I need a helmet

I just looked at my pregnancy tracker on my blog and realized I am almost 2 weeks away from the 3rd trimester!  Eeeek!!  It's funny how I have been pregnant for a half a year and it still hasn't hit me that we will have an actual baby in this house soon!  I still can't even believe I am actually pregnant sometimes.

Things have been going well this week.  I am pushing away my fears about our baby's ventricle and letting God and my uterus work their magic so that on September 9th when we go in again for our follow-up, all is perfect.  My mom was down this past weekend helping me paint the nursery and our guest room.  Both rooms look great!  I will post pics of the nursery sometime soon.  Now that everything is painted in there we are going thru all my hubby's childhood toys and books that his mom gave us.  We are taking an inventory of what we have so we know how much storage we will need in the room.  So it's a bit of a mess in there right now!  Our first baby shower is a week from Saturday so the goal is to have things in order by then.  Can't believe it's already time for the baby showers too!  Time is just flying by.

There was some minor drama this week though.  Monday morning I was walking in to work.  It was drizzling and I had my usual flip flops on since I can't fit in to my cute slingbacks right now.  I walk in to my building, there is a runner just inside the door, and then marble.  As soon as my feet hit the marble, down I went!  "Oh NO!!", I thought when I realized what I had just done.  Luckily I did land on my hands and knees - my belly wasn't involved whatsoever.  My arms were full of stuff that I was bringing in to work and when I fell, my arms threw everything up in the air so I could break my fall.  Funny how those instincts kick in.  But I made quite a mess.  No one was around to help me but I was glad because it was quite embarrassing!  I just got back up to my feet, collected my belongings strewn about on the floor, and continued to my office.  Once I sat down at my desk I called my OB and they told me to come in for a quick check that afternoon.  They said considering that I landed on my hands and knees, probably nothing was wrong but since I was so close to the 3rd trimester, they wanted to be sure.  If I was in the 3rd trimester, they would have had me go to Labor & Delivery to get monitored for a bit before clearing me.  They don't fool around with falls I guess!  So I turned my attention towards work - trying to ignore my throbbing ankle and the fact that I couldn't walk properly.

Finally it was time to go.  I got to my OB's office, they did all the usual stuff - urine sample, weight, blood pressure check.  They listened to the heartbeat and the fetal heart tones sounded good.  The doctor pressed around my belly to make sure nothing hurt, verified that I wasn't bleeding, and basically just said to be more careful and sent me on my way with instructions to come back if I did start to bleed or if my belly was hurting.  Clearly nothing was wrong with the baby but any pain or blood could mean the placenta had detached from the uterine wall.  This happened on Monday and today is Wednesday so I think I'm in the clear.  I still feel baby moving around and no pain or blood.

My ankle on the other hand is not that great.  I literally could not walk Monday night.  It was all I could do to get up the stairs so I could go to bed.  I ended up crawling to bed - something I haven't done since my college years (LOL!).  Of course hubby is out of town this week for business so I can't have him wait on me!  It's getting a lot better though.  Yesterday and today I could do basic things - but the dog has missed her walks and I worked from home both days.  If it's still bad tomorrow, I may have to visit my primary care doc to get it looked at.  My OB said that I can take tylenol and even get an xray but I'd rather not do either if I don't have to.  Just chalking it up to a simple sprain and icing it at regular intervals.  Another couple days hopefully I'll be just fine!  Lesson learned though - I am now switching my shoes to sneakers (I don't care how unfashionable it looks with my work attire)!  While I do blame the fall somewhat on my shifted center of gravity and general clumsiness, I think most of the blame lies on my flip flops - they have absolutely no traction on the bottom and really don't provide the right amount of support that my feet need right now anyway.  So while it is so nice to have my swollen tootsies out in the open feeling the breeze on hot summer days, safety first I guess.  I don't need anymore falls from now on!

25 week belly pic

Fetal Echo and Prominent 3rd Ventricle

I'm sitting on my couch with my laptop as I type this and it is so funny to watch my stomach hopping around in my lower peripheral vision!  Baby sure was active today!  Seems like all his kicks I can actually see now which is so cool.  I've been hanging in there symptom-wise.  I have vicious leg cramps at night, my arms fall asleep at random times, the linea nigra has started to appear on my belly, stretch marks not on my belly but on my boobs (great:/).  Other symptoms are plaguing me too of course but those are just the weird ones. 

I had my 24 week OB appointment last week and all was on track.  Belly measurement and fetal heart rate was normal.  Only thing that's off is my weight.  I gained 9 lbs. since my last OB apt 4 weeks ago.  I was supposed to gain only 4 lbs.  So that brings my total weight gain so far up to a whopping 25 lbs.!  Sheesh!  I think for the entire 40 weeks the range I wanted to hit was between 25 and 35 lbs.  Looks like I'm going to pass the 35 lb mark too.  With 16 weeks to go and the goal of gaining 1 lb/week, I'll be looking at a total gain of 41 lbs!  My OB wasn't terribly concerned, just to keep an eye on it.  My blood pressure is great though so no risk of preeclampsia or anything with the extra weight gain.  My symptoms seem to be hitting me earlier than most women.  I was talking about my physical slowdown that seemed to have started a couple weeks ago and my OB agreed that typically women don't experience that until the late 2nd/early 3rd trimester but it is all still normal.  And given my petite size, how I feel is understandable as well.  Next check will be at 28 weeks on August 7th and I get tested for gestational diabetes.  Hope all goes well with that!

We had the fetal echo today.  Basically it was an in-depth ultrasound of the baby's heart with a cardiologist in the room.  Everything looked great.  The heart is/has developed as it should.  The cardiologist who performed the echo was an odd fellow, but was interesting.  He showed us all the structures of the heart and arteries and listened to it pump in various areas.  It was pretty cool!  We also had basic fetal growth measurements done as a routine part of our appointment.  Baby is measuring a week ahead and has hair!  Typically that is not seen for another 4 weeks.  So he will be a bushy baby:) 

While they were doing the measurements they found that everything is normal except for the 3rd ventricle of the brain.  They called it 'prominent' which basically means it is larger than normal.  I don't know how much larger as I didn't get the exact measurement but it was large enough for them to recommend a follow-up at 32 weeks in September.  UGH!!  So we have to wait 8 weeks to see if this is anything to be concerned about.  The doctor said that we shouldn't be alarmed, that they see it all the time and as the brain grows, the ventricles often stop swelling.  Still - I'm concerned.  I did some googling on the subject today but did not find much which is probably a good thing.  Don't take any of this as gospel but this is my understanding: the ventricles contain the spinal fluid which flows to and from the spine.  There are 4 ventricles in the brain - right & left lateral ventricles, 3rd, and 4th ventricle.  They look like big arteries.  If there is a blockage to the spinal column, the ventricles swell up because fluid still flows in but can't flow out.  The swelling can occur in all or isolated ventricles and can be caused by a number of reasons - cysts or other blockages can develop, neural tube defects (80% of spina bifida cases result in hydrocephalus), uterine infections, structural irregularities, etc.  In terms of 'prominent 3rd ventricles' however, mostly what I found is that it could lead to ventriculomegaly (swelling of the other ventricles - namely the lateral ventricles and occurs in 1 in 1000 pregnancies) and then hydrocephalus - which causes increased pressure in the brain leading to developmental delays, disability, and possibly retardation.  Surgery would need to be done, placing a shunt in the opening to the spinal column to enlarge it thus allowing the fluid to drain and shrink the ventricles.  I have also read though that if the swelling is mild and doesn't progress to hydrocephalus, 90% of the cases will resolve themselves on their own as the head gets bigger.  So hopefully that's the case!! 

For now just trying to focus on the positive stuff!  Doctor said not to worry so that's what I'm gonna do.  Everything else with the baby looks great.  He is looking pretty cute now!

Front Face Shot

Profile View

24 week belly pic

Our regular belly pic:

Fun belly pic with cute "24 week" sticker!

Really wish we had a quality camera and dark wall to take these in front of.  Gotta make do with what we have though!

New pregnancy side effect this week: horrendous leg cramps that wake me up in the middle of the night.  Never thought I'd look back to the days of just frequent urination in the middle of the night with fondness!  Now I have that AND these cramps.  Awesome!  Oh and sometimes I wake up and my arms are asleep.  So weird.  On the plus side though, baby is very entertaining these days.  It's fun to watch my belly hop around when baby is active.  The other day I was in a training seminar for work and baby was hiccuping I think.  It was pretty strong and was actually tickling me from the inside!  I kept giggling uncontrollably.  Sort of awkward when the subject of the seminar was the very dry topic of roundabout intersections;)

Next up is our fetal echo on Wednesday.  Hope to have more pics of baby to post then!

23 week belly pic

This one was taken with a different camera - hence the different color, but you get the idea.  Getting quite large!  Definitely feeling it too.  Pelvic, back, belly, and foot pain have all reared their ugly heads the last couple weeks.  Still motivated and energetic though so it's not a combination that makes my body feel good!  Spent the last 2 days on my hands and knees making curtains for the nursery and now I am so sore and stiff I can't get up off the couch:(  Need to soak in a warm bath I think.  Curtains look great though so it was worth the pain and effort!