blackmoondog

Once again, I had a fairly uneventful prenatal visit. After the next visit, I'll be going in every two weeks instead of every four weeks. Do you know what that means? It means I am only two weeks away from the THIRD TRIMESTER!!! It seems like it has gone fast and slow at the same time. We're both itching to meet our baby but also really want her to stay put until January. We still have tons to do around the house before her grand arrival.

The best part about today's prenatal appointment was finding out that my OB office is back in our PPO network and that the insurance will pay 100% after a single $10 co-pay! The out-of-network benefits are pretty grim (and the in-network are actually better than I thought) so this was fantastic news.

Baby has been moving around a lot and her heart rate sounded nice and strong. My blood pressure is still doing great and blood sugar has been holding fairly steady (minus a few days of poor food choices). The midwife sounded a little concerned that I've only gained 12lbs so far but after we discussed my blood sugar she seemed to think it was OK. I was given a lab order to do the glucose tolerance test some time in the next 4 weeks. From what I've been told, it is kinda like drinking un-gelled orange Jello. Icky. If the results for that come back high, I'll have to do another glucose-related test and based on those results they'll determine whether or not to diagnose gestational diabetes. If I do get a diagnosis, the midwives will refer me to a dietitian and we'll go from there.

Sunday we toured the other local birth center. It was a better tour than I got the first time when I tagged along with our friends who were expecting at the time. We got to see a couple of labor & delivery rooms, saw the jacuzzi tub available for labor, met a NICU doctor, and saw a postpartum room. We're still planning to use the hospital we toured first as not only was it more home-y and had two labor tubs (each in the room with you) instead of one (in what looked like a closet off the hallway), it also is on our PPO network while the other isn't. I pre-registered with the chosen hospital today before my checkup since the OB office is in an attached building.

I've been to two prenatal yoga sessions so far. The first was overwhelming, overheating, and made me feel like I was going to throw up. The second was so very much better. I actually felt refreshed afterward despite waking up at 3:45am and not getting a nap. I will definitely be going back again!

(I bet you have it in your head now too, eh? ;)

In an uncharacteristic turn of events, we have been having quite the spectacular electrical storm this evening. It started around 7:30pm with the lightning visible all over the place to the west and has just started moving off to the north (where I expect it to hit a power station and take down my work DB server any minute now...). The light show in the earlier evening was fantastic. I just barely heard the first rumblings of thunder around 10pm when I was going to bed. Alas, they became louder and more frequent as the storm approached.

This is only the second time in the six years my dogs have been alive that they've been through a thunderstorm and the last time was during daylight hours. Luna was pretty much unaffected but Kira spent most of the time from 10pm to 1:30am pacing the bedroom and whining. I pretty much gave up on sleeping, as the baby kept jumping around either from the thunderclaps or the rumbling of my hungry tummy and every time there was a flash of lightning my brain started counting.

I finally got out of bed around 1:30am, apparently just as the storm was leaving our vicinity. I took an inventory of the pets (not that I could get more than a couple feet away from the dogs, or at least from Kiraboo) since earlier Squeak tried to go outside and I wanted to make sure both cats were in the house. I plugged the wireless access point back in behind the TV (power had been flickering a bit), booted up the laptop, and ate an apple and cheese while checking out the radar image.

Things seem to have settled down now. Socrates is snoozing to my left and the dogs are both asleep on their beds at my feet. Sounds like it is time to head back to bed...

EDIT: Damn. Either the neighbors next door are tossing boxes off their balcony or the thunder has started back up a bit. No, really, I didn't need to sleep before going to work... Nice way to start Friday the 13th. Now where did I put that hockey mask?

Today is our 6th wedding anniversary and the 9th anniversary of our official "start of dating". It always feels like forever and just yesterday at the same time.

In honor of the occasion, we decided to spend a night in Monterey and visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Our first weekend away together back in 1997 was a trip to the aquarium for my birthday. I think we've only been there once more since then and in the meantime an entire wing of the building was completed.

Saturday we were in Glen Ellen where Mark was the officiant for the wedding of the person who performed our ceremony. The ceremony was short and sweet and the reception was a very nice brunch after which we drove down through Sonoma Valley, across the Golden Gate, and down 280 where we met up with sis & bro-in-law for a late lunch at a gyro place in downtown Mountain View. Afterward we hung with the fam for a bit and then headed down to Monterey.

We stayed in the cheaper hotel part of town and were rather vexed trying to get to the aquarium this morning as it appeared all the streets we needed to use were blocked off. It turned out today was a half marathon in Monterey and we had to get back to Hwy 1 and take Hwy 68 into Pacific Grove to get to the vicinity of the aquarium. Even after all that we circled the same block about 3 times trying to find a parking lot that wasn't blocked by road closures. Finally when we did find a lot, it turned out to be right next to First Awakenings, the place we were planning to have breakfast!

This morning I had my first omlette in *years*. I had been turned off by cheese with my eggs after getting a veggie scramble that had so much cheese in it I felt ill afterward. Today I had the "Bacado" omlette. It was bacon & avocado topped with jack cheese & sour cream with salsa on the side. Very yummy. It came with potatoes and english muffins. Mmmmm... They're also well known for their pancakes which are *huge* and come in varieties like Bluegerm (blueberry wheat germ), Bananagerm, and Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal. Next time...

After breakfast we still had about 45 minutes to kill before the aquarium opened for members (our friend Kathleen rocks and lent us her guest cards so we not only got in free, but also 30 minutes before the general public; thanks again Kathleen!!) so we strolled down to Cannery Row alongside the half marathon runners and toodled outside the aquarium for a while. Once inside our first stop was the Outer Bay exhibit to see the Great White shark. Damn those tuna were huge! Alas, the jellyfish exhibit was closed so we headed over to see the otters.

For a few weeks now, the outer part of my upper left thigh has been falling asleep when I stand for too long so once it was apparent that it was futile to try to squeeze in to see the otter feeding, I sat on a bench for a bit. On the walk over to the otters, I'd noticed that my wedding ring was feeling kinda tight so I took it off and put it in my wallet for safe keeping. While sitting on the bench I noticed that my fingers were warm, red, and swelling up like sausages. That kinda freaked me out because swelling (especially rapid swelling) is sometimes a symptom of preeclampsia. We went over to the info desk and they called one of the first aid staff over. He took us to the first aid room where I asked them to take my blood pressure. It was 130/90 which is rather high for me (my last prenatal visit had it at 110/70) but it was also a rather small cuff and I was stressing out over the sudden swelling.

I went ahead and decided to sit for a while to see if it would go away on its own. We took up a spot on a bench outside in the shade in hopes of me cooling down and promised to head straight back to first aid it didn't subside. Thankfully, it did go away and did not return for the rest of the day. I spent a lot of time sitting on benches and visiting the ladies room but I did get to see pretty much all the exhibits that really interested me and Mark got to see pretty much everything he want to see while I was taking breaks on the benches. I'm really looking forward to the new otter exhibit opening next spring, as the otters really are my favorites (with the penguins a close 2nd).

After lunching briefly in the aquarium cafeteria, we set off for home. I slept for most of the ride. All in all, it was a good weekend and a nice anniversary. It was also the last trip we're planning to take out of the county before the baby comes.

Tomorrow I'm gonna give the midwives a call to tell them about what happened with the swollen hands and see if they want me to do anything right away. In any case, my next regularly scheduled appointment is on Tuesday so any further investigation may just wait until then. I'll definitely be posting an update afterward.