3 months to go

Yep...still seems like an eternity. Other than a couple expiration dates on my string cheese, I have no indication that August 20 will ever come to pass. Still seems so far into the future as to be inconceivable.



1. I took my glucose test yesterday. They told me not to eat lots of sugars the day before the test 'cause that can make my blood sugar high. They let me pick up the syrup the night before and I drank it just before I left the house the next morning (morning is the best time to do the test, they said). Blood drawn one hour later. Pretty much exactly, although I think it might have been 1-2 minutes early. No matter, I think I passed. I just got the results - my value is "104." This is compared to the Standard Range which is <140mg/dL, and the result is not "flagged" as high or low so I think I'm good.

I got some other results too - an antibody test which came back "negative" which I'm assuming is good because it too is not flagged. I'm not really sure what they're testing for here...I thought they tested antibodies closer to the due date to find out if you would need to take antibiotics during labor to protect the baby from infection but this seems early for that....

I also got a blood test which tested nine different levels, four of which came back flagged (great). My Hemoglbin, Hematocrit, and Red Blood Cell counts came back low and my White Blood Cell count came back high. None of them are frighteningly far out of the standard range...but I'm a little concerned about the WB count. It's the farthest out of range and I'm hoping I don't have an infection of some sort. I don't feel infected...baby is very active and hb is right on track... Who knows. I kind of suspect it's from dehydration. I am drinking water as much as I think about it but I don't think about it too much and I always feel somewhat dehydrated. I will definitely make more of an effort on that. It could also be anemia which seems likely given the low red count. And again, none of these results are more than a few points out of the normal range. E.g. RB cell count is 3.82 and the "Standard Range" starts at 3.9. It's funny how little I worry about things post CPC finding. It really puts things in perspective - nothing could be as bad as a fatal chromosomal disorder.

2. I'm getting heartburn. Badly. It is helping me to not overeat, nothing sounds appetizing, I do a little internal calculation now when I think about eating. Probably like an alcoholic who's taken antabuse - "I could eat this, it looks really good, it seems like I would like it, but...how good does it really look? Will it be worth it? Wouldn't I prefer that empty, heartburn free feeling? Maybe I should go for a plate of lettuce." Even when I don't eat, I get it. I was woken up in the middle of the night last night by reflux. Gross. At least I found another advantage of sleeping on your side: no choking on unprovoked heartburn symptoms. Sorry, that just got even grosser.

3. DH asked if my sleeping is normal. He said "you know how tired you are, like on the weekends when you sleep in...[I sleep in until 10. maybe 10:30 after going to bed around 12 or 1]...is that normal?" Um yes. Normal. And not even just normal for pregnancy. I'm pretty sure I slept in like that before pregnancy too. I don't even consider that bad for "sleeping in." It's cute though because I think I know what he's thinking of. He's known me for a long long while (10 years) and I don't think he'd be asking about the normalcy of my quite normal sleeping habits without an underlying reason. I think he's worried that I'm depressed. He would be right. I am depressed and I have said things like "I wish I could just go to sleep and wake up in three months." But I don't worry about it taking over my life for longer than that because the depression is related to the CPC. We will know about the baby's health in a few months. And as I've mentioned, I'm learning to live with the uncertainty in the meantime. Days are starting to pick up speed. I'm able to not think about it as much, not fear it as much. I know there's still a risk but I'm able to keep it in perspective instead of dissolving into tears at the mere possibility of losing our baby. The sad fact is there are lots of ways babies can die. We hope to not have to face them. But it happens. I need to move on and not spend all my days thinking about that and stop the futile effort to steel my soul against the harm that it would cause if we were to lose our baby - who wouldn't be depressed if your mind just couldn't let those thoughts go?

Adding to the sad-fest, and this brings me to 4., my childhood dog passed away yesterday. He was my first very own dog that I picked out from the want ads and paid for with my saved-up money. A little chihuahua mutt that I loved more than life itself. I got him when I was 14 and he stayed with my parents when I left for college. They really love him. That's the hardest part about this - watching them lose their little buddy. Their baby. He had a long happy life and they took amazing care of him and his passing was very peaceful, but I just broke down when my mom was describing how awful she feels thinking about him alone outside in the ground when he should be sitting with them on the couch watching TV. My dad was especially attached to him and it broke my heart to hear about him digging a hole in the backyard to bury him in. Breaks my heart right now. I am an emotional wreck in general and no matter how inevitable this was, it just makes me so sad. Dogs are so special.