34 Weeks

How Far Along: 34 weeks

Size of baby: Baby #2 weighs around 4.75 pounds and is almost 18 inches long (according to the pregnancy app). 

Total Weight Gain/Loss: Around 21 pounds.

Maternity Clothes: Yes! 

Gender: It's a boy! 

Movement: Yes. He literally takes my breath sometimes. 

Sleep: I'm sleeping well, just having to get up once or twice to go to the bathroom. 

Cravings:  I have a list - literally- of things I want after Bennett is born. All of the things on my list involve sugar. 

Symptoms: Y'all, my feet. They just ache. And my ribs/back still hurt. Overall, though, I feel really good. Apparently, I'm having enough contractions to mention those here. I've felt some contractions, which I assumed were Braxton Hicks. This week, I started having to go twice a week (yes, you read that right - TWICE A WEEK) for monitoring/ non-stress tests. This is standard for gestational diabetes patients. 

So, the first day, after I'd laid there for 20-30 minutes, my dr came in and said I'd had some contractions. I told him I'd felt a couple. His response was "Just a couple?" Then when I saw the roll from the machine, I saw lots of them. And they weren't just teeny ones. So he prescribed Procardia - this is the same medicine I was on with Avery Claire for high blood pressure. I just had to laugh when he told me to keep a close check on my blood pressure. It's been so good, he was worried the meds would make it too low. He said he wanted to "check" me (I hate that term - it sounds like a cow) and would be surprised if I wasn't a 1 or 2. I was 1.5 centimeters dilated. He said since I was 34 weeks, we were past the point of a steroid shot to develop baby's lungs - there has been no evidence that it helps after this point. My cervix was still thick, which he said made him feel better, along with the fact that I'd be back again that week and twice a week for the remaining weeks. 

Best Moment this week: Grandma came to stay for the book fair!! We loved having her here. And I'm very glad that we had to do this monitoring business. Maybe that's the reason for this gestational diabetes diagnosis - it hasn't been a big problem - but it helped catch those contractions. Bennett needs to bake for a few more weeks and we need a few more weeks to get ready. The bed still isn't here...but that's another story for another day.