long time no chat!
06-Aug-08
OK, all pregnancy entry up and coming! Beware!
I am now 19 weeks along. This pregnancy is going by so fast – it is amazing, in retrospect, how much time I had to navel gaze when I was pregnant with Matthew. Now, things are blazing by at an amazing speed, which is just as well! We are all quite excited about Baby Girl Cajo’s arrival…
That’s right! The baby is a girl! Here is a picture of her foot, where she has been heartily practicing the best ways to kick her mama’s butt (she’s doing a great job of it in utero, I will have you know):
Everything looks great and she’s on track gestationally, so that’s always a plus.
Diabetes – while pregnant, is a pain in the tuchas. My insulin needs are increasing as per expected as the placenta grows, I feel like a human pin cushion (Josh affectionately calls me a heroin addict), and it’s always a game – “Good morning! Let’s see how much two slices of whole wheat bread, peanut butter and sugar free jam will spike you now!” Otherwise, we’re okay in this area now. I gave Matthew an old insulin pen to play with after I was done with it and he saw me injecting one morning and uncapped his pen, lifted his shirt, and pressed his against his belly. Too cute. Let’s hope he never has to do that for real.
Other symptoms. Still exhausted. Still nauseated (this is actually lessening as of this past week, fingers crossed). Anxious for this phase to ebb!
My word, how big are you? I have a belly. I have had a belly since about 12 weeks but now it’s not as squishy anymore. And amusingly enough, I am actually down about 4 pounds from the time I got pregnant.
Way to help me lose my shit: tell me that the integrated screening came back “screen positive” for Trisomy 21 (Downs Syndrome). These last two days have been slightly excruciating. I had an amniocentesis today to get some more information about the baby’s chromosomal structure, but wow, talk about stress – that combined with pregnancy hormones had me bursting into tears every twenty minutes. Lame. Anyway, one fun thing did come out of this entire deal – Baby Girl Cajo (no, we are not sharing her name until she makes a final appearance) today at the ultrasound right before the amnio yawned and the tech caught it on film.
So, right now we wait – we elected to get the FISH results (a faster way to get initial data – within 2-3 days) and the final complete results will come in 10-12 days. I am feeling better, statistically, about everything happening, but I think we will still be anxious until we find out definitively one way or the other.
Matthew has been cracking us up lately. His latest favorite thing to say is “baby” while he looks for pictures of babies on the computer or in one of his books. When we ask him, “Do you want to kiss the baby?” he’ll lift my shirt and kiss my belly.
Lest you think he is ready and understands that his little world is going to tip upside down in four months (!!!!!), he is still hugging and cuddling his Gloworm and then hurling it on the floor and walking away. Troublemaker.
Cute, though:
He’s now over 3 feet tall, weighs over 37 lbs, and is wearing size 3T and 4T. Huge. And because of the amnio, I’ve been instructed for the next couple of days not to lift anything heavier than 10 lbs. Ha!