Another Day in Parradise: Weight

After a short hiatus from the blog, I'm BACK, and have exciting stories to share! Actually, no, I take that back. Not exciting. Just stories. Absolutely nothing particularly exciting.

Oh my. Except I literally JUST sat back down (the babies needed their dinner) and popped my very first ever Pretzel M&M into my mouth (yes, FB friends I finally found them!)...and yummmm...I'll be enjoying them with a cold glass of milk for the duration of this blog post. Don't worry, I have two bags in case it turns into a long one. :)

So why have I been away so long, you ask? Our July doctor appointment, as they say, rubbed me the wrong way. I was slightly mad and disappointed and didn't want to talk about it and have been on a blog strike, of sorts, for the past few weeks. "But Christa, what happened?" Well, as you may have read we were told by our sonographer that we had a huge baby and there was no way it could be due in September, unless I was incubating a freakishly gargantuan child. We made the mistake of getting excited about this news and were convinced the baby would be born 4 weeks earlier than originally thought.

Our NP set us straight at our July appointment.

Well, kind of.

She was barely there.

Tommy and I headed into our July doctor appointment bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, fully expecting to hear my due date was being moved up four weeks and all of our baby-birthing schedule debacles were soon to be over. The appointment was a joke from the start. The check-in nurse skipped the blood pressure and weight portion of the activities and went straight to scheduling my next appointment (which they usually do after the current appointment.) On the way to the exam room I asked her about seeing how much I weigh (I hate having a scale at home, but am still OCD about monitoring my progress) to which she replied, "Oh yeah..." After we completed the formalities she led me to the exam room (I weighed in at 152, by the way...still 9 pounds away from the gain-limit of 30 I set for myself) brought Tom in immediately and the NP (nurse practitioner) breezed in, talked to us for approximately four minutes, and breezed out.

Tom: "Wait, was that it?"
Me: "Uhhh, I guess so..."
Tom: "What was the point?"
Me: "I have no idea."

Luckily the NP came back in because she forgot to tell us something, and Tommy spoke up about the renegade due date, and we asked to see the ultrasound photos. "Oh...ok...sure...we can look at those." And she basically refused to address the due date change issue, informing us it was too late, and we would have to let it ride. The ultrasound photos wouldn't open on her computer, so that was that. Appointment over. Sweet. Thanks. Catch ya on the flip side Kaiser Permanente healthcare-cattle-call-a$$holes.

After some thought I discovered the reason they were weird and distant and why our NP was unwilling to discuss things. Our appointment was at 11:45, which was a huge mistake because it was the last appointment before they shut down the Women's Health wing for lunch from 12-1. "Did you say shut down?" Yes. They shut the whole thing down. Turn off the lights and everything. The sign on the check-in counter doesn't say "Out to Lunch" it says "GO AWAY."

Okay. So the appointment wasn't really that bad. It's not like they yelled at us. Or laughed at us. Or kicked us out. I basically just didn't get my way. My way being that NP would have agreed with the sonographer, moved my due date up, and baby Parr would have been born...well, now. But it doesn't work that way. And I hate it when things don't just work my way.

But I'm way over it now, and that brings us to today! We had a fantastic appointment today! The baby is going strong and still growing (and so am I...gained 6 pounds in the last 4 weeks...oops...only 3 to go before I reach the limit...fortunately I can't eat too much these days as a result of the large fetal growth currently residing in my abdomen, preventing my stomach from expanding, so we should be good.) It was an exam day...ya know, the kind where you walk in the room and the nurse hands you the paper skirt to wear. Turns out I'm not dilated at all, have started to efface, and the baby is starting to drop. So we're looking good for 36 weeks! I've officially made it to the point in my pregnancy where they'll deliver me if I go into labor. And Tommy and I have reached the point where we get to...(trumpet fanfare)...pack "the bag"! I'm sure that will be a blog in and of itself when we get around to the packing...we already have quite a list of things to pack going.

So I guess that's all for today. I ran out of Pretzel M&M's some time ago (Tommy ate the second bag) and have rambled enough for one day. The morals today kids...when the sonographer tells you something, don't believe them, and never forget that just because they change your due date doesn't mean the baby will actually be born any earlier. I promise it will not be 6 weeks before you hear from me again.

And with that, dear friends, I bid you adieu.

And good evening.

CP

We had a doctor's appointment last week on Friday, and to our surprise we got to see the baby! First sonogram in the books, and for the record our child is very squirmy. The nurse practitioner (who is very quirky and odd...so of course we love her) got very frustrated because little bebe Parr was moving around so much. This kid is gonna be a handful.

So to give the official report, all's well in-utero. The baby is growing normally, and all of his internal organs are in the right place. Heartbeat was normal (FAST!) and bones and skull were looking good. We saw brains too! And the face! It looked like Pele has received my unfortunate nose gene, instead of Tommy's cute little petite one, but ya can't win em all I guess...I haven't done too bad in spite of my olfactory inheritance, so I'm sure the bambino will still be pretty :) What else...the fetal femur measurement was 3.6 centimeters and the baby weighs almost a pound!

Speaking of weight, I've gained 13 pounds in the first half of my pregnancy, bringing the LB total to 144 - officially the most I've ever weighed in at. It's worth it, and honestly I don't feel like I've gained that much. So here's hoping my 5'7 frame can stand up to the 15-20 pounds yet to come, and still bounce back on the other side!

Apparently this sonogram was just a "dress rehearsal" for the "real" one we have to make a special appointment for in the radiology department. I guess the "real" one is more in-depth and takes a whole slew of measurements of different areas and stuff. And if we want to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl the NP said we would be able to because she could tell on the "unofficial" sonogram. So yes, ladies and gents, there is one person in the world (besides God) who knows the gender of our baby! And it's not meeee!

So I leave you with a few pictures of my belly growth over the past few weeks. It's like the baby bump just jumped out one day and decided to make itself known. Two season ticket holders at the ballpark told me I had finally "blossomed." Ew. Save your blossoming proclamations, ladies, it sounds gross. The good news is: I still have some semblance of a waist!

Yes that's a pug shirt :) I even had it before I became Stockton's mom!