Personal

I've learned a lot recently about where to find baby clothes -- specifically, the market stratification and where to find the clothes I like best. Here's a primer:

Strasburg Children: VERY EXPENSIVE. Cute clothes if you like little seersucker overalls and sailor suits (I do). Here's a sample:

and they're made of fine fabrics -- the knit items are pima cotton, and the other items are generally also cotton, like expensive sheets with a high thread count. One outfit can run you about $80.00. There are certain members of our families (not naming any names!) who probably would prefer that we dress Baby G. in nothing but these clothes. I was in this store today, and I wanted pretty much all the clothes in there, but I imagine if I'd bought anything, Jonathan would have vetoed any garment from there with extreme prejudice based on the admittedly outrageous prices.

Gymboree: These clothes I love, love, love, and I think this will be my first go-to store. I generally prefer baby clothes that don't have writing on them and that are very simple -- something like this:

The image is a whale, by the way, and the outfit is just $12.50. I went to Gymboree today as well and bought two little dinosaur-themed outfits on sale. I can't find them on the site, or I'd show you.

Then Target and Babies'R'Us also have baby clothes, along the lines of the plain, practical white Carter's onesies variety, which I think Jonathan prefers. I like those fine too. I just don't want Baby G. to wear something with a trying-to-be-funny slogan, like "If you think I'm cute, you should see my Daddy!" or this:

It must sound silly, but I want Baby G.'s little clothes to be dignified. In addition to those two outfits, I also bought a car seat yesterday -- the Britax Marathon, for those wondering. I feel excited but also somehow wary: these items are not for me, nor are they for Jonathan. They are for someone else, some other person.

Because, dude. I just can't post through the searing back pain. Here I am at 34 weeks, 5 days.

• This isn't one of those tips I've seen on any of the GTD blogs, but it's one I intend to follow: only read/respond to work-related email on weekdays during business hours. I've been easing into it, and the regaining of mood stability has been dramatic and very healthy for me.
• Foods cooked this weekend: Salty Tuscan Pork Chops with Caramelized Apples and Shallots, more granola, more Black Beans with Rice, Curried Chickpeas and Tofu, Beef and Barley Soup with Escarole (we used chard, the recommended substitute, and rice instead of barley, which we couldn't find).
• I've never eaten healthier in my life. Again, this book is the greatest -- even if you're not pregnant. Jonathan and I think we'll keep following the diabetic diet even after the baby's born. I never thought about my blood sugar before or realized how important it is to regulate it. I have a LOT of diabetes in my family, so I want to be careful.
• 32 weeks, 2 days -- is how pregnant I am. I think FG has grown some extra limbs or something; I feel kicking and punching all over. Around the early second trimester, I had been concerned about doing kick counts and about not feeling enough movement. With kick counts, you see how much time it takes for you to feel "10 kicks, flutters, swishes, or rolls." If it takes over two hours, then there might be a problem. I think I feel that number of movements every couple of minutes.
• Teaching prep and then sleep await; hopefully I can post again before a whole other week passes.

Another checkup yesterday. I do have gestational diabetes, but it's a mild case. I don't have to check my sugar throughout the day or take any drugs, but here are foods I must avoid:

white rice
white bread
cake
cookies
ice cream
doughnuts
pretty much all other sweets
fruit (in large quantities)
fruit juice
whole milk
sodas
other sugary beverages

I'll also need to eat proteins with carbohydrates.

The best part of the checkup, though, was the Doppler. This is a Doppler, for those of you who don't know:

With that little wand on the right, you can hear the fetal heartbeat. Message board lore has it that fetuses hate the Doppler, and I've read several posts by women who said that their fetuses scramble to get away from the wand on their abdomens. FG, however, held still for the heartbeat check for a few seconds, but then gave the wand a vigorous KICK. Perfect aim, right on the tip of the wand.

I guess what we have for the time being is a pregnancy blog. It won't be for much longer, though. Today I hit the 30-week mark. Morning sickness is ba-ack, but other than that, things are fine. I hope I have the good fortune to be entertained by this kind of stunning cuteness three years from now:

And now for some adventures in glucose tolerance...

I had that terrible 3-hour glucose test yesterday. It could have been worse -- for example, I could have thrown up the glucose drink and had to drink another one -- but it was still pretty bad. Worst parts:

1. Not being allowed to drink water for 12 hours. Oh, that was agony.

2. The crying jag. Let me explain: after they drew the first, baseline blood sample and I chugged that awful drink, I cried for about an hour and a half straight.

This was because Jonathan and I went up to the nursery viewing area and looked at the babies, who were all asleep except for one. I first teared up because they were so adorable, and then kept crying because I was noticing the subtle movements of their little knees and elbows through the receiving blankets they were all swaddled in and how they kind of resembled the little movements I see poking out of my stomach all the time. THEN, I cried even harder because the babies weren't with their mothers, and I was sympathizing with the mothers because I assumed they must have been miserable not having their babies with them. It was so embarrassing!

The lab nurse who took the second blood sample was great, though; she didn't make a big deal about my weepies and just explained that the mothers can have the babies in the rooms with them as much as they want, and the babies are only in the nursery about two hours a day, tops. And really, it does make sense to have them in the nursery some of the time, like when the father isn't there and the mother has to take a shower or sleep or something. She added that lots of women have crying jags during the 3-hour GTT and that she suspected it has something to do with body chemistry.

3. The needle sticks. Four sticks, all in the arm, none in the fingers. I should explain that the huge bruise from my last glucose screening test had just healed. The first three were in my left arm, but the nurse who took the last blood sample took a look at my already bruising up left arm and decided to do the right arm that time. I don't have much needle fear at all, but that was kind of a lot.

This has already been a pretty exhausting week, and I'm not even over the hump yet. Right after posting this, I'm going to curl up with this version of Pride and Prejudice and then go to sleep -- but not without entertaining you with my Top! Irrational! Fears! (all of which are fetus-centered, as that eclipses everything else for me right now)

1. Pre-term labor and delivery: still way up there, especially now that I'm having what Jonathan playfully calls Toni Braxton contractions.

2. Having to have a c-section: there are two reasons I might have to have one. 1.) he's breech; and 2.) I failed my glucose tolerance test, so I might have gestational diabetes, which can result in macrosomia, or high birth weight. If he's too big, a c-section might be necessary. Now I know that, first, he might flip on his own, and second, I might pass that three-hour glucose tolerance test on Thursday morning with no problems. Even if I don't pass and I do have GD, I am going to follow that diet to the letter, so macrosomia may not be a problem in any case. From what I understand, macrosomia becomes a risk only with poor management of GD.

Here's why I'm scared of a c-section, though. I realize that they don't take a hatchet and chop into my abdomen. They are careful to cut through the layers one at a time: skin, abdominal muscle, uterine muscle. BUT: what if they cut my little boy?! How do they keep from doing that?

3. The doctor or nurses' dropping FG as soon as he's out: no matter how he ends up coming out, this could happen. I'm sure they'll be careful with him, but what if they slip on a wet patch of floor?

4. FG's getting stuck in the birth canal and having a stroke: this happened to the daughter of a friend of mine from college. I believe she's okay now, but it took A LOT of physical therapy and other work.

5. Not being able to lactate: because there is just nothing anyone can do about that. I mentioned this to my doctor, and he said there is a drug they can give to accelerate prolactin production, but that it doesn't work all the time.

Fetus Goodwin and mom had a 28-week checkup today. I had to drink that revolting glucose beverage in under 5 minutes, which was okay at first sip, but I was having to choke that last one down. I hope I pass that test so I don't have to retake it.

We also got an ultrasound. Data retrieved:

• He's breech, just like his mom was. I don't know how common that is at 28.5 weeks, but it seems like he has plenty of time to flip if he wants to. Right now he's like this, in a frank breech presentation:

  

  If he doesn't, hey, that'll bring me one step closer to my dream birth, which is to fall into a peaceful, druggy sleep, then wake up and have my darling baby placed in my arms, all clean and snuggily blanketed. Sorry, fellow feminist mothers.

• He doesn't have a cleft palate.
• He has full, pillowy lips, which is a big change from his 18-week ultrasound.
• He has plenty of fluid in his little environment.
• He is, if I remember correctly, an estimated 3.3 pounds.
• He's in the 76th percentile of length/weight for his gestational age.
• He has filled out a lot since the 18-week ultrasound; his cheeks are nice and round, and he doesn't look so painfully skinny anymore. I am a big fan of his subcutaneous fat formation, and I hope it continues.

Now I just hope to go all the way to sometime between May 2 and May 9.

Jonathan suggested that as I sit at the computer, I play FG (Fetus Goodwin) some music. Backstory: he was doing a lot of poking and prodding, and Jonathan thought he might want to dance to some music. Here's what I've picked and played so far.

1. "Wouldn't It Be Nice" -- Beach Boys
2. "Don't Rain on My Parade" -- Bobby Darin
3. "Untold Stories" -- Buju Banton
4. "Mr. Loverman" -- Chevelle Franklin and Shabba Ranks
5. "Marcus Garvey" -- Burning Spear
6. "Bloodletting" -- Concrete Blonde
7. "Goin' Back to Cali" -- LL Cool J
8. "La Jalouserie" -- Bruce Daigrepont

He didn't respond to Shabba quite like I'd hoped, but he seemed to like LL Cool J and Concrete Blonde, as I believe I felt some record-scratching and moshing, respectively.