Appointment update

I had an appointment today at the OB's office, and everything is still looking good. Here's the 411 in bullet form:

28 weeks 5 days

Position: Still breech, but lots of time left to turn. (*Crossing fingers*)

Weight: A little over 2.5 pounds (estimated to be about 7.5 lbs by birth)

My weight: I gained a little "extra" weight on my vacation with T, but I'm back down to a net gain of about 10 pounds from my starting weight. (That's a gain of about 15 or 16 pounds from my "morning sickness low.")

Blood pressure: Around 116/75 {the first reading was around 128/80, which is higher than it's been for the whole pregnancy so I was a little nervous because of my history of PIH (Pregnancy induced hypertension) but when the NP took it about 5 minutes later, it was back to my "normal."}

Cervix: Long (5 cm) and closed

1 Hour Glucose: Normal (Yay! No 3 hour test, and no gestational diabetes!)

The one stinky thing about the baby being breech is that its head has already started to dig into my ribs when I sit down, so it's going to be a long 11 1/2 more weeks if it doesn't do a flip for me!

28 Weeks

Yay! 28 weeks today. :) I've had a couple of requests for a picture of my belly, so here are two. As you can see, when I put my entire arm across my belly, it's obvious that there's a belly there, but most of the time I just look chunky. I think people might think it was weird if I walked around with my arm resting on my shelf. Don't you? (This is one of my $5 Old Navy shirts, I think. LOVE it.)

I am not complaining

Really. I'm not complaining. I'm thrilled to be pregnant. SO thrilled.

But.

I feel gigantic, and not in a "cute pregnant girl" way but in a "wow, she looks like she's packed on the pounds" kind of way (I've gained about 15 pounds). I still don't look for sure pregnant. No stranger has yet come up to me to ask when I'm due. Even a couple of my neighbors have seen me (obviously MUCH rounder than a few months ago) and have not asked about it. My non-pregnant shirts are too short, and most of my maternity shirts are still huge on me. The ones that are smaller accentuate the lovely back fat rather than the belly. My body doesn't do "middle of pregnancy" particularly well. Hopefully in a few weeks, I'll feel different.

Now for the good news.

I'll be 28 weeks in like 11 1/2 hours. HOLY CRAP. That marks the date that I've been waiting for, when this kid has a 96% chance of survival outside of the womb.

Oh, and by the way, I'm sorry about not posting for so long. T and I went on a much needed parental getaway down in Virginia, and just got back a couple of days ago. We had some very exciting times with AAA when the car we were borrowing died at just about the 1 mile mark of a two mile long bridge in North Carolina. I will say that the people there are just about the friendliest people in the WHOLE WORLD. Someone stopped and offered to push our car off the bridge with his car. Are you picturing this?? Pregnant woman behind the wheel of a car going 50 miles an hour with no power steering, looking like it is attached to the minivan behind it, in a state that I've never visited before. He got us off the bridge (thank god) and I used the momentum to get the car off the road to a safe spot. AAA took it from there. But seriously, this guy was AMAZING. I will be forever grateful to him. We were in a very dangerous spot, with almost no breakdown lane, and he truly may have saved our lives.

If you remember this story from November, you'll understand why it, and my fortune cookie, popped into my brain after this good samaritan helped us out...

The home stretch

I'm getting over the hump now. You know - the one where one side is the "if the baby arrives" and the other side is the "when the baby arrives."

I can hardly believe that in two days, I'll be 26 weeks. That milestone has been in my head for a while. 26 weeks is when this kid is going to have an 80% chance of survival if it has to be born early for any reason. I'm so ecstatic to be here. 28 weeks brings us up to about a 96% chance of survival. Although I want to keep this baby cooking for as long as I can, I'm starting to feel like we're on the home stretch.

Of course...

That means that we're getting really close to the looooong sleepless nights, and the BFing struggles, and the hours of crying for no particular reason. (The baby, not me... although I'll probably be crying a lot too if the first baby is any indication!)

And then I look at my son, and I think to myself that if this little person turns out to be half as amazing and sweet as he is, all the trying, all the failing, the miscarriages, the doctors' appointments and testing, the yeast infections and progesterone, the sleeplessness and crying... All of that will be worth it.