baby!! :)

But anyway… what has been going on this week. It feels like I haven’t posted in a while… almost like this week took forever long to pass. Let’s start with my weight! I just weighed myself and I am 139.4! The numbers are growing and growing… like they should be!! I’m finally gaining back the weight I lost! Skimming through my post last week… 2 weeks ago I was 136.5… and last week I was 137.2!  So I gained basically 3 pounds in 2 weeks! Yay, yay!!! Is it weird I’m so excited about gaining weight, haha? This makes me almost half a pound from my pre- pregnancy weight! So even though I am eating like crazy and obviously growing I’m technically smaller I guess than I was pre-pregnancy… crazy. But yes, that is my good news in the weight department! I’m gaining basically a pound – 2 pounds a week like I should be, so I am happy!!

I had my midwife appointment on Friday. This is my second appointment with Bassett, and this time I had it with a midwife in Herkimer. But not just any midwife- this was the midwife that was giving me a hard time the day I came out of the hospital and my pain meds could not get filled because the doctor wrote the year 2012 instead of 2013 by accident. I am not sure if I gave you guys the full story of that, I think I did in one of my hospitalization posts or in one of the follow up posts after that.

Basically, long story short in the case I didn’t talk about it too much or to just refresh whoever’s memory… I couldn’t get the pain meds filled. When I called the hospital, midwife Michele Rhude was the midwife on shift the next morning. Instead of trying to help me out and get a new prescription- not knowing my history at all for the past 3 days and what I went through in the hospital, she gave me a 10 minute talk about just NOT taking the pills at all. That I won’t be able to take them throughout the rest of the pregnancy, and that pregnancy can be very uncomfortable at times and I can have pains every now and then and that labor itself will be much worse. I couldn’t believe it; she had the authority to help me out and completely just disregarded the point of my call and is instead giving me this 10 minute lecture of how not to take meds at all. And seriously… I don’t know what everyone’s deal is when it comes to Percocets and suddenly assuming everyone who takes them or is prescribed them is a drug addict… goodness. Because after all this drama with Michele Rhude,  another doctor ( still a mystery who and how) called in an emergency phone prescription of the pills and when I came the next day to fill a written prescription they said they couldn’t fill it because there were Percocets already waiting to be picked up. And I was like alright awesome then I don’t need the physical script I have. The lady working at the pharmacy is like “But this is only 21 pills… and it doesn’t have any refills…” Uhm… so was the prescription I was holding! And I am not going to need any more than 21 pills nor was I even planning to use them all up! It’s like if you are prescribed them suddenly people assume you’re a drug addict! Directions said to take them every 4 hours… I would take one maybe a second one before bed when I was at the hospital because I DIDN’T NEED ANY MORE THAN THAT! And it was just so frustrating to see this weird behavior from everyone in my direction about the stupid pills jumping to conclusions and making assumptions! Mehhh! Small venting session over!

Back to the midwife. After I got off the phone with her I just starting crying because at that point I still had really bad pains that Tylenol wouldn’t completely relieve and I was just very upset with her… with the fact she had the power and capability to help and she just didn’t. As the weeks passed, I remembered her name and knew she was the midwife I was going to have an appointment with… and with each day getting closer to my appointment I was dreading it. A couple days before I actually had this big plan and replayed the situation  about a thousand times in my head how I was going to tell her off and tell her how sincerely hurt and upset I was with her that she refused to help me. I was even going to bring in my Percocets and show her that I only used like 2 from the whole bottle. I was just filled with lots of hormonal- pregnancy anger and was very sure of the fact I was going to let it all out on her and probably just be angry with her forever and never want to schedule another appointment with her again. Yes, haha… I was THAT pissed!

I got to the appointment… I waited about 25 minutes in the waiting room to get called. I already at THAT point started getting a little fidgety and impatient and more irritated than I was when I got there. Then when I gave them my urine sample the nurse left me to wait in the little room. Usually the Dr or midwife is there within 10 minutes. I was there for another 40 minutes. I started getting even angrier with this midwife and felt like I was going to blow up on her. I start opening my door to see if I can catch someone in the hallway to see if maybe I was simply forgotten about since it’s already a little more than an hour passed my original appointment time!!! I open the door and suddenly see someone at the door about to open it the same time I opened it… it was the midwife. She came in just as I got up to see if anyone was going to come to see me anytime soon.

So, she comes in sits down and tries to be nice by asking me questions about how far along I am, if baby is a girl or boy, if I have a name picked out and that I should start working on that ASAP. I, at this point am trying very hard to not end up looking like a crazy hormonal pregnant girl and don’t say anything extra and just kind of answer with one word answers. I am trying my best to calm down and breathe and get back into a normal state of mind. Yes, you probably think I am crazy! :) She measures my blood pressure and all that fun stuff and then gets the Doppler out. Once she started looking for the baby’s heartbeat, I seemed to surprisingly calm down and not be so pissed at her anymore. And decided that if the situation doesn’t call for it I’m not going to flip out on her after all and give her a chance. I know, a 360 degree transformation, instantly out of nowhere. Do not ask for an explanation because frankly I won’t be able to give you one! :)

Finding the heartbeat this time was an obstacle- but in a good way. Baby was just going crazy and all over the place and she just could not catch him still to get a good hear of the heartbeat! It was pretty funny and silly. I think this was one of the factors that contributed to bringing my mood up.  The midwife literally for 15 minutes tried different angles and just could not get the heartbeat for more than 2 seconds. Not only did I feel most of his jumps in there but you could hear them and that was the most fun to hear! She kept saying “Well, he is DEFINITELY having a good time in there. He’s having a party!! He’s totally enjoying himself! He gets the award for being the most difficult baby of the day!” Regardless of the fact it took some time… it was fun hearing the little one move around in there!

Towards the end of the appointment I kind of decided that she was nice aside from the previous encounter I had with her and she probably just didn’t even look into my file to see why I was given the pain meds… and she PROBABLY meant well but just didn’t see the whole situation from the full perspective ( yes, this is me trying to calm myself down) and thought that if she is going to be as nice as she appeared to be at the appointment I can give her a second chance after all…

At this point I am going to have one more appt in a month, and after that all my appointments are going to start being every 2 weeks now! This makes me excited because that is kind of another milestone to reach, and I am getting closer to labor! I was also scheduled my 2 hour glucose test which I have heard very briefly from other mamas about how horrible it is but never looked into it. Thought I would cross that bridge when I would get to it. Mine is scheduled super early in the morning. I mean it IS a good thing I guess because of the way I am hungry all the time but it also means I am going to have to wake up early in the morning… which I don’t enjoy doing. But that won’t be for another 6 weeks.
As far as physical changes and symptoms for this week… I think I am growing. Well, I mean I know I am, but it seems to me with every week I am getting slightly bigger. I got asked the other day by another person if I am pregnant… so people can definitely tell now that I have a belly bump by just looking at me! Which makes me happy… don’t ask :)

My belly button. I described a few changes I have noticed with it a few weeks back. It’s not an outie yet and it isn’t sticking out, but I can definitely see it slowly changing to something different. My belly button used to be very thin and very deep. I would be very anal about cleaning it sometimes because I would notice old scabby and dry skin in there every once in a while (before pregnancy) and I would have to try to spread it out to see what is going on in there. I would even use tweezers sometimes to kind of spread it out and open it to see to the bottom of it… I know that probably sounds very weird… but that is what I would do. Now it is SO wide. I can easily stick my finger into it with my whole finger fitting without an issue.  It’s Not that this is what I do all day or anything, haha. And because it is so wide, it is all spread out and I can see inside ALL of my belly button for the first time in my life! So, now if I have dead skin or something I can just pick it out without an issue… ahahaha… such an accomplishment… right?! Sorry if I grossed you out once again!

Another thing is my fuzzy belly. I mentioned in one of my very early posts about my hair and nails growing like crazy. The nails part would be kind of cool the hair not so much when it came to shaving more often. My belly, I’ve noticed gradually got some fuzz. I mean, I am not like a man where I have a hairy belly LIKE THAT… but it definitely grew some fuzzy hair and it is definitely noticeable now. No big deal… just a fuzzy belly.

I also *think*… I am starting to get that dark line that goes vertically down on your belly. What is it called…? Linea Nigra? I was going to take a wild guess which was basically the correct name for it  just switched but didn’t want to make a fool of myself so I googled just in case and I ended up being right for the most part! But, yes… I am not SURE… because I can’t tell if it is slightly emerging or if it’s just a hairy trail leaving a little shadow like effect making it look like it is there. I don’t know… sometimes I can see it sometimes I don’t… only time will tell I suppose!
Other than that… a little follow up on some of the weird and not so wonderful physical changes… my rash on my chest is still there... I think it is in the process of disappearing though. I am putting an anti-itch lotion on it and trying very hard not to look creepy by itching every now and then there in public when it gets BAD… but it is getting a little dry now  so I think it is starting to heal. So hopefully no more itchy boob rashes for me.

Stretch marks on “the girls” (someone called their boobs that the other day and I was confused at first but thought it was a funny reference!) are still there. I don’t put the stretch mark cocoa butter cream on it as often as I should probably…because I forget… but I try to when I remember.
In addition to the midwife appointment and baby being wildly crazy, he is definitely doing some acrobatics in there that is for sure. He is getting more and more active each day I feel! Sometimes I feel him just basically using my bladder as a trampoline or something! The kicks are much stronger almost with each day I feel. I have a lot of fun with it though. I keep trying to catch a video of my belly bulging when baby is moving in there but every time  I turn on the camera he stops! Sneaky baby! But I will get him one of these days!!! :)

As far as emotions and hormones… As you can tell from reading this post already there are moments where I am just SO angry. Certain people, certain details and certain things just REALLY get to me. I try not to but just can’t help it! And I really don’t want to sound like a crazy person, so please don’t judge! :) Sometimes when something really gets to me, I just get uncontrollably annoyed or pissed, and even though at that moment a part of me can understand that I should not be getting upset SO much over such a thing, I just cannot control myself. Another bad thing about these pregnancy hormones, in addition to the person I am to begin with, is being honest. I am a very honest and open person. To some this may be a good thing to others a bad. Basically, if there is something about you that angers me, or annoys me, or I DO NOT like… most likely you are probably going to hear it bluntly- straight out from me. A lot of my friends know that already, and we have some head on collisions because of this. It’s just how I am… I rather openly come clean to you, then smile and be fake to your face and think and say otherwise behind your back.  With pregnancy this trait is even stronger. I cannot be as gentle and easy with saying some things anymore. Because at the moment, if something is obviously just over the top bothering me, I am sorry but you are going to hear it from me! Sometimes I go on a rant to my hubby about something and as I am saying it I am already apologizing for my behavior because I know it is irrational but there is just nothing I can do about it! I have tried to stop myself at times, and it HAS worked… but not all the time!

Like with my neighbors the other day. The main reason we want to move at the end of May (that’s a whole separate story I will have to go into detail some other day) is because our downstairs neighbors are inconsiderate (trying very hard to contain myself and use “nice” words to describe them) people who enjoy blasting their TV as late as 1:30 am and not give a single crap about it. Even though we have rung their doorbell several times…and have kindly asked them to turn it down. Even though we continue to KINDLY ring their doorbell and they just have gotten to the point of ignoring us because they just DON’T care. Even though we have CALLED the landlord…. Nothing works! The other night it happened again and I seriously got SO mad and fed up… more than I have ever before. Usually I calmly ask them and try to explain to them the walls are thin and all that jazz- as a NICE neighbor, even though I am not happy at all. I was literally sitting in bed and trying to calm myself down and was about to just run down and blow up on them.  After a few minutes of fidgeting and still the TV not getting any quieter I stormed down the stairs and rung their doorbell. I thought that was it- the neighbors were finally going to see the crazy- psycho pregnant side of me and there is just nothing I can do about it. Surprisingly once he opened the door- even though this guy was giving me attitude, I managed to be more or less nice to him about it. He basically said it’s a TV it makes noise what do you want. The closest thing to a rude remark I made to him was asking him in a somewhat sarcastic manner if he knew how loud it was in our bedroom and he arrogantly answered “No” to me… I don’t know how that didn’t spark off the anger flames in me. I remained calm until I went back to my apartment and just starting venting on and on to Zhenya about them.

Regardless, without me continuing to ramble… my emotions… especially ANGER this week has just been out of control! So, I apologize in advance to anyone if I am ever mean or just crazy to you. Please note, I probably am or will be aware of how crazy I am, I just can’t control it and can’t explain why but my lucky guess is these funky hormones in me!

Lastly, I just wanted to give a little quick life update for this week, kind of straying off to the side from pregnancy a bit. Even though this is a pregnancy blog, I have gotten really close and attached to this blog where a lot of the things I share really just sum up my life in general, since most of the stuff happening to me are pregnancy related and kind of affect everything else in life.

I haven’t worked for 3 weeks because I was sick. I believe I did mention this maybe… slightly… in my previous post. But this really hit us hard financially. With Zhenya taking days off and me being at home pre-hospitalization, then being hospitalized, then getting back to normal after the hospital and then having the stomach flu, it’s just been crazy. That is why this past week I was all ready to get back to work and start makin’ some money already! It’s just going to be a tight month or two right now before we get back into the whole cycle of bringing in money, so no eating out ( although we did have to make a small exception this week) and keeping the budget really tight!

In addition to work, I got an approval letter in the mail a couple days ago saying I have been approved to substitute teach elementary level! So I am super excited about that. Since this current week is winter break, I am hoping I will start getting calls and getting some jobs! It will be fun… aside from the waking up super early part, haha. Yes, I love my sleep, and as a future mama I know I won’t have a lot of sleep when baby comes… it’s just… baby isn’t here yet, that’s why I want to rack up on those hours of sleep while I can. I’ll just have to go to bed much earlier and get into the schedule… it’s all for a good cause. The other thing is if I start subbing (God willing) in a week, I will probably be on a 2 week delay schedule as far as getting paid. This will really suck since we have hit rock bottom right now. But once again, going to keep a low and very tight budget and we will just have to manage! ;)


On another good note… we celebrated our 2 year anniversary this past week! Yay! Married for 2 years and with a baby on the way! Couldn't be any more happier with my best friend ( aka hubby) and with how wonderful life has gotten with each year!

That pretty much sums up 22 weeks for me. I will maybe post a belly shot today or tomorrow… not sure yet. Surprisingly I am making a post “on time” today with being exactly 22 weeks… not early OR late! ;) But yes, belly shot will be up soon! So until next week!  :)

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