25 & 26 weeks & some excitement!!!

As always, I have been crazy busy in the office and too tired when I finally get home to spend more time in front of my computer and write this blog. So again, this post is for a two week interval. It is going to be a long one as well. The good thing, I do keep little notes so I can remind myself and continue with my documenting the creation of my little miracle, who has been very active to let his mommy know that he is doing great.

Well I did mention that in Mexico I could see my tummy move when the baby was kicking me but nobody was around to see it. Thursday the 24th of November, my first day back (and us being exactly 25 weeks) the office was crazy as I was swamped with urgent work assignments. I had my doctor's appointment scheduled for Friday, but I couldn't imagine taking half a day off as my boss would have bitten my head off. I texted DH and he rescheduled our appointment for Wednesday. I do have a great and supportive DH!!!!

I didn't get home until after 9 p.m. DH made dinner and then I had 2 apples for desert and we nestled on the couch to watch some TV. I was wearing a t-shirt and could feel the baby moving up the storm in there, so I moved the t-shirt up from the tummy and started watching and sure enough I could see the tummy moving again. I told DH to look as well and he tried to watch both my tummy and the TV and of course for the first few times the baby kicked DH was looking at the TV. I told him to just watch it, and then it happened again. So DH told me to stop moving my tummy as he would not be able to see the baby, to which I replied that it was the baby. He had a nice grin on his face. I told him to put his arm on the tummy (and this time it didn't take much convincing). Surely enough the baby rewarded him with two nice kicks. He was ecstatic!!! I was pretty happy too as I really wanted him to feel the baby so as to make it more real for him as well. The baby has been active and I can feel him pretty much all the time now (well, most of the time, as he does go to sleep at some point).

As I haven't seen my parents for over two weeks, Friday after work I decided to go to my parents house to spend some quality time with them, and also talk about DH having felt the baby the night before. Then Saturday didn't do much. As usual went to a yoga class in the morning and then decided to drop by a friend for 5 min, which, of course, turned into a 2 hour visit as we haven't rally talked in a while, and since she does have 2 kids we had lots to talk about:). When I got home I wanted to start clearing out the spare room for the nursery, but when I opened the wardrobe and saw all the stuff inside, didn't know where to put it, so we kind of left it for now. We had an uneventful Saturday night at our friends (A&D) house.

Sunday I was supposed to go to the office, but since it was the first weekend back, we also decided to do breakfast at our house. By the time all was said and done, I didn't get to the office until after 1p.m. and it was a long day.

We have been preparing to close a major transaction so days were long. I was getting very uncomfortable, and I was thinking that I still have 3 more months left, and it will only get worse, plus I was hot most of the time which is very strange for me as I am always cold. In addition, dad need something notarized so he came by on Monday night after I got home from the office (which made the day even longer).

My weight gain after vacation put me at 4 kg gain through the pregnancy (almost 26 weeks). Since vacation, all I could see when I weighted myself is the weight creeping up and up. I know it is stupid and I understand with my mind that as I am pregnant and the baby is growing, I will be gaining weight, and now is not the time to go on a strict diet etc. but I still cringe every time I weigh myself and see the weight going up.... ugh... I am slowly running out of the room that I allowed myself for gaining weight - 2 more kg. My heaviest weight ever was another 6 kg, so theoretically I still have some room to manoeuvre, may be I should increase my threshold... I talked about it with my US friend and she made me feel a bit better. She is overweight herself and understands me like no one else.

Most of the week is a blur as we were preparing for the closing of the major transaction and I was working more hours than what I have been working before the vacation. I think the stress really got to me as the baby was super active on Thursday night and when I went to bed, I couldn't fall asleep, the baby was moving a lot and I think I was having branson hicks contractions. I am not sure if those even were contractions, but it was a very weird feeling with my entire stomach going stiff and kind of hard for a few seconds and then letting go. When DH came to bed, I already had 3 in about 30 minutes. I told him that I am not feeling good and started considering whether to go to the hospital, but then I felt asleep. I didn't get much sleep though as was awaken by a very bad cramp in my leg. I've had that before and to relieve it all I usually would do is just flex my foot and the cramp would go away, but not this time. It would go away and then come back with new force. I cried so hard from pain. DH tried to massage the muscle and he could feel when it would cramp again and tried to comfort me. After about 30 minutes I managed to get out of bed and walk around a bit. It was still very sore. I had another 15 min before the alarm would ring, which is annoying as I hate waking up before the alarm as there is not enough time to go back to sleep. My leg continued to be sore for a few days thereafter.

Friday I had scheduled 5 interviews with me being the interviewer, as we are looking for some assistance while I'll be away on maternity leave. I have never thought how exhausting it is to interview people. After my last interview, I was so exhausted that my legs were shaking. At 4:45 p.m. I told my boss that I am leaving, and I guess I didn't look so "hot" either that he didn't even try to stop me. And by the way, 4:45 p.m. is very early for me even on Friday. DH and I watched some discovery channel and I was falling asleep on the couch, so I went to bed and slept for almost 12 hours.

I woke up on Saturday just in time to get to my yoga class, which was interesting as we had a guest speaker - a nutritionist consultant who had her baby 4 months ago. She was supposed to talk about nutrition during pregnancy, but we talked more about nutrition after birth including what to do make sure that you have enough milk. The main thing - eat and drink!!! and of course a few natural remedies. I know it's a bit early, but over the last few days I've been flipping through a thick book on feeding the baby which has a lot of information on breastfeeding. And I think I have "flat nipples", but the jury is still out on that, so I'll wait until our breastfeeding class in early February to pass judgment on that.

After yoga I got home just in time to get some food in and rush out for my sugaring appointment (it does feel good to be all clean "down there" as I can't see anything anymore!). When I got home, I actually had another 2 hours of sleep, I was that exhausted from all the work that week. In the evening we had a wine and cheese party that my SIL & BIL were hosting for just a few couples. They went all out, and DH & I brought a veggie platter so I would have something to eat(I did try a few hard cheeses though). The funny thing that our friend A was sitting next to me when the baby started kicking and she put her hand on my tummy and the baby kicked her. She was impressed. She doesn't have kids (although really wants to settle down), so it was all new to her. My sis came over too, and the girls did talk a lot about labour with my pregnancy being the centre of attention.

This Sunday the breakfast was at my SIL & BIL for a change, which was great, as I could leave to get to the office by noon. Sunday night our friend S was coming over. Every Christmas she collects money and buys toys and other items for kids at a shelter for battered women. This year both my SIL and my sis told her that they want to give away toys that their kids don't play with, so S was coming over to our house to pick up money from us and bags of toys from my sis and SIL. I don't see her often so it was great having her over. We chit chatted until almost 1 a.m. The highlight of her visit was that she told me that they started TTC. She is the same age as me and I've been on her case for some time as she does know how long it took us to get to the point were we are right now. I gave her all my pregnancy and ovulation tests and sent her information on how to do charting, etc. I so hope and pray that her journey will be a short one and our kids would not have much age difference. Even now as I type this I have a big smile on my face, gotta be those pregnancy hormones.

This week, the weight has started to drop and as of Wednesday (26w6d), I am down to only 3 kg gain, which scares me a bit. I am trying not to worry about this, as I should probably attribute my previous gain to all-inclusive. However, I get more and more uneasy feelings about the pregnancy. I am constantly trying to analyze cm and determine if I am leaking or not. I guess as I am nearing the 27 week mark, I can't take out of my mind that that's the time when my mom's water broke and my brother was born exactly a week after at 28 weeks. As my dad was away, I spent a lot of time with my mom and that experience is stuck in my brain. I keep telling myself that I am not my mom and that my sis had two babies close to term and there is no reason why I should be worried, but I am and it is on some subconscious level. I will feel much better when we hit the 29 week mark.

I've been also feeling more sharp shooting pain in the past few days, which I try to attribute to baby's growth. I sneezed a few moments ago and got such a sharp shooting pain that DH actually run up to me to make sure that I am ok. I could feel the baby move and that made the experience a bit more bearable. I've had been having various aches and pains again, and my OBGYN apt is not for another two weeks. It is on 21st when I will be almost 29 weeks. It is also the day when I'll be doing my gestational diabetes test, which I think is kind of late. I am stressing out a bit about the test too, as the baby is larger than average, and another girl on the forum mentioned that her OBGYN is sending her for GD test earlier because she has been waking up thirsty all the time. Well... I've been waking up very thirsty and yesterday, I drank an entire bottle of water when I woke up as I couldn't seem to get enough water. So, yes, a bit concerned. I just hope that with the Christmas holidays the test can still be done pretty quickly.

The good news is that today (Wednesday) was the first day when the work actually slowed down, and I could leave an hour earlier. I did talk to my boss on Sunday and told him that I was exhausted and that I was having contractions last week, so unless he wants me "out of commission" very soon, I must take it easy. He said he understood, but then Monday and Tuesday was still pretty busy, and I was doubting if my plan to leave earlier every day is going to work, when today hit, and I could actually take it easy at work. My mom was Downtown for mammogram so I met with her at 11:30 a.m. It was early for me to have lunch, but I did buy her my favourite soup, clam chowder from soup nu.tsy and we spent a good 45 minutes together.

My sis & family, and SIL & family left for vacation this week (not together) and my dad is leaving tonight, so it should be a quiet weekend with just MIL & my mom. I've promised a few people that we would stop by on the weekend. My uncle is flying in and I was talking to my aunt (I called her to thank her for sending over some pies with cabbage and poppy seeds) and she really wanted to see my growing tummy. I haven't seen them in awhile. Plus I called to wish happy birthday to our friend V and his wife told me that she have all the baby stuff ready for us to pick up. Most of it is for my US friend anyways, but we were supposed to pick it up a while ago, but she was sick so we decided it is better to do it another time, and that time never happened. I also haven't seen or talked to her since before our vacation, so it would be nice to stop by there to pick up the stuff and just have a chit chat. So that's the plan. Will try to report in a about a week.