Week 27: May 18-24

For those who have shown concern, I am feeling pretty much 100% after my trip to the ER now! I'm still careful not to overdo it, since even if I'm feeling better those muscles are still stretching, but I'm basically pain free now. Phew. If that's the worst thing to happen in this pregnancy I will definitely be counting my blessings (I am anyhow)!
I had my final monthly OB exam this week. I'll be going every 2 weeks now until the end, when it gets even more frequent. Things look good in general, the heartbeat still sounds great, etc. I had to do my glucose resistance test today, which consists of drinking 12oz of really sweet liquid and then getting your blood drawn an hour later. A lot of people have a hard time (you have to drink it in 5 minutes) and many throw up or at least feel really ill. It was basically like flat orange soda only even sweeter, but it wasn't too bad. When I laid down for the exam I got a tiny bit queasy but all in all it was much better than I expected. As usual it took several tries for the phlebotomist to hit a vein, but at least she was very gentle. I think I am just going to insist on a butterfly needle from now on if I need anymore bloodwork. I always encourage that, but most people seem to think they know better. Enough of that.
The doctor also told me that it's not uncommon to have issues with muscles stretching/pulling at this stage. He has another patient who coughed and actually tore the muscle, causing a hematoma and major bruising when it bled beneath the skin. Yikes!
I'm still ahead of the curve as far as the measurement of my stomach (28cm at the beginning of the week when it should be 26 or at the most 27), but it's still within 'normal'. My weight gain has really tapered off and I'm around 18-20 pounds still, varying with what I eat.
Speaking of eating, my appetite is varying wildly now! One day I can eat half a salad, and the next day I seem to have a lot more room. I seem to be either hungry or reallly full most of the time, and even when I can only eat a small amount at a time I need to eat again before too long. The donut craving persists, but I'm resisting it for the most part with only occasional splurges. Lucky for me I'm also still wanting fruit all the time, which is good. This week I discovered my new favorite snack! Half a cantaloupe filled with strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. Even with my new stomach size if I'm hungry I can eat it all. It can even squelch my sweet tooth even though I don't add any sugar, and right now all of the fruit is really nice at our store. Yum! Of course, another day I did the berries with chocolate dip and that was pretty good too. Brian shared THAT snack.
I went to a baby shower this week. There are still 4 of us that are pregnant in the squadron, but at this point there's only this one lady due before me. She's having a girl but very against anything too 'girly' so I went with some gender neutral green/yellow bath stuff. I absolutely adore the little hooded towels! I wanted to get some really frilly pink dresses and ruffly butt panties, but what are you going to do? A girl I worked with at the vet has a baby girl that's just a few months old, so I might have to go get her a 'present' of something ruffly. I have fallen in love with all of the cute boy clothes to be honest, but there's still a tiny urge to buy something girly and pink.
PeaBaby continues to grow and get stronger all the time! He's strong enough that if he kicks just right it can be uncomfortable. I'm not sure what organ he's beating on in there, but it doesn't feel too great :). At least once this week he kicked out to the side hard enough that it freaked Brian out. You can feel that it's a little foot and it sticks out pretty far. Weird. He's doing a lot more rolling and pushing now, but kicks and flutters and those odd all the limbs at once movements still happen pretty frequently too.
We had our last childbirth class, so apparently I'm now prepared. Hah! I think the breathing really will help, and I'm glad I got to ask so many questions. We'll be doing a tour of the hospital next month and that will be really good too. Our last few classes (infant CPR, breastfeeding and infant care) are in July, since there was a chance Brian would be gone for training for five weeks around now. Luckily, that's not going to happen now and other than some short trips he should be around for the rest of the summer!
The only other thing I really did this week was a squadron social. It was pretty fun, and I'm making some friends among the ladies now. Nothing super close and tight, but certainly acquaintances and I feel OK when Brian leaves town. I'm sure I can get a ride to the hospital if I need one!
Also, we broke 100 degrees and I've been swimming. Again, I'm trying to be a little careful not to overdo it, but it's nice to have the weight off. And it counts as exercise, right? Right!